Starkiller Science: Chapter 11: Distraction

Summary: Kylo really hates Captain Stratoveer; you really hate how disappointed you are in yourself. What you both need is a distraction.


Nobody had warned you that mourning could be a full time job in and of itself. Even though you were back to the grind of research—collecting data, interviewing Storm Troopers, watching them train—it still was only accounting for half of your mental state. The other half was used to beat yourself up over and over again about watching SC-4341 slip through your fingers. This torment had gone on for a week, and you had tried your best to distract yourself from the thoughts. You worked harder and for longer hours. You forced yourself to go to dinner with the upper echelons of the First Order. And you began to spend more time following around Kylo Ren.

Okay, so actually, you weren't following Kylo Ren all that much. It was more that you both just seemed to be in the same places at the same times far more often, and you weren't completely sure as to why. Hell, maybe it was actually Kylo following you. After all, he now was showing up near daily at the dinner table in the cafeteria. But you didn't want to think that you were the full reason. Maybe he had realised how interesting it could be to listen to Phasma and Amena have indepth conversation, or maybe he had realised that seeing Hux and Talia in the same vicinity was excellent fodder for later making fun of Hux. You didn't really know. You just knew that he was there.

And you knew that, in an unfamiliar way, you actually enjoyed his presence.

Granted, he wasn't always a joy to be around. Kylo was the king of tantrums, which you would often hear about after the fact—usually after having seen a gaggle of Storm Troopers scurry away from whatever room or thing was being destroyed. And he was moody, reckless. Sometimes he would show up at your apartment just to rant. He said that he was there to distract you, to make sure that you were eating and taking care of yourself. But he seemed to need you as much as you needed him in that time of mourning. Somehow, the whole relationship had become rather symbiotic.

So when you heard a metallic thudding against your door during the evening that sent Pickles once again running under your bed, you weren't all that surprised to find Kylo Ren on the other side. His helmeted head was slowly hitting against the door, as though he was too miserable to even knock.

He seemed a mess, but the entirety of his life was a mess, from what you could gather. So it was par for the course.

As he stood in your doorway, you immediately noticed that his clothes smelled of burning metal.

"What did you do?"

He didn't answer for a short while and refused to look at you. Was he embarrassed? Hopefully. "Room 842 is no longer in service."

"Are you serious?"

Kylo unlocked the bottom mechanisms of his helmet and tossed it aside with a metallic thud to your floor, no doubt leaving a dent. He took a few steps into your apartment, stopping at the kitchen and looking ready to tear something in two. His lightsaber was still in one hand, hot and threatening. That happened to be the last thing you wanted in your home when he was angry.

"Ren, what the hell?" you groaned.

"Not you, too," he mumbled whilst hooking his lightsaber to his belt.

"What?"

"'Ren' is the first word out of everyone's mouths after they have decided to despise me." His hands were at his hair, tugging in his annoyed anger.

"I don't despise you. You already know that." Why did he have to be so ridiculous? You reached up to grab his hands and pull them down to his sides, making him keep still. "Stop that."

Kylo growled. "I want to kill him." He pulled his hands from your grip so that he could rub at his forehead. "And I could. You know I could. I could kill him."

"You're not killing anyone. At least not tonight."

You pointed Kylo in the direction of your couch, just a little past the kitchenette and facing opposite of your bed. One of the perks of a studio apartment was that you could keep your eyes on everything inside. Of course, that also meant that you couldn't escape from watching Kylo Ren angrily flop onto your couch, cursing and nearly boiling over in his rage. He lied on his stomach, his head buried into a throw pillow.

"I could kill him!" he roared with his face still pressed against the pillow, muffling his voice. You rolled your eyes and crossed the apartment to sit in your easy chair that was shoved into the corner beside the couch.

"Eventually, you're going to have to get over Stratoveer," you mentioned.

Kylo lifted his head, sending you a nasty glare. "If you were even remotely aware of what he has done, you would take my lightsaber into your own hands to kill him."

"I'm sure."

He twisted from your couch, long legs knocking over a stack of books that had been haphazardly piled beside him, and they tumbled across the floor.

"Damn it fucking shit," he sputtered. Kylo started stacking the books back on top of one another, slamming each book as hard as he could.

You watched the scene before you, tapping your foot and raising an eyebrow. It took about all of your effort to keep a neutral face and not break into laughter as he knocked over a second stack of books.

"You need a damned book case!" he growled after having set the books back in their various stacks on the floor.

"Kylo..." you said, purposely using his first name. He flinched ever so slightly. "Why are you actually here?" Why did he actually ever come to your apartment?

He leaned back on your couch, trying to think of how to explain himself. "Because I couldn't think of anywhere else to go... Anyone else to go to."

Somehow you doubted that. Didn't he have a bunker where he could storm off?

But then, maybe he didn't want to let his anger take complete control of him. Maybe he was here for no other reason than because he knew that you would stop him from destroying yet another control room.

"So you chose me," you whispered.

Kylo caught your eyes, refusing to break contact so that you both were in some sort of strange staring match, just waiting for one person to blink or break to look at anything else in the apartment.

"Yes. I chose you."

"I suppose you expect me to feel honoured that I should be the one you go to when seeking comfort?"

"That wasn't my intent," he huffed.

Whatever. You weren't going to argue with him when he was angry. You just wanted to see him calm back down and be smiling or laughing. Such rare moments, but God, you couldn't get enough of them.

Kylo eventually rolled onto his back so that he was staring up at the ceiling. "It would have been better if I had trained you instead of Stratoveer."

You had pulled a book into your lap by this time, already flipping through the pages to find where you had last left off. "But you're still refusing to tell anyone about me, so that's not really an option."

He was refusing to tell Snoke about you. Whoever that was. You had kept your word to never utter the name, but forgetting it all together was a different matter.

"Just... Distract me," Kylo asked of you. "Anything. Do your babbling about statistics or whatever in the hell it is you enjoy. I just don't want to think of this."

You shrugged. That was fine by you. So you started reading your book aloud, not caring if Kylo Ren actually understood what the subject material was about. The book had been a gift from an old professor about some migrant colony floating through space, each member slowly dying with no one to replenish their aging population. It was an older book, but that didn't make it any less interesting. You found yourself occasionally commenting on what was written and tapping a finger at good quotes. Sometimes Kylo would respond. Eventually, he was just silent. And after having read over forty pages out loud to him, you realised that Kylo had long since fallen asleep.

You quietly set the book down on one of the many piles that surrounded you and stood up. He seemed so peaceful lying there on the couch, his head slightly turned to the side on a pillow as his thick hair draped from his face. And his face... you had never seen him look more calm, more content.

You wondered if you should wake him, but that seemed cruel. Maybe he would need a blanket? But what if that woke him up? What if it scared him out of sleep enough that he would instantly use the Force? As beautifully serene as he was in this moment, it didn't negate the fact that Kylo Ren was a fierce weapon. He was dangerous. And you were fragile in comparison.

So you decided to do nothing. Or, well, almost nothing. You set a folded blanket on the end of the couch by his feet so that, if he awoke feeling cold, then at least he would have something to cover himself with.

And then, you quietly crept past him and made your way to bed.

When you awoke in the morning, you were slightly disappointed to find your couch empty. He was gone. Had he ever actually been there? For a few seconds, you sat in your bed with groggy eyes and hair in your face, not quite able to remember what had happened. But then the memories came rushing back, and you knew that he had been here.

You also knew rather quickly that something else was missing along with Kylo Ren.

"Wait, where the fuck's my extra blanket?"

"What if I tried to train you in the Force? Right here. Right now. Impromptu?"

It was a few days later, and you had been sitting at your kitchen table for the past hour, entering code from old paper charts into a tablet computer for analysis when Kylo meandered over from where he had been sitting on your couch. He had been pretending to read a book for the past ten minutes. You said 'pretending', because every time you glanced up from your research, he was quickly turning back to your book as though he hadn't been staring at you.

Slowly, you set the tablet down and placed it on top of the papers beside you. "This isn't just a sleazy ploy for you to see into my mind, is it?"

Kylo spat a sarcastic laugh. "No. You'd be in my mind."

"Really now?" That was surprising.

He leaned forward, his forearms resting on the kitchen table. "You've shown aptitude in using the Force to read people, so read me. Try your damnedest."

You leaned forward as well until your faces were only a few inches away. "If I actually do get into your mind, you won't be upset, will you?"

He flashed a smile. "You won't get in; I'm not worried."

"Challenge accepted."

Concentrating as hard as you could, you focused on Kylo's face, just taking in every feature in the hopes that something would be revealed. That's what you were supposed to do, right? Just naturally feel your way to the Force? You didn't really know, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

"What are you doing with your face?" he asked, trying not to laugh.

"I'm concentrating."

"No," he sighed. Kylo brought his fingers to your face, smoothing the wrinkles that had appeared on your forehead. "Relax."

That was difficult to accomplish with his fingers still on your face, burning into your skin. But you unclenched your jaw and let out a long breath.

"That's better," he said. He tenderly moved his hands so that they were on either side of your face, cupping your jaw, and you could feel your heart racing from the touch. How in the hell were you supposed to relax when he was holding onto you like this and staring into your eyes? Damn him! You flickered your attention away from him for just a moment, looking over his shoulder. Maybe it would calm your speeding pulse or the strange flips in your stomach.

"Look back to me," he commanded in a low whisper.

Slowly, you let your gaze meet his again, trying not to blink, trying to keep your breathing steady, trying anything to appear calm.

"Now what?" you asked.

Kylo's eyes were drilling into yours. It would have terrified anyone else; hell, it should have terrified you. But it didn't. Instead, a tingle was running up and down your spine, sending shivers down your arms from that piercing stare. And you were transfixed; you couldn't have torn away if you had even wanted to.

"Now, tell me what you feel."

You felt shivers and slight anxiety and honestly, you didn't know what the hell you felt because everything was confusing and overwhelming. And there was a chance that you could have told him this, could have babbled that you felt your pulse pounding beneath his fingers and couldn't concentrate on how to even function like a normal human being. But as you opened your mouth, you heard the strangest of hums.

At first, the humming was like that of an electrical box, just a low, steady stream of noise. But the humming also seemed like a feeling, as though the sound was being perceived as a tactile sense. Was this some kind of synesthesia? Were you seriously nervous enough that you were hallucinating? Or...

"There's a hum," you finally whispered.

"What else?"

You wanted to shake your head, shake his fingers off from your jaw, as though it would help you understand what was happening. But you knew better than to move. Something was happening; it was no longer deniable. Whether or not it was the Force, you didn't know, but whatever the combined humming vibration was, it was now growing stronger. You felt it. Heard it. Could almost see it like the glow of embers or starlight in your periphery.

"It's like all my senses are coming together," you said. There was no telling if Kylo would understand what you meant, but it was the only way to describe the feeling. The smallest of reactions fluttered across his face, his eyes becoming less severe in their gaze. They were almost... surprised.

And all at once, like a flash of blinding light, you saw two worlds at once. One was what you sensed, what you could perceive directly before you of Kylo's face, of his dark eyes looking into yours, his hair in waves that crashed around his face. And then there was another world—a shadowy vision world of sorts. In this world, you could see yourself from across the table, see Kylo's fingers at your jaw, see the opposite side of the room. It was as though you were seeing out of his eyes, but something about the scene didn't seem real.

Well, of course it didn't seem real, you thought. It was as real as an out-of-body experience, which is to say not real at all.

But soon it became obvious to you why this second world seemed so out of place. It was because it wasn't actually happening.

One set of senses still felt Kylo's hands staying in place, his thumbs by your chin and fingers along your jaw. But what you saw was different, was fictitious. You watched as Kylo's fingers slipped past your jaw and into your hair, wrapping around the nape of your neck. And then he was moving forward, inch by inch, until there was no space left between you at all. Until you could feel his breath against your skin and fingers twisting and digging into your hair.

The shock of seeing through Kylo Ren's eyes, seeing what he was thinking, seeing what he wished of the future wasn't nearly as strong of a shock as being ripped away from that other world. All at once, Kylo's hands had snapped away from your face, and he had tumbled out of his chair and onto the floor. You felt as though you were suddenly sucked back into your own body as you saw him fall in his attempt to get away from you. He was nearly panting, eyes wide and alarmed—scared, angry. His face had contorted into a hideous scowl as he tried to pick himself off the floor.

"Kylo-" Your voice caught in your throat. He refused to look at you as you stayed seated at the table. Long strides quickly took him to where he had set his helmet by the door, and all at once, he had pulled the helmet over his messy hair, over his pained and confused face, and he was running out of the door and into the hallway.

In only a matter of seconds, you were alone, your mouth still slightly ajar as you tried to figure out what exactly had just happened. You had felt it—had felt the Force. It was real. All of it. And not only that, but you had slipped into Kylo Ren's mind, had seen the thought that must have been playing at that very moment. Your heart was racing at the realisation, and it felt as though your stomach was made of lead and trying to plummet through your body in some sort of shock.

No, not shock. Shock wasn't what you felt. You didn't even know if there was a word for what you felt.

All you knew was that you had done it. You had used the Force to enter into someone else's thoughts. And the first thought that you had ever witnessed was of Kylo Ren wanting nothing more than to kiss you.


Glossary:

Synesthesia: a relatively common cognitive phenomena where the various senses overlap or are replaced by one another. Synesthetes may hear colour or taste numbers or any other sort of mix up of senses. It is thought to affect about 1 in every 21 people and is possibly caused by mixed neuronal firing in the brain (think of mixed wires on an old school telephone—PARTY LINE!). I personally have spatio-temporal synesthesia, meaning that I see days of the week as three dimensional structures. Wednesday is very large and tall with a slight curve at the top. Sunday is the smallest. Friday stretches for a long while. None of this makes any sense whatsoever to anyone who is not a synesthete.

A/N: I'm not screaming; you're screaming.