we will be thankful and we will be fed (star wars | rey/kylo)

[fiachairecht]

we will be thankful and we will be fed. star wars sequels, rey/kylo. hyperspace-induced cannibalism in a rey-says-yes au. 955w, rated m. for the fan_flashworks prompt 'hungry'.

There's no reason for hunger to have overtaken Rey so quickly. Three days in hyperspace, Snoke's loyalists close behind, and Kylo can see it wearing on her already, pale skin tinged a sallow blue by the smeared stars outside stretched thinner over already-sharp bones.

She doesn't say a word of complaint. Not that he expects it from her, he's seen for himself what she survived with in the desert, but there's something — wrong about the way her hands dart out for an extra ration pack that she stops herself from grabbing, the tension that crinkles her eyes shut as if to no longer see would remove the temptation.

Had a week on Ahch-To with his uncle and adequate food really robbed the scavenger he knew of of her ability to stand days on single packs of trooper rations?

It's an unpleasant thought, one Kylo has to shut his mouth against more often than he'd like. He's hungry too, in a vague, empty, what now sort of way that has much more to do with the echoes of Rey's hunger clawing at the back of his mind than anything that's his alone.

(Nothing has been his alone for longer than he can remember. With Rey, for the first time, he'd found it to be a comfort — but now, all his constant awareness of her does is remind him that he can't fix whatever's wrong.)

Rey lies on the hard cabin floor, refusing every one of his offers to share the small bunk, and curls her knees to her chest. If Kylo closes his eyes, he imagines he can see the long claws of her empty yearning slipping through the skin, ripping her apart.

On the fourth day, he gives her his packet of veg-meat. She stuffs it into her mouth with the practised speed of one used to watching food vanish from her hands, but when she looks up from her plate, her eyes are full of the most regretful sorrow he's ever seen in her. "It won't help."

"Of course it will." His hand hovers over hers, almost more uncertain than the night he'd seen her on the island. Time or space is pulling something from her, faster than he can understand, faster than he can fix, and he can't understand why she seems willing to wait it out.

"But I appreciate it," she says, and the warmth of her approval is so easily believed to be hope that the future will ease.

*

They drop from hyperspace into a plasma field somewhere beyond the Redoubt, before the Chiss lanes pick up. Here, at the beginning of the Unknown Regions, Rey breathes easier, eats normally. Even her eyes seem less empty.

They have less than a day before their pursuers catch up; the supercharged gasses outside provide only enough cover for them to flee again. As their small ship pierces the veil back into hyperspace, Kylo can feel Rey sinking back into her body.

Their ship is fast. Not faster than whatever is gnawing at Rey.

*

Rey stops sleeping two weeks to the day after they left the Supremacy. She grits her teeth and doesn't ask for more food, or for them to drop into realspace, even though those are the only times she looks whole, the only time the relentless shade of hunger loosens its nails from Kylo's heart.

"We can't keep on like this," he says, the second time he wakes past the witching hour to find her empty eyes locked on his, glinting blue in the hyperspace light. "I can't watch you like this."

"We have to," she says, and even her voice has weakened. "We're not deep enough into the Unknown Regions. They could still catch us."

"That's not what I mean," he says, and he thinks she knows, because this time, when he opens his arms, she climbs onto the bed with him. She's less substantial than a ghost, and he can't even be glad she's in his arms.

His sleep is short, the pain ripping him from the black before the ship's lights can cycle through to morning. He doesn't understand, at first, the unbearable sensation of something being torn away from his body — and then his eyes focus on Rey.

She's still curled into his side, her thin hands both cradling one of his, and her teeth &mdash: he'd never known human teeth could hurt so much. "Rey," he gasps, her name strangled in his throat as he focusses all his will on trying to breath through the pain.

Rey tears her mouth away from his hand with an awful sound, and Kylo is unbearably grateful for the dark that shields him from the ruin of his hand. "I'm sorry," she says, and she sounds more like herself than she has in weeks, full of blood and skin. "I couldn't—" she swallows hard, folds her hands over the stumps of his fingers. "You see why I couldn't ask."

Pain is a blinding white curtain behind his eyes, mixed with Rey's genuine, overwhelming sorrow. It's not her fault, he thinks, but all that he can manage to say is, "Why?"

"I don't know." Her grip is surprisingly strong. "It's always been like this. But you're the first person I've wanted to fix after I eat them, and I will, I promise, if you'll let me."

Kylo would think himself trapped in a nightmare, except for the absolute practicality of her tone. He should push her off, he should call his lightsaber, he should do anything but what he really wants, which is to lay back and let her eat her fill.

"Okay," he says, and lets the well-deserved pain sear through him once more as Rey bites down into a third finger.