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WHO: Kylo Ren & Ronan Lynch
WHERE: The Eyrie, Kylo and Ronan's totally not at all a villain lair in Alaska
WHEN: Nowish
WHAT: Time to test Ronan's ability to control his dreams when under attack...
WARNINGS: Mind-control related creepiness, will update if/when necessary

Kylo hadn't truly grasped the purpose of the Darkroom Ronan dreamed for them at first. Utterly dark and devoid of all features or furniture but the bed they'd been lying on when Ronan pulled it into existence around them, it could have been designed to be a prison. But it isn't. Much like Ronan's gloomy bedroom cell at the Meadows, the Darkroom is a hermitage. Unlike Ronan's bedroom, the Darkroom was built to keep things out as well as in.

Ronan is laid out on the bed in the dark, Kylo sat in a chair pulled up to the side— a more recent addition to the decor since they began using this room to train in this way. There's nothing but the two of them here. No distractions.

"Are you ready?" Kylo murmurs, his voice accompanied by the quiet creaking of leather as he shifts to lean in. Every minute sound seems amplified here in the absence of all others. There's a subtle shift of air pressure as he moves, the familiar sense of his presence flowing, pouring over the surface of Ronan's mind.

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Kylo doesn't believe in apologies. He's never been able to imagine one that could soothe his hurt or right the wrongs done to him— how could anything do that? Nothing rewinds the past. No-one can take back what they've done.

He can't.

"Ronan," he interrupts, alarmed, putting out an arm to reach for him, strong hand seizing his shoulder. Ronan's ring is still on his finger, right where he dreamt it could be. "Always. I meant it. Every word."

This wasn't the plan. Ronan has to know that, doesn't he? He has to. "I wanted to show you."

It isn't the gesture Kylo had hoped for now, maybe, but he presents it all the same. Clutched horribly tight as evidence between his thumb and forefinger is a ring, formed of silver from a mask he no longer needs.

It's awfully confusing, for a second or two, because it's not as easy to believe. Rejection makes sense. Ronan, who is wrong in every way, would of course be wrong for marriage. He'd spent months trying to figure out how to make himself suitable, in one tradition or another, and the best they could settle on was reinvention. He could be something nameless to Kylo, they'd decided. That was supposed to be enough. Kylo had every right to be angry with him for changing the rules.

But Kylo's offering him a ring, now. Where did it come from? How long has he had it? It's not a dream. Kylo forged it, Ronan slowly realizes, and then he held onto it. Was he waiting?

The initial panic settles into a flustered heat, Ronan's face going red. "Shit," he hisses softly, reaching out to touch the ring but not sure whether he should take it. "Oh, shit."

What should he say? He doesn't know— and watching Ronan's face isn't helping him find the answer. How does he explain?

"It's ours," he attempts, hoping the words he built into their very first dream can carry everything else. "Or I don't want it."

That's all it is, the ring. It's the proof he'd wanted to offer Ronan as answer to his question— but not just the one he'd asked. Yes. He will marry him. No, he won't be marrying him just to indulge him in his desire. He wants this too. He'd only wanted to be certain it was Ronan's choice. His decision, rather than simply his dream.
And he'd wanted to give Ronan that certainty, too.

"I wanted you to know. To always know."

It seems so obvious, once Kylo says it, that Ronan feels twinge of guilt for leaping to the worst conclusion. That had been his own inadequacy at play, though. He hadn't believed Kylo meant to be cruel. Most people wouldn't know what to say if their favorite painting or piece of furniture suddenly proposed marriage. Pygmalion's situation is rare enough that there's a diagnostic name for the complex.

Ronan eases closer, steadier now that there's no need to chase. He closes his hand around the ring and the fingers presenting it to him, like a blind man capturing the whole picture of it.

"Well, now I fucking know."

Kylo's expression shifts as Ronan's panic eases into confusion and then understanding, the tension of his own alarm melting away in reflection. His death grip loosens, a flicker of a smile tugging at his mouth. Relief, where his senses are still electric with Ronan's decision to ask for what he wants.

"Yes."

Yes, Ronan knows now. Yes, Kylo will marry him. There aren't many things capable of making Kylo giddy, but all of them are right here.

"Will you?" he asks, unsure in the moment if he should be taking a knee to accept a proposal or offering one of his own. He hadn't really considered the possibility that Ronan might ask him first. He hadn't prepared for any of this at all. The only thing he knows with absolute certainty is that this is what he wants— that this is the opposite of amputation they've both been looking for.

"Marry me, Ronan."

Ronan watches Kylo's lips form those words, memorizing them so that he can conjure them later and hear it again and again. It's not the first time Kylo has asked to marry him. It's only the first time he's done it here, of his own volition. It's the first time those words have been spoken outside of a dream. Nothing about it is like Ronan imagined, which makes it perfect, because it's true.

"Of course I will."

He hasn't worked out what that will look like, either. It won't be the sort of wedding he was taught to expect. No priest, no sacred vows, no promise of a child. For the longest time, Ronan believed his marriage wouldn't be real until God recognized it. But God has never recognized him. And the promise Ronan wants to make isn't to God, but to the man he loves. The man he will love forever.

His hand lifts away, fingers splaying so that Kylo can slip the ring on.

Kylo wastes no time. Not because he thinks Ronan might change his mind, but because he's already been waiting too long for this. Ronan's spent too long believing himself lesser than he is, expecting to be forgotten and abandoned— and but now, he chooses to believe Kylo's promise instead. This will be his reminder. Smoothly, the silvery band slides onto Ronan's finger— of course it does, Kylo's spent hours committing every part of him to memory— and Kylo lets go of the breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

There they are. Each encircling the other, an open declaration.

"What changed your mind?" Kylo asks, his focus tracking up from the sight of his ring on Ronan's hand to the blue of his eyes.

Ronan stares at the ring like he can't quite believe that it's there, as if it might vanish if he so much as blinks. When it doesn't, he finally pulls his gaze away from it, raising his eyes to meet Kylo's.

"My mind was already made."

It's sort of a surprise that Kylo didn't see right through him. But it can be hard to tell, he knows, when you want something bad enough. Projection can look an awful lot like proof. And vice versa.

"I tried to think of all the ways I could make it happen, but I couldn't figure out if you wanted it. I thought maybe you didn't want to change anything. I didn't want you to think it wasn't enough, the way things were."

Kylo reaches for him then, no longer content to have Ronan anywhere but caught up in his arms. He'd never meant to leave Ronan in any doubt, and he'd never intended to leave any room for Ronan's imagination to paint him disinterested— but he had.

"Come here," he murmurs, more demand than request. He draws Ronan close to himself, breathing him in.

It isn't Ronan's fault Kylo doesn't always know how to believe he could be chosen. It isn't his fault neither of them do.

"What we have..." He pauses. Tries again. "I want you to want more of me, Ronan."

Ronan sinks into the embrace with no resistance, his arms slipping around Kylo to hold him just as tight. He tucks his face into the crook of Kylo's neck and takes in those words, not trusting himself to do anything more than listen. An unexpected heat burns behind his eyes and he isn't sure why, because everything about this is exactly what he hoped for. He feels like the happiness is about to shatter him, the way he felt that night when Kylo first named the connection between them love.

So much of what Ronan could want is his for the taking. But this? The love that someone might feel for him? The desire to stay with him, to give to him? That's not something that Ronan can create. Historically, it isn't even something he can inspire in people. They take from him and then they leave. Every morning, he wakes to find Kylo still beside him, and every morning, it's a complete surprise. When something like that feels like a gift, it seems greedy to ask for more.

"Not just more," Ronan murmurs, his lips grazing Kylo's jaw. "I want it all."

It's Kylo who takes a shuddering breath now, pressing close and holding Ronan so tightly it can hardly be comfortable. Who would ever want all of him? The best he'd ever managed to imagine before Ronan was someone who could look at him and see enough of what they wanted that they'd be able to tolerate the rest— someone who could see how he might be cultivated into something better. It's all he'd ever known. The only way he'd ever known how to see himself.

"It's yours," Kylo promises. His eyes close, his head tipping to rest on Ronan's shoulder to offer him as much of his cheek, the corner of his mouth and the line of his jaw as he can reach. He needs, he decides, to do better. Ronan isn't asking him to surrender only the parts of him he believes he will like. "All of me."

Kylo would not be the man Ronan loves without the very worst of him. It wasn't his potential that Ronan fell in love with. He never looked at Kylo as an object to be refined, a person to be reformed, a project to be undertaken. He isn't trying to uncover Ben Solo, heir to the Skywalker legacy, the fallen hero in need of redemption. He loves Kylo Ren, who built an identity out of the ashes of his family's expectations, who found a will of his own despite the influences fighting to pull him in one direction or another.

Ronan will have this one. This war criminal. This monster.

He lays a trail of kisses across Kylo's cheek, which is difficult to do when he keeps breaking into a smile. Leaning his weight into that crush of an embrace, Ronan practically climbs him, until he can't get any closer without altogether sinking into Kylo. Awed, like he's trying to convince himself of this reality, he whispers, "I'm gonna marry you. We're getting married."

Kylo laughs. He can't quite help it— it overtakes him, building and building as he feels Ronan press closer and closer, until it bursts free.

"We're getting married," he agrees, pressing his smile into the warmth of Ronan's neck.

But it isn't enough. Suddenly, he's sweeping Ronan up into his arms, bundled up and held close to his chest. It's effortless, of course, but that's not why his heart is racing.

"I'm going to marry you," he confirms. "I'm going to be your husband. That's what you'll say, when they ask you who I am."

Ronan barks out a laugh, too, as Kylo sweeps him up like he weighs nothing - something Kylo alone has ever been capable of doing, giant that he is. It makes Ronan feel light as air, though his heart's soaring for an entirely different reason.

"Husband," he sighs, testing the shape of the word as he loops his arms around Kylo's neck. "My husband, Kylo. My fiancé, for now. I get to call you that already, the next time someone asks. Do you like it?"

Ronan is so beautiful to watch in moments like this it makes him ache. And yet this bright, soaring joy they've sparked within eachother against all odds, despite all the reasons it should never have been allowed to happen— it belongs to both of them. He feels strangely radiant himself, here in the safety of their sanctuary. "Your fiancé," he echoes, feeling the impossible delight of it surge through his words and out, where Ronan hears and reflects it back. "Mm. I do. Ronan Lynch. My fiancé. My promised, my betrothed."

He smiles, leaning in to kiss him softly.

"My husband-to-be."

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