Disclaimer: Not mine, in any way, shape, or form. Not making money from this.
Author's note at the end.
…:::...
Toska
Chapter 7
…:::...
Rey walked slowly around the curve of the corridor that led to the med bay. The crashes and thumps had been going on for a few minutes now, and she worried what level of destruction she was going to find when she got there.
She was two steps from rounding the doorway into the room when a metal object sailed out past her head and crashed into the opposite wall. Various objects littered the hallway. Rey shoved the rest of what she'd been eating into her mouth and unclipped the lightsaber she'd grabbed when the sounds first started. She held the hilt in her hand but didn't ignite it, slowly peering around the corner with a glare.
Kylo sat on the floor against the wall, one elbow propped up on his bent knee, the other leg stretched, unconcerned, into the room. He tilted his head as he noted his captor's arrival.
"Did these things insult you in some way?" Rey asked around her mouthful of food. She swallowed as she gestured at the pile of items in the corridor with her unlit lightsaber.
"Ah. So we're not out of food," Kylo said pointedly. "Good to know."
Rey closed her eyes, guilt keeping her from complaining about his method of getting her attention and the mess he'd made. Without acknowledging his sarcasm, she disappeared down the hall again. When she reappeared, she was carrying a large, unopened box full of pre-packaged meals which she set on the exam table. Turning to face Kylo, she produced a large fruit from one of her pockets and held it out toward him.
"If you like these," she qualified, her cold tone somewhat blunting the purity of the gesture.
Kylo stared at the offer. Chewbacca must have been the last one to pack the Falcon's food stores. Those used to be his favorite; Kylo assumed they still were. He gave a small nod and went to stand in order to take it from her, but instead Rey closed the difference between them and stopped, her smaller frame towering above him.
She wondered if he could tell the move was calculated.
Kylo tilted his head to look up at Rey. Without breaking eye contact he reached up and took the fruit from her. A second fruit was pulled from another pocket in her tunic, and she turned to sit down against the wall next to Kylo, propping both of her knees up in front of her while she inspected her snack.
"Don't get used to these," she cautioned. "Most of them have already gone bad. These are the last two I thought were edible."
Kylo nodded, taking a bite of his. The pair chewed in silence for a moment, somewhere between suspicion and acceptance.
"So you've finally decided it's safe to be on this side of the room?" Kylo asked.
"No-one's ever safe, not really," Rey disagreed, pulling a seed from her mouth. She frowned at it, realizing she had nowhere to put it in her current position.
Before she could move, Kylo raised a hand and one of the empty metal jars he'd tossed into the hall earlier sped back into the room into his waiting grip. He set the container down between them, leaning over to spit a seed in himself before glancing up to see that Rey was still looking out into the corridor at the other objects.
"Anytime…" Kylo reminded her.
Rey shook her head, declining his offer of instruction once more.
Kylo shrugged. "And before the castigation starts, nothing out there was breakable."
Several minutes later, after the last bites were consumed, Kylo wiped his hands on the fabric covering his thighs and turned to look at Rey. She'd left twelve inches of space between them when she sat down earlier, and as she swallowed the last of her food she twisted slightly to find the metal jar between them to toss the center pit into. Frowning, she inspected her hands, which were both covered in the rusty orange juice from the fruit. Without any hesitation, she stuck her thumb into her mouth for a moment before pulling it out clean. She repeated the action methodically with her index finger, middle finger, and ring finger.
As she inclined her head to finish with the fifth, Rey felt a strong grip on her other wrist that lifted her hand into the air. Kylo's chains hit the side of the metal jar with a sharp clang as her thumb was enveloped in warmth. Kylo's lips wrapped around the base and he ran his tongue along the length of it, encased in his mouth.
Rey watched as he pulled her hand away from his lips. There was a slight pause before her index finger disappeared into his mouth in the same way. When he rotated her hand and angled toward her third finger, she tensed her arm, attempting to pull it back toward herself.
Since Kylo's strength won, this only served to turn her body toward him, and he took quick advantage of her proximity. His other hand hooked under one of her bent knees, and he dragged her swiftly into his lap, her legs straddling his hips. As soon as she was there, his hands lifted off of her and he leaned back against the wall behind him to stare at her pointedly.
He wasn't holding her there. She could leave.
Rey considered her options wildly. He'd had multiple opportunities to hurt her- -kill her- -since they came onboard, and he hadn't. He had confessed he couldn't fly the ship alone; he needed her.
Of course, he could be lying about all of it.
"Why are you doing this?" Rey asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You're not the only person in the system who's been somewhat starved for physical contact in their life." Rey continued to study Kylo's face carefully as he continued his clarification slowly, "I wouldn't exactly classify this as 'torture'."
"And I just happen to be onboard and… accessible?" Rey said, her eyes narrowed.
"You're powerful." Kylo grabbed at her hips, pulling them forward to seat her more firmly in his lap. "I respond to that." He ran his palms from her hips up onto her back, pulling her toward him as he angled his face up toward hers.
Rey laced her fingers through the long hair at the back of Kylo's head and tightened her hands into fists, arching his neck and pulling his head back away from her. Her action didn't seem to bother him, and he puffed out a breath before straining his neck forward again, trying to reach her.
Rey held firm. "I'm not going to kiss you," she vowed, even as she deliberately shifted her hips, and Kylo tensed under her, his fingers pressing into her back.
"Why not?" he asked, his breath ragged.
Rey wished she could control the frantic beating of her heart and the pace of her own breathing. "Because I don't trust you."
Kylo's expression darkened. "At any point in the last few minutes I could have wrapped one of these chains around your neck and-"
"Is the fact that you only considered doing that supposed to win you points?" Rey interrupted sharply.
"You can't tell me you haven't had a contingency plan for every moment you've been in this room today," Kylo countered, dropping his right hand to wind up a length of his chain around it. "Right now, if I did anything at all that you thought-"
Rey dropped her hands to Kylo's chest for leverage as she pushed back from him, her knee coming up sharply into his injured flank. Kylo gave a rough grunt and rolled his head to the side as if he could hide his reaction from her if he looked in a different direction. Rey scrambled off of his lap as he hissed a breath out slowly through gritted teeth, his palms braced flat on the ground at his sides.
After a long moment, Rey leaned forward again slowly, reaching for the edge of Kylo's tunic. "When was the last time you changed this?" she asked quietly, unwilling to formally apologize.
Kylo looked back in her direction in time to catch her wrist before she could try to address his wound. "It's fine," he said, his voice a low, aggressive rumble.
"Is it healing?" Rey pressed.
"As fast as it's going to, yes," Kylo said tightly. "It doesn't happen overnight."
Rey stared evenly at Kylo until he released her hand, and she stood, backing up several paces toward the door. "You know you're really lucky," she pointed out. "If Chewie had been a better shot, you'd be dead."
Kylo shook his head. "This was intentional," he said. Rey paused in the doorway, and he continued, "When I was a kid, he'd pick me up… for fun; to get a closer look at an X-Wing engine; so I could reach a higher tree branch. My parents worried that he wasn't careful enough with me, but he promised my father that he wouldn't drop me." Kylo glanced down at his left side. "I know this was a tough shot from so far away, but his aim was always perfect. If he'd actually wanted to..." Kylo looked up at Rey. "This was him still keeping his promise. Not to drop me."
Rey stood, unmoving, until Kylo took a deep breath and broke eye contact. "Thank you for the fruit," he murmured with finality, as if his statement was a dismissal of some sort.
Rey nodded, and left.
…:::...
TBC.
A/N: Seriously, this angst may be getting out of hand. I mean… This is "whump" territory I've wandered into, I think. Thank you again to everyone who has taken the time to read and review, and last but not least, I have to give credit for the "don't drop him" story to an amazing, feels-inducing tumblr post I used as inspiration (read: somewhat blatantly stole the idea from). queerly-it-is. tumblr post / 136631561443 / chewie-with-a-little-sling-attached-to-his
