bakerstreet | mistletoe meme .

mistletoe meme .

the mistletoe meme
Huh... There's a mistletoe right above you... T'is the season-- almost. And it looks like you got stuck right under that mistletoe with someone else. And you both can't move until you kiss one another (Of course, not specifying where that kiss needs to happen).

RULES:
»POST with your character and their canon.
»SPECIFY Prefs, if any.
»TAG around and have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Kylo hesitates for a moment. The mask is a barrier he uses to keep his emotions in check. Without it, he feels vulnerable. For one absurd moment, he thinks that Luke will instantly recognize him once he pulls it off. He has to remind himself that's not the case, no matter how much he resembles his parents.

He doesn't say anything as he puts both hands to the sides of his mask and presses down on two key points. The front section goes out and then up, allowing him to remove the helmet. It reveals his black-haired, dark-eyed face. There's something cold in his face that makes his features look sharper. His eyes meet Luke's, carefully schooled to look emotionless.]

What are you looking for?

[Another step forward, though this one is smaller, more halting. He thought this would make things clearer, but it doesn't. Luke is quiet for a moment, looking at Kylo Ren like the lines of his face and might read as clearly as the page of a book.

They might not tell a story, but he feels like they echo one that he's already heard. The Force is trying to tell him something, that much is clear: not the users of it - those are duplicitous, he's found, even the ones he loves - but the Force itself.

Your insight, Ben called it when something put the name Leia on his tongue despite stubborn secrecy, like he'd found the information through cunning instead of having it thrust upon him by the Universe at large.

That is how that works, isn't it? Luke doesn't really, truly know yet. Obi Wan and Yoda had both kept so much from him, and he has yet to make his journey to all the old, abandoned temples to try and learn from the long dead what the living had refused to teach him. He pushes that familiar sting of anger over all of it away into a box and doesn't look at it. (Anger and hate and aggression, he's looking directly upon where they lead.)]

I know you, [he breathes, in lieu of answering the question, only partially because he doesn't have any sort of satisfactory response. He's never met the man, but somehow he knows him all the same. Like you knew Vader, guesses something ugly inside of him.]

[Kylo's hands twitch by his side and it's all he can do not to reach out and wring Luke's neck. Damn that man and his strong connection to the Force! Though nothing shows on his face, there's a spike of anger that Luke will sense. It's stronger and burning brighter than the usual level that's always simmering in Kylo's mind.

He acknowledges what Luke's intuition is telling him with a slow, grudging nod of the head. Despite being fully entrenched in the Dark Side, Kylo has never been good at telling lies in their entirety. His strength comes from half-lies, twisting the truth until it has become distorted.]

Not yet. But you will.

[He'll figure out, Kylo knows he will. Fool though he is, clinging to the Light Side, there's a connection between them that is definitely familial. Something that pushes and prods at both of them with what is undeniably the truth.]

Edited 2016-01-01 05:08 (UTC)

[Luke tries to step back again at the rush of anger, but now he's just stuck to the floor two steps closer than when they started. Maybe he shouldn't be trying to prolong the length of time they're both trapped here, together.

The muscles in his jaw twitch with his efforts to keep his own expression neutral, and he breathes quietly until the urge to react physically has passed. Control. He's gotten better, but that had always been a weak point for him, emotional as he is. It's a weak point for Kylo Ren as well, he can tell.]

In the future. [It seems so unfair that after all that happened, in time men will don masks and take up in his father's stead again. The Emperor is dead, Darth Vader was reborn as Anakin Skywalker and died in his arms, choking on air with his burnt lungs. Luke saved him, that's what Anakin said last, but all of the sudden it doesn't feel like he succeeded anymore. Shouldn't this all be over? Why can't it be over? He wants to reach out and shake Kylo Ren until he understands that the little bit of goodness in him is worth more than having the power to cut down lives.] There's something you don't want me to know. Why?

[The more he focuses on it, the easier it will be to feel. Luke thinks. He just has to figure out... how.]

[Kylo's face remains impassive, but there's something in his eyes which looks almost like pity. Part of him wants to tell Luke everything. Maybe he'll finally hate him when he tells him of how he brutally ended his dream of the new Jedi Order, massacring the young ones he had assembled. Another part knows that Luke is from the same mold as his twin. If his own parents could still love him after the act, then there's no chance his uncle wouldn't do the same.

How could he make Luke see that he was emulating the best part of his father? The intoxicating power of the Force had drawn Kylo in and he had seen that Vader had been the perfect specimen of how to devote himself to becoming the most powerful Sith in the galaxy.]

You once told me how you felt when you found out Darth Vader was your father.

[The shock, hurt, anger, rage, and half a dozen other emotions that had run through Luke had seemed all too abstract when told in a story. At the time, Ben hadn't really understood what Luke meant. Now, he thinks he finally gets it. To hold the secrets of another man's life is a powerful tool in one's possession.]

Do you really want the truth to hurt you again?

[And there it is, like a word on the tip of his tongue finally grasped, the realization slams into Luke out of nowhere. Kylo's right, because he immediately wishes that it hadn't: he never did want to feel any of it again, and he thought he couldn't possibly. His mouth opens and closes at least once, and he stares openly at his--]

Leia, [he blurts, feeling like his lungs have been filled with carbonite gas. The man before him has his sister's coloring and - how did he miss it? - the feeling of her (like he belongs there, filling in some void that Luke never knew he had until it was no longer empty) but not her nose, nor the line of her mouth. No, in fact, those are all--] --and Han. You're my nephew.

[For a moment suspended in time he's transfixed, wide-eyed and wounded, like maybe somebody shoved a lightsaber through his chest. He looks dangerously close to reaching up to touch the side of Kylo Ren's face to complete the picture, but instead he inhales, shaky.]

No. [It's not fair, he wants to shout, like he's not far too old for that sort of thing now. Most of his control erodes in the wake of the thought, sloughing off in great waves, spilling his emotions out through the Force in ways he should be above but isn't yet, and he almost seems to grow bigger than his stature actually affords. Since there's no impossibly deep mining shaft to throw himself down dramatically, he is forced instead to stick around and deal with the person in the middle of sending him spiraling, which is not actually something he's very good at: he hadn't come prepared, after all, and this was supposed to be over. It was all supposed to have ended in that lonely funeral pyre, attended by one.] No. [He jabs a finger into the soft black fabric covering Kylo Ren's chest, where it lacks the control panel of Vader's terrible armor. He's still more man than machine in there, he's not quite the monster he wants to be yet. Stubbornly, hotly:] No. I'm going to fix this.

[Turns out, Kylo predicted that reaction accurately, too.]

I did warn you. The truth hurts.

[His voice sounds sardonic and cold, but there's something in his eyes that says he's just a little bit sorry. There's pain on Luke's face and Kylo can sense it radiating through the Force. In truth, the lack of control behind Luke's emotions is startling to the knight. As he'd known Luke, as an older man, he'd had control of the Force, becoming the wise mentor as Obi-Wan had been before him. The way his emotions are pouring off of him reminds Kylo rather more of himself. He has to remind himself that while this may be his uncle, it's a younger version of himself. He's barely more than the farmboy he once was.

Whatever glimmer of compassion that's in Kylo's eyes disappears when Luke pokes him in the chest. He swats the finger away and his voice is brimming with anger as he replies.]

All of you-- [Luke, Han, Leia, and just about everyone else who had known him as Ben.] --think I'm broken. Did it ever occur to you that I don't need to be fixed?

[His voice rises in pitch and the erratic flare of anger that so often guides his path begins to rise up and color his vision. He's so tired of people telling him what he should and ought to be, as if he didn't know his own mind at all. It's very apparent that he's completely unstable as he stands there, rage pouring off of him in hot waves, and Kylo not doing a single thing to rein it in.] I'm not some lost and confused child in over his head! I chose this path. And I'll soon be more powerful than I ever could have been as a Jedi!

[Luke snatches his hand back to his own chest, fingers curling in towards his palm, reminded with a sudden wave of nausea of all the times Han slapped his fingers off the controls of the Falcon in (totally unjustified) fits of pique over the years. This is their son. This is his nephew.

This isn't right.]

Who cares? What is the point of power? [He's close to shouting, close to stamping his feet, railing back against the push of Kylo Ren's rage - not smart, perhaps, but now more than ever Luke's emotions guide him, even under the hard-won veneer of calm that he can put forth until it gets pushed just this side of too far. He calls it the Force, but truthfully he isn't always capable of separating the Universe's guidance from his own whims, not just yet. The urge is so strong to reach up, grab Kylo Ren by the shoulders, and start shaking him until he admits that everything is broken now, and of course it needs to be fixed. But then he remembers with disturbing clarity his own eagerness in Ben's dusty hut on Tatooine, the simple joy he'd taken in the idea that his father had been a great, cunning warrior, a daring pilot, not just some boring spice freighter navigator. That he and Ben had served together in some glamorous, far off war - that he'd been a jedi knight, and that as a result Luke finally had a place in a legacy that actually meant something beyond the reaches of the desert wasteland he'd grown up in. It twists in his gut, now, threatening to unsettle everything he'd eaten in the past day or three.

Because he'd wanted power too, after all, hadn't he? With bright, starry-eyed yearning, up until he saw the cost of it. Why wouldn't Kylo Ren shy away from that cost? Why hadn't Vader, until it was so late? Why his family, why again?]

Even if that were true, even if that's what your path did-- [He knows too intimately the awful, searing heat of the Emperor's anger over being thwarted, and the quiet whisper of life as Yoda coaxed half a dozen tons of sunken X-Wing to rise up out of the swamp bed with no more effort in the end than he'd taken to crack Luke in the nose with his knobbly little cane for being annoying. Neither had been more powerful, truly, only different. One amazing, and one terrible.] Why do you want that?

[Kylo could say quite a few things about power. Namely, that it is an intoxicating thing to have. Once he'd gotten his first taste of it training as a Jedi, he couldn't stop himself from craving more. He'd wanted more than anything to be the best. As a Jedi, he never would have made it. Turning to the Dark Side, he'd finally gotten what he wanted. The terrible things he'd had to do in order to achieve it seemed almost like an afterthought. All but the part where he'd slain Han. That was the only thing to twinge a little bit of remorse in the dark knight.]

Why? Why? [The fury rises up inside of him. He lashes out with the Force, and since choking Luke isn't an option if he wants the other man conscious to hear this, the room bears the brunt of his rage. An overhead light shatters, sending glass shards and sparks all over the place, and anything not already nailed down begins to rattle. Control was a creed both Jedi and Sith lived by, but Kylo didn't seem to have any.]

Because my grandfather was the greatest of the Sith, my uncle was the last of the Jedi, and my parents saved the galaxy multiple times. And all I was ever going to be was mediocre!

[He spits the word out with as much venom as he can muster. There it is, the wound that has been rubbing Kylo raw for years. An inferiority complex driven into something much deeper and darker over time. All he'd ever wanted to do was live up to his family's legacy. When he knew that he could never measure up to his own insane standards, it had festered until he was taken in by Snoke. The Supreme Leader had poured words into his ears until his vision had been tainted. The Dark Side, he thought, was the only path for him.

[Luke lets out a short shout of surprise, and throwing his arms up over his head trying to avoid getting impaled by the falling glass; the shock of it washes over his own temper and yanks him back into the present the same way that staring at his father's mechanical stump of an arm had. Blowing out all the overhead lights means that room is cast into sudden, disorienting darkness, but Luke can still feel everything in it trembling up against his skin like a physical pressure, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The dark side is oppressive, heavy-- powerful, yes, but.

If Kylo Ren thinks this stems from mediocrity...

Part of Luke - the guilty, cowardly part - is glad that he can no longer see his nephew's face twisted in naked rage. That he no longer has to stare at the familiar piecemeal bits of Han and Leia that made it into their son as they contort with the sort of hate he'd stupidly thought he could chase out of the galaxy with enough patience and faith.

At the very least, that he'd thought he could spare his family.

This time, he does reach out, into the swirling tempest of power that is Kylo Ren's anger, guided by a dim silhouette as Luke's eyes start to adjust new light levels in the room. It feels a bit like thrusting his bare arms into the whipping winds of a Tatooine sandstorm, but he catches his nephew's arms just above the elbows and holds them because... well, he'd have to reach up just embarrassingly high to grab his shoulders.]

It's just a shortcut. It's faster, easier. [Yoda's words, but he says them fiercely, believes them fully, because right now he has to. Because this is Han and Leia's son and there's good in him, Luke can feel it, like he'd felt it in his father.] Whoever told you that you needed the dark side lied to you. You could still be a great Jedi, it would just take time.

[Normally, Kylo's rages don't fizzle out until he's thrown what can well and truly be called a temper tantrum. He just unleashes his anger on whatever room he's in and whoever is nearby until he stops seeing red and everything (and occasionally everyone) is resting in pieces. Luke grabbing him is so unexpected that it short-circuits the process. The room, which had been threatening to end up sans a few walls by the end of giving into his anger, is safe for now as everything in it stops rattling.

Kylo blinks as his eyes adjust to the darkness, glad he can't see the earnestness that he's sure is on Luke's face. He speaks as if a few words were all that required to erase all the sins of his past. Though he still can't properly see Luke's face, he still ducks his head to the side, looking off so that he doesn't have to look him in the eye.]

It's too late for me.

[He sounds resigned as if his fate was set in stone, echoing the words that Vader had once told Luke. There was just a little bit of sadness that crept in unexpectedly. This version of Luke had no idea what he had done to obtain the power he had wanted. Kylo was determined to show him that there was no going back to the Light Side for him. Even if he wanted to (which he didn't, he told himself fiercely) there was nothing to go back to. The Dark was all he had. So he told Luke what he had done.]

I killed him. My father. He was holding me back, so I had to destroy him. [He says the words flatly and without any emotion at all, but below the surface, there's agony, guilt, and despair raging through the Force, betraying how he really felt about the act. If it wasn't for Luke's hands on his arms, he'd probably have a tremor running through his hands.]

[He's telling the truth.

Luke's legs feel like jelly. His grip tightens on Kylo Ren's arms, because suddenly he feels like it's the only thing actually keeping him upright.

Vader had killed, too. Vader had killed so many, and stood by complicit for the deaths of so many more - he'd even struck down Ben, while Luke watched helpless. But Han wasn't just a someone, not to Luke. Han had been one of the only constants in his strange and fantastical life since he'd fled Tatooine, who had risked life and limb for him with only the most token and unconvincing of complaints. He made Luke laugh, and feel safe, and when he'd been in pain it had called to Luke from across the universe until all he could do was run headlong into the trap set for him in a desperate effort to make it stop. Han was his family long before he ever actually married Leia, in the same way that she had been before they had any real idea about their shared blood. A family of choice just as much as anything else.

And his own son killed him.

Even at his angriest, even when the new, mechanical hand still felt heavy and humiliating to him (undeniable proof of his utter defeat and his inability to pluck Han out of danger like the smuggler had done for him so many times) he knew he couldn't do it, couldn't actually kill his own father so long as there was that glimmer of good buried somewhere beneath all the horrible black armor. Not his father.

And even then, at the height of his father's wickedness, Vader hadn't been willing to kill his son either. Not truly. How could Kylo Ren? How could he--

The only thing that draws Luke up short of more of the anger that gripped him only a moment ago is the deluge of emotions that he knows are Kylo Ren's, because for a long moment he's too shocked to feel anything, himself. Pain, and regret, and... whatever he thought he'd accomplish, it hadn't worked, Luke guesses. He doesn't know if that helps, or just makes it worse, and his own hands are trembling where Kylo Rens won't.] I don't understand. [Luke blinks rapidly, eyes burning, but there are no tears. It feels like there's a permacrete brick sitting in the pit of his stomach, trying to pull his unsteady legs down to the ground.] He's your father.

[Kylo wishes the sight of the pain on Luke's face gave him any sort of pleasure at all. It doesn't. Far from it, he feels an acute sense of shame to go along with the other emotions still roiling beneath the surface. Bad enough he had to live with his burden. He shouldn't have shared that with his uncle. The words come tumbling out, slowly at first, then more rapidly.]

I kept feeling the pull of the light. My master told me-- [No, he wouldn't lay the blame for this on Snoke, tempting as it was. He'd made his own choices.] --I thought there was only one way to dampen it forever. If I killed him, without mercy, I would be able to fully embrace the Dark Side.

[Kylo swallows and now there's pain etched on his face too, pain that he can't hide. He feels like he did when he was back on that bridge facing his father, being torn apart from the inside out. There's a wound on his soul, something that will never heal no matter how much time he gives it.] It didn't work. I thought he would hate me for what I had done. But even after I had run him through, he still loved me, right to the very end.

[Then come the words that he would confess to no one else. But Luke will understand, he knows this. They border close to feeling blasphemous even as he says them. He's close to breaking down mentally now, his emotions bleeding through the Force.] It wasn't worth it, not in the end. The light still calls to me as strongly as ever.

[Luke is not possessive like his father, not particularly prone to anger when things slip his grasp to march down their own paths (hurt sometimes, disappointed, but rarely angry)... but he did inherit more than a little bit of his old man's unflattering vengeful streak. Just ask Jabba. The mention of a master - a master, it sounds like, who put the idea in Kylo Ren's head to kill his own father to mature himself in the Force (and boy, doesn't that sound familiar?) - isn't enough for him to switch gears completely again, but it does help him to start clawing his way out of the dumbfounded despair. It is a the very least someone else to blame despite Kylo Ren's intentions, someone who isn't his own flesh and blood, because Luke has always struggled mightily with coming anywhere near impartiality on that front.

Family has always been, and will always be, a weakness of his. He forms attachments too fast and too deeply, based wholly in idealism instead of reality, no matter how terrible an idea that is (a full 50% of the time now, considering present company.)

And the look on Kylo Ren's face as it finally re-emerges from the darkness as Luke's eyes finish adjusting to the light doesn't help matters. Whoever the master is, Luke will try to find him, but now is not the time to deal with that. Even in his present state, Luke understands that. Instead he breathes shakily, more keenly aware of his nephew's emotions spilling out like sand gripped in a too-tight fist, almost physical for their shared strength in the Force.]

Come back. [Physically, or emotionally, or mentally - or whatever. Luke's voice wavers and then cracks under too much pressure, but he ignores it, his grip shifting so he's holding onto Kylo Ren's sleeves instead of his arms before he can do something he regrets with the superior squeezing power of his robot hand.] Come back, he would have wanted that. [He's not sure how he knows that, but he does, with certainty.]

[Kylo isn't surprised when Luke tells him to come back. It's that idealistic streak of his cropping up again, that idea that if Kylo only turns back to the Light, everything will be fine. Something whispers into Kylo's mind just to say yes. Turn back and forsake the darkness that's been clouding his mind for so many years. Then Luke mentions Han and he throws off the temptation like a dog shaking off water.]

He's dead. What he would have wanted is-- It doesn't matter. [The words come out much harsher than Kylo intended them to, fueled by anger that he doesn't really feel anymore. Having confessed what he'd done, Kylo wanted to do as he always did: back off and run from his emotions, seeking anger, pain, and hatred to be his armor. Being in a situation where he couldn't run meant he was out of his depth.]

The Dark Side is all I have left. [Rather like a drug addict who would rather die than go clean and sober, Kylo was still stubbornly clinging to what he knew. He didn't want to give up his power, not truly. Even though it had led to killing his father, even though it was tearing him apart, even though it would eventually lead to his own destruction, he still couldn't give it up.]

[Luke itches to point out that Kylo Ren apparently still cares about what Darth Vader would have wanted despite the fact that he's dead, but he would very much rather not keep thinking about that, himself. His father had come back to the light, so everything was supposed to have been alright. That's how it works. That's how Luke needs it to work, to make any of that worth it in the end.

His fingers curl tighter around Kylo's sleeves, challenge set into the stubborn clench of his jaw. The urge to shake his nephew is still there, but so is the urge to embrace, now. How can the Dark Side be all he has left if he still has family?

Unless--] You still have Leia. [He's not as sure of that, somehow, as he was of Han. So far as he knows it, Leia never did forgive their father his crimes, even when Luke had told her what happened in the end. He knew he couldn't ask it of her any more than he could have of anyone else in the galaxy that the Dark Lord had wronged, but now more than ever he finds himself wishing that the world could have seen Vader for what he was in those last few moments. A man who chose the light, with a soft voice and sorry eyes. Not whatever twisted legacy Kylo Ren is trying to bring back.] You still have me. [A beat.] ... Are we dead too?

[The mention of his mother just causes more pain to appear across Kylo's face. What must she think of him now? His father hadn't hated him even at the very end, and as much as he wanted to believe the same was true of his mother, the dark side whispered that perhaps the all-encompassing forgiving streak his family seemed to possess did have its limitations. If he told Luke the full truth of what crimes he had committed...But no. He wasn't willing to either relive those memories or burden Luke with the thought of how his dream for a new Jedi Order was destroyed by Kylo's actions.

He flinches back, just a little, as Luke's hands tighten on his sleeves. Emotionally, he can barely handle this situation as it is. Physically, he feels like he's about to break down. Physical contact, at least when it's not related to fighting, is something he tends to actively avoid. Truth be told, he's unconsciously a little touch-starved.

At Luke's speculation that they were both dead, some of the emotions clouding Kylo's face began to disappear. They were replaced by a blank sort of confusion. He had no idea what had possessed his uncle to think up that theory, but the more he thought of it, the more uneasy he became.]

I...don't think so? [The words come out a question the more that Kylo stops to think about them. While it might explain the utter improbability of meeting his uncle at such a young age, otherwise, it doesn't make sense. He's confident that he would remember his own death and then there's that other little matter that asserts itself in his mind.] I've seen you much older than this. As far as I know, we're both still alive in my present and your future.

[Luke can tell, somehow, that his nephew is just barely holding onto himself. His confession, his excuses, the way flinches now and the vulnerability spilled across his face: Luke knows he could push and watch him fall apart the rest of the way, or he could back off and let him piece himself back together. The problem is, he doesn't know which one will be better for either of them, or the universe around them. He wishes Ben or Yoda or even his Father were here to--

Oh. An idea thrums through him with such sudden force that he lets go of Kylo Ren's sleeves and grabs his hands instead, solid and warm and deliberate. It's a push, but everything suddenly feels urgent and possible and he can't help himself.]

Come with me. [This place is strange. A temple, he thinks? Though whether it was built by the Jedi or the Sith, he can't tell. It's little more than a ruin from the outside, he remembers having to talk R2D2 into letting him set the shuttle down on crumbling stones, but inside it's whole and new. And now he's speaking to someone from a different time, trapped beneath a plant that trades a kiss for freedom. Strange might be an understatement, but if he turns back the way he came, he knows he can leave and find Han and Leia and the Rebellion (no... the New Republic) warring with the last stubborn vestiges of the Empire. He's sure that his Nephew can retrace his own steps and go back to the bleak future that Luke doesn't really want to consider.

He has the suspicion that if either of them try to explore the other, unused passages, they'll be lost forever, but if they're careful... He exhales, loathe to concede far enough for this but knowing it's probably necessary:] Even if you stay on your own path, [the wrong one!!] follow me out of here.

[And then, his trump card. On Dagobah, where the swamps are steeped in the Force (even the Dark Side has its place in the murky caves there), Luke knows he'll be able to call someone that his nephew is interested in... someone who might do better (or worse, it's a gamble) to convince him to come back.] I'll take you to meet my father.

[Kylo's confusion only grows when Luke frantically grabs his hands. At least it's better than feeling like he's about to shatter into a million pieces. He wants to tell Luke that there's nothing he can offer him that will make him want to do with him. His stubborn streak is going to be the death of him one day. Maybe it would be better if he left this place, thrumming with the power of the Force as it is. It had brought them together for a reason, but he could just as easily dismiss those reasons and go back to what he had always known.

Then Luke's trump card is revealed and it's enough to make Kylo Ren hesitate. It had to be a trick, just another way for his uncle to try and get him to fall back to the Light. But he does know this. Luke has never lied to him. If he says he'll take Kylo to meet Darth Vader, he'll keep his word. That doesn't prevent Kylo from being highly skeptical.]

How is that possible?

[It's just the sliver of an opening. He won't turn from the path he's been down for so many years. On the other hand, he's not going to pass up the chance on meeting the grandfather that he's been idolizing for most of his life.]

[Luke will take that sliver with both hands. He's gambled and won with less of an advantage, before: it's a terrible habit of course, one that's doubtlessly going to get him (or those around him...) killed one of these days.

But for now he believes, he has to. He's got to fix all this, because Kylo Ren is family, and maybe this time he can give someone more than a handful of moments of peace at the very end.]

There is no death, there is only the Force.

[It sounds... rote. Yoda had told him the Jedi Code in between making him stand on his head and eat terrible swamp food and backflip through the foliage, but Luke doesn't have a particularly impressive record of adhering to it so far. He's more for trusting his gut instinct than ancient teachings, no matter who they come from. He still seeks them out though, which is why he's here, looking through old seemingly-decimated temples for whispers of old knowledge otherwise lost.]

He's not gone, not truly. [Just absent in all the ways that Luke has always yearned for a father. He tries to be grateful for what the Force offers, which is more than what anyone else gets, but he always did have a problem with forever wanting more. (All his life, he has looked away. Never his mind on where he was.)] Not him, or Ben, or Master Yoda: I still see them sometimes. There's places where they appear more easily, where the Force is... I don't know, stronger? More... there.

[He shrugs, looking down at their hands with a frown. (Behold: the Last Jedi, very mystical and impressive. In like... a decade. For now, he wings it to the best of his ability.) Ben never was one for coming when called, but he's certain he can at least guilt his father into a few conversations, and the opportunity to save his grandson from himself.]

I'll bring you to one of those places, and he'll come.

[Kylo goes quiet, looking almost pensive as he takes in his uncle's words. There's just enough of an echo in there of the mentor he had blindly followed when he was a child that makes him give pause. It's not so much what's being said as the sentiment behind it.

His eyes go distant and he's staring at a point somewhere over Luke's head. (Not that hard to do, really. He clearly didn't get his height from the Skywalker side of the family.) He feels similar to how he did when faced with Han on Starkiller Base: he's facing a choice that will send him down a path that he has no choice of coming back from. This time, he can feel the call coming from the Light. For that alone, he should leave his place. Forget the meeting with his uncle and go back to his master, cling to the Darkness until it had filled the hole in his soul.

But he doesn't leave.

He wants this, wants to stay and see where this will lead, for better or worse. Though there's not much of a change on his face, there's something that softens just a little in his eyes. That feeling inside of being torn apart hasn't lessened, but it dims in the wake of making a choice and sticking to it.]

I'll go.

[Luke smiles, a quick flash of open happiness that he can't quell before it flies out of him. It's barely even a start, he knows that. It's not like he thinks Kylo Ren just agreed to abandon the dark side by grudgingly accepting his offer, but it's not nothing either.

It's a chance to make things right again, and, well. Luke has always been too optimistic for his own good when it comes to family.

He lets go of his nephew's hands so he can reach up, touching the side of his face to brace him for when he leans in and alright, yes, stands up on the tips of his toes before planting a kiss on his other cheek, catching at just the corner of his mouth. He doesn't have to glance up to the mistletoe on the ceiling to know that it has released its hold on them - he can feel that, somehow - but he looks up anyway.

Odd that such a little thing could cause so much trouble. But Yoda always did say not to judge anything by its size.

Luke drops his hands almost sheepishly back down to his sides and edges his way back out of Kylo Ren's personal space, which he'd been invading by increments over the course of their conversation.]

Alright. [He gestures towards one of the many exits before turning on his heel and starting towards it, determined not to say anything that'll give away just how pleased he is, because he suspects his nephew wouldn't like that much.] It was this way.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

mistletoe meme .

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject