Chapter Text
The darkness lifted, and Rey was surprised to find herself at a dinner table. There were enough places for a large party, but she was the only person seated. The room – at least, what she could see of it – was large and gothic in style. Mahogany panels stretched the length of the walls, and the windows at the edge of her vision were obscured by heavy velvet drapes. A fire crackled away in an ornate fireplace mounted on the wall directly opposite, but the room was otherwise illuminated only by candlelight.
Before her was spread what she supposed was her host's idea of a feast: kidneys perched in oyster shells, a whole liver served up on a platter, a bowl of spleens dressed in myoglobin. Finally, her gaze moved upwards to the painting on the wall above the fireplace. It was a portrait of a man, hardly discernible in the gloom, save for the shock of tawny hair and a pair of tortured eyes. Rey had barely decided that he was familiar to her before a tall, dark figure entered her field of view, and everything else faded into insignificance.
His eyes never left hers as he passed behind the table and settled into the seat across from her. She stared back, studying her new companion unashamedly. He was a hulking man, dressed entirely in black, and almost completely obscuring the high-backed chair he sat in. The inky waves that framed his long face did not match the overall severity of his disposition, and he betrayed no feeling with his unsmiling gaze.
But his eyes.
His eyes were like daggers piercing her very soul, and they were watching her intently. Some unknown emotion swirled in their depths, the intensity of which disturbed her. He looked tortured, she realised, not unlike the subject of the painting above his head. Although she was certain that she had never seen this man before, she knew his kind and she would be foolish not to be wary of him.
"Can you speak?"
His rich baritone broke her reverie. Rey considered his question and found that she could.
"Where am I?"
He nodded imperceptibly, but did not answer her. He merely continued to stare at her in that deeply disconcerting manner, as though he was an explorer and she was some ancient artefact to be studied. She fought a shudder and looked away like a coward, shifting her gaze to the fare he had provided.
"Is this supposed to be for me?"
The man quirked an eyebrow, never taking his eyes off her, but still he was silent.
Rey saw red. The thought of herself as his little plaything, helpless in her chair as he studied her to satisfy some kind of sick curiosity, was enough to make her blood boil. She wanted to reach across the table and snap his neck. She wanted to pound his head into the mahogany until his skull shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
But she wouldn't do any of that. So she settled for chewing the inside of her lip as she glared at him with as much disdain as she could muster. Infuriatingly, this only seemed to amuse him.
"If you're planning to let me talk to myself all evening, why don't you just get it over with already?" she spat with a voice like venom.
Her question must have intrigued him, because finally he spoke again, allowing Rey to identify an American accent with a midwestern twang. "Get what over with?"
Rey rolled her eyes, speaking through gritted teeth. "Don't be obtuse. You're planning to kill me, aren't you?"
He did not answer for a few long moments, but continued to stare at her, brow ever so slightly furrowed. Almost as though he was contemplating his reply, she considered. The thought struck her as odd.
"You will die tonight, yes," he breathed. "But not yet."
As she expected, but his hesitation compelled her. "And what if you're wrong?"
The man cocked his head, debating whether to play her game. Finally, he shrugged. "I've never been wrong before."
The thought was upsetting to Rey. She knew she shouldn't ask — she didn't want to know the answer — but the question slipped past her lips anyway: "How many?"
He shook his head imperceptibly. 'More than I could count.'
Rey's scepticism must have been palpable, because he revised his statement accordingly. "Actually, I do keep count."
Her lip quivered, and the bastard seemed to enjoy that. Rey's voice was barely a whisper when she uttered her next words. "You're a monster."
He had the nerve to flinch at her assessment of him. "I suppose you would think so."
They settled into an uneasy silence which Rey felt compelled to fill with inane chatter.
"Hate what you've done with the place."
Silence.
"You should try opening the curtains from time to time. Maybe give the room a lick of paint. It's awfully dark in here."
Still nothing. She pushed on.
"Who chose the menu? Was it you? It needs some work."
She knew she was wasting time, and apparently, he did, too. Her companion was grinning now, eyes twinkling. She pursed her lips.
"Although, I'd need to try the food to be sure," she mumbled.
The man thought about that for a second. "Are you hungry?"
Strangely, she wasn't. "I could eat," was what she said instead.
His grin vanished. "And if I removed your restraints, you wouldn't even think of doing anything stupid, would you?"
Rey's lips parted with a tiny gasp. She couldn't tell if he was toying with her.
"I can't make any promises," she offered.
They stared at one another for a long time then, waging a silent war. She thought he was about to laugh in her face when, for whatever reason, he stood up.
"I'm putting my trust in you, sweetheart." His eyes were hard, and she shrank under the weight of his gaze, even as she bristled at the strange endearment. "If you break it, this will all be over a lot sooner than either of us would like."
She didn't respond, but simply watched as he passed around the table and out of her field of view. Seconds that felt like lifetimes ticked by, and Rey was starting to wonder if he'd changed his mind, when suddenly, warm fingers brushed her skin.
Time stopped. A shudder shot through her core. It felt like an awakening.
Rey was so stunned that she barely noticed the removal of her restraints. She just kept playing the last few moments over and over in her mind, fixated on the feel of his skin on hers; the delicious scent of him; the softness with which he had handled her.
Carefully, she turned her head to look at him. He towered over Rey, staring down at her with watchful eyes. The two sides of her brain were at war with one another, and really, she knew what she should do.
But now she could see him — really see him — all logic went out the window.
He loomed over her looking like some fallen angel. Firelight danced on the contours of his pale face, and set ablaze the soft waves that fell onto his forehead. Rey followed the line of his long nose down to a pair of impossibly pink, plush lips, then down further still to a glimpse of a thick neck, sinewy with muscle and scattered with freckles.
She paused there, pondering for a moment on the expanse of flesh that was hidden beneath his oppressive black garb, before reluctantly dragging her eyes back to his. His pupils were so dilated that it was impossible to see the colour of his irises.
She decided that he was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.
As though he was aware of the frenzy that had overcome her, his dark eyes narrowed and his perfect lips twisted into a grin that was halfway between relieved and dejected.
"And there it is," he sighed, slowly sinking into a crouch until his face was level with hers. She felt his next words caress her cheek. "In the end, you're all the same."
His breath washed over her — its cloying scent a siren song to her darkest desires — and with it came shame.
It was as though he had set her alight and then doused the flames in icy water. In a heartbeat, sense — and her senses — came rushing back to her. All of a sudden, Rey was acutely aware of a racing pulse, heavy breathing, and a throat like sandpaper. She lurched backwards, overcome with bewilderment. Something wasn't right.
The beautiful man was still crouched next to her, watching her intently — like a predator might watch its prey. The resignation in his dark eyes suggested that he thought their evening together would soon be over. Death loomed nearby, waiting eagerly to claim its victim. It was enough to make Rey furious.
"We're not the same," she snarled, baring her teeth in his stupid, gorgeous face.
He had the decency to look surprised, at least. His lovely mouth opened and closed, reminding Rey of the goldfish she had cared for as a small child, and even she was startled by the tiny laugh that bubbled past her lips.
His nostrils flared, and it was Rey's turn to smirk as he rose to his feet with a face like thunder. He glowered down at her for a moment, running an impossibly large hand through his raven locks, then turned on his heel and marched back to his seat with all the airs of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Whether because he was blinded by anger or arrogance, he never thought twice about turning his back on her. She used the opportunity to scan the room for an exit, hope fluttering like a bird in her chest as her eyes landed on a pair of ornate oak doors on the wall to her right.
She had humiliated him, she realised.
Good. He deserved it.
Besides, there are far worse things than humiliation, she reasoned, as he threw himself into his chair. They stared at one another for a few long moments, before Rey turned her gaze to the offerings laid out on the mahogany table. She hesitated, then decided she liked watching him squirm. With newfound confidence, she offered him a smile.
"Well, if this is my last night on Earth, better make it a good one, hey?" She never broke eye contact with him as she picked up a piece of offal and slurped it out of its oyster shell, chewing the sinewy tissue obnoxiously before she swallowed. If he was disgusted, he didn't show it, but the tension in his jaw suggested he was clenching it.
Rey ate another, then plucked a dripping spleen from a scalloped glass dish. "So what's your name?" she asked between mouthfuls, sucking myoglobin from her reddened fingers with more enthusiasm than was necessary.
He had been scowling at her, but now he shifted in his seat, eyebrows knitting together in a way that gave Rey the impression that this question was difficult for him. "Kylo Ren," he finally gritted out. "And yours?"
"Rey."
"Rey what?"
"Just Rey," she supplied with a tone of finality as she lifted an entire liver onto her plate. It dripped onto the mahogany table, and she was struck by a thought. "Is this your home?"
His only reply was a lazy smirk. She inspected the dining room again, eying its gothic candelabras, heavy drapes, and oppressive colour scheme with distaste. Her gaze lifted once more to the portrait above Kylo Ren's head, and Rey narrowed her eyes, observing the similarity between the two men. "Did you inherit it from him?"
Kylo Ren still said nothing, but his smug smile vanished, so she pushed him a little further. "What's wrong? Is family a sore subject?"
Bingo. His scowl deepened, and a muscle in his jaw flexed.
"Why's that? Mummy and daddy's house not big enough for you?"
With reflexes like lightning, he lunged across the table, scattering the dishes across the floor and only stopping when he was inches from Rey's face. A pointed weapon, which he had produced seemingly from nowhere, was two inches deep in the mahogany where her hand had been resting just seconds ago.
"Don't talk about them," he hissed with such vitriol that Rey felt compelled to turn her face away from his. Still, her curiosity was piqued, and she instead found herself peering around his body to look at the portrait again.
Once more, a sense of familiarity came over Rey as she observed the thin scar that travelled the length of the man's right temple.
"That bad?" She taunted him as though she wasn't in danger of imminent execution. "And I thought my family was—"
"You still think this is going to go differently for you," Kylo interjected, and if she didn't know better, she'd say he sounded miserable. She was starting to get whiplash from his mood swings. "This is where it ends for you, Rey."
She had to resist the most bizarre urge to lean into his touch as he brushed a thumb across her cheek, almost tenderly. More disturbing than his erratic behaviour was her baffling response to it. If Rey had noticed the uncertainty in his voice — as though he was trying to convince himself — then she might have been able to quell the irritation that flared in her chest once more. "Then why bother with all this?" she spat, batting his hand away harder than she needed to. "Why waste your time?"
His expression then reminded her of a schoolboy caught in the act. Slowly, her companion retreated back into his chair, seemingly lost in thought. His eyes roved across the chaos he had created as he struggled to form an answer to her questions, and Rey observed that his forgotten weapon remained embedded in the mahogany, hidden from him behind a toppled tureen. She tried not to look at it too long lest she draw attention to his catastrophic error.
"You've captivated me, Rey," he finally admitted, and her bewilderment was enough to forget the weapon for a moment. She gawked at him and waited for him to continue.
Kylo sighed with the weariness of someone three times his age. "It isn't usually like this," he continued reluctantly. "Killing is quick. Painless. Easy, even."
His dark eyes bored into hers, torn halfway between desperation and exhilaration. "But you. You made it difficult for me, Rey."
Shocked silence fell between them, and a thousand questions swirled around Rey's skull. Why her? What made her special? How was she different from any of the others?
"It's not about the fight, Rey," he purred, as though he'd read her mind. A fire was smouldering in the depths of his dark eyes now. "You know that if I had wanted to, I could have killed you there and then. It would have been easy. You know that, don't you, Rey?"
She looked away, hating to think of herself as vulnerable. But she had been vulnerable, hadn't she? So what was he getting at?
The answer came in a rough whisper. "I couldn't kill you, Rey. Fifteen years of this and I've never once hesitated." He paused to look at her emphatically, and when he opened his mouth again, he sounded incredulous. "But then you."
Rey remained speechless, even as her mind worked to make sense of the strange situation. She merely gaped at Kylo as his eyes took on a new gleam — one of an academic faced with an impossible problem.
"For so long, I've tried to be a good person; to do the right thing…" He trailed off, as though unsure, before continuing in hushed tones. "They told me he was a monster, and I believed them! I've gone my whole life thinking that, when it comes down to it, your kind are all the same. Monsters."
Rey suppressed a flinch. After all, she could hardly disagree with his assessment, so what he said next surprised her.
"But I'm not sure anymore."
Rey's eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. When she looked at Kylo again, he seemed lost. He was running his fingers through his hair, and his speech had become fragmented and disjointed, as though he was thinking aloud. "Something my uncle said before he died... Lately, I've been having doubts… I just had to know... And when I found you, I…" Finally, he landed on a question. "You knew him, didn't you? My grandfather?"
Rey laboured to catch up. Her eyes darted wildly around the room, struggling to make the connection until she raised her gaze to the portrait a final time. The pieces fell into place, and her lips parted in a silent gasp.
Of course. The man in the portrait wasn't his father. But if that was Anakin Skywalker, then the man sat across from her was—
"Ben Solo? You're Ben Solo?"
He continued as though he didn't even hear her. "When I saw you like that — I don't know why — I thought of him. I thought about what he did. They called him a monster—"
Quickly, Rey ran through everything she knew about Anakin Skywalker. Alarm bells sounded in her mind. "What did you do?"
Ben ignored her question, and he seemed agitated now. "—but you didn't look like a monster. You looked like you needed saving. I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill you–"
Rey repeated her question, panic creeping into her voice. "Ben, what did you do?"
"–and now, I don't want to kill you, Rey." His eyes widened, as though he'd come to a sudden realisation. "I want to be near you. I want to be near you always."
There was stunned silence before he clapped a hand over his mouth, realising the gravity of what he'd just said. His cheeks flushed pink, and he let out a short bark of horrified laughter.
"Fuck, I don't know why I said that. I don't even know you. I feel like I'm losing my mind."
As he cradled his head in his hands, understanding dawned on Rey, and she felt her icy heart shatter. Suddenly, everything — her renewed strength, his rapidly deteriorating mental state, the illogical magnetism which flared between them — started to make sense.
"Oh my god," she breathed. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Does it matter?" he groaned, peeking through his fingers with bloodshot eyes. "You're alive, aren't you?"
Rey was not in the mood to argue technicalities. "Show me."
She knew this wasn't what Ben needed, because some burgeoning instinct told her to soothe him, to run her fingers through his hair until his tears ceased.
She quashed it. She could not — would not — find the heart to care what he needed at that moment. Meanwhile Ben, for whom it was already too late, dutifully shrugged off his trench coat and rolled up the sleeve of his dark undershirt, revealing a relatively recent incision that snaked its way up his forearm. She could almost taste his sweet blood dripping down her throat — a fantasy? Or a memory?
Rey closed her eyes for a moment, trying to quell the panic that was threatening to overcome her. "Have you heard of Sheev Palpatine?" she whispered.
Ben's head snapped up, eyes wide. A flurry of emotions crossed his face in an instant: confusion, betrayal, anger, hurt. She didn't allow herself to think about it.
"Sheev Palpatine was responsible for the turn of Anakin Skywalker," she intoned. "Sheev Palpatine was responsible for his death, too. Sheev Palpatine was responsible for every single bad thing that ever happened to your family."
She leaned across the table, delivering the next words with icy intent. "And now, you've gone and locked yourself in a blood bond with his granddaughter."