epidemiology | closed.

CHARACTERS: REY and KYLO REN
DATE: during arguments
WARNINGS: references to glass wounds, blood, maybe self-harm ???
SUMMARY: A Skywalker is on their bullshit again.

[ Keith stayed for as long as it took to get Ben into the clinic in Doro's castle. They knew the way by now, but fatigued as they both were and burdened by Ben's considerable weight, it still took some time. Then they said goodnight, with the promise to talk more of this later, and parted ways. Keith, to get some rest and process all that had happened, and Rey, to keep vigil.

There was no telling that when Ben awoke, he wouldn't do the same to the doctor that he had to Keith. She warns the doctor of this, and she smiles back at Rey and tells her that it wouldn't be her first time dealing with an unruly patient. Rey's returned smile is tight. This woman has no idea what she's dealing with. All the more reason to stay while she tends to him, bandaging his hands. The doctor inquires after what happened, politely, and Rey gives the bland answer, A fight. Obviously. She means well, but it's hard to be anything but on edge when the man lying in that cot is a nuclear weapon waiting to go off.

For most of the night, she's restless, unable to sleep but for thinking herself in circles about what had happened and how she had been responsible for it. She'd gotten pulled in, ignored obvious signs of how dangerous Ben still was. Whatever light was inside of him, whatever conflict, it hadn't stopped him from nearly killing Keith.

But Keith had seen that fury and instability and seen pain in it, as Rey had. That certainly doesn't excuse her from pushing it to the point that it endangered her best friend's life, but it did complicate her feelings. As much as she wanted to hate him for what he had done, she still found concern beneath her anger and confusion. Her hands still itched with replaying that moment over and over, when he'd started punching the glass. What had shifted? When had she lost him?

She wasn't going to solve it in one night. That, she took away more than anything else. She thought she'd heard Urahara, but she'd still pushed and pushed and this is where it had brought her.

Fatigue chases her and ultimately catches up. The sun rises on Rey, propped against the wall beside the cot he lies on, dozing in and out of a half-asleep fugue state, overcome by her use of the Force, the training session Ben had interrupted, and the empty well of her emotions. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The silence is heavy and awkward, even by Kylo Ren's standards. Had he not already been moving to stand and leave, he might have just stayed on the cot and waited until she was gone. Still, they would have to move passed this if either one of them cared about--

--well, he supposed he was the only one left of them with a true incentive. He still hungered for it, though perhaps not so fiercely in this moment. Right now, he just wanted rest and some distance from all the problems staring him in the face.

He hadn't missed that she'd chosen to stay with him. Keith had smartly chosen otherwise, but she'd stayed.]

Have the Empresses made any headway on our proposals?

[He needs to fill the silence, even knowing that she'd apparently stayed through the night and would likely not have an answer for him. It was easier to return to business.]

[ Her hand stills at the door and she turns to glance back at him reluctantly. Ah. It was not that he wanted for conversation at all. Just that they were going in the same direction, and the silence was suffocating them both. Unfortunately, there was no business to speak of. She pushes the door open and leads the way out of the clinic. ]

No.

[ At least, not that she's heard on the magitek. She has to figure someone would have let her know. He had to know she was here. Was he trying to get her to admit it, so he could gloat?

Well. ]

I don't have anything to tell you.

[ If he wanted awkward conversation or to probe her wounds, he'd have to make it himself. Anything she said to him now would come out all— wrong. A shouting match or a crying fit or something equally humiliating and she was too kriffing tired for that sort of thing right now. ]

[That was implied by the "no", so Kylo Ren picks up on the fact that she means something different entirely. She wants to shut down the conversation -- and he's mostly ok with that.

Except:]

You did not have to stay.

[Given her frosty demeanor, he wonders why she stayed at all -- its what prompts his response. She didn't have to bring him either, but he decides not to say it like that.]

[ An obvious statement, which means he expects her to give him something in return for it. It's really something to watch him act entitled to her reasons now when he'd gone off the deep end not twelve hours ago because she'd dared push for his. ]

I know. [ She starts with simple affirmation, debates leaving it at that. Then she starts working up a more substantial reply just to get him to leave it alone. Her first thoughts reach towards the doctor, her safety, some scathing remark about waking up like he'd passed out and—

The trouble of course is that it's not true. Not entirely. He'd feel it. ] I told you I would. [ Not the night before, but before. On the Headquarters. And Keith, what he'd said about people giving up, it had stuck with her. She backs off of it quickly, hiding from the choked feeling in the back of her throat. ] And anyway, how was I supposed to know what you'd do to that poor woman? You were out of your mind.

Edited 2018-03-02 02:40 (UTC)

[He digests this response and doesn't find it to ring false. There's something else, but even upon brushing it, he feels his chest seize with anger and chooses not to engage with it.

I've been told a lot of things is a thought he doesn't give voice. It wouldn't serve any purpose other than starting another fight in the hallway.

Some part of him wants that, but not enough to follow through.]

I suppose.

[Was he out of his mind? He's not sure he agrees with that assessment. But that he'd given her that impression of himself, that was fair enough and hardly incorrect. He tries to find a scenario in which he would have attacked that doctor. Too many come to mind.

This is where he is supposed to thank her, but -- he hadn't really wanted her help. In fact, she'd done exactly the opposite of what he'd wanted. She stood in his way, denied him his pride, and used his knowledge against him.]

Thank you.

[But she had stayed. That's the first promise anyone has kept to him in a very long time.]

[ She finds herself more irritated to have that gratitude than to not have it. He's not the only one wrestling with a frustrating conflagration of feelings that have no reasonable outlet. She's angry with him. Furious, really, and just too tired to give it any voice or have it out again when she knows the entire process would just be … pointless.

How could he say that to her when he had just tried to destroy everything she'd tried to build for herself in a moment of spite? It just makes her think that he's under the impression that she didn't care. That what he'd done didn't matter. And it did. Worse, it stirs the hope in her chest. ]

I don't want to do this now. [ Nonverbal communication isn't working on him, so she tries the aggressive approach. ] I just want to sleep.

[Oh. Good.]

I agree.

[That way he doesn't have to confront the fact that those words just came out of his mouth, or anything else that just happened. That's a great plan.

So they're just going to keep walking in the same direction in silence. Somewhere along the journey, he spots the blood spatters that lead straight back to his room.

Awkward. He's just. Going to go back in there without looking at Rey, or talking about the glass crunching under his boot.]

[ He's gone, and the moment the sound of glass fragments crunching under his boots fades entirely is the moment the cycle starts again. I've only given myself to one person more than you. She trudges the rest of the way down the hallway, not so much further, to her room and shuts herself inside.

Her clothes are stained at the shoulder and knees with his blood, where she had scrambled after him, where she had lifted and carried him with Keith. She's grateful that they're her old clothes, from home, and not the only surviving kimono she has after the troll fight.

She strips them off stiffly, her feet still bare. She'd run out there without a thought except for Keith and Ben. Now her whole body aches and her limbs want to give out before she's even undressed all the way. Only when her head hits her pillow does another thought put an end to the angry cycle of her thoughts trying to chase out her failures, her mistakes that had nearly led to Keith's death:

Thank you. ]

closed.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject