Work Text:
The wall was surprisingly comforting as the cold metal pulled his focus to where it met his forehead. He probably looked silly, but in the confines of his room, that didn’t matter.
The headache continued to throb behind his ears and his shoulders screamed with tension. Though he let out a sigh, it seemed to not aid him in decreasing his pain or mental turmoil.
It had been a particularly hard training session, constantly being interrupted and questioned by Hux and other commanders as they couldn’t get the hint that he didn’t want to talk about Supreme Leader duties or the current statuses of ongoing missions. He just wanted to take out his frustrations in battle. They didn’t get that.
Kylo didn’t get that after what they’d been through, through the force bond and physically in person, she closed that ship's hangar door in his face and severed their bond. It’d been months now, lonely and without the warmth their connection had brought him.
It’s been cold. Like the wall he was pressing his head against, eyes scrunched in pain. His body hurt and his heart hurt, feeling his chest tighten with anger and rejection and loneliness.
“Seriously?!”
His body drew taut with the voice laced with confusion and irritation coming from behind him. He also heard pacing which came to a stop as she sucked a breath in.
“...Kylo?”
His headache throbbed more and he turned around slowly, his eyes adjusting to the bright lights in his quarters.
Rey gasped, all anger gone, and she stepped forward tentatively. “What happened to you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” A snark reply shot out from his mouth before he could stop it and she stopped her approach.
“...Yes, that’s why I asked.”
His eyebrows raised in surprise and he suddenly felt ashamed, his previous anger gone as well.
Rey wiped her hands on her pants in apprehension. “It’s been a few months.”
“It has,” Kylo nodded.
“Though, I thought it’d be longer.”
Kylo hummed and winced in discomfort.
Reaching a hand out in concern, Rey stopped short of touching him. “Are you okay?” He frowned in response and Rey reached out through the force to see what was ailing him.
It seemed to only make the throbbing in his head worse, so he meekly called out, “Please, don’t. It hurts.”
She backed out of his mind and placed both of her hands in front of his ears, just along his hairline.
Her hands were warm, but it was exactly the warmth he had been missing. He relaxed into the touch immediately, leaning forward to absorb her warmth throughout his whole body.
Rey noted how he was in more casual clothing, just a simple black undershirt and pants. His outer clothing lay in heaps near the door and with how tense his body is now, she could imagine the amount of effort it must have taken to do all that himself.
She looked behind her, making sure her room where she currently stood was still empty, before turning back to Kylo.
“Do you want to sit down?”
Mumbling, he said, “Yes. My bed is behind you.”
“Lead me over,” Rey asked, only seeing the half of Kylo’s room that was behind him. He shuffled over to his bed and she was able to see it then as the perspective shifted.
Once they sat down, Kylo laid back so his feet were still on the ground, but his groaning back and shoulders were able to relax into the mattress.
Rey paused as she looked at him and took in the stress in his features. The skin around his closed eyes was darker and she could see the muscles in his face moving from where he clenched and unclenched his jaw.
Moving slowly, she leaned back as well and stared up at the ceiling, though it was bright and harsh on her eyes.
“Do you always keep it this bright in here?”
“Unless you see an option to dim it.”
Rey looked around and saw an odd combination of both her and Kylo’s room on the walls, some white and sterile from the ship, some rocky from the mountainside she hid in with the others. She turned her attention back to the ceiling and stated, “We got away that day.”
“Really?” Kylo asked, dripping in sarcasm. He placed a hand over his eyes.
“I felt betrayed.”
He was silent.
“I thought you would join us. So many times. But you didn’t.”
“I’m a monster, remember?”
She bit the inside of her cheek in annoyance. “You said I was not alone.”
“Yeah, well.” A pause. “You left me alone.”
“You’re not alone. You’re Supreme Leader, now. You’ve got loads of lackeys doing your bidding.”
Kylo scoffed and grunted in pain. “Not alone,” he muttered to himself in disbelief.
Rey crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the floor.
“Stop that.”
“No.”
He removed his hand and glanced over at her and she pointedly didn’t meet his gaze as she continued.
“Why do you insist on being a thorn in my side?”
“Because thorns grow on pretty flowers.” She couldn’t help the smug smile that formed on her face and he rolled his eyes. “Besides, it seems you’re stuck with me.”
“It appears so.”
“Even with all of my effort, I can’t seem to block you out. Not completely.”
“It felt like you did.” Kylo closed his eyes again with the slip of his tongue and tensed.
Rey stopped tapping her foot and she looked over as she studied the side of his face. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It does mean something.”
“Leave it."
“I won’t.”
Kylo groaned and turned his head and they were startled by the connection of their eyes over the foot of distance between them. Rey held her breath and Kylo’s eyes darted across her face.
He took a breath in and told her, “You left me. I was alone..and cold. There was no comfort anymore. No understanding ear. No one who gets me.” Kylo stopped himself before he said, like you do.
Rey scanned his face and furrowed her eyebrows. “And I don’t feel bad about it. You deserved it.”
“....Is that how you really feel?”
Rey pressed her lips into a firm line and felt herself wanting to run from his direct eye contact, unyielding and examining.
Kylo shuffled over to her and mumbled, “You give me warmth.”
Ignoring her protests, her face heated up. “Warmth?” He nodded and she huffed out a nervous laugh. “I’m not even there with you. I’m planets away.”
“Our bond.” Kylo reached a hand over to brush a stray hair off of Rey’s face. She froze with the contact. “I feel it. In the back of my mind. A warmth unlike anything on this ship or any planet I’ve been on. The metal here is cold and the people are as well. But you.” His hand trailed a finger across her cheek and she closed her eyes, the intimacy of the moment becoming too much. “You’re a warmth I had to go months without.” He whispered. “It almost tore me apart.”
“We’re enemies.” His finger froze on her face. “We’re on opposite sides of the war. I’m part of the Resistance resisting you. We..we can’t be…I can’t be your warmth.” She opened her eyes and fought back the sudden desire to cry at his expression.
His face had dropped and he retracted his hand. The bright light that was forming in his eyes dulled again, making her wish she had looked into his eyes earlier for a little bit longer. “Was I warm to you?”
“What?” Rey asked in exasperation, wanting Kylo to drop this conversation her heart wanted to have, but her mind didn’t.
“Our bond. Was I warm? As you are?”
Rey squinted her eyes closed and sighed. “.....You were cold.”
Kylo felt his heart drop.
“....But it was..so nice.”
“What??”
His question prompted her eyes to open and she hummed. “I grew up on the hot, desert planet of Jakku. I don’t think there was a day where I didn’t sweat. Even with the Resistance, I’m warm-natured, so I’m hot all the time and I continued to wear the clothes I wore on Jakku; but when our bond formed and you’d reach out to me with a…a cold breeze of wind? It was so refreshing.”
Kylo watched her in disbelief. “So you like the cold?”
“Like you like the warmth.”
They held eye contact and Rey was incredibly surprised by a smile widening on his face.
“We balance each other out.”
Rey rolled her eyes. “Yeah, no kidding.”
“Two force users: one, light, and the other, dark. One cold and one warm.”
“One wearing the color black and the other wearing white.” Rey laughed and Kylo joined her, though he winced as his shoulders reminded him of their soreness. Rey's smile faded as she mentioned, “Both force users, the light and the dark, lying next to each other and sharing a laugh. Connected over both sides of the war, yet balancing each other out. Like..two halves of the same whole…” Kylo’s eyes dropped to her mouth and she pressed her lips tightly together. “Two halves….who can never be whole together.”
His eyes darted back to her eyes and hurt echoed in the depths of them. “It seems so.”
“Yes.”
The edges of their bond began to fade and they knew their bond would be separated again. However, the warmth and cold may remain. Kylo hopes it will remain.
“It appears that our conversation is nearing its end,” Kylo stated, harshly. The deterioration of their bonded moment was fading fast and Kylo felt desperation rise in his chest. “How long will we be separated again?”
Rey shrugged. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“What you do as Supreme Leader.” He frowned and Rey shrugged once more. “So, we’ll see.”
In the last moments of their bond, Kylo leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. The contact and warmth that grew from it were objectively better than resting his head against the cold, metal wall.
Rey gasped softly from the cool touch of his head and she relished the cooling effect it had on her. Her forehead remained cold to the touch as she was fully enveloped by her room. She was lying on the floor and looked around confused at how real the bed had felt to her just moments before. A sigh and frown accompanied her realization of how far she was from Kylo Ren, but then, a cool breeze of wind blew in the back of her mind and she laughed before she had a chance to stop it.
Kylo covered his smile with a hand as he felt embers of warmth along the edges of his mind. His body still hurt and there was a faint throbbing in his head, but he was no longer cold nor did he feel lonely. Not when he could feel the slowly retreating heat fade from his forehead as a reminder of the woman on the other side of their bond. His other half.