Everything fell into abrupt action surrounding them, with a blink of an eye they were in the medical facility and the nurse that had been so panicked moments ago, was now in her right mindset carefully asking Ren questions and prepping him for surgery. There was a tightening in his chest at the mere thought of having his soulmate go through double doors he couldn’t cross. The chance of them rolling him back out in a black bag remained his deepest concern. As the damage was assessed, and the nurse kept extracting information from the man who could barely breathe, he was suddenly taken aback at the name that crossed his beloved’s lips. Ben. Hundreds of memories flooded into the forefront of his thoughts, the images he had received only glimpses of due to Ren’s force abilities. Bellamy recalls the foggy memory of a young boy, whose name had been Ben.
Dragged out of his flashback by the fingers holding tightly to his own, his eyes darted down to see the hand darkened by bruises clutching his fingers. The soft fog of the force slowly maneuvered its way into his mind, and Ren- or Ben’s soothing voice filled his head. Of course he would stay, the man he had craved to be beside for so long was finally there, a part of him at least was. A fear still clogged his throat that he wouldn’t make it, the damage seemed extensive, perhaps the Resistance medics couldn’t mend the wounds inflicted upon his soulmate. Horror filled his chest as he watched Ben’s eyes roll backward, and his lids slowly fluttered shut. The room moved swiftly around him, nurses and doctors rushing around the man lying abnormally still on the gurney. They began to roll the gurney out of his view, and in a last-ditch attempt for Ben to somehow know his feelings toward him, he squeezed his hand tight enough to break any remaining bones in his fingers, figuring it was the least of the force wielders problems.
Timed ticked by, Bellamy couldn’t comprehend how time moved as slowly as it did when Ben was inside the operating room. The mix of fear, anger, and desperation overwhelmed him. The small room that he was designated to wait in, seemed to grow smaller, the walls began to cave in on him. Not enough air was getting into his lungs, and his chest constricted painfully. Stumbling over towards a seat, he planted himself down in an attempt to steady his being, and remove his panic. Bellamy’s eyes felt heavy, but he was determined to be awake when they wheeled him back in. Steadily exhaustion crept into his bones, his muscles ached, and they grew tired as his head lulled into his chest. Thankfully, they rolled Ben in, the bacta suit surrounding nearly every inch of his skin, yet concealing very little.
From memory, it seemed, his cheeks flooded with color, and he exhaled a soft breath. He was here, he was breathing, the surgery went well. The nurse droned on about his soulmate’s status, yet he was far too consumed with analyzing the man himself. As soon as the nurse left, the room filled with deafening silence. Hands twitched with the desire to touch raven hair, to feel that his skin was still warm, to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, indicating that he was alive because his mind could still not register that Ben was breathing. Hours went by, and as his exhaustion grew to the point of the break when a hoarse voice broke the silence. He was alive. A breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding left his lungs, and his tense muscles loosened themselves as a small form of comfort seeped into him. Ben was cognitive, he was speaking, and he also seemed to find this situation a bit amusing. A form of endearment and irritation crawled its way into Bellamy’s throat, and he stood to his feet and approached the man lying naked beneath him. There was an itching to lecture Ben, about his lonely nights, the constant fear, and his pure panic at seeing his soulmate lie in tatters just hours ago.
“You still look like a cocky asshole if that’s what you’re wondering.” He replied, a smirk gracing his features in an attempt to conceal the rapid rush of emotions filling him.
“I-I can’t believe you’re alive..” Bellamy stuttered out, his hands gently reaching for one of Ben’s, as he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the man’s forehead. “You do have explaining to do… Ben.” The name, rather foreign on his tongue did suit the raven-haired man.
Unconsciousness is not blissful even with medications flooding his veins. There is little about Ben that has been restful no matter his identity-- Ben Solo, Kylo Ren, some confused man torn between the two none-the-wiser which was more accurate. But donning a mask as the leader of the knights of Ren was not the first time he had worn a mask. He had worn one throughout the entirity of his life. As a child, when that ever-present voice in his head whispered things to him. Even before that, when he wasn’t cognizant enough to know that the thoughts, sometimes bleak and jealous and dark, were not always truly his own. As a teenager, hiding the fact that there was another who offered him an alternative. As a young adult, hiding away himself from his peers who chided him because of the favouritism of his uncle (always a watchful eye, never favourited, baby sat, perhaps). As a young man with the academy burning and a few fellow apprentices demanding to know what he had done... he’d worn a mask then because he’d bore responsibility for things he’d never done. For things he’d convinced himself he must have. Ben had worn a mask for so much of his life that being with or without a helmet had not mattered. He’d always been torn, caught in playacting, being something he thought he needed to be to survive. And so in sleep, even those induced with medications, his rest was no more peaceful.
Turning to the dark side had not been easy as he’d fled from the light.
Turning back would be no easier... and wasn’t something he could ever truly embrace.
Two polarising veiws, neither right. Both extreme.
And finally he’d found... he existed somewhere in the middle. Somewhere that was neither. Somewhere where just plain old Ben might be able to find peace within himself. And maybe someday even later than that... acceptance.
But the journey there had been long and periolous and filled with answers to question that he had not been-- brave enough? clever enough? perceptive enough?-- to pose. And with the drugs still coursing through his body, far lesser now and waning enough that he is conscious but not entirely fully functional-- he can laugh and shake his head (it leaves him with a swimming feeling) as Bellamy jokes at him.
“You always liked that I was a cocky asshole.”
It’s the use of his name, his real name, that startles him. Ben hadn’t remembered everything of before he went into surgery. He knew where he was. Why he was here. What had happened in the battle. But everything after that was a little out-of-body from the injuries and the waning adrenaline coursing through his blood. It might have been the thought of Bellamy, the endorphins released upon seeing his other half, that kept him going as long as it had. Eyes flutter closed and he reaches up, his hand whispering along Bellamy’s cheek and Ben takes a deep inhale holding it for a moment before he lets it out through his mouth. One eye is black, his lip is swollen from the cut along it.
“I know,” he whispers. “I know.”
But there’s a part of him gripped with uncertainty and fear claws at his heart. Will Bellamy want this version of him? The one that walks some undetermined path? Ben is a person he does not know, not truly, to explain to Bellamy who he is. Not the boy, Ben Solo, trying to live in the perfection of white light. Not the apprentice, Kylo Ren, trying to force a fit with the dark to find a home when the other had forsaken him. Just Ben. Ben who is... not as sure about everything that comes next and what that means.
When he finally opens his eyes, Ben licks at his chapped bottom lip and offers a quiet sort of chuckle, not the kind that finds any humor in anything. With Bellamy he has always been so sure and now he is... not.
“I’m not sure where to start or exactly how to explain it. I learned things while I was gone... about myself and about things that happened to me. Some of it I have surmised... some from things I had forgotten or refused to dwell on because I chose to remain on a path time and again when I felt the other had forsaken me. But it was always my choice. Survival was always my choice.”
Eyes turn up toward the ceiling because as much as he wants to drink Bellamy in, to look at him, it’s hard to when he’s unsure what he will see. And intimacy in this way, in baring a soul, is different than physical intimacy. It’s more.
“I chose to chase power and strength not because I love either of those things. I let myself be drunk on them because... it was better than always being in pain.” But from the sleepless nights, the nightmares, Bellamy had awoken to find him enough to know it wasn’t something that disappeared entirely. “Did you ever wonder why I never bore the yellow eyes of the Sith? For all I tried, I never gave myself to the darkness. Not truly. I want power and strength for control but neither the light nor the dark ever truly offered it to me. And I realised that they couldn’t... not like the light could for my uncle and my mother... not like the darkness could for the sith. I was never meant to be either... but I never realised that was a choice. The dogmas of jedi and sith... never offered it as a possibility. Those too weak would fall from the light, and those too weak for the dark would be crushed.”
And it goes without saying from the look in his eyes: I’m still here.
It’s not everything. But it’s the conclusion. The one he needs to give Bellamy as his hands nervously play with one noather, one hand tugging at the other’s fingers. Because it’s the outcome. An outcome that his soulmate might not... accept.
