Kylo Ren - The force doesn't work like that.
Song I listened to while writing: The Sharpest Lives, by My Chemical Romance
Force Sensitive reader is executive assistant, is bombarded by Kylo Ren when she least expects it, insists she cannot be force sensitive. One day, Kylo walks in on her conversation with Hux (her boss), and belittles her performance to him to the point of her shouting 'enough', and a fucking paperweight from Hux's desk slams him in the mask. Right in the mask.
Long nights weren't all that uncommon in her line of work.
That is to say, the nights she actually tottered off to bed near 23:00 or earlier were few and far between. She didn't mind so terribly--long meetings and planning, working out logistics and solving petty problems--she quite liked her job. And it's not like the general made her go it alone, as he had a hand in almost everything she worked on. She just there to take care of the smaller things, and to regulate the flow of the bigger things. Like an assistant, but an executive one.
Much like her mentor, General Hux, she didn't really get along with Kylo Ren. His carelessness and condescending nature revved her up in the very worst ways. So, while stumbling to her room like a drunk at two in the morning, she was less than excited to see a (demasked, surprisingly) Kylo Ren in front of her door.
"Lord Ren, how can I help you? Actually, before you answer: can it wait until morning?"
"This is more personal than a request or a foolish problem." He drawled, still monotone and vacant as always. "You never set your datapad down long enough to hold a conversation with anyone not directly important, so I decided to make my own appointment."
"Well then...what is it?"
"Can we go inside?"
"We most certainly cannot." She snapped, crossing her arms. He glared at her, like he was considering either using a mind trick or slamming her head into the wall. Regardless of his thoughts, he quickly dissolved his glare with a small sigh.
"It's not my problem, I suppose. Observation has led me to believe that you could be...force sensitive."
"Really? Observation?"
"Yes." Agitation rose in his tone. "Need I establish your place before we progress this conversation?"
"I know my place perfectly well, and I consider myself at least semi-essential. It would do you well to remember I'm not exactly a stormtrooper." She hissed in her crisp, business-angry voice. "And it's late--it's so late it's early and I've got to be moving through this monstrosity by six, so I suggest you calm your tongue and let these foolish 'observations' live as thoughts, entertained only in your mind. Goodnight, Lord Ren."
Before he could argue, force-choke her, or scream at the top of his lungs, she quickly punched the code for her room into the lock and rushed in, leaving him rather frustrated and flabbergasted just outside her door.
She waited on the other side for a second as the gravity of her actions hit her--she was waiting for him to pull out some grand 'force' thing, where he tore the metal door away and pulled her brain out through her nose--but it never came. She fell asleep against the cool metal.
~~~~
The next time she saw Kylo Ren, she was still on edge. She wasn't about to apologize for what she said, but she wasn't unaware of what the knight usually did to people who spoke to him with anything resembling malice in their tone, and if that was enough, what would he do to her for what she'd done? She tried to keep her festering worry from affecting her job performance, but alas, it was in vain. By 14:00, there had been several small disasters, and Hux was angrily cleaning up her messes for the rest of the day. He counted on her to be competent enough to hardly need him, and as she failed him he began to wonder exactly what caused such a catatonic change in her.
From what he could tell, there was no relationship that had the capability to fluster her--but in reality, he didn't really know much about her, so it very well could've been some fling she was dealing with. However, her uneasy countenance betrayed that there was probably something else bothering her--he decided that instead of bothering her about it, he would refrain from chastising her, all in hopes that she would right herself quickly.
It was near dinnertime that day, when she was having a mental breakdown in the hallway near the cafeteria. While constantly checking that she was clear, she leaned her back against the corridor and let the thoughts she'd been pushing back all day eat at her frontal lobe. She was proud of her ability to stay calm, but for some reason Kylo Ren genuinely scared her. Perhaps it was because he had access to the force, the one weapon she could never master. Perhaps it was because he conferred directly with Snoke, something she would hopefully never get to do. For whatever reason, the paranoid situations that her brain had illustrated were almost too much for her.
Kylo Ren snuck up on her before, and history repeats itself. Perhaps it was a bit soon, though, when just as she was sure she was going to cry or murder someone she heard the sound of footsteps--heavy ones, at that, and coming too quickly for her to duck into a closet or run into the mess hall. Instead, she straightened herself, pushed off the wall, and started to walk away from the footsteps like she had a purpose. She did, I suppose, but she was walking like her intent wasn't simply to get away.
"Stop."
He had his mask on, she could hear it. It altered his voice to something demonic, but she was definitely glad didn't have it off. He was a great deal more intense without it, if that made any sense. He had boyish features, but he seemed to command his face to be menacing, and it worked. She resisted the urge to keep walking--to abandon her brisk walk and start sprinting away from him--and did as he asked, turning on her heel as she did so, arms crossed. She waited patiently for him to catch up to her position, which he did within a dozen strides.
She expected that he would immediately plunge into a tantrum, and there would be an incredible showdown between the two of them, which she would lose immediately.
"We need to talk."
"Hopefully not about last night." She waited for him to punt her across the room using only his mind.
"No, I'm not angry." She detected a smile in his tone, even through the garbled modification the mask gave his voice. The panic in her mind ground to a halt, and she knew she would kick herself for her ridiculous fear for days to come. A new thought process started though, and she wondered how he'd known that. She hadn't been so obvious with how on edge she was, and it's
"You're very loud with your emotions. It forms a cloud around you." He waved his hand over her general form. "Annoying, but useful to me."
"So you smelt my fear. Regardless, what I said last night still stands. We have nothing to talk about that has anything to do with anything unprofessional."
"You are so obvious with your emotions, and yet you cannot tell how they manifest on the world around you."
"What are you saying?"
"Things happen around you. Electrical shorts, power surges, that kind of thing. You've got a force field ten meters wide all around you, and everything within that is subject to some level of devastation."
"And that means I can use the force?"
"That means the force wants you to use it. You have to let me teach you how."
"And this is what you're going off of? These little coincidences mean I have the ability to tap into the force, this great vast entity flowing all around us yet practically useless to most?"
"You call them coincidences, and I think you're just trying to deny the fact that you might be something more than a--what do you like to call yourself? An executive assistant?"
"I'm not trying to deny anything. I just don't think the force works like that."
"Really? You claim to understand how the force does and doesn't work?"
"Not exactly, but I don't think it works like that."
He scoffed--which came out like a thick, garbled, asthmatic breath. "Tonight I'll come to your room, and we will have this conversation. If not, we can always do it while you're strapped down in an interrogation room."
Now, she was half afraid, half angry, and entirely exhausted with the brooding knight in front of her.
"Alright. I should be there around--"
"When you arrive is irrelevant. Correct your behavior from today, and whenever you finish I will address you."
The second he turned and walked away, she made a disgusted face at his back before turning into the dining room.
~~~~
She was so exhausted that she was nearly able to forget about her impending 'chat' with Kylo Ren.
Almost.
Sluggishly, she made it to her room, punched in the code, and trudged in. She wasn't really expecting the knight to be sitting on her bed, elbows on his knees, and so she yelped and pressed herself against the wall as she noticed him.
"I expected you to be here sooner. Avoiding me?"
"No." She snapped, calming herself and coming fully into the room. "I had quite a lot to clean up. Anyways, some of us have high-functioning positions."
"I don't like what you're implying."
"That's the thing about implications, you probably took it wrong."
"I don't think so."
When he didn't move or launch into a monologue, she shifted anxiously and crossed her arms. "Can we get this over with? I need to get some sleep."
"It's come to my attention that--"
"I heard that bit. Let's say I'm entirely convinced I can turn the force-tap on and off. What does that mean?"
"The resistance girl, Rey, is definitely stronger than you. She might even have the potential to be stronger than I am, but that's all conjecture. Every day that passes means another day where she could figure out how to be even better, and therefore we must immediately begin your training."
"I thought you wanted to train the girl. Am I just a placeholder?"
"She will never bend to my will."
"And I suppose I'm going to?"
"By subscribing to the First Order, you already have."
"Let me just get this straight, though, I've always had the force running through me, but you just now noticed it?"
He glared up at her, and she relished in the agitation that stained his features, as he'd come unmasked. Rather, he'd come fully dressed, but he'd shed his deliberate headgear while waiting for her to arrive.
"Everyone and everything has the force running through it. It's works like air, it behaves like time and the forces of nature. It just is. If you meant that you've always been force...sensitive, then yes, and I've known from the first time I saw you. However, with the recent gain and loss of the girl, Supreme Leader and I have agreed that it would be worth it to utilize you fully."
"So I'm just the backup?"
"In a manner of speaking. The intent was to forget about your 'talent' from the beginning. However, circumstance insists we use everything we can get our hands on."
"What does it mean, though? How do I learn to be aware of the force, or whatever?"
"Because you are so weak, it will be a long and arduous journey. We do not, however, have all the time in the world. You will have to be better than you are now. I expect the very best."
"And you mean to say that I'm insignificant without your lessons?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes."
A sour ball of indignation rose in her throat at this, and her stance turned from awkward and defensive to seething and offensive.
"I'd like you to know, Lord Ren, that regardless of what power you have, and regardless of