#kyrose

Modern AU 4/?: Bikers

[original colors under the cut]

Au

The turbo life rose with grim efficiency, Ben glances over at the woman beside him.

“Are you ready?”

Rose nods, a quick, sharp nod.

“If you need me or if you run into trouble-“

“I know the code,” Rose replies. “I’ve got this”

For one moment their eyes locked. Two hearts with one goal. Revenge.

The doors opened and Rose strolls out, the model of a First Order officer. A step later Ben reassembles his Kylo facade and steps after her.

Summary: Ben defects to the resistance and decides to cut himself off from the force for the good of everyone.

Rose doesn’t notice the bracelet’s around Ben’s wrists for an embrassing long time but once she does she can’t stop noticing them. It niggles at the back of her mind for days, the former leader of the First Order didn’t strike her as the jewellery type but she doesn’t have the courage to confront him about it until they start interfering with his work.

Whatever they’re made of they interfere with the metallic stricture of the ships they are working on, throwing sparks and a horrible screeching noise everytime Ben touches anything. He seems unmoved by the racket but Rose gets increasingly more annoyed until she blurts out

“What are those things?”

Ben looks first at the bracelets around his wrists and then at her, his dark bottomless eyes unfathomable.

“Trust me, they’re for your own good,”

“What? Making me want to rip my ears off everytime you touch something?”

“They’re force inhibitors. My Mom is looking into getting a chip but they are difficult to find and it’s at the bottom of a very long list of priorities, so you’re just gonna have to cope”

“Why are you wearing them?”

“Because I don’t trust the Force and more importantly I don’t trust myself with the Force. This way is safer for everyone involved”

Rose takes a closer look, the bracelets are thick and tight-too tight. The skin beneath the metal is red and irritated, his body obviously rejecting whatever properties are in the bracelets.

“They’re hurting you,” Rose protests, her natural empathy overrriding her distrust and hatred of the man who had a hand in ruining her life and the loevs of everyone she’s ever loved.

“Trust me a little pain is worth making sure I don’t snap and use the force to hurt you or anyone else.”

“Yeah, but you could kill me without the force, youre like twice my size and strength, and I bet you could best pretty much anyone on this base just as you are.”

The scowl on Ben’s face tells her he knows she’s right.

“Still better safe than sorry,” Ben says.

Rose rolls her eyes, grabbing his hand and finding the small indentation that shows the join of the bracelets. They fall free and Rose gasps at the horrible rash she’s exposed. She fumbles in her pockets and finds two clean hankercheifs, wrapping them around his wrists. The skin is warm, and soft and Rose feels unwanted heat rush to her cheeks. She ignores it as she replaces the bracelets this time cushioned by her wrappings. Ben flexes his wrists, considering. He raises his hand towards a bunch of crates but nothing happens, so Rose assumes they still work.

“Thanks,” Ben says, when he meets her eyes there’s a new look there but it’s just as opaque as all the others though it makes Rose’s heart do something complicated and completely unwanted.

“Rose!” Ben bellows, it comes straight from his gut, and before his brain can catch up he’s leaping for the fallen ship, using the force to boost his distance. He’s beside the fallen craft in a moment, crowbarring the screen in the next and beside Rose’s prone body before anyone else can blink.

Title: Necessity

Author: RedCoyote

Rating: G

Rose likes to throw her tools at him. She’s too short to fight him any other way. If she gets too aggressive, Kylo can pick her up and throw her onto a couch or out the front door. It’s more productive than arguing.

Kylo is very comfortable in water, so much so it’s unusual; he’ll swim in anything. It’s an expression of his lack of self-worth. Rose works with water-sensitive materials far too often to share his proclivities. She was similarly unbothered by fire and hot surfaces once, but that changed when Paige died. Sometimes, Kylo will let her heat up a metal rod and burn words into his thigh or breast. It helps a little.

being a mechanic involves a lot of upper body exercise, so the muscles on Rose’ back are toned. Her thighs are strong and dense, too, since she works sitting in awkward positions for a long time. It drives Kylo absolutely wild. She’ll be engrossed in the process of picking a scab on her ankle & Kylo will start sweating and staring and fist-clenching from across the room like he’s in a strip joint.

Rose has a lot of emotional blockages. Her life has been so weighed down by external expectations that she doesn’t give herself permission to externalize her feelings. She can only cry in private. Often she’ll inflict her frustrations onto herself unconsciously, starving herself or wearing uncomfortable clothes just to get it out somehow. Kylo doesn’t have that problem; Rose lives vicariously off him a lot, at once disgusted and envious of his wanton destruction.

he crushes her. He’s a full foot taller than her and more than fifty pounds heavier. Ever the utilitarian, Rose will often share a bed with him, even though Ben’s at the highest risk of getting shot in his sleep during the night. Who knows, maybe because of that. Rose feels like she has to punish herself sometimes. Ben chills easily on account of being insufficiently fed, but when Rose falls asleep on his chest, he’ll eschew blankets and let the body heat warm them both. It doesn’t really work for him, but he’d rather suffer through it than be alone.

they both have nightmares, but only Rose is used to sleeping in rooms with lots of other people. So Ben’s nightmares involve body contortion and floating objects while Rose’ look unassuming from the outside. She just sort of clings to herself like her chest is collapsing. When Ben wakes Rose up, she kicks his legs with her heels until he wakes. When Rose wakes herself up, she’ll curl up under Ben’s arm and try to forget.

despite the huge size difference they dress basically the same. Covering themselves entirely, wearing a redundant color palette, only really caring about the hair. Rose gives Ben her hair ties; he doesn’t use them, just wears them on his wrist. She steals his shirts and they fit her like dresses. She steals his tunics and they fit her like dramatic bathrobes.

Rose burns everything she tries to cook over heat. Ben doesn’t even try, just scrounges for sustenance wherever he ends up. Together the two of them eat like raccoons.

sloppy toppy under the cut