narcissithstic | MENTAL LINK

Are you currently occupied? I have something I'd like to discuss.

[ Discuss is probably a nice word, considering how it could turn out. But still. ]

No. [Business with Cathaway concluded, Ren has taken to his quarters to scrub away what remains of Avera 9. More importantly, to lament the state of his still-ruined robes. Of his life in general, really.]

My time is yours.

[ My time is yours? How strange to put it. Typical Ren, though. Hux easily senses where he is, long strides taking him to the other man's room, where he raps on what would be the doorframe. If there were doors. ]

I know you've not gotten much downtime. Still, have you been able to rest?

What concern is it of yours? [He's donned a spare set of provided trousers (white, how disgusting) and as he watches Hux from the surface of his own mirror, bare back set to the doorway and peppered with what remains of his bath, Ren combs back slick hair with his fingertips.]

We rest when there is time for it - if there is none, there is none.

[Get to the point, Hux.]

[ What an odd time to catch him. Hux has an immediate instinct to back off, but instead he holds Ren's gaze from where he can see it in the mirror. ]

Considering there was damage done on both sides, I wanted to check. [ He's feeling weary still, from their fight. The symbiote has sped along the healing process, but the mental scrapes remain. ]

There should be time, in any case. I have doubts they'll send us off again straightaway.

[ No, after such a mess, it's time to regroup and think about how to proceed. ] Nonetheless, I came to propose something, in light of recent events.

[Ah. The fight-- a sharp pinprick of a thought, one that aches hatefully in passing-- that makes more sense.

Enough that Ren stands fully, turning to give Hux the entirety of his attention: if cooperation is what the Nest requires, then it will have it.] Proceed.

[ Hux manages to keep the wince off his face as he feels the connection. The pieces fall into place on Ren's end, sharp and stinging. Briefly, it feels just like it did when they were sitting in the rain. ]

That was out of line. [ On both ends. ] Personally, I'd rather not repeat it.

[ Ever. Here's the figurative olive branch. ]

[The confession comes as a pale surprise: he'd been near to fracturing Hux's nose, possibly even his cheek by the time he was forced to stop beating the man senseless. It stands to reason that Hux, a creature so wholly dependent on structure and order, would want anything but the horror of that confrontation to repeat.

But there's more to it than that - Ren can feel it, drawing on his senses like the tug of a pulled thread.]

On that we agree.

[The unspoken ultimatum being that General Hux refrain from attacking Kylo Ren's surprisingly fragile sense of worth.]

[ There is more to it than the obviously chaotic encounter. He's had to fight viciously before– the academy wasn't for anyone soft, regardless of how many seemed to think it was. Hux has gone to medical with broken limbs, cuts, scrapes, and bruises. It's lessened over the years as his rank rose, but he still remembers those instances.

And just like he isn't afraid of Ren's powers, he's not really scared of confrontation. What unnerved him more than anything was the shared experience, the looping of pain across all of his senses.

(Their delicate self worth fragmenting; when he broke Ren's, he felt his snap too). ]

I'll consider it territory not to cross. [ He won't go there again, believe him. All of him hopes neither of them will have to, not when it digs so much. Not when he's content to shove his own issues down and let them die. ]

[It's those brief thoughts circling that again feel like glimpsing at shards of a broken mirror; at the time of their argument, Ren had dismissed them entirely, blowback from the pain of an overloaded connection. Seeing himself through Hux's eyes, rather than his own.

Now he's not so certain anymore.

Which is why with the truce in place, he moves instead to attend to his own mask where it'd been left, abandoned in his absence. He'll need to find someone capable and willing to repair his robes - he cannot continue on dressed as Luke Skywalker once did.]

Why do you continue to reject her attention?

[ Too distracted by ensuring Ren agrees to the truce, he lets pieces slip. He can feel it when Ren considers them, when he recognizes what he's looking at. It's a strange thing to sense; a vulnerability he hadn't wanted to mention. But, in some ways it's in the hands of someone who might understand.

Either way, he dismisses it, mental barrier coming up and blocking it off again. ]

Not everyone subscribes to her point of view. Moreover, I'm not looking gain the kind of power she holds.

[ She also dredged up old dirt and he really doesn't want to think about how much she echoes his father's disappointment. ]

What power would you prefer, then? [He has a habit of sounding malicious through lack of tone, even when sincerity is all he wields. At times, he takes care to temper it-- at the moment, however, Ren merely opts to transmit nothing but the earnest pulse of his own curiosity.

After all, they were the beating heart of a would-be empire. Equals in measured power, in varied strengths. If ever there was a point where Ren could picture them united, it would be under the cause they once served together. And yet as Kylo Ren has taken to Cathaway's promise as Snoke's unexpected evolution, Hux rejects it. All of it.

Why?]

[ What power would he prefer? Before, he knew the answer to this, as easy as breathing. Even now it's simple to think about, images flickering past with little effort. The Finalizer, a gift of his rank once he reached general. At such a young age—so many had been surprised. Others, jealous. But, command is what he'd been raised for, every second of every day since he'd watched the second Death Star explode into shrapnel in a holo. Brendol had seen to it that he'd carry the empire's legacy on. Build on it and make it better.

Red light arcing across the sky had been virtually everything he'd been working towards. It's done now, Starkiller destroyed and the Finalizer, who knew where. With all the of the destruction, he hadn't had time to think about his direction. And here, he just wants to survive.

Throwing his lot in with Cathaway felt the same as it did with Snoke. A possible convenience, nothing more. ]

My own. [ Self built, not granted or given or gifted. He'd worked his way up the military ladder by himself and regaining power in any other way seems like a personal farce. ]

[It is less painful than digging into the thoughts of another living soul (the way he had when utilizing the Force) but no less clear— perhaps because after what they've endured their symbiotic link is stronger, now— perhaps because Hux simply doesn't care to guard his mind when the answer is as much vocal as it is visual.]

Then I fail to see how this is different.

[All that Hux coveted was someone else's crowning glory: the might of an Empire lost, the footholds his father had claimed well before he was born. If he was truly committed to the idea of being a force unto himself, why then, would he so readily reject what sits before him now? Stubbornness. Fear, possibly. Ren knows both well.]

It was not your rank that afforded you strength, General. Nor was it the medals presented to you in conquest. [Both could be defied and defiled; a soldier without allegiance, an officer with an agenda— respect was earned, not guaranteed.] Every weapon you carried before is within you now.

[He lifts his head, stare level, expression tepid.] You opt not to use them.

It's—

[ How does he explain this? How can he describe what years of his life have been dedicated to? He can feel Ren's near dismissal and it borders on upsetting. Brendol had wanted what was best for him, best for all of them. He still believed in that cause, could see where it would be applicable to a chaotic space even here. ]

I didn't have all of this. [ The mind links. Powers. Whatever. ] What I had before was different, I don't think you understand that.

[ Strangely, he's not being condescending about it. This just illustrates their visions and how they parallel. So alike but so apart. ]

[Strange.

Strange is the word for it, to try and consider that someone else might prefer blindness to sight. It is...illuminating in its own right (he thinks, but briefly, of Han Solo's commitment to denying the truth and it leaves a bitterness on the tip of his tongue) and yet it remains as foreign a concept as it did before.]

Does it upset you so much?

—Clarity?

I didn't grow up with the ability to hear what was going on in other people's heads, Ren.

[ So to say this is a shock is an understatement. Though, it's not the mental shift he has to make on himself but also for himself that's unnerving. If he wanted, he could hold an entire conversation, mentally, with someone in his brood half across the nest. In a way, that's useful. What's bothersome is that they have access to his memories. Or unbidden images.

Strategically, knowing what's going through someone's mind is a gift. This isn't how he envisioned that. No, he'd prefer the silence of it meant his head stayed clear of interference or interruption.

(Sharing thoughts is nothing compared to the emotion—he can barely tolerate the push and pull). ]

[Most people aren't. If not for that fact, Ben Solo would not have been viewed as special, nor valued enough to be pursued where those who claimed to be his family left off. There's a pinprick of agitation nestling somewhere low across his spine, but he knows—

He knows it is not meant as it sounds.]

It will not abate until you learn to control it. [In that, Hux is fortunate: for Ren there is no such thing as a closed door, a locked thought or a moment free of aching torment. What it does mean, however, is he is capable of mastering it more than most.

A beat and then, carefully:] I can teach you.

[His voice is low, hushed as if offering some great secret - like baring an expanse of vulnerable skin.]

[ Ren's thoughts are a jumble of emotional pulses, though it's indistinct, going by too quickly for him to parse. Hux lets it slide over him with a sick feeling in his gut, hating that he's even privy to this. Where one wall goes up, he discovers so many more cracks in the defense. What's more alarming is how uncontrolled he feels amongst it all.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Ren offers. Though it does, and he has to stop his knee jerk reaction of declining. Ren being in control of anything is almost laughable, but there are moments. Sometimes he goes into a mission with a clear head and cut purpose. Hux has seen it once, maybe twice. He's never been one for daydreaming, but he sometimes wondered what would happen if that were a normal occurrence.

Perhaps this is what tempers his answer: ]

Fine. [ Said more tentatively than he meant it to. Maybe there's a bit of fear after all. Not of Ren or his powers, but just the unknown. ]

Only until I learn how to stop hearing everything at once.

[For a beat, Ren says nothing, as if mulling over the terms— or perhaps even the sincerity— of what lies in the open between them. And then, quick as he would be in dismissing casual conversation, Ren turns back towards the far corner of the room, moving to gather up the damaged layers of his robes.] Agreed.

We will begin tomorrow.

[ This could potentially end poorly, knowing Ren. Well, honestly, knowing both of them. Hux has always had a different approach to things than the other man, though it's exactly this that's tripping him up with the mental connections. It's going to take a shift in mindset to get used to the noise. And to subvert or block it out. He's been going at a methodical pace, but it's not enough. ]

Very well. [ He goes to take his leave– Ren clearly has other things he wants to do. ]

HATRED all will suffer for their crimes.	SERVICE within it, glory beyond measure.
CONTROL chaos brought to heel through pain.	FEAR failure, weakness, mediocrity...

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