Backdated Adventures

[photophobic]

For various prompts belonging to different points on this Fractured World prequel timeline! If you'd like one, hit me up on plurk starktech or on Discord - cryloren#2195. Warnings in subject headers where appropriate. Kylo is generally unsafe for work.

Comments

[photophobic]

Kylo watches her approach without taking a single step forward or back, unapologetically solid as a fixture. Something within her has changed, since the last time they met. He can see it— feel it, too. She had wanted him to chase her, somehow. Had she changed her mind about his offer?

"I've been busy," he points out lightly, letting their surroundings fill in the context. "And I've never been difficult to find."

[reydacted]

Her eyes narrow, scrutinizing him. Yes, it had been years several years since she had stepped through the porter, but he is not quite as she remembered him.

She's sharpened her barbs in that time, "No. The rumors of a Champion make it all the way to the White Tower. I just didn't think you would be content to serve another master."

[photophobic]

Kylo's eyebrows raise slightly. True, his personal chambers are hardly palatial, but he's provided with more than he needs and given anything he asks for.

"Everything you see here exists to serve me," he says. "You were in the stands. You felt it. This is my Arena."

[reydacted]

She shakes her head. He is a tool. A means to an end for executing the will of another. What then will happen when another more powerful champion steps through the porter? She doesn't why he would choose this illusion of freedom when it exists in reality in her grasp.

"Ben, you don't have to hide here," it's not as if Snoke is here to dig his claws into his mind, and even if he was, he is no match for the pair of them. Unless...

"You haven't seen it yet," she's quiet again as it clicks into place. It explains it really, why he might be content to don a different identity as a Champion for a warlord he could easily best. "And you don't know what we are."

[photophobic]

His eyes narrow. To be using that name, he rather suspects she is the one blind to what they are.

"I know exactly what I am," he assures her, a hiss of venom sliding into his voice. "As they all do. Every one of them. I am hiding nothing. Denying nothing."

The implication is deliberate. Kylo hasn't forgotten the fury of her attack in the forest, as much as she appears to have.

[reydacted]

"Kylo," she finally yields, saying the name carefully. It's rusty on her tongue. Foolishly she still thought of him as Ben. Over the years it, the jagged edges of his impossible offer wore down in favor of remembering the warmth of his hand pressed to hers and the soft whisper of her voice telling her she wasn't alone.

"I can help you," her offer is as genuine as it was in the turbo lift. "You don't need a master, you can just be--"

[photophobic]

"Help."

His dark eyes search hers, the echo of that offer hanging starkly in the space where a response should be. In the stretching agony of his silence the entire concept takes on an absurdity impossible to describe.

Rey isn't the first to offer help. She isn't even the first to hold out the desire to help he can feel humming through every atom of her being, certain as gravity.

"Is that what I need?"

[reydacted]

His question gives her pause, but that's nothing new. They challenge each other, no matter how ridiculous she finds the question. Perhaps he doesn't even know he needs it, if he just knew what they had done.

Her answer comes to her quickly then. She rolls it around in her mouth, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin. There's an urge there too. To touch him. To hold out her hand as if the gesture wasn't laced with pain throughout their history.

Stepping closer, she lays her palm on his chest, looking up at him. She's not afraid.

"You let me help you once."

[photophobic]

A ragged breath shivers under her hand— he's too startled by her sudden proximity to scoff at the suggestion. Somehow, as he looks down at that unexpected point of contact, the framing shifts.

Let me help you.

That's what she's saying. That's what she needs, from him.

His recovery takes a heartbeat longer than he would have preferred, but the shock of being touched— of being something she wants to touch— clears. His gaze drags back up from her hand to her face.

"No. I didn't."

[reydacted]

This is the longest she's ever touched him, and she half expects Luke to burst through the door. She's so close, she can feel his warmth. She's grown bolder in her time here, taking not just what she needs but increasingly what she wants to.

But his statement feels like a rejection and stings, reminding her of how he offered her a position only in his life. The rush of hope she felt when she stood with him evaporated like water poured across hot stones. Her hand lifts as if she's been burned but she doesn't step away.

Her brows pinch together, shaking her head. She controls her own narrative now. If he knew the moments that she did. She could share it with him, omitting the pain that followed...

"I came to you," her voice is low but firm. "You killed Snoke." She wonders how smoothly she can slip into his mind. There power is different here, but she feels it regardless. Almost as a test she pushes an addendum. For me. For us.

Perhaps arrogantly, she thinks her want, a melding of what she felt in the throne room and the renewed force of it now, can mask the hurt that's branded itself on her heart. It's almost as if she's forgotten the door of their connection swings both ways.