Kylo Ren & Eliot Waugh
Feb 22 after this • Middle Earth
Low-ish (whinging & angst?) • COMPLETE
The only thing you could really say about a pounding headache was that the very intensity of it staved off thought of everything else for the length of time that it was there. Although probably Kylo could have pulled on the Force and focused it into submission, even using the pain of it as a catalyst to do precisely that, he hadn't.
After all, the headache had been the point.
All of the Middle Earth alcohol he'd consumed, leaving him in a sort of blissfully honest and uncomplicated place where he didn't feel pulled apart, all of the songs, all of the dancing, and his people (which might truthfully really be Eliot's people, but they had become his people too, maybe, he seemed to vaguely recall Q having accepted his best friend claim, and Q hadn't been drunk - at least not then - so maybe they were Kylo's people too) had all been a piece of giving him the option to ignore everything he didn't want to think about.
He could stop picturing, for a moment, the look on Han Solo's face when Leia told him. Stop wondering if he'd get confronted by Han, or if the man would avoid him for fear of a repeat performance. Stop imagining with a anvil in his stomach the significant way in which this would disappoint him even though he hadn't lived it.
Right now the anvil in his stomach had more to do with the alcohol he'd consumed the night before, than the creeping return of awareness of just how little he could avoid everything. He could pretend that this was a second chance all he wanted, and pretend that the First Order didn't matter here, and curse Snoke, even as the voice sometimes played in his mind at the most inopportune times, and pretend that the friends he'd made were the family he'd always needed in the first place, but he couldn't walk away from that past, couldn't kill it completely, and right now he was being haunted with an all too alive ghost, and he'd have to face it sooner or later. His Mom was right about that. His Grandmother was right about that, and although Eliot hadn't said so in so many words, Kylo suspected if he asked, El would say the same thing.
They'd stayed in nicer places in Middle Earth, not having chosen this particular place for its rooms, but rather for its ale, but Kylo found he didn't mind the fact that it wasn't perfect. A posh room, soft mattress, and beautiful surroundings would have played havoc with his mental state, and he was almost glad he wasn't back on the ship with its ridiculous luxury vacation feel. Laying on his back, looking at the worn wood beams overhead that looked as if they'd survived at least four centuries and were still standing, was somehow almost calming.
He closed his eyes, and sighed.
"We could go back to the ship and get Millicent," he told Eliot, softly. "We could build a cottage and just stay here for the rest of our lives. It wouldn't be so terrible."
He wasn't serious. He wasn't not serious either. Was there anything that said they had to be on the ship when it left? This country was wild enough, and the lack of technology would probably get to him eventually, but it was beautiful, and no one here knew him, no one here had any expectations of him, and no one here was going to look at him as if he'd disappointed them so tremendously their heart had split in two.
Eliot hadn't gotten much in the way of sleep between the early morning hour that they finally went up to the room and the present hour. His night had been a balancing act, with his eyes steadfast on his lover and his mental capacities divided across the spectrum. He had been focused on Kylo, for the most part, but there were other concerns and worries. They were divided out between Leia, Han, and Quentin. Leia and Han were easier to place at the back of his mind; especially since he didn't have much of a relationship with either. In fact, at present, he didn't have one at all with Captain Solo. But he worried as to whether Leia's beliefs would hold true. Han may have not felt anger in those final moments, and he may have had hopes for what would come for Kylo, but suddenly being faced with life again, and being told of future events that Eliot possibly didn't even know, could turn the tide. Han could end up deciding he didn't want to speak with his son.
This was his worry. And he prayed it wasn't the case.
And then there had been Quentin. Ordinarily, if what had gone down with his best friend had happened any other night, all of his focus would have been on him. But that wasn't the case. And Kylo was the primary focus. Eliot had done his best to divide his time, which was easier once Kylo had begun drinking and allowing himself some fun, but it wasn't until morning that Eliot had begun to think over all of that. With his lack of sleep, his own emotions in a knot, and general anger, a hasty message had been delivered when Eliot had climbed out of bed to tend to his own needs. Nothing had come of it thus far, hours and hours later, so he assumed it would go ignored. For the time being, in fact, it was largely out of Eliot's own mind.
His focus had turned back to Kylo. Indulging him last night, he'd refrained from drinking himself, having the full belief that today would bring the uncomfortable and emotional conversations.
He'd been reclining on the bed, though no longer under the covers, and had been nursing a cup of now iced cold tea. While Kylo had slept, his hand occasionally had drifted to stroke the man's hair, but he'd shifted temporary focus to reading on his tablet. His eyes moved away from the screen and with an automatic motion, he turned off the device, moving it to set on the bedside table next to the tray of various foods he'd gotten (breads and hard cheeses, mostly; though there were some pieces of a cold fowl) and the tankard of water.
He pursed his lips together before shifting to slide down further in the bed and turn on his side so he could look at him. "I don't know, Ky. I'm fairly fond of running hot water," he offered up, delicately, though he'd already accepted that wasn't in the cards any longer back home. Middle Earth was much like how he'd envisioned Fillory ultimately being. He knew he'd eventually come to care for Fillory, but at present, this wasn't the case. And he also knew this wasn't a genuine request.
He reached out to brush his finger tips against Kylo's cheek. "If we were going to settle down somewhere else, wouldn't it be better to relocate the Cottage? Maybe in upstate New York?" That was certainly more of a favorable option in Eliot's mind.
Though it didn't allow for avoiding Han Solo in the interim. But, then again, Eliot didn't think that should be entertained as a long term solution anyways.
"You're spoiled," Kylo mused, but there was no heat behind the words, because while El might have made the statement, Kylo couldn't disagree with it. Middle Earth was beautiful, and it certainly had its appeals, among which were nobody here knew him, and there would be no family nonsense to deal with, but it did not have anything resembling technology. No holovids, no tablets or communication devices, and the lack of hot running water was certainly in the list of cons not pros.
His gaze shifted though, fastening in on Eliot's, as his lover's fingers slid across his cheek. For a moment, the scruff on Eliot's cheeks was ignored in favor of Eliot's eyes and that gaze that always made Kylo feel as if he mattered. "I could do upstate New York," he said finally. "We could take the others with us."
That was probably as unlikely as staying in Middle Earth though. And at any rate, it wouldn't solve the immediate problem of - they would have to return to Tumbleweed, and presume that they might not get caught up with the others on the next whatever voyage this was. Would moving to Upstate New York be enough to settle them firmly on actual Earth? Would they even be allowed to stay in Middle Earth? Kylo wasn't certain anyone had ever tested these things.
He closed his eyes, letting out a quiet woosh of a breath as he did so. His hand slid across the space between him and Eliot seeking out the certainty of the man next to him by finding his hand and twining his fingers between.
There was an ache Kylo was pretty certain had nothing to do with the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. It was an ache that Snoke would have qualified as weakness and the light, while Luke would have simply told him to meditate it into submission lest he turn dark. Neither man was someone Ren wanted to take directions from, but it didn't mean that the voices didn't linger in his head - emotions are a path to the dark side, give into your heart too much and you'll be weak like your Father. Countering perspectives that provided plenty of internal shame for anything he was feeling at the moment.
A memory teased at the edges of the engrained diatribes and a noise escaped his throat somewhere between a laugh and a choke: "Did Penny tell me boys could cry last night? Or did I imagine that?"
"Incredibly," he responded with the lightest of smiles. He could have continued on with that thread, kept the mood conversational and light, but he didn't think that was what needed to occur. If ever there were to be a real conversation about leaving behind modern convenience, Eliot would have to really analyze why doing so would be a positive for him and those he cared for. He liked the ability to have whatever he wanted nearly instantaneously. He could adapt, of course, and he would given the right motivation, but willingly choosing a life without his preferred comforts would be a hard sale.
"They'd all probably be happier," he mused. He wasn't sure how far the statements of the 'others' carried but he largely suspected it meant the Cottage individuals as a whole. There would be difficulty, however, because they all had their little roots growing in Tumbleweed. Petunia had her family and Remus. Margo and Quentin had friends in the Asgardians. And there was the issue of Alice, too. They wouldn't want to leave her, would they? Eliot highly doubted she'd willingly follow them to Upstate New York when she wouldn't even move back into the Cottage. Of course, with her, the yearning for knowledge and magic was so intense that maybe he was wrong. Maybe she'd drop everything to follow the books. And he himself had so many roots in Tumbleweed now, though there was the portals. It was a nice thought, moving the Cottage, but probably impractical.
His freed hand drifted off of Kylo's cheek and dropped down on the pillow beside his head. Fingers curled around a stray strand of Kylo's hair while his other hand gave Kylo's a squeeze now that it was being held.
"No, that definitely happened," Eliot said, trying to keep his face neutral as he attempted to read how Kylo felt about that statement. Eliot had been keeping a firm gaze on the network and Kylo during all of the previous night, watching to see if he need to ever wrestle the phone from his hands. He wondered if he should have left Kylo drunk type at all now in retrospect. Honestly, though, Kylo had probably needed to indulge in that catharsis.
Even if Leia didn't seem to approve.
Kylo let the touch linger around him, maybe even pressing further into the comfort of it in the Force. Eliot's presence was like a calm in the midst of a storm for him, and so for a moment his lips only turned up in a light smile at Eliot's admission that he was spoiled, and the other ideas were left to linger along with the memories he was trying to chase from the night before. There were maybe more than he really wanted to pull up. He'd likely been too honest about too many things, but nothing too terribly deep he didn't think. So while there was the urge to curl up and hide against Eliot, it didn't seem to be something that had been brought on entirely or even mostly by the previous night.
And who knew, if his parents actually read any of it, they might learn a thing or two, and maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing ever.
"I don't think I would have expected that statement from him," Kylo said finally, even though it had very little to do with what was really on his mind. And perhaps that had everything to do with the fact that trying to put words to what he was thinking felt impossible.
"I don't know what I'm most afraid of," he voiced tentatively. "That he won't want to talk to me, or that he will. I'm not certain which will hurt the most." It would be painful if his father didn't want to talk to him, but understandable. But if Han did wish to talk to him, then it was going to require navigating through spaces Kylo had no concept of. "I don't know if we can even speak the same language anymore," he murmured softly, closing his eyes and turning his head towards the hand on the pillow beside his head - chasing that touch and comfort.
"He's in a better place with Kady around," Eliot offered as a remark. He didn't suspect they were going to linger on the subject of Penny for long. It felt as though it were meant to fill the void of silence until Kylo was capable of tackling the other topic that they both knew was plaguing his thoughts. This didn't mean that Eliot's statement was untrue. It was rather abundantly clear to anyone who knew the man that Penny's feelings for Kady were clear. Having Kady around would likely make it so Penny was at least somewhat less bristly. Penny could be kind but it was usually hidden from clear view, begrudgingly offered in times of need. Him offering that statement to Kylo really didn't surprise Eliot, but it did confirm that Penny at least noticed Kylo's needs.
Eliot shifted, listening as Kylo began to open up about the concerns and anxieties. He knew which of the options that he was personally hoping for when it came to Han's reaction. He wanted the former General and Captain to speak with his son. In Eliot's eyes, Han opting to not speak to Kylo at all was far worse. The hurt that came along with Han reaching out and talking to Kylo was clearly going to be present, and wouldn't go away anytime soon, but it offered an opportunity for healing. The former, where Han did not speak to Kylo at all, was a finalty and a rejection. And Eliot didn't want this for the man by his side. It had been a concern he'd already spoken to Leia about.
"Funny thing about languages is that they always adapt," he whispered, as his finger tips reacted to Kylo's shift. He let his fingers slip through strands of his hair, tangling up inside of them, as they brushed back against his scalp. "If he talks to you, you both can figure out your new way of communicating."
It occurred to Kylo that he should probably talk to Kady at some point. It wasn't that he hadn't meant to, exactly, but she had arrived shortly after Julia, and with Julia had come the news from home that had upset Eliot, and Kylo had been sort of particularly focused on Eliot during that time. He'd noted Kady's arrival, but hadn't really had the opportunity to get to know her at all. Not that it was something he was even that good at - but he could try. Sometimes he felt that the proximity of Eliot to all of these people, at least did make him more likely to try where he might not have done so before.
His eyes stayed closed as he leaned against Eliot's touch, the touch itself soothing the remains of the headache from earlier, and he could feel some tension uncurling, even if nothing was immediately solved.
Perhaps Eliot was right. He hadn't expected his mother to want to see him, but she had. She had even though apparently she remembered far more than he did, and knew things he didn't. He wondered just how far in the future her knowledge extended, and yet she hadn't turned him away. He knew his father had forgiven him in the moment. Leia had pointed that out to him, and Kylo had felt it. But there was a huge difference between something in a dying breath and living through it and with it. He let out a breath in a sigh.
"I just wish I could make it disappear," he said, aware that he probably sounded as if he were whining, and that there was an absurdity to it when it was a decision he'd made. But maybe it was partially because it was something he'd done - leaving, trusting Snoke, allowing himself to be manipulated into a situation where it felt as if there was no other option. It wasn't as if he'd been unaware of his father's presence, but he hadn't gone seeking him out either. He'd been looking for Rey - not Han. And he wouldn't have killed her, because there would have been nothing to be gained from it. But Han…
Snoke had constantly needled Ren about Han Solo. He was the non-Force sensitive, the weak link in Kylo's bloodline, and perhaps not without reason, Snoke had sensed that Kylo's feelings about Han Solo were complicated. And the further he pushed into the Skywalker bloodline, into being as worthy to rule the galaxy as his Grandfather had been, the more that had become a source of conflict. Kylo didn't care, except that he did. He didn't want anything to do with Han Solo, but Han Solo was a reminder that Ben Solo existed still. Sacrificing Han was supposed to be a sacrifice of Ben, and an embrace of only the dark, and then his father had reached out to him.
"Eliot," he whispered as it felt as if something heavy were sitting on his chest, weighing it down and pressing it into the bed. The question on the tip of his lips went unspoken: Can I just be someone else? After all, he'd tried that, and it hadn't worked. So maybe something more radical, and yet simpler needed to be chased.
He opened his eyes and he shifted, slightly, pushing himself up, and looking into his lover's eyes intentionally. Maybe there was power in watching Eliot seeing him - like, Snoke had pushed something terrible into being, but Eliot seemed to see something Kylo had wanted to be from when he was a boy. And it felt as if there was power there. So the question shifted: "Can I do this?"
Eliot felt as though it would be worse in that scenario. In the event where Han had never shown, there was always going to be the question of 'what-if.' There would always be the lingering possibility that he could arrive in Tumbleweed and it would always be hanging over Kylo like a sword of Damocles. The present situation was difficult, and painful, but it got the 'what-if' out of the way and now they would know what was going to happen with Han around, for good or for bad. It, theoretically, would be enough to allow his lover to move forward and begin to heal as best he could.
Or, it was possible, that Kylo didn't necessarily mean make the present situation disappear. It was possible that Kylo meant the entire issue all together. The circumstance and position Kylo was now in had been of his own doing, even though Snoke had been the puppet master. It was possible that Kylo was referring to this. Eliot wasn't certain and he even further wasn't certain as to whether he should ask for clarification. Instead, he just continued to stroke Kylo's hair in a loving manner.
His gaze shifted back to Kylo with the whisper of his name. Kylo wasn't looking at him yet but when he opened his eyes, Eliot's gaze was there to meet his. He retracted his hand from the tangle of Kylo's hair when he shifted and leaned back just enough against his elbow to look up at Kylo. He allowed the question to linger in the silence for a few moments before he breathed in, hand moving to rest supportingly upon his upper shoulder. "I think you owe it to yourself, and him, to at least try."
Try not the words lept unbidden and unwanted to his mind, but old habits were difficult to truly kill off, and he'd heard them so many times before everything had gone impossibly wrong.
Kylo dropped his gaze to his hands, turning his fingers over as if he could find some answer there. He supposed part of him had just assumed that if Han would show up, he would show up young, that Kylo wouldn't have to deal with it because Han wouldn't know, and of course if he was younger, then people would be reluctant to tell him. Although he realized now how ridiculous that thought had been. He could have been as young as before, and Kylo suspected that his mother would still have told him.
There was a burst of frustration at how little regard Leia had given Kylo's request, but it simmered. How often had that happened before in one way or another? Kylo had said what he wanted, and had been told that something entirely different would be the way of things. So many times and in so many ways. To go back to something that seemed unmuddled, meant to go back so deeply into Ben Solo's memories, when he'd been not much more than a boy, and he'd sat in the co-pilot's seat in the Falcon, legs dangling, and the leather of the seat sticky against the back of his knees.
It was a funny phrase, to owe it to himself, and Kylo frowned slightly considering. What did he owe himself? It suggested that he was worth something, valuable enough to deserve consideration - something that he suspected if he countered Eliot's words to say he wasn't he would receive pushback on, and yet, there were times he wondered if. In the end perhaps the reason he hadn't been allowed to make decisions was because he couldn't be trusted to make them.
He shifted, moving his body so that he could lay his head down in Eliot's lap, not certain if he could look at him in this moment, but wanting his closeness and touch.
"Sometimes I want to say that it wasn't always like this, but then sometimes I'm not certain that I can trust my memories," he confided softly. "If I dig back - if I really let myself dig back - sometimes there are these little things and moments where I think 'that could have been mine', and I don't know how I lost that possibility. I wish Mom would tell me what happened. I wish I knew if -" he wanted to talk to me, the sentence was left unfinished.
"I don't want to be who they wanted me to be, but I don't want to be who Snoke wanted me to be either. I want to be my own person. I want to be someone you can trust and count on. I want them to see that, but how can they when the rest of it is known? And when I still answer to Ben, and also sometimes Kylo, and when you call me Ky it feels like home, how do I even know who I am really? And if that is me, the me I am when I'm with you? What if they still hate that me? What if I finally figure out who I am, really, deeply truly, and they still won't accept me?"
Eliot's hand easily shifted so that he could continue to stroke back Kylo's hair once his head lay in his lap. Though Kylo was not looking at Eliot, Eliot was looking down upon Kylo, intent on the words that were being spoken.
"Why don't you ask Leia?" He said with a gentle tone, his head tilting inquisitively, even if Kylo wouldn't see it. Kylo didn't need to finish the question. Eliot knew. He couldn't say for certain whether or not Leia would be completely correct in her surmise of how Han would want to proceed, because he didn't know Leia and Han well, but he felt as if she were the one most likely to be correct on Han's moods. And she believed Han would want to see him. Eliot was quietly leaning on that belief and hoping it would prove to be a truth.
Eliot reflected on that all for a moment. The majority of it felt as though Kylo were processing his thoughts out loud and he wasn't certain how much of it he was meant to respond to. "You don't have to be who they wanted you to be or who Snoke wanted you to be. And," he began, as his free hand moved to rest against his arm, "you don't even have to have who you really are figured out."
He reflected on the final aspects of his words with pause. It wasn't the same, by any stretch of the imagination, but he recognized the concern that was laced with fear of rejection. He recognized it because it was a feeling he'd gone through in his past. And he'd been on the side of it where he'd figured himself out, largely, and acceptance wasn't offered. He took in a steadying breath. "If they won't accept you, then you pull those who do closer to you, and you don't let them go." There would be hardly much that could be done if they outright rejected him. They could try to change their minds, gradually, and in that scenario Eliot hoped that they would. But in the end, that would be on them to ultimately come around if they so wished.
"I don't think that is what is going to happen, Ky," he offered, however, as a piece of encouragement. "I truly don't."
El made it sound simple – just ask his Mother, but at the moment Kylo had to confess he wasn’t feeling much like talking to her. He shouldn’t have cared, particularly when he knew on a rational level that he had expected precisely what she said, and understood even that there was some sense to the conversation she’d had – the moment on that bridge had haunted him since it had happened, maybe it was why when he’d thought he was going to be crushed by a singularity, he’d confessed to Eliot everything in what he’d thought would be a last confession.
Instead it had turned into a first confession – and the beginnings of something that Kylo wasn’t certain he deserved, but he had it anyway.
“I already asked her not to say anything,” he sighed. “For all the good that did. I doubt she wants to hear from me right now either.”
He took a finger, running it across the nearest part of Eliot, which in this instance seemed to be his knee. “I have you.” An obvious statement, but Eliot had accepted him from that first confession, and Kylo would keep holding onto him for as long as he was allowed to do so. And it occurred to him that it wasn’t just Eliot. Q, Petunia, his grandmother, and perhaps there were others that were doing that. More than he might have believed possible a few months before. Everything had felt as if it were falling in on him then, but right now – even with Han here and that past creeping up on him – Kylo realized it was easier to believe that there might be a world where he could be himself without fearing that he was disappointing someone. Maybe.
He turned his head up, seeking out Eliot’s gaze. “It’s possible though. I can’t pretend it isn’t a possibility or be prepared for it. I messed up, El. And this isn’t that kind of second chance where I can just not mess up this time.”
"That's not the same," Eliot reminded him, in relation to how Kylo had already spoken to Leia. Leia had ignored Kylo's request, yes, but that did not mean she was going to ignore further discussions between them. Or, at least, that was Eliot's understanding of it. "I do not think she would fault you for asking her directly what your Father wants." He chose not to comment on whether or not Leia did want to talk to Kylo at present. It wasn't Eliot's place to make an assumption on that account.
"You do," he repeated, almost as a promise. By this point, Eliot wasn't really certain what could make that fact change. He didn't want it to. He was already weathering every storm that came at them.
He nodded his head in agreement as the man looked back towards him. "It is possible," he repeated, as his hand moved to brush back his hair again. He frowned some as he thought further on the other portion of the statements. "You did mess up and you might mess up again, but not in the same way, and not to the same severity."
Kylo sighed in response to this, not wanting to vocalize his rebuttal when probably Eliot was right. It had been an unreasonable request, and honestly not something his mother could really honor - because someone would have said something eventually and Han would have learned not from anyone he knew, but from a stranger who thought of them all as a story. Like the kid who had suggested that he would kill his mother, when he wouldn't. Obviously, he wouldn't. Possibly he should apologize to Leia for even having made the request in the first place, but it still rankled that the dismissal had been so strong.
It was true that there was no chance that Kylo was going to mess up with the same level of severity. He'd learned that lesson, perhaps one that ought to have been obvious a long time before, but that wasn't really his point. This was a second chance, but it wasn't the sort of second chance he wanted. As usual, what he wanted was likely unobtainable, unreasonable, or possibly just out and out bad.
No, that wasn't true, not everything he wanted was unobtainable, unreasonable, or bad. At least recently. Eliot caring about him might have seemed as if it were something that would never happen, but then it had. He had forged a sort of relationship with Leia - if the one with his actual mother felt still fragile and challenging - and he'd made friends. All of those things spoke against the idea that everything he wanted was impossible, so he likely shouldn't wallow in that idea as if it were truth.
"No, not to the same severity," he said quietly, A beat. "I've never been very good with things outside my control," he confessed. Eliot knew him well enough that perhaps it wasn't the confession it felt like, but it felt like admitting something much larger than really it was. "I've never been very good with the potential of failure; which is ironic when you consider how much practice I have," he stopped, swallowed, and closed his eyes against a prick at the corners of them. "I'm afraid, El," he whispered softly. "And I'm afraid of where that fear leads."
Fear wasn't something that was new to Kylo. It felt as if it had been intrinsic in his life for almost as long as he could remember: Fear of the dark dreams, fear of disappointing his parents, fear that they didn't care about him, fear that he could never live up to the expectations, fear that he was a monster, and all that fear had pushed him into places he now wished he'd never gone. Luke had told him fear was a path to the dark side, and Kylo suspected, that had been to try to shame him into letting go of all of it, but fear just felt like a personality component, so darkness had seemed inevitable, until Eliot had crept in through the cracks: until he hadn't been alone.
Kylo moistened his lips and pulled in a shaky breath. "Put a lightsaber in my hand, and let me protect the whole ship against the kraken by myself - just please don't make me face him. What does that say about me?"
Neither of the statements that Kylo offered up were of any particular surprise to Eliot. However the fact that Kylo was admitting them of his own accord and without any prompt was surprising. Eliot's hand stilled though he did not remove it from rest against Kylo's hair. He had known that Kylo liked to be in control of his own actions and own narrative, after all, who wouldn't want to be considering the circumstances of his life? So many people were often trying to control him and expressed disappointment, or worse, when Kylo did not follow through on their expectations.
The lack of control was not something Eliot could do anything about other than sympasize. It was a frustrating feeling that he knew he did not enjoy himself. He'd spent many years of his own trying to control the persona that the world was presented of himself. Control was a desire he understood; but he was also aware that you couldn't really control how someone reacted to you. And that was in of itself terrifying, especially when you wanted a specific reaction but knew that you might not receive it.
The fear, though? That was something that Eliot could try to aid in. "I know it's frightening," he whispered in turn. "I won't let you face it alone."
He shifted, leaning down just enough so he could kiss the top of Kylo's head, before he sat back again and let his hand begin caressing his hair once more. He had allowed for a moment's pause before he addressed the final statements. "I think it says a lot," he began, his head tilting. "It shows the way you care about things in two different ways. You'll gladly defend what's become our community but you know you've hurt him so you facing him is daunting because you care about what happened," he suggested, hoping he wasn't too off base on this.
Kylo sought out Eliot's free hand, even as his eyes dropped closed so that he could think without any additional distraction. The feel of El's fingers against his scalp through all of this, did provide a certain amount of strength, even if it seemed odd to put it that way specifically.
Or maybe it wasn't.
Eliot wasn't Force sensitive in the way that Kylo was, but Kylo very much understood that strength could be shared and given between people. And Eliot was a Magician, and even lacking that Force sensitivity, he still could be felt in the Force. While he might not be intentionally able to do that like Kylo would, he could still offer it. He still did.
And his words weren't completely wrong. Kylo had taken part in the various battles that had happened with the displaced, regardless of where they were. He'd signed up to help with patrols, and getting people off the ship if necessary. He had abilities and powers that others didn't, and despite the large numbers of super powered individuals here, Kylo's were still somewhat unique. There were other Jedi, but Kylo wasn't bound by Jedi code like they might be. And maybe he wasn't meant to be a leader - which was a thought that felt as if it needed greater unpacking.
Usually that idea was said sarcastically, dismissively, a self-depreciative way to make himself feel better when he had failed, because he'd always felt as if he should be, it was destiny, birthright, whatever you wanted to call it, to lead the galaxy. If he didn't do that, hadn't he failed completely? So obviously he'd been meant to be a leader.
But today thinking that didn't feel like a dismissal, but something more basic. He didn't feel less than, standing behind Eliot's leadership: instead that felt natural.
He opened his eyes, frowning, the notion of whether or not facing his father, or his ability to face his father made him a coward - the original thought he'd had - having been supplanted by this other train of thought.
"I care about both things," Kylo turned the words over slowly, as if he were thinking about them as he said them. "But differently. The first matters to everyone and the last impacts no one but me. Perhaps there is a selfishness in not facing the thing that impacts me more. Or cowardice, I don't know," he shook his head, shaking off the thoughts and shifting to push himself up on one elbow so he could look at Eliot more intently. A dozen thoughts whirled through his head, that he was Eliot's and he would go where Eliot led, that Eliot was his rock, that for the first time since his father had arrived, there was a glimmer of hope. Hope not necessarily for any good outcome, but that Kylo could come out the other side of even the worst outcome and still have a place he belonged. "I know you'll be here. You always are."