Send a Prayer Up Above

Chapter 18

A/N: MATURE CONTENT PLEASE DO NOT READ IF UNDERAGE/UNCOMFORTABLE.

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I woke up to the smell of cigarette smoke. I blinked my eyes open, instinctively feeling to my right. The ivory sheets were still warm. The room was still in the dark of the night. I turned around to see Kylo leaning over the window, inhaling slow drags of smoke. It swirled against the moonlight as ink in water, like incense in the darkness of a holy temple. It was quiet. Faint noises of sirens chasing someone somewhere and I thought it was an odd thing to have missed in California.

Kylo's back extended in lazy rhythm of his drags, his scars dancing on his skin. His hair was a black mess of waves, tickling his shoulders. I thought at this moment he looked like one of those ancient Greek gods described in ancient stories. Shoulders broad to fight Zeus, eyes sharp to keep an eye on the enemy, beauty to make everyone fall at his feet.

I think Kylo felt my eyes on him because he turned to look at me.

"Did I wake you?"

I nuzzled deeper into the thick sheets, the autumn air feeling cold. "The smoke did."

He took a profound drag of the cigarette and replied after blowing the smoke into the starry sky, "sorry."

And I smiled. So wide I felt my ears move, so wide my cheeks ached.

"What?" He asked, confusion on his brows as he put out his smoke against the wind sill, then throwing it out.

"You said sorry."

"It's a fairly common word, Rey."

I shook my head. "Not from Kylo's mouth. That was a first."

He tilted his head. "Really?"

I nodded.

"I guess I'm not a murderous snake then after all." He said and a sly smiled visited his lips.

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Pace yourself, mister mafia-boss."

He pushed back from the window, walking slowly toward the bed. He looked so big like this, his black figure covering the entire window as he closed in on me. He slid into the bed, and pressed a kiss on my forehead while supporting himself with his arms. He hovered over me like an angel, moonlight giving him a halo. Or perhaps like the devil, as his eyes told me things of sin instead of virtuousness. I wasn't sure. Perhaps I liked a little bit of both. He certainly had been no angel earlier tonight. His bloodied face flashed in my mind, then my own, staring back at me from the mirror. Covered in blood that wasn't my own.

"I'm not a killer like you." I said quietly, breaking the silence. He laid down on his back next to me, so close but not touching. I listened to our breathing in the silence, and felt that heavy swirl in my abdomen, the goosebumps on my skin, the current between us.

"I know." He replied, studying the ceiling.

I took a shaky breath. "I wanted to kill him. I wanted it to be me."

"He brought up old memories, bottled up emotions. And they came out, that's all."

"I—I thought somehow, if I killed him I would also kill Unkar Plutt, I don't—"

"I know." He said, turning his head to look at me. "There's darkness in you, I've seen it. Lingering in your eyes. It's okay, it doesn't make you a killer."

"It does with you."

"It's different with me. I have all-consuming wrath to accompany it. You have the calmness of the sea."