Han Solo had likely been gambling his whole life, Rey couldn't tell for sure but she certainly got the feeling that the man was no stranger to risks, and this time, perhaps, it had paid off abundantly. For better or for worse, he and Leia had their son back, and Rey seemed to be caught in the whirlwind of this unexpected but not undesirable turn of events. She came in tow with Han when they'd brought Ben, Kylo, whoever he was to see his mother, and somehow got stuck tagging along after their happy family reunion. She kept her distance, observing what an actual family dynamic looked like in an almost academic and faintly envious light.
Rey kept to herself as the days passed. She corresponded with Finn every so often but he wanted details of what was happening between the former First Order poster child and his parents, and Rey had none to give him. What she did have however, was ample hours in the day to kill, and she spent them in the surrounding forests of the planet Han had brought she and Ben to to reunite with Leia. Vegetation was something that was very much new and wonderful to Rey, and she was happy to have trees to climb and birds to stare at.
And then there were the fish. She’d only seen fish in reference holocrons in the terminal that had taught her everything she knew about the galaxy away from Jakku, but those had been terrifying examples. The ones she was peering at now, at the edge of a small stream were little, multicolored, and more focused on moving through the water rather than devouring anything or anyone. It was childish perhaps, but she still tried to catch one or two in her bare hands, watching as their luminous little bodies evaded her grasp. Rey pulled her hands out of the water, vividly recalling the slippery feel of the fish she’d come so close to grabbing onto and shook her hands, sending water droplets every which way. She was certainly a long way from Jakku, and for the time being it was easy to stave off the feeling of panic that would ordinarily bring out, the fear that at long last her family would come back for her and she would not be there.
Instead Rey let herself enjoy being far away and in such contrary surroundings, it was easy to pull her thoughts out of the Jakku desert when moss was so soft and touchable. It was a small matter to not dwell on the endless days and nights spent waiting for someone who’d yet to arrive when she could instead let her fingertips trace along the lines of the petals on a big flower that hung from the tree beside her. She could disappear into these trees forever, she thought, and in that moment, it would be okay.
Kylo -- Ben -- whatever he decided to go by, when he decided -- didn't regret his decision to leave the First Order with his father and uncle, in the company of the scavenger and the stormtrooper. Or, not always, never fully -- his confession to his father that he was being torn apart hadn't been alleviated by the new surroundings, but there was a lighter quality with the knowledge that he made the choice he'd wanted to make. It sometimes felt worse, being back in his parents' orbit, feeling love and understanding that he didn't deserve. It hovered close to cloying, without ever actually reaching it. He knew it wouldn't last, they were where they were for him, and sometimes he still hated them and himself, always himself, especially when he wondered how he'd ever been able to deny the bright burning that was his parents' love for him.
But he knew how. In a way he was still the lonely boy who grew up on war stories and had the weight of generations on his shoulders. He knew why he'd succumbed, and who had been in his head, whispering lies until they felt like truth. Still whispered. Sleep was an enormous risk, whether his own mind preyed upon himself or Snoke slipped in while he was undefended, with the same mixture of blistering vitriol and gentle praise he'd always used and he'd found empty, but craved all the same. He hated himself for needing it.
He couldn't outrun it, but that didn't mean he wasn't willing to try.
Running was like the opposite of meditation; instead of going into his mind and ignoring his physical body he would become purely a physical being, until his mind became irrelevant and an oblivion of breathe, breathe, breathe, steady pace, feet on the ground, breathe, breathe, breathe.
He stops at the bottom of a tree -- the one Rey is in, unknown to him -- when his lungs are burning and his leg muscles are screaming for him to stop, begging for mercy, and his head pounds in time with his heart pounding. He bends over, taking in deep, heaving breaths. But for a minute, there's no one in his head but him.
You could hear him long before you could see him but despite his approaching being unknowingly heralded by the thud of his shoes against the ground and the rough pattern of his breath Rey went stiff as he sprang into view. Her hands clamped down on the limb she had perched herself on as her mouth twisted into a scowl, whatever peace she had found out there shattered in a moment.
Weeks had passed but the sight of him still brought with it a tension, a pang of fear that she loathed herself for. Rey did not like being afraid, she loathed the sense of weakness it brought with it and she especially detested that the source of that feeling was an increasingly frequent sight while she lived her life. Now, alone with nothing more between them than a couple of feet upwards Rey tried to figure out what she was supposed to do.
While a part of her wanted to remain quiet, to stay concealed until he recovered himself and moved on, a far greater part of Rey was impulsive, young, and naive. Lacking in anything resembling better judgement she cleared her throat awkwardly to announce her presence, staying where she was for the time being and more than glad to be out of reach. “Are you alright?”
"Kriff." There's not quite any surprise like the surprise that you are not alone when you thought you were, and their presence suddenly being known through the barest of utterances. He glances up, spotting the scavenger girl in the tree immediately, and feeling like an idiot. He should have sensed her there -- would have, if he hadn't been working to close himself off to the Force.
It had worked for a while, and now it came bleeding back. Not just the sensation of her, but the trees, and the crawling things that lived in the underbrush. If his heart hadn't already been racing, he would have noticed the elevation. She asked you a question, he chided himself and belatedly lied, "Fine," and continued to gulp down air.
Rey stared at him,fully aware of the awkward silence that marched through the space between them mercilessly, and not caring one bit if it bothered him. He deserved a little discomfort for all that he had done to her and her mind after all. Watching him pant Rey shifted on the tree branch that had served as her perch, carefully letting herself drop from in to land on her feet beside him.
“How often do you run like that?” She didn’t know him well enough to ask exactly why it was he was running like that, but her curiosity had been proved enough to press at least a little bit. He hadn’t done anything to deserve her niceness, and being gruff was something Rey reached for with ease after a life spent in intermittent, rought company on Jakku.
“You look terrible.” Rey was nothing if not matter-of-fact, rarely saying things she did not mean, and she lacked the urge to stop herself from being frank with him.
He shrugs at her question as he shifts, seemingly unsure of what to do with his limbs. "Not that often." Which, again, was not really the truth. It wasn't every day, but it was often enough that it wouldn't have been an unusual sight.
Great, they were going to do this right now. She hadn't seen him since arriving, and for whatever it was worth it was way too soon. He should probably apologize, but he thinks that will require talking about it, and he doesn't know that he wants to navigate that conversation just now. But he looks her in the eye, figuring he can do that much.
He chortles, to be so plainly addressed. "I'm sure I do." He'd seen a mirror recently, it wasn't going to take her keen eye to tell him there were dark circles under his eyes, he was paler than usual, and he'd dropped some weight. He wished he had some kind of cutting remark to make in return, but being here seemed to agree with her, so he didn't add anything.
She wanted to glare more intensely at him when their eyes met but instead Rey puffed out a breath, setting aside the worst of her anger for the time being for the sake of sharing space - and for Leia. She had seen it in the General’s eyes - the joy of having her son brought back after so long, and that look had made Rey stay in line and keep her typically big mouth in check.
“Are you - happy to be back?” What a bizarre question - what a surreal conversation to even have. Rey didn’t think most people were called upon to be nice to angry young men who tied them to chairs but - again, for the General.
She rocked back on her heels, unconsciously putting a half a pace more between them, her gaze never leaving his face as she watched him shrewdly, curious and wary in equal measure.
By the time she takes her half step back he'd already stepped away. Maybe he would turn and run away, maybe not. As it was, he stood there, staring back at her in something resembling disbelief.
No. No to both parts. "Back" implies somewhere he'd been before, and physically and literally he's never been here -- among the Resistance, this planet, so deeply in his parents' affection -- it was all foreign territory. And sure, happy was in the mix, somewhere, sometimes. Seeing his mother smile and hearing his father laugh in that low, gruff way of his made him feel happy. But it was far from the chief emotion. He mostly felt like an exposed nerve; sometimes even the air and sun on his skin felt like too much. So no. And yes?
"It's fine," he finally answered, studying her carefully in return. He doesn't reach into her mind, but it doesn't take a Jedi Master to feel the suspicion and negative regard that belies her polite words.
They may as well have been talking on opposing mountaintops for all the distance both worked to put between them. Rey could almost feel it as the walls between them rose tall and stayed firmly in place, though she was not yet familiar enough with the way the Force could feel to distinguish where the remote and passing sensation came from.
Whatever it was it sparked a slight pang of curiosity in her. Touching the Skywalker saber had opened so many doors that previously had never even been thought of by the scavenger. Now it seemed she couldn’t do much without this nagging sensation practically begging her to let it in, she didn’t understand it, or why it was there. All she could do was push back against it.
“Your mother is so happy,” Rey genuinely smiled as she said it, and for the briefest of moments an almost approving look crossed over her features, only to be gone a moment later and replaced by something else. “You’re uneasy, and I don’t know why I know that you are - but it feels like you always are.” Blurting out things was a strong suit of hers, better suited for harsh remarks between aggressive scavengers on Jakku than in the rest of the galaxy, but she still had a lot to learn about dealing with others.
He listens as she speaks, a sort of meandering monologue that he wonders if he even needs to be there for -- is she talking because he's listening, or is he listening because she's talking? It's a bit of a vicious circle although he wished he knew where it began, because then, at least, he could cut it short.
"You know I'm uneasy because you have working eyes in your head." Which is true, he's sure it doesn't take much more than that to know how off-kilter he is, as though he ever had a true center to begin with. But that's not the only reason she knew. He holds her gaze, maybe unintentionally a little intimidating. "You don't have to be able to use the Force to know I don't belong here." And no mistake, she could. Clumsily, the way someone who has never played a sport may join in, knowing none of the rules and having no finesse in the skills needed. But she had pushed back into his mind, right through the defenses he kept high and strong. She didn't even know how much raw power she had.
“Right.” She didn’t need the Force to pick up the heat of his words and Rey gave him a single nod, resolving to stop wasting her energy on trying. Rey hadn’t expected an engaging round of small talk, and she certainly did not think things were going to take a turn for the friendly. In actuality Rey didn’t know what she expected from initiating this but what she got from it was the feeling that she should have stayed in that tree.
He was like a nagging ache that left some low part of her intrigued and wanting to poke at it even though it was a terrible idea that was highly likely to continue to prove itself bad every time.
“Enjoy running in the dark,” her tone was clipped as she took a few steps backwards and turned crisply on her heel, retreatng.
It's been several years since someone besides himself had made him feel anything resembling shame, and now he was experiencing it practically non-stop. But perhaps that was good. Perhaps the burning in his cheeks was more than embarrassment, maybe it was a burning away of anything that would tempt him back to the First Order, back to Snoke's side, the way fire purifies steel. It's a different kind of suffering, and he welcomes it.
He lets her go. He continues in the opposite direction, not because he still feels the itch to get away from himself into some oblivion, but because he's sure about the last thing she wants is for him to follow her all the way back to the compound in the dark.
He doesn't sleep that night, making a long circuit of the base's perimeter and tossing and turning for a couple more hours before deciding to give it up. He's scared to sleep, unsure of what waits for him there. It's not the first time he's driven himself to this sort of exhaustion, not by a long shot, although he's feeling it much more keenly than ever before. Maybe it's his age, maybe it's his master's rage reaching out to him across the galaxy, maybe it's a combination of the two or something else entirely.
Thankfully, it seems as though rebellions are built on hope and caf. He doesn't think he'll be able to fool his mother into thinking he got a good night's sleep, not by a long shot, but with caf in his system he might be able to convince her it's not as bad as it looks. But it's not his mother that steps into the kitchen at whatever ungodly hour it is, but the scavenger, looking every bit as suspicious and surly as she had strapped to the interrogation table.
He should probably address that at some point, if he's doing this. Going back, answering the pull to the Light that he's struggled with.
For now he wordlessly offers to pour her some caf. Maybe she's too tired to give him another well deserved tongue-lashing.
It took a few days but she finally stopped seething, devoting that energy to the not-so-gentle art of complete avoidance instead. As long as she didn’t have to see him, or hear him, or otherwise bear witness to the evidence of his existence she would be fine.
To her credit Rey didn’t grimace outwardly when she walked through the entry of the kitchen only to come to an abrupt halt upon seeing him there. Still bleary eyed and not prepared for the breathing obstruction that was Kylo Ren (Ben Solo, someone else) but when he gestures with the caf she assents with a nod.
Sleep was difficult even having been provided quarters far more comfortable than any she had previously been able to call her own - there had been an unrest inside her since Takodana, since that rush of power had stampeded through her awareness, showing her things she would have never wanted to look for. Rey’s practicality had always guided her through, and around life’s hurdles but she didn’t even know where to start when it came to navigating whatever this was.
It was enough to keep her awake at night at any rate and her weariness showed on her face as she crossed the room, her movements bordering on hesitant before reaching out to accept the caf from him. “Are you waking up, or are you still awake?” It was ambiguously late - the point where one person’s late might be another’s early, and it seemed like the safest question to ask. She wouldn’t blame him if he left, nor was she exactly sure why she was trying to make conversation that didn’t include insults, but it was late - or early - and caf was a short road to at least a brief armistice.
The cold nod was still far warmer than he might have expected, so he pours two mugs, one for her and one for him and held out one. She looked as tired as he feels, although she wears it a deal better than he did. That might be his age.
He took a drink of caf before he could formulate an answer, hot and black. "Still awake," he admitted blearily. He might have been better off if he'd never laid down to try. There had to be something available that could help, he'd think. He then realized his mind had wandered away from the conversation. "You?"
He didn't think she would answer, it was more a polite inquiry than anything.
"Still awake," she echoed, weariness tinging every word. The nice thing about tiredness was how it seemed to eclipse her ire, she could sit here and drink her caf in the same proximity as him without considering the angle she would have to fling the mug to catch him in the face.
"It's hard to sleep here," Rey added after a sip, watching him through the steam as she held her mug to her face. "There's a lot of noise you don't notice until all the other noise is gone," she was talking too much - she knew it. She knew he did't care what she had to say and she knew ordinarily she would have been happy to not say anything to him. And yet - there in the ambiguously late hours, small talk seemed somehow acceptable.
Shifting in her seat she continued to study him passively, tired and uncertain. "I thought about sleeping outside but your mother tossed that idea out fairly quickly."
He chortles slightly, and takes a drink from his caf. It's a little too hot to take a large drink of it, but he welcomes the burning feeling on his tongue, even if he'll probably regret it later. It seems like a small price to pay for here and now.
"There's stinging insects out there the size of well-fed womp rats, I'd avoid sleeping outside, too." They didn't bother people who were moving, but someone inert and sleeping would have been little more than a waiting buffet.
"I almost find it too quiet," he replied, a little belatedly. It reminded him of being his uncle's student again, the only sounds at night being chirping insects and his own thoughts. The insects were different and the room a bit different than his cell as a student Jedi, but some things were the same. He was used to being on ships, where there was always someone awake and working, the engines always churning and working to keep them airborne. It was a different kind of energy, and one he found it easy to lose himself in.
At the mention of giant insects Rey made a face into her mug and shook her head, silently admitting defeat as far as the matter of sleeping outside went. "Too quiet? Everything outside makes a racket all night long." Her gaze flicked back to his incredulous, wearily amused at the idea that anyone could find the din of the forest quiet.
"You would have hated nights on Jakku if you think this is quiet - well, beyond just being on Jakku." It had been difficult to start surrendering the idea that she would ever go back, and that anyone would be returning for her when she did. It was difficult to admit you didn't know where you fit in the galaxy. She had waited for so long for her family, letting that hope be her governing principle for so long that now she felt untethered and uncertain of how to begin heeding the pull of the Force that had gone from a whisper to a shout inside her within a matter of moments. Touching that lightsaber had knocked the lid off of a box she had unknowingly kept tightly covered, leaving her with a head ful of questions and uncertainty.
Quiet for a long time she cleared her throat, studying him as she spoke. "I didn't think we could be civil," let it never be said Rey wasn't unbearably blunt when it suited her.
"It's... different," he allowed. "I'm used to being on star destroyers."
Yeah. Like she needed that reminder. He drank his caf before he could find something else stupid to say, instead opting to listen. He gives a sound of amused agreement when she clarfies about hating being on Jakku simply for its own sake. She wasn't wrong about that. He would probably find it similar to Yavin in a way -- somewhere you both want to leave and stay in.
It's not that he's listening to her thoughts, so much as she's being very loud about thinking them. He didn't give any indication of that, but insteads regards her when she speaks again. That is probably as good an opening as he'll get. "I've done nothing to indicate it might be possible," he conceded. I'm sorry didn't come out, but what good was an apology from someone like him? Worse than nothing, he supposed. I shouldn't be here crept into his brain like an icy finger.
Now he was being loud with his thoughts, though whether she knew they were his or not he couldn't be sure.
“No, you haven’t,” she paused for a moment, regarding him. It wasn’t that she found his presence especially noisy, but she could feel something, his doubt and his discord, the turmoil that held him together. There were little nudges and whispers and while they evaded any examination with her limited capabilities, they linger long enough to almost become interesting.
“Caf is a good start though,” Rey shrugged a shoulder at him and took another sip from her mug, suddenly uncertain as to why she would be quite so generous with someone like him. Cafe was a good start, sure, but he had tied her to a chair and thus didn’t need to know that, or be invited however inadvertently, to get even a hair closer to her. She had always thought of herself as practical, level-headed about what was worthy and what wasn’t, but - she could feel something in him. The beginnings of a shape, a ghost of something - or someone, who had been, lurking just at the edges of Kylo Ren. It was peculiar and not without its own intrigue.
Caf might have been a good start, but it was quickly beginning to taste like dirt in his mouth. Meditation had never really been a strong point of his, not in his youth and not as an adult, but he tried to blank his mind. Rid yourself of anything that isn't useful to you. Usually the only thing left then was anger. At Luke, his parents, the whole galaxy, and the conviction that he would burn them all.
When his mind is cleared, he finds it's not anger left there -- at least not only anger, seeming small and bruised and a poor imitation of itself. And what else is there? Guilt. He knows guilt well enough. Something else, too, in particular respect to the Scavenger -- Rey -- something he's not prepared to untangle just now. But if he ever wants to, he has to set that foundation now. You can't control how others will react to you, Ben. Only yourself, his mother had told him just the day before -- or maybe the day before that, with as little sleep as he is getting it's difficult to remember.
But if he ever wanted her to regard him with anything but suspicion and anger, he would have to be the first. May as well get used to making apologies and having them thrown aside. "I... am sorry about the interrogation," he said finally. "I did plenty to regret as part of the First Order and it's... for complicated reasons that felt justified at the time." Enumerating them would show her too much of himself, the parts that were always too angry and too uncontrollable and too powerful and just too much for everyone he'd ever loved.
"I don't expect any forgiveness, I just... wanted to apologize," he finished lamely, staring into his half empty mug of caf for lack of anywhere else to look.
Rey’s eyes flick sideways, as he apologizes, looking at nothing but doing it incredulously enough one might expect a cameraman or some innocent bystander bearing witness to this truly inordinate turn of events. Turning to face him again her shoulders sink as she breathes out a harsh little sigh, setting the mug down and folding her hands neatly into her lap. “I never expected that,” squaring her jaw as she turns his words over in her head again and again, she gives him a small nod.
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” was she entirely willing to forgive and forget? Not precisely. You didn’t stay alive in the badlands just trusting people who hurt you all willy-nilly, but it was something - and there was something in the way he spoke that made Rey want to believe he meant it. The tiredness in his voice and written all over his face lending themselves to candor, to something she might actually start to trust if he showed this side of him again.
“I hope that-” Rey trailed off, unsure really what it was she meant to say to him in the first place. “I hope that you find what you need, with this, with your family.” It didn’t sound any less strange out here in the open air than it did in her head but as poorly articulated as it was - her words were no less sincere.
It felt a little anticlimactic, not being shouted at. Not that he's going to complain about it, although there's something that sticks in his gut -- would have almost preferred to be met with anger. It's what what he deserved, at the very least.
But the unexpected hits him differently. He's not going to cry, although he feels like he could. It's not only an apology accepted, but a well wish in return. He doesn't know what to say for a long time, but eventually speaks. "Maybe," he agrees softly. "I didn't find it without them. May as well look at where I started."
Falling quiet she let the silence between them hold for a long moment as she mulled his words over in her mind, her eyes aimlessly flicking towards the rim of her caf mug.
"For all the nav charts," pausing her gaze returned to his face, thoughtful and shrewd as she seemed to pick and choose every word she said. "The galaxy is bigger than you could ever imagine. There's always somewhere to look." This conversation felt weightier than she would have liked it to, but somewhere inside her there was that slight nudge to keep going, like there was some string of words out there she could arrange that might quiet some part of the roar in him and she was compelled to continue to try and find it.
He listens to her, although he doesn't know why. It's just this side of babbling, probably the result of their combined sleep deprivation. If he were feeling surly instead of just exhausted, he might ask her how she knows, stuck on that ball of dust.
But he isn't, and he doesn't. There's still something about her that is making him listen. He doesn't know why her voice is like cool water on a fever, it simply is. None of this made sense. But he's simply too tired to fight... so he simply lets whatever this is be.
"I've seen a lot of it," he says. Sometimes through the filtered vision of his helmet, sometimes with his own eyes. Sometimes at the head of a fleet of stormtroopers, occasionally as a wide-eyed boy who couldn't believe he'd been permitted to accompany his father, his mother's warnings to be careful and behave still in his (overly large, not that it mattered) ears. Some he's seen but never been to, like she island in the vast ocean he saw in her mind. He wanted to ask her about it, but they've only just started to let that be in the past.
He instead sticks to something a little more general, maybe a little... nicer. He'd seen a lot, probing her mind, but most of it had been impressions, discarded as soon as he deemed it not of use to him. "Is this your first time off Jakku?" As if she's gone to Naboo for some sightseeing instead of had her entire life hijacked by the Resistance and First Order's conflict.
Despite the caf the lack of sleep is certainly winning out, making her more candid with him than she had any business being Watching him when he mentions that he's seen his fair share of the galaxy she flinches her chin up, silently repressing the urge to ask how much of that he's cut a bloody swath through. They're both holding their tongues, she can feel it in the air and see it in the pinched corners of his face.
"Yes, I'm certain I wasn't always there but I can't remember anything that came before it," which she knew he knew after the brutal way that he rifled through the contents of her mind - but they were experiencing an unspoken armistice right now and it would do no good to remind him of that. For now everyone was tired, out of place even while in the places they possibly should be - or the closest to that they might reach any time soon.
"Where was the best place you went?" Her trepidation was replaced by curiosity, and the questions she always seemed to have were limitless, this one seemed like the safest one to ask.
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🖋️ battleswithin
Date: 2020-04-06 09:43 pm (UTC)Rey kept to herself as the days passed. She corresponded with Finn every so often but he wanted details of what was happening between the former First Order poster child and his parents, and Rey had none to give him. What she did have however, was ample hours in the day to kill, and she spent them in the surrounding forests of the planet Han had brought she and Ben to to reunite with Leia. Vegetation was something that was very much new and wonderful to Rey, and she was happy to have trees to climb and birds to stare at.
And then there were the fish. She’d only seen fish in reference holocrons in the terminal that had taught her everything she knew about the galaxy away from Jakku, but those had been terrifying examples. The ones she was peering at now, at the edge of a small stream were little, multicolored, and more focused on moving through the water rather than devouring anything or anyone. It was childish perhaps, but she still tried to catch one or two in her bare hands, watching as their luminous little bodies evaded her grasp. Rey pulled her hands out of the water, vividly recalling the slippery feel of the fish she’d come so close to grabbing onto and shook her hands, sending water droplets every which way. She was certainly a long way from Jakku, and for the time being it was easy to stave off the feeling of panic that would ordinarily bring out, the fear that at long last her family would come back for her and she would not be there.
Instead Rey let herself enjoy being far away and in such contrary surroundings, it was easy to pull her thoughts out of the Jakku desert when moss was so soft and touchable. It was a small matter to not dwell on the endless days and nights spent waiting for someone who’d yet to arrive when she could instead let her fingertips trace along the lines of the petals on a big flower that hung from the tree beside her. She could disappear into these trees forever, she thought, and in that moment, it would be okay.
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Date: 2020-04-06 10:33 pm (UTC)But he knew how. In a way he was still the lonely boy who grew up on war stories and had the weight of generations on his shoulders. He knew why he'd succumbed, and who had been in his head, whispering lies until they felt like truth. Still whispered. Sleep was an enormous risk, whether his own mind preyed upon himself or Snoke slipped in while he was undefended, with the same mixture of blistering vitriol and gentle praise he'd always used and he'd found empty, but craved all the same. He hated himself for needing it.
He couldn't outrun it, but that didn't mean he wasn't willing to try.
Running was like the opposite of meditation; instead of going into his mind and ignoring his physical body he would become purely a physical being, until his mind became irrelevant and an oblivion of breathe, breathe, breathe, steady pace, feet on the ground, breathe, breathe, breathe.
He stops at the bottom of a tree -- the one Rey is in, unknown to him -- when his lungs are burning and his leg muscles are screaming for him to stop, begging for mercy, and his head pounds in time with his heart pounding. He bends over, taking in deep, heaving breaths. But for a minute, there's no one in his head but him.
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Date: 2020-04-12 04:47 am (UTC)Weeks had passed but the sight of him still brought with it a tension, a pang of fear that she loathed herself for. Rey did not like being afraid, she loathed the sense of weakness it brought with it and she especially detested that the source of that feeling was an increasingly frequent sight while she lived her life. Now, alone with nothing more between them than a couple of feet upwards Rey tried to figure out what she was supposed to do.
While a part of her wanted to remain quiet, to stay concealed until he recovered himself and moved on, a far greater part of Rey was impulsive, young, and naive. Lacking in anything resembling better judgement she cleared her throat awkwardly to announce her presence, staying where she was for the time being and more than glad to be out of reach. “Are you alright?”
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Date: 2020-04-12 05:13 pm (UTC)It had worked for a while, and now it came bleeding back. Not just the sensation of her, but the trees, and the crawling things that lived in the underbrush. If his heart hadn't already been racing, he would have noticed the elevation. She asked you a question, he chided himself and belatedly lied, "Fine," and continued to gulp down air.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-13 02:32 am (UTC)“How often do you run like that?” She didn’t know him well enough to ask exactly why it was he was running like that, but her curiosity had been proved enough to press at least a little bit. He hadn’t done anything to deserve her niceness, and being gruff was something Rey reached for with ease after a life spent in intermittent, rought company on Jakku.
“You look terrible.” Rey was nothing if not matter-of-fact, rarely saying things she did not mean, and she lacked the urge to stop herself from being frank with him.
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Date: 2020-04-13 03:36 am (UTC)Great, they were going to do this right now. She hadn't seen him since arriving, and for whatever it was worth it was way too soon. He should probably apologize, but he thinks that will require talking about it, and he doesn't know that he wants to navigate that conversation just now. But he looks her in the eye, figuring he can do that much.
He chortles, to be so plainly addressed. "I'm sure I do." He'd seen a mirror recently, it wasn't going to take her keen eye to tell him there were dark circles under his eyes, he was paler than usual, and he'd dropped some weight. He wished he had some kind of cutting remark to make in return, but being here seemed to agree with her, so he didn't add anything.
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Date: 2020-04-19 12:02 am (UTC)“Are you - happy to be back?” What a bizarre question - what a surreal conversation to even have. Rey didn’t think most people were called upon to be nice to angry young men who tied them to chairs but - again, for the General.
She rocked back on her heels, unconsciously putting a half a pace more between them, her gaze never leaving his face as she watched him shrewdly, curious and wary in equal measure.
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Date: 2020-04-19 03:29 am (UTC)No. No to both parts. "Back" implies somewhere he'd been before, and physically and literally he's never been here -- among the Resistance, this planet, so deeply in his parents' affection -- it was all foreign territory. And sure, happy was in the mix, somewhere, sometimes. Seeing his mother smile and hearing his father laugh in that low, gruff way of his made him feel happy. But it was far from the chief emotion. He mostly felt like an exposed nerve; sometimes even the air and sun on his skin felt like too much. So no. And yes?
"It's fine," he finally answered, studying her carefully in return. He doesn't reach into her mind, but it doesn't take a Jedi Master to feel the suspicion and negative regard that belies her polite words.
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Date: 2020-04-23 01:35 am (UTC)Whatever it was it sparked a slight pang of curiosity in her. Touching the Skywalker saber had opened so many doors that previously had never even been thought of by the scavenger. Now it seemed she couldn’t do much without this nagging sensation practically begging her to let it in, she didn’t understand it, or why it was there. All she could do was push back against it.
“Your mother is so happy,” Rey genuinely smiled as she said it, and for the briefest of moments an almost approving look crossed over her features, only to be gone a moment later and replaced by something else. “You’re uneasy, and I don’t know why I know that you are - but it feels like you always are.” Blurting out things was a strong suit of hers, better suited for harsh remarks between aggressive scavengers on Jakku than in the rest of the galaxy, but she still had a lot to learn about dealing with others.
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Date: 2020-04-23 04:01 am (UTC)"You know I'm uneasy because you have working eyes in your head." Which is true, he's sure it doesn't take much more than that to know how off-kilter he is, as though he ever had a true center to begin with. But that's not the only reason she knew. He holds her gaze, maybe unintentionally a little intimidating. "You don't have to be able to use the Force to know I don't belong here." And no mistake, she could. Clumsily, the way someone who has never played a sport may join in, knowing none of the rules and having no finesse in the skills needed. But she had pushed back into his mind, right through the defenses he kept high and strong. She didn't even know how much raw power she had.
idk if i've painted us into a corner with this lmk if tweaks or something else is needed
Date: 2020-04-28 12:46 am (UTC)He was like a nagging ache that left some low part of her intrigued and wanting to poke at it even though it was a terrible idea that was highly likely to continue to prove itself bad every time.
“Enjoy running in the dark,” her tone was clipped as she took a few steps backwards and turned crisply on her heel, retreatng.
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Date: 2020-05-06 04:10 am (UTC)He lets her go. He continues in the opposite direction, not because he still feels the itch to get away from himself into some oblivion, but because he's sure about the last thing she wants is for him to follow her all the way back to the compound in the dark.
He doesn't sleep that night, making a long circuit of the base's perimeter and tossing and turning for a couple more hours before deciding to give it up. He's scared to sleep, unsure of what waits for him there. It's not the first time he's driven himself to this sort of exhaustion, not by a long shot, although he's feeling it much more keenly than ever before. Maybe it's his age, maybe it's his master's rage reaching out to him across the galaxy, maybe it's a combination of the two or something else entirely.
Thankfully, it seems as though rebellions are built on hope and caf. He doesn't think he'll be able to fool his mother into thinking he got a good night's sleep, not by a long shot, but with caf in his system he might be able to convince her it's not as bad as it looks. But it's not his mother that steps into the kitchen at whatever ungodly hour it is, but the scavenger, looking every bit as suspicious and surly as she had strapped to the interrogation table.
He should probably address that at some point, if he's doing this. Going back, answering the pull to the Light that he's struggled with.
For now he wordlessly offers to pour her some caf. Maybe she's too tired to give him another well deserved tongue-lashing.
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Date: 2020-05-25 08:01 am (UTC)To her credit Rey didn’t grimace outwardly when she walked through the entry of the kitchen only to come to an abrupt halt upon seeing him there. Still bleary eyed and not prepared for the breathing obstruction that was Kylo Ren (Ben Solo, someone else) but when he gestures with the caf she assents with a nod.
Sleep was difficult even having been provided quarters far more comfortable than any she had previously been able to call her own - there had been an unrest inside her since Takodana, since that rush of power had stampeded through her awareness, showing her things she would have never wanted to look for. Rey’s practicality had always guided her through, and around life’s hurdles but she didn’t even know where to start when it came to navigating whatever this was.
It was enough to keep her awake at night at any rate and her weariness showed on her face as she crossed the room, her movements bordering on hesitant before reaching out to accept the caf from him. “Are you waking up, or are you still awake?” It was ambiguously late - the point where one person’s late might be another’s early, and it seemed like the safest question to ask. She wouldn’t blame him if he left, nor was she exactly sure why she was trying to make conversation that didn’t include insults, but it was late - or early - and caf was a short road to at least a brief armistice.
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Date: 2020-05-27 09:47 pm (UTC)He took a drink of caf before he could formulate an answer, hot and black. "Still awake," he admitted blearily. He might have been better off if he'd never laid down to try. There had to be something available that could help, he'd think. He then realized his mind had wandered away from the conversation. "You?"
He didn't think she would answer, it was more a polite inquiry than anything.
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Date: 2020-05-29 06:43 pm (UTC)"It's hard to sleep here," Rey added after a sip, watching him through the steam as she held her mug to her face. "There's a lot of noise you don't notice until all the other noise is gone," she was talking too much - she knew it. She knew he did't care what she had to say and she knew ordinarily she would have been happy to not say anything to him. And yet - there in the ambiguously late hours, small talk seemed somehow acceptable.
Shifting in her seat she continued to study him passively, tired and uncertain. "I thought about sleeping outside but your mother tossed that idea out fairly quickly."
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Date: 2020-05-31 06:20 pm (UTC)"There's stinging insects out there the size of well-fed womp rats, I'd avoid sleeping outside, too." They didn't bother people who were moving, but someone inert and sleeping would have been little more than a waiting buffet.
"I almost find it too quiet," he replied, a little belatedly. It reminded him of being his uncle's student again, the only sounds at night being chirping insects and his own thoughts. The insects were different and the room a bit different than his cell as a student Jedi, but some things were the same. He was used to being on ships, where there was always someone awake and working, the engines always churning and working to keep them airborne. It was a different kind of energy, and one he found it easy to lose himself in.
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Date: 2020-06-01 06:54 pm (UTC)"You would have hated nights on Jakku if you think this is quiet - well, beyond just being on Jakku." It had been difficult to start surrendering the idea that she would ever go back, and that anyone would be returning for her when she did. It was difficult to admit you didn't know where you fit in the galaxy. She had waited for so long for her family, letting that hope be her governing principle for so long that now she felt untethered and uncertain of how to begin heeding the pull of the Force that had gone from a whisper to a shout inside her within a matter of moments. Touching that lightsaber had knocked the lid off of a box she had unknowingly kept tightly covered, leaving her with a head ful of questions and uncertainty.
Quiet for a long time she cleared her throat, studying him as she spoke. "I didn't think we could be civil," let it never be said Rey wasn't unbearably blunt when it suited her.
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Date: 2020-06-05 04:53 am (UTC)Yeah. Like she needed that reminder. He drank his caf before he could find something else stupid to say, instead opting to listen. He gives a sound of amused agreement when she clarfies about hating being on Jakku simply for its own sake. She wasn't wrong about that. He would probably find it similar to Yavin in a way -- somewhere you both want to leave and stay in.
It's not that he's listening to her thoughts, so much as she's being very loud about thinking them. He didn't give any indication of that, but insteads regards her when she speaks again. That is probably as good an opening as he'll get. "I've done nothing to indicate it might be possible," he conceded. I'm sorry didn't come out, but what good was an apology from someone like him? Worse than nothing, he supposed. I shouldn't be here crept into his brain like an icy finger.
Now he was being loud with his thoughts, though whether she knew they were his or not he couldn't be sure.
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Date: 2020-06-06 12:40 am (UTC)“Caf is a good start though,” Rey shrugged a shoulder at him and took another sip from her mug, suddenly uncertain as to why she would be quite so generous with someone like him. Cafe was a good start, sure, but he had tied her to a chair and thus didn’t need to know that, or be invited however inadvertently, to get even a hair closer to her. She had always thought of herself as practical, level-headed about what was worthy and what wasn’t, but - she could feel something in him. The beginnings of a shape, a ghost of something - or someone, who had been, lurking just at the edges of Kylo Ren. It was peculiar and not without its own intrigue.
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Date: 2020-06-07 08:06 pm (UTC)When his mind is cleared, he finds it's not anger left there -- at least not only anger, seeming small and bruised and a poor imitation of itself. And what else is there? Guilt. He knows guilt well enough. Something else, too, in particular respect to the Scavenger -- Rey -- something he's not prepared to untangle just now. But if he ever wants to, he has to set that foundation now. You can't control how others will react to you, Ben. Only yourself, his mother had told him just the day before -- or maybe the day before that, with as little sleep as he is getting it's difficult to remember.
But if he ever wanted her to regard him with anything but suspicion and anger, he would have to be the first. May as well get used to making apologies and having them thrown aside. "I... am sorry about the interrogation," he said finally. "I did plenty to regret as part of the First Order and it's... for complicated reasons that felt justified at the time." Enumerating them would show her too much of himself, the parts that were always too angry and too uncontrollable and too powerful and just too much for everyone he'd ever loved.
"I don't expect any forgiveness, I just... wanted to apologize," he finished lamely, staring into his half empty mug of caf for lack of anywhere else to look.
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Date: 2020-06-09 12:51 am (UTC)“Thank you, I appreciate it,” was she entirely willing to forgive and forget? Not precisely. You didn’t stay alive in the badlands just trusting people who hurt you all willy-nilly, but it was something - and there was something in the way he spoke that made Rey want to believe he meant it. The tiredness in his voice and written all over his face lending themselves to candor, to something she might actually start to trust if he showed this side of him again.
“I hope that-” Rey trailed off, unsure really what it was she meant to say to him in the first place. “I hope that you find what you need, with this, with your family.” It didn’t sound any less strange out here in the open air than it did in her head but as poorly articulated as it was - her words were no less sincere.
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Date: 2020-06-12 09:22 pm (UTC)But the unexpected hits him differently. He's not going to cry, although he feels like he could. It's not only an apology accepted, but a well wish in return. He doesn't know what to say for a long time, but eventually speaks. "Maybe," he agrees softly. "I didn't find it without them. May as well look at where I started."
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Date: 2020-06-19 01:37 am (UTC)"For all the nav charts," pausing her gaze returned to his face, thoughtful and shrewd as she seemed to pick and choose every word she said. "The galaxy is bigger than you could ever imagine. There's always somewhere to look." This conversation felt weightier than she would have liked it to, but somewhere inside her there was that slight nudge to keep going, like there was some string of words out there she could arrange that might quiet some part of the roar in him and she was compelled to continue to try and find it.
It was not the most comfortable feeling.
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Date: 2020-07-02 12:31 am (UTC)But he isn't, and he doesn't. There's still something about her that is making him listen. He doesn't know why her voice is like cool water on a fever, it simply is. None of this made sense. But he's simply too tired to fight... so he simply lets whatever this is be.
"I've seen a lot of it," he says. Sometimes through the filtered vision of his helmet, sometimes with his own eyes. Sometimes at the head of a fleet of stormtroopers, occasionally as a wide-eyed boy who couldn't believe he'd been permitted to accompany his father, his mother's warnings to be careful and behave still in his (overly large, not that it mattered) ears. Some he's seen but never been to, like she island in the vast ocean he saw in her mind. He wanted to ask her about it, but they've only just started to let that be in the past.
He instead sticks to something a little more general, maybe a little... nicer. He'd seen a lot, probing her mind, but most of it had been impressions, discarded as soon as he deemed it not of use to him. "Is this your first time off Jakku?" As if she's gone to Naboo for some sightseeing instead of had her entire life hijacked by the Resistance and First Order's conflict.
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Date: 2020-07-09 04:37 am (UTC)"Yes, I'm certain I wasn't always there but I can't remember anything that came before it," which she knew he knew after the brutal way that he rifled through the contents of her mind - but they were experiencing an unspoken armistice right now and it would do no good to remind him of that. For now everyone was tired, out of place even while in the places they possibly should be - or the closest to that they might reach any time soon.
"Where was the best place you went?" Her trepidation was replaced by curiosity, and the questions she always seemed to have were limitless, this one seemed like the safest one to ask.
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