Three days ago I started shipping Kylux.
Two days ago I told @reserve I might perhaps one day write some fic maybe.
And now here we are. I couldn’t help it. I had to.
the heat and flame of thy distemper
He tunes it all out except the wind.
The wind and the low crackle of the fire.
The rumble of distant thunder finds it way through, but he does not hear the rain.
The rain which falls in perfect drops, the perfect replica of the pattern of freckles.
Freckles dotted over the sloping shoulders of a man who never smiled at him once.
When he thought he could not see.
A lifetime ago, so it seems, bent away far from the rush of stars that fall between them. Stars that wink a pale fluorescent green under the waning moonlight, same as his eyes.
Ben Solo shakes his head. He cannot afford distractions such as these.
Kylo Ren afforded himself the samesuch distractions, and they were taken from him. Forced.
He bundles the rough weave of his cloak around him, remembers the patient words of his new (old) master. He clears his mind, lets in the light, peels away the shadow.
Rough lips drag across the nape of his neck, whisper equally rough words.
Ren. You like this, don’t you, the voice is milk-soft and cruel, being mine to command.
Yes, Ben thinks, then, No. I just liked being yours.
The cloak itches, soaked with the rainwater that bathes his skin. He does not think of the days when he was bathed and nursed (so unwillingly, it seemed) as his wounds knit and heal themselves back together. Does not think of the calloused fingers that had dragged over the handsomely formed scar that cut jagged across his face. He does not remember the only kind words that had tumbled from those rough lips, bitter and humourless.
“It suits you,” he had said, “you’re less beautiful now.”
Kylo Ren had smiled at those words, then, knowing that The General had thought him beautiful, once.
Lightning flashes in the shape of a scar, illuminates the tumbling pile of pale limbs that writhe before the fire and then vanish.
A command, curse and prayer, all at once, hissed with regret and a deep-loathed longing.
Ben watches the fire, watches it flicker auburn and copper, thinks of sleek strands of hair running through his gloved fingers.
Stop that, you’ll mess it up.
He had mussed his whole head up, then, splaying his fingers and teasing through until it was a stuck-up mess of frizz and static. The General had been so angry he had almost left his bedchamber that night.
Ben sighs, sad and low. He aches for how much he misses him. Aches even more to know how little he is missed.
“You will never complete your training if you keep looking behind your shoulder.”
His uncle stands before him, stern and unsmiling, but his compassion billows from him like a great stench. Ben curls his nose.
“You would know, old hermit.”
Luke crouches low and meets his eyes.
“I have no wish to speak with Kylo Ren,” he says quietly. Ben looks away.
The fire snaps loudly, flecked bright ginger.
“There are… things… I cannot cast from my mind.”
“Things,” Luke asks, “or people?”
Ben does not bother with a response. Luke sits on the gnarled log next to him, pulls his hood over his head to block out the dwindling specks of rain.
“I learned the hard way that love paves a path of destruction for people like us.”
People like us. He does not say Jedi.
“I didn’t love him,” Ben spits, and as he says the words he feels cold fingers dip and dig rivets in his spine, hears the wet choke of a pleading moan.
“I didn’t,” he says again, as though the repetition will strengthen the lie.
A lithe, strong back arches beneath him, a fist spasms in his tangled hair.
That is a truth, a certainty that stabs through him as hot and burning as - no. Best not to think on that. His father had loved him, and look what rewards he had reaped.
“I think, perhaps, it is time to eat,” Luke tells him, taking his shoulder in deft mechanical fingers.
“Supper, and then you will meditate some more.”
Ben nods, rises with his uncle, draws a blanket over the figures in his mind.
“Can I -” he ducks his head, “without the fire - I mean.”
He coughs a little, shakes away the wellspring of his tears. The General never earned those.
“It will be cold,” Luke says.
Ben shrugs. “The rain has almost stopped. I can manage. The fire is too-”
Luke nods. “Do what you must.”
They walk into the cottage for supper, away from the sloping freckles that trace the ground, away from the overwhelming flame.
Later, Ben will return, he will find his place in the Light as he sits silent in the dark.
He will not think of how the darkness cloaked them once, as they whispered wordless secrets into each other’s skin.
He will not think that maybe, perhaps maybe, Brendol Hux loved him just a little.
He will not wonder what it might have sounded like to hear him cry out his true name.
Some sounds hurt too much to even imagine.
