apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

( The datapad having fallen dark not long after his last returned message, Kylo leaves it discarded and dark on the neat and orderly posture of his mattress and the blankets that cover it, turning his attention instead to what might not qualify, necessarily, as a hobby but which easily qualifies as a distraction. Not that he needs one, when a careful pluck at the string of the bond between them reveals no tight, straining imperfections that might signify anger, and not when he is more than aware that Rey would be more than happy to alert him of just how angry she was and the reasons as to why were it a foregone conclusion based on their last few exchanges. He has begun learning the iterations of her anger with more precision, but he still spreads out a mat across the surface of his desk and unfurls a tool kit from the top drawer and begins disassembling the components of his lightsaber underneath the amber glow of the lamp.

Most of the damage that he had been able to repair following Rey's dismantling of it on Starkiller Base had been a temporary fix, stripped and cleaned and reconstructed with various parts over the course of the completion of his training under Snoke, meant to stubbornly preserve the design and display of the blade if not the function of it. Soldering wires together now along the exposed belly and scraping one of the quillons clean of residue only continues to prove to him the mistake that he had made in not scrapping the entirety of it altogether and starting from scratch. But the way that it shakes in his hand has become a sense in and of itself, and he knows the weight of it before it even slaps into his palm, and, even more, a larger part of him won't be called a fool for failing to produce something lasting.

Not for the first time, he considers the saber that hangs from Rey's belt with a mixture of bitter resentment and self-loathing, though it's explored less than even he might like at this point in the progression of their orbital lives as the girl in question's presence races through the Force like a jolt of electricity through the tracery veins. As a consequence, Kylo has a set of goggles pushed up over his forehead when he gestures toward the door at her knock, waving it open without moving from his seat, though he does tilt the chair back and away from the desk and its mess in order to get a good look at her as she steps across the threshold. He quirks a brow at her. )

Bad news? ( Anxiety rolls off of her like fog and burrows its way down into his bones until his knuckles feel stiff. )

Luke's dealing with it.

[ Even without the benefit of their bond, the abrupt answer paints a clear picture of her dissatisfaction, and she trudges in to punctuate it with the scuff of her boots on the metal floor. She punches her thumb into the panel on the inside to slide the door shut behind her, so subconscious is her instinct to hide them away from the world.

The sharp punctuating notes of these movements all say the same thing: she would rather be dealing with it for any number of reasons, but instead, she's here. It doesn't escape her to be grateful, in a sense, because it means not arriving terribly late and feeling the need to justify her tardiness and her role in the Resistance to Kylo Ren, who she never wanted to apologize to for anything, even now. A larger part hates waiting. ]

We'll know when he does. [ For a moment, Luke is forgotten, and she approaches the desk, hands settling in a familiar pattern against the slope of his shoulders so she can peer over the top of his head. Her upper body presses to his over the back of the chair, and the saber at her hip clacks metal on metal as it swings forward with her. ] What's all that?

( That stiffness gives way to a jittery sort of energy, a sensation that inspires him to flex his fingers as much as the perception of an ache might have had it not changed midstream. The sort of impatience and the kind of anxiousness that she's describing between the shuffle of her boots against the floor, the jab of her thumb into the door panel, the general air of discontent that hangs around her like the permanent scent of sun and sweat, are feelings that he has more than enough experience with, although his reactions tend to run less contained than the control Rey exhibits and more in line with inserting himself into the middle of a perceived problem and running in an entirely different direction with it. His presence here should be testimony to that. )

Distraction. ( Kylo punctuates this answer with the clack of the chair legs against the floor, giving in easily to the familiarity of the touch of her hands over his shoulders and the parenthetical curve of her over his back. At this elbow, he feels the swing of that lightsaber - nearly close enough to brush against the fabric of his shirt, were it not impeded by the chair - and he spreads his hands over the puzzle pieces of his own blade that he's yet to fit dutifully back together. His thumbnail catches one of the shrouds covering a crossguard vent. ) I think one of the shrouds might be coming loose.

( But it's of no consequence given the state of things - or maybe it should be, given the state of things. If Skywalker returns with some sort of indication that they need to move, however quickly, it wouldn't do well to be caught with a dismantled lightsaber on his hands, regardless of what might be coming for them. No immediate consequence, then, as Kylo curls a hand around Rey's wrist and uses it as a means of trying to coax her around the back of the chair and down into his lap without having to haul her there of his own volition. And if not that, he'll settle for a lean against the desk, so long as he can mostly look her in the eye. ) Why Luke?

( To his credit, he doesn't choke on the name, but even Kylo hears the weight ascribed to a word that has become unfamiliar in his mouth. Still, this isn't about that particular history, and even if he thinks that he probably knows the reasons why Skywalker would be the one set up, he gets the sense that there's enough lingering frustration left in Rey following that decision that she might like to vent about it around someone who won't chastise her for feeling frustration. Why Luke and not you? )

[ At his coaxing, she relented and spilled into his lap with a readiness that betrayed the thin measure of restraint by which she had refrained from climbing into it of her own accord right off the bat. Conversation about Luke made for a poor ambience—it always coiled Kylo spring-tight like a viper, ready to snap on the first unfortunate misstep. But this time, he drew the subject out, and despite the stubborn grind of his question, the resistance it showed, that offered some willingness to engage.

Perhaps after all this time he had come to accept that Luke (and his mother) could not be avoided and dismissed out of hand forever; sooner or later, this gridlock they faced would need to be dealt with, resolved. But probably not. More likely, his interest lay only in how it impacted her. He had that way about him. ]

Most of the fleet's up there. It took both of us to get something armed for worst case scenario to be spaceworthy for him, and Master Luke's the better pilot, the more seasoned fighter, the— [ To list the reasons, she realized, only reinforced her frustration and directed it inward at her inadequacies, so she stopped abruptly and huffed out a breath. ] It's strategic. We don't know what's up there.

[ She toyed with one of the vents of his saber hilt, rolling it with the press of a single finger across the desk top, her despondence resolute. Even if the reasoning made sense, she could not help but feel neutered by sitting here instead of flying up there with him. Worse, it made her realize something, something new: Luke considered himself more expendable to the Resistance than he considered Rey.

Swallowing something like that came in stages. ]

If it's something jamming our signal, like we suspect, I'll bet it's to stop the scanners, and the communications are a byproduct. It's just as likely they're trying to get something by us as they are trying to get anything into our airspace.

( The ease with which she slips into his lap should probably still be surprising, but it isn't. Not that the novelty has worn off, only that the memory of their beginning and middle should make the fact a unique concept in and of itself, a constant reminder of what boon he has been granted despite the fact that what he really deserves - and what so many would argue for - is punishment. Second chances have been offered to him again and again, and despite the fact that most of them sit with him like having his gut pummeled by the end of a pike, they have still been given in the first place. Many others deserve more and get less. Kylo knows that firsthand.

The settle of Rey's weight across his thighs, the back of her leg coming to rest against the top of his knee, the automatic and instinctive way she had touched him to begin with and its counterpart in the loop of his arm around her waist now - all of it should still come as some sort of surprise, but what really surprises him in the moments he spends disassembling it in his head is the way that he can feel himself relax under her weight. It offers not necessarily a different perspective on what he can sense and pick up from her in the moments between what she says and what she does, what she confesses and what he responds to, but a less forced approach to feeling it altogether. An admittance, rather than an invasion. Kylo presses the flat of his palm, fingers splayed wide, against her back. )

I would rather he go than you. ( Not for the reasons that she might suspect - because he is the better pilot; because he's more experienced; because Kylo cares much less about whether or not Luke lives or dies, never mind that he admittedly does care more whether Rey lives or dies; because bad blood or animosity or because his interest does lie in how circumstances impact her over anyone else - but for more selfish ones, too. It's better, when she's around. Clearer. Easier. ) I assume General Organa was present. ( Kylo swallows imperceptibly, watching her fingers move across the discarded metal parts on the desktop. ) Any theories? I can't imagine the First Order would be so insidious, considering General Hux's last pet project. ( There are other possibilities, of course. One of them leaves him uneasy, memory skipping back to that Mandalorian moon, the mine shaft.

Realizations, however obvious to whichever party, come in twos. )

It was suggested that it might be a field test of some kind, but General Organa thought preparations were more likely. We'd waste our efforts searching for an enemy attack while First Order ships successfully moved something high value right across Republic airspace.

[ The politics bore her, and her tone makes no secret of that. It all sounds like strategizing and theorizing that she can do nothing about and does not have the background to contribute anything to. Which is as much her fault as anyone else's admittedly, but it does make her eager to stay out of it. ]

Another weapon. A worse weapon.

[ There's always a worse weapon. Of greater concern to her: ] Poe and Finn are up there.

[ As she says it, her voice wobbles between hope that they'll look after Luke and hope that Luke will look after them and worry for all three. Her fingertips skip over to and close in a fist around the cracked kyber at the center of his lightsaber, clasping the token as some sort of worry stone to distract herself. ]

There is always a weapon. And no originality therein. ( His tone offers no condolences for the First Order's distinct lack of taste, drier than sinking fields of sand and arid wind that Rey would be equally familiar with. He hadn't been given the luxury of permission to air his personal grievances with Starkiller Base in the moments leading up to its firing or in the aftermath of the Hosnian System's eradication, but silence hadn't meant that he supported it, not that this was a fact that had parried favor with Resistance leaders other than Organa or Skywalker and not that it mattered when billions of people were alive one minute and simply gone the next. No matter what his decisions, no matter what path he had taken, the absolute and total destruction of an entire planet is a pain that doesn't leave a person's voice in whatever iteration, and regardless of his personal feelings toward Leia Organa, that fact and her legendary perseverance in spite of it is not something that Kylo Ren forgot even once Ben Solo had fallen quiet.

He shares her interest in politics of that magnitude, at least, and if they are well suited anywhere, it's in that. Not for lack of understanding - and despite the bored note in Rey's tone, Kylo suspects that she understands more than she might be aware of - but because the direction that they are standing is of an entirely different set of coordinates from everyone else's. What he does not share is her interest in her friends, but Kylo supposes that's part of what being a unit in this capacity involves, and he manages not to sound too uninterested in the topic despite his much more candid interest in her hand closing around the fractured kyber crystal. ) Between the three of them, they're certainly capable. I would even be willing to admit that they're efficient, although don't repeat it to them. I don't think there are many fainting lounges on this planet.

( In lieu of a more helpful or concerned response, Kylo turns his face toward the rounded rise of her shoulder and presses the closed line of his mouth to it, the rough scrape of linen warm and earthy-smelling underneath his nose as he studies where her fingers enclose around his saber. He lifts his chin half a beat later and tests the material of her hemline between his thumb and forefinger as he asks - ) Have you given any thought or discussion to building your own? Not now, obviously, but at some point in the near future.

[ The comforting contact of his lips to her shoulder draws a sigh out of her, one that finally relinquishes her hold on the tense situation up above that they have no part in. She'd have been lying to claim that it had not occurred to her to take the Falcon up and see what was going on herself, even after Luke had lifted off in the grounded x-wing. Respect kept her feet on terra firma, and Kylo Ren reaffirmed the choice with his passive, albeit belabored, faith.

She tipped her head against the top of his, and the hem of her shirt gave way underneath the outer wrap of her training robes. Skin-to-skin contact warmed her, and she opened her hand to stare at the kyber crystal as though it held the answer. ]

That presumes that my training comes to an end in the near future. [ Reluctantly, she explains, ] Luke doesn't think I'm ready.

[ Not only does she doubt it's an unfamiliar tale to him, but she further doubts that their intent to come forth with the ways in which they've been passing their time together will make Luke any more likely to graduate her as a true Jedi. She set the cracked crystal back on the desktop and unclipped her own saber to stack it up beside it. ]

"This saber has been wielded by many great Jedi before you," he says. [ She puts on an air of his voice that is both sage and somewhat inflated. ] "It is an honor to wield it."

He isn't wrong. ( Is the closest approximation of agreeing with Skywalker as she is likely to ever hear from his mouth, let alone the conjoined consensus of his thoughts. It has little to do with agreeing with her master and more to do with respecting the weapon's history - where it comes from and who it has belonged to, even if that consideration merits less twitching and yelling on his part than it might have previously.

Her imitation of Skywalker's voice helps, too, though that is admittedly a more personal, mean-spirited appreciation than anything else, and as a result, Kylo's mouth is more inclined to curl at the sides in his version of what constitutes as a smile, giving the quality of his voice a less reprimanding tone than his phrasing might suggest. ) That lightsaber was wielded by many great Jedi before you, but one of them was Skywalker himself, so maybe take his mysticism with a grain of salt.

( Being given access to some amount of skin means that he takes all that he can get as a consequence, sliding the flat of his palm over the jut of her hip on his way up her back, though he lets the callouses on his palm scratch over the fabric of her shirt for that, for the sake of his wrist catching on her clothing. He can feel the thrum of her heartbeat through her ribs at her back, and residual frustration melts into that sensation somewhat, like diviners reading lines on a palm albeit with a little more accuracy. ) You'll finish. ( Kylo maneuvers on the chair, a little, scooting it in a bit and noticing the way the light catches the deep groove in the kyber. A stone settles low in his abdomen, a deep and penetrating thunk of a ripple, and he curls his fingers around Rey's and moves it to lay over the handgrip, where the wire lays exposed. ) The crystal fits right in between the vent irises, here, but the conductive plate looks a little warped, so it should be reshaped as much as possible first, and then you're able to put the crystal back in.

( That this thing has not blown up yet is a modern miracle. )

[ The bratty irreverence with which she had recounted Luke's reminder crumbled away into a quiet sort of awe as she looked back at him, hesitating. Pulsing through the mental tether that drew them hence was the awareness that he shouldn't be telling her any of this. He wasn't her teacher, and for her to take interest in learning it from anyone else undermined Luke, dismissed his decisions in how to order her training out of hand.

She held his gaze for a moment, searching his freckled face for some confirmation that he realized it.

But all he could do was offer: the decision remained her own, and Rey made it the moment she turned away from him to look back down at the tabletop where the fragments of the rest of his lightsaber lay. She picked up the conductive plate and turned it over in her hand. Luckily—or perhaps unluckily—she had no better ideas on what the inner schematics were supposed to look like, so the combustibility was beyond her awareness. ]

What shape is it supposed to be in? [ It's not meant to be an insult, but honestly 'a little warped' is generous and it's no wonder, seeing that it has plasma burns marring one side. She glances back at him, muffling a teasing smile. ]

( Kylo waits, and then waits again for a beat following, meeting her eyes in the yellow-white wash of the desk lamp without hesitation or expectation. Whether he privately believes that he could teach her more, teach her better, or not, is neither here nor there. It has less to do with what he had offered her - shouted at her - on Starkiller or at any of the other points in the past at which their paths have crossed and more to do with recognizing Rey for what and who she is in the midst of all this turmoil. Skywalker might not think that she's ready, but the reality of their predicament - of the galaxy's predicament, regardless of what side one stands on - does not have the luxury of time. He can spar with her, out in the woods, and he can entertain the idea of meditating with her, and he can offer what knowledge he has in the interest of not seeing her fall further down the line because she was not prepared, because she wasn't ready. It's all that he can do, even when he still wants to do so much more.

In the grand scheme of things, he thinks, as Rey turns back around and plants her hands on the desk and over the appropriate parts, this is easily the least offensive thing that he could ever show her. )

Acting like a brat will get you nowhere. ( Pinching her thigh or smacking her ass seem like too vindictive - and difficult, given the way that she's sitting - an option for something he is not actually offended by, so he plants both hands firmly on her waist and squeezes in retaliation, leaning back so that the long line of his nose is clear of any haphazardly thrown elbows. ) My lightsaber hasn't been sitting in storage for half of its life. Someone also nearly destroyed it a year ago. ( Not that these are facts that really matter. Kylo leans his chin on her shoulder, almost sullenly; although, it is primarily an act. )

Wonder who that could have been.

[ She's breezy in her dismissal of his despondence only because she recognizes it for the act that it is, and thus she hums the words with all the care of someone who treats it not as their primary task, but as a filler sentence to assure someone that she's still listening when in reality she stopped several moments ago. Despite her needling question, she gets to work, pressing her palm into where the plasma beam had warped the conductive plate, curving it back inward to withstand the blow again. ]

You really should get a new one. [ She says, more seriously. ] If it's lost integrity enough to warp, you could be looking at borrowed time. Reshaping it only puts more strain on.

[ It's the same with the inner workings of any delicate instrument panel or engine. Certain components burned hotter and faster than others, making them tiny but high value because they'd need to be exchanged and could be salvaged less frequently. Usually, you could only find parts like this one in ships with holes blown out of them—it more often meant they were new, and it had taken more work to bring them down, which meant the parts had seen less wear and tear.

She lays the conductive plate flat and settles the cracked crystal atop it, laying the vent irises out beside just to get a look at all of them in the right configuration without actually assembling it.

A moment later, she realizes, ] These vents are the only thing that have allowed the conductive plate to last this long, aren't they? Diverting the heat of the ignition blast.

( As he watches her fingertips move over and through the specific parts and motions of fitting the puzzle pieces of his blade back together, he says nothing in response to her comments, which feel like legitimate criticisms worthy of vocalization but don't necessarily seem as though they require a response on his part. The presence of the lightsaber that she's been using lying next to the dismantled, scored, and, in some cases, improvised pieces of his own make the contrast that she inadvertently builds between the two that much clearer, to say nothing of the way that she handles the pieces, driven by natural instinct as much as they are practice. The differences of their talents and interests could not be more plainly highlighted than they are in the way that Rey breezily configures the parts in proper order while Kylo watches, reminded of the fact that although he's more than capable of holding components together, she's the one with the knack for finding ways of rerouting from disaster. )

Mmm. ( A hum in response is not necessarily indicative of anything more than acknowledgment of having heard her, he reasons, and his mouth makes a soft parting noise in the relative quiet of the room - there are always footsteps or shouting or clanging to be heard somewhere in the distance, the base never at a true standstill - as he opens it to acquiesce. ) If it weren't for the vents, the whole thing probably would have blown by now. ( Almost as if punctuation, Kylo reaches across her body to close his fingers around the hilt of his lightsaber. ) Because of the crack in the crystal. The first time it was turned on, I thought it would explode. I had to modify the design to take some of the strain off.

( Not that it would be permitted, but Rey isn't wrong, and he should get a new one, though not just a new conductive plate. But there is something familiar in the way that the blade itself hums in his hand that he would admittedly miss, in a way, were he to build something more stable. A lightsaber is an extension of the person who wields it, and even if this one is in constant danger of spontaneously combusting, it's still his. Regardless of how much he had - and sometimes still does - wanted the one that Rey carries now. ) It's doubtful that you'll have the same issue when you find your own crystal and build one for yourself.

Maybe you should come with me when I do.

[ For want of something to do beyond the invitation, she begins the actual assembly and realizes quickly that holding it together is not an act for fingers and thumbs, but for the Force. She opens her palm to hold the crystal aloft, and the vents lift off the table to flank it. The assembled portion of the hilt drifts out of his grip.

It's a dangerous suggestion in more ways than one, not only because it hinges quite dramatically on Luke's safe return, on his understanding and tacit acceptance of what news she has to deliver in the morning, and on Kylo Ren's own acceptance, but because it seems to disregard those things entirely, opening instead the possibility that they might make it a task for themselves.

Yet she makes it sound so pedestrian, a simple and easy offer. That's the trouble with trouble, really. It whispers like a lover does, and it's only once you're in it that you realize the mistake. ]

( He is more interested in the expression on her face than he is the movements of the pieces as they come together, but one of these two things is easier for him to see than the other, and as a consequence, Kylo ends up paying more attention to the way those pieces fit back together than he does the way Rey looks when she does it. The difference between her and anyone else is that he does not need to look at her to at least estimate the way that she feels. It lingers in the warm, taffy stretch of the bond between them, both with and without consequence, much like the proposition that she levels exists with and without consequence.

Rey may as well be suggesting that they go to the market or investigate a pop-up bar that has opened on base. Something inconsequential and entirely possible. And Kylo realizes then that it won't matter to him one way or another what Organa, what Skywalker have to say in the morning. It won't change the way that he feels, and it certainly won't change what he does. It hasn't in the past, but the difference now is the difference between Rey's tone and her suggestion, the difference between deals struck and capital punishment, light and dark - or at least the murky gray in between. )

Maybe I will. ( Tone for tone, cadence for cadence, now that his hand is empty one lightsaber, he folds it with the other around Rey's hips and begins investigating a very curious looking stretch of skin just above the collar of her shirt. ) Assuming that I don't have anything better to do at the time, of course.

[ Skin-to-skin contact, welcome as it is, distracts her briefly, and the floating apparatus of his half-assembled lightsaber bobs and dips in the air as she leans into him, collecting herself, finding a center that doesn't come from melting into the warmth of his touch. Rey bites down on her lower lip. ]

I'll understand if you can't, busy as you are. [ She dragged out the words with such patience that it sounded trivial and unimportant, the whole affair. Closing her hands, she brought the metal components together and locked them in, then took great care to allow it to float back to the surface of his desk, assembled. Better to have it done properly and out of the way now, the way she could sense his mind was going. ]

It's a miracle you fit anything at all in between your holos and your reading. [ Her voice stays sweet, making the scoff she affords such things implicit this time. Better than her brassy attitude across text, surely. Much better, when considering the way her eyes darken upon watching him, pupils wide, still as a hunt trying to sneak up prey. ] I wonder that anything could seize your attention from them.

( This intermission won't last, and they both know it. Maybe it will end tomorrow morning, when Luke fails to return, or maybe it will end tomorrow morning when he does return, bringing with him whatever news he has from the fleet, forcing them to move again, jump systems again, running and hiding to old Rebel Alliance bases - and older ones, too; recycled outposts from the Clone Wars tucked into questionable corners of the galaxy - while the First Order gives chase. Retreat frustrates him but not as much as inaction, stagnation, and although Kylo has learned to appreciate these moments in between one mad scramble and the next because of what they have provided him - and not just this new but seemingly inevitable development with Rey, though he would no sooner admit to having missed his mother than he would admit that he grows and combs his hair in exactly the way that he does because it hides his ears - restlessness is something, he suspects, grows in the both of them. )

One or two things. ( He affirms her suspicions by searching for the hem of her shirt with his thumbnail, snagging on the stitching and poking his thumb through a loop of string that's come loose from the rest of the garment. Whatever expression she finds or looks for on his face - and he thinks that he can guess given the slight shift of her own - he circumvents, ignoring her expectation and affecting something pensive and lofty as he considers the lightsaber pieces that she has reassembly with relative ease. As if he would expect anything less from her, at this point. ) I had been doing something before I was interrupted.

( And he had been reading before that, as his restlessness tends to dictate when he can't exhaust it by destroying something. It's a line of thinking that he turns toward Rey a moment later, losing some of the sarcasm in his expression and looking off into the middle distance instead, a crease forming between his brows. ) Do you feel restless, here?

[ With curiosity gleaming in her eyes, she plunders his feelings as if they're her own, a simple mental nudge made easier by proximity, though by rights such closeness should have no tangible impact. Not for nothing. She needs to know that under his question ostensibly about the Resistance's stasis is not some deeper, more personal insecurity.

She's relieved when there's not, but that also means she has to put real thought into the question he does intend. More than that, it means a more serious conversation than she'd been vying for, but she resolves herself to it.

The trouble isn't with the Resistance itself. That engenders no feelings of restlessness, but a feeling of being found: this is her home, her family. Leia Organa and Han Solo have (and had, she modifies sadly) done more than any forgotten parents fifteen years gone. In her connection to them, she could not feel more content, but on this base… She sighs. ]

I try to keep myself busy. [ But it's not easy, and it's not a luxury that Kylo can take for himself. Responsibilities come with trust. Her leash extends much farther than his (though, she has noticed, not as far as it once did). ] But war is tiresome and slow. I didn't think there'd be so much waiting.

[ Waiting for intelligence, waiting for the fleet to return, waiting for the right moment to strike, waiting to see what the First Order does, always waiting. She's used to waiting, true, but that's what makes her so tired of it. It's not the Jedi way to need action, but Kylo Ren is not a Jedi, and so she affords him an honesty that she would not offer Luke or his sister the General. ]

And you as well, I take it.

( It's a brand of honesty that he leaves him feeling more centered than he expects, despite the lack of deeper meaning involved in asking it in the first place. She reads him, and Kylo reads her and detects no deceit or ulterior curiosity, just as he presents and offers no strategic interpretation of his own restive tendencies. They have both been bred to fight in their own ways, and acknowledging that in each other has always given him peace of mind in some capacity, for however warped and convoluted it had started, despite what he had shown her on Yaga Minor or offered her on Starkiller. One thing they can see eye to eye on, at least. )

Mm. ( And then, because a hum does not constitute as an actual reply, Kylo parts his mouth to open it enough that he can tumble down the sarlacc pit and into bittersweet memory. ) There was always some errand, some undertaking to see through. We were kept busy. I assume because Snoke probably believed that if I was bored enough I might start thinking a little harder about the way things were. ( The string at her hip wraps around his finger and breaks with a soft sound. ) Eventually something will happen again, and it will be another mad scramble, and there will be little time for being bored, but in the meantime -

( Because just as well as Rey can sense the severity of his thoughts without waiting for him to express them, Kylo can follow the tangent of less serious routes of her own where her intentions are concerned. And because she weighs next to nothing to him, it's very easy to curl an arm behind her knees and around her back and stand without stumbling or knocking anything over, hitching her up in one fluid motion. ) - I could tell you all about the article on Mandalorian armor that I've been reading while you were scolding me all afternoon.

[ Startled by the suddenness of the decision and movement, she draws a sharp breath, but she's quick to steady herself by looping her arms around his neck, and she can't say she's sorry for the closeness offered by the grab. He's right, of course. The mad scramble will come. It's important to be grateful for moments like this one, knowing how soon they can be gone.

She turns her head into the crook of his neck and breathes in the staleness of the base that clings to him to remind them both that he is an inmate, not a guest. The reminder makes it a short-lived indulgence. ]

I was only teasing. You take everything so seriously. [ Her crinkling nose affords some honesty to that effect, but how much remains uncertain. Maybe he really wants to talk about Mandalorian armor but maybe he just wanted an excuse to bring it up again. She traces her fingertips up the ridges of his spine, a worrying gesture designed to sooth not him, her distant concern that his recollection of his time under Snoke's hand is only academic, not wistful. ]

( He doesn't want to talk about Mandalorian armor - or the can of worms that his interest in it would open up - and it seems easier to implicitly agree with her as opposed to insisting otherwise when they both know that her assessment would be correct nine times out of ten. It's that outlier, that random tenth variable that throws the correlation out of whack where severity is concerned, though it's just as likely that Rey would be the only one to pick up on it as it is that it would never occur. If a Knight of Ren makes a joke and only a scavenger is around to hear it, does a punchline even occur? )

You say serious. I say wise. ( Not so much a stretch of the truth as a complete obliteration of it, though the case could be made in its favor, given her assembly of his lightsaber under his observation only moments ago, but that is going down a path that neither of them are likely to admit to or acknowledge for their own reasons. Kylo is much more interested in the tactile stimulation along his spine, little points of contact that warm his skin and connect them at the seams, a quiet unease that spreads out along the tracery veins despite how good it feels to be touched. It doesn't radiate from him, and so he must dispel it. )

I'm older than you, remember. You should respect your elders. ( This broken up by the break in his voice as he adjusts her - as though she weighs little more than a flimsiplast - and holds her in stasis for a moment, as though trying to decide what to do with her now that he has her. Truth be told, it's something he's been trying to decide for quite a while, now. )

Is that what you're hoping for?

[ By the sound of her voice, only two shades shy of a scoff, she finds the notion absurd. In fact, the corners of her mouth turn up, as though she's barely restraining a laugh or a full grin at some joke that he's made in thinking that she would defer to him in any meaningful fashion for the mere sake of it. ]

"O, Wise Elder …" [ There's reverence there, but only to mock him, and in her hyperbole she makes him sound a great deal older than he actually is—by no accident. ] Calling yourself my elder just makes you sound like a pervert.

[ And there's those desert-buffed social skills, put to the test. She crinkles her nose, as if measuring whether she's into that or something like it. ]

( Judging by the lofty expression that he fixes her with as a response, he very much does consider respect something worth hoping for - if not outright demanding, but Rey is hardly made of the sort of mettle that would allow him to conflate fear with respect without her smacking him over the head with the business end of her quarterstaff as a result. Still, there is a distinct lack of oppressive seriousness in the delicate way that he exhales, as if offended, that gives away the belying amusement lurking underneath the surface, and as if to remind her of the precarious situation that he holds her in, Kylo pivots toward the narrow mattress that he tries to sleep on - as if anything of the sort could be done on something so uncomfortable and as if he was actually planning on going anywhere else with her - and threatens through gesture alone to drop her unceremoniously in retaliation. )

I would argue that's primarily because you're using the word elder in the same way that most people would try to cast some kind of ancient magic spell. ( When he dumps her on the mattress, almost as if using the weight of her body as a punctuation mark on the point that he's trying to make, he finds himself half-sprawled over her legs, one knee on the edge of the bunk, after failing to account for her arm left thrown over his shoulder and reaching down his back. If he notices that her social skills could use some polishing, there's no mention of it or pause to highlight it. They're both a little stunted, in that regard, and her social skills fit fine with his own even when she's got her teeth bared and her lightsaber up over her head, trying to knock his legs out from underneath him.

Fortunately, both of their blades are on the desk, this time. ) And you're the one saying it. Maybe you're the pervert.

( Kylo Ren is a delicate flower. )

[ Too practical for a yelp, she tightens the bend of her elbow around his neck when the support falls out from under her, and in doing so, bows him over with her so they both tumble half-supported to the bunk. By then, she's laughing and releasing him, sprawling out with the pleasant ease of someone who's taken much worse spills and consider this one not even faintly uncomfortable.

The splayed pile of limbs articulates in a way that she could not what she would smuggle him to the ends of the universe in his father's ship for. It brings a peace and comfort to her—one found not in their cramped surroundings, but in him—that she had gone most of her life without. And it's true enough to say that she feels something similar, if tinged differently, for the whole Resistance, but the Resistance is not what's in jeopardy.

She reaches out and scrambles one hand in his hair, mussing it until it hangs knotted in his face or until he swats her away—whichever comes first. ]

I know you are but what am I? [ It's hard to tell if she's saying it herself or offering it as some mock-translation of his own words. Probably a mix of both, to be safe. ]

( It's the swatting that comes first - well, an approximation of it, if wrapping a hand around her wrist and yanking his head, and hair, out of her immediate reach, this being so far beneath him, counts as swatting. Laughter has not often been a contagious thing where Kylo is concerned, and while he doesn't do it outright in that moment, the inclination to join in some capacity is, enough that underneath the tangle of hair that has fallen across his face and into his eyes, something like a resigned smirk stamps itself into the corner of his mouth before he can clear his throat around the urge to do it in the first place. He leaves his hair that way for half a beat as if offering her the opportunity to take in her handiwork before hastily jerking a hand through it and settling more solidly on the mattress, still warding her hand off with one of his own. )

Are you going to stick your tongue out at me, too? ( Because he will stoop to that level if need be and possibly even further beneath it. Rather than waiting for a response, however, Kylo loops his arms through her legs and yanks her down the bunk until she is nearly beneath him, kneeling between the splay of her thighs. ) I don't appreciate your attitude.

( The only frame of reference that he has for this are memories that have been locked away in a cold, dark space for years but which come unbidden and unexpected as soon as his fingertips attempt to carve out little nooks and alcoves in Rey's sides, trying to eek out more laughter by tickling her whether she's interested in it or not. Revenge doesn't normally take such an innocuous stance, and he's less practiced at this than he at pretty much anything else he ever could be, but memory helps soften a touch that's more practiced in aggression than it is in negotiation. )

i found something in the woods somewhere.

what's a lady like you doing in a post like this

idk terrible life choices probably

sorry you spelled best wrong i think

this took me a really long time because all i did today was cry about carrie fisher

same. same. i feel like the world is operating in a fog after yesterday

2016 can't even be real anymore

i wish it was just a cruel joke year. and now debbie reynolds has had a stroke?? my god

oh my god debbie reynolds is gone now too DID 2016 TAKE THE END OF THE YEAR AS A CHALLENGE

david bowie is handpicking people to create a new universe. that is the theory i subscribe to

it is the only functional coping mechanism tbh

prayer circle for poor billie :(

is it weird to say i'm grateful that carrie's heart took her and not her mental illness

it isn't weird at all i totally agree. also so sorry for the delay. this weekend was nuts bc work

dude i feel you i was super busy as well

holidays are great but i'm always so glad when they're over

saaaaaame family socializing is a special kind of tiring

i feel like i am still in recovery tbh

i need 7 days of no human contact

that sounds like my ideal vacation so why is work a thing i still must do idgi

it took me four days to write this terrible tag

just imagine i'm kris jenner 'you're doing great sweetie!' + it took me two days to write this one

this must be how it feels to be old. everything takes twice as long.

one day i will not be too tired to juggle three threads at once again. ONE DAY.

one day i will return a tag on the same day i get it. one day.

i will also live that good life again one day. meanwhile this thread has completely derailed

i mean how surprising is that really

on a scale of 1 to 10 about a -7. also i have never been happier for a day off work

mmmm days off. i'm like ... 5 weeks out from my next one

puppy brain does not make for good tagging skills

i don't remember what not being tired was like