I plan on fluctuating this story between first and third person. To clarify, if you're reading in the first person, it is Robin speaking, and if you are reading in the third person, it's usually going to be from Kylo's point of view. This chapter is written from the perspective of Kylo. Hope you enjoy x
LOCATION : KYLO REN'S QUARTERS - STARKILLER BASE
STARDATE: 17/09/1843
Ren couldn't sleep.
He took a glance beside himself at the small clock that rested on the table next to his bed.
3:30.
He rubbed his tired eyes with his hand and sat up, pushing his long hair back from his face, and let out a deep sigh.
He shouldn't have done what he did today, not at all. He shouldn't have let himself get that close to that blasted girl. He could excuse the moment in the library, when he had grasped her much smaller hand in his and traced out the curved shape of a 'G' on the wooden table. That was teaching, he was helping her learn, but what had he been thinking during combat training? His plan was just to let the girl throw a few punches at him, increase her confidence slightly, but instead, he had ended up straddling her, his face inches from hers. He had gone much too far.
He'd wanted to make her frightened of him.
And what had she said?
'You don't scare me, Ren.'
He had been so close to her that he would have been able to see the smallest twitch of an eyelid or the quirk of a lip to betray that she was lying, but her face was rock hard as she spoke. She was telling the truth.
That irked him more than he wanted to admit to himself. This girl, this insignificant girl with a mouth that was slightly too quick and reflexes that were slightly too slow. She had stood up to him in a way that none of the Generals or the Commanders had ever dared. Even General Hux wouldn't have spoken to him with such a level of disrespect, and he hated Ren on a molecular level.
He lay back down, closing his eyes. His day tomorrow would be busy, he had another force-session planned with Robin, using her fear in order to exploit her power. Snoke would be proud of him. Ren tried to make his mind go blank, willing himself to fall into unconsciousness, but the same image kept sneaking, uninvited, into his mind.
Robin, her black tank top soaked through with sweat, her breath coming fast, pinned underneath his much larger body.
It was an image that he couldn't quite convince himself he hated.
LOCATION: TRAINING ROOM FOUR - STARKILLER BASE
STARDATE: 17/09/1843
"No,"
Robin's voice left no room for interpretation, she was outright refusing. It surprised Ren that she had the audacity to refuse a direct order, but she seemed adamant.
"Robin, this is the easiest way to-"
"I said no,"
Ren rolled his eyes dramatically and folded his arms across his chest, looking at Robin with a raised eyebrow. She folded her own arms across her own chest in response. The pair of them were back in the training room, and after almost an hour of Robin trying and failing to move the metal mask in the middle of the floor, Ren had come up with an idea.
An idea that Robin, to say the least, didn't like an awful lot.
"I'm not having you poking around inside my head, Ren."
He raised a single eyebrow at her disrespectful tone and she backtracked immediately.
"I just mean to say that I'm not comfortable with you mind-reading me, Sir."
He smiled to himself. She had gone back to 'Sir', though whether intentionally or unconsciously he didn't know. It was nice to know that he still held some power over her.
"Your comfort doesn't come into this." His voice was hard, and he saw her visibly flinch at the ice in his tone, "I am training you to control your use of the force and the easiest way to do that is for me to see what you are afraid of, and use that as a lever."
She bit her bottom lip with her teeth, thinking it through. Ren watched her think, and suddenly an idea popped into his head.
"You know I don't need your permission, Robin?" His voice was low, menacing.
Her eyes snapped upwards at his words, afraid. He took a step towards her, revelling in the sudden power imbalance.
"You have no idea what I can do. How powerful I am." His voice was low, menacing.
She took a step backwards. Actually took a step backwards. It was all Ren could do to not laugh out loud at the sight.
Not afraid of me? We'll see.
"You don't know the half of what I can do, little bird," He took another step forwards, and Robin took another step back until her back pressed up against the whitewashed wall of the training room. Nowhere to run. There were at least five metres between them, and Ren kept pacing forwards, agonisingly slowly.
"I can bend your mind so completely you won't even remember your own name."
Robin licked her lips quickly with her tongue. With his senses heightened by the force, Ren could literally hear how fast her heart was beating, thudding against her ribcage, terrified.
"I'm not scared of you-" It came out as more of a whisper than she had meant it to, and Ren could see the flash of anger in her eyes when her fear was betrayed by her voice.
"Of course, you are," He rolled his eyes and took another step forwards, shortening the distance again, "There's no point in lying to yourself, Robin."
The mask was still between them, long forgotten. Ren stopped, standing only two metres away, the mask resting on the floor in front of him like a protective barrier.
"I can invade every inch of you, Robin, without even lifting a finger. I can make you feel pain that you've never even imagined, and I won't even break a sweat."
It was all true, of course. Snoke had taught Ren well, as had Luke Skywalker. Of course, Skywalker probably wouldn't approve of Kylo's current method of teaching...
He raised a single gloved hand.
"Do you want me to show you?"
Before he knew what had happened, the mask had flown from the ground straight towards his uncovered face. He barely had time to bring his hand up to prevent it from smashing directly into his nose. He held the mask in the air with the force but was surprised to feel that there was a pressure pushing it towards him. A small pressure, but a pressure nonetheless.
"Good," he muttered, taking a step backwards. The pressure decreased slightly.
"No, no. Keep this up, Rob."
He saw her eyebrows raise so high in shock at the unexpected nickname that they almost disappeared above her hairline. He smiled. A real smile.
"Come on, Robin, this is good."
She steeled herself and raised her hand towards the mask, which was now floating between the two of them. Kylo felt a slight nudge as it moved towards himself.
"Yes."
She let out something that was halfway between a snort of laughter and a grunt as her face wrinkled in concentration. She let out a long hard breath out of her nose, and the mask started edging its way closer to Ren's face.
"Good, good, keep it going," he encouraged as the mask floated closer towards him. He increased the pressure on his side, and the mask floated away again, back towards Robin.
"Push back," he ordered her, excited. The metal mask floated in between them, caught in the middle of their power struggle.
She bit her lip, beads of sweat beginning to form on her face as she concentrated. He felt a strong push from her side, and the mask moved a few inches forwards. He grinned and looked up at her, surprised to see that she was also smiling.
"Hit me in the fucking nose with it, Robin."
She raised an eyebrow at his phrasing.
"What?"
"Come on, I know how much you want to. This may be your only chanc-"
The word wasn't even out of his mouth when a strong surge of power came from Robin. He had been holding the extent of his force back, only pushing the mask towards Robin with enough force to keep it steady, so the unexpected push took him by surprise, and he didn't have enough time to register it before there was a sharp pain in his face, causing him to stumble back, bringing his hand to his nose.
The mask fell to the floor with a metallic cling.
"Fuck." The word came from Robin, "I'm sorry," She walked over to him, but he raised a hand and she stopped in her place.
"Don't apologise." He said, raising his face. The mask had hit him square in his nose, and there was a small cut just above the bridge of it, but there was a smile on his face so wide that Robin was taken aback by it, "That was great, Robin."
He stood up straight and took a step towards her. She let out a breathy laugh, still slightly out of breath from the exertion.
"I did it."
"You bloody well did," Ren replied, rubbing his nose with his hand. Robin laughed, slightly giddy with the excitement.
"Was that your plan all along?"
Had it been? Ren wasn't quite sure. Had he frightened her in an attempt to get her to use the force against him, or had he just done it to prove to himself that she was frightened of him? He didn't know.
"Of course," he lied, rolling his eyes for added effect, "I knew you had it in you."
She smiled, a beaming smile that actually caused Ren to freeze in his place for a second, transfixed. It was the first smile that she had ever given him.
"Thanks," she said. He shrugged his shoulders. His nose throbbed slightly but he ignored it.
"Don't mention it."
Maybe this wouldn't be so difficult after all.
Please leave a comment telling me what you though of this chapter :)
