( His hands stutter on the wrapping, long fingers tangling through the tapestry of off-white bandage while the opposite hand ensures that the dressing lies tight and secure against his leg. Muscles twitch and flutter underneath surface level skin and deeper down, as if jumping straight off of the bone. The licks of pain are secondary now, little twinges that pale in comparison to this weeping, damaged thing that spans the distance between them, larger than a gulf and smaller that a breath all at once. Kylo gets the impression that were he to raise his hand absentmindedly to hold it palm up, the bones and tendons required to mirror the motion in Rey's own hand and arm in order to press their palms together would spring into action automatically.
It manifests as an image in his mind but does not present itself as an actualization as he winds the bandage around his leg once more, but he understands what it is that she's suggesting even without having to hear the rest of what she has to say, which of course he does have to hear, seeing as there is nowhere to run and even fewer places to go. They've let the bond become too tangled, a knot of sinew and marrow, a combination of twisting and twining light and dark and the spectrum between both extremes. Right now his slide back into the familiar overwhelms and pollutes it, so that every word and breath from Rey's throat sounds as if it is being ripped from her, as if his hands were squeezing her trachea in an effort to snuff her out.
The idea perturbs him more than it would have a year ago, before he was acutely aware of her existence, before she was a flesh and bone person as opposed to a far off feeling, a star on a horizon, just a girl. So he cuts it off, shunts it away, and ties off the ends of his bandaging without bothering to admire their respective handiwork. The binding is secure, that's all that matters, but he'll have to find something else without a gaping hole to wear eventually. For the time being, Kylo falls quiet, dragged down in the whirl of Rey's grief - if it could be called that - enough not to take inventory of the submissive way in which her eyes had lowered. If anything, his aversion and preoccupation with his injury displays a similar reluctance, although he is quick to cast his gaze toward her again once he's finished. )
I can't promise you that I won't. I can't even promise myself that I won't. ( He delivers it quietly, most of the authoritative edge of his tone and the anger from earlier drained out of him and smothered by the fire and his own weariness. Even men like him get tired; juggling two consciences is exhausting. Kylo's throat feels dry, and although his voice doesn't carry the same qualities that it had prior, that dryness makes it rougher than he intends, a scrape of stone over a slab of rock. He stretches his palm flat over the bandaging covering his thigh, biting back the urge, for whatever reason, to curl his fingers around her arm, recalling easily the way that she had recoiled from him only moments ago, her horror at what he had done. He's quiet for a long moment, looking at her, mulling over nothing and everything.
Starkiller and Corellia, Yaga Minor and the ice caves, long stretches of desert and the lush green on Takodana. He did this. His relentless, reckless pursuit, his desire to prove himself, prove his worth, prove to the darkness in him and to himself that he could do this. This is his responsibility, as much as it is her load to carry in turn. He did this on Starkiller and she finished it on Corellia. Rey dragged him the rest of the way under, but not before Kylo stuck his head below the water in a desperate bid to come back up breathing the moment that Han Solo's death punched a hole right through him and let the light back in. The struggle manifests this time as a sigh, tightly controlled, quiet, pinched at the end. ) I'm trying. I'm going to try. ( Because at the end of the day, that is what any of them are doing. Trying. So he'll try, for her, for himself, and - ) I'm sorry.
( It's an awkward endeavor but it exists all the same, brushed under the heavy popping of the fire and the creaks and groans of the encampment around them. He hasn't apologized to anyone in so long that even Kylo questions whether or not it's genuine but in that moment, with the sound of her voice choked still in his ears and this fragile but strong yet incredible wounded thing pulsing between them, he finds that it is, and that no one is more deserving of the first acknowledgement of genuine remorse in years than Rey. )
no subject
It manifests as an image in his mind but does not present itself as an actualization as he winds the bandage around his leg once more, but he understands what it is that she's suggesting even without having to hear the rest of what she has to say, which of course he does have to hear, seeing as there is nowhere to run and even fewer places to go. They've let the bond become too tangled, a knot of sinew and marrow, a combination of twisting and twining light and dark and the spectrum between both extremes. Right now his slide back into the familiar overwhelms and pollutes it, so that every word and breath from Rey's throat sounds as if it is being ripped from her, as if his hands were squeezing her trachea in an effort to snuff her out.
The idea perturbs him more than it would have a year ago, before he was acutely aware of her existence, before she was a flesh and bone person as opposed to a far off feeling, a star on a horizon, just a girl. So he cuts it off, shunts it away, and ties off the ends of his bandaging without bothering to admire their respective handiwork. The binding is secure, that's all that matters, but he'll have to find something else without a gaping hole to wear eventually. For the time being, Kylo falls quiet, dragged down in the whirl of Rey's grief - if it could be called that - enough not to take inventory of the submissive way in which her eyes had lowered. If anything, his aversion and preoccupation with his injury displays a similar reluctance, although he is quick to cast his gaze toward her again once he's finished. )
I can't promise you that I won't. I can't even promise myself that I won't. ( He delivers it quietly, most of the authoritative edge of his tone and the anger from earlier drained out of him and smothered by the fire and his own weariness. Even men like him get tired; juggling two consciences is exhausting. Kylo's throat feels dry, and although his voice doesn't carry the same qualities that it had prior, that dryness makes it rougher than he intends, a scrape of stone over a slab of rock. He stretches his palm flat over the bandaging covering his thigh, biting back the urge, for whatever reason, to curl his fingers around her arm, recalling easily the way that she had recoiled from him only moments ago, her horror at what he had done. He's quiet for a long moment, looking at her, mulling over nothing and everything.
Starkiller and Corellia, Yaga Minor and the ice caves, long stretches of desert and the lush green on Takodana. He did this. His relentless, reckless pursuit, his desire to prove himself, prove his worth, prove to the darkness in him and to himself that he could do this. This is his responsibility, as much as it is her load to carry in turn. He did this on Starkiller and she finished it on Corellia. Rey dragged him the rest of the way under, but not before Kylo stuck his head below the water in a desperate bid to come back up breathing the moment that Han Solo's death punched a hole right through him and let the light back in. The struggle manifests this time as a sigh, tightly controlled, quiet, pinched at the end. ) I'm trying. I'm going to try. ( Because at the end of the day, that is what any of them are doing. Trying. So he'll try, for her, for himself, and - ) I'm sorry.
( It's an awkward endeavor but it exists all the same, brushed under the heavy popping of the fire and the creaks and groans of the encampment around them. He hasn't apologized to anyone in so long that even Kylo questions whether or not it's genuine but in that moment, with the sound of her voice choked still in his ears and this fragile but strong yet incredible wounded thing pulsing between them, he finds that it is, and that no one is more deserving of the first acknowledgement of genuine remorse in years than Rey. )