( Nausea wakes him from a restless, spotty sleep, a tightly coiled knot of dread congealing in his stomach and sinking like a stone. He's on his side in the dark of his quarters aboard the Finalizer, the room a muted, gutted wash of blackness in the thick vacuum of space. They make for the Supreme Leader's seat deep in the Unknown Regions at his master's request. Following their gathering on the dusty planet in the Outer Rim - and his personal encounter with Rey - Hux and Kylo had stood at attention under the holographic projection of the Supreme Leader and received instruction for the better part of twenty minutes to cut out the fleet's limping journey across the systems and return to him promptly. The jump to lightspeed had come so quickly that half the fleet had been unprepared for it but they had made it all the same, bottoming out in deep space, far beyond the reach of Resistance reconnaissance and within three days' reach of Snoke himself.
Nausea wakes him, but the pain across his face is what keeps him awake, a deep ache spanning the diagonal slash and radiating outward like a blast radius. At the risk of bleeding out, the shot to his abdomen had been taken care of almost immediately following his return to the Finalizer after Hux had retrieved him from the snow on Starkiller, and the bruising he had sustained from beating the gaping hole raw with his own fist had faded, but the cut to his face still looked angry whenever he was without the helm. The med droids and officers had insisted that he let them knit and graft it but he had refused - violently - on more than one occasion, despite the pain. The worst of it had faded with the rawness of the injury itself, once new skin began to form and scar tissue puckered his flesh, but it hadn't dissipated entirely.
Mindful fingers trace the ridges and bumps of the scar in the darkness, mapping the constellations and systems native to the way in which it gaps the hollow of his eye and skips down his cheekbone, thinning out as it traces the ridge of his forehead and almost disappears into his hairline. He runs a hand through his hair and sits up in the cold, consuming silence of space. Alone in the dark without even the distant sounds of the night cycle's rounds to disturb him this far down the corridor of the officer's row, he's struck by how easy it is to anticipate her incoming. Her restlessness spans galaxies and stars, dodges planets and satellites. His feet hit the floor and he lets himself into the 'fresher to run water down the back of his throat, to pool in the cup of his palms so that he can scrub it over his face. Kylo gets the feeling that nausea he tastes in the back of his mouth is hers and is unsurprised when she nudges him a moment later, his reflection in the mirror over the sink his only real company. )
Of course I am. ( He manages to both feel and sound annoyed inside his own head. ) You've kept me awake for the better part of the night cycle.
no subject
Nausea wakes him, but the pain across his face is what keeps him awake, a deep ache spanning the diagonal slash and radiating outward like a blast radius. At the risk of bleeding out, the shot to his abdomen had been taken care of almost immediately following his return to the Finalizer after Hux had retrieved him from the snow on Starkiller, and the bruising he had sustained from beating the gaping hole raw with his own fist had faded, but the cut to his face still looked angry whenever he was without the helm. The med droids and officers had insisted that he let them knit and graft it but he had refused - violently - on more than one occasion, despite the pain. The worst of it had faded with the rawness of the injury itself, once new skin began to form and scar tissue puckered his flesh, but it hadn't dissipated entirely.
Mindful fingers trace the ridges and bumps of the scar in the darkness, mapping the constellations and systems native to the way in which it gaps the hollow of his eye and skips down his cheekbone, thinning out as it traces the ridge of his forehead and almost disappears into his hairline. He runs a hand through his hair and sits up in the cold, consuming silence of space. Alone in the dark without even the distant sounds of the night cycle's rounds to disturb him this far down the corridor of the officer's row, he's struck by how easy it is to anticipate her incoming. Her restlessness spans galaxies and stars, dodges planets and satellites. His feet hit the floor and he lets himself into the 'fresher to run water down the back of his throat, to pool in the cup of his palms so that he can scrub it over his face. Kylo gets the feeling that nausea he tastes in the back of his mouth is hers and is unsurprised when she nudges him a moment later, his reflection in the mirror over the sink his only real company. )
Of course I am. ( He manages to both feel and sound annoyed inside his own head. ) You've kept me awake for the better part of the night cycle.