tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

Characters: Rey and Kylo Ren
Date: Late August
Location: Healer's guild, Kylo's room
Situation: Rey pays a visit to an unlikely patient
Warnings/Rating: None yet

Kylo Ren had thought there was little that could be worse than being seriously injured in battle by someone who didn't even have the Force, even if he had won the battle in the most final way possible.

When he looked up from the notebook in which he was practising kedan writing to check on the person who had just opened the door, he was proven wrong.

Here he caught sight of his impending doom and had to correct himself: there was probably little that was worse, and he had just discovered one of the things that were.

Kylo cleared his throat audibly to keep the scavenger from taking a too close look at the hospital room, or pay attention at all attention to the fact that he was in a hospital. As if it wasn't far too late for that.

He didn't have any personal touches here, as he still refused to consider that he might be here for a longer stay, and but there were several notebooks stacked by the bed. Studying material both for his studies in the artes, and the kedanese language, and thoughts about Force training, if he ever got to teach any of the Force sensitive kedan Galen Marek had discovered.

"What are you doing here?" he asked tightly, his face showing his displeasure at being caught in a moment of weakness. "Have you come to gloat or simply to finish the job?"

All of a sudden he felt more keenly aware than he had in a while that he was wholly without allies on Tu Vishan. If he was lucky Rey believed Hux and Phasma were still around, just laying low, but that was if he was lucky...

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And now this was definitely something that he shouldn't be smiling about. Anything but. But she was still so close, and he was still overcome by the tender intimacy of Rey sitting at his bedside like this... such normalcy, like a little glimpse into a life which he had never thought possible for himself, and least of all for them.

"If that's what you want to be..." He arched his brows slightly, just a hint of mischief sparked in his dark eyes. "If I must have a keeper I couldn't ask for a lovelier one." His voice was kept carefully light, as if it were a joke, or even a hint of mockery, and yet it didn't feel like one at all. There was too much truth, too calmness, acceptance even that she might become a part of his life. Maybe tomorrow he would be fighting again to cling to the Dark Side, but for now he was at peace, and she would be able to sense it if she listened for it.

If anyone were to stand at his side, and indeed keep an eye on him, then it felt right for it to be Rey, the Light to his Dark. "Or can you think of anyone else capable of matching me step for step?"

This did feel to her as well like a glimpse of another life, an alternate reality to what they'd known before. Neither of them had grown to maturity with the sort of nearness they sought from each other now; both had been kept at arms' length and further from those they'd cared about, forcing them to withdraw themselves, to build impenetrable walls that shouldn't have been there in the first place. Not for them, two who were so very sensitive to the Force and to the connections forged between the living, that they felt everything much too deeply — every instance of scathing neglect, intentional or otherwise; every disappointed look, every instance of having been shunned.

To Rey in particular, who couldn't even remember if she'd known this sort of closeness even as a child, the thought of being his keeper and of not being alone was a draw she couldn't resist. The peace and comfort she felt emanating from him cinched it.

"I don't want to think of anyone else filling that role," she answered quietly, honestly. She should have been surprised with how easily she could speak the contents of her thoughts, how little effort it took, but she wasn't.

No more than she could have predicted how she leaned further into him and lowered her mouth to brush it against his, something unidentifiable burgeoning inside her chest as she did that felt a little like possession.

Edited 2016-09-21 17:32 (UTC)

It had always been obvious to Kylo Ren that romance would play no part in his life. Maybe things would have been different if he had never heard a voice whispering to him of powers only the Dark could give him, but the moment Snoke chose him the chance of a normal life had been lost. Even if he could have, as a Jedi, he had been far too caught up in the battle between Light and Dark warred within, not even he would have been selfish enough to pull a lover into the downward spiral of his life when he couldn't even fathom the worst he was capable of.

When he had his answer there was only Snoke, and the Dark Side, and chipping away at everything within him that didn't fit the picture of the dark warrior he sought to become.

And then there had been Starkiller. There had been Rey. Between her and his father, everything he thought he had known about himself was torn down, and at the same time she had shown him a different path.

Now here, far away from Snoke, from the First Order and Resistance, Jedi and Knights of Ren, and everything else that stood between them, it was only that path, that connection, which remained.

Just her closing in for a featherlight kiss that made his heart skitter. He reached out, placing a slightly shaky hand against the buns at the back of her head. His lips parted, tongue snaking out to lap at her bottom lip.

They shouldn't be kissing. She was the enemy. But it was so very hard to remember that when kissing her just felt right.

She wasn't sure just how long she was going to let it go on, this gentle meeting of their lips, something sacred and pure, something she'd yearned for — but when Ren's trembling hand cupped her head, attempting to hold her in place as she felt his tongue, Rey was suddenly aware that she was losing control of the situation.

Because in that moment, she didn't want it to end. She had a brief thought of parting her mouth further against his, as she'd done under Lucid's spell — licking the inside of his mouth, tasting him fully, and her visceral reaction was so physically powerful that she had to wrench her mouth away.

" — I just — " she stammered, backing away now uncertainly, " — wanted to see how you felt. Wanted to check on you." Her throat moved in a heavy swallow. "And now I have...I hope your recovery will be swift."

And then with another pull away from him, out from under his guiding hand that would have guided her closer into his embrace, perhaps, Rey rose to her feet and let her steps take her quickly out of his room.

It was only after she'd fled the Healer's Guild that she allowed herself to touch her lips with her fingertips, her mouth tingling where it'd met his and where she'd felt his tongue.