Entwined (A Reylo Fanfic)

The Present past (Heavily Revised)

    Well after his Apprentice had succumbed to the weight of his mind pressing her into unconsciousness, Kylo Ren held Rey, silently and without any damn-good excuse for doing so.

The Dark Knight had stayed kneeling before her for some time. He coddled his unconscious Apprentice by pulling her body forward, positioning her head across the tops of his thighs so she could rest there. For an undefined amount of slow-passing time, Kylo allowed this. —More than allowed it... he craved the sense of her needing him and this moment temporarily quelled that longing in him. For what ever amount of time had passed while she rested on him, he reveled in the comfort of her being vulnerable with him, by her choice or otherwise.

He could lie to himself; tell himself that he held her for her comfort. Maybe excuse his actions by saying it was for her benefit that he let her rest —and that he merely watched over her because she needed him to.

She truly was vulnerable... He recalled with such clarity that while he closed his eyes, he could still feel the weight of her head resting along his lap.

But the fact was... he wasn't nearly so noble. He had held her, after his Master had nearly gotten her mind stuck in the depths of his knight's memories but it was because it gave him comfort. Kylo Ren defaulted to what he was trained to do. He analyzed the situation before him and he took what he wanted from it.

She'd only been vulnerable because of him. Because he'd been foolish enough to believe his Master would allow them any time for training before he invaded her mind and plagued her thoughts using her own weaknesses as the tool to commence her own destruction.

It was easy now for Kylo to critique himself. Now that the assault was over and done.
—What a novice mistake. Ren knew his Master wouldn't leave Rey completely to his young apprentice, Master or no. Certainly not without poking and prodding his way in and out of her vulnerable mind just because he could.

Kylo hound have been more on his guard and he knew it, but instead he fell prey to his own vulnerabilities. All day his apprentice had avoided him like he were a starving sarlac seeking out his next meal, only ever breaking the barrier she kept between her mind and his when she needed aid. Or when she saw him as... that boy she once knew him as. Kylo's upper lip twitched as he fought back an urge to snarl out in disgust.

...Ben...

His mind silently projected the name he wanted to refuse acknowledgement to, even in the recesses of his deepest internal thoughts.

Kylo unconsciously ground his teeth. His lightsaber was burning to life in his hand before he even realized it and then he was lashing out his rage. A nearby security droid sparked and sputtered out its last invoice as Ren heaved over its mangled metal and singed wires.

Ben... Why Ben? It could be anything else. Anything! Why did she want the one thing a man of his power and position couldn't ever give her? Anything else in any known Galaxy from here to the edge of space!

But no, she wanted him... Kylo's only real inner fracture. THAT BOY HE'D ONCE BEEN... The betrayer.

Teetering on his breaking point, Kylo was near desperation. He could feel his lungs burning even as he breathed the filtered air through his vocoder. The mask didn't provide a fresh, clean taste from behind the mechanical features, but it served more then one role, enhancing his ability to mold into most any planets O2 sphere. The benefits had their place, but there was always a metallic tinge to the air through the mechanical piece that filtered the oxygen he took in. Truth be told, he wore the piece so often in the last few years that he hardly remembered how it felt to breath without it. He was accustomed to living behind his mask, yet what his lungs were receiving in this moment was not satisfactory. He thirsted for cool air in his mouth even as he huffed over the smoking corpse of the droid he'd just permanently decommissioned. He could smell the acid from its inner batteries and feel the lingering heat of it's already cooling coils below his neck line, rising up along his jaw line from beneath the thin space between the collar of his armor and the locking shield of his under mask. —even still, his mind wandered back to the girl he was storming away from.