These Violent Delights

Chapter 20: Resilience

Beep.

You wiggled your toes.

Beep.

Next, your fingers.

Beep.

You opened one eye, but shut it immediately. Too bright.

Beep.

You groaned. "Shut up."

There was a breathy noise of amusement. "I see you're feeling more like yourself."

Weak and loopy, you flopped your head in the direction you heard Kylo's voice. "What...what happened?"

"Cyanoxis D-570."

You swallowed, bringing on a world of pain when you did. Over the moan that escaped your lips, you heard Kylo shuffle. "I have water for you," he murmured. "Open."

Dropping your bottom lip, you felt Kylo place a straw in your mouth. You greedily sucked down the cool liquid—your throat felt raw and cracked, as did your lips—until the entire glass was empty. As other soft voices spoke in the room, you worked on opening your eyes to look at him.

"Cyanoxis?" you tried to repeat, but your voice was barely there.

Kylo's lips pressed into a hard line. "Yes."

You blinked at him. "What the fuck is that?"

"Poison. It's a crystalline powder that can cause debilitating or life-threatening consequences even in small doses."

Your head spun. "But how...when..."

"The tea, Kitten."

Your eyes widened. "Hux had his stewardess poison me?"

"No." He gave a curt shake of his head. "Ava acted alone, in retaliation for the fork incident."

Adrenaline knocked into you, and you tried to shimmy up in your bed. "But what, why? Wouldn't it make more sense for Hux to try and kill me, not her?" you asked, blood rushing to your face, your heart slamming in your chest. The machine you were hooked up to wailed with rapid beeps. "Don't you think he did it and is just lying to save his ass? What if he comes back here again? What if—"

Putting a hand on your thigh, Kylo raised his eyes to the vital signs monitor and then back to you. "In order to heal, you need to stay calm. I need you to breathe." Kylo pulled an exaggerated breath in through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. "Like that, okay?"

You took a few deep breaths with him until you couldn't hold his penetrative gaze any longer, your eyes dropping to his hand still situated on your leg. Even though your hospital gown, the blanket, and his robes separated your skin and his, the surge of electricity you felt made it very, very hard for your pulse to climb back down.

Once it finally did, a brief flash of relief shone on Kylo's face as he leaned away from you, continuing to speak in a calm, composed tone. "Hux is not a concern of mine and should not be a concern of yours. He had no idea Ava poisoned you. I would know. My knights and I took him to Sector 45B."

Sector 45B? You knew that meant the Supreme Leader had ripped the full account of what Hux could have known from the depths of his mind, and if he still wasn't concerned, then you wouldn't be, either. "Oh my stars," you whispered, slumping against the hospital bed. "What about Ava? Where is she?"

Kylo's eye twitched. "Her body was incinerated days ago."

"Wait, days ago?" Your jaw dropped when he nodded. "How long have I been out for?"

"This is your third day here."

"Wow," you muttered, the severity of what had happened sinking in. You looked down at your hands. "So, I survived, but Ava...she..."

"Ava gave you a lethal dose of cyanoxis," Kylo explained slowly. "She brought this upon herself."

You frowned. "I know, but why would you kill her, someone so loyal to Hux and the First Order, when I...I'm..."

"You are mine," he finished for you, matter-of-factly. "Therefore, Ava's actions were against me. An offense like that, against the Supreme Leader, is punishable by death."

Clearing your throat, you played with a loose thread on his cape, too weak to argue how you were very much not his. "How did you kill her?"

"The same thing you saw me do to Hux in the medbay after the fork attack," Kylo said casually as he filled up your water cup. "Only, I did not remove my boot."

You peeked up at him, and he extended the glass toward you. You shook your head no, and he nodded, setting it down, before pulling out his datapad that had begun ringing in his pocket. Holding a finger up at you, he stood up and began pacing, responding to the person on the other line with clipped, one-word responses.

You swallowed, wincing as your eyes followed his movement. He was in his usual attire—except for his robes you were currently fidgeting with—and looked completely even-tempered. A sickening feeling swam in your stomach. Ava turned out to be a psycho, and although you didn't care that the bitch was dead, there was something deeply unsettling about Kylo's casual indifference toward crushing a woman's windpipe under his boot. That, and his apparent disregard for obliterating an entire system. Again.

Finishing his call, Kylo slipped the datapad back into his pocket and strode over to you to stand at the edge of the bed. "You have a little more color," he muttered, reaching his hand out to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. "Do you feel better?"

His fingers lingered by your jaw, and you jerked away from him, your eyes brimming with tears. "Please stop," you said, body rigid as you avoided his gaze. You were afraid that if you looked at him, you'd break into a million pieces. "I don't want to do this right now. I can't."

He hesitated. "Do what?"

"Any of this. I can't do any of this anymore," you whispered as the tears poured down your face. "I thought...I thought I was strong enough to go along with this sick game of yours, but I'm not."

After a moment of crushing silence, Kylo took a seat next to the bed again. "What sick game?"

You threw him an incredulous look. "Are you being serious right now, Kylo?"

"Yes."

Scoffing, you shook your head. "You're unbelievable."

"And you're ungrateful," he said, an edge to his tone. "Everything you have asked for, you have received. You, a prisoner of war, get hot meals daily, a private refresher, your own quarters, and—"

"You mean my basic human needs are being met?" you retorted. Beep, beep, beep, beep. "Wow. How generous of you. Thank you so very much."

"You're quite welcome," he said through a tight jaw. He stood up and glared down at you. "When you're done feeling sorry for yourself, we will have a conversation about what's to come."

"I don't want to have a conversation with you. I want to get the fuck out of here!" Beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbee— "I told you, I'm done playing your games!"

"What game?" he fumed, towering over you. "What are you even talking about?"

"This game where I have to pretend to be your good little pet!" you yelled over the panicking monitor. "I've been playing along for only ten days, and I can't stand it another minute. I'm fucking out. I won't do it, Kylo, I can't. I can't sit here and act like this is normal when you just killed the only people I called family!"

After holding your unflinching gaze with heavy swells of his chest, Kylo leaned in, his voice low and urgent. "Kitten, listen to me. I didn't destroy your family," he said, eyes flitting to the monitor. "You need to calm down, or—"

"Don't tell me to calm down, and don't you dare lie to me," you shot back. "I saw it. It wasn't just my home base where all my friends lived...you blew up my entire system!"

He said your name. "Wait," Kylo said, putting his hands up to gesture slow down. "Neither your friends, nor any members of the Resistance were on D'Qar or the other two planets. They evacuated the same night you were taken."

A nurse ran into the room, frantically looking between you and the monitor. "Sir, she's destabilizing. If her heart rate does not come down, we will need to sedate her."

"Can you calm down, or do you need help?"

"I don't want you to touch me," you said nastily, clutching your arms across your torso as though it would stop your heart from jumping out of your chest. "And I don't want to be sedated."

"That's not what I'm asking," he said with a strained tone. He held up his hands and framed his next question with exaggerated enunciation. "Do. You. Need. Help?"

More nurses ran in but came skidding to a stop when they saw the death glare passing between you and Kylo. "Sir..." one of them started, and you could hear the distress in her voice. She continued to speak, but you couldn't understand her over the throb of your pulse and the whine of the machine.

You tried to take a deep breath, but you were too shaky, too worked up. You didn't want his help, but you didn't want to be drugged either, and the nurse approaching the bed finally pulled a reluctant nod out of you.

"Good." Kylo let out a breath and sat down. Then came the three little words that cloaked you in stillness. "You are calm."

Beepbeepbeepbeep, beep, beep, beep, beep...beep...beep...beep...

You melted into the bed. The nurses hovered as this haze of pleasantness swirled around you, checking your vitals and doing whatever the fuck nurses do. You felt Kylo's eyes on you, but you weren't ready to face him. Not yet. And as the minutes passed, Kylo remained by your bedside as the nurses murmured to each other and bustled about the room. You kept your face tilted away from him. It wasn't until you two were alone that you could manage a whisper. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't have the chance to."

You dragged your empty gaze to his face. "Where are they now?"

"That's classified."

You peered at him. His expression was impassive but not cold—just blank. As though he was hiding something from you. "No, it's not classified," you said slowly, cocking your head to the side. "You don't know where they are, do you?"

"We have eyes on the Resistance at all times."

"That's not what I'm asking," you said, and Kylo turned his head to the side, rubbing his chin. You scoffed when he didn't respond. "I'm right, aren't I? You don't know where they are, or else you would have used Starkiller to target that system, not a desolate one."

Kylo looked at you again, and a hardness settled into his features. "I will not discuss warfare with the enemy."

You snorted. "I think what you meant to say was—you will not tell me where to find my team when I finally get the fuck out of here."

"Who said you're getting out of here?" he said lightly, leaning back and crossing his arms. As he tipped his knees open to deepen his posture in the chair, he kept his unrelenting gaze on you. "I keep what's mine close to me at all times."

"I am not yours," you seethed, but you could feel the Force-compulsion working overtime to extinguish your anger. "Don't mistake my playing nice as submission, Supreme Leader."

"Oh, Kitten..." he crooned, saying your nickname as though you were sharing an intimate moment, "I wouldn't dare."

Albeit gently, something erupted inside of you. "Nurse!" you called out, keeping your eyes on Kylo. The way his lip twitched up only fueled your suppressed anger. "NURSE!"

Hurried footsteps drew your attention to the door. "Miss?" she said, out of breath. "Do you need something?"

"Yes," you said rigidly, "I would like to take my meal now. Please and thank you."

"Yes, ma'am. Do you have a preference? We have porg soup or—"

"No soup, thanks." A tight smile touched your lips. "I prefer something solid, you know, something that needs to be eaten with a knife and fork."

She dutifully nodded and walked away, blissfully unaware that you had just summoned her to serve you a weapon on a platter, quite literally.

Beside you, Kylo sighed. "Poor girl has no idea you just granted her a death wish."

You whipped your head at him. "Do not touch her."

"I must," he said gravely. "Thanks to you, she's about to be an accessory to an assassination attempt on the Supreme Leader's life. It's a law that she's punished accordingly, and I must always uphold the law."

You narrowed your eyes at him. "You're lying."

"I'm not. Article V, Section 2 of the Galactic Constitution: consequences befall not only those that wield the fork but those that supply the fork." He shrugged. "My hands are tied. Sorry."

The silence dragged on as the two of you engaged in a stare-off. You knew he was fucking with you, but you didn't trust him to not kill the nurse just for fun. You were fuming internally while Kylo looked openly amused. You hated him for it, and you were forced to stop the nurse before she entered with your food—and weapons.

You gave her an apologetic smile. "Thank you, but I've lost my appetite."

Nervous eyes flitted to the Supreme Leader, then back to you. "Are you positive, Miss?"

"Mhm," you hummed stiffly. "Sorry for the trouble."

She bowed her head and walked away. Letting out a dejected sigh, you plopped back against the bed, and Kylo chuckled. You shot him the most menacing look you could manage. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Leave me alone."

Kylo was quiet for a moment as his eyes trailed down your body. "So much pent-up aggression in you," he muttered. "If only you'd let me fix that."

"Fuck off. I don't want to be fixed."

Kylo uncrossed his arms to gesture with his hands. "Finally, something we can both agree on."

With one last glare, you looked forward, sulking in silence. You thought maybe if you ignored him long enough, he would leave, but the fucker didn't move from your side. He seemed perfectly content tending to his Supreme Leader duties beside your hospital bed. Meanwhile, you had nothing to do but measure the time by how often his datapad rang and the number of officers who came to speak with him. You couldn't relax with him here; all you could do was feel anger stirring in your lower belly, waiting to be released. Once it finally bubbled up your stomach, constricting your throat, you couldn't take the silence anymore.

"Why blow up the Ileenium system if they weren't even there?" you asked, abruptly looking at him. "What's the point?"

Kylo glanced up from his holoscreen. "Destroy their equipment, their fleet, and their morale—or what was left of it. I know you will have difficulty accepting this, but it is not my goal to kill everyone you ever loved."

"I don't think it's your goal to kill everyone I have ever loved. I think it's your goal to kill everyone, period."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?"

"Because I've been watching your moves even before you took me. A few years ago, you blew up the Hosnian system just like that," you said, snapping your fingers. "Three billion life forms gone in the blink of an eye."

"Supreme Leader Snoke gave that order," he said, giving a severe shake of his head. "I did not."

"But you didn't stop him."

Irritation blazed in his eyes. "Tell me, how does one stop the Supreme Leader of the galaxy, hm?" When you looked away, he followed your gaze with his face, keeping you in his line of sight. "That's right. You don't."

You folded your arms across your chest. "It doesn't matter. It's all the same. You're still doing the same horrible things he did, like blowing up entire systems for fun."

Kylo cocked a brow. "For fun? Or to target those that are actively trying to kill me?"

"We wouldn't be trying to kill you if the Order wasn't so wicked," you said through tight lips. "That is the only reason why the Resistance even exists—to fight evil, to fight you."

Kylo considered you for a moment. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"How confident you are," he murmured, his intense gaze boring into you, "regurgitating something you know nothing about."

"I am repeating what I have been told," you spat, cheeks burning. "General Organa has no reason to lie to me."

"My mother has many reasons to lie to you, Kitten," he said, a hardness settling into his face as he leaned back again, crossing his arms over his chest. "She has lied to you since the day she took you in."

"No," you said, stubbornly shaking your head. You refused to believe him. "She wouldn't do that."

"Oh? Just like she wouldn't kill for her cause?" Your silence and sudden avoidance of eye contact didn't stop Kylo from continuing. "The Resistance might not have the resources to eliminate a planetary system, but they did just take out a dreadnought last week, fully staffed with over seventy-five thousand souls. To answer your question, that's why we targeted the Ileenium system. Retaliation."

Your eyes widened as you finally looked at him. "We took out a dreadnought?"

"We did not. The Resistance did."

"Wow," you breathed, brows raising. "Impressive."

He was silent as he regarded you, then his mouth curled into a cruel smirk. "How hypocritical of you, condemning me for being a killer while you celebrate the destruction of seventy-five thousand lives."

"I am not celebrating their deaths," you said, lifting your chin. "But if we hadn't done it, they would have killed us."

"Really?" he asked, leaning forward and placing his forearms on his thighs. "Custodians...instructors...doctors...sure, they swore fealty to the First Order, to me, but they're the ones that would've personally killed you and your team?"

You shifted in the bed. "Well, no, but—"

"You're right. They wouldn't have. Eighty percent of the First Order personnel Organa murdered were average people, not the so-called real enemy," he said, your skin crawling under his burning gaze. "How can you justify what she did?"

"I'm not trying to justify it," you said, with less conviction than you planned. "But you can't sit here and convince me that the Resistance is evil and the First Order isn't, Kylo."

"I'm not trying to weigh who is more evil than the other. I do not deny that the First Order or our predecessor have done evil things. I am not even trying to deny that I have done contemptible things. I am simply trying to knock the Resistance off the pedestal you have wrongly put them on."

As the last of his words rang in your ears, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes. You suddenly felt tired, so tired of arguing, of fighting. You just wanted to sit here in peace.

Kylo tsked. "Tuning me out does not change reality."

"No, but at least I don't have to look at you if my eyes are closed," you muttered.

A beat of silence, then you heard him tear away from the bed. "Fine. Live in denial," he said, and your eyes peeled open at the harshness in his voice. "About this and about General Organa. Do whatever you want. I don't care."

You bit your lip as you watched him walk away from you. You did want to rest, to forget all of this, but you felt your curiosity creep up your throat and crawl out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. "Wait, what did Organa lie about?" you blurted, suddenly wishing you hadn't asked, but it was too late. He was already turning to look at you. You swallowed. "Please. I...I need to know."

Dark eyes searched your face from across the room before he shook his head. "No," he said, moving toward the door again. "You are too upset with me. You won't believe what I have to say."

You hurried to sit up in your bed. "Wait, don't go!" you called out, hating how pathetic you sounded. "Please, I'll believe you!"

Kylo stopped, his massive frame draped in black, taking up the entire span of the doorway before turning to look at you. It felt like an eternity before he entered the room again. "The morning after Sector 45B—I warned you that what I found would distress you," he said, voice low as he kept his eyes pinned to your face. He stopped at the foot of the bed. "Are you positive you want to know?"

You didn't let yourself consider his question, afraid you would change your mind. "Yes." You vigorously nodded your head. "Yes."

He gave you a minuscule nod as he walked around the bed. Just as he got to the chair beside you, he said five little words that made your stomach drop. "My mother set you up."

You didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"She set us both up, actually." Eyeing you as he sat down, he dropped his gloved hands in his lap, his boots landing with heavy thuds as he stretched out his legs in front of him. "That night at Groman's Cantina. She sent us both there at the same time on purpose."

You swallowed, hanging on to his every word. "What? Why?"

Kylo's eye twitched. "Why she does anything—to change me, to bring me back."

"She wants me to bring you, the Supreme Leader, back to the Resistance?" you repeated, brows scrunched in confusion. "Did you ever affiliate yourself with their cause?"

"You misunderstood, Kitten," he said, softly shaking his head. "She doesn't want me to join the Resistance. She wants you to bring me back to the light side of the Force."

You gawked at him before letting out a high-pitched, sputtering chuckle. "Why would I be the one to bring you to the light side?" you asked, your voice sounding nervous and weird, even to your ears. "I'm just a criminal. A killer. Surely she could have found someone more qualified for that job, no?"

Kylo hesitated, and in his silence, your heart rate picked up and your palms felt sweaty. The way he was looking at you...it felt as though he were looking inside of you. As though he could see something that you could not. It was unnerving.

"Kylo?" you said, unable to stop the wavering of your voice. "Why are you looking at me like that? Is there...is there something I don't know?"

Then, an abrupt shake of his head. "No," he said quickly—too quickly. "Her reasons for sending you, in particular, do not matter. What matters is she used you. She arranged for a Force-beacon to be placed inside of you. Something she knew would drive me mad so she could find me."

You jolted back. "She had a what placed inside of me? Where?"

"Inside of your psyche. Here," he said, leaning forward and gently prodding a finger against your temple. He dropped his hand when you veered away from him, lowering his gaze before making eye contact again. "That's why I took you to Sector 45B. To find the beacon."

It took you a second to understand what the fuck he was talking about. But then the confusion melted away as the pieces clicked in your mind, leaving nothing behind but incredulity. "Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Your mother, my General, sent me to Mos Eisley to kill Wor, knowing that you would be looking for him, and would therefore find me and feel some Force thing—"

"Force-beacon."

"—that would make you want to take me prisoner, because it would be driving you crazy, with the intent that you'd eventually realize the thing was inside my head?"

"Yes."

"And from there, once you dug it out, it would lead you to her?"

"Correct."

Rage. Your whole body vibrated with rage as you stiffened, speaking with a clenched voice. "So, she knew that you would have to torture me to find this Force-beacon?"

"She couldn't have known I would resort to torture," he clarified, the corner of his mouth pulling down. "But she had no reason to suspect that I wouldn't resort to torture."

Your heart pounded in your ears, your face felt hot. Your voice was strained with emotion. "In other words, she didn't give a shit how you found this thing. As long as you found it, right?" When he nodded, you let out a bitter scoff. "How did she put it inside me? When? I don't have any recollection of her fucking with my head."

"Luke Skywalker," he said, his voice deep and laced with contempt. "He did this to you while you were asleep. Or, if you were awake, he erased your memory so I wouldn't find the instance upon capture."

You just stared at him for a moment, a terrible pit opening up in your stomach. "A Jedi erased my memory?"

"Potentially."

"Luke Skywalker...was inside my head? And I had no idea?"

"Yes." He gave you a grim look, digging the venomous dagger of truth even deeper into your belly. "Do you remember that night she took you in and told you of his position on Exegol? She asked you to go to him for this reason, Kitten. She had been planning on using you from day one, but to anchor a beacon inside a human mind takes dark power—a difficult query for a Jedi to swallow. We suspect Luke refused at first, that is, until..."

Kylo's words blurred together as you turned your head away from him. You didn't want him to see you like this, on the edge of falling apart. You knew the Resistance wasn't perfect, but you thought they were at least good. That Organa wasn't exploiting you. That she needed you and wanted to help you. That she thought you were a strong candidate to go to Skywalker. That you were important. That you were family. But you knew now she didn't see you in that light. She had only used you to get to her real family.

You clamped your eyes shut, your head hanging low as you twisted your palm against your forehead. Stupid, so stupid, you thought, as Kylo explained the technicalities of the beacon. His words went through you. Until they struck a nerve.

"...her Force signature inside of you. It's how she found me. Your minds were linked until I destroyed the beacon in Sector 45B."

It took you a moment to wrap your head around what this meant, blinking at him with empty eyes. "Our minds were linked," you repeated, voice as flat as your expression. He nodded, and your mouth went dry. "So, she could see my every thought, my every feeling?"

"Your thoughts, no. Your general feelings, yes." Kylo paused, slinking down in the chair, watching your face closely. "Your pain and suffering? Absolutely."

Your voice quieted. "She...knew I was in pain?"

"Yes."

Thump, thump, thump. Your heart beat wildly in your chest, just a painful thrum as you tried to suppress the emotion rushing up your throat. "She knew?" Another nod. The tears came flooding in with a vengeance. "She knew that I was sleep deprived and tortured and brought to that fucking kitchen where her son tore my mind apart to find what she put inside of me?"

Kylo dropped his gaze, swallowing, before responding. "Yes."

A terrible, humorless laugh boiled up from your gut and spewed through your lips. "Wow, just wow," you breathed, hot tears staining your cheeks. "Did she get what she wanted from me, at least? Did you?"

Impassive eyes locked on your face again. "Yes."

"Well, that's great, just kriffing great!" you blurted, angrily slapping your tears away. "I am so happy I could unknowingly be the center of your little family reunion. How very sweet!"

His fingers flexed in and out of fist as he watched you unravel at the seams, speaking with a soft, subdued voice. "You have every right to be angry."

"Angry? You think I'm angry?" you asked, brows raised and lips turned up into a vacant smile. You let out a cold, hard laugh. "Oh, Kylo, I'm not angry. I'm...I'm..." you trailed off, the words dying in your tightening throat. You turned away from him. This...this cut too deep. There would be no hiding behind your sardonic attitude or mask of spiteful indifference. No. You felt broken, defeated. And with a fractured whisper, you looked at him with tearful eyes and finally admitted that. "I'm devastated."

Kylo was quiet as he studied you. He was watching you intently, and this time, you watched him right back. Defiant in your vulnerability, almost, as you didn't hide your quivering bottom lip and the clumping of your lashes sticking together from tears as you sniffled and trembled from the fatigue of your sorrow. When he broke the silence, there was a gentleness to Kylo you had never seen before.

"It's not your fault for trusting her," he said, following up with your name. "You couldn't have known."

"No, but I should have." You thrust your head side to side in disjointed movements, fresh tears rolling down your cheeks. "I should have known I was just an asset to Organa, to Unkar...Tasu...even my parents. I meant nothing to them. I am nothing."

Kylo gave a quick shake of his head. "No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. You said so yourself. That first interrogation you put me through? I hated you for it, but you were right. About only being an asset. About being an abandoned pet, a cold-blooded killer. A nobody."

"You're not nobody," he insisted, his lips pressing together unsteadily as he leaned in from his seat. "Not to me."

You could only hold his penetrative gaze for an instant before dropping it to his chest. That shift between you two, you felt it again. That riptide of emotions. Your connection to him, that fucking pull. You hated yourself for it, but you wanted to go to him, to climb onto his lap and have him wrap his arms around you like a fucking baby. It was embarrassing and unsettling to want to seek comfort from a man you should hate, but somehow couldn't. When your face folded in heartache, he said your name.

"Look at me." All you did was cry harder, and he shifted forward, enclosing your hand in his palm. "Please, look at me."

You obeyed with great effort, as though your eyelids weighed a thousand tons. Your conflict only intensified upon linking gazes. The tightly controlled emotion in his face, his unwavering confidence. The way he felt like your anchor again, keeping you safe and securely planted on the ground...it stirred a longing inside of you, exacerbating the connection you felt with him. It terrified you.

"Don't be afraid," he muttered, bringing a hand to your face. He cupped it gently, then wiped a tear away with his thumb. "I feel it, too."

His words should have comforted you, should have made you feel less alone. But how could you be comforted when those words came from the mouth of a monster? Of a man that had hurt you, that continued to hurt you by holding you captive? Worst of all, why did you want to hear them from him?

Something inside of you shattered. Your shoulders fell, spine bowing into a curve as though the air was being let out of you. You planted your face into your palms as you cried and cried and cried. You thought you had been handling the pressure of being his prisoner, of getting the upper hand, but you weren't. You were just a human. A fucked up human who couldn't figure out why they craved the touch and comfort of their enemy. But when he pushed off the chair, landing gently on the bed next to you, you didn't question it. You reached for him.

He kept his feet on the ground, twisting his torso toward you and opening his arms. You thrust his robes to the side and crawled to him, sobbing and shaking as he pulled you on his lap. You straddled him with your knees digging into the bed on either side of him, your arms around his neck as you buried your face into his shoulder. Your anchor.

Large, warm hands stroked your back. "Shhhhh."

His hush was so soft and so low, you wanted to hear it over and over again, to crawl inside of it and let the resonance of his deep voice gently rock you to sleep. You snuggled your face closer into his tunic. Even with the footsteps and soft chatter of nurses and droids coming in and out, he held you like this for what felt like hours. Until all your tears were spent and your body slumped against him, exhausted, drained, and too heavy to move.

Even as your breathing returned to normal, besides the occasional hiccup, Kylo didn't try to detach himself from you. He kept his arms wrapped around you, one hand rubbing your back and the other stroking your hair. Finally, he spoke softly, his voice faint. "Do you want me to take the pain away?"

It felt like forever before you found your voice. "You can do that?"

"Yes."

You stayed quiet, considering his offer. Your first instinct was no, but as your captor cradled you in the medbay of the First Order headquarters, you realized that you had finally hit rock bottom and needed all the help you could get. You nodded against him.

Kylo was silent as he detangled himself from you. He planted his hands on your waist, lifting you off his lap and pivoting to the side to situate you on the bed. As he stood up to adjust the pillows behind you, you slipped your legs back under the blankets and sunk down, pulling them under your chin. You didn't meet his eyes as he hovered above you.

"When you wake up, all of this will be a distant memory," he said, voice barely audible as he pushed your hair away from your face. You closed your eyes when his fingers lingered by your temple. "There will be no more pain, no more tears...just resilience."

You didn't repeat his words, but you heard them inside your mind, resounding through you until all you felt was warmth. A deep, comfortable warmth building in your bones and expanding through every fiber of your being. You took a deep breath, and on your exhale, you felt yourself release all tension. Your jaw relaxed, your shoulders slumped heavily into the bed as you drifted away into a tender haze of peace and safety, the sound of his deep, sensual voice swirling around you...

"Goodnight, babygirl."