Ben Solo often needed to be alone.
Despite the busy freighter and the crew with a family mentality, he always managed to find a quiet place to reflect. Just like now. In a small, dingy room with little more than a camp bed as a highlight. But it was warm, away from everyone and he could hear himself think. The only distraction was background noise; the occasional clang of heating elements and the constant drone of the engines, either roaring or cooling.
Limp on the camp bed, Ben centred himself - just like Luke had taught him, what felt like a lifetime ago. He'd been a whole different person since then; been places, done things…. A lot of them he wished he hadn't.
Eyes closed and breathing steady, he reached out. Not physically, not extending his arm and touching nothing, but flexing his senses like intangible fingers, reaching into the unknown. Deepening his consciousness and his inhales, he found himself on that level of oblivion that was common ground of both sides of the Force; frequented by both the Jedi and the Sith. Not that Ben had ever been either exclusively but a product of both.
This…. This place….It belonged to both, influenced by both and it was that that made it a dangerous place or a safe one. Like every other aspect of the Force, these two sides twisted and churned in tandem; feeding off each other and aiding each other while mutual destruction seemed inevitable but never came. Because of that…. Ben could never be sure what he would encounter here but he felt compelled to come here nonetheless; for penance or comfort.
Tehar…. Ben flinched, his head jerking in a spasm. Nothing but screaming in his ears and naught before his eyes. Blaster fire. Stormtrooper radios cackling. The clatter of pristinely white armour.
He writhed on the bed but the grating of the fabric on his face had been replaced by cold, restrictive metal and the ancient springs creaking with a respirator. The sweat beading on his brow and upper lip was not from self-inflicted anxiety or stress but sheer, merciless heat.
Jakku…. That sand-clogged shithole…. Again, only blackness but it seemed his sight was the only sense ripped from him. The smell of smoke, ash, cooking food engulfed his nose though it may well have been imagination back then. After all, he couldn't smell very well in that helmet, not that it had mattered all that much then. He could feel his cowl being tugged by the prickling night breeze as heavy boots cut through the resistance of the sand. He could hear the panicked bleatings of villagers rounded up like cattle and the humming crackle of a lightsaber that was unstable as he was. Hell, he could even taste the stray grit on his tongue; how it got there, he couldn't be sure even to this day.
Takodana…. Revisiting old friends, just to destroy them… If the other two didn't make Ben pant and cry out, this one would. He had sensed them there….. Han and Chewie, his father and uncle. Not to mention the others; countless, nameless, faceless beings forgotten over the years and remembered in an instant when he sent squadrons to cut them down. People he had known as a child, however briefly, be them friendly to him, Han and Chewie or not. He laid waste to that castle; the one that had stood proud and served a representative from all corners of the galaxy for over a thousand years. And Maz…. Don't get him started on Maz.
Ben eventually surfaced from the trance-slash-nightmare. Sweat soaked, oxygen starved, and limbs shaken numb, his surroundings began to register.
It was all gone. He was in his little cranny, safe and sound, to recover at his leisure and hope the experience next time would not be quite as draining.
I'm starving….. He thought and checked the chronometer on his com device. It wasn't dinner time yet, they wouldn't have eaten without him and if they were looking for him, Shan would have broken down every door until he found him. Do I have time for a shower? Probably…. But he didn't move. Not yet. Simply twisted onto his stomach and propped himself on his elbow, chin cupped in the palm of his hand, Ben opted to recover slowly from that almost vomit-inducing reminder of the things he'd done but could never take back. Hundreds. Thousands. Millions of people whose lives he had turned upside down (or taken altogether), who he could never look in the eye and say: I'm sorry.
The lightsaber was gone now. Mort took it, under Ben's instruction and, under no circumstances, was he to give it back.
Come to think of it, what had he even done with the saber? Sold it? Maybe. Though, Mort wasn't very good with credits; Ben would have noticed a ridiculous purchase and a less than satisfactory answer for where the money had come from.
Hidden it? On the freighter? Off it? He doubted he'd hidden it on board. If Shan found it and hurt himself, Nalesse (Mort's half-sister and Shan's mother) would debilitate Mort in her fury without even turning the weapon on, Ben didn't doubt that much.
Had he destroyed it? Maybe that wasn't such a stretch. He could see Mort taking great pleasure in destroying the symbol of what had brought Ben so much pain. But his partner was also sentimental; romantic. There was no way he would resist taking a few pieces and reconstructing them into something else, however tacky.
One steel toe-cap boot found the floor, then the other and Ben swivelled onto his bottom. It was a severe relief for his sodden head to meet the colder durasteel panel; to tilt against it and let it cool his neck and the top of his spine.
I could sleep now…. His conscious told itself and though it was tempting, even just a quick nap, Ben had set out his priorities.
Food.
Shower.
Not necessarily in that order.
The dark-haired male curled his lips inwards and narrowed his eyes in contemplation as another alluring thought occurred. Yes, that was as good as the others and just as appealing.
I wouldn't say no to a fuck either.
