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Bet
It starts out with a bet – well, more of a taunt really.
Okay, so it was a taunt in the form of a few offhand remarks by General Hux.
“You want to send how many divisions? And to obscure planets that you only have unsupported feelings may be the locations of Resistance bases?” A nasty bark of laughter. “Ridiculous.”
“Hardly a mere feeling, General.” Clasping his hands behind his back, Kylo Ren cants his head at a smug angle. “My intuition comes directly from the Force.”
The sneer that stretches along the General’s face varies along a spectrum that ranges from dismissive to utterly disbelieving. “Regardless of where you obtain your insights from, the time frame alone in which you ask me to move the troops is impossible.”
“I fail to understand why.”
The insufferable man’s lips curl nastily upwards again. “No, you wouldn’t, would you?” he says. “After all, you don’t deign to involve yourself in the daily matters involved in ensuring the continued efficiency of the Order.”
Not for the first time since their initial meeting, Kylo Ren reminds himself that he really must kill Hux at some point. “I’m gratified to know you think so lightly of my position, General,” he says wryly.
“On the contrary,” comes the smoothly condescending reply. “I’m merely stating that someone who was, shall we say, given his position on merit of invisible powers would, of course, know little other than how to give orders, and nothing of the menial processes involved in seeing them fulfilled.”
Kylo Ren stares ominously at him – or at least as ominously as the eye-slits in his mask will allow. “As you’ve said, General, I possess an inconceivable mastery of those invisible powers – I doubt that any task would be beyond me.”
“Oh?” Hux says. “A moving speech Ren…although mere boastful words give little proof to that claim.”
There’s a whisper and flourish of fabric as one very vexed Kylo Ren whirls about and stalks out of the room, hand lingering over his lightsaber and an interesting mixture of Huttese swear words being muttered under his breath. Hux thinks he possibly catches a furious mumble of “I’ll show you my proof, you pompous bastard”, but dismisses it from thought.
Days later, Phasma and Hux are on their way to an impromptu base inspection when a flurry of blonde hair, absurdly large glasses, and a familiarly tall, slim figure clad in a teal technician’s uniform stomps by. The absolute look of loathing he levels at Hux is what ruins the already-flimsy charade.
There’s a sharp intake of breath from the stormtrooper Captain beside him. “Was that – “
“It was,” Hux cuts her off disinterestedly.
“Why – “
“Do I really look like the type of person who invests valuable time in attempting to figure out Kylo Ren’s eccentrics?”
Rey
All it takes is one careless lash of a stormtrooper’s foot, and the sonic scanner he’s been fruitlessly attempting to install (as per his guise of ‘technician’) goes skittering away. The piece of equipment slides along the floor until meeting a terrible fate by way of colliding with a far wall and smashing apart.
“Watch it, tech,” the distorted, filtered voice of the trooper jeers at him as he marches by.
Kylo Ren’s eye twitches, and he languidly raises a hand at the departing soldier, beginning to gather the Force and preparing to exact some satisfying revenge on the insolent stormtrooper. ‘Matt’ may have been a lowly radar technician with no capacity for Force-choking a being, but Ren was willing to forego the façade for just a few seconds.
“Oi, helmet-brain!”
The trooper is unwittingly saved as the echoing shout disrupts his concentration. The indignant cry is fast followed by the bemusing sight of a girl sprinting down the corridor.
She skids to a clumsy stop besides the kneeling Ren, clad in coveralls that are smeared with grease and oil and other unidentifiable substances. Her face doesn’t fare much better – soot streaks her cheeks liberally, damp strands of hair cling upon her forehead. The only defining feature visible is her eyes, a furious hazel gaze currently leveled at the trooper.
“Yeah, SL-161, I’m talking to you! You may be a stormtrooper, but you can’t just treat the maintenance staff like that!” Fists balled at her side and shouting at a soldier twice her size, Ren is quietly entertained by the spectacle this girl presents.
It has been a long time, after all, since he encountered someone as unreservedly emotional as this. He is simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the display. Perhaps he should have deigned to fraternize with the lower ranks sooner.
“Don’t think I’m not going to report you to your superiors!” Oh, she’s still shouting. What a noisy individual.
The stormtrooper stalks off after a rude gesture at the girl, who responds with a slew of angry words in another language Ren is unfamiliar with.
And then she is squatting down beside him, close enough that he is discomfited by her proximity – a mixture of human warmth and the sharp scent of metal and smoke.
“I’m sorry about that,” she says sincerely, her voice lilting with an odd accent. “You’re new here, aren’t you? I promise not all the troops are like that – a lot of them are actually quite nice.”
Nice. Ren can’t say he’s ever heard that description applied to stormtroopers. This female was clearly lacking in some essential brain components. “I see.”
The girl snorts. “‘I see’? Aren’t you even going to say thank you to me for defending your arse?”
He represses a derisive scoff. Ren would sooner admit defeat to Hux and abandon this ridiculous charade rather than express gratitude to non-military personnel.
…but on the other hand, admitting that Hux was right was something that Kylo Ren simply didn’t do. Ever.
“I suppose your presence was not entirely unwelcome, as uncouth and loud as it was.” Ignorant to the girl’s mouth agape with pique and her eyes narrowing, and wondering at having to actually introduce himself to someone, Ren continues stiffly, “A…pleasure to meet you, I suppose. I am Matt, the radar technician.”
Sharp brown eyes survey him for a long moment, before a wide, sardonic grin spreads on the girl’s lips. “Nice to meet you, Matt the Radar Technician. I’m Rey, the Mechanic.”
Wrong
“I’ll destroy you for disobeying me,” Kylo Ren hisses, staring down at the photonic cable he’d been endeavoring to repair for the last hour. “You’ll never see another day of transmitting source data if you don’t heed my orders and start working.”
The cable, predictably, doesn’t reply. Merely lies there mockingly. He represses a sigh – threatening bodily injury just didn’t seem to have the same efficacy with inanimate objects as it did with living, breathing officers. It’s an indignity that he even has to suffer such an experience – he, who was the gifted pupil under the tutelage of the First Order’s Supreme Leader; he, who possessed a communion with the Force far above all others –
“Matt!” Ren flinches at the name, and at the familiar cadence that calls it.
How does she always find him? He would suspect the girl of possessing some latent Force sensitivity, what with her preternatural penchant for always stumbling upon him.
Still, whatever the power behind her intuition, it’s annoying as hell.
As inattentive to her surroundings as ever, Rey nearly trips over the cable he’d maliciously abandoned in the center of the hall. “Having trouble?” she inquires airily, tucking some errant hair behind her ear.
Yes. “No,” he grits out.
“Well…do you want help with the trouble you’re apparently not having?” There is the barest hint of a smirk twitching on her lips, her brown eyes glittering faintly.
If he were to discard the ridiculous glasses and abandon the insufferable wig he wears, she likely wouldn’t be so smug. However, savoring a brief moment of horror from her is tantamount to abandoning this entire charade, and he would rather tolerate the mechanic’s transient teasing as opposed to a month’s worth of gloating from Hux.
“I already said, I’m well able to do it myself,” he insists impatiently, snatching up his inanimate foe from the ground and haphazardly preparing to shove it into place with the other cables.
It’s neatly plucked from his hands by an amused Rey. She easily flips the photonic cable about, before dropping it back in his grasp.
“You were trying to install it in backwards,” Rey explains simply. She then waves and strolls off, her messy hair-buns jolting with each step.
Ren stares bleakly after her.
Dinner
It has come to Kylo Ren’s attention that a majority of the First Order’s ranked officers boast an intelligence that dangerously approach the negatives and personalities that resemble trained rancors.
Exhibit A is a Sergeant he has the misfortune of seeing in the mess hall.
“So. Matt. Where’s that hot piece of space ass that’s generally stuck on ya like glue lately?”
Kylo Ren stabs his fork into the mysterious, unidentifiable protein conglomerate masquerading as food. The fork accidentally goes straight through the metal plate, its prongs becoming staunchly embedded in the table. “I’m sure I don’t know to whom you’re referring.”
“Course you do, simpleton. Brown hair, great ass, probably a generous rack under those damn coveralls.” The Sergeant snickers. “I’d love to give her a try – most of the women around here are willing to jump into bed with anyone that has a shiny rank, after all."
It is just about then that Ren decides the Sergeant’s voice is an irritant that he no longer cares to labor under. Beneath the table, all it takes is a simple wave of his hand and no one is ever the wiser.
“Oh no,” Ren laments in a deadpan tone, idly flicking a strand of blonde hair from his eyes. “He’s choking on his food. Someone help.”
Blunt
“Did you hear? About Kylo Ren?” Rey’s voice floats out from beneath the tie fighter. He hears her grunt as she struggles with the main drive, trying to wedge the metal casing off the propulsion unit.
“Hear what?”
There’s an ominous clang and a litany of swears. “Ow! Stupid thing won’t come loose. Give me the wrench, won’t you Matt?”
Because her head is tucked away under the fighter (along with the rest of her body – really, the only thing he can see are her boot-clad feet) he presumes it should be safe enough to levitate the tool over. He ignores the mortification of a Knight of Ren being relegated to a mechanic’s assistant (and wonders for the fourteenth time how he had been finagled into doing so), but justifies it as part of his insufferable training in mingling with others.
“Anyways,” she continues, her words slightly muffled. “I heard that Kylo Ren threw another tantrum yesterday – but this one was in the secondary hangar. Stars, I hate that person sometimes. I worked for a month to replace the inertial dampeners on all those fighters, and now most of them are damaged horribly. Doesn’t he even stop and think of all the extra work he’s making for people?”
The stress and upset she’s exuding taints her aura like a noxious gas, pricking some long-forgotten remnants of a conscience.
He accidentally loses control – just an extra little burst of the Force, propelled by some inexplicable emotion – and the floating wrench smacks him soundly in the head.
Poison
“And as for the new division of troopers, I’m assigning those to…what the hell is that, Ren?”
Kylo Ren is jerked from the usual bored stupor he enters whenever having to listen to Hux’s damnably tedious reports, blinking beneath his mask at the abrupt inquiry.
His gaze trails indolently to where Hux’s accusing finger points, falling on a small, innocuous muffin sitting on a side table.
“I’m not really good at stuff like this. Um, domestic stuff, I mean. But I thought maybe you’d like one. It’s not like I could eat them all by myself anyways.”
“This is…for me?”
“Yeah, you dork. Besides, you’re so skinny, I thought you could use some extra sustenance.”
She hadn’t been lying about her poor culinary skills. Ren had taken one small bite, and only the years of extensive disciplinary training had allowed him to contort his facial muscles into something resembling a smile.
Clearly, Ren muses, Rey’s talents were utterly wasted in the Mechanics division. Perhaps he could persuade her to switch to Interrogation? Her cooking would have had their prisoners confessing in seconds.
“Tell me, Hux,” Ren drawls to a very nonplussed general. “Do you like muffins?”
Fly
Kylo Ren clambers up the ladder behind Rey, suppressing a slight smirk at the excited chattering swirling about his head from one overjoyed mechanic.
“—and the speed on this. Thirteen hundred kilometers per hour, did you know? I can’t believe this – Matt, how’d you even get clearance to let me take an I-7 Howlrunner out?” She beams down at him, body practically vibrating with anticipation as she scrambles upwards.
“I have ways,” he says evasively. Of course, those aforementioned ways mainly involved ordering the flight supervisors turning a blind eye to the happenings in this hangar, on pain of being levitated upside down and flung through a wall, but Rey didn’t need to be privy to that information.
Just like she doesn’t need to be privy to the foreign sense of guilt he had momentarily experienced at the destruction he’d wrought in one of the hangars only days ago – in an impulsive moment, post-bad news regarding an ill-fated expedition against the Resistance, he had rendered several fighters (and, ergo, a lot of Rey’s hard work) into little scraps of debris and dust.
He glances up, finding that Rey is already burrowing into the ship’s cockpit, skimming eager hands over the abundance of switches and sleek levers that decorate the control panel. “You are able to fly this, correct?”
Despite Ren’s paternal genetics that would dictate otherwise, he’s never been overly fond of flying. And by the Force, he’s only just now coming to the realization that he may have been party to allowing a novice, inexperienced pilot access to an exceedingly delicate and expensive spacecraft.
And not only that, but volunteered to accompany her as well. Despite the Resistance’s many attempts at the same, Kylo Ren’s death may very well come at the hands of one overly excited nineteen-year-old pilot on a joyride.
He feels a little bit more forethought might have sufficed in this situation. Of course, he had begun to notice that Rey had the unsettling ability to mar his judgment.
“Well,” Rey answers cheerfully. “Of course I’ve never flown something like this. Never had the chance, you know? But I’m sure I’ll figure it out – ships just speak to me like that. It’s partly why I’m applying for the pilot’s academy for this summer.”
“Rey, maybe this – “
He’s interrupted by the sensation of a soft hand brushing against his cheek in gratitude, and softer lips feathering sweetly on his forehead. His fingers turn painfully white where they convulsively tighten about the rails of the ladder.
“Thank you, Matt.” Her head is tilted away from him, her gaze fixed resolutely on the blinking control panel. “No one’s ever done something like this for me before.”
Competition
Rey’s first venture serving under a Chief Mechanic on a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer is rife with eventfulness. This is likely due to the fact that hours into their journey they come under a bout of nasty fire from a fleet of Resistance ships – ones with impeccable aim that threatens to decimates their shielding.
There is a cacophony of orders being tossed about below, on the main command deck beneath the overarching bridge she’s nervously attempting to maintain her balance on while the entire ship quakes around her from the firefight.
“Rey!” the Chief Mechanic yells from the other end of the bridge, frantically scrabbling to repair the damage being wrought about them. “Get those tools over here now!”
Hefting the tool bag more firmly over her shoulder, she takes one faltering step, then another – and then oh by the Force there’s another devastating explosion and she’s falling, falling, falling off the bridge and plummeting to the deck that lurks thirty feet below –
The cry that had slipped from her lips trails off into a final gasp as Rey discovers herself not splattered all over the lower level as she had expected, but tightly held in someone’s arms instead.
She glimpses a steely mask, wonders if she imagines the slight touch of a hand in her hair, and then finds herself being unceremoniously dropped to her feet before she can even muster coherent thought again.
“It was really weird, though, Matt,” she confides in him later, squished against him in a little nook on the ship. The excitement of the earlier battle has been diluted with the passing hours and the security their narrow escape had delivered, leaving only a sense of exhaustion lingering in the aftermath.
“How so?” The blonde-haired man asks dryly, meticulously avoiding her gaze.
“Well,” she taps her fingers contemplatively against her pursed lips. “One second I was just falling, and the next…wham! Kylo Ren had caught me just like that.” She laughs idly, stretching her hands above her head. “I didn’t notice him around at the time…stars, I didn’t even know humans could move that fast. I’m grateful though.”
“Impressed with him now?” There’s a small flare of jealousy. Kylo Ren unsuccessfully attempts to convince himself how absurd being envious of one’s own self really is. “Although I suppose his reflexes are admirable. Kylo Ren is purported to be a legendary soldier. Incredibly strong, I hear.”
Rey blinks up at him, confused at the effusive praise. And then her face becomes inexplicably awash with sympathy, and she offers a consoling pat to his shoulder. “Oh Matt, you don’t have to compare yourself to him. For the record, all life saving heroics aside, I like you much better.”
Kylo Ren feels a brief flare of triumph…until he remembers that he’s essentially in competition with himself.
Oblivious
He can’t prove it definitively without resorting to the reprehensible option of reading quite a few very insipid minds, but Kylo Ren is fairly certain that most of the base is aware of his real identity less than a month into his newly assumed persona…if the way that the underlings shuffle away from him nervously and avoid eye contact with an amusing determination are any indication.
Only Rey remains her normal and candid self with him. She fails to notice the horrified stares she draws from others with her casual touches to his arm or hand in the corridors, the fascinated looks she attracts by sitting with him in the mess hall and commandeering his food once she’s finished her own. She ruffles his blonde hair when she’s happy, glares and punches his arm when she’s annoyed, and routinely finds humor in stealing his glasses for her own odd purposes.
He finds himself oddly loath to give up being ‘Matt’...particularly because it is a foregone conclusion that doing so will mean the loss of her.
If there are any whispers of worry in his mind about the severity of his attachment to her, he ruthlessly shoves them away – they’re an inconvenience to deal with.
“By the way,” he mentions calmly after a routine meeting with Hux and Phasma. “If your men should enlighten…anyone of the truth of my actual name, please inform them that they are to use their imaginations as to what the consequences will be.”
Ren’s brow furrows in irritation at the subtle undercurrents of mirth emanating from Phasma’s outwardly stoic figure and Hux’s wide smirk of contempt. “Be quiet,” Ren snaps, wondering how terribly angry the Supreme Leader would be were he to rid the base of two of his favored soldiers.
“Why, Ren,” Hux replies loftily. “I don’t believe we said anything. Unless, of course, you were referring to our thoughts on your pitiful infatuation with the mechanic girl?”
The only response he receives is a slam of the door as Kylo Ren storms from the room.
Secret
“Sir?”
Hux runs an aggravated hand through orange hair, peering up from behind the stack of forms that threaten to devour him. Before him stands a beleaguered-looking corporal, the nervousness of the man practically tangible.
“What is it?”
The corporal twists his hands, clearing his throat. “It’s – ah, it’s – it’s Kylo Ren, sir. He happens to be in the communications room.”
Blinking, and wondering at the collective intelligence of their military personnel, Hux demands, “And why did you feel the need to bother me with this matter?”
“There’s – well, there’s a lot of delicate tech in that room, Sir. And Kylo Ren, he’s – well, he’s presently very angry.”
And probably about to throw a massive fit in the communications zone, thus rendering the entire base in a veritable telecommunications blackout until they fix the damage, Hux finishes the unspoken words in his head. Yes, this is a matter that does require his immediate attention.
Pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to stave off the headache he senses about to bloom, Hux orders, “Corporal, go to Sector D5. There, you will likely find a mechanic by the name of Rey.”
“A…mechanic, Sir?”
“Indeed. You are to take that mechanic, either willingly or by force, toss her in the room with Kylo Ren, and lock the door behind you. Understand?”
It’s obvious the Corporal doesn’t. That’s perfectly fine – so long as he obeys the order. Hux watches as the man salutes and skitters from the room, allowing himself to revel in the brief moment of victory.
Who would have thought Ren’s all-too-evident feelings for the mechanic would serve useful in any way? This girl could most definitely be a secret weapon in Hux’s efforts to save the budget for equipment replacements from Ren’s numerous tantrums.
Contradiction
He has never been under any idealistic delusions as to what the First Order is, unlike a great many of its fervent followers. Ren joined for the purpose of continued power under Snoke’s tutelage, for attainment of a strength greater than anything the Jedi Order was capable of offering.
Yes, he has always known his reasons for his involvement with the Order.
What he cannot figure out are Rey’s.
“Why are you here?” he asks abruptly one day.
It takes a moment for his words to permeate, surrounded as she is by a myriad of strange-looking ship parts and other mechanical oddities – things which, he has long since learned, have always enthralled her.
Rey glances up reluctantly, abandoning her contemplation of blueprints and aerodynamics equations in favor of blinking her large brown eyes owlishly at him. “Hm? Where else would I be? I’ve been trying to get this damn thing constructed for weeks, you know that.”
He does know that. He knows her habits, her schedule, her passions, her quirks.
He really shouldn’t know that. It’s…unsettling.
“I meant here, with the First Order,” Ren clarifies with a sigh.
Her head cocks curiously, characteristic hair buns bobbing with the motion. “No specific reason, I guess.” Rey stares down at her hands, slim and calloused and stained with their ever-present engine oil. “I was an orphan; a nobody living on a forsaken hell of a planet. And the Order offered me a job doing something I adored, something I was gifted at. But more than that, they were offering me somewhere to belong…and I suppose I leapt at the chance for that.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Ren informs her somberly, black eyes absorbing the fleeting look of hurt at his words, before her face regains its normal defiance.
“And why’s that?” she bites out, fingers curling and digging into the floor.
He raises an eyebrow, wondering at her blindness to her own worth. “You’re too good.”
Rey’s gaze skips from his tousled fair hair, his large glasses, his wide mouth that sometimes quirks into one of his hesitant, lopsided smiles. “And you aren’t?”
This time he does smile – one that is so hollow, and so devoid of cheer that Rey even wonders if ‘smile’ is the appropriate term for it.
“Not like you.”
Concern
“The person you have attempted to contact cannot be reached. Please re-enter the comlink frequency. The person you have attempted to contact cannot be reached. Please re-enter the comlink – “ Rey ends the call with a ferocious press of the button, her communicator emitting a painful beep at the unnecessary force.
One week.
One entire week of not seeing the stilted, awkward-mannered man that had become frighteningly dear to her in so short a time.
He had just disappeared, with nary a message sent her way to let her know he was at least alive.
That bastard. That stupid radar technician.
She glowers at her comlink. She hates radar technicians. Especially dorky ones that were socially stunted and had a tendency to stew petulantly when things didn’t go their way. Blowing an aggravated puff of air out, Rey blindly enters the frequency she’s long since committed to memory.
Please, her lips move silently. Please be fine, Matt.
Two planets and a solar system away, Kylo Ren pulls out his communicator as it insistently trills off yet another series of beeps, even as he simultaneously snaps about and deflects a blaster bolt from a persistent member of the Resistance.
It’s Rey again – she’s left nearly half a dozen messages already. And if these bungling Resistance idiots would leave him be for two seconds, he might have a moment’s reprieve in which to listen to them. Unfortunately for Ren, wearing all black and a mask on the battlefield did tend to make him rather conspicuous – perhaps going incognito as a stormtrooper might be better next time.
“Now, I’ve got you, Order scum! Die, you – aaaaaaaark!”
Kylo Ren silences his would-be attacker by lobbing his ignited lightsaber at the man’s leg – Ren’s preoccupation with trying to listen to Rey’s voicemails means his aim is a bit off, merely burning the length of the appendage rather than severing it completely.
“You bastard! Look what you did to my leeeeeeg!”
“Be silent. I’ll kill you momentarily.” Ren directs a withering glance at the soldier, pressing his communicator against his ear as he strains to listen to Rey’s voice.
“Ren!” Phasma screams from somewhere to his distant left. “Put down your communicator and concentrate on the battle! What do you think you’re doing!”
Kylo Ren
“Sir, you have a briefing with – “
“Welcome back, Sir. The General has asked me to remind you about the 0900 meeting with him at –“
“Sir, we need your –“
He pivots on his heel, towering over the officers that have accosted him the moment he stepped foot off his ship. It has been two weeks that Ren’s been absent from the base, and he has no intention of making a briefing with Hux his first priority.
“Leave.” It is a single command, gravelly and stifled by the mask – but it’s quite effective in dispersing the slew of officers.
Everyone wisely leaves him alone as he heads to his quarters, dons the technician’s uniform and damnably itchy wig that comprise ‘Matt’, and seeks out the one person he’s desired to see these past weeks.
Even without the use of the Force and his stark attunement to her, he knows where she’ll be – hidden away in the hangar beneath a plethora of ships, rewiring and soldering and creating. Probably swearing up a storm when random machine parts fall on her, and shouting triumphantly in that far-too-loud way she does when she finally cajoles the pieces into place.
Fortunately for Ren, he’s precisely correct about where she is. Unfortunately for Ren, Rey spots him first, freezing as she sees Matt striding towards her with his distinctively inelegant gait.
Ren eyes the hydrospanner clenched in her fist with some wariness – he’s witnessed Rey’s unerring aim with the instrument in the time he’s been acquainted with her. The murderous glint in her usually placid gaze further gives him pause.
“You nerfherder! You absolute laserbrain!”
Yes, she’s most definitely displeased. Much like the first time he saw her, she’s sprinting towards him.
Her hair is uncommonly loose today – it whips him in the face when she throws her arms about him, but he doesn’t mind so much. He’s much more preoccupied with the arms twined sweetly about his shoulders, the length of her smaller body pressed against his, and the warm sensation of her cheek burrowed into the crook of his neck.
The tiny “I’m glad you’re okay” she mutters is muffled and quiet, and he almost misses it.
She’s never done this before. And Ren is sorely out of practice when it comes to the nuances of demonstrating affection. Particularly public displays of affection. He hopes that his subtle glare, sent over the top of Rey’s head, will clear the room of voyeuristic onlookers…but unfortunately, the array of mechanics, techs, officers, and troopers in the hangar seem content to openly gawk.
Ren supposes he will have to make do with memorizing each of their faces and exacting revenge later on.
Although, in yet another demonstration of Fate’s unwavering hatred of him, before Kylo Ren can even figure out exactly where on Rey he’s supposed to place his hands so as to return her uncharacteristic show of fondness, a very unwelcome, very disagreeable voice intrudes upon the moment.
“Kylo Ren, there you are,” Hux barks, his boots punctuating each statement as he veritably stomps towards his target. “I don’t care if both your legs have burned to stumps or your arms fall off – you are not to blatantly disregard our pre-arranged meeting times.”
He can blame his lack of foresight in sensing Hux’s approach on Rey’s distracting presence, can silently curse the fact that Hux has had the chance to open his mouth and speak before Ren could forcibly shut it, but nothing can alter the fact that Rey has heard everything.
With reluctance (not fear, because Kylo Ren doesn’t fear anything), he lowers his bespectacled gaze to the suddenly stiff girl in his arms.
Her hands are shaking; one hangs limp by her side, the other presses against her mouth in a horrified gesture.
“You’re – “ she croaks, the word dwindling off into nothingness.
He will kill Hux, Kylo Ren decides. He will murder him, slowly, carefully, and with great enjoyment – nothing can spare the man of that fate now. But the far more immediate matter he must concern himself with is Rey.
As it turns out, however, he doesn’t need to address the matter of Rey. She beats him to it.
There is a splitting, electric crack as Rey’s fist connects soundly with Kylo Ren’s nose.
Troublesome
“Explain this.” Captain Phasma’s voice is as flat and cold as ever, but this time there is a dangerous thread of annoyance within it as well as she stares at her troublesome associates in the confines of the medical quarters.
It is quite an odd sight – Kylo Ren, still in his technician’s garb but sans the wig and glasses, seated next to a seething General Hux. Both of their noses are grotesquely swollen into misshapen lumps, traces of dried blood still dotting their upper lips.
“If you two foolishly decided to engage in a brawl,” Phasma warns tiredly. “I’ll have no other recourse but to inform Leader of your dispute.”
Kylo Ren’s lips press together until they’re little but a thin line of displeasure, and he folds his arms tightly across his chest. “There was no brawl, Phasma. You need not concern yourself."
“On the contrary, Ren,” Hux interjects with a glare. “I would very much call you deciding to punch me in the face a brawl. Please Phasma, do report his apprentice’s conduct to Leader, won’t you?”
Phasma’s gaze swivels slowly between the two of them. “So Ren, you decided to hit the General. And what…he returned the punch? Is that why your nose is also broken? Stars, the two of you would do well to learn a bit of discipline from my troopers.”
The two men snort at the suggestion, and then glower at one another for their inadvertent agreement.
“And anyways, Phasma, I was entirely the victim of this situation. Ren’s nose certainly isn’t of my doing,” Hux says.
Phasma glances at Ren, who is still determinedly staring in the opposite direction. “Then, who…?”
“The little mechanic,” Hux answers, not without an element of glee. “She finally found out just who dearest Matt really was.”
“Because you told her, you insubordinate jackass!” There is the telltale sound of a lightsaber being ignited.
Seemingly unconcerned by the fact that a very unhappy Kylo Ren is sitting beside him with a veritable tool of death in his hands, Hux shrugs and says, “An unfortunate coincidence. I certainly wasn’t aware of the mechanic’s presence, given that she was rather hidden by your, erm, passionate embrace.”
Phasma sighs noisily as Kylo Ren launches himself off the examination table at an unruffled Hux, swiftly stepping forwards to intercept the attack.
She isn’t getting paid enough for this.
Denied
Kylo Ren is not accustomed to being denied things.
Even moreso, he is not used to having to concentrate this much effort in actually obtaining something he wants. He is not a Sith, with their tendency towards overelaborate planning and plotting and scheming towards a multitude of greater things. Kylo Ren has only ever aspired towards one thing – power – and is quite disconcerted by the fact that his want has expanded to include something else as well.
Or rather, someone else .
It isn’t an easy task, discovering where Hux has relocated her after the incident, as Kylo Ren likes to refer to Rey’s unfortunate and infuriated learning of his identity. Rey’s fiery reaction had been expected – the sensation of his chest being crushed and constricted in the following days had not been.
Normally Rey would have been quite simple to find, given that anyone else accused of assaulting a superior office would have been clapped in binders and left to rot in a cell awaiting execution.
But due to the fact that Hux “Couldn’t remember the last time he had been so thoroughly entertained” (a direct quote), a lot of probing around, making threats, and choking people had revealed Rey had immediately been transferred to work at a different First Order facility.
Predictably, Hux had stoutly refused Kylo Ren’s repeated demands for Rey’s whereabouts…and had promptly complained to Supreme Leader Snoke when Ren had simply abandoned protocol and begun to forcibly invade the man’s mind to scour for the answer he sought.
In light of that plan being foiled, Kylo Ren resorts to the next best plot: namely, setting a fire in the Control Room, and waiting until an enraged Hux vacates his office to ransack it for the record of Rey’s transfer.
His teeth bare in a satisfied smile when he happens upon it.
Finale
Her helmet is the first thing to be launched at him.
Her boot is the next.
Kylo Ren observes with interest as Rey stoops down, undoes the laces, tugs off her shoe, and hurls it furiously at him. He really does have to applaud her determination.
“Stop doing that,” she snarls, eyes alight with frustration and a reluctant tinge of fascination as she watches him calmly lift a hand and stop the projectiles in their path, hovering uselessly in midair.
“You abandoned me to become a pilot,” he says in that low, raspy voice of his, ignoring the demand.
Rey folds her arms tightly across her chest, gaze guarded and stubbornly shying away from his own intense stare. She edges towards her ship that lies behind her, partially tempted to escape the exact situation she had been striving to avoid in the first place. “So? Do you have an issue with me being a pilot?”
“Only in the sense that having experienced your flying personally, I wish the best of luck to your instructors.”
“I fly just fine! I’m just more creative when it comes to my technique!” she retorts heatedly, and for a moment it echoes the deadpan teasing she used to engage in with Matt. “And in answer to your other accusation, I didn’t abandon you. I don’t even know you.”
“But you did abandon Matt.” It’s at about this point that Ren wishes he hadn’t foolishly decided to leave his mask off in a vain effort to not startle her. The mask always did such an admirable job in cloaking his feelings – in its absence, he has the irrational fear that she will read every subtle flicker of pain at her leaving and relief at her presence.
Her unyielding expression falters, ever so slightly and barely noticeable to all except the man who had spent quite a while in the company of her myriad range of emotions. “I didn’t abandon him! I would never leave someone I – but you killed him.”
Kylo Ren pauses, cocking his head. A lock of ebony hair scatters boyishly over his brow. “Impossible. Did you potentially miss the revelation where he and I are the same person? After all, that is what led to my nose being broken by you.”
“It’s a metaphor,” Rey snaps. “And I’m not sorry about that.”
“That’s not entirely unexpected.” His mouth slants in his crooked smile. Rey stirs in discomfited surprise; it’s a familiar smile, only splayed across a face surrounded by dark waves of hair rather than fair curls. A recognizable smirk that stretches beneath striking black eyes that lack the barrier of glasses.
It’s not fair, she thinks, even as her feet move of their own accord towards him. It’s not fair, she thinks, even as she comes to a hesitant halt in front of him. Her arm cocks back, and he eyes it curiously – Rey herself isn’t sure whether she means to smack him, or yank him to her and bury her face in his shoulder and pretend he’s still her Matt.
She does neither – merely places tentative hands along either side of his alabaster face. It’s almost funny, how strange it is to be wary of touching the black-haired version of her surly friend. The way he flinches beneath her fingertips, clearly uncomfortable with the intimate contact, is so reminiscent of Matt’s pathological dislike of personal touch that it makes her throat constrict a little.
Rey peers up at him with a hard stare. “Why did you come here? And don’t lie, or it won’t be your nose I break this time.”
The ensuing silence, Rey thinks, is probably because it takes the man in front of her a long time to weight the benefits and disadvantages of lying. At least she knows his dubious morality has remained consistent throughout each persona he adopts.
“Because,” he mutters finally, turning his face away petulantly. “I find that as both Matt and Kylo Ren, the lack of your presence is…unsettling.”
“Oh,” she says lamely, her hands falling back in limp shock. Rey almost believes she can hear the fissure in her heart widening. “And if…I mean I heard…if I’m lying, you’ll be able to somehow know it, right? With the Force, I mean.”
Kylo Ren gives a mute nod.
Her throat feels like there’s quite a large lump in it. “Alright…then I’m not angry at you.”
Black eyes lock onto soft brown. “Lie,” he affirms.
“I don’t think you’re a moody arse, who needs to learn about the wonders of impulse control.”
“Lie,” he grumbles.
“You were actually a very proficient radar technician.”
A faint smile plays on her lips at his tangible annoyance – the scrunched brow, the cross slash of his mouth.
She coughs nervously, resisting the urge to fidget. “I didn’t fall in love with you, and that’s the reason it didn’t hurt when I found out you’d been deceiving me.”
That is the only cue he needs. The muffled squeak of shock that emerges from Rey when his mouth crashes hungrily on hers is quickly usurped by her quiet sigh of delight.
It’s clumsy, awkward – despite their respective statuses as a brilliant mechanic and a Force user unrivaled in strength, both are equal in their woeful inexperience of things of this nature. But the inelegance of the kiss is barely noticed in lieu of her fingers twining urgently in his hair, of Rey being pressed against the side of her ship in their fervent haze.
“By the stars – Commander, it’s Kylo Ren! And he’s making out with one of our trainees!”
The startled cry from a nearby, overexcited pilot breaks them apart. Ren’s forehead thumps against the paneling of the ship in despair, eliciting a metallic groan of protest; Rey is unsuccessfully attempting to smother her choked laughter in the folds of his cloak.
“You should probably leave,” she advises him. “Before the entire base thinks you’re here to molest them one by one.”
He glares at her. Unfortunately, she’s just about as cowed by such a thing as if it were his less terrifying alter-ego doing it – which is to say, not at all.
Rey offers a wry smile. “Come on,” she says. “I’ll even give you a flight back to your base.” Her grin widens at his long-suffering expression.
It’s on the tip of his tongue to capitulate – Kylo Ren foresees the endurance of many test flights peppered with maniacal stunts and maneuvers before earning Rey’s complete forgiveness – but something gives him pause.
“I can’t.” He exhales a short, exasperated breath. “At least, not right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because I…may or may not have set fire to Starkiller Base immediately prior to coming here.”