𝑹𝒆𝒚 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒈. 𝑩𝒆𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏.
𝒂𝒌𝒂 canonverse hair-braiding
[originally posted on Twitter: here.]
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She is awake before he is. She has remained awake while he sleeps. She always does.
It used to be he who could not find solace in rest.
He who was plagued by nightmares.
These days, however, he finds himself hardly able to keep his eyes open; as though all the years of sleepless nights have finally caught up to him.
By the time the night cycle arrives, it’s all he can do to stay upright, waiting for the moment when he can finally retire to bed.
It helps, he knows, that he never goes alone.
It feels like an unspoken pact; a treaty formed by knowing glances. Never far apart from one another, they always seem to sense when the other is ready to depart from a room. To take their leave of the company they hold and go somewhere else, together
It is a fragile peace, his presence among them, but a peace nonetheless. Still, at times it feels oppressive - the noise, the expectations, the camaraderie.
He knows she feels the same.
So when they remove themselves from the crowd, when they leave a place and are alone walking down a hall, their gaits syncing, their bodies swaying closer to one another, when their hands find each other and link together, he gradually feels the tightness leave his chest.
They go back to their shared quarters and begin a nighttime routine. He revels in the monotony - bumping elbows over the sonic sink in the fresher. Smirks and shy glances darted over toothbrushes. Sometimes they would kiss and he would taste the mint on her breath.
Sometimes they would undress, hands stroking and bodies pressed together, and he would taste more and everywhere.
And then they would lie together in the sleeper, bodies skimming one another and also the edges on either side - luxuries were few within the confines of the Resistance - and they would fall deeply into a dreamless slumber, breathing evenly and peacefully, at rest.
It takes him weeks to realize that he has been the only one sleeping deeply.
And dreamlessly.
And peacefully.
In hindsight, the signs had been there.
She would shift restlessly in his embrace right when he was on the cusp of semi-consciousness. He would loosen the arm that was slung over her, knowing how she hated to be confined.
Then he would allow himself to be taken back into sleep, beyond awareness, assuming that she was still right there, inches away.
The odd time, he would awaken suddenly. Feel the cold side of the bed. Search for her within the bond and encounter the shuttered window of her mind.
He would panic, breath caught in his throat as he sat up too fast.
It would take less than seconds for her to open to him again, warmth flooding through him - sunlight even in a dark room - and her whispered words:
"Shh, shh. I'm still here."
A reassurance and an excuse for her absence would lull him back to peacefulness, back to sated rest.
"Lie with me?" he would murmur. 𝘐 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘻𝘦 𝘴𝘰 𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵.
"Alright," she would concede, a smile in her voice. 𝘈 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘬𝘢𝘺.
And before he'd know it, it would be morning.
That particular night - perhaps because his body was familiar now with her comings and goings, his mind subconsciously having adapted to the fact that she never stayed for long - he awakens quietly, a bit disoriented and sensing her absence, but not panicked. Merely wondering where she’d gone to now.
He barely shifts, using only his eyes to track through the room. There was a small porthole window, moonlight or starlight or the light of a nearby planetary body bathing the room in an ethereal glow.
She sits directly in its wake, knees to her chin, arms crossed over her legs, holding herself together tightly. (Tighter than she ever lets him hold her.) Her face glitters in the pale light.
She is crying.
Silent tears track down her cheeks. Her body barely shudders as they course from her eyelids to the crooks of her elbows, bent over her legs like binders.
Stunned, he reaches out to her with the Force, probing lightly with his thoughts.
He finds himself encountering a gossamer resistance; not enough of a barricade to sound off any alarms in his head, but enough to muffle the worst of her emotions, her thoughts.
Her fears.
“Rey?”
His voice, quiet as it was, still resonates like a blaster shot in the silent room. She visibly startles, her arms unbuckling as her knees drop.
He is already up and out of the sleeper, crouching on the floor at her feet.
“Nothing,” she responds to his unspoken question. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
He looks her up and down, at a loss.
“This is what you’ve been doing,” he realizes aloud, the words surprising him even as he speaks them. “Every night.”
“I—“ She begins to deny it, then her face crumples as she shrugs dejectedly.
“It’s too hard,” she says finally.
“What?” His voice drops an octave, a hushed timbre in the quiet room. “What is?” Lifting his hand, he strokes her wet cheek with his thumb.
“Every time I close my eyes,” she whispers back, “I see you—in the moments before... and after—“
Her voice cracks and her glittering eyes meet his, helpless and tearful.
He knows what she is saying without her having to say it.
Knows that she continues to relive the final moments of the last battle they fought together.
For him, at the time, it had been a catharsis.
The emotional weight of all he had wrought against those he’d loved - lifted. Absolved, in a way.
He'd been prepared to go. She, however, hadn’t been prepared to let him.
It had taken enough out of her - too much - but he is here now because of it. And so is she.
He’d thought it was over; the battle won. A new beginning.
Evidently, he’d been wrong.
He draws her close, hand cupping the back of her head, fingers unconsciously twining in her hair. She brings her head to his shoulder and lets loose a choked sob and then another.
He soothes her as best he knows how, the words clunky and awkward-sounding to his own ears.
Eventually, her sniffles and shudders subside. She has brought her hands up to his hair, her fingers curling in the loose tendrils at the nape of his neck.
“What do you need?” he asks. “What can I do?”
She is silent for a long while.
Eventually, she speaks: “I can’t sleep without dreaming. Without reliving it.” She falters, swallowing hard. “I need to know...” She pauses again, lips trembling.
He grazes her cheek with the tips of his fingers, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, while he waits for her to speak. His actions are gentle; understanding. Words that would not have suited him up until recently.
But now, for her, he can be anything.
She puffs out a breath. “I need to know you’re there, even when I’m sleeping. But I can’t—“ She shakes her head.
A feeling comes over him. It’s suffocating, almost claustrophobic, causing his heart to pump faster. He looks at her, alarmed.
She is returning his look, though hers is chagrined. He realizes what he is seeing; what she is showing him.
Without words, she is conveying to him how it feels to be enclosed in his arms at night.
For him it’s a comfort. For her, after so many years of being alone, of only having herself, it feels stifling, overwhelming.
She needs time. He can do that.
Still, he implicitly understands, she wants to know that he’s there. Needs to feel him near.
He thinks of her hands, constantly moving, fixing, toying.
Strong, the fingers lithe with callused tips, nails blunted at the top.
They rarely cease to fiddle during the day.
An idea forms in his mind. He clears his throat.
“My mother, her home country,” he begins.
“Alderaan?” she interjects. She knows; of course she would.
He nods once in confirmation. “Traditionally, it was a culture that placed emphasis on...certain artistic traditions.”
She looks at him quizzically.
“Hair braiding,” he explains. “There were...reasons for each knot, each coil. An explanation for every—“ He gestures vaguely, making a haphazard circle around his head. “And all would have been passed on from mother to daughter.”
He pauses thoughtfully, weighing his next words.
(The familiar pang of bitterness isn’t going to accompany them this time, he realizes. He finds that interesting.)
“Or,” he forges on, “from a mother to a son, desperate for any excuse for her time and her attention.”
“She taught you how to braid her hair?” Rey breathes incredulously. “In those beautiful—“ Her gesture mirrors the one he'd just made, a quick circle around her head.
He huffs out something resembling a laugh. “Well, sort of. I mostly just held certain sections in place.”
He shakes his head, again surprised at the pang of bittersweet fondness he feels at the memory.
“But she did teach me a bit,” he admits quietly, after a beat. “She taught me what she could.”
He isn’t sure if he’s still even talking about braids anymore as he feels a sharpness in his chest; grief anew. A wound that hasn’t healed.
She places her hand over the spot where the pain is the worst; she knows.
“I could teach you,” he continues, persevering now with his purpose at hand. (If the words sound familiar to both of them, neither let on.) “I could teach you the ways to do it. The—the basic steps. Do it while we lie here. Before we sleep.”
Her eyes slowly inch up to meet his, realization dawning.
To occupy herself with braiding, to keep her hands busy, it would help focus her mind on a task.
It showed how he inherently understood her nature. How the need to be engaged, to be active, was all she knew.
Giving her something to 𝘥𝘰. It was the most effective - the kindest - solution.
“Yes,” she blurts out, “yes, I’d like that.”
She tentatively raises her hand to his hair, pushing the onyx strands back from his face. He wears it brushed back more often than not these days, as though he no longer requires any type of mask. As though he has nothing to hide.
Her fingers sift through the locks, her other hand coming up, twisting two pieces together, then allowing them to fall with a self-deprecating chuckle.
"We're a long way from Alderaan," she murmurs, and he feels the heft of those words, their significance, down to his bones.
"It's alright," he soothes. He rises from his crouched position, knees popping, and he emits a mild groan.
Her grin feels truer now; she dimples and he experiences its warmth.
"Getting old, huh?" she jibes as she accepts his hand, standing up as well.
"Thanks to you," he returns quietly, leading her back to the bed.
Her smiles softens into something poignant and she nods.
They lie down together, him shifting slightly lower than her, so her head is resting on their pillow and his lays close to her solar plexus.
"Ready?" he says, throwing the blanket over her legs as he speaks.
She shifts her fingers in his hair, scratching his scalp, rubbing the silky strands.
"Ready," she confirms, the word cracking on a large yawn.
He quietly instructs her as best he can, as best he remembers, and truly the technique doesn't even matter as much as the soft ebb and flow of her hands in his hair, working in rhythmic tugs, pulling and releasing.
The motions lull them both into a quiet, restful peace.
She perserveres, even as she emits several more lusty yawns. He feels her tying the ends with something and looks up to see her own hair has been taken down, falling loosely around her shoulders. The silvery light of the moon frames her head in an opaline halo as she works.
He feels gratitude as he's never known it before, strong enough to spear his heart, split him in two.
He feels the spirit of his mother, of the Force, of all that which has brought them to this moment, and he is grateful for it all.
She works on his hair, one determined tug after another, until finally her hands slow and then, eventually, stop.
He hears her breathing, evenly and deeply. Her body is soft and pliant; her mind a diaphanous cloud, prismatic yet unproblematic.
Finally, 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, she rests - peacefully, dreamlessly, deeply.
He can fall asleep beside her now, bodies skimming one another and the edges of the sleeper, knowing she is no longer troubled.
He is grateful for that, too.
