AN: Thanks everyone for reading!
Kylo Ren returned to his quarters in search of a medic kit and a shower. The burn was superficial and had stopped hurting long ago. He used the dermal healer after undressing. The skin would slough in the shower. He was quick about cleaning up before dressing in his normal attire, including the mask.
"Open the door." Kylo said to the troopers posted outside of Rey's quarters. He squeezed the dermal healer in his gloved hand, hating himself for even thinking to bring it. The blast door went up quietly and Kylo stepped into the room. Rey was sitting on the bed meditating.
"You could have knocked." She ground out. "I could have been naked." She scoffed as she opened her eyes to find his mask back in place. She felt the thin thrill that went through his body at the mention of her nudity. Puzzled she frowned and furrowed her brow confused.
"How is your burn?" He asked ignoring what she said.
"Fine." She said continuing to sit.
"Use this on it." He said throwing the healer to her. Instincts kicked in and she caught it, hand raised long before she had time to think about it. She just stared down at the healer clearly having no knowledge of what it did. "Oh for the sake of the force." He said striding to grab it back and tilting her head to one side using the healer on her.
"Thanks." She said feeling the skin healing, and the stinging sensation stopping.
"You certainly gave General Hux a show." He dropped the healer onto the bed. "Come sit in the chair." He motioned towards the two chairs.
Rey paled. This was the part of the Knights of Ren she found the most difficult: searching another person's thoughts and feelings without their permission. She remembered him vividly rifling through her most precious memories, trying to find the one that would cause the most pain to share back during their first encounter.
"Rey, the chair." He said sitting down himself. She unfolded her legs from under her and walked the short distance to seat herself in front of her new master. Master, her mind echoed sarcastically, not in the slightest. "Guard your thoughts better, little Rey. It is if you're shouting your insolence."
It was the only warning she got before he started rifling through her thoughts, picking them up one by one and examining them, searching something but for what that night she wasn't sure. Rey's face twisted with pain, this wasn't like the other instructions. He was so angry tonight and forced his thoughts deeper into hers. Rey turned her thoughts towards things she'd already shown him, places and people he already knew about.
Good. The thought came. Show me what you think I want to see. It will not help you tonight. He mocked.
Out! Came the thought from her, clear and crisp. On any other night it might have been enough to make him stagger slowly from her mind. But tonight he was angry at his new pupil. Pushing further he was able to get past the imagery she was projecting. He saw her replay Luke leaving over and over again. Sometimes it was Jakku. Sometimes it was Ahch-To. Always the same imagery though, someone leaving her.
Is that why you are so eager to welcome death? His thought came. You think that you mattered to him? He could feel his own anger at his uncle being siphoned into Rey's mind, matching hers. You never mattered to him. You were a means to an end. To end the conflict. I am his own blood and he abandoned me, forsoke the vows he took and let his fear guide him when he slaughtered your parents.
That thought hit Rey hard. She flinched physically and decided to stop fighting, to just allow him in. She showed him what Luke had told her, that it was Snoke's troopers that had killed her parents. He recoiled as though she'd hit him, pulling back.
"No." Kylo said aloud. "I can't believe that." He said before twisting his way further into her mind, his fury screaming through every part of her thoughts. Rey whimpered and clasped her hands to her ears as if she were trying to drown out his thoughts, to shut them down. His rage had built for years and years based on the lie she just showed him to be false. It made him panic, and it made him even more dangerous.
Who are you, to tell me such a blatant lie? To fill my head full of nonsense? He raged. She folded over in pain.
Stop. Her mind whispered through the pain, through the rage she'd never even touched on, never even imagined could exist in a person. She reached out then, into his mind desperate to make the pain stop. He used that gesture to force more pain into her mind. Rey gasped as she fell to the floor, her entire body felt as if it was on fire from the inside. She gasped and writhed trying to remember her training: To pull what she needed from the force. She drew strength from the force, from finding it blindly through the pain, gathering the growing hatred of the man infiltrating her thoughts and forced it into him. STOP. She yelled as she forced more into him and more until her pain became less.
Kylo regained some of his composure as he felt her anger enter his mind and noticed how different it felt. It wasn't as raw as his was, as unchecked and he hated her a little more for that. But under all of it was his concern.
Rey continued to lay on the floor, cherishing the feeling of not burning on the inside. The cool tile against her cheek was a welcomed relief. She felt his concern then as she continued to lie there unmoving. Slowly she reached out to his mind. Fear and shame flashed as she touched his mind and he tried to block her but it was too late, she was already aware of the feeling of concern. I just want the pain to end, she thought when she finally felt why he was concerned. In all of the years of hate and self doubt he'd never once thought that death would be a welcomed way out. He never greeted it the way she had before he'd burned her and it scared him.
"Why do you feel ashamed that you're concerned that I want to die?" She asked aloud.
"I shouldn't care if anyone wants to die." He said, his voice garbled.
"You should if they are under your tutelage." She commented absentmindedly.
"And one day I may have to send you to your death. I shouldn't care if you live or die. But it hurts to know that you care so little for your own life." He stood from the chair, to where she was still lying on the cool floor. He grabbed her shoulder and turned her towards him, lifting her to her feet. She didn't want to stand, didn't want to continue the lesson. I want you to live, truly live the thought echoed through her mind as he shook her. If I can want to live after betraying those who loved me, you can continue with having Luke leave you twice now. The thought was rough and barbed with the thought of his uncle. And at least you have me, the thought came almost as a ghost.
He tried setting her on her feet again and waited for some ascorbic comment about the last thought he knew she'd felt. She'd felt how glad he was to have someone in his world, someone he could teach. He threw images up of his rampage as he engaged Luke the first time when she reached out tentatively with her mind. The imagery and the anger he pushed in her mind started the waves of pain a new.
"Please stop." She said sagging again and he caught her again. "Sharing your anger doesn't burn away the concern, it only hurts." She said putting her hands on his forearms where he still held her up. "It is just us here, stop…" She said looking up to the mask, pleading with her eyes. He shook his head slowly.
"Make me." He said pushing more. Shaking with her hands still on his forearms, holding herself apart from him she called the force again. And she let it flow through her, allowed it to curl around the thoughts in her mind, to pick out that which would help the most, the thing that would stop the pain. She looked through her own thoughts and chose one that she hoped was bright enough to stop the torrent of hate.
Closing her eyes she conjured the first memory she had of him in the forest as she run from him. Her heart was beating like a wild bird as she took shallow short breaths and felt the damp air fill them. Turning back to him in fear she remembered knowing the he was gaining on her and there was nothing she could do about it. When he stopped her with the force her entire body screamed to move, to just move, but she couldn't. And for the first time she felt something stir, something she didn't yet understand. A connection she wouldn't understand until she fell into his dreams. The Force was calling to her then.
The world blacked out as he'd knocked her unconscious and when she came around she was bound. She struggled against the restraints before realizing he was there, watching her, waiting like a predator.
The pain subsided slightly as Kylo lost interest in hurting her, captivated by how she saw him. Her thoughts continued in a much more jumbled mess after, realizing that he didn't just see what she saw but that he felt the emotions that accompanied the images: the first time she looked on his alien features and wondered how he'd come to hide behind the mask, stepping into the light in his dream, him invading her dreams in return. And lastly the feeling of satisfaction when he'd found her standing on the cliff of the island waiting for him. And at least I have you...her thought came out pure and without malice, with a trust he'd never thought she would be capable of when it came to him.
Kylo Ren stood taller, shaking his head against the thoughts that cascaded through him with her images and thoughts and feelings. It was the first time someone had thought of him in a way that wasn't murderous in a very long time. He closed his eyes against the thoughts that came racing into his mind, thoughts of hope and light and compassion. It was the light, he knew it and in that moment he didn't care. He opened his mind then to her.
It was his mistake.
Rey felt the shift in him, felt that he was reaching for any pleasant feeling in that moment and she smiled cruelly to herself and opened her eyes then reaching quickly in his mind, forcing the simmering hate she'd felt just moments before towards him as he burned pain through her entire body. She turned his thoughts inward on himself then and turned every happy thing he was thinking of into pain. Kylo gasped and released his student taking a step back, realizing his mistake. Rey stood feeling as though she was numb, as though there was nothing left of her in that moment and yet she pressed on.
Balling his hands at his side Kylo pushed back, knowing that she had the upper hand. He blocked enough of the pain out to not feel like his insides were on fire but not enough to completely force her out. They stayed that way, each trying to push the other one further to no avail.
Rey fell to her knees first and he followed her shortly after. The agony continued for both, each pushing as far as they could without allowing the other more trespass into their thoughts and feelings.
After what seemed like hours they passed out from exhaustion, their bodies and minds not able to withstand the torrent of thoughts any longer.