Your prison is walking this world all alone

[jedi_librettist]

Ben watched out the window as the ship dropped out of hyperspace. He took a shaky breath. It was time. He wouldn't burden his brother anymore. He walked back to his cabin. He didn't know how what he would do after he left. It didn't matter. This was the right thing.

Comments

[jedi_librettist]

The bond opened, flooding with memories. Bail had said he wanted to understand so Ben shoved memories at him. Just fists, chains, whips on fair skin at first. A teenaged boy in scant black and gold placed on display like a rare statue. Jedi robes given in mockery and then taken again. Kneeling by the hutt holding his chain, grateful for whatever he was being hand fed this time even though it wasn't something humans were meant to eat because he was just so hungry. Increasingly creative ways to cause pain. Through it all, there were taunts about his family. And he never fought back.

[middleoftheforce]

It was like being pushed to the floor with how strong the feelings were accompanied by the memories being shoved at him through the Bond. He wasn't entirely sure what to do and he wasn't entirely sure how he was still standing. A moment, a deep breath. Push to the side to deal with it all later. Try to focus on the here and now.

"No one deserves what they did to you," he said slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on his brother. "But it in no one makes you what they tried to make you."

[jedi_librettist]

There were more memories. A slightly older Ben leaned against a different hutt, doing nothing as it groped him. Kneeling in front of a trandoshan bounty hunter, face held against its groin, struggling to breathe around him. Chained against the wall, naked, trying to hide his face as a needle pierced his skin repeatedly, the pattern on his exposed hip already present. Crushed under the weight of a pirate, pleading for mercy in broken Huttese because that was all he was allowed to speak, a tally mark carved into the small of his back as the man finished. Thrown to a pit fighter, hair grown out and braided, dressed in a replica of the red and gold outfit they'd seen in their mother's nightmares, gold chain laced through rows of rings down his thighs. Screaming as a different fighter hoisted him into the air by hooks through skin and muscle.

[middleoftheforce]

"Ben!" He snapped it, forcing his voice into a tone similar to their mother's whenever she was wanting their attention. It was all he could think to do.

[jedi_librettist]

The flood of memories stopped, bond closing tightly again. The bunk cracked down the middle. "You said you wanted to understand. I told you they destroyed me."

[middleoftheforce]

"Not completely." If they had completely destroyed him, the bond wouldn't be there.

[jedi_librettist]

The bunk ripped away from the wall. "They. Took. Everything!</> The brother you lost? He's dead. He died in the desert on Tattooine. They sold his corpse when they realized it wasn't as interesting."

[middleoftheforce]

"If that was true, we wouldn't have the Bond anymore."

[jedi_librettist]

The bunk snapped in half as Ben let a cry of rage. "You don't know what the kriff you're talking about!"

He turned around, letting the bunk drop to the floor. He pinned his brother against the wall. "You still think I'm him?" he asked before leaning in and kissing him.

[middleoftheforce]

Solo immediately threw Ben off him.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood back up. "Would the boy you knew have done that?"

[middleoftheforce]

He couldn't do anything but stare. He knew the point his brother was trying to prove, but if he wanted to be away from them so much, why had he ran with him in the first place? Was all this just to get freedom under any means necessary? Solo didn't understand at all.

[jedi_librettist]

Ben walked to the doorway and paused. "Take care of Ani. He's yours now."

[middleoftheforce]

"He wants you."

It surprised him that any words came out.

[jedi_librettist]

"But he needs you." He hesitated. "Tell Mom and Dad I'm dead. Don't tell them what they really did to me."

[middleoftheforce]

"So you're just going to walk away?"

[jedi_librettist]

"This is what's best."

[middleoftheforce]

"No, it's not."

[jedi_librettist]

"You say that now. Mom won't agree. I don't even know if Dad will agree."

[middleoftheforce]

"They will." Ben didn't know how they had been all these years, missing their son. Nothing would make them not want him around.

[jedi_librettist]

"Mom won't." There was absolute certainty in his voice. "She'll wish she did just like she wished she could stay home with us. But she won't. I'll just keep her from being able to do what she needs to do."

[middleoftheforce]

"No, she won't think that." There was certainty in his voice - he'd been there to see how Leia had changed, how she blamed herself always being away for how Ben got taken. She still worked, of course, but she had been home more. A shame, really, that it was a bit too late, but points for effort.

[jedi_librettist]

"That will last until someone else finds out the truth."

He walked away. It'd be easier if he made it to the door first.

[middleoftheforce]

"You really think so little of them? That finding out that would make them ... what? Disown you?"

[jedi_librettist]

He shrugged. Ben couldn't blame them for it. It was what he deserved.