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So it can’t be that bad, because she’s joining in. Kylo lowers himself a little more, bit by bit, until he’s braced - elbows and knees - astride her. Pressed against her body, but still holding his weight. 

The kiss stops, only to leave his nose brushing against hers. “Do… you want to… I mean…” He very, very gently grinds against her, head tilted to watch her face. 

Him grinding against her causes another flare of need and pleasure tied down to reality by the slightest discomfort from the earlier parody of the position they’re now in. Her lashes flutter - and she tries to focus because - because she’s got to keep a level head. 

I have no idea what I am doing, he thinks into her mind, refusing to utter those thoughts out loud. Instead, he turns his head to kiss at the side of her smile. 

It’s weird. He hadn’t - sort of - really - intended to do the things he’d threatened to do, but… also the thought of loss? Knowing he could lose one person he cared about… what if he lost her? How would he feel if he’d never - if - 

Frustration makes him bite at her lip, plucking it from her teeth, fingers clawing where they meet resistance. What if she had died?

‘I know...’ She thinks back to him - hoping her mental voice can... Can somehow envelop the statement in a warmth she can’t project in her voice. She knows and she doesn’t mind. She knows and she still wants to be here, under his black, looming mass... 

She rests her hands cautiously on his arms, still smiling as he dips down to kiss her - his sudden bite makes her squeak - more from surprise than pain because - well, yes - that is a sensitive spot but it’s not a bad pain it's a... A lot less than she’s used to.

For all he’s a looming, glooming cloud of darkness… he lowers himself with bended elbows far too slowly, calmly, gently. His hair is in the way, so he has to put his weight on one hand to push it back… his nose rubbing against hers before he lightly presses their lips together. 

And then sort of. Just very, very lightly kisses, not sure yet that it’s still okay, waiting for confirmation before he goes further.

When he moves, she shuts up, convinced she’ll ruin it and waits - a line pulled so tight she’s worried she’ll snap. His nose brushing hers makes her release the breath she didn’t realise she was holding with a soft little noise of joy.

The gentlest, lightest of kisses that he gives her... It pulls the rug out from underneath her feet, to exposing a gaping chasm of want and need and something like love that she immediately attempts to conceal. Because him... Doing this... Going first..? It’s big. 

She tries not to push him too hard, but she’s the initiator, usually, having to curb herself and make sure she’s not doing anything that... Feels bad... Or - not bad but not good but maybe stop but maybe don’t because his uncertainty seems to paralyse them both. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks. He would. He would stop in a heartbeat. This is - this is important. This is - she is - 

“Tell me to stop, and I will.” But his throat swallows down the excess saliva, his hair tossed back slightly with a jerk of his head on his shoulders. Waiting. Unsure, on the brink, and… dangerous.

Her body pulses along with her heartbeat and she feels kind of... fuzzynumbpressuriedanxiousclear - as if there’s a storm about to break... And maybe... Maybe, looking at him, maybe there is? 

He lets himself fall forwards - a momentary flash of panic that he doesn’t quite hide - his palms slapping onto the floor on either side of her face. His long limbs mean he’s not touching her, just… a giant, dark canopy.

“Are you afraid?” he asks, still ready to turn it into a cheap joke, a silly aside. 

His fall does startle her - and she jerks to scrabble away - before he’s trapped her with his hands, looming above her - just inches away. “Am I... Supposed to be?” She asks, but even if he wasn’t force sensitive, the slightly uneasy smile would betray her nervousness.

Not because she thinks he’ll hurt her (although... Maybe... Maybe he would) but because she’s unsure of what he’s doing... If he was playing, surely he’d have peeled away by now, turning his head to hide a smile - or assaulting her with tickling fingers - or... Something, beyond, his hovering.

“This–” he says, and shoves her onto her back, predatory and instant. On her back, where he moves to kneel astride her, above and not quite touching, waiting to see her reaction. Ready to laugh it off, if he has to. 

She’s wired - has he seen, felt something? Her smile is still ebbing away fro the corners of her mouth and at her core, she’s gone very still, although she’s turning her head to check... Is danger looming right behind her-? 

“…but you’re soup. And you’re immobile. As long as I don’t eat you, the most terrifying thing would be having to put you into the recyc…” 

His eyes narrow. Suddenly dangerous. Suddenly deadly. Suddenly… Dark.

She’s smiling at him, preparing a witty comeback - probably something about getting all over his hands or his pants maybe, when his mood changes dramatically - he sentence cuts off in the middle and his expression sours almost instantaneously. 

“I’m afraid of no one, and no thing… except, perhaps, krayt dragons and ysalamir inter-breeding.” Yes, that would be scary. And may have been a subject of some nightmares over the years. 

He playfully wrestles with her wrists, not letting go. “You’re about as terrifying as two-day old soup.”

She lets out a gasp, still playing up the dramatic - and spurred on by him, wriggles back perhaps just a little bit more energetically. “I’ll have you now that two-day-old soup is no laughing matter... Beneath my veneer of wholesome goodness lies a stale flavour and a stomach bug that’ll knock you for six... And if you’re especially weak and feeble, might even take you off to meet your maker. 

The noise that comes from his not-inconsiderable nose is very undignified, and he moves to grab at her hands, his eyes flashing a warning that isn’t anger, but is not quite okay with that happening. 

“Somehow, my good Doctor, I don’t think tickling is the worst I have to prepare for, with you.” His large hands close around her wrists, holding them so they can’t reach him. 

She grins at him - her thousand watt one - eyes glittering before she struggles briefly, feebly against his hold - clearly not really trying - shooting him an overblown look of shock at his comment before finally lapsing into a pout at his behaviour - petulant and clearly playfully posing. 

“You would prefer the floor? The table?” He’s being deliberately coy, knowing what she’s implying. After a moment of resisting, he lifts his head just enough to let her properly nuzzle at his throat, dropping his chin onto her head. 

I could probably shut you up in here if I really wanted to. But then - well - I might get lonely.

Were he not Kylo Ren - her slightly skittish and scared... Whatever he was, whatever they were... She’d have told him she’d prefer up against the wall, or perhaps the bed. But he was Kylo Ren, her slightly scared and skittish... Something. So she refrained, smiling instead, into his skin as he relents. 

And yes she did consider him skittish and scared, at least - at least when it came to that... Even if she wasn’t enough of a fool to tell him that. Especially given what she’d said a short while ago... That made her smile falter - he’d hardly believe she was fine to wait if she dragged it out every time they argued... But then again, she reasoned, he had been being especially cruel at the time.

“And would you… would you hate me if I tell you I don’t know?” he asks, his voice very quiet. “I don’t… I… things have been so… different for me, that…” A snorted, choked laugh. “I don’t even know how I understand what it is when you feel things about people.”

Case in point: “…I did murder one parent and hate and… not sure… about either of them… and I… did love him, but I still killed him. What if - what if one day…”

I don’t want to kill you. I don’t. But what’s to say I wouldn’t be made to? 

His hand lifts to his face, and he rubs it. “I… do. Want you to stay. But I am also… terrified. When you… when you see who I am, and–” I don’t like the person you are looking at.

“I…” It doesn’t feel great. It doesn’t feel good. But she doesn’t hate him for it. “No, I don’t hate you.” She says, diplomatically because - in this moment, she doesn’t. She hates what’s happened to him. She hates that he can’t tell - but she doesn’t hate him.

Would she come to hate him though? It’s hard to analyse her future feelings - not only because she doesn’t know what the future holds and because every scenario needs to be aborted before she can wound him with her wonderings because what she wants and what she thinks she deserves are two very separate things. For now it’s enough, for now she can handle it but what if one day… She needs more? What happens then?

Well… She knows what happens then. She’s a master of delusion. She’ll find any shred of affection and concoct a romance. She’s done it before… She’s done it with him… Maybe. He’s too confused to know what he feels and she needs to be liked, needs to be loved so maybe she’s just projecting onto him, seeing what she wants to see…

Maybe she’s made all this up - the tenuous friendship, the fragile, fledgling of their romance.She is crazy after all.

The hands in his hair still briefly as he talks about killing her, perhaps someday… She’s surprised, frankly, that he’s not been told to already… She’s an entanglement, after all. She doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing and her hands return to their work.

But what do you say when someone tells you they might just kill you? You’re supposed to say goodbye, get your things and leave but Harley… She’s said she won’t and she won’t. She won’t. She won’t. She hopes she won’t. She hopes she will. His uncertainty bleeds into her.

“I already know what- who you are Kylo. And being here, instead of there, does change things in the long run-“ The Force back at his fingertips, the Supreme Leader back in his head… And the whole mess of everything dumped back onto his shoulders. “But… I promised to try… And it would be - impolite of me not to try.” She echos his words back to him.

“W-wish I… c-could,” he stammers, as he pushes his head into her shoulder, wordlessly seeking more of that comfort. He snuffles down the wetness in his nose, trying to hide in her smaller frame. 

“…I don’t… want to be another him to you. And… I’m worried it’s all I ever could be.”

As he pushes closer, she presses back, winding her arms around him, bringing their bodies flush once more, but with none of the violence from before. “I know, I know.” She comforts, stroking and petting his head. 

“It worries you - which is more than it ever did to him.” Her voice is even for now, even if her mood is not, taking a terminal dip with the taste of Him, talking about Him, on her tongue again. “He murdered our child-” And she stops herself for a second because the anger is turning her hands to claws - and it’s. Not. Kylo’s. Fault. (It’s hers.) And his head doesn’t deserve that. (His did though, and the sound, almost as if on a loop, helps, maybe, she’s not sure.) “And He did it to hurt and control me. He never loved me. He owned me. He only ever used me - I was a toy and no one was allowed to play with me but Him. And I was only ever fun when He was trying to break me.