KYLO REN (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
photophobic) wrote2018-12-01 05:26 pm
photophobic) wrote2018-12-01 05:26 pm
emo demon nightmare boys
What was that.
He'd been too distracted by pain to feel it at first, and by the time his wounds had been healed the sensation had become something like his constant awareness of the Supremacy's engines humming, fading into the background out of necessity. But it was there, if he focused, if he listened– forcing himself past his instinct. Like concentrating on the way his clothing felt against his skin and realising it was always, always touching him, or hearing the thud of his own pulse in his ears. He could feel it, now.
It wasn't quite misery, or fear, or hatred, though perhaps it was? The more he looked for it, the more the tangle of his own emotions clouded and obscured. But it was... tired. Exhausted. Which wasn't uncommon: Snoke's capital ship had extensive facilities for the detention and interrogation of prisoners. But none of them could get under Kylo's skin like this. None of them hummed in the back of his mind like they belonged there somehow.
Kylo lay on his bunk, unable to extract himself from the feeling now that he'd stirred it up– until finally, irritably, he stood, slammed the wall panel to open the door and stalked out. The Supremacy was obscenely oversized and he recognised distantly that he had virtually no chance of tracking down the source simply by giving himself over to this strange, wakeful sleepwalking– but he began his search anyway, hurling his mind through the miles and miles of corridors.
I hear you, he hissed. Show me. Show me what you are.
He'd been too distracted by pain to feel it at first, and by the time his wounds had been healed the sensation had become something like his constant awareness of the Supremacy's engines humming, fading into the background out of necessity. But it was there, if he focused, if he listened– forcing himself past his instinct. Like concentrating on the way his clothing felt against his skin and realising it was always, always touching him, or hearing the thud of his own pulse in his ears. He could feel it, now.
It wasn't quite misery, or fear, or hatred, though perhaps it was? The more he looked for it, the more the tangle of his own emotions clouded and obscured. But it was... tired. Exhausted. Which wasn't uncommon: Snoke's capital ship had extensive facilities for the detention and interrogation of prisoners. But none of them could get under Kylo's skin like this. None of them hummed in the back of his mind like they belonged there somehow.
Kylo lay on his bunk, unable to extract himself from the feeling now that he'd stirred it up– until finally, irritably, he stood, slammed the wall panel to open the door and stalked out. The Supremacy was obscenely oversized and he recognised distantly that he had virtually no chance of tracking down the source simply by giving himself over to this strange, wakeful sleepwalking– but he began his search anyway, hurling his mind through the miles and miles of corridors.
I hear you, he hissed. Show me. Show me what you are.
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The voice, invasive though it is, feels more like that breath of fresh air today. He lifts his head up off his knees, his collar and chains rattling with the movement. He sweeps his eyes around but finds only his own reflection to keep him company in his crystalline cage.
No, he convinces himself. He didn't hear that voice. It's an echo, a memory, a wish. Ronan lays his head down again, getting as comfortable as he can get with his arms twisted behind his back in this straitjacket-esque robe they've put on him. It would be easier to lie down, of course. Curl up on his side and shut his eyes. But then he'd fall asleep, and he must not sleep. He must not.
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What do you want, he demands, muttering the words to himself as he takes a decisive turn right, practically flinging himself into the high-speed elevator, thumping the control. But it's the wrong question, and he knows it as soon as he's finished throwing it out of himself. There's no will behind the source of the disturbance, almost as if it doesn't know anyone can hear. But he hears. He can't help but hear, now.
I hear you.
He's more insistent, this time, feeling like he's drawing closer. He doesn't know this part of the ship– research and development facilities, vast swathes of laboratories staffed primarily by droids...
Show yourself!
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Show yourself!
"Here I am," mutters Ronan out loud, his glazed eyes fixing on the single spotlight above, highlighting him like a museum piece. The most priceless artifact in the universe. "But where are you, Ben?"
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He hears the name, a pure, bright note through the hum. Unmistakable.
He stops short. Pulse slams, hard. Fear rises, surging swiftly and seizing at his chest– but the instinctive grasp for his connection to the Force and its power, immense enough to crush any fear, brings him something unexpected. He feels... life.
There is life all around him, of course. The Supremacy must be home to millions. But this is close, and remarkably, strangely isolated. And it's tired. Exhausted. Certainly, no threat.
His feet are moving again before he makes the decision. There is a door, a lock– but what are locks when you can push the mechanism apart with your mind? He forces his will in between the pieces, applies pressure, and the doors groan, grating open, revealing something that makes absolutely no sense. He hangs back in the doorway, frozen in place, hand still outstretched.
There's a boy, no older than he is. This is it. This is what called his abandoned name.
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His back is already pressed to the glass, so hard his shoulders ache with the way his arms are squeezed behind him, but still Ronan tries to retreat further. Futilely, his bare feet press and push at the floor. A breath shakes out of him.
What will it be? Will Ben break every bone in his body? Will he steal the air out of Ronan's lungs? Shatter the cage and carve him up with the shards? "Don't keep me in suspense," Ronan hisses, his throat dry.
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But he doesn't want to betray his ignorance. He can't afford to.
"Is there something you want from me?" he asks, acidly, stalking into the room, up to the glass. Fear boils in the dwindling space between them as he searches for answers in the boy's startling eyes, heavy with exhaustion. "Something you expect ."
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"You're gonna kill me now," Ronan answers slowly. The words are thick in his mouth, like he's either drugged or concussive, though he's neither. Just out of energy. "Do it fast. I know you don't listen to me anymore, but you might as well. I don't think I'm dreaming very deeply. The pain will wake me up either way."
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It's an immediate, furious and determined response that seems to rise from nothing but... instinct, an imperative that slides into focus like it's always been there– something older than he is, solid and immutable.
"I might," he agrees in a low snarl, because blaming the boy pressing himself against the far wall of his prison for implanting the command is safer than the truth– because he recognises the shape of the will putting the weight on that demand. It's his own. The question he cannot answer is why.
You don't listen to me anymore, the boy had almost slurred. You don't listen to me, anymore.
And it hadn't made any sense, but it had hurt.
His attention skips from the boy in the cage to the cage itself, to this strange room with no apparent, logical function. He glares at the lack of equipment, the absence of consoles or displays or anything that would suggest research, observation, interrogation, punishment... as if by sheer force of will, all the incongruent details can be commanded to make sense– and then irritably refocuses back onto the boy. The boy he is not going to kill.
He's too weak for Kylo to simply push into his mind and take the answers he wants, he can see that immediately. He seems too confused to have any truth to offer.
"I heard you," he snaps, thinking of the lock on the door, wondering what it was supposed to keep in or out, and starts looking for a door on the glass enclosure itself. "How did you do that. You're not strong enough to do that."
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"Do it fast," he repeats. He means for it to be a command, but his voice dissolves into begging. He starts to say something more, but his shoulder slips against the glass and he loses his balance. With no arms to catch him, he falls onto his side and the impact draws a gasped cry out of him. He wants to die so badly, but if Ben is coming in here to use his own hands, it won't just be murder.
Ronan shuts his eyes and prays, "Make the air poison. Make the poison numb my body. Make it kill me before he reaches me. Wake up, wake up..."
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There is no door. The cage isn't designed for entry or exit by conventional means– another piece of the puzzle that Kylo knows he could put together if he could just stop hearing that voice, if he could just make it all stop for a minute, just long enough to think.
He throws out a hand and closes his eyes, feeling for the edges, the seams, the construction of the cage itself, his will running over the surface like water seeking entry until he stops, letting out a sharp laugh. Of course. The walls and ceiling of the enclosure lift away from the floor like the cover of a serving platter, glide through the air and come to rest beside the platformed base of it, and once the task is complete Kylo lets his hand drop to his side.
He looks down at the figure of the boy, steps up onto the smooth mirrorblack platform and crouches beside him– and as if controlled entirely by instinct, mesmerised, he runs his gloved fingers over his scalp with a tenderness that feels as natural as breathing.