( Kylo wants to interject at any of the opportunities afforded to him by the natural breaks in her speech - about Ji, about Snoke, about himself - but he holds his tongue. He feels the slight drag over his mouth as his lip starts to curl, balanced between hysterical laughter and blind rage at her presumption, another gorge opening up within him and threatening to swallow him down, but the edges of the chasm are lined with sharp teeth that catch and pull and make the descent a messy affair as opposed to the smooth slide down into blackness that the Dark Side provides, a tempting, easy transition from the constant battering of high, wild winds that so often try to rip him right down the middle.
He wants to say something, defend himself, but he finds that, save for the shift in his expression to open, active hostility - without the mask, he's just too expressive, both a good and bad thing considering what he's been trying to do for the last fifteen years - keeping his mouth shut affords him more ammunition against her, and there's something cathartic in watching her slam materials around, splash him with fuel as she dumps the canister on Aurren's lifeless body, as if coming to recognize that he is not the only one with a poor amount of control over his retaliatory instincts. Rey is so often the picture of controlled indignation and sometimes arrogant in that presentation that watching her fall apart in ways that Kylo himself is familiar with, albeit to a much smaller degree, is somewhat satisfying, but not satisfying enough to distract him from the abject offense that he feels as she continues to level charges at him one after the other, after the other.
The notion that he has no room to feel offense considering what he's done, what side of himself he's shown her once again, does not cross him. What he does feel is offense at her temerity to assume that he has been lying to her about who and what he is, and it's the recall back to that thought, the initial charge, that pushes the pain and any traces of the arrogant amusement he'd felt at her displeasure, the small amount of relief at seeing her slowly crumble under the weight of her own anger and the sharp smell of fuel soaking into his clothing, away from him as if caught in a heavy tide. All that's left is a high, long ringing whine that echoes in the forefront of his mind, a pinprick of anger that is so fine and so sharp it could cut diamonds with surgical precision. )
I have never lied to you. ( Kylo feels petulant saying it, despite the fact that it needs to be said in the first place. He hadn't lied to her on Starkiller, even though the differences in their opinions and perspectives may have created the illusion that he was at the time, and he has not lied to her since. Not on Yaga Minor. Not on Corellia. Not on Hapes. Not in the barren wasteland of their tandem efforts to see Snoke expelled from his head, from his thoughts, in the ghostly husks of Ilum, Yavin IV, Jakku and the praxeum and all the landscapes in between. It has to be said in the interest of establishing his honesty now, Kylo realizes, as he curls his fingers into fists and stares at the muted green-brown of her eyes and the tension wiring of her shoulders, though he doesn't know why.
A thought occurs to him, and it could be his or hers, considering the bleed between them. He wouldn't have done it to her. He wouldn't. )
You are the most stubborn person I have ever met. Do you really think that I could make you believe something that you hadn't already decided on yourself? ( Childish disgusts contorts his tone, but the anguished ire that he feels is raw and real, his voice rising in tone and volume the longer he goes on uninterrupted. ) I let you believe nothing. If what you saw when you looked back at me on Corellia was a blameless shell that Snoke filled up with his own intent alone, then you interpreted it incorrectly, and that is on you. ( It might not be the whole truth but it's the truth that he knows and the truth that he accepts, the truth that exists as a result of the reality that he has lived since Snoke found him, since the Dark Side found him. With or without Snoke's influence, Kylo reasons, there is a good chance he was damned from the start anyway, but he cannot and will not pretend that the choices that he has made, the things that he has done, exist in a vacuum that can be closed now that the path that he walks has changed. )
I have lived the most of my life in the dark. It has always been there, and it always will be. A few hours spent in a meditative state won't change that, as much as Snoke's instruction and acceptance of that side hasn't managed to snuff out the opposition. ( The light, always burning, blinding when he looks too long at it. Kylo takes a few steps toward her, and his leg drags in the dirt lamely but he barely notices it, letting the heavy weight of his gaze consume and feed off the fire of Rey's own anger, her disgust, her shame and betrayal, a hurricane swaddled in the white bones and bronzed cage of a girl. ) Ji wasn't helpless. Couldn't you feel it? ( The heavy timbre of his voice climbs again, and he doesn't have to say it for the implication of his question to be present: stupid, naive girl. ) She had help, and she very well might have killed us both, killed you, or brought you somewhere that would force you to wish she had! Is that what you wanted? To be brought before Snoke and made to answer for your actions against him? I was trying to -
( He breaks off, at the end of the line of his frustration, feeling the heady pulse of destructive rage uncurl in his gut like a series of claws opening and closing, tracing sharp, hot lines across his insides. A hand rips its way savagely through his hair, yanking it back where it's started to fall, damp with sweat, into his eyes, and Kylo turns away from her, unable to look at her and knowing, innately, that his reasoning might only infuriate her further. Saving her, saving them both, had been a motivating factor when he'd squeezed his fingers around Ji's throat and refused to disengage, but it isn't the whole of it, and in that recognition lies the suggestion of a lie if there actually were one. He had fed off of it, in the end, and there is no denying that, but Kylo won't make excuses for it. )
I see it, sometimes. ( He says, moving away from her, showing her his back. Aurren's helmet glints again in the dim light, and Kylo bends to remove it, unkind with residual anger, from the man's head, slipping his fingers underneath the jaw where he knows the mechanized latch is that will release it. Aurren's older face stares back up at him, washed with salt-and-pepper stubble, and his eyes are closed, but the area around them is bruised and black. ) I saw it on the General's face after we emerged from the meditative state on Corellia. The expectation that in the wake of Snoke's eviction from my thoughts, Ben Solo will return, as if Kylo Ren is some monster wearing that boy's face. ( Kylo turns back around to face her, voice quieter than he intends it to be. ) Who do you expect me to be?
no subject
He wants to say something, defend himself, but he finds that, save for the shift in his expression to open, active hostility - without the mask, he's just too expressive, both a good and bad thing considering what he's been trying to do for the last fifteen years - keeping his mouth shut affords him more ammunition against her, and there's something cathartic in watching her slam materials around, splash him with fuel as she dumps the canister on Aurren's lifeless body, as if coming to recognize that he is not the only one with a poor amount of control over his retaliatory instincts. Rey is so often the picture of controlled indignation and sometimes arrogant in that presentation that watching her fall apart in ways that Kylo himself is familiar with, albeit to a much smaller degree, is somewhat satisfying, but not satisfying enough to distract him from the abject offense that he feels as she continues to level charges at him one after the other, after the other.
The notion that he has no room to feel offense considering what he's done, what side of himself he's shown her once again, does not cross him. What he does feel is offense at her temerity to assume that he has been lying to her about who and what he is, and it's the recall back to that thought, the initial charge, that pushes the pain and any traces of the arrogant amusement he'd felt at her displeasure, the small amount of relief at seeing her slowly crumble under the weight of her own anger and the sharp smell of fuel soaking into his clothing, away from him as if caught in a heavy tide. All that's left is a high, long ringing whine that echoes in the forefront of his mind, a pinprick of anger that is so fine and so sharp it could cut diamonds with surgical precision. )
I have never lied to you. ( Kylo feels petulant saying it, despite the fact that it needs to be said in the first place. He hadn't lied to her on Starkiller, even though the differences in their opinions and perspectives may have created the illusion that he was at the time, and he has not lied to her since. Not on Yaga Minor. Not on Corellia. Not on Hapes. Not in the barren wasteland of their tandem efforts to see Snoke expelled from his head, from his thoughts, in the ghostly husks of Ilum, Yavin IV, Jakku and the praxeum and all the landscapes in between. It has to be said in the interest of establishing his honesty now, Kylo realizes, as he curls his fingers into fists and stares at the muted green-brown of her eyes and the tension wiring of her shoulders, though he doesn't know why.
A thought occurs to him, and it could be his or hers, considering the bleed between them. He wouldn't have done it to her. He wouldn't. )
You are the most stubborn person I have ever met. Do you really think that I could make you believe something that you hadn't already decided on yourself? ( Childish disgusts contorts his tone, but the anguished ire that he feels is raw and real, his voice rising in tone and volume the longer he goes on uninterrupted. ) I let you believe nothing. If what you saw when you looked back at me on Corellia was a blameless shell that Snoke filled up with his own intent alone, then you interpreted it incorrectly, and that is on you. ( It might not be the whole truth but it's the truth that he knows and the truth that he accepts, the truth that exists as a result of the reality that he has lived since Snoke found him, since the Dark Side found him. With or without Snoke's influence, Kylo reasons, there is a good chance he was damned from the start anyway, but he cannot and will not pretend that the choices that he has made, the things that he has done, exist in a vacuum that can be closed now that the path that he walks has changed. )
I have lived the most of my life in the dark. It has always been there, and it always will be. A few hours spent in a meditative state won't change that, as much as Snoke's instruction and acceptance of that side hasn't managed to snuff out the opposition. ( The light, always burning, blinding when he looks too long at it. Kylo takes a few steps toward her, and his leg drags in the dirt lamely but he barely notices it, letting the heavy weight of his gaze consume and feed off the fire of Rey's own anger, her disgust, her shame and betrayal, a hurricane swaddled in the white bones and bronzed cage of a girl. ) Ji wasn't helpless. Couldn't you feel it? ( The heavy timbre of his voice climbs again, and he doesn't have to say it for the implication of his question to be present: stupid, naive girl. ) She had help, and she very well might have killed us both, killed you, or brought you somewhere that would force you to wish she had! Is that what you wanted? To be brought before Snoke and made to answer for your actions against him? I was trying to -
( He breaks off, at the end of the line of his frustration, feeling the heady pulse of destructive rage uncurl in his gut like a series of claws opening and closing, tracing sharp, hot lines across his insides. A hand rips its way savagely through his hair, yanking it back where it's started to fall, damp with sweat, into his eyes, and Kylo turns away from her, unable to look at her and knowing, innately, that his reasoning might only infuriate her further. Saving her, saving them both, had been a motivating factor when he'd squeezed his fingers around Ji's throat and refused to disengage, but it isn't the whole of it, and in that recognition lies the suggestion of a lie if there actually were one. He had fed off of it, in the end, and there is no denying that, but Kylo won't make excuses for it. )
I see it, sometimes. ( He says, moving away from her, showing her his back. Aurren's helmet glints again in the dim light, and Kylo bends to remove it, unkind with residual anger, from the man's head, slipping his fingers underneath the jaw where he knows the mechanized latch is that will release it. Aurren's older face stares back up at him, washed with salt-and-pepper stubble, and his eyes are closed, but the area around them is bruised and black. ) I saw it on the General's face after we emerged from the meditative state on Corellia. The expectation that in the wake of Snoke's eviction from my thoughts, Ben Solo will return, as if Kylo Ren is some monster wearing that boy's face. ( Kylo turns back around to face her, voice quieter than he intends it to be. ) Who do you expect me to be?