5/17/2
Jon stretches, and looks at his schedule. He's got an entire afternoon to himself tomorrow.
That's almost too good to be true.
He thinks about the huge list of stuff that he likely should do, but aren't on his list, like visiting his mom, and promptly comes up with something else.
But… Poe's not on-board today. Officially, he's off Maji-ing about. Unofficially, he's putting together the first of the 'herbological extraction units' and they're figuring out what target to aim for.
(His mental image of this is Poe, Chewie, and Finn sitting around in the Falcon shooting the shit, debating which target is the softest and the easiest to get to. He's not exactly wrong about that, but he is missing some details, like what the inside of the Falcon or Finn look like. And his mental image doesn't include Jacen suggesting that he's got to come along, because he can fast talk his way into and out of everywhere, and this whole thing is going to go a lot smoother if they don't have to shoot their way out.)
He looks at his to-do list again. For something that's… relaxing. Maybe.
It's a long list.
He reorganizes it by the dates he put things on there. And up by the top is one he hasn't even thought about in months. It'd be fun, though. And he hasn't really gotten back to Kylo and Rey to talk about the Post-Alderaan clean up.
He decides to check in with Kylo see if he and Rey are free. After all, it's not like the two of them are particularly reticent to clear some time, and they have asked for this.
He closes up his calendar and taps his comm. Time to see if Kylo's got enough time to squeeze in a training fight with Rey so he can see about making her some armor.
Given the choice between reading another seventy reports and angsting over ways to get more money into the coffers, and sparring with Rey, there's no contest.
Kylo's down to fight literally before Jon gets the entire sentence done.
Given the choice between 'translating' (those texts showed up before the New Alderaan delegation left) what appears to be shipping manifests, ('Are you really sure you want this translated, it's… lists of goods.' 'Wait, really, that's amazing! We'll learn so much about the economy of the Glendive people.' 'Okay, then…') and sparring with Kylo, Rey is slightly less interested in leaping into something else, but it's not like she's going to require strenuous convincing on this one.
5/18/2
Rey and Kylo find Jon leaning against the door of Kylo's training gym, a bit of a smirk on his face.
"You look pleased," Kylo says.
Jon shrugs a bit. "Not sure if this is something either of you'd understand, but there's a certain pleasure that goes with skiving off from your duty, and…"
Kylo blinks, and then smirks, and nods. "Even young Jedi, do, on occasion, skive off from lessons."
Jon snerks at him, as Kylo opens the door to the gym, and Rey watches them. "So, you just… don't show up?"
Jon and Kylo share a look, one that's a combination of curious, that she doesn't know this, and then sad, very sad, because she didn't have the kind of life where skiving off could have been a thing she did.
"Two parts," Jon says, rallying, because he knows Rey doesn't enjoy people getting sad about her past. "Part one, coming up with a reason to not be wherever it was you were supposed to be. For me, it was mostly school. We were walking the tightrope between making sure I was seen to attend, because after all, the way you get Happy New Republicans is by making kids attend schools that teach them the right things and brainwash them into being Happy New Republicans, and my mom very much not wanting me to turn into a Happy New Republican, while, at the same time, doing a passable job of looking like one.
"So, she wasn't… nearly as conscientious as she could have been about checking my attendance records, or… uh… making sure those notes from home saying I'd been ill the day before were actually written by her." He smirks a bit.
"What did you do when you weren't in school?" Kylo asks, pulling his hair back.
Jon shrugs. "Depends on the day and if I had pocket money. If I did, I might wander down to one of the cafes I liked, grab a tea and treat, and settle in to watch my favorite shows. I think they knew what I was doing there, and it's not like they didn't know who I was, so…" He offers a half smile. "I wasn't the only kid who tended to 'get ill' from time to time, especially on days where history was going to be 'Yay! Rebellion! classes."
"And if you didn't have money?" Kylo asks.
"If not, I might go to the library or something like that. Just… go somewhere that wasn't making me pretend my Dad was evil." Jon shakes his head. "Well, that's cheery. And let me guess, skiving off of Jedi duty was fun until Luke would just give you the disappointed look?"
Kylo shrugs. "That's…" He sighs a bit. "Actually, wrong. You couldn't do it too much, but… If it wasn't a really important duty, and if you kind of… timed it right. Picked a day where he was in a good mood, and everything was going well. He'd mostly be amused. And he'd think about being stuck in his Uncle's farm, working for him, dreaming of being anywhere else."
Rey and Jon look surprised at that. Kylo shrugs again, and finishes with his hair. "Like he told us, he was a kid once, too. And his Uncle was one of those guys who was all work, work, work, work, all the time, and… Anyway, he had some empathy for wandering off on a really nice day to get an extra swim, or eat the berries right off the bush, or..." He pulls his shirt over his head. "It probably didn't hurt that there wasn't a whole lot of mischief for us to get into. And he also thought it was important that we got some 'kid' time. There wasn't a lot of playing in our schedules, and there wasn't ever in his as a kid. He… had a lot of empathy for feeling like the adults wanted you to always be doing something you'd have rather not done." He shrugs again. "I haven't thought of that in years."
Jon and Rey share a look at that, and Rey decides to change the subject as she pulls her own hair back.
"Didn't you watch me fight the K'Arans?" She remembers fighting. She knows Jon was there. And it's not that she minds a chance to play against Kylo some, but…
Jon rolls his eyes, sighs, and looks chagrined. "I was… uh… distracted."
Rey raises an eyebrow at that. "Distracted?"
Jon sighs. "He's told me that you're the one who cut his face in half, so I know on some level you can fight, but…" He sighs again. "But…" his voice drops and he mumbles, quickly, "I'm not sure if he actually tried to fight you or just rolled over and took it." Fortunately, that amuses Rey more than annoys her. Kylo raises a brow at Jon, and he just shrugs, and then says, mostly to Kylo. "K'Oanan couldn't keep it down when they were fighting. Which means I was… more concerned about his intentions than I would have been if this was just sparring to see who was going to end up K'Aar."
They both feel Kylo flare hot, though he keeps his voice under control as he says, "And this would be why you didn't think I needed to watch the video of the fight?"
Jon nods, watches Kylo's hand clench and teeth grind together, and then continues by saying, "And I'm the idiot who said, 'Rey, that's a great idea, we should really do this,' when she suggested it, and then they're fighting, and his shaft is leading the charge, and all I could think about was how, when you found out that he was trying to pin Rey so he could rub his shaft against her, you were going to personally remove my testicles for agreeing to this plan. With a very tense, very nervous side of wondering how badly I was going to get hurt if I tried to jump into this thing and take him down, because…" He shakes his head and offers a limp, half smile to Rey. "I rationally know you're a better fighter than I am. Especially, now, after seeing you drop both of them. But, you're also smaller and female, and I hadn't yet seen you drop both of them." More head shaking. "And… I've been kind of trained since birth that if there's a smaller female person around with a big male one attempting to fuck them without their consent that it's my job to get my arse between the two of them, posthaste, or die trying, so…" Another sigh. He's thinking four older sisters, though he doesn't say it. "I was distracted."
Rey nods at him.
Then Kylo says to Jon, "Why would I remove yours?" He's certainly feeling some desire to remove K'Oanan's, but he's not immediately seeing why he'd blame Jon for this.
Jon sighs. "Because I really should have known better. He was way too eager for it, and… I trained in hand to hand here, I know some guys get off on getting smacked around. I should have known."
Kylo glances at Rey. Then back to Jon. Then he says, "What, exactly, do you think would have happened if you'd said, 'No, Rey, you can't do this?'"
Jon rolls his eyes at Kylo, and shrugs at Rey, who is coolly appraising Jon, ready and waiting to see how he spins this. He sighs again, and rubs his hand through his hair. "I'm not that stupid. But if I'd said, 'I don't think this is a good idea. The K'Arans aren't going to react well to seeing their princes get smacked around,' you would have thought twice about it, and we'd have come up with a different plan."
Rey does nod at that, because if he or Threepio had said, 'This is not culturally appropriate,' she absolutely would have bowed to their expertise. "That would have worked. So, you were busy fearing for your… stones… and missed what I was actually doing?"
"More or less. On top of that, I was also working through the diplomacy of what the hell we'd do if Kylo did somehow get wind of what K'Oanan was doing, dragged, or worse, ported his ass out of bed, and castrated him with his lightsaber in front of everyone, while also exposing the entire delegation to Hiffa virus."
Rey winces, hard. Because she has a very vivid mental image of a naked, gray, barely upright, slick with sweat, swaying and shivering Kylo popping up, lightsaber in hand, totally eviscerating K'Oanan, and then puking on and collapsing in a heap next to the corpse. "That would have been a nightmare."
Kylo smirks. "I believe we'd put that under Ellie's do not fuck with the Master or anything he cares about heading and leave it there." He's enjoying that idea way too much. (Though his mental image of it involves a lot more eviscerating, and a lot less throwing up and passing out.)
Rey lays her hand on his arm. "If I'd wanted his stones, I'd have them."
"I know. I'm allowed to enjoy the idea of it, though."
"As long as it stays an idea."
Kylo shrugs at that. "Are we going to see them again?"
Jon replies with, "Actually, yes. We've invited them to your wedding, and apparently K'Ahuana has a coronation and possibly wedding of his own coming up, and we've agreed to attend that. That's… Seventh or eighth month, I think."
Kylo grins. Rey's eyes go wide. He winks at her. "I promise, it'll never go past being an idea."
Jon rubs his forehead. "You're going to literally scare the shit out of him, aren't you?"
"And I'm going to relish every second of it."
Rey rolls her eyes. "Fighting?"
"Yes, please!" Kylo replies.
The first time Rey fought Kylo, really fought him, crossed sabers with him, they were on opposite sides. Both of them were emotionally shattered, the planet they were on was rupturing, a million plus voices were screaming through the Force, and he was fighting with a fist-sized hole in his torso.
Finn got him in the right arm. She hit him in the leg, put a light saber through his left shoulder, and then sliced his face in half, and he was still working on getting up for another go at it when the planet split apart between them.
The second time they fought, on the same side, was less than four days later. It was the literal fight of their life. Both of them knew this was win or die, and neither of them wanted to die.
So, they didn't.
She was fighting on borrowed skill, nerves, and the hope for a future glimpsed less than a day earlier.
He was holding together on hate, barely healed scar tissue, fear, pain, rage, and enough raw Force to drop a Rancor.
The third time Rey felt Kylo fight, it was more than a year later, and she was ghosting along in the back of his head, feeling his joy of combat, the pure, exhilarating pleasure of doing the thing he was made for. His dark finally used for something good.
The fourth time, they were again on the same side, though she wasn't paying much attention to his fight, because all of her secrets and lies were crashing to the ground around them as a massive turtle tried to bite her head off.
One more time, burning off fear. Fear that had nowhere to go, and no good way to combat it, nothing to be done except, slow, boring, niggly things that would take time and effort, and no matter how uncomfortable it would be, most of it would have to be outside of their direct control. Training blade versus training blade, the strike and crack of plexiplast soothing away the primal need to run away from, or kill, anything that spikes a fear response.
Now… Now they're in his training gym, and she's got just a basic staff, and he's got his training blade, and this is…
Fun…
And… Rey's dodging and blocking, and watching this huge, sleek, powerful force in front, and behind, and beside her, and…
She realizes she's never seen him fight, not really, not as he is now, properly fed and rested, healthy, using his Force and force because he enjoys it. Not feeding his body with hate and rage. No edge of fear. He's still not elegant or graceful, at least, not on any level beyond the grace of something extremely dangerous moving very fast. If he's graceful, it's the grace of an avalanche. Of a sand dune slide, something that's going to overpower and obliterate anything that gets in its way.
He's beautiful in that same way. The glint of steel before it penetrates skin, or the flash of a blaster in a dark room. The beauty of violence, of pain, of death, all condensed down, focused, and wielded with pinpoint accuracy.
She gets her staff up in time to block the latest hit, and he's grinning at her, really enjoying this, and she is, too. The backhand that gets her under her elbow she wasn't expecting, and can't block, because her weapon is two handed and she's using both of her hands to keep his training saber from crashing into her shoulder, but he can use his saber one handed.
She's on the ground, looking up at him, and he's smirking some, very pleased with himself.
"You're really good at this," she says, hopping back up.
"I bloody well better be." He glances at the training droids standing along the far wall. "If I can't read a fight now, I've been wasting my time."
That gets a small laugh from her. "Uh huh. Toss me a saber. Let's see what happens when I don't need both hands to hold the weapon."
His smile lights his eyes and a training saber, smaller and lighter than his, floats over to her. "As you wish."
It's 'Verse hell.
Or maybe heaven.
It'd be heaven if this weren't his boss and his boss's wife.
It's two, beautiful people, not wearing a lot of clothing, doing heavy strenuous things, with each other.
Who are clearly attracted to each other.
Who are clearly showing off for each other.
Who clearly like this.
And, Force, Ilona help! The banter. Kylo's got Rey's hands pinned in one of his hands, behind her back, his thigh between her legs, his lips by her ear, saying, voice low and easy, "You like this, don't you?"
And Jon almost whimpers because holy fuck he does.
But he shouldn't.
Like any First Order officer, Jon Frakes can fight. Can't get your first stripe if you aren't ranked in hand-to-hand, blaster, and at least one other martial weapon. (Sniper rifle in his case. He wasn't about to risk his hands with any combat training for a second longer than was absolutely necessary.)
Unlike many of them, he doesn't usually enjoy it. He's actually not a fan of exercise at all. His metabolism keeps him slim, and he spends the exact minimum amount of time in the gym to keep himself at 14% body fat, and not a second more.
Likewise, he isn't the kind of person who finds fighting erotic, either.
Normally.
He watched Kylo fight with the training droids, and he certainly enjoyed the scenery, but not to the level of his current state where bits of his anatomy are sending him some rather urgent requests along the lines of 'get me out of these pants and over there with them!'
This has never been Jon's thing. Okay, sure, he'll tease Poe a little bit with some comments about maybe some spanking, but… That's mostly just to get a rise out of Poe. He gets adorably flustered at that, and… Well, that's for wank fodder bank. That's not real life, or his real erotic desires or, his real, now, standing (or at least trying, his current position, and the crease of his trouser leg is mitigating that to some degree) tall and proud shaft.
So, the fact that he's enjoying what is supposed to be him watching Kylo and Rey fight so he can see how she moves and thus design armor for her is surprising to him.
Until Rey pins Kylo, and he's flat on his back, her knees on his shoulders, her feet on his hips, pants tight across his body, and…
Oh…
Jon rolls his eyes. Bloody Force users emoting all over the place.
He's not enjoying this, not beyond his usual level of pretty people doing heavy, sweaty things making gasping and grunting noises while teasing each other about sex. (Which he doesn't exactly mind, but it's not the sort of stuff he's got on his smut drive for when he's feeling randy and wants something to watch to go along with his wank.)
Kylo's enjoying this, and… Rey, too, likely, and he's getting it secondhand, because they're not trying to keep their own feelings in their own heads.
He rolls his eyes again. And notices that there are a few movements on both of their parts that don't exactly look like grappling, combat, or wrestling, and, for that matter, Rey's knees are no longer on Kylo's shoulders, and that did not sound like a combat grunt at all from him when she settled on his lap, and at this point he's just about got a view of his brain his eyes are rolling so far back.
And he's also got a situation where it appears to be clear that neither of them are aware of the fact he's still in the room, and if he just sits here quietly, he's likely going to get to see a lot more of Rey than he ever has before, and… Again, it's not that he minds but… When they notice he is here, things are going to get sticky, and not in a good way.
(Though there is a tiny, little voice in the back of his head that almost, sort of, wants to just sit here quietly and watch… After all, he doesn't mind the view, at all. He tells it to shut up.)
He sighs, deeply, clears his throat, and then says, "I'm still in the room, you know?"
"I'm still in the room, you know?"
Rey feels the blush burn from her ears to her stomach. She did not, in fact, still know that. Between the fight, and Kylo, and Kylo fighting, and shit… Kylo… she'd forgotten that Jon was in the room. She makes what Kylo will later refer to as an adorable squeaking noise, before burying her head in her hands.
Kylo meanwhile is laughing. He's laying on his back, hands on her hips, shoulders shaking, loud, happy laughs just pouring out of him, before he says, "So, uh… that wasn't what you meant by a fight demonstration, then?"
Jon walks over to them, hands very intentionally in his pockets, looking down at them, and Rey tries to roll off Kylo, but he won't let go of her. After all, if this is bothering Jon, the view he's going to get if Rey suddenly goes rolling off of Kylo's lap is not going to make the situation any better, so there's nowhere for her to go but on him.
Jon sighs, long and loud. "Take pity on your poor, lonely, horny friend, who, unlike the two of you, is not going to get tuffed in the next hour, and keep your emotions to yourself. I'm stiff just being near you two, because it's bleeding off of both of you, so, please, unless you're going to invite me to play, too, rein it in."
Rey's about to combust from the heat of her blush. And Kylo's vibrating from head to toe because he's trying not to laugh out loud.
"Noted," he says, and then, "And… dismissed?"
"Finally!"
And Jon heads off.
When Jon leaves, Rey looks at Kylo and says, "You enjoyed that too much."
He grins up at her. "In that we're both still dressed, I'd say we haven't enjoyed this nearly enough, yet."
"Kylo…"
He's still grinning up at her, "Rey…" He elongates the sound.
"We're married. I wear a ring you gave me every single day. I go by your name. I am your Queen. Every newsie in the galaxy is currently running footage of the two of us being… us. You do not need to show off the fact that we're having sex, too. Trust me, they, especially Jon, know."
He pouts a little, playfully, and flips them so he's on top of her. "But that's the best part."
She rolls her eyes, but with him above her, looking down, a grin in his eyes and on his lips, she can feel it. It is the best part. And not for the reason she was thinking. For most of his life, he was never allowed to want or enjoy or need anything. Certainly not anything wholesome and pleasurable, and right now… If he could, he probably would have sex with her on the table in his office in front of a million viewers because he wants everyone to see and feel and know that he does finally get to enjoy this.
That he won. Pleasure and love and joy and contentment, which for him all wrap up in the very tidy package that is sex with her, are all his now. His and hers and they get to share them, and…
And every time he pats her tush in public, every kiss, every moment like this, every sigh and thrust, kiss and groan, is him standing tall, fingers extended in the rudest gesture he'd ever imagine, at every single one of the people who tried to strip anything even remotely approaching a functional life away from him.
And he loves it.
Rey kisses him, soft and sweet. "How about, instead of torturing Jon, we go out tonight, in public, and I'll wear a pretty dress, and you'll hold my hand."
He lowers himself further, kissing her deeply. "And how about, under that dress, you're wet with my spurt, and when we get back to our rooms, I'll lick it off you and get you all wet again."
"You really like fighting me, don't you?"
He rocks his hips against hers. Both of them can feel the hard proof of it. "Only reason I wasn't hard the whole time is because I did know Jon was still in the room. You," he kisses her again, rubbing his body along hers, "are the sexiest woman alive," more kisses, as he nibbles down her jaw and throat, "and when you're hot, and flushed, endorphins flowing," his lips find her breast, kissing over her training top, and the conversation switches to inside his head, "moving fast, dangerous," he worms his fingers under the training top, rauching it up, so his lips can find skin, and I know you're mine. That you chose me. That you give me all of yourself. He's sucking on her nipple, stroking the other one with his fingers, and gently rocking his shaft against her hip. That gets me hot. I can feel the fight, and the passion, and you, and your body moving and shifting, and he hisses as she gets a hand down his trousers, and cups him, and it's all fucking, all sex, you and me and this and he gasps against her breast because she's added a little twist to what she's doing to his shaft and fuck!
He's sitting up, pulling her up with him, yanking off her training top as she shimmies his training pants down far enough to get his shaft out.
He's peeling her trousers off, and she's pushing him back down on the floor, sinking onto him, both of them hissing at the feel of it.
His thumb finds her pearl, and she's bouncing, hard and fast, not looking to take a long time. This, like the fight, is too intense and present and needy for slow and relaxed.
This is about speed and motion and pushing muscles to their limits and barreling over the edge in a glowing burst of lust and love and life.
He's staring up at her, watching her bounce, her hair and breasts and token all jiggling with each thrust, and she can feel the beauty and awe and pleasure just arcing off of him.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
It's a mantra, thought on repeat, punctuating each thrust and jiggle.
Love love love love
His head is thrown back, eyes wide, watching. Her hands are on his chest, giving her extra balance and leverage. And both of them are blazing, hot of temperature and temperament, and need. Aching, sweltering need pouring through bodies moving fast fast fast
And…
It bursts over both of them, blazing supernova bright and pulsing quasar throbs as it eases away.
After, Rey's laying against him, and says, "So, that's one more room you can't go in without remembering us having sex in it."
He sniggers, a very relaxed, tired, and amused sound. "We're going to have to up our pace to at least five times a day. There's something like a million rooms on the Supremacy alone."
"We're not fucking in other people's private chambers."
"That wasn't counting private chambers." He gently kisses her forehead as his fingers ghost over her back. After a minute of quite cuddling, he says, "I'm not sure I can do five times a day. Not most days."
She giggles a bit.
He sounds contemplative as he says, "Maybe if we didn't see each other for a few days. Or didn't have sex for a few days for some reason other than me catching the plague… But…" He doesn't say it, but he does flood her with his sensation of contentment and comfort, of how much he adores their life together, and how it makes him bone, soul, and yes, shaft-deep happy. "Can't imagine voluntarily being away for a few days."
She kisses his shoulder. "I don't need five times a day. Or every room on your ship."
"Don't want to test your limits?" It's clear he's just playing with her right now.
"Five times a day sounds like chafing, not fun."
He sniggers at that.
It's later. Well later. Kylo's back at his reports, and Rey's on Lirium with the kids, looking over the first full map of Achc-To, figuring out which parts are most likely to work for them, when a thought goes wandering through her mind.
Kylo?
He's distracted by the report he's reading, and there's a few beats before he thinks back, Rey?
Uh… Do we need to… apologize, or something, to Jon? You know… That… 'poor horny friend'… And 'invite me to join in' comment…
Kylo sits in his office and blinks. Because it's one thing to show off he has a sex life, in a somewhat less than perfectly subtle sort of way, and it's likely a whole other thing to dump a metric ton of lust on one of his friends who didn't exactly sign up for that.
Shit. I… don't know.
Yeah. Me, to.
They're both quiet. Can you ask Rose if that's the sort of thing you apologize for, or just shut up about?
Rose is a few meters away, going over a one thousand by one thousand kilometer chunk of the map, checking off islands that are completely not going to work for them.
She can kind of imagine asking.
And she can imagine the answer, too.
I think she'd tell me that it depends on the person, and if they're insulted or not.
Kylo thinks about that, and about how Jon felt to him. I don't think he was insulted.
Yeah, but he wasn't comfortable, either, was he?
Kylo looks at his report. He swivels in his chair and looks at the stars streaming past. Would you mind if I had dinner with him?
Not at all.
You have some time? Kylo thinks to Jon.
Jon sits back a bit from his drawing board and the preliminary sketches of Rey's armor and thinks back. Sure.
And a second later, Kylo's in his rooms.
Jon raises an eyebrow at him, and says, "What if I'd been in my office?"
"Then it would haven taken me longer to get to you." He steps over and sees the start of Rey's armor. "Looks good."
"Thanks. Let's see how it comes out of production. Like you she moves a lot when she fights…" He bites his lip, glances around, and clear that Rey's not about to pop up, he says, "Did you… teach her how to fight? She's got a lot of your moves."
Kylo rolls his eyes a bit, and leans against the wall. "Not exactly. The first time we met, I was trying to get information out of her head, and it… didn't exactly go as planned"
"You didn't get it?"
"Oh, I got a lot, not exactly what I was looking for, and… she also got all of my stuff, so… She got fifteen years of Jedi training, and eight years of training with Snoke, second hand."
"But you didn't get her language skills?"
Kylo shrugs. "Maybe if I ever tried to test that, we could see. I haven't."
"Ah." Jon looks up at him. It's clear he's thinking This is nice, but you're here because…
Kylo doesn't blush. He just thinks that his cheeks would very much like to.
"So…" Jon leads. "Remember, I'm the one who doesn't read minds."
"Yeah. Uh… Today, earlier… Uh…" Kylo winces a bit. "That was inappropriate, wasn't it?"
Jon rolls his eyes. "Kylo…"
"Just… You were uncomfortable, and that wasn't good, so… Sorry."
Jon rolls his eyes harder. "Look…" But he doesn't seem to know what he was going to say after that, so he stops.
Kylo just keeps watching him.
Jon sighs a bit. "Thanks. Uh… There's a level of flirty playing that's generally okay with other people around, but…"
"Crossed the line by more than a few meters, yeah."
Jon shrugs again. "And there's… situational… allowances…"
"I'm not looking for a primer for correctly fooling around with my spouse when other people are present, Jon. I just… don't want to be a shaft to you, okay?"
That gets another sigh from Jon. "I… It's not that I was uncomfortable, just… I don't know… You two are a lot more intense when you get going than normal people, and… I've got pretty damn good mental control, but…"
"Stuck in a room with randy empaths/mindreaders is a lot less privacy than you'd like?" Kylo says.
Jon nods. "Look… Either invite me to play, too." He winces having said it, but pushes it away, and keeps going, "Or keep it in your own heads. Just seeing it is… Well, look, I have sex in public because I like the kick of it, so I get it but… It's just what's in my own head, not… everyone else's…"
Kylo nods. "Ah." And he thinks…
Jon winces again, because he can tell Kylo's thinking about that stupid little sentence that keeps leaping out of his mouth when he'd rather preferred it didn't.
"Would you… want to play?"
Yep. Out of his mouth, and into Kylo's brain, and now…
He sighs again, gets up, crosses the room, and opens his cooler. "You want a drink?"
"I was thinking, if you weren't busy, we'd have dinner, so… Yes?"
Jon nods, opens up a new bottle of wine, and pours both of them a glass. Then he turns on his data pad, and orders supper for both of them. Then, giving the wineglass to Kylo, and nodding to his table, he says, "Food'll be here, soon."
Kylo nods, sitting at the table, letting him get around to answering his question in his own time.
And after a few sips, Jon does say, "Not really." He shrugs. "I mean…" He rolls his eyes again. "As pure sex, I'd likely enjoy it, and I'm sure you and Rey'd have a good time, too, so, just for fun… Yeah, sure. But…"
Kylo can feel the loneliness aching through his friend. "But you've got no shortage of sex on tap. Especially, just-for-fun sex."
Jon nods. "Yeah. It's…" Kylo can feel Jon's about to tell one hell of a lie, and Jon knows it, too, so he stops, and takes another sip, and then says, "Okay, that's shit. I miss the sex, too. A lot. But… It's not just, or even mostly the sex I miss. It's… the affection and mattering and… And it's the same thing with Unthar and Amilie. I like fucking them. It's fun. It feels good, all over. But… I don't I want to be part of their love, or yours." Kylo just watches. Jon closes his eyes, and sighs, and tries again. "Okay, yes, that'd be nice, too. But it's not…"
"What you need?" Kylo says.
"Yeah. I don't need to be part of you and Rey, and I don't need to be part of Amilie and Unthar. It'd be… nice, but… I want mine back." He clears his throat and takes another drink. "And… uh… that's not happening, so…" He drinks deeply. "Sometimes… It's nice to be near it, you know? Or… pretend, maybe. But, there's only so long you can pretend…"
Kylo shrugs. He doesn't, not really. But he can certainly empathize. Right now, he's steeping in the sore, throbbing ache in Jon's heart.
"It's been thirty months, eleven days, and…" Jon thinks, checks the chrono, and then says, "three hours. More or less. And it's better. I'm not talking to my blaster any more. Or even thinking about it. And most days I don't expect him to be here when I open the door." Kylo stares at him. "Some." He keeps looking. "I don't expect. That second of, 'Where the hell are you,' doesn't happen any more." He smiles. It's a weak, sad gesture. "I still hope sometimes. More than I should."
Jon taps the rim of his glass. "Two a day. That's my limit. Unless I'm going out and having fun. And… most of the time, I manage to stick to that. I haven't had any stupid sex since the Last Night Party. Granted, I haven't been swimming in opportunities, either. Part of it's intentional, keeping myself busy." He glares, but it's not angry, at Kylo. "It's easier not to make stupid decisions when you aren't swimming in free-time." Kylo shrugs at that, and makes a mental note to keep Jon nearby enough so that, when they are on 'off-time' he's still not swimming in opportunities for stupid sex. "Part of it's making 'better' choices, I suppose." He shrugs. "A work in progress, I guess."
Kylo nods at that, not sure what comfort to offer, or how. He takes a sip of his wine, and tries to think through it. Tries to pull out of the ache that's flowing from Jon through him, tries to see it from the outside.
What, right here, right now, does active, attached love look like? How can he use his dark to help Jon?
He doesn't feel certain, but… It likely won't hurt.
He scoots a little closer, and slowly and tentatively puts his arms around Jon, giving him the space to retreats if he wants to.
Jon doesn't retreat, but he doesn't nestle in close, either. Granted, Kylo's a little fuzzy on how platonic friends hug, but… He can feel the memory of his dad, and how he'd play things by ear and luck. Well, he may have tossed the name, but he's still a Solo, so he might as well wing this. He scoots a little closer and gets a better hold on Jon.
"No one touched me, before Rey, not with any sort of genuine affection, for more than a decade." He kisses Jon's forehead. "I think it helps. I know it helps me. And I get the sense it's been a long time since someone held you with love."
"Not that long. Unthar does genuinely like me, and I make sure to see him at least every few months," Jon says. But unlike most of the times Kylo's touched him, he does relax into Kylo's embrace, and lets himself be cuddled. "It's been longer than I like, though."
Kylo nods, and keeps holding him. He closes his eyes and lets himself feel Jon. The Jon beyond the flesh and blood in his arms. "When we were new, still learning each other, I can remember Rey just touching me, sort of like this, feeling who I was," his eyes are still closed as he says this, his mind zipping along through the currents, eddies, and whorls of Jon's energy. "And she didn't say anything, but she found the knots, and the snarls, and the slow, hurt, sluggish places. The ones that hurt so much they petrified, so they couldn't hurt so bad." None of the hard, dense, cold and dark places on Jon are physical. There's no sense of badly healed bones, or scar tissue so entrenched it calcified. But there are huge, aching, hot/cold balls of loss in his psyche. Kylo doesn't poke them, though, like Rey was with him, he is a bit tempted to try.
"I can feel what you're doing. It's… weird."
"Just… seeing the you under the you."
Jon nods. "Hurt places." He pauses, feels what Kylo's doing. "I don't… think of them like this. They just… are. Kind of weird to… It's like looking at myself from outside of myself."
"Yeah." It should be a non sequitur, but Jon follows along. "I move differently now. Compared to the last time you saw me fight. A lot of my hurt places were physical, and… A few months back, a lot of them released."
"You do." He'd noticed that. Kylo's fight got a lot 'free-er' for lack of a better word. More fluid. If he wasn't read in on the current state of the Order's expenses, he'd be tempted to redesign Kylo's armor, too. (As it is, he will re-design, but he won't upgrade until the current armor is damanged and needs to be replaced.)
Kylo lets his mind brush up against the biggest of the snarls in Jon's energy. "Scars keep us together. When you get hurt, you need stability to keep the body together, let it heal... Because there isn't enough strength to do it, rigidity takes over. Muscles get stiff, scars form, your body protects itself."
"Hearts do, too."
"Yeah." Again, he just lets his mind brush Jon's scars. "It's… do you know what a nettle looks like?"
"Nope."
Kylo brings the image to mind, the swollen bulb of prickly green, and then shades it black and gray. He shares that with Jon. "That's what it feels/looks like to me."
Jon just nods. "How'd it… you… release?"
Kylo sighs at that. "A combination of things. Help from Rey. Being willing to let it release. It wasn't going to work if I fought her on it. I think my body finally got the message I didn't need those scars any more."
Jon pulls back a little to look at his face.
Kylo rolls his eyes a bit, rucks up his shirt, and puts Jon's hand on his abdomen, near his hip bone, on the straight surgical scar from where they 'fixed up' and closed the hole Chewie made in his side. "Huge mess there. You can't get shot in the side with a bowcaster and not end up with problems. You can feel it now, underneath." He stops, and feels a little silly. "Actually, you can't feel it. It's all smoothed out." He moves Jon's hand a bit lower, to his hip. "Broke that hip, and it never quite worked right, after. The joint went rigid and stiff. That's why I walked the way I did. Broken knee and ankle didn't help, either." He raises and lowers his leg. "Last year, it would have ground and clicked if I did that. Nice and smooth now."
They're both quiet.
"My body… mind… needed to feel safe before it could let it go. Couldn't drop the armor until I knew I was out of the fight. I think that's… the heart of it." He doesn't think it, but they both know, on a lot of levels, Rey makes him feel safe.
Jon's head is against Kylo's shoulder. "How do I feel safe from this?"
Kylo kisses his forehead again. "I have no idea." Though he thinks Jon letting himself be held and comforted is a good thing.
Jon nods at that, and the door to his room chimes. He untwines from Kylo, and opens it. A small delivery droid scoots in. He presses his hand to the scanner. It reads his prints, and the delivery hatch opens, allowing him access to dinner.
He takes out the plates, and the droid beeps at him, before scooting back out the door.
Kylo sniffs. He looks confused. "What'd you get?"
"My idea of comfort food. Tasha's husband, Brent, he'd make a version of this when I was over at their place, feeling out of sorts." He puts a plate in front of Kylo, who clearly does not know what he's looking at.
"Lamb stew. We don't often have it available here. And it's not Brent's. But… It's close, enough." He's about to turn around and grab the salt and pepper, but Kylo can feel his next move, and just hovers them over. "For all you say about that not being terribly useful…"
Kylo smirks a bit. "Yeah, well… There's the things we say because it makes other people feel better, and the things that are true. It's really nice when you don't want to get out of bed to get your morning coffee."
Jon snerks a little at that. "New meaning to the idea, 'breakfast in bed.'"
Kylo knows Jon's done a lot of saying things to make people feel better over the last few years. And he's got the sense that a lot of other serious stuff is just… not needed right now. "What's Brent like? You've mentioned him a few times…"
Jon smiles a little, digging into his stew. He thinks for a bit, looking for a way to describe his oldest brother-in-law/step-dad.
"He's… I mean, I like him. But, I would. He's always been decent to me, even though I was this little kid who kept annoyingly tagging along on dates with my sister when he first came courting. I don't remember it very well, but apparently Mum had told me to keep an eye on them, so I kept an eye."
"He wasn't appalled at a…"
"Two-year-old spy? Apparently not. Granted, it's likely I didn't know much of what I was seeing, so there were probably a lot of ways to fool me."
Kylo smirks at that.
"And I think it was also a way for Mum to see if Brent was serious about being part of the family. If he was decent to me, he'd likely be a good man for my sister, and good to their kids as well, so…"
"And…"
"Yeah, he's a good guy. They've got three of their own kids now. Arabelle, my oldest niece, is only five years younger than I am."
Kylo chuckles and shakes his head at that.
Jon takes another bite. "Really not his recipe. Granted, we probably can't or don't get half the ingredients here. And this probably isn't really lamb…"
It tastes fine to Kylo. Meaty, savory, rich. He'd prefer more veg and less meat, because, as far as he can tell, the point of stew is to make meat mushy, but that's neither here nor there. The biscuits taste good dipped in the liquid.
Jon's still thinking about how to describe Brent. "Okay. I've talked about how thrilled my family was that I was marrying a man?"
Kylo nods. And if he hasn't explicitly mentioned it, he's more than got the idea.
"Brent offered to stand up for me at our wedding."
Kylo blinks at that. "I… Don't understand that reference."
"Have you never been to a wedding?"
"I caught the tail end of Finn and Rose's, mostly just enough to see laughing, and Poe and Rey dancing a bit. The only other one, I was eight, and we were far enough back I could really only see my Uncle Chewie."
Jon's amused by that. "Okay, in a lot of traditions, weddings start with the spouses walking to some sort of central stage. They start off on their own sides, often, and come together in the middle."
"I can see the symbolism."
"Good. Now, usually, it's not just going to be you and your love up there. There'll be some sort of officiant or master of ceremonies. And there'll usually be readings and vows and speeches and… Stuff."
Kylo rolls his eyes.
Jon commiserates. "Yeah, that part is often boring as all get out. But in a lot of cultures, you're not really married unless you've made everyone you've ever cared about wish they could shoot themselves in the head rather than listen to another minute of blathering about love and romance."
"So, you're saying Rey and I should be able to clock this thing in at less than three minutes?"
"Preferably."
Kylo does laugh at that, and takes a sip.
"Sometimes, depending on how complicated the contract is, they'll read the contract out, and then sign it. Sometimes, you just say your vows to each other. I was at one where there was an entire interpretive dance section that took half an hour and involved twenty-five dancers."
"Should I be impressed or horrified?"
Jon shrugs. "I thought it was impressive. Certainly, wasn't boring, but it seemed weird in a wedding."
Kylo inclines his head, and Jon takes another bite.
"Anyway, in a lot of… let's call them 'Imperial/Old Republic Standard' weddings, it's not really a wedding unless there are at least two witnesses, in addition to the person who's doing the wedding, and the spouses."
Kylo nods at that. "And that's where stands up with you, goes?"
"Yep. You invite, usually, your closest friend or friends, and they stand up with you, sign the contract, and often give some sort of speech at the party after."
Kylo blinks. "Oh. Uh…" He smirks. "I… Dad was nervous at Lando's wedding, and we were running late, and he was upset by that, and… He and Chewie were standing up with Lando. He was nervous about the speech."
Jon nods along. "That's the general idea."
Kylo looks away from his supper to Jon. "Will you…"
Jon rolls his eyes a bit, and gives Kylo a shove. "I've got my suit designed and already have the rough draft of the formal speech done."
Kylo grins at him.
"I don't know about your private thing, but for the formal one, I was hoping we'd get Kinear up there with us, too. Probably Schiff. If you've got friends I don't know about, now's the time."
"Poe…" Kylo leads, wondering why Jon didn't mention him.
Jon glances away from his supper to Kylo. "Usually, weddings have someone, who's a member of your faith, or politically important, or…"
"The master of ceremony… Officiant… Right?"
"And unless I'm sorely misunderstanding where Finn and Rose and Chewie fit into all of this, Poe's the only other adult Maji, no?" Jon asks.
Kylo thinks about that, too. And about the image they're working for, of Poe, Master of the Maji, goes in, spreads the good word, steals a few hundred thousand people… Stuff like that…
"I guess I need to talk to Rey, and him."
"That's usually how that works."
They keep eating for a few more moments. Quiet and content with each other. Then Jon remembers part of what he was hoping to talk to Kylo and Rey about either during or shortly after sparring.
"So, in addition to an embassy here, one of the members of the New Alderaan delegation thought it would be interesting to explore a more explicitly Order-type of arrangement."
Kylo nods. "Right, my backdoor man—"
Jon snerks.
Kylo raises a brow. He knows it's a sex joke. That's clear from the snerk. He doesn't know exactly what sort of sex-joke it is, because Jon's just being amused at the idea of it, and not focusing on the specifics.
Jon waves it away. "Yes, I know I opened that one up referring to what I was doing as being a backdoor channel, but… Just, in generally, don't refer to me as your backdoor man, unless you want a very… unlikely… image about our relationship going around." Jon's brain fills in the images that go with that statement, and Kylo nods.
"Ah… So… Uh… My unofficial diplomatic channel…"
"Better."
"What's an Order-type of arrangement."
"So, of course, Alderaan is peaceful. So, it doesn't have its own military forces, at least, not officially. I'm sure they've got something hiding in the background. Anyway, with the New Republic being less than… uh… wildly effective at policing it's current territory, they're seeing a lot more in the way of piracy."
Kylo nods. "That's part of why we monitor the border with the Rim in our territory. Keep the less-well marked spaces clear."
"Exactly. Now, part of how Alderaan stays Alderaan, meaning able to pay for all the spiffy stuff they like to do, is that they make extremely-expensive, tailored-to-fit-your-biome plants. But, if those plants don't get where they're going, they don't get paid."
"And they'd like some… I'd imagine non-Order branded—" Jon's nodding. "security to help them get to where they're going?"
"Exactly. And we likely don't want to stick our brand on it, at least right now, because The New Republic does have shoot on sight orders for any of what's left of their military if they see one of our ships."
Kylo digests that idea while he eats another bite of supper. "I don't see why we couldn't do that. We sell security, and if it's got our symbol on it, it makes things less secure, then we'd prefer not to have our mark on it."
"Maybe stick the branding on the insides of the ships?" Jon offers.
Kylo thinks about that. "Does it matter?"
"I'm thinking through that. Everyone who sees people with our marks on them gets a living advertisement for the Order and why we're worth joining or backing…"
"Which is good."
"But it also means that if someone decides to board that secure ship…"
And Kylo doesn't need it spelled out further than that. "Would they do that?"
"For Alderaan?" Jon shrugs. "Probably not. At least not anything from the official Republic military or police. But if we offer this to Alderaan, others are likely to think that we may be offering something of value, too…"
"And some of those others might be looking for security against the New Republic," Kylo says.
"You know, I hadn't thought that far ahead, but… Especially, if they start cracking down on traffic in certain goods that we allow… I could see people looking for security, and that's a situation where it would likely be to our benefit if they weren't Order branded, unless we are looking to get a war going." Jon gives him a curious look. He sits on the thought for a few heartbeats, though, and Kylo lets him. Finally, Jon says, "Rey's not here. Poe's not here. It's just us… Just… The Order. We could probably, if we strike now, or organize a situation to make them strike at us, take what's left of the New Republic out."
Kylo sighs. "Is that you talking, or Kinear?"
"Does it matter? It's a question that I'm willing to ask. And if even I've come up with it, it's certain a lot of the rest of your high command is contemplating it, too."
Kylo sighs again. "First, and for me, most important level; Rey'll leave me." And he knows that. Clear as the ice in his heart at this idea, if he orchestrates something to make the New Republic strike at them, so he can strike back, she'll leave. She loves him absolutely. She also will not stand by if he wants to set himself and the galaxy on fire. Jakku was his last free shot, and that's that. "So, absolutely, as long as I'm in charge, which, unless you feel really strongly about this," and both of them know he means, unless you're willing to attempt to kill me over this one, and Jon's immediately shaking his head at that, "the time frame where that sort of strike is possible is out."
Jon nods. "And secondly?"
"What the fuck are we going to do with the chaos that'll pop up if we take the New Republic out? Even we use standard credits, backed by banks built on the legal system they uphold." He fiddles with his drink. "I can feel how you're thinking about it. Take them out now, and we don't have to worry about our biggest threat. We don't have to be constantly wondering if today's the day they get fed up enough to do something about us. We don't have to worry about if they're building up a lot faster than we think they are. And, on top of that, since it looks like the current plan is keep things going at our current status quo while I'm in charge, and then drop the heavy lifting on dealing with the New Republic on you—"
"You do know I've never said I actually wanted to be Master of the Order."
Kylo shrugs at that. "I didn't either. Not really. I just wanted to keep Rey alive. And then myself. After that everything else sort of fell into place."
"And there's no guarantee I could even win an election."
Kylo just stares at him.
Jon blinks. "Wait. You…"
"I promise, if you decide you want it, you will win the election."
"Uh… I thought…" Jon's looking really startled by that.
"My mother was a democrat, and a republican, as long as it got her what she was hoping to get. I have a feeling my own convictions along those lines are likely to be similarly shallow." He offers Jon a bit of a smile. "The more I think about it, the more… this voting thing… It's about making the people who don't want to go your way, go your way. I think the fact that we won't extend our laws to anyone who doesn't want to abide them will be more effective than democracy."
"But you want the… image of it?" Jon doesn't look confused so much as he looks like he's got the shape of an idea, but he's still getting the fine details of it.
"I think it'll make it easier to figure out what our people want, so we can move in that direction, but… Like Kinear said, you've got to be a system of men before you can be a system of laws, and… We're talking with the Alderaan people, and how much of their culture has enforced ideals in ways that laws can't, and… Like they said, you don't have to enforce no meat sales by making it illegal. They just had thousands of years of certain behaviors being outside of acceptable."
"You can't do that in ten years."
"I know. Which is why it's likely at least as long as I'm alive, and maybe the kids that come after us, that Masters run for election, and either they're picked from a collection of the right people, or we make sure the right ones win. At least until we've got the culture steeped into everyone."
Jon exhales a long breath at that.
Kylo chews for a moment. "You don't hate the idea, I can feel that. And you'd likely be better at it than I am."
Jon shrugs. "I don't love it, either."
Kylo's turn to shrug. "I might consider that a plus. It's probably easier to do a better job of it, if it's not your passion."
"How much of that is Ben talking about his Mom?"
Kylo shrugs. "Probably a lot. Maybe too much."
Jon nods. "You're thinking a lot more about her with dealing with all of the Alderaan stuff, aren't you?"
Kylo doesn't physically shrug that that, though Jon can sense he's feeling shruggish. "Hard to look at Heloise and not see His Royal Highness King Ben Solo of Alderaan."
"All the pretty braids in your hair."
Kylo smirks at that. "I'm sure King Ben is a lot prettier than I am. No broken bones. No scars. He's probably good at calligraphy and gardening, maybe he breeds champion Faviers or something, and spends a lot of time reading."
Jon laughs. "And likely has a marriage pact with Heloise, or some pretty princess from Naboo, and doesn't have any real Force powers, and… he's actually His Royal Highness Prince Ben, because his Mom is still alive and driving the Alderaanian government crazy. Yeah… The life that didn't happen."
"Yeah."
"Speaking of Mom… Everyone at my table heard me say she was dead, and then they looked very nervous for a moment, and promptly decided to not think or speak of it again. Granted, Thea did a very good job of distracting them, so…"
Jon nods. "You asking what I heard?"
"Yeah. Gossip?"
"Not a lot. Deciding not to touch that with a three-meter pole seemed to be the most common response. Ghosts tend to make people feel squirmy."
"Anyone think I was crazy?"
"Not who was willing to say, hint, or even think it loudly near me."
Kylo nods at that. "Of course, they all saw her on the recording, so that likely did a good job of disabusing them of the idea I'm off my head."
"Photographic evidence does tend to help. And, if it's a lie, it's a stupidly bizarre one to fake." Jon sips his drink. He's quiet for a moment, and then, "So, there really is… something… after?"
Kylo shrugs at that. "We were taught that no one is ever really gone, but…" He looks at Jon, knowing what and why he's asking. "Best I can tell, some people just aren't out there. They don't… come when I call, or interact, and my ghosts can't find them, either, so…"
Jon just stares at the home he shared with Lane, his eyes landing on their wedding picture, and the wave of tired, sad… anguish… Is clear.
He's just so lost. And Kylo's again thinking: What does love look like, right here, right now? Active, attached, motivating and changing love? What does Jon need out of this moment, and how can Kylo give it to him?
He closes his eyes and feels. There's nothing out there, and it was a long shot, anyway. Kylo puts his hand on Jon's shoulder. "All the ones I see are… offering me motivation/plans/help getting to where I need to go. Their… jobs… for lack of a better word, aren't done." He scoots closer again, cuddling in against Jon. He keeps his mind, his Force, soft and gentle, and he holds Jon's self, his body, his own light, and his Force, with it. "Lightling. You and Rey. My lights. It's easy for you to get stuck. He loved you." He looks at the image of them. "I can see it just in that photograph. I can feel the echos of it in you, and in here. This home feels love." He squeezes Jon a little tighter, pulling him to here, and now. "Everything you needed from him, except forever, he gave you.
"My guess is, he's not out there, because you and he are done. You want him, but you don't need him, not anymore. And him back here… He'd just… tie you even tighter to the past, which is where you don't need to be." He hugs him a little tighter, again, putting his own love into his voice. "It's also the only place you can't be. It's gone, Jon."
Jon rolls his eyes. "Great."
Kylo shrugs again. "Well, you know my famous, 'the Force is an ass,' line. Did you ever get the idea I was kidding?"
"I really didn't, but…"
Kylo nods. "Yeah. All the problems in the galaxy, and there's supposed to be this overwhelming power that guides and pulls and molds and… We're left with this." He hovers the salt shaker, demonstrating exactly how little that is in the wider scheme of things.
Jon nods at that, too.
"Would you trade it. Give up now to go back?"
Jon shrugs at that, too. "Not right now, and not right this second, but tomorrow the answer will be different, and yesterday it was, and…" He turns and lets himself nestle into Kylo's arms, and Kylo strokes his hair gently.
"I wanted to go back to Luke's, even though he tried to cut my head off, for the first year. Every day. Every hour. He tried to kill me. I burned his school to the ground. My friends… we killed everyone at the school who didn't join us, and every single day I wished I could change or shift or… Rewind time."
"What changed?"
Kylo shrugs at that, too. "I mostly stopped wanting anything. Just accepted I was going to hurt all the time, and that was that."
"Oh."
"Yeah. A lot of my story isn't exactly happy."
"You broke the rut, though?"
"Eventually, I got to the point where not breaking it hurt more than breaking it, so, yeah, I did. How bad does this hurt?"
"I'm not loving it."
"How bad does breaking it hurt?"
Jon makes a little pfth sound. "I don't know how."
Kylo pulls back a little, and then stares at him. "I doubt that. Very much. I do believe that the fear of what happens if you break out is so great that it's keeping you walled off from breaking out."
"I come back to an empty apartment every evening. I have sex with strangers because they look a little like my husband. I measure out how much alcohol I can have each day, because if I don't, I drink myself stupid. What's left to lose?"
Kylo strokes his face. "Everything the first run through didn't kill."
He feels Jon crumple a bit at that. "Yeah."
"Having to do it again."
"Fuck," he just mutters it.
"Another good man, and another life, and another love, and everything about yourself that you cherish, and everything about him, and…" He holds Jon's face. "You glow. You know that?"
Jon rolls his eyes and then aims a skeptical expression at Kylo.
Kylo nods, and again presses his lips to Jon's forehead. He pulls back a moment later. "You do. It's dim right now, because you're comfortable enough to allow yourself to be sad, but… when you're happy or interested… It's still there. All that life and affection and passion and… It makes sense to be afraid when you've got a lot to lose.
"The only way I broke out of my rut was standing there knowing that if I didn't do it, I was going to have to literally cut Rey's head off. That's what finally shoved me out, and as you know I'm not exactly a paragon of light. I don't tend to carve deep, inescapable ruts. I move in and out pretty easily. And getting out still hurt."
"Wonderful." Both of them sit there quietly for a long moment. Jon's not exactly thinking much. He's just… aware, of here and now and how much he doesn't want to change. Finally, he says, "The diplomacy office. It's got an apartment for me. And, unlike the rest of that floor, it's going to be done in the next six weeks."
Kylo can understand why that matters. "Are you going to move?"
"I really didn't intend to. I'm still pretty sure I won't, but… Maybe that's part of breaking free."
"Could be. I've heard significantly worse plans. Made a bunch of them, too."
That gets a smirk out of Jon. He shifts a bit so his back is flush to Kylo's chest. It takes him a little scooting around to feel comfortable. "Feels weird. Usually when people do this with me, they want to have sex."
Kylo shrugs a bit. This is warm and comfortable for him. It feels good. Like something he should be doing, but… There's no flush of heat to it. No erotic desire or mood. "Sorry. Not gonna happen."
"Yeah, I know."
Quiet, for a long moment.
"Would it be easier if I did?" Kylo asks.
Jon shrugs. "More familiar. I'd know… how to be."
"Just be you."
Jon snerks at that. "You is a series of scripts that you follow to keep interactions simple."
Kylo holds him a little tighter. He kisses the side of his head. "Bantha shit. Trust me, this is not a position you can lie to me in."
"Maybe, I just want to lie to me."
"Maybe you do, but… It doesn't get better that way."
Jon eyes his wine, but doesn't reach for it. "Better hurts. Worse hurts. Everything fucking hurts all the damn time."
Kylo snuggles Jon. "Yeah. I know."
"I… almost wish there was some sort of… Clear, bright, 'Do the Right Thing, Arsehole!' moment I could cling to. 'Don't Cut Rey's Head Off' looks like a really easy, clear motivation."
Kylo doesn't mention the long series of exceptionally bright 'Do the Right Thing, Asshole!' moments he went sprinting past, leaping into the wrong thing, and says, "Take your ring off, go call Poe, have a good time, and here's the trick, keep doing it. Don't go home after and feel like your heart's cut in half. Bring him home to this apartment, know in your heart Lane'd be beyond pleased by this, and just… enjoy each other." He hugs him a little tighter. "Do this… close, intimate… real… stuff with someone who wants to fuck you, who you want to fuck back, and then enjoy it."
Jon winces.
"Yep. I was thinking that's how that'd go. I think he is, too. Which is part of why he's 'being your friend,' which I know annoys the shit out of you, but…"
Jon waves that away. "Yeah, great." He groans softly. Voice more a sub vocal vibration than a sound.
"Jon?"
"He would be, you know? Okay with Poe. Jealous as fuck, because Poe's here and he's not, but… He'd probably even like the bastard if he could get over the Resistance angle. At least well enough to shoot the shit over a drink or something."
Kylo chuckles at that. "He's stupidly charming, isn't he?"
Jon shakes his head a bit, but he's not disagreeing, not really. "I wonder sometimes, what he'd think of this. He wasn't exactly a First Order loyalist. He didn't go through the Hux method. He was pissed when we found out about the Hosnian system. Not publicly, of course. Publicly, you pretended that just the thought of blowing a billion people out of the sky got you hard. But that night…" Jon just remembers Lane ranting about that. Part of why his command couldn't seek terms when the war ended was that they were part of the group that supported the Death Star. And, at least according to Lane, a lot of why the Empire lost the bloody war is that once you enact a genocide, you prove you're too dangerous to allow to survive, and anyone, and everyone would be gunning for them, soon.
Kylo nods along. "Mom always said getting ships and men and weapons was a lot easier after Alderaan."
"Yeah. Once Alderaan blew, anyone in an Empire uniform was looking to get killed if they walked around openly anywhere that wasn't an Empire stronghold, and they were starting to get sniped in a lot of them, too."
"How'd he feel about the rest of the First Order?" Kylo asks.
"From his position, it wasn't much different than the Empire. Wasn't much different than a lot of militaries. I don't think he cared much." He shrugs at that. "Maybe, in Republican or Jedi families it's different, but… we didn't exactly talk politics much. We knew what the job was, we did the job, and when it was done for the day, we had each other."
"Yeah, we never talked politics growing up with Luke. It was assumed we'd all be New Republicans, and other than a little bit about how the Jedi of old got too tightly entwined with the Old Republic, and became political tools instead of guardians and guides to the Force, it wasn't anything we paid attention to."
"He wasn't training you up to be the Knights of the New Republic?"
"He wasn't. Mom and M'Gll certainly wouldn't have minded moving in that direction. There's something to be said for having negotiators who can read and change minds."
Jon says, voice dry, "Yeah, I can see how that might be useful."
"Yeah, Mom could, too."
Jon sighs at that, and then scoots away from Kylo. Kylo keeps his hand resting on Jon's back. "I'm okay, Kylo."
Kylo doesn't move his hand.
"Enough," Jon says.
"Enough." And Kylo pulls away. "Hugs are always on offer, though."
Jon rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "You're a cuddle slut, aren't you?"
"I don't know what a slut is."
Jon rubs his forehead, shakes his head, and begins to work on filling in another chunk of the education Ben Solo should have had by the age of twelve. He's half-way through it when it occurs to him that the mindreader is asking him for the definition of a word.
He stops mid-sentence, and Kylo just smirks at him.
Jon shoves his shoulder.
And they go back to eating.
Kylo finds Rey in the communal kitchen with the older kids. They're scattered about the tables, some sitting on chairs, some sitting on the tables, and in the middle of a conversation about one of the letters she'd gotten. "If this balance thing is real, does that mean evil has to exist?"
Critt's saying, "Well… we're talking about a balance between dark and light, right? Does it have to go further than that?" And he stops as Kylo just pops into the room, looks around for a moment, takes three steps, hoists himself onto the counter Rey's sitting on, and snuggles up next to Rey.
She strokes his hand, and leans into him, but doesn't acknowledge beyond that. "I think that's a good thought, Critt, keep going with it."
Critt gets up and begins to pace, letting his feet move so his brain can flow more easily. "Well… Evil is hurting people for kicks and giggles, right? And… You can do that dark, or you can do that light? Right? Like, those asshats that you kept running into, Cassie, they were light, right? All steady and conservative, and dispassionate?"
Cassie inclines her head. "Probably. I think… It always felt to me that they enjoyed making us hurt, but… That doesn't have to be dark, does it?"
"I don't think so," Rey replies…
Kylo lets that swirl around him. He's in a warm room with a collection of bright minds. Some bright meaning light, some bright meaning inquisitive, and all of them are interested in the conversation. He's holding his light, his love.
He doesn't add to the conversation; he just works on actively cherishing this. On feeling it. Being here and present and in the moment with Rey. An hour later, when the kids break up, she turns in his embrace and says, "Good conversation with Jon?"
He holds her, his lips against her temple. "Yeah." He breathes her in, steeping in the feel of her in his arms, very much, right now, not taking this moment, this life, and this love, for granted.
"He okay?"
"Missing Lane."
Rey nods, and snuggles in closer to him. Both of them have too much empathy for that.