How silly she had been, hoping Kylo had meant to find out what kind of kiss she liked more…Nope.
That would have been a preferable way to spend the early morning hours. Instead, she's now trailing him as he marches along the corridor towards the interrogation cells. The base is always colder at night, and she tries to not shiver in her short-sleeved shirt. Why didn't I put something warmer on?
Oh, right… All of my clothes are who knows where. Anika tries to ignore the few officers and troopers they pass, even as their heads whip around to do a double take. She's just a tech after all, and it's probably a bit odd looking that she's carrying a bottle of liquor as she practically runs after their commander. He doesn't even seem to realize that he's forcing her to scamper to keep up, his head focused straight ahead on their destination.
The two stormtroopers jump out of the way as they arrive, and Ren ignores their nods to sweep into the interrogation wing. The lighting seems dimmer in this part of the base, and Anika peers into the empty cells as they pass. They turn a corner, and she spots one of his Knights ahead.
He bows quickly. "Master."
"Has she said anything since I left?"
"No, Master."
Kylo snaps his hand minutely, and the cell door behind the Knight unlocks with a clang. It flings open, and Anika hesitates before following him into the small room. But she stops just inside the bars at the sight of Darial, restrained by cuffs to the wall. She's secured at both her ankles and wrists, and she gives Anika a terrified look when their eyes meet.
Anika's heart sinks with despair, guilty at the sight of her friend like this. She looks absolutely scared to death. Could this really be some alien faking? What if it's actually Darial, what if this is all a mistake…?
"It's not your friend," Kylo reminds, his voice sounding stern through the mask. "You have to remember that."
Anika tears her eyes away from the perfect replication of her best friend to nod. It's not Darial… It just looks exactly like Darial… She lifts the bottle to take a swig of the ale, wincing as it burns her throat on the way down. It's not Darial…Don't feel bad for her…
Kylo approaches the prisoner slowly, pacing forward like a lion eyeing up its prey. She gnaws at her lip nervously, trying to remind herself that Ren isn't about to torture her real best friend. She takes a second drink, hoping it will steady her nerves.
Kylo comes to a stop before the blob, his head cocking slightly to the side as he observes her. "Are you ready to begin again?" he asks, voice threatening.
Darial's eyes widen, and she shakes her head, pulling at the cuffs at her wrists. "Please, please you have this all wrong!" she cries out. "Please don't hurt me again."
"Stop resisting," Ren orders, raising one of his hands into the air. Anika watches the fingers of his glove splay and slowly curl, and fake Darial whimpers with pain. It's the only sign that he is using the force to try to read her thoughts.
"Your minds are like a maze, but I promise you…I will break through eventually," the Commander growls, stepping closer to the imposter. Anika's breathing quickens, intimidated by how predatory Kylo seems like this. Despite all her silly fantasies, she's suddenly grateful to have never been on the receiving end of one of his interrogations for real.
Darial winces with pain, trying to look away from Ren. When her eyes land on Anika's, she pleads. "Anika, please, you have to make him let me go!"
She gulps, fighting against the guilt. She's not Darial, don't feel bad, don't feel bad-
"Please, please, Anika, tell him it's me!" she cries. "Make him stop, it's me, Anika!"
Anika's fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle with anxiety. It may not be her friend, but it definitely sounds just like Darial. She tears her eyes away from the scene, unable to watch.
"Please!" the imposter cries out sharply. "Anika, he's hurting me-"
"Enough!" Kylo snaps. Darial's head rocks back against the wall, her mouth gaping open as he apparently silences her with the force. "She isn't helping you. No one is going to help you."
Her face begins to darken red before he releases her, and she gulps for air. Kylo reaches out, snatching Darial's face in his glove and forcing her to look away from Anika and up towards his mask instead. "Tell me where the girl is. If she's alive, maybe I'll spare you life," he hisses.
For a moment, Darial's eyes hold lingering panic. But then her expression shifts, so rapidly that its startling. Her eyes narrow, her chin lifting defiantly as she meets Ren's mask with a glare. The last worm of guilt wiggles loose from Anika's chest, as she suddenly sees proof this isn't her friend. She's never seen an expression so filled with hate on the real Darial's face.
"It doesn't matter if you spare my life," the imposter hisses. "Kill me, and there will be a hundred more. You are outnumbered."
Kylo drops his hand, taking a step back from her. "Outnumbered?" he repeats.
Darial smiles slowly, but she says nothing. Kylo waits another moment, before the cell flashes red. Anika flinches as his saber is suddenly ignited, held barely a millimeter from the imposter's cheekbone. The smile falls from her face, her eyes twitching downwards towards the spitting beam of light.
"You're surrounded," she taunts. "All of the First Order's warships and weapons, all built for nothing. You can't defend against us."
"You've invaded the base?" Ren demands quietly.
"Oh… more than that," Darial breathes, her face glowing red from the lightsaber. For a moment, silence falls in the cell. Anika searches Ren's mask, but she can't figure out what he's thinking. He's frozen with tension, the only sound the crackling of his weapon.
How much more could they have infiltrated? The entire First Order? Anika might not be in a command position, but even she knows this is bad. Very, very, very bad…
Kylo steps back finally, turning off the lightsaber. Fake Darial relaxes slightly as he turns his back to her, pacing across the cell towards the bars. Anika steps forward, daring to speak to the blob. "I need to know where the woman you're impersonating is. Is she alive?"
The prisoner turns her face towards her slowly, almost lazily, before smirking. "Poor Anika. Are you scared you've lost your only friend?"
Anika tries to control her temper, but the alcohol has made her blood heat up in her veins and she feels anger flare at the mocking. It's perhaps partially due to the fact that it's true. Darial was her only friend, and the idea of losing her is terrifying. She'd always been a good friend, and Anika feels like she owes it to her to find her.
"Do you want me to tell you what Darial really thinks of you?" the imposter continues. "Clingy, needy Anika with her immature little fantasies and her blabber mouth. Darial only befriended you because she felt bad for you, because you're too annoying for anyone else to-"
Ren whirls around angrily, striding forward. "Stop lying, befo-"
He's cut off by the sound of Anika's free hand connecting with the woman's face as she slaps her as hard as she can. The blob is shocked into silence, glaring at her as a handprint blotches red on her cheek. Anika feels like her head is buzzing with a combination of fury and the buzz of liquor. You blobby bitch…
"I didn't ask for your bullshit. I asked where my friend is," she demands, her hand stinging.
Blob Darial rolls her eyes as if she's bored. "You'll never find her."
Anika tries to curl both of her hands into fists, only to realize she's still hanging onto the bottle of alcohol. She lifts it, looking between its label and Darial's face. The woman cuffed to the wall frowns, her own eyes darting down at the bottle.
"You never did have that drink with me…" Anika taunts.
"Don't."
She isn't imagining the sudden nervousness in the imposter's eyes, the new tension in her voice. Darial shifts, wiggling her wrists inside the cuffs, pressing back into the wall. Her eyes keep flicking towards the bottle of liquor. We may have something here…
"Tell me where the real Darial is. I'm not asking again," Anika asks, stepping closer.
The imposter wrinkles up her nose at the bottle but shakes her head. "No. Go space yourself."
Well, fuck it.
Anika lunges forward, grabbing her head and tilting her mouth up. Darial shakes her head wildly, trying to avoid the inevitable, but Anika persists. She tilts the bottle until it pours down into her fake friend's mouth.
Half of it misses, splashing onto her chin and cheeks. But enough hits the target that the blob starts screaming and thrashing inside her restraints. Anika nearly drops the bottle in her haste to step back when something strange starts happening to the woman. Her skin is bubbling, boiling almost, and Anika's eyes widen with disgusted fascination at the reaction to the drink.
The scream is silenced, replaced instead by more frothing, liquid sounds as Darial's face collapses inward. Her body melts, oozing down out of the restraints to form a pile of flesh colored goo. The clothes she was wearing half crumple down on top of the spreading mess. Though the shirt stays bizarrely stuck to the wall, the sleeves still pinned by the cuffs. It drips with the liquefied remains of the blob.
Anika feels bile surge up her throat and she turns away, gagging. A minute of silence passes while she fights nausea, and Kylo says nothing.
But then he speaks up. "Watch out, it's getting close to your feet."
Anika looks down, only to yelp with disgust and jump back at the sight of the bubbling sludge approaching the toes of her shoes. Fuck, that is disgusting, fuck fuckfuckfuck-
"You know…" Ren begins slowly. "Usually you don't kill the prisoner until after the interrogation yields information."
Is he really criticizing my interrogation techniques?
Anika has to force herself to look away from the mess that was once a Darial-shaped humanoid to try to compose herself. Her hands are shaking, a leftover effect of adrenaline and anger. And she is frustratingly no closer to figuring out if her friend is still alive, or where she might be.
She looks at Ren's mask, shrugging with defeat. "It's my first time," she points out. "With interrogating, I mean. I didn't know it would kill her."
The buzz of a sigh filtering through Kylo's mask is her only response and she follows it with one of her own. He has a valid point. Now they have no prisoner to interrogate for answers. She let her anger get the best of her and made a mess of things. Literally…
Though… They've discovered something useful, haven't they?
"To be fair, now we know more than we did," Anika points out. Kylo turns his mask back towards her, and she takes that to be a questioning gesture. "Alcohol is the solution."
He stares at her. "I mean…only in this case," she amends. "In this specific scenario."
"I guess it does give us another way to test for infiltrators," Kylo concedes.
"REN!"
Anika is startled by the shout coming from outside the jail cell. She and Kylo both turn towards the sound.
She peers through the bars, seeing nothing for a second. But then General Hux comes into view, storming down the line of cells towards them. He looks furious. His usually heavily gelled down hair is loose and messy, half of it stuck up at a strange angle as if he'd been sleeping on it.
"You've gone too far this time, Ren!" he rants, hesitating at the sight one of the Knights outside the cell door. But then Hux seems to gather his courage and continues, shoving right passed the knight. Anika steps out of his way, making room for him in the small cell.
"What do you think you're doing with my girlfriend?" Hux demands, coming to a stop in front of the Commander. "Ren!?"
Kylo says nothing, only raises a hand. He gestures with his thumb, pointing back over his shoulder at the wall. Hux looks beyond Ren, and his mouth falls open in horror at the sight. There are Darial's clothes, crumpled on top of her boots except for the shirt still hanging like a horrendous reminder. And there is the still bubbling, still spreading, melted chunks of…
Anika gags and has to look away again. Fuck that.
Hux's mouth is hanging open like a fish gaping, strange choking noises coming from his throat. He looks between Ren's mask and the mess in shock, his face tinging red.
Anika holds out the bottle of liquor, unsure how else to be of assistance. "Here, Sir. Drink this," she suggests.
Hux stares at the bottle in her hand for one long moment, before he snatches it and lifts it to his mouth. He practically chugs the contents, gulping down the alcohol in a way that is downright impressive.
Kylo looks at her and gestures at Hux drinking, and Anika shrugs halfheartedly. "Well, now we know he's not a blob," she points out.
Later
The sun is already coming up on the icy world outside the base windows by the time they make it back to Ren's quarters. Anika had awkwardly hovered around, trying to stay unnoticed while Kylo debriefed Hux on everything that's happened. To his credit, Hux had quickly taken everything into stride, despite the initial shock.
They'd sent him off to the bridge, visibly inebriated, with the Knight as a security guard. Hux planned on reaching out to higher command and the Supreme Leader with news of the…unique problem on base. Then she assumed someone much higher up than her would come up with a plan to deal with the blobs. Kylo hadn't said much about what that plan might be on their walk to the dormitory level, and she hasn't asked.
When they reach the door to his rooms, Kylo opens it and gestures for her to enter. Anika is exhausted and stressed enough that she doesn't even bother with feeling awkward anymore in his space. She just marches right in like she owns the place. She needs sleep, needs to shove her face into a pillow and forget all of the craziness for a little while.
Kylo pauses inside the door to remove his helmet, but Anika doesn't wait. She shoves her shoes off as she goes, half tripping on them but not stopping until she reaches the bed. Then she crawls into the black sheets, burrowing down beneath the covers until she is surrounded by nothing but darkness.
She's freezing, not used to being up and about on base during the especially cold early morning hours. She curls into a ball beneath the blankets, hoping Kylo soon lays down in the bed to help warm it up. The thought of that makes her stomach dance with nerves, but Anika tries to reassure herself. You've already kissed him…multiple times. You can certainly sleep beside him.
The sliver of light just visible at the top of her vision, where the sheet doesn't quite cover her head, blinks out. The room is pitched into darkness. Anika waits nervously to feel the mattress move with Kylo's weight, or for the blankets to shift.
Several minutes later, and she's still waiting. What is taking him so long…
She nuzzles her face loose from the blankets to peer around the darkened room. She doesn't spot Kylo anywhere in the bedroom. "…K…Kylo?" she asks tentatively, half stuttering the name she isn't used to using.
His reply comes immediately. "What's wrong?"
Anika frowns. It sounds like he is out in the seating area. "Um. Nothing. Where are you?" she calls.
"…The couch."
Why the fuck are you on the couch? "Why?" she asks the darkness.
He doesn't answer immediately, but when he does, he sounds unsure. "I was trying…to give you the bed."
"It's your bed," Anika reminds him, irritated. She's tired, all she wants is to be warm and pass out. Kylo doesn't reply, only fueling her irritation.
She shoves the blankets down with a sigh, shivering immediately when the cold air greets her again. She marches out of the bedroom, towards the living area. She wraps her arms around herself, try to conserve her meager body heat, mentally ranting as she goes. I am cold, and I am tired, and I am sick of all this crazy shit, and I just want to sleep and I-
She stops thinking mid-rant when she sees Kylo, as a shape darker than the furniture, spilling off of the couch. He doesn't even have a blanket on, just a dark shirt and pants. Gone is his combat clothing, his cloak, his gloves. Everything that made him look like Commander Ren is missing, and it makes her hesitate. Despite her time with Matt, working in various places on base, and her time with the Commander, bickering on the mushroom world… she feels she doesn't know the man sprawled out in front of her nearly well enough.
One of his legs is dangling from the side of the cushions, and the other is shoved up over the armrest awkwardly. He lifts the arm that he's thrown over his face to look at her.
"That looks ridiculously uncomfortable," Anika comments, aware of how unbelievably cold the hard floor beneath her socks is at this ridiculous time of morning.
"I'm fine," he insists. "Go to sleep."
"Just come to the bed," she sighs.
"I'm trying to give you space," Kylo explains stubbornly.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Anika throws caution to the wind, marching forward to grab her Commander by the arm and tugging in an attempt to dislodge him from the couch. It doesn't work, he doesn't even budge.
"What are you doing?" he asks, sounding unamused. But he doesn't pull his arm loose from her grip, letting her try her hardest.
Anika growls with frustration. She tightens her grip on his forearm and tries to use her body weight for leverage as she pulls at him. "Getting you off the couch and into the bed," she pants, leaning her entire body backwards. It does absolutely nothing. He might as well be a block of ferrocrete, she can't even get his shoulder to move despite her best attempts.
"Are you seriously this weak?" Kylo asks.
She narrows her eyes at the tone he uses, something that sounds almost mocking. "I'm not weak, you're just massive," she retorts.
Kylo jerks his arm suddenly, opposite the way she'd been pulling. She's tugged off balance and topples forwards towards the couch. Anika lets go of his arm to catch herself, one of her hands planting on the back of the furniture and the other squarely onto Kylo's chest.
"No, you seem pretty weak to me," he remarks.
Anika tries to not pay attention to the muscle she can feel beneath her hand, the heat practically radiating from his chest into her chilled skin. But she's closer to him now, close enough that she can see his dark eyes focused on her. A smirk toys with his lips, and her mind blanks as she is struck with attraction. Kriff…
She forces herself to look away from that smirk on his handsome face, blinking and instead focusing on her hand. It's so small compared to the broadness of his chest, and she gulps, fighting the temptation. But he feels so warm and solid, so appealing. As she is frozen there above him, he snakes a hand around her thigh.
Kylo tugs her closer, nearly upsetting her fragile balance. And part of her wants him to, wants to be pulled down on top of him. But she's also still freezing, and just as stubborn as him. I just wanted to sleep, not hump him on his couch… Why is he so sexy…?
Kylo's eyes narrow as he seems to grow curious. "What was that?"
Anika frowns. "I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking something."
She makes a grumpy face, feeling petulant. His reading her thoughts is an extra complication in an already messy dynamic between them. "Maybe I was thinking that I'm exhausted and freezing cold, and it would be so nice to have a man in bed to warm me up," she suggests. "But here you are, on the couch. Being a stubborn idiot."
"Idiot?" he repeats.
Anika gulps at the growl in his voice. Kylo moves so fast she doesn't have time to attempt to retreat. He hikes her legs up, tugging her forward and off her feet. She topples onto him, like a clumsy pile of limbs. His chest shakes underneath her with silent laughter.
She pushes off him, fighting to free herself from his entangling arms. When she is upright again, she scowls down at him.
"Fine. I'll just go freeze to death in your bed. Alone," she complains. Anika tries to leave him there, but he catches her hand to hold her back.
"Do you want the Commander of the First Order to serve as your personal body warmer?" Kylo asks, his condescending tone suggesting the request is ridiculous.
But when she looks back at him, his face doesn't match his voice. His eyes search hers, something eager in their dark depths. His hand slides up, wrapping around her wrist and anchoring her there so she can't escape.
Anika hesitates, the nerves returning to her with a vengeance. But she nods, forcing herself to murmur, "Yes."
Kylo's eyes flicker between hers, his lips twitching as if he's holding back a smile. "Fine."