kingdom come undone | Kylo Ren x Reader

part one | chapter five

"Your form is sloppy."

"Well, I'm not exactly heading into the heat of battle anytime soon."

"That doesn't mean that you shouldn't practice with good form." He punctuated the last word with a well-aimed jab, hitting your hand away from your body and then striking your stomach, causing you to let out a rough wheeze. At least he avoided your face. Still, it hurt.

If you could catch your breath, you would try to retort again. But as it was, you focused on breathing deep and low, fully filling your lungs, recovering from the last blow.

When Kylo Ren had said that you were going to be sparring with him, you had been wary. And you now knew you were completely right to be. You were sore, your upper arms burning from the force with which you had tried- and failed- to land a blow on him. He had managed to block every single one of your attempts, occasionally berating you for failing to hit him. Jerkass.

If you had thought that he was intense while just having an, albeit normally heated, conversation with him, he was a force to be reckoned with when fighting against him. And he wasn't even trying to hurt you, it was just a consequence of sparring with a man who was as powerful as he was.

"I'm surprised that this is what passes for competence, even in the Resistance." You glared at him before taking another swing at him, which he promptly blocked. To be fair, it was a pretty weak throw, fueled primarily by your annoyance and frustration at your lack of success.

"If you're going to get angry, channel that into good fighting. Use it."

"I thought I was proving myself to you, not being taught." You groaned, rubbing your knuckles despite them not actually hurting. A benefit to not actually managing to hit him, you supposed. "And I doubt that I would ever be in a fistfight on the battlefield," You add as you barely dodge another swing. Nice. Your brief moment of pride at managing to avoid him was interrupted as Kylo took your distraction as an opportunity to sweep your leg from under you.

You landed on the ground with a loud thud, your hip taking the brunt of the fall. "Fuck! Can you at least hold back?"

"I am." He looked down at you. He's wearing his undertunic, what he presumably wore all the time under his robes. It fit his frame nicely, you noted absently from the floor.

"It's not fair." You said, shakily standing back up. "My opponent can read my mind."

"Everything is fair in war."

In love and war, you mentally corrected, rubbing your hip as you scowled at him. He never really explained how the whole 'I can read your mind but only sometimes' thing worked, and you didn't know how to breach the question to him. Was it your fault, or his, that he could hear you?

"Again."

You put your arms back up, your posture not as confident as it had been when you'd first started. Despite your caution about sparring him, you had been fairly positive about the quality of your form. But as he walked around you, studying how you were holding yourself, any lingering shreds of that positivity were whisked away, further torn up by his overly critical gaze.

"Widen your stance." He said from behind you. You do, but he's obviously not content with it. He moved closer to you and kicked your feet apart. You stumbled slightly at the rough treatment; your balance had been disrupted. "Spread your legs."

Did he know, when he said things like that, what you immediately thought of? You breathed deeply, not acknowledging the squirming feeling his words awoke in you. Instead, you focused entirely on the same three words you had been mentally repeating whenever you realized you were thinking about him in a way that you really shouldn't be. Which, since your negotiations last week, had been increasingly- and worryingly- often.