ᴊϵᶑικιᴌᴌϵʀ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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maskormenace2017-05-09 04:14 pm
forcer) wrote in maskormenace2017-05-09 04:14 pm
Entry tags:
Intro - [ voice ]
[ Not wanting anybody to see his face, Kylo switches the video off before pressing record. He takes a deep breath, not really satisfied with having to do this - he should be able to find out more about this place and find the people he is looking for without any assistance - but this place is large and this seems much more efficient. The technology is outdated, the small device similar to a datapad but much less useful and without a holo function. This must be something that pre-dates his parents, his grandparents, even. ]
This place, I'm not familiar with it. It's not where I'm supposed to be, not even in our galaxy, yet...
[ He pauses, taking a breath, giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts and center himself. There are Force users here, more than one, and he's certain of it. He'll search every city until he finds them, burn them down, kill them all until he finds what he's looking for. However, if anybody can give him any information, save him from traveling through each city until he finds them... ]
Tell me where Skywalker and Solo are. I know they're here, I can feel it.
This place, I'm not familiar with it. It's not where I'm supposed to be, not even in our galaxy, yet...
[ He pauses, taking a breath, giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts and center himself. There are Force users here, more than one, and he's certain of it. He'll search every city until he finds them, burn them down, kill them all until he finds what he's looking for. However, if anybody can give him any information, save him from traveling through each city until he finds them... ]
Tell me where Skywalker and Solo are. I know they're here, I can feel it.
[audio] --> [video]
[ Kylo is silent for a moment, weighing his options before switching from audio to video. He stares into the camera on the communicator, eyes unblinking, no emotion on his face. He wishes they were standing face to face, but video will have to suffice for the time being, until he finds his father, confronts him, asks him why he's not dead. ]
Do you recognize me?
[video]
Han fiddles with his device a little, switching quickly from audio to video. The feed displays Han, with dark hair and a face that's less lined with grief and age, more with surprise and confusion. He's sitting in a taxi somewhere in Nonah, having dropped off a passenger when the post had gone up, and the upholstery is well-worn, patched over so many times it's more rags than the original leather now.]
I don't remember seeing you at the family reunions, that's for sure. [Then again it's not like Han's ever attended any family reunions, either. Looking at Kylo Ren, however, is like looking at a funhouse mirror version of himself. A funhouse mirror version of himself that seems to really like black.]
[video]
[ This is certainly a much different encounter than the final conversation he had with his father before plunging his lightsaber through him. Kylo doesn't know what to make of this, but he's angry, hurt, scared. Here's his father, young, looking like Kylo remembers him from early childhood. It's the same face he sees in the holos with his mother, proudly holding their baby boy. But he's still the same man, thirty years makes no difference.
He'll likely disappoint Kylo as much here as he did in their own galaxy. He should be dead; Kylo can't let any sentimentality creep back in, can't what he once thought was love and adoration for his father overtake what he knows to be true. The abandonment, the disappointment, the fear - that's what he felt. Everything else? It wasn't real. That's what he was made to believe. ]
Do you not recognize the face of your own son?
[video]
Because the man snarling at him now is his son, he can see that now. His son with Leia, he thinks, those are her eyes, he would recognize them anywhere. But the rage, the awful hurt and disappointment that twists the vibroblade buried in Han's gut, that's all Kylo Ren's. What did he do to his son, that the kid seems to hate him so much? What will he do?]
I—
[He shuts his mouth, for once. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Kriff, but even with his jokes about possibly running over his own grandfather here by accident, he never thought he'd meet his own son. And he never thought it would be like this.
He thinks back to what Kylo's said. I watched you fall. Does that mean—
What did I do to you? he wonders. What did we do?]
Stang, I—
[I'm sorry. Whatever I did to you, I'm so sorry.]
I didn't even know I had a son. Or will have one. Never really thought about that, if we're being honest here. [A small, tentative smile.] Sorry about your ears. And your nose.
[...also his kid is Force-sensitive, which is incredibly weird. Han will attempt to wrap his head around that later, but right now he's just trying to wrap his head around the concept of having a son in the first place.]
[video]
Ties with his family were cut, his back turned on them after feeling so betrayed, so abandoned. The secret they kept, the way knowledge came to Kylo, making his entire world fall apart. The voice that had been with him was stronger than ever, showing him the path he needed to take. It was so clear. ]
Do you truly think now is the best time to make a joke about my ears and nose? Is that all you have to say to me?
[ Their last meeting was painful; Kylo struggled with killing his father, but he knew it needed to be done. He needed to shed that part of him, destroy any remaining attachment he had to the man, to his family, to the light, and it tore him apart.
And to see him again? Here? Like this? It brought back every feeling he had struggled with for years, all of the anger and sadness, everything he pushed away and fought.
But it also brought back the pull to the light, something he worked so hard to turn away from. ]
You've been a disappointment for a large portion of my life, I was lucky to leave you when I did. Some things never change.
[video]
And the problem with Han Solo is that, when his feelings are laid bare like this, he can't not try to cover them up. With a bad joke, with a terrible idea, with a sly quip. Even now, shaken as he is, he can't help the next words that come out of his mouth:]
Wasn't like I had the time to prepare a speech. I didn't even think you'd ever exist. [It's unthinking and insensitive, harsher than Han means, and he winces at the words. Scrubs a hand over his face. Right, he's sure kriffing up this first (not-first?) meeting with his own son.] I meant—I never thought I'd have a kid. Much less with Leia. There's a lot going on right now, and none of it's anything I want to bring any kid I might end up having into.
[He's kind of supposed to be frozen in carbonite at the moment, so.]
Shavit—you keep saying that. But what did we do that disappointed you so much? [It's not a demand, it's a plea—tell me so I can fix it, tell me where we went wrong so this time we can do it right, please. But Han can't say those words right now, can hardly even begin to wrap his head around those whole conversation.]
[video]
There's little that hurts a child as much as being betrayed, abandoned by the people you look up to the most. They kept things from Kylo, left him to go on with their busy lives when he needed them the most, when he was struggling with the Force, with the constant pull he felt toward the Dark Side.
And it all came apart, the one thing that finally broke him was learning that his father and mother lied to him, kept his family's true identity from him. ]
What does it matter now? Are you going to attempt to fix it?
[ Kylo can barely look at the screen, he wants so much to turn his face away but he keeps his gaze steady, expression betraying nothing. It wasn't satisfying shoving his lightsaber through his father, watching him fall to his death. No part of that made Kylo stronger as Snoke said it would... But it had to be done and he did it.
This is undoing all of that. Every struggle he faced, every ounce of strength he used is crashing down upon him seeing the same grief on his father's face as he saw when he faced him on Starkiller Base. ]
What's done is done, that wound isn't going to heal.
[ At least, not any time soon. ]
[video]
He'll be a better father. He has to be.]
It matters because I want to do right by you.
[And for all that Han's a smooth-talking scoundrel, or at least likes to say he is, he isn't lying on this much. If he's got a kid, then it follows that he has to be a good father to this kid. Even if his future self seems to have royally screwed that part up.]
Let me try? Can't promise anything, this is my first time trying out this fatherhood thing, but—I wanna be a good one, this time around.
[video]
[ It's not that easy, Han. It will never be that easy, there is too much anger and hurt for Kylo to work through to simply let his father back into his life like this. Sure, the circumstances are wildly different in this world versus their own galaxy, but the pain is still there. Kylo doesn't have Snoke whispering in his ear, talking to him, pushing him toward the Dark Side, but he still feels the pull. He feels the pull from both sides and it's tearing him apart.
But Han wouldn't understand. He never understood, even when Kylo was a child, when he was still Ben. And Leia? Leia thought she understood. Luke thought he understood, too, but they didn't. They couldn't.
Nobody could understand the abandonment he felt, that he still feels.
And maybe Han is ready, maybe he's sincere in wanting to be a good father and do right by his son, but Kylo isn't ready. He's not ready to face this by himself, doesn't know where to turn or what to do; he's lost without his Master to guide him. This will take time. Lots of time. ]
I can't. I can't do this.
[video]
[He kind of is, though. And he can't really lie to his son about that, when the boy, the man seems to have figured it out. He looks down, clearly unsure of how to proceed now, then looks back up again. If it were anyone else he'd have thrown a sharp remark at them and been on his way.
But this is his son.]
I don't know what happened. And I ain't asking you to forget, I'm just asking you to let me help you, with—whatever it is you're going through right now.
[Something he knows little and less about, because unlike Luke, and likely unlike Leia, he doesn't have the Force. And he'll have to understand it somehow, if he wants to help.
And he wants to. He wants to help his son so badly that his heart aches with it. He wants to be a good father, and fix what mistakes he must've wrought, and make sure that his son is safe.
But he swallows, heartbreak written across his face.]
If you can't do this right now—it's fine. But if you ever need me, just give me a call, all right? I'm not going anywhere. I swear.
[video]
It was supposed to make him stronger, but it did the exact opposite.
He can't do this. There's no way he can build a relationship with this man when there are years of hurt, of anger, betrayal, abandonment piled heavy on his shoulders, consuming him. ]
I don't need your help.
[ He does. ]
There's no way you could ever understand. You didn't understand when I was a child and you're not going to understand now, here.
[ Kylo pauses, looking away from the phone in his hand. ]
Just leave me be.