( He is careful in the way that he observes her - casually, though peripherally, diverting the bulk of his attention out toward the carpet of the moon stretching before and beneath them, the shape of the Falcon somehow daunting and huge despite their relative distance from it, the mouth of the mine a tiny pinprick even as he narrows in on it, everything distorting and blurring under the weight of prolonged exhaustion and exertion. His hands are dirty when he examines them, a ring of black soot and dirt and dust separating the paler pigment of his fingers from the length of his wrists before his sleeves begin, knuckles lined with congealed dirt, pressed into the grooves of his skin and running the lengths of his palms. Kylo harbors no illusions that the rest of him is in a similar state, can feel the collection of dirt and perspiration down into his collar as well as he can underneath his fingernails.
He says nothing of it, and even were Rey not within arm's reach, he would say nothing of it. He has breathed in ash and smoke and tasted coppery, metallic blood and dirt far too often for it to be of any consequence now, just as he has felt the bite and sting of injury, blaster or otherwise, too often for the pain in his leg to be anything more than routine. For a moment, he thinks to run his fingertips over the extension of the scar that divides his face as if to test the memory of the pain he had felt in prodding it in the days after she had delivered it as it compares to the discomfort that he feels now, but it's a fleeting impulse made less by the command in her tone, however much it stands to ignite the stubborn streak of pride within him that wants to argue with her for the sake of arguing, if nothing else.
Although there is something else. )
You aren't going to climb back down and take the ship, leave me here? ( He intends for there to be hostility in his tone, but either he is more tired than he realizes or is willing to admit or the nature of their relationship has changed further without his awareness of the fact. If anything, he sounds resigned, leaning into the weight of the possibility as if it were an inevitability, even as he knows how ridiculous that it sounds, coming from him, how ridiculous it is to ask her, as someone who has been left behind in the most substantial of ways. The fact remains, though, and the tentativeness of their truce, their connection, has not yet reached a point of absolute trust. )
no subject
He says nothing of it, and even were Rey not within arm's reach, he would say nothing of it. He has breathed in ash and smoke and tasted coppery, metallic blood and dirt far too often for it to be of any consequence now, just as he has felt the bite and sting of injury, blaster or otherwise, too often for the pain in his leg to be anything more than routine. For a moment, he thinks to run his fingertips over the extension of the scar that divides his face as if to test the memory of the pain he had felt in prodding it in the days after she had delivered it as it compares to the discomfort that he feels now, but it's a fleeting impulse made less by the command in her tone, however much it stands to ignite the stubborn streak of pride within him that wants to argue with her for the sake of arguing, if nothing else.
Although there is something else. )
You aren't going to climb back down and take the ship, leave me here? ( He intends for there to be hostility in his tone, but either he is more tired than he realizes or is willing to admit or the nature of their relationship has changed further without his awareness of the fact. If anything, he sounds resigned, leaning into the weight of the possibility as if it were an inevitability, even as he knows how ridiculous that it sounds, coming from him, how ridiculous it is to ask her, as someone who has been left behind in the most substantial of ways. The fact remains, though, and the tentativeness of their truce, their connection, has not yet reached a point of absolute trust. )