The stars are everywhere.
He sprawls on his master's throne, the glass pressed to his temple, and fills himself with it.
They've been holding for days in dark space, far away from any planetary systems which is unusual enough. These ships are weapons and if they are not pointed at something or someone they are not serving their purpose. Hiding in the deep emptiness is not something the First Order does, as a rule.
Still, there are always necessary calibrations, both mechanical and political and in this case cautionary. For the moment Hux is in command of where and how they are realigning and he has no agenda other than spite to cause a shift in their plans. Better they are here than anywhere else. Soon enough he needs to be a few hundred parsecs from here but that is then and this is now.
Three days ago he released the remaining Knights to their tasks. Three nights and he needs to drown this however he can.
There is no red here anymore, only black. Black unto infinity everywhere he looks with the pinpricks of lights in their tens of millions to carpet it like diamonds. The viewport windows arcing high overhead give the near complete illusion that he's sitting under a night sky. He has the nearly empty bottle of whiskey after all, the fracture of his heart and the solitude to make it real. It's only missing the cool breeze and the ability to stand up to trip over a clump of grass down a cliff by mistake.
He closes his outward eyes to open the inner ones.
So much life. He can't hold it all, even if he wanted to. So much death. Unravelling and combining, falling apart and coming together again over and over and over again, relentlessly. He reaches further and further, inhaling as much as he can to burn through muscle, through bone. All precious. All irrelevant.
Kylo tilts his head back against the throne and lets it wash through him, saturation and goad. Both of his masters were skilled, their knowledge chasms deep in their respective arts. Both wanted desperately to have him be something, do something for them and yet here he is; neither jedi nor sith, neither apprentice nor master, caught still it seems between the things he wants and the things he can't be permitted to have.
It feels like his veins are incandescent. He can feel the ship around him as if it was alive, because it is. He could tear it apart from here, and he wants to so badly. Hux would probably not approve.
The potential of his bloodline indeed. Everytime he looks, he sees more. And every time he looks, he hates what he learns.
He opens his eyes just in time to feel the shunt as the gears grind, lock and everything shudders to a stop.
"You really need to not be here," he says after a moment.
"As if we ever have a choice," she replies. It's only a little bitter - she'd like it to be his fault, he's sure. She keeps her head down as she twists her hair, working with jerky motions. There's light wherever she is, gracing her skin into flickers of gold, touching pale fingers to the column of her neck. A tremble of unwilling sunshine in the center of his stars and he'd laugh if there was anything amusing about it.
He watches because there's no reason he shouldn't. What he wants and can't be permitted to have. At least she's still alive.
She's stubborn today. She pulls on her boots, tiny clicks against the floor as she settles into them. Snags a dark cloth belt from nowhere to wind around herself, tucking the loose fabric tight against her waist, knotting it there to fall away against her leg. She turns, cutting him off to shrug into a hooded cloak, working clever fingers at one shoulder clasp then the other to seat it right. Lightweight, meant for showers, not storms. And it's only when she's clothed, armored, ready to face whatever is happening to her world that she finally consents to look at him.
She freezes. Her fine eyebrows knit together as she stares which is very strange. She's shot at him, yelled at him, ignored him, stomped away from him more than once, even cried at him but she's never just stood there with that arrested expression before. He's not sure what it is but it's at least different. He tilts his head.
She blows out a breath. "Ren?" she asks.
"Yes."
"What's wrong?"
That's worth a smile so he gives her one. "Touch me and find out."
She doesn't smile back and she doesn't step any closer. "Where are you?" she asks after a moment.
"One of Snoke's throne rooms. My throne room now, I suppose." He watches the unseen light catch in her eyes, curious if she'll step into shadow at some point. She has to be inside but whatever window she's near must be large. Planetside for sure. Temperate enough to have windows facing out, for the clothing she's wearing. Not that that narrows down the options. "I had all the curtains torn down. I think you'd like it."
"You're drinking."
"Yes."
"What are you doing, Ren?"
"Taking a calculated risk," he replies. "You?"
"Getting ready to go out and… do things."
"Ah, yes. Things. Important Resistance things, I'm sure."
Her nostrils flare. "I do what I can."
He shrugs, fervently hoping the link will cut out. There's still liquid in his glass and it sloshes at the tiny motion, so he sits up and inhales the last of that as well. The burn is muted now but still warm enough for all that and he appreciates it, for doing what little it can. He carefully puts it down on the arm. Translucent, it nearly disappears into the black.
He wonders how he looks to her. He's discarded his outer armor but he's always in black; boots, pants, tunic, clasp open at the shoulder and gaping down because having anything tight across his throat right now would be… not ideal. A pit of shadow, in the center of her sun? Can she see the stars?
Of course she can't. He's swallowed them.
"Are you drunk?"
"No. Or at least, not as much as I would like to be." His lips twist for that. "I told you, a calculated risk. There isn't much that can blunt me for long without risking worse side effects."
"Side effects? No." She changes her mind mid-thought, he can see her wondering which question she actually wants answered. "How is getting drunk a calculated risk? It's not like it's hard. Seems like half of everybody here manages it without even really trying. Particularly the pilots." There's some personal exasperation there. He files it away for later consideration.
"The Resistance pilots aren't force sensitive. Well," he ameliorates, "that's not precisely true. Your Best Pilot is bright enough to shine. Don't tell him I said so though, he's already too sure of himself. At least when he's not screaming out his secrets."
Her expression turns thunderous. It takes him a moment to understand that what he's feeling is akin to regret. He's almost sorry for reminding her of her friend's pain. He flicks his fingers in a negating motion and settles back, lifting one leg to cross his ankle on the opposite knee. "I apologize. I didn't mean to say that. Along with everything else alcohol does for me, it still lowers filters."
"Everytime I think…" She clenches a hand at her side. "I hate you, you know. You're a vile, horrible man, Ben Solo."
The fire he's hoarding in his blood flares and his voices reaches out harder than he intended it to, rolling like undertow across the floor. "Stop it. No. Ben Solo is gone." Something nearby chimes, shivering unhappily. "Stop trying to pretend that confused boy is somewhere inside of me still."
She jerks her chin up defensively. "You can't hide from yourself, Ben. You can't hide from who you are and what you've done. Drinking and brooding… and feeling sorry for yourself." She makes an impatient gesture at him. Her feet have moved to a defensive stance in the last few moments at least and somewhere he approves. She should never let her guard down with him.
He snaps his teeth. "Does it look like I'm hiding? Is that what you think this is? You keep saying that name like the person you think it belongs to will come back if you say it often enough. You never knew Ben. You weren't there. What do you know about any of it?"
"More than you think! I know you took my friend and dragged his mind through a sieve. His nightmares have your voice in them. And you tried to do it to me too, but you couldn't because I'm stronger! And I know that Ben Solo is afraid he can't measure up, because I saw it in you, Kylo Ren."
"Are you stronger then?" he inquires. "Have we decided that? Still, that's better. I am not confused about who I am. But you are."
"You are divided. I saw it."
"And you are nothing at all! You came from nowhere, you are going nowhere. Who's left to teach you what is possible but me?" He growls with anger and frustration. "But ah, no. Not me, never me. Anything but me. Because you know so much, when you don't even know my name."
She jerks her head and there, there are the start of tears. Why does she cry so often at him? He's not wrong. "Don't I? Don't I know you? You're just going to sit there and tell me there's only Kylo Ren when I still see Ben in you? Just a monster in black, no light, no compassion, who takes what he likes and hurts who he likes and kills who he likes?"
"Sometimes," he agrees softly. "And sometimes I hurt and kill for you."
She flinches at that as he meant her to. "Don't you put that on me. Don't you ever put that on me."
"Would you rather be dead instead? You'll care for some truths but not the rest?" He glares down his nose at her. Damn the sun she's standing under, that lights her hair and sparks honey in her eyes. "Always wanting the answers as long as you can agree with them. Just like Skywalker."
"Luke was a good man!" And yet as soon as she says it he can see the collapse, the breath she sucks in.
He laughs and it hurts and it seems like that is all he is ever going to be able to have. "Your precious Skywalker tried to put a blade through my heart. For the crime of daring to have doubts that what he was doing was right."
"He regretted it. He regretted it, I know he did. He showed me!"
"And he still did it. Stood over me while I slept, while I trusted, and he wanted me dead because he could think of nothing else that would help." He flexes his hands helplessly in front of him, wishing he had his gloves at least. "Would you like to know how that feels?" he seethes.
"Ben…"
"No. No. Ben is dead, stop pretending! I have made too many choices to ever be him. Over and over again I made and continue to make those choices, and you are lying to both of us by clinging to it. Let it go."
She stands in sunlight, warm and bright and hating him and hoping for things that will never happen and in this moment if he could smash it all down, plunge it all into darkness, he would and he would howl in the doing of it. He stands because he has to do something with his body, wrenching himself to his full height, his hands in fists because if he reaches out he will grab and pull and rend. He hasn't drunk enough for this too, not on top of the rest. He still feels.
"My entire life, I have never… my mother gave up, my father left us both, but both of them wanted me fixed. My uncle wanted me different. Snoke wanted me broken. I have been in control of nothing my entire life and you are not going to stand there and tell me you want me to be somebody else! That you are disappointed!"
The universe twists simply because he wills it so. Glass shatters along with the bottle at his feet and the starfield wavers because of the pressure he's exerting in reflex and there is pain in his hand, in his mind, in his heart. Something just out of sight cries with strain, metal crumpling. He fills his lungs and closes his eyes because if he has to keep looking at her face, he is going to do something truly terrible. Tells himself again that Hux will not be happy if he breaks the ship.
Blood starts to drip from his fingers. He listens and breathes and watches light and darkness eat each other alive. All precious. All irrelevant.
"You do not understand," he whispers, shuddering, trying to shed the worst of it off like rain. "You are as alone as I am and you do not understand what I have done or why I've done it."
She growls, the sound tiny. "So help me understand."
That's worth a smile so he gives her one, wondering what it looks like on his face. "Touch me. And I'll show you."
He says the words but it's a shock when he hears her moving, a whisper of fabric and he opens his startled eyes just in time to see her reach out. He doesn't even have time to flinch away before her fingers are locked against his throat, splaying in heated lines under his ear.
They both stiffen in shock. He feels her surprise, her fury that is already crumbling under the onslaught but it's too late, his blood glitters with starlight and power and she smells of sunshine and dust. He can't help it, grabs her by the back of the neck to pull her forehead to his. Her breath on his face, even as his is on hers. Skin to skin everything surges, spilling from him into her.
Her touch is the only stability. His blood trickles, smears against her. He presses his lips to her ear in a fever.
"Snoke," he says desperately, trying not to unravel because he did not expect her to do it, "wanted me broken for a reason. Over and over again, to keep me in place, to keep me on my knees. My master just as Skywalker was and he was strong in the Dark because he studied it, immersed himself in it for years beyond counting. Courted it like a lover, gave it every sacrifice it asked for and more. And not once did he touch what I can do."
"Stars. I feel. Everything," she breathes. "All of it. Everywhere."
"When I reach, this is what I see. This is what is."
"What have you done?" Her thoughts are starting to tangle with his, even as her body sways into his or his into hers.
He moves his lips helplessly over her temple, the corner of her eye. "What I had to. Control. I will have control of this. Someone who was there is dead. Someone who knew Ben. Knew me, as I was then. Chose me, as I was then. Followed me from the light into the dark because they believed. In me."
His hand strokes hard down her side because he can do nothing else, even as her other hand slides helplessly into the gapped collar of his shirt, dragging heat and callus along his collarbone. So good. So right.
"Tell me."
"Chose me, Rey. Dead because they tried to betray me and I put my saber through them. And I am drinking because if I don't smother this pain, I will crack this dreadnought apart by its seams because I didn't want to do it and I am angry that it was necessary. And because I am drinking, I am remembering Han Solo and that the Dark wants sacrifices that mean something. And because I am drinking my walls are down and I can see what Skywalker saw in me and what Snoke wanted as he tore me apart and whatever he thought he knew, he wasn't even close to it. This was a very calculated risk," he breathes, "and you were not supposed to be here to give me a target for it."
"Ben."
"My name, Rey," he hisses out between his teeth, nuzzling behind her ear, dragging his chin over the soft skin. "You are nothing and no one. No one ever wanted anything from you, because no one thought you capable of anything. You could go back to your desert tomorrow, disappear into the sands and no one would look for you or could find you if they did. Do what I couldn't. Run."
Her hand locks into his hair and he shudders. Run his cheek over hers obsessively, curls an arm hard around her waist to haul her in. Her breath skitters over his collarbone, his throat, her fingers curling to scratch hard down his chest through the cloth and he wants her teeth, her mouth, the air she struggles for. If he kisses her, if they kiss… he distracts himself with the feel of her, hands grasping over and over. Hip, waist, the splay of her ribs under his spreading fingers. He expands out and pulls yet more in and starts to bleed it into her, everywhere they touch, faster and faster. The alcohol in his gut isn't enough to hold this back.
"My grandfather was a Skywalker. As my mother is. And my father broke the record on the Kessel Run by threading a needle between two hungry singularities because the universe loved him just that much." He closes his mouth over the hinge of her jaw because he can't help it anymore and cannot tell whether the groan is his or hers. "I was born to this. For this. The Light told me I was supposed to care for nothing and I feel everything."
She cries out and shoves him back and he lets her.
And there is still light on her hair but her eyes are wide and angry as he is angry and her mouth is nearly snarling.
"What's my name?" he growls.
"Kylo Ren," she shudders back.
"They chose me and they died. You didn't even do that much. And if it's necessary to kill you too, I will."
"I know. I feel it. You don't feel sorry for yourself at all, do you?"
He swallows and of course she is gone.
He shudders and his eyes are black. He reaches out and the floor buckles, heaving up.
He stops short of breaching the windows at least.