faderift | In this cold reality I made [closed]

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In this cold reality I made [closed]

WHO: Kylo Ren and Rey
WHAT: Talking about this mission
WHEN: After he gets back from his mission
WHERE: Their home
NOTES: Talk of murder, oppressed elves, and more murder

The trip back was mostly uneventful with Kylo being his usual silent dark figure with little to say to his companions. Caedus was at his side, as always, trotting along at his heels as he made his way home. He didn't know whether Rey would be there, or if he would want her to be there. It was one thing to give a mission report and keep what happened to himself outside of those who needed to know. Keeping things to himself wasn't exactly an option when you shared your inner most thoughts with someone in a connection you can't break. He expects she felt glimpses of what he's done, the carnage that was still hanging around him like a dark shadow as he waved a hand over the gates to disable her traps.

Caedus seemed to pick up on his master's grim mood, his tail not wagging and mouth not hanging open as it usually did. He had killed refugees alongside Kylo, but a beast did not contemplate actions in the way their master might. Yet Kylo refused to feel guilt. He had done what he was bid, regardless of the emotions tied to it. He had made sure the bodies were burned, at the very least. In the end they had become just ash and dust.

Opening the front entrance, Caedus enters first. Kylo shuts the door behind him, still silent as a ghost. He said nothing, not calling out for Rey as he pulled his gloves off his hands and pocketed them. He knew Rey was in the house somewhere. He could feel her, as familiar a presence in the Force as anything.

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Her eyes only flicker to him briefly when he speaks her name. Looking at him even for a moment makes her heart ache, because she's missed him, but she needs to put that aside. Instead she focuses on Caedus, stroking her hand over his broad head as he sets it in her lap. She can't quite bring herself to smile, even for the goofy pup.

Taking a slow breath, slightly hitched by the emotion she's withholding she looks up at Kylo again, her gaze holding steady this time.

"What did you do?" It comes out quiet, a note in her voice practically begging him to give her a reason, one she hadn't been able to sense in their connection. Because while the Inquisition has done some questionable things, she can't think of anything that justifies murdering people who are practically defenseless. She knows the official orders had said they were bandits, but she knows what seasoned bandits look like, how they fight. The people she can see in Kylo's mind are neither.

"What I was ordered to do." He swallows, feeling the weight of her emotions pressing in on him like tidal waves. His stoic expression slips, his lip sucked between his teeth before he lets it go again. Taking a breath, he tries to elaborate.

"We were told to clear out the bandits. They wouldn't leave, so we killed them." What had she expected them to do? He knew they were no match, but that didn't change what the objective of their mission had been. "We burned the bodies after."

As if that was supposed to give her any comfort. He crosses his arms as if he can close off the bubbling anxiety this conversation brought forth. Why couldn't she understand? Why was she leaving? His gaze shifts from hers to the bag beside her and then back again. He wanted an explanation too.

"Where are you going?" He finally asks, his throat tight and voice soft where once he had been so sure of himself while explaining what he'd done.

She huffs out a breath that would be a scoff if she weren't feeling so sick. Of course he's hiding behind orders. As if that justifies everything. She ignores his question, not entirely knowing how to answer it herself, yet, to keep the focus on him. That she can't feel any guilt from him, nothing that tells her that he might be remorseful scares her. She had thought that Ben had left enough of that life behind him, but clearly it had just been hiding under the surface, waiting for them to be separate to reemerge.

"You murdered them. Did you even try to come up with a different solution? Skyhold wasn't that far, you could have escorted them there."

"We told them to leave. They didn't. What would you have told the person we were doing this for? 'Sorry, we can't promise they won't come back but they're gone for now.' I did what I had to do." His voice raises slightly, his arms dropping to his sides again and his hands balled into fists.

His emotions were a whirl of anger and longing to be understood. The deaths of the refugees were regrettable but he had completed his mission. They were dead. It was done. Having emotional weight tied to it only made the work harder to do. It was something he learned long ago. He may not have liked the Storm Trooper project but he didn't question it and he didn't fight it. It wasn't his place then and this wasn't his place now. Why was she leaving him?

"Rey. It had to be done. I don't know what else you want me to say." Please. His voice drops to a whisper again, his jaw tight and brows furrowed. He felt her frustration and it mirrored his own, more importantly he felt the fear too. She was afraid because he didn't feel guilty for what he'd done. He knew the work he had to do wouldn't always be easy or just. That was how wars were fought. That was how wars were won.

Edited 2018-10-18 01:03 (UTC)

"They weren't any match for you, they weren't killers. They were stealing to survive. The Inquisition could have helped them." She wished she wasn't in his head. She wished she couldn't see what he had seen, as clearly as if she'd been there herself. She felt as she did about the Force bond when it had first formed. It's a curse.

She swallows around the lump in her throat, shaking her head and pushing herself to her jaw tense and brows furrowed, her expression almost echoing his.

"They didn't have to die."

Edited 2018-10-18 02:13 (UTC)

He watched her rise to her feet, her determination to name his guilt making him shudder with anger that he tried his best to push down. He didn't want to yell. He didn't want to lose his temper. Just this once he wished he could control his emotions better. He couldn't hide the anger or the hurt anymore than she could.

"I can't change the fact that they died. We made a choice to get the results that they wanted." How many times did he tell himself that on the trip back? It's done. The mission is done. He couldn't take it back that they had felt threatened by four humans trying to push them out. He remembered telling them to go. He remembered the others telling them to leave. It was laughable, really, how ineffective it had been. At least the children had lived. They had seen to that.

"Please." He hesitates, wanting to go to her and touch her arm or her cheek. He wanted her to understand why he'd done what he had done. He takes a step, hand raised slightly in front of him, palm up. "I was just doing what I thought should be done. We all were. I can't-"

He hadn't thought of regretting it until the very real possibility that it would push her away was now being dangled in front of him. The thought of her taking that bag and leaving him was too much. She had left him once before. He didn't want it to happen again.

If she could step back and not fall onto the bed, she would. As it is she seems to almost physically withdraw into herself as he steps towards her, her expression drawn tight as she fights the tears threatening to break free. She knows he wants to touch her, most of her wants him to.

But then she sees those people, their eyes as they die, reflected in his mind. Then there's Han in her memory, screaming as she watched him fall.

A tear rolls down her cheek as she shakes her head, moving to pick up her bag, throwing it over her shoulder.

"Killing someone who hasn't done anything to you isn't ever what should be done. If the Inquisition asked that of you, maybe I don't belong here." She reaches for her lightsaber, her fingers hovering over it for a moment, hesitating, before she picks it up and clips it to her belt. "I know that's always going to be a part of you, but I thought it was in your past."

He can't help but flinch back as she makes up her mind, reaching for the bag. His own eyes were burning with tears that he fought back. Somehow he always circled back to this - the fear, the abandonment, the loss. He didn't know what to do.

"This is a war. Do you think the Resistance will come away with clean hands? Do you think the Jedi ever did? The Inquisition is no different. They need Orlais on their side." He knew bringing up his mother and Rey's friends would be the nail in the coffin, but the words come out without stopping. Seeing that moment on the bridge with his father from her eyes is the worst thing. That particular moment would always be a hard one for him. He regretted it, as he was now regretting what he'd done for the sake of the Inquisition. Maybe they hadn't explicitly asked to kill the elves but there had been no mistaking the intent when sending soldiers.

"No." He moves to block the doorway, standing at the threshold into the hall, a tear escaping down his cheek. She could either make him move or ask him. Either way he had no choice in this. She was choosing to leave him just as his family had done when they sent him with Luke.

Edited (i like italics too much pffft) 2018-10-18 03:46 (UTC)

She stares at him as he throws the Resistance in her face, the Jedi. She knows, though.

"Your mother would never send someone to kill people who didn't know how to defend themselves. The people you killed were the people she'd be protecting." She snaps at him, eyes burning through her tears.

When he blocks her exit she stares at him, picking up her staff and Millie, depositing the kitten in her bag, somehow still moving despite the conversation, despite the ache in her chest.

"You can't keep me here, Ben. I love you, but I can't look at you right now."

He swallows, eyes wide and darting frantically over her features. You could keep her here. You're strong. She can't leave you. His mind raced for several seconds, his stomach dropping as it sunk in that this was even happening. More tears were dropping, one after another, from his large brown eyes. He no longer held his usual fierce gaze. The look he gave her was one entirely full of fear. His thoughts dart back to the tent, when they'd been curled up together for those nights in Wycome during the tournament. Despite all the worries about phylacteries they had been happy.

"Please... don't leave." He felt like he was forcing the words out around a rock lodged in his throat. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her, to make this gnawing anxiety and fear go away. She'd always chased his nightmares away when he had trouble sleeping. All she had to do was touch him and he felt okay again.

The look on his face broke her heart, but she can't stop thinking about those people. She knows he's better than that, better than the murders of people without a thought.

Swallowing again she shakes her head minutely, stepping towards him.

"I need some space. I can't be your conscience, Ben. You need to be able to recognize when something is wrong without me telling you it is." She doesn't mind helping him find the right path to travel, but ultimately it's his own path. She needs him to stand on his own, as much as it hurts her to distance herself from him.

It was so easy for him to get right and wrong twisted up. Killing was wrong, and yet it happened every day in his world. Before he'd even met her, he'd slaughtered an entire village just looking for a map. Before he'd even met her, he'd killed countless others in Snoke's name. He didn't have that excuse of being used for her or anyone else to fall back on anymore.

When she draws closer, his hand instinctively rises to brush away the tears still clinging to her eyelashes. He hesitates to even touch her and instead drops his hand again. He teetered both physically and emotionally for a moment, wrestling with himself before taking a step back into the hall. He moved to the side, bowing his head as he does. He didn't feel tall or strong anymore. He wanted to shrink into himself and disappear.

"I don't know if I can be what you want me to be." Yet instead of the mighty Kylo Ren, the mask he had worn for so long, he felt like he was just that crying and lonely boy again. Luke should have killed him. He really would always be a monster.

She holds her breath as his hand rises, but exhales shakily when he doesn't touch her, both relieved and disappointed. Letting Padawan walk ahead of her she steps past him into the hall, not looking at him because if she does she doesn't know if she can leave.

His thoughts echo in her head, the self loathing and dissonance rising up where it had so long been held back. She holds in a sob at his words, risking a glance at him.

"You can. You are. I wouldn't love you if you weren't. But you can't keep swinging back and forth."

"I've done it my whole life. I've struggled with this my entire life before I met you." He'd struggled against it for so long, until Luke had tried to kill him. He couldn't erase what he'd done in the aftermath, when he had come to accept his destiny, and he couldn't erase what he'd done now.

Part of him still reasoned that this was a war, that he was in the right and she was leaving him for nothing. The idea of letting her go frightened him. He didn't want to be cut off again. The idea that he wouldn't even be able to feel their bond within the Force terrified him.

He's distracted for a moment by Caedus, finally following them out of the bedroom to whine and pace between the two of them. He eventually settled with pressing himself against Kylo's legs. He wasn't going to leave with her.

"You didn't tell me where you're going." He whispers, knowing it would probably be to Obi-wan's large house or perhaps she'd hide away in her office. She had places she could go, unlike him. He's been here for months and still had no place, unlike her. It made him feel envious when it had once made him proud.

She needs him to come to his conclusions on his own, for better or worse. This isn't a fight she can fight for him, though she wants to.

Padawan doesn't look exactly pleased about this situation either and stays close to Rey, letting out a soft whine of her own to join Caedus's. Rey is glad that he's staying with Ben, maybe he'll help him.

"I'll be with Obi-Wan. Just for a few days." She knows it might take longer than that, but she's trying to be hopeful. She hadn't packed up everything she owned.

He nods, trying his best to keep his eyes to his feet. This was hard enough as it is. He didn't want to watch her walk down the stairs or out the door. He doesn't want to get his hopes up when she explains that she'll only be gone a few days.

"Right. I'll be here." He can't help but wince at how lame that sounds. Of course he would be here. This was his home. It felt emptier already. He nods again, biting his lip. It was better to just get it over with, he decides.

That he won't look at her, that he's given up so quickly, breaks her heart a little more. She hates that she's the one who has made him look like this, scared and abandoned, feels sick that the reason he's hurting is wholly because of her.

Though she also wouldn't be leaving if she didn't believe this would help. She exhales, her eyes falling to the floor as she turns away from him again.

"Right." She doesn't know what else to say, so she walks away.

He looks up as she reaches the stairs. He hates himself for looking up. He hates himself for a lot of reasons right now. He could hardly blame her for coming to this. It hurt, of course, but he couldn't feel anything but self loathing. He could feel that small bit of hope in her, that he might somehow be different after this.

"Please." He finds himself begging again, this time giving in to the urge to touch her before she can move on to the front entrance. He steps over Caedus with one large boot and moves into her space. Neither of them wanted this. He finally understands a little better the look his mother had given him on the Raddus. There were certain things you couldn't bear to lose.

"Please. I don't- I can't fix this. How can I fix this?" He whispers, on the verge of tears again as he tries to lean into her, to crowd her against the wall. He didn't want to keep her here if she didn't want to be but he couldn't watch her walk out the door either.

Edited 2018-10-19 02:50 (UTC)

She lets him crowd her, pressing her back against the wall, but she turns her head to the side, not looking at him. The desperation makes her heart ache, and she shakes her head again.

"That isn't something I can tell you. Bad things happen, but how we react to them..." She needs to go away, not just for him, but for herself too. She knows there's that darkness in him, but she had gotten used to it being so quiet that she forgot about it, sitting comfortably in the gray. "That you felt nothing, when you killed those people, that worries me."

"It's just- that's how I've always known to fight." Maybe not always. Luke hadn't taught him that. Snoke did. Snuff out your weaknesses, bury them in the dark where they belonged. Only let your anger and strength show. Those were things Snoke had taught him. "If I let myself feel anything for them then I can't focus on what needs to be done. If I let myself stop -"

He sighs, not wanting to explain himself anymore. He would try to kiss her, to keep her from leaving where he knew she wanted to be, but her turned head was like a rejection. He wraps his arms around her instead, pulling her into him. Anything to keep her here.

"I can't just forget the things he taught me. I can't forget how he shaped me. It's part of who I am. I thought you understood that." And he knows it started early. Snoke had been his shadow for so long that losing the feeling of him lurking in his head was still taking time. He had gotten better about it, been able to finally sleep deeply whenever she was next to him, but it didn't erase all the years he'd spent with Snoke's claws sunken into him.

She closes her eyes as he wraps his arms around her, but she doesn't return the embrace, her hands stiff at her sides, one wrapped around her staff. Tears burn her eyes as he speaks, and she nods her head.

"I do understand that. But you let yourself be used to commit something terrible again. Why don't you see that? You should feel guilty because this never should have happened."

He loosens his hold on her, hands sliding up and down her back in an attempt to soothe. They were both still crying, but he wasn't going to ignore her tears. Even if their tears were for each other.

"Maybe so, but avoiding it wasn't the choice I made. The Inquisition benefits from having Orlais on their side. If I have to get my hands dirty just so they'll stop looking down on us, then so be it." He didn't want to understand anything about it beyond that, probably to her frustration. Even at the cost of other lives. He was willing to make sure they were kept alive first. It was the Throne Room all over again.

"I'm sorry you're upset. I am." He sighs, feeling weary as he presses his lips to her temple. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want her to leave. He just wanted them to stay together, no matter what it took.

Somehow his holding her, trying to soothe her, just makes the whole situation worse. When he apologizes that she's upset that's all that she can tolerate from him and her arms come up, pushing him away.

"That's not what you should be sorry for!" She starts for the stairs again, wiping her free hand across her eyes in frustration. "The Inquisition has Orlais's support, one group of spared elves wouldn't have shifted their allegiances and you know that. You're just making excuses. Just like you did when you killed your father." She knows it's a low blow, regrets saying it almost as soon as she does, but that doesn't make it untrue.

"Alliances can shift. Those elves were taking supplies from travelers. They shouldn't have been on the road-" He was trying to argue with her now, in earnest, as she made her get away down the stairs. The mention of his father stops him short. "You wouldn't know the first thing about the kind of parent he was. Or her. You have no parents. You've never known what it's like from the start."

He was quickly moving on from heartbroken to angry. She had no idea how much it had cost him to kill his father, how much Snoke still tormented him right until the end. Nothing he'd done was ever good enough. Not for Snoke, his parents, or Luke. She would never be able to understand that.

"You would rather run away to Obi-Wan than try to understand. You'd rather push me out, just like them, because you're afraid of me. You thought you could just push out the darkness and save me, didn't you? That's not how it works because it's a part of you too. The difference is I'm not afraid of what I am, when I have to do things that I might not like." He was seething, metaphorical hackles raised. She'd hit a sore spot, so he was hitting her sore spots right back.

She whirls around to glare at him, nostrils flared as she gears up to yell at him through her tears.

"I'm not afraid of the darkness, I'm not like Luke or your parents. I love you because of everything that makes you up, but I'm not going to sit here and watch you let yourself be like Snoke." She lets out a sob, unable to hold it back, nearly shaking from the effort of keeping more at bay. She wasn't going to turn into more of a mess in front of him.

"When you figure that out, you know where I'll be."

"I'm not like him. You're wrong." He was his own person. That almost seemed to make it worse, in a few ways. Yet it couldn't be denied his worldview was shaped by the Darkside user. He felt like his insides were being ripped out, when she lets out a sob. He genuinely wanted to stop those sounds coming from her, to make her hurt less.

"You're the one who's leaving. You're leaving me, just like them." He would be here, of course, but he couldn't deny that this hurt. He'd never felt more alone, than watching her on the verge of walking out. His anger softens and he retreats back into himself again, bowing his head to avoid having to watch it happen. It was as bad as watching his father leave without him, over and over again. He always came back, of course, but each time felt as lonely as the last. This felt a thousand times worse.

Edited (wtf autocorrect) 2018-10-19 15:12 (UTC)

That pulls her up short for a second and she just stares at him. She knows that he's not completely wrong. His parents had sent him to Luke to try and do what was best for him, what they'd thought was best for him. She's leaving now, because she hopes it's what's best for him.

"You told me to let the past die, once. Take your own advice, Ben," she replies, before turning towards the door again.

This time he watches her leave. He was railing against everything they had said to one another, trying to pick it apart and build himself up with it. She was wrong. He had done what was necessary, just as he'd been willing to sacrifice the Resistance and watch it all burn. They would have been the ones to rebuild it. They should be together in this. Why couldn't she just understand that he'd done what he thought was necessary? It didn't matter if they had been elves or humans, refugees or nobles. He would have killed them anyway. He didn't care about the distinctions.

His eyes bore into the back of her head as each step brings her closer to the door. He was a maelstrom of anger and loneliness and already he was trying to paint her as his enemy too. It was how he kept himself from being hurt. He wasn't the one who was wrong. They were. Luke, his parents, and now Rey. They couldn't do what needed to be done. They couldn't see it the way he did.

When she does eventually leave, he lets out an angry yell and slams his fist against the nearest wall, leaving cracks in the surface but not quite breaking through. She might even be able to hear some of his raging as he stomps away back up the stairs and through the house. He was a black whirlpool of it. For so long he'd pushed it to the edges but now it was all he wanted to be. That anger cocooned him, kept him safe from ever being hurt again.

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In this cold reality I made [closed]

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