Entry tags:

prompt post

PROMPT POST #2 - CLOSED

This post is closed to new prompts!

rules | ask a mod | fills post | discussion/off-topic post | flat view | ao3 collection | delicious account

prompt post one

+ All comments except fills should be posted anonymously.
+ All prompts should focus on TFA characters. You can't post OT or PT-only prompts.
+ One prompt per comment please.
+ You can request both kink and non-kink content
+ Crossovers, characters from the other media are allowed, but must relate to the 2015 movie in some way.
+ All prompt comments should begin with a pairing tag (eg Rey/Finn) or Gen for no pairing.
+ Use 'Any' when prompting for any pairing at all (eg Kylo/Any or Any/Any)
+ Anyone, everyone, no one? Use "Other." (e.g. Poe/Other)
+ Warn for common triggers, please
+ NO PROMPTS FEATURING CHARACTERS UNDER 18 IN SEXUAL SITUATIONS.
+ don't hijack other people's prompts.
+ prompts should not exceed ~250 words.
+ also, while this is not really a rule I can enforce, please try to limit yourselves to fewer than 5 prompts per page.
+ reposting prompts is currently not allowed.
+ no prompts based on real life tragic events. e.g: 9/11 au, concentration camp au, etc
+ PLAY NICE

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi OP, just in case you were wondering if I'd vanished without trace, I am still working on this, it's just taking a while because of studying. It's actually nearly finished now and will be about 5k, which hopefully will make up for the mega-long wait! <3

After the debate Breácan Hux, Brea for short though not many could get away with calling him that, noticed the lithe dark haired giant was staring at him. It was unnerving. If he had been taking notes he would have stabbed the other male with his pen. Sadly this little debate project made the process of taking notes pointless. He had no desire to listen to the useless ramblings of those who couldn’t understand the importance of this course especially since the professor wasn’t providing feedback beyond ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The other male kept his looks up until the end of class at which point Breácan couldn’t hold back any longer. “Why the hell did you spent half the class staring at me instead of respecting our classmates during their debates?”

The other man chuckled under his breath. “I wanted to know if you really believed the crap you spewed during our debate.”

Brea’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that. “Really? That’s what you want to ask?” He was kind of surprised. He knew the engineering student was passionate during their debate but he had thought it was all over the coffee incident this morning when the dark haired giant hadn’t paid attention to where he was going. “You provided valid points but it is not the government’s duty to care for children. If parents are unable to handle their children then perhaps they shouldn’t have them. Educators, at least in the public school system are employees for the city or township they work for which is overseen by the state which is overseen by the government as a whole. To educate these teachers on information parents should be responsible for knowing is a burden on taxpayers. The system should not be required to halt for those too weak to keep up.” It was extreme, even for him it was extreme. The truth was for all he believed in the failings of democracy he didn’t actually think of the mentally ill as a burden. The government should care for them just as they cared for all of their citizens. It was just... he just wanted to be right. He was a political science major set to complete both his undergrad and graduate degrees within four years. He couldn’t be shown up in a debate course by an engineer.

“You’re unbelievable! You actually think that? Are you a fucking fascist? Is that why you want to get into the political scene? So you can strong arm the government until you destroy it and rebuild it in your own image? That’s totally fucked up.” It seemed the dark haired male was angry with him and it brought him a little bit of joy watching the other male get all worked up. It was almost… he was almost attractive with a scowl on his face. Shame. Almost wasn’t what Hux was into.

Hux shrugged. He wanted to see if indifference was the way to go. In his experience it usually wound people up more. He hadn’t expected the response he got. The dark haired man, Ben his mind helpfully supplied, seemed to change before him. He could see him counting to ten mentally and watched as his body let go of all of his stress. “You’re despicable.” He watched Ben, walk from the room. He picked up his bags and headed across campus for his job as a TA.

The next few days were boring for Brendol Hux. With classes just starting he didn’t have any homework and he only had one friend on campus, a friend who was preoccupied with her part time job. It meant he spent a lot of time alone, in his room, with his wonderful cat but he could only spend so much time working on his thesis before he became bored. It got so bad that he was almost excited to go back to his public speaking and debate course. Working up Ben the biomedical engineering major seemed like fun now.

That morning, Brea dressed in one of his favorite button downs. It was a charcoal grey and went well with the black suspenders he connected to his slacks. He layered a black lightweight cardigan over it and longed for the coming days when he would be able to wear a blazer without becoming uncomfortably hot. He was rather pleased with the look even if it wasn’t as formal as he would have liked. He check his hair in the mirror one last time to ensure it was properly placed before heading out. This time he skipped the coffee shop. He didn’t want to work Ben up over something so stupid. He’d rather rip apart the other man’s political ideology.

It should be noted that Hux felt a slight attraction to the other man. He wouldn’t admit to it of course or even consciously recognize it for what it was. A crush. He was just like the little boy who pulled the pigtails of the girl he liked. Instead in his conscious mind he just saw him as a rival. When he entered the room he sat in the back same as before, glaring at any students who tried to switch seats in an effort to ensure Ben would sit next to him. He watched the door and waited for the taller male to arrive. Unlike the previous lecture where the dark haired man stumbled in at the last moment, this time Ben Solo arrived with several seats left. Still, Brea got lucky, Ben sat down next to him with a raised eyebrow and a wry smile on his face.

Hux couldn’t help but try to dig at him as he sat down. “You didn’t get enough last time?” he asked. He was looking at his notebook pretending not to pay too much attention to the engineering major next to him.

He watched the way the man named Ben Solo looked at him from the corner of his mind. “You’re entitled to your opinions even if they’re the radical ideals of a man who has no true experience in government beyond watching the men in your daddy’s pocket grovel before him.”

Breácan was taken a back. No one should know about that. It was true Hux wasn’t a common name but not many people knew about his father, a retired military general who had been fortunate enough to marry a young heiress late in life. He was one of the biggest donors to many extreme right-wing campaigns. He was the sort of man could bring about the rise and fall of government officials but he was always quiet about it. How did Ben Solo know? He couldn’t ask, that would make him look foolish. He had to find another way. “My father has nothing to do with this. Bringing him up shows just how out of your depth you are.”

“Whatever you say.” A chuckle from the other man before another raised eyebrow. Ben Solo looked up at Brea for a moment and smirked like he knew a secret. Hux frowned. He wasn’t certain why it wasn’t working. Why wasn’t the other male worked up? Why did was he becoming so worked up? He pulled out his notebook, resigned to the fact that he would have to give up before he made a fool of himself when heard the other male speak up again. “If you’re trying to wind me up you’re going to have to work harder.” Hux didn’t have the opportunity to respond even if he wanted to because the professor walked in.

The lecture was fairly boring, it included tips on public speaking that had been grilled into Breácan from the minute he could talk. It only dampened the mood by how boring it was. By the end of the lecture he was in a rush to get out just so he wouldn’t have to listen to the old professor drone. Any excitement he had about the course was gone and not even the prospect of another debate assignment at the end of the month could improve it.

The next time he went to class it was the same. The time after that was too. Hux’s mood remained sour throughout. The freshmen he served as TA for were incompetent, his courses were far too easy and overall they were rather boring. Still, he didn’t allow himself slip in any course. He practiced so that he could be fully prepared for the debate. The professor had paired them up based on their proficiency during the first debate which meant that Breácan would be arguing against Ben Solo once more. This time he had the advantage of receiving his topic in advance as well. It was a well-known topic, ‘The Pen is Mighter than the Sword’. Hux would be arguing for while Ben was against.

The morning of the debate started much like any other day. Hux expected everything would continue as it had the past few courses, he figured by now that the first course had been a fluke. It wasn’t until he saw the smirk on Ben Solo’s face when they were called up to the podium that he began to feel differently. This time as it was a formal debate rather than the practice session given at the start of the term Hux would start with opening statements. “Today I would like to argue that the pen, or the written word is more powerful than the physical force, or sword, that man wields while my foe attempts to prove the opposite.”

Ben responded. “My opponent would like to state that the pen is more powerful than the sword. It is my intention to prove the opposite.” The smirk still had not left his face. Hux wanted to rid him of it.

“I would like to begin my argument by explaining how the written word shapes our society in a way that the sword cannot.” Breácan began. “General William Westmoreland once said ‘The military don’t start wars. Politicans start wars.’ While the man’s grammar may leave something to be desired Westmoreland provides a valid point. The military is commanded by those in power to deploy troops. Those in power, politicians often write speeches explaining to the people exactly why they should be supporting war. The speeches are written in advance so that they may be tested and perfected. War is always premeditated. It always begins and ends with the written word through speeches, treaties, declarations, proposals, and accords.” Hux looked to the man across from him, still smirking. He wanted to wipe that smirk of his face. “Revolutions are incited by the written word. From the American Revolution’s Declaration of Independence and countless packets arguing for freedom to Karl Marx’s manifesto. A document that became the basis for communism throughout the world. Even religious purges from the crusades until now were the result of the written word.”

Hux looked at his opponent once more. Ben Solo was still smirking. He would have to wait until the other male provided his arguments before he could counter though. “My opponent provides very interesting arguments however it should be noted that any power the pen may hold is created behind the threat of the sword. How could the pen truly be powerful if it is reliant on the sword? Beyond that most of my opponents arguments are the result of fear mongering but what is it the people truly fear? A pen? No. It is the threat of the sword, the threat of violence that makes men give in. People do not fear Marx’s Communist Manifesto they fear the violence that erupts from it.” Hux was again surprised by how eloquent the other man was. It was so rare that he met someone who could truly match his turn of phrase and he found himself enjoying it despite the smirk that still graced Ben Solo’s face. “What my opponent fails to note is that wars may be made official by politicians but they are certainly not started by them. No, it is an act of violence that starts war whether it is the Nazi occupation of Europe, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, or Pearl Harbor players enter the battlefield because of a violent event that stirs action. Manifestos and religious texts are very much the same. They could not physically do harm unless their sheer size or a hardback binding caused a concussion I am unaware of. These words mean nothing without the unstable socioeconomic climate that incites violence. In conclusion the pen only holds power because the sword is there to back it up.”

Hux was impressed but he had prepared for this. “I believe that my opponent brings up a valid point however we must remember that the written word is what shapes our society. We are not barbarians who run around hitting one another to incite violence. We are a civilized people who read the news, enact legislation, and write literature supporting our actions. This information is what leads to action. Every course is incited by the pen. The sword can only intimidate and even that is not nearly as effortless as that of the pen.”

The man across from him nodded, the smirk still fully affixed on his face. “My opponent brings up a valid argument as well, in fact his word, while not written is a perfect example of what the pen can do. Tell me however…” Ben Solo walked out from behind his podium and over to Hux. “Are your words mightier than this?’ Hux saw a fist and fell to the ground clutching his abdomen. He had been punched in the gut. Ben Solo was a fucking crazy person who concluded a perfectly reasonable argument by punching him in the gut.

Hux laid on the ground for what seemed like ages but couldn’t have been more than a minute, maybe two. He sat up using his arms to brace himself and saw their classmates staring in stunned silence. The professor wasn’t much better. The man had made no motion to do anything about Solo’s unhinged actions. It was like the man thought this was a perfectly valid form of argument. Breácan rubbed a hand across his face. That was when it came to him. It was his turn to smirk. “As you can see my opponent has just proven my point, or at least he will have when I press charges against him.”

The class clapped and the professor seemed impressed as well. Solo was still smirking but he offered Hux a hand to stand up the rest of the way. The professor finally decided to speak up. “Well I certainly don’t want anyone to be forced to follow up that masterful argument. It seems those of you who haven’t yet gone will have a reprieve for now. We’ll continue next class, you’re all dismissed.”

Hux was still in shock but he couldn’t help but be pleased with his performance. Still, Ben Solo punched him. What the hell was wrong with that guy? Hux stalked over to where Ben was currently picking up his bag, Hux’s own bag on the chair next to it. He turned for a second to see who remained in the room. Apparently everyone left in a rush. The possibility of another punch being thrown was less exciting than getting out of a three hour lecture an hour early. “Solo, what the hell was that?” Hux asked trying to keep his anger at bay.

Ben Solo turned, the smirk from before still firmly placed on his face. Hux wanted to rid him of it. “Hmm? It was a debate. I was just proving my point.”

Hux felt his anger rising further. Was this guy for real? “I don’t think that punching people is part of a regular debate.”

The smirk grew bigger. If that was even possible anyway. “Maybe you’re just not debating with the right people.”

Nope. That was it, Breácan couldn’t resist anymore. He threw a punch of his own. Ben reeled back for a moment but when he recovered the smirk was still there enhanced by a split lip. “See, you seem to like it yourself. Also, now that you’ve hit me you can’t file charges so, I win.”

Was this man insane? “Are you kidding me? You wanted me to hit you to prove your point. You are the most unreasonable person I’ve ever met Ben Solo!” Hux was shouting. He knew it but he couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t get his normally even temper back under control.

“Kylo.” The taller male stated as if that somehow explained everything.

“What?” Hux replied a wary look entering his eyes.

“I go by Kylo.” With that he pulled his bag onto his shoulder and rushed out leaving Hux alone and rather confused. Who the hell went by a name like Kylo?

[General CW for noncon, memory fuckery, violence, past torture/trauma/brainwashing, brief allusion to suicide, general nastiness, Poe being rotten, my god what have I done etc.

On AO3 here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6040152/chapters/13849164 ]

**

There are little blue tiles on the floor and slit windows narrow enough to accommodate a hand. There is a 'fresher in the shallow adjoining room, and there are sheets on his bed, and there is a console in the corner where he can receive briefings regarding his case or relay valuable intelligence without even getting up to activate it. It'd be no good, anyway, none of the controls work from the inside. The room is empty and impersonal enough to be comforting; it smells of cut wood in the mornings and when he closes his eyes he can imagine himself on the pyre, ready to burn. Or beneath one, unseen. He doesn't know why he thinks of this — he must have dreamed it once as a boy, before this whole nightmare unfurled — but it brings him something like peace.

Snoke is dead — obliterated beyond any hope of recovering a relic. Burned up, like Alderaan or the husk that made up the foundation of Starkiller Base. Ren is cut loose, blind to the Force, but not deaf to it. There are still tremors. Something to look forward to.

"You look pretty different. Without the mask, I mean."

Kylo stirs at the sound of another man's voice, though not a lot. He feels Dameron's presence before he looks up — like a heat signature. He'd left a little of himself behind, maybe, in probing so coarsely through somebody else's brain. The bulk of his rare visitations come by viewscreen — house arrest in a living space that is not his own is only a little less humiliating than being kept in actual chains. But he is accustomed to confinement. Perhaps it will do him good.

Poe Dameron has made it only so far as the doorway, but already his intrusion is palpable. His hands are in his pockets.

"Go and turn your life around and they stick you in here, right? Doesn't seem fair."

"My position had become untenable," Kylo says as he rises, with all the severity he can martial up from a throat aching from disuse. Untenable is putting it gently, what with Hux undercutting him at every opportunity, his fellow Knights of Ren jeering at him. With Snoke using him with every intention of discarding him.

He is weak now. Sick, now. But free.

"Well, I'll tell you what—" Dameron makes an expansive gesture, closing the distance between them with noiseless tread. "I think you owe a couple people an apology."

Kylo does not say, You seemed more than willing to lay down your life at the time, or anything else, but raises a hand to reflexively sweep him aside. He doesn't mean to do anything, he just doesn't want Dameron touching him, but Dameron's grip closes around his fingers with bone-grinding solidity. He isn't a large man by any means — and he'd seemed smaller still, strapped in for interrogation — but he's angry, and the struggle against the reflex to hurt him right back is enough to make him see spots.

He's only trying to get a rise out of him, nothing else. This is the legacy of what Kylo Ren has been and done, a sorry state of affairs but completely warranted. Doesn't a high-ranking pilot have something better to do than rattle cages? His other visitors have all been serious diplomats and droids — any day now he'll be on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from Threepio, if they haven't disassembled him for parts yet.

Kylo twists his hand into a grip around Dameron's, though he cannot make it look or feel particularly affable; it isn't a threat. (Dameron's hands are warm and callused, and completely unflinching.) He tries to summon up as much tranquility as he can, without the aid of a barrier to screen his face.

"Leave. I wouldn't want to hurt you." He regrets these limping words as soon as they've left his lips. Ren's lips are splitting; his voice is unnaturally deep in his throat.

"That's generous of you."

Dameron shakes loose and strikes him with the side of his hand, fetching him a hard cuff. It's not enough to rattle his teeth, but the sting of it against his cheek is a jolting indignity on its own. Stripped of the mask, he is hopelessly bare — his expressions read too plainly without any barrier. (An air of mystery, someone once said, a long time ago.) His lips part a little at the indignation, his nostrils flare; he is aware of these alterations in his expression but not in control of them. His own body is always just out of his control.

It would have been easy — if this were back then and not now, to swat him like an insect, rather than steel himself for symbolic indignities meant to aggravate him into shattering his bond. That is what Kylo Ren would have done, a decade ago — a year ago. A month ago. The days are longer now. That is the only way he knows that time has passed at all — pretty soon he'll be scratching lines into the walls, like a convict. They execute convicts every day on the more populous planets — child-killers and father-killers, as common as grains of sand. Nothing special. Nothing interesting.

(He had quarreled with his old master once about the necessity of capital punishment, and now he is looking down the blade of it. Time to put those boyhood principles to the test.)

Sizing the man up, he cannot help being frustrated with what he sees — Dameron isn't exactly pale and quaking at the sight of him; Resistance-born and bred, he radiates informal contempt, from his untucked shirt to his shoes. The Resistance fear Kylo Ren still, this much he knows, but they know only dimly what it is he can do without an armada behind him. Dameron should fear him most of all — he has tasted Ren's power firsthand, and alone. But the terms of Ren's defection and imprisonment are clear — he is not to resist, he is to cooperate with all lines of Resistance questioning to the best of his ability, there will be no special treatment in accordance with his rank. The better part of his power died with Snoke, if it had ever been his to begin with; it had burned out of him like dross.

"A glutton for punishment." The words are a nasty little Hux-ism, hard and clumsy in his mouth like a stone. "If I said I was sorry, would it make this more bearable for you?"

Dameron makes a gesture with a movement of his head. "Don't act tough. If you could do anything, you'd have done it already — you can't even levitate that little teacup of yours without raising the alarm. It's just weird seeing your ugly face, that's all."

(It isn't a teacup, it's a hard metal mug full of the same bitter brew the General loves and Kylo hasn't touched it. If he were in a cell that aspired to the old Imperial standard — as he may some day be, paying the kind of price the First Order customarily extracts from traitors — he wouldn't be able to trust the food and drink not to be spoiled or worse. Here the water is sweet and no one's tried to gas him or slip a thousand-legged insect under his pillow.)

If it were Kylo in his place — standing over a hated enemy — he knows what he'd do. Poe Dameron is here to kill him.

"If you harm me," Ben who is no longer Kylo says, "she'll know." The word he is avoiding is hurt. It's a childish word. Children fear being hurt.

"Make this easy on yourself. I'll let your mom know how good you've been. You haven't wrecked anything in a while, you haven't headfucked anybody —"

"What do you want me to do?"

Dameron's eyes are bright, and they watch him closely. They are a kind man's eyes. They are laughing at him.

"Start undressing. Standard weapons inspection just like the guys in lockup. We can do this slow and easy, or I can run and get some friends, your choice."

It is all he can do not to sneer whether that is all. In comparison to himself, to Snoke, to Hux, to anyone else who isn't under Rebel aegis, Poe Dameron is an amateur. He has seen Poe Dameron, torn through the layers of shame in his mind as brittle as dried leaves, he has dredged up a core sample of a lifetime's humiliations great and small and laid it out for him to examine. There is nothing Dameron can do to equal that, Kylo thinks to himself as he undoes wooden buttons and peels off his outermost layers of clothing. There is nothing he can do, equipped with such blunt instruments. Killing him half-undressed won't satisfy him any more than doing so any other way.

Ren's clothes are a loose parody of Jedi garb, hacked together from somebody else's cast-offs, too short for him at the wrists. He is built on larger than average lines, for a human, but this much is too ridiculous to be truly unintentional. Removing them is almost a relief — almost a liberation from the chain of small mockeries his garments represent.

Almost.

"Hold out your arms. Roll up your sleeves." Dameron makes a gesture like he's rubbing his wrists, as if Kylo is in too-tight binders. He hasn't even unholstered his blaster yet.

When it occurs to him what Dameron is looking for — not only weapons, but new injuries, like he's some high-strung first-timer. If he were to escort himself out of his new position as favorite hostage, it wouldn't be like that. Better to burn up in some unmemorable dead-end sun or plunge from an impossible drop than do something so pitifully ineffectual. He'd break his spine first, before that. Ridiculous.

Ren grimaces, showing teeth, and complies.

He's bare to the waist now, exposing the worst of his injuries to inspection. The blackened gouge in his shoulder smarts in contact with the air; the welt of the bowcaster round that broke his ribs still shows up green on his bloodless skin. Letting the injuries of a voluntary prisoner go by without treatment is a war crime by a dozen different interplanetary treaties — but Kylo Ren is a war criminal, so those strictures can hardly apply like they were meant to. They can't spare the resources, not on him. His hands find the deep cauterized gouges left by the girl's saber blade — another unbidden image in his mind of the girl as she is now, overlooking a staggering vista illuminated only by lightning, her master a few paces behind her. The vision wells up like blood, as clear as anything.

Does she see him now? Wasted and weak, unplugged from the direct line that his affinity with the Force had given him. Any visions he receives are erratic and broken. He hates this body, damaged as it is now. He has always hated this body, he has always striven to transcend it — two meters of pathetic blood and bone. The night air pebbles the skin on his chest, and he can feel Dameron's eyes on him like the pass of a hand, very close to the surface of his skin yet not quite touching. Insolent eyes. He had been insolent then, on Starkiller Base, and it had been a pleasure to break him.

He has stripped to the waist and his hands are on the fastenings of his trousers, unsure whether to affect lewdness or absolute indifference, when Dameron calls out.

"Alright, that's enough."

Such strange abruptness — Kylo may no longer be permitted to use the Force in an active manner, but its passive use is part of his nature he can't shut out, and the strange flinch in his mood that accompanies the order is troubling to interpret. Perhaps he only means to beat him — how ridiculous would that be, as if superficial injuries could rattle him now?

And that is that, for the first night. He locks the door behind him when he leaves; Kylo is already bending down to pull on his shirt and tie his belt. He can hear the code keying in, the slip of metal bolts to secure him like an animal in his little room.

Odd, but not frightening. Inconvenient more than anything, and too baffling to lose one's temper over. That's that.

*

*

Ben Organa knew Poe Dameron once, when he was a boy — that is the distasteful truth throbbing like a burst blood vessel in the back of his mind. Kylo Ren does not remember if he was a kind boy, or a cruel boy, or funny or loud or pugnacious or shy or whether he simply did not make an impression at all. Those are the kinds of things Ben would know, and Ben is dead; his carcass rots in a little room.

(Had he thought that it would be easy? Had he thought he could simply return to the place he had fallen from, did he think he could rest easily in the Light—)

The second night, Kylo hardly notices him enter.

"General's orders. Everybody up."

Poe Dameron's sing-song voice, light and humorous in the dark, makes Kylo Ren's skin crawl worse than Snoke's grimmest pronouncements. The shock baton lies across his thighs like some grotesquely unsubtle symbolism — Kylo knows exactly what to make of that, he isn't blind. Psychological warfare, just the same as his own subjects finding themselves thrust onto their backs, legs apart, bound. Vulgar posturing, that's all.

Kylo holds up both his hands — he is unarmed, the datapad he has been reading lies where he left it on the thin smooth bedspread. It's only loaded with one document, a painfully dry history that has been enough to divert him here without putting dangerous thoughts in his head. This man is here to be sure he isn't corresponding with agitators, or meditating, or finger-painting in the blood of younglings, or hanging from the ceiling by a rope. This man is here to monitor him. That is all.

Kylo's shirt is coming unfastened; the cool air licks down his chest. Somehow it feels more obscene than deliberately stripping down in front of a power-tripping martinet with a grudge. Dameron's eyes are on him again. Soft eyes, warm brown eyes in an affable face.

Kylo sticks out his chin and lets those warm eyes dwell on him. If it gives his captor some thrill to catch him off-guard, at least he's unlikely to like what he sees. His technique needs work; that's the sick joke in it, the contorted mirror-view of when it was Ren in his element and Dameron dawdling for time.

"Am I to your satisfaction?" Let him look. Kylo would rip him apart, if he weren't so committed to goodness.

"She wants to see you." She, as if there is only one woman on this entire resistance base. The mention of his mother makes his heart leap, in a sick kind of way, and it's all he can do to quell it back down again. Her, here? He doesn't know if he'd throttle her or cry all over her shoes.

"Tell General Organa she can interrogate at her leisure once it's light out."

"Don't be like that, Ben. I told her you were gonna cooperate."

He says it so softly, and he makes no showy prelude, there is no crackle of sound to herald what is coming next and Kylo does not realize what is happening until the baton deploys its charge into his shoulder at full strength. He goes from seated on the edge of the mattress to sprawling on the floor, electrified with white pain, vision gone — Dameron shocks him a second time, and the convulsion sweeps his heavy body like a wave, numb and burning.

His muscles take an agonizingly long time to unlock, not all at once but piece by piece, leaving him in his prone sprawl with his calf muscles spasming and his heart like a stone in his chest. Dameron's boot is parked against his hammering ribcage.

There is bile in the back of his mouth, threatening to spill up completely, and his father's voice is in his head, always hated those things. So much for reflex.

He must have made a sound when he fell, because Poe Dameron is laughing.

"All right, all right, get it together, big guy. Get on your knees. Back to the wall. You remember how to do that, right? You kneeled in front of your mom, right? You couldn't stand up."

He is shaking too much to dredge himself up, soft palms scraping on the tile — where are his gloves, he needs gloves, see how soft he's grown, how weak—

My mother would never condone this. The words slip out of his mind unbidden and carves into Dameron's like the scratch of a fingernail — he can gouge no deeper. And back, quick and clear as the crack of a whip, comes the retort: the butt of the shock baton strikes him hard enough to chip his teeth. His head knocks back against the stone wall and in the instant that his vision shorts out, snapping like a strained wire.

His right ear blossoms into pain. Dameron is cradling him now, crouching down, one hand in a fist at the back of his head, shaking him by his hair — not roughly, distinct individual shakes. Ren's head is loose on his neck.

"She doesn't want to see you. She never wants to see your fucking face." Muffled, now, like it's coming to him through deep water: "Never go in my head like that again. Now you're going to get on your knees, okay? This is just inspection, round two. Okay?"

Dameron doesn't even sound angry. He sounds like he is struggling to be patient with a child. Perhaps in his eyes this is reasonable. Rebel depravity, that's a Hux-ish phrase.

Ben. He'd called him Ben. Poe Dameron remembers him, and he isn't pleased.

Breathing is impossible; his battered ribcage heaves like a bellows, ripping his lungs raw with each breath, and none of it affords him anything by way of relief. Kylo does not kneel the way he knelt in front of his mother — kneeling was an exaggeration there, he had crumpled, he would have landed on his face if it'd happened a moment sooner. He had been weak, then. Injured and damaged, without control. He is weak now.

Time to let his breaths come shallowly, now, to stop just short of slipping into meditation with the blood singing in his ears and the familiar twist of rage too much for his brittle body. He does not raise his face in mock-adoration, or cower; he adopts the attitude he has held before his erstwhile master a thousand times. Spine stiff, thigh muscles locked, shoulders back. Arms at his sides, bent crookedly back so that Dameron cannot see his hands shake. He does not look up.

Poe is close already, but he closes the distance between them with easy confidence as he undoes his belt. The baton remains present for the threat it presents, hanging from his shoulder by a strap — it would be easy, it would be so easy to overcome him, but he cannot raise a hand against this man any more than—

This man is guarding a tremendously politically significant criminal in the days before his trial, one whose sincerity has been openly questioned on just about every level of these rebels' organization. He ought to know better. Dameron himself has had no shortage of daring escapes, overwhelming his guards and relieving them of their weapons in no time flat. His carelessness is a test of its own; he is daring his prisoner to try it, daring him to raise a hand against him and get fried to a crisp. If it is easy it is only because Dameron makes it easy.

Kylo spits a stringy slug of blood, but it doesn't make it past his chin. "You're acting beyond your pay grade, commander."

"Yeah, well. There's a war going on, what do you want?" Dameron rolls his shoulders a little in boyish indifference. (Dameron had a jacket once, but he's not wearing it now. Where's his jacket?) His hand fumbles impatiently at his thigh. "I'm gonna need you to cooperate here, buddy. I don't want to zap you again. You might piss yourself."

Kylo is opening his mouth to make some furious retort when Dameron catches at his face with one hand, pressing down between his teeth to force apart his jaws.

Dameron's hands are square and serviceable. They bear all the calluses and scars of an experienced pilot, they are like the hands that taught him how to repair speeder-bikes and aim blasters; there is a faint pink burn on one knuckle and suddenly it is pressing into his cheek. Kylo wants to be sick.

He possesses immeasurable strength, still, even here — he could crush him without rising from his knees, he could emasculate him without laying a hand on him and leave him bleeding, he could rip his throat out and paint all the little blue tiles in the floor red. He longs to call down Force lightning like the Emperor did so long ago and give him a taste of his own medicine, to leave him convulsing on the floor. But he isn't Kylo Ren any more, he is the Ben that died, the child that suffocated on its own blood— he is a corpse, he is a walking skeleton now, a foul thing. His breath is a horrible rattle in the back of his throat.

This is the test of his docility.

Poe forces his blunt thumb between Kylo's lips — like he's looking for something. They've already probed him a dozen different ways for self-destruct mechanisms and poison pills. Dameron will find nothing. His thumbnail chips against one of his front teeth.

"If you bite me," Dameron says, "I'll make sure she sees you like this."

The pad of his thumb tastes like engine oil.

He's not hard at first, though Kylo is trying not to look. He has himself cupped in his hand loosely enough that the warm dry flesh falls against Kylo's cheek with a definite heaviness. His other hand no longer holds apart his awful jaws, but it grasps at the limp mat of Kylo's hair — Kylo has been too sad to bathe, like a heartsick idiot, like a child.

It's just like a medical exam; he has nothing to be afraid of. The discomfort, the orders, all of it. Dameron wants access to his mouth, but he has no way of invading Kylo's mind if he doesn't let him — Kylo is weak now, but the barriers he has built up for decades are strong. He will never be inside him like Snoke was inside him; anything short of that should be laughed at.

This is what the Light costs. His teeth part, and his tongue displaces a little to make room. Like an exam, just like an exam.

"Take it in your mouth. Don't be shy about it."

The hand on the back of Kylo's head draws him forward. The taste is all the way down his throat already, before he's even begun — the stink of raw masculinity.

"That's nice. That's it. You know what to do."

He does not know what to do — he has never been so close with another man, or with anyone, he knows sex only by way of scattershot visions and the feverish imaginings Snoke had chosen to impart, when he had been a teenage boy overrun by rampant chemicals and involuntary access to the minds of other adolescents. Perhaps this part is the test, seeing if he'll abase himself patiently rather than do harm. Perhaps — his mother arranged this, she would never, she would never stand for this if she knew. For anyone else, maybe. Kylo Ren is a special case.

(—and Dameron had called him Ben—)

The girth of it is an obscene surprise. He gags once, with Dameron murmuring small praises and thumbing at his exposed ear. He does not call him by name, but his hands are warm — his cock is warm, flush with blood even while Kylo is clammy with horror.

He knew Poe once, when they were boys. What had he ever done back then to make Poe hate him like this? It isn't hate that simmers off him. It's something else.

Dameron's grip adjusts on the back of his skull, working Kylo's mouth against his erection as if he's a thing and not a person — it forces him forward a little, so his hands must grasp for purchase against the tile and the tops of Dameron's scuffed boots. Fucking into his mouth in earnest now— he wants to make him whimper, he wants to make him gag, Kylo is Master of the Knights of Ren yet, he has endured worse than this, this is hardly pain at all—

He blinks through the smudge of involuntary watering eyes; the blood still trickles from his nose, making it difficult to breathe, but he is in no position to be wiping it away. His jaw is beginning to cramp, straining to accommodate this man's leaking cock — the awful sensation of dribbling slickness has him swallowing and swallowing again, he can feel the cartilage in his own throat leap and his gullet go tight and Dameron's small sounds of satisfaction,

He gags again when it is withdrawn from him. His chin and his cheek are wet with shame now, throbbing with humiliation in the midst of other more concrete pains; Poe's voice comes down to him dimly, like an echo down a long corridor.

"I always wanted to do this."

The tiles are the irregular smoky blue of a midday winter storm. His eyes fix on them, between Dameron's boots like slivers of sky.

His body is slack now, like one of those dolls children make out of rags. Poe dries off his cock with a fistful of hair — he is an obscenity, he is unthinkable.

(Now he can be wholly Kylo again, alive with pain and crackling with anger. The pain is like an anchor.)

The pad of a thumb presses deliberately into Kylo's bruised temple. Fingers splay across his face, his cheek, his dripping nose — slick with Kylo's blood and Poe's own come, exerting benign pressure like Kylo is some domesticated animal that must be muzzled before it can sink in its fangs.

"Your mom's coming through in the next couple days. You fell getting out of your bunk. It happens all the time." (Kylo wants to say, I'm sure it does, with Poe in charge, but all that comes out between his raw lips is a low occluded rasp. Poe's knee nudges him sharply back. He sounds more distracted than anything.) "See you tomorrow night, buddy. And take a shower, for fuck's sake."

Kylo falls back against the wall, his hands unfolding slack against his thighs.

*

Bravo! This is worth a standing ovation.

Phasma had known Kylo since he was a lanky fifteen year old. He'd turned up one day with an absurdly high security clearance, that checked, and orders from Snoke. And stayed as if he had nowhere else to go. His eyes had a way of making most people uncomfortable until he started wearing that mask. But Phasma realized that Kylo would work himself down to nothing, without even noticing that's what he was doing, if someone didn't intercede. His single-minded dedication to his training was commendable. And downright fanatical. Which is why she'd made a point of telling him, right near the beginning, that everyone gets homesick.

Kylo had glowered at her suspiciously, as if he thought she were bringing this up because, contrary to what she'd just said, there was something specifically wrong with him; some weakness he'd done an inadequate job guarding.

“Look,” Phasma had added, “I don't know where you come from, and I will never ask you about it. You're one of us now. The First Order will make you bigger and stronger than you ever imagined yourself being. But there are people who try to take the edge off their stress by giving the new kids more to worry about. Setting up countless, meaningless tests that they insist are 'proof' of whether you're good enough to be here. It's bullshit.” She took a breath. “People come from all over, from all kinds of pasts, and adjusting is it's own special kind of hard. So having doubts and bad days and not knowing how you're going to breathe with this pain in your chest – we've all done it. None of that means you're making a mistake. It's just, breaking away from what used to be your life can get to you.”

Kylo considered this, the sudden intensity in his eyes belying his attempt at a neutral expression. Phasma knew she'd hit a nerve when he asked, “even if you basically never want to see your old life again?”

She nodded. “It's not wrong to miss what you never thought you'd miss. And the less you're fighting yourself, and second-guessing yourself, the better you'll cope with a program that (frankly) demands a lot, from all of us.”

Without a moment's hesitation, Kylo's hand shot out and grabbed her arm. “I don't need your help,” he growled.

“Kylo, I'm a soldier.” Phasma responded, unfazed. “The point of sharing intel is that our chances of defeating our actual enemies improve if we help each other. And I do mean we – there will be times when you know things I need to hear. So I want a working relationship where communication isn't awkward.”

“That's …” he released her and looked down, chewing his lower lip. (Phasma thought he looked embarrassed, because her offer was genuine and he'd obviously been expecting something else. Disrespect? Pity? Something that would have justified his anger.) But Kylo shook off his momentary indecision. “I need a sparring partner,” he said, “who isn't scared of me.”

Phasma's lip twitched, because the sly, underlying challenge in his voice was perfectly audible. Even so, she could work with this. “I'm not force-sensitive at all,” she warned, “but if you want to practice hand-to-hand fighting, meet me at the training facility at 0600 hours.”

She'd had no idea how badly he just needed to roughhouse. And punch things. And get flipped against the mat for the umpteenth time because his footwork was outstanding, but his balance was crap. But it became a regular thing they did.

They both had separate exercise routines that they adjusted to make room for their sparring. Phasma resorted to free weights only, after accidentally breaking one of the bigger machines. As Kylo became more adept at manipulating the force, he did increasingly more complicated things beforehand to exhaust his powers. Phasma could still remember the first time he'd extended a hand silently at her dumbbells and levitated them, eyes like slits, sweat beading at his forehead.

“You know, you have the muscles for a weight routine,” she'd said. “Would you like to try them?”

“No,” he'd said, with an edge of finality in his voice. The weight settled back down on its y-rest with a clank.

Phasma hadn't pushed it. She knew Kylo wasn't intentionally being off putting, but he'd retained the habit of rejecting unwanted suggestions as forcefully as if the other person were trying to arm twist him into compliance; as if a more casual 'no' would be swept aside.

Their sparring always started the same way. Whichever one of them finished their workout first would strip down to their under-layers, stalk out to the middle of the biggest mat, cross their arms in an attitude of challenge, and wait. Phasma could do this while standing absolutely still, pale hair sticking to her temples where her helmet had been the closest. Kylo could rarely keep himself from pacing like a caged animal.

Most days, the other one would announce their approach with a yell and at a flat-out run.

Phasma widened her stance as Kylo charged her. She aimed a disciplined series of hits at his head, his ribs, his kidneys, and his spine, as she twisted around him. Roughly half of them landed solidly before he managed to sweep her feet out from under her. She adapted in mid air to bring him down with her and mostly rolled out of the way of his fall. He was on her in an instant as she curled on all fours, but thanks to a hand he was using to balance himself, unwisely placed within her reach, she managed to flip him again, this time headfirst, and vaulted over him crosswise in a half-mount.

Kylo growled and shot his hands deep into the collar of her shirt, crosswise, fingers meeting at the back of her neck. It was the worst angle she'd ever seen for an x-choke, but she knew he was strong enough to leverage it anyway, so she tucked her chin and shot one of her hands next to her jaw to protect her neck during the counter.

They moved in a flurry of hands, feet, angles, rolling and twisting and grappling. Neither kept particular track of who tapped out when. The first round was broken off at a complex wrist-elbow-shoulder lock that would have stressed a recent injury. The next went on for several minutes, before resolving into a headlock. The one after that resulted in a brief time-out, because it involved Kylo bypassing Phasma's guard with a move that basically amounted to his doing a pivoting handstand on the center of her chest. (She was unhurt, but after escaping from a trash compactor, the physical sensation of having her lungs compressed was ... disconcerting.)

They sat on their haunches and the balls of their feet, at arm's reach away from each other on the mat, panting, radiating heat, and dripping sweat.

Phasma took out her mouth guard and swallowed a couple of times with difficulty, willing herself to breathe normally again. Kylo let himself fall on his back, arms carelessly outstretched to let the mat absorb as much excess heat as possible. Then Phasma shoved the device back in without a word and stood up, thinking to practice their more usual upright attacks. Kylo pulled himself to his feet and let loose a vicious barrage of kicks and strikes that she deflected, but he seemed distracted.

She had just enough time to process this thought before he dropped his protective stance entirely and slurred, “I haugh a pro'lem.” Pulling a disgusted face and all but spitting his mouth-guard out, he over-enunciated “that was supposed to be I have a problem.”

Phasma let her arms go down to her sides and mirrored him, adopting a less combat-ready posture. “Oh?” she said. As he didn't explain, she ran her eyes up and down his body, taking in the bulge in his pants and the slightly pained look on his face and put two and two together.

She crossed the distance between them in two strides and put a hand up to Kylo's face, and that was all the encouragement he needed to grab the back of her head and crush his mouth against hers, kissing desperately, hungrily. The side of her nose brushed against the dark scab that had formed over his lightsaber burn, but neither of them paid it any mind. Kylo's other arm snaked behind her back and pulled her as close as possible. Phasma clamped her arms around his back just as hard, relishing the feel of his body, his wet-hot skin under coarse armor-weave and his accelerated heartbeat.

“My quarters,” she suggested, when he broke off the kiss, and was picking her bodily up to press her against the nearest wall.

Kylo's reply was unintelligible, but he released her long enough for them to stumble out of the gym and make it back to her room without breaking anything or trying to have sex on an inconvenient surface. The few 'troopers they met along the way gave them wide berth.

Fortunately for the continued existence of their under-layers, the latter didn't pose many obstacles to their own removal. A sinuous squirm or two got Phasma out of the last of her clothes, and Kylo's fell around him once they managed to undo the tunic-clasps on his side.

He lifted her against the wall with a combination of strength and telekinesis, and without really having to think about it, Phasma hooked her legs around his sides lower than she normally would to avoid touching the (protected, recovering) wound in his side. Kylo was mostly holding her up with the force, in an invisible grip that felt a lot bigger than both of them. It was slightly unnerving - she could sense that the power pressed against her could turn her body to meat-paste against the hard surface without any particular trouble. And she hadn't felt overshadowed by anyone else's strength in a very long time. But she trusted Kylo and his command over this preternatural power that lived inside him. So the thin, animal edge of fear that accompanied the feeling of being in the hold of something innately dangerous only sharpened her desire.

Phasma put her hand between them, reaching for his length, and moaned as he pushed into her, apparently so ready that she hadn't had to stroke him to full hardness. Her body tended to adjust to the possibility that penetrative sex was happening just from overly-familiar touches. And this time she'd wanted him right from the way sweat was dripping off his curls, turning them stringy and jet black against the shine of the white, overhead gym lights. She'd pushed the thought to the back of her mind when she realized it had only been two weeks since he'd emerged from the med bay, but needed no persuading when Kylo showed interest. They hadn't bothered with the lights when they burst into her room, but her sharp eyesight still (barely) made out his shape against her in the darkness. Sinuously, rhythmically, she bucked her hips against his thrusts, savoring the feel of him and the way he opened her with his shaft. Phasma knew herself to be tall, strong, and powerful, and Kylo had grown into a body that was very much like hers. And yet, when they lined up just right, he felt like completion.

He still mostly had intuition in place of technique, and an unrestrained, animal ferocity that more or less made up for the way he shunned making conscious decisions about how to fuck. Phasma hadn't been able to teach him much because he was exquisitely sensitive about being controlled. But she also hadn't tried particularly hard. Her body responded directly to the life and fury that hummed through him. It was barely contained or containable. A ragged, pained gasp in the dark reminded her that most of the time – now, for instance – she had to think and be careful with his body. Because he wasn't. She flinched a little at the sound, at the quiet, underlying agony and desperation of it, and forced the words “please go slower,” past her teeth. Knowing that what his pride wouldn't allow him to do for himself, he'd probably be able to justify for the sake of his partner.

Sure enough: it took one more 'please' to check his momentum, but Kylo let up a little. And then started catching his breath and slowed down considerably. Then he completely surprised her by muttering “sorry,” running a hand through her hair and sounding more self-conscious than he had in years.

“Don't be,” Phasma reassured huskily. She wrapped an arm around his uninjured shoulder, pulled her other hand around the back of his head, and kissed him with enthusiasm as their hips met. It was still deep and hard, just … less frenzied.

Of course, Phasma couldn't really begrudge him the reluctance, because she was using the exact, same logic in reverse. Being able to adapt to whatever pace her partner saw fit to set was normally a point of pride for her. It didn't always make for the most comfortable sex, but on an intellectual level, she was deeply uncomfortable with the idea of wanting anyone to go easy on her. Expressing a preference for anything but the toughest, most demanding option available felt like it gave others far too much power. So asking him to slow down was something she wouldn't have done of her own volition; wouldn't have done for herself. And doing it at all was a bit humiliating, but the heightened sensation almost made up for her wounded pride.

“Would you –” Kylo panted, and then with supreme effort he managed to add, “I want you to ride me.”

“Alright,” she agreed. “Let me down and –” she barely had time to unhook her legs and feel the ground under the balls of her feet before he was kissing her again, almost gently. She steered them against her bed and he let himself fall back on it as she climbed easily on top of him, spread her legs, and sank into his length. She flexed her inner muscles, getting a feel for the new position, and Kylo groaned under her. “Comfortable?” Phasma asked, still not sure what to make of his request.

“Yes,” he hissed, sounding less human than ever.

She put a hand at the base of his erection to keep him securely in place as she raised up and came back down. His great hands grabbed her, in turn, by the hipbones, but he supported her motion rather than trying to control it. She'd managed to recover considerably while they were against the wall, so she raised herself almost entirely off him and took him in deep with each stroke. Kylo wasn't exactly coherent, but he sounded pleased with this, so she continued, letting her muscles pull him into her as they got the hang of the motion.

Her insides were feeling hotter and more swollen with every thrust, as if her body was aiming to just grab on and keep him, right there, buried to the hilt in her. He came as she flexed around him, in long shudders timed to her fullest contact. Phasma rode out his orgasm, moving more subtly and shifting the hand that had been around his cock down lower, to stroke his balls in a way that prolonged it.

Kylo swore under his breath, sounding awed and sort of … emotional, and pulled her down to him to kiss. Phasma let him. She thought she'd probably never been kissed so much in her entire life, but it didn't matter. She grabbed the extra blanket that she kept folded at the foot of her bed and threw it over the both of them, knowing that when they cooled down the room could feel uncomfortably cold. She also surmised that Kylo must have recently been through something that had unsettled him, because instead of staggering off to borrow her bathroom, and then retrieving his clothes and setting off at once, he stayed and snuggled. Phasma had held other people because they needed it often enough, but she hadn't been held like this in decades. She didn't question it. She just held him right back.

Afterward, once they'd both recovered enough to pull their clothes back on and turn on a light, Kylo said “can I ask you something?”

Phasma raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

“What would you do if you … might be in love with someone on the opposite side?”

“A rebel,” Phasma said, just to make sure she understood what he was saying. Kylo nodded. She thought about it. It was a moot point for her, personally, because she didn't love anyone, and never had. Which was part of what made training stormtroopers a viable option for her – no matter how much she liked a given individual, and no matter how many didn't come back, she always moved on. But she knew none of this would address why Kylo was really asking. She finally said, “would you trust me not to kill them if you tell me who it is?”

Kylo met her eyes, and a second later she could feel him scanning her mind. It hurt, although not unbearably. A silence elapsed as he considered his options. Finally, he projected a mental image at Phasma that she recognized as the scavenger who'd stolen the droid.

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and scraped her teeth over it slowly, thinking. “Best option, I'd try to turn her. Still acceptable, I'd try to persuade her to leave the rebellion. What I wouldn't do, under any circumstances, is try to join her. There are less horrific ways to die than being executed by your enemies.”

Kylo said nothing.

Phasma thought he seemed unconvinced, so she kept talking. “In the long run, either the rebels will lose – and the First Order will lethally settle accounts with defectors – or the unthinkable happens, and they win. Then what? All survivors would be stuck with a squabbling, corrupt mass of liars and thieves who alternate with each other for control of the government. So the question is, 'after having portrayed you as a war criminal and a mass murderer, would they let you live?' and, 'given the consequences of a rebel victory, would you even want to?' Surrender isn't a choice for us, because unlike the rank-and-file, we commanders are responsible for contesting the Republic's legitimacy.”

Kylo raked a hand through his hair. “You're not telling me anything I didn't already know,” he admitted, “but it's still hard to hear.”

Phasma let out a short, but not unsympathetic whuff of air. It was as close as she ever got to laughing about anything that was too serious to actually laugh about. “Sorry I don't have better news,” she said, and absolutely meant it. “But if you love her, get her away from those guys.”

This was fantastic! I love how pragmatic Phasma is, and the camaraderie she shares with Kylo. Great work!

So dark. Me gusta.

This scene is admittedly filler for the next scene.

Luke's advice is probably not the most sound.

Enjoy the cliffhanger. Next part is already done (I actually wrote it before this part) but it needs a bit more tweaking. Thanks for sticking this out, everyone who's still hanging around!

---

Finn and Rey conduct their morning lessons with Master Luke observing via commlink. He criticizes their form, compliments their concentration, praises them for how far they’ve both advanced in the days the three of them have been apart.

“I’m pleased. Quite pleased,” comes Master Luke’s thin, reedy voice.

Finn looks over at the tiny holoimage of their teacher and flashes him a thumb’s up sign he knows Master Luke can’t see.

“Thank you, Master Luke,” Rey speaks up from her spot on the carpet next to Finn. She’s still contorted into knots, and sweat runs in rivulets down the sides of her face and onto the floor. “We both miss you very much.”

“Yeah. How long until you get here?” Finn asks, stretching his arms over his head until his back aches.

“I’ll be arriving tonight,” he says. His holoimage flickers slightly, like the wick of a candle. Master Luke’s forehead creases and he tips his head up, as if feeling for a disturbance in the Force. Apparently he finds none, and he settles for smoothing his robes over his legs. “You two possess much anger and hate.”

“What?” Rey topples over and unfolds herself, sitting up slowly. “What do you mean?”

“You’re both in conflict,” Master Luke says. The holoimage flickers out completely, before blinking back into existence. He turns toward Finn, his lined face somber and grave. “Especially you, Finn.”

“I—I’m not! I promise,” Finn insists.

“I can sense the turmoil in you over the commlink,” their teacher says. “Both of you have a capacity for the Light and the Dark. They will call to you. It is your job to listen to the Light. To deny the Dark and lock it away.”

“Of—of course, Master Luke,” Finn stammers. “But I don’t understand—”

“Your unending well of empathy is your greatest gift, Finn, it’s what set you apart from the First Order,” Master Luke continues, “but it can also be your greatest weakness. It can tempt you to the Dark side.”

After they end the communication with perfunctory farewells, Finn sits in the center of the room, on Rey’s carpet, and lets Master Luke’s unsettling words wash over him like a wave. He feels tugged down by gravity, by the weight of his words. And, as much as he wants to deny it, there’s a ring of truth there, too.

He has been angry lately.

“It’s fine, Finn. He’s just trying to prepare you,” Rey says, attempting to comfort him, but he shakes his head. “I’m sure he doesn't mean you’ll fall.”

“He’s right though. I have been angry,” he admits, cheeks growing hot with shame. He lowers his head, unable to meet Rey’s eye. “I want to find whoever hurt Poe and—and run through them with a lightsaber. Sometimes I dream about it. Sometimes I wake up with the smell of burnt flesh in my nostrils.”

Rey sits next to him in a graceless heap. “That’s okay,” she says, touching his shoulder. “Poe is your friend. Of course you’d want to protect him.”

Finn glances at her, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. “I wish I could understand…”

“What?” she asks.

Anything. Everything. Why Poe? Why here, on the Resistance base? Why not someplace awful, evil, and cruel, like the First Order? Why not to someone awful, evil, and cruel—someone who is not Poe. But Finn’s stomach clenches with guilt at those thoughts, so he doesn't let any of them escape the tip of his tongue.

Finn scrubs his hand over his face, settles for: “In the First Order, rape was about the one thing they didn't condone.”

Rey gives him a curious look but stays silent, waiting for him to continue.

“Hux said it was disgusting, beneath us. Shameful acts only lawless Resistance scum partook in,” Finn says, with a rusty laugh. It burns down his throat like the bitter restoratives he had to choke down while he was confined to a cot in the medcenter all those months ago. “I laughed then, too. I thought it was ridiculous. But I guess Hux was right, huh?”

Rey closes a kind hand on his shoulder, very near the thin scar caused by the quillons of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. It aches now. “Humanoids have a terrible capacity for cruelty, for evil,” she says, pausing, swallowing, and then continuing. “As well as an unfathomable capacity for good. Evil and good exist in all of us. Sometimes the evil…”

Finn suddenly feels ill. He thinks Rey can feel it too, because she jerks her hand back and stares at him, eye wide, mouth falling open in a frightened 'O.'

“I have to go check on Poe,” Finn chokes out.

She simply nods. “I feel it too. Go.”

---

TBC

This fill is probably going to hit the 10k mark after this installment. @_____@ Thanks to everyone who’s still reading.

An anon posed some good questions upthread and I did decide to go back and retcon some of Poe’s injuries, as I ended up changing a few things around.

Also I think this is basically a rehash of the argument they had earlier so this whole entire part might end up on the cutting room floor when it’s all said sand done. I do think they've come to some sort of an agreement here so who knows.

---

The closer Finn gets to Poe’s room, the longer the corridor feels, as if the duracrete is stretching out underneath his feet, lengthening his journey. A strange sensation drops over him then like a veil, muffling the sound in his ears. The sounds in his mind are all too clear and loud, though. A too familiar metallic hiss whispers through Finn’s mind, digging its claws in, and he instinctively breaks into a run.

Poe’s bedroom door is ajar. Something isn’t right.

Finn throws the door open without knocking, shouting hoarsely, “Poe!”

The window is open, and Poe’s curtains flutter with the breeze.

No, no, no. A terrible, crackling energy burns through Finn like a fire, incinerating everything in its path. He races toward the window despite the overwhelming fear that chokes his breath and wrests it from his lungs.

Finn stumbles over something heavy and solid and he goes sprawling across the carpeted floor, ending up face first in a pile of Poe’s unwashed laundry.

Finn gets slowly onto his hands and knees and looks behind him.

Poe is curled into a tight, trembling ball, knees drawn to his chest, hands locked around his wrists, knuckles white.

“Poe?” Finn crawls closer, pushing past the twinge in his back and side.

Poe lifts his head from his knee and focuses bleary, red-rimmed eyes on Finn. His cheeks are dry, so Finn doesn't think he’s been crying, but he looks terrible. He looks like he hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in weeks, which Finn realizes is probably not so far off the mark.

“How’d your lessons go?” Poe’s voice is eerily still, quiet, but Finn can sense the tension just below the surface. Poe is putting on appearances for his sake; the knowledge comes like a fist to the stomach.

“Don’t do that,” Finn says, sitting crosslegged beside Poe, who still hasn't uncurled from his tight, protective cocoon. He slides himself a little closer so that their knees bump.

“Do what?” Poe asks, allowing the contact.

Finn feels stupidly grateful that he doesn't pull away. That he doesn’t push Finn away.

“Pretending you’re fine, like you’re doing me a favor,” Finn says.

“C’mon, kid, I—”

“I’m not a kid,” Finn says, almost surprising himself with the authority to his tone. He digs his nails in the carpet and twists the soft pile in his fingers. “I’m not fragile.”

“I don’t think you are.” Poe’s whole body shudders as he sighs, like the foundation of a condemned building that’s about to come down. “I know you’re not, Finn. I’ve seen firsthand how brave and strong you are.”

“So why are you tiptoeing around me? I thought we already talked about this,” Finn says.

Poe ducks his head and rips his hands through his damp hair. Finn reaches up and pries his fingers open, gently.

“I told you before. You’ve got more than enough on your plate,” Poe says, letting Finn keep hold of his shaking hand. “I’ve got to try and get through this on my own.”

Finn lets go of Poe’s hands and sits back with a frustrated, huffy sigh. “You’ve already made up your mind?” he asks, not bothering to try and conceal his anger. “You decided you don’t want my help—”

Poe’s head jerks up and he stares at Finn, wide-eyed and frightened. “It’s not that I don’t want your help. It’s—”

“You’re too proud to ask? Do you not trust me?” Finn suggests.

“No!”

“Well, what is it then?”

Poe rubs his fists into his eyes and groans. “Have you spoken to a psytech even once since you’ve been on-base?” he asks.

Finn frowns. “Yeah, once, after I got out of the medcenter,” he says, shrugging. The thin material of his shirt scratches across the sensitive scar in his side and the tender, jagged stripe on his back that still aches when a rainstorm’s coming. Inexplicably, it’s aching now. “Why?”

“Why? I—I—kriff, Finn. You spent most of your life being brainwashed by maniacs,” Poe says, squeezing his hands on his thighs like he's trying to keep from reaching out for Finn.

“Are you afraid I might fall back on the Bantha fodder they put in my head?” Finn’s stomach does some unpleasant aerobatics at the unspoken implications. “I promise you, I’m dedicated to the Resistance. I am a member of the Resistance. Okay? I can officially renounce the First Order over the public comm system, if you want me to.”

Poe sighs wearily. “That’s not… That’s not what I meant. What I mean is,” he pauses, taking a deep, ragged breath. “You need to focus on yourself. Take care of yourself. You can’t be worrying about me.”

“I told you—”

“I know,” Poe says, gentling his tone, but that only chafes at Finn and digs under his skin like droid pincers. “I know, Finn. But I’m a mess, and I don’t want—I can’t put this on you. I’m sorry.”

“Poe,” Finn tries, but Poe gets to his feet slowly and offers Finn his hand. He looks at it, contemplating, and then gets up on his own. He stares at Poe, forces him to meet his eyes.

“Finn—”

His name feels like a slap to the face now, and Finn goes warm all over, shaky, nauseated. Bile burns its way up his throat.

He wishes he could just understand. He wants to understand.

“It was such a big deal for me to get out from under the First Order’s control. To be able to make choices for myself. Why are you taking this choice away from me? I choose this. I choose you—” Finn moves forward, but the utterly devastated look in Poe’s eyes gives him cause to fall silent and go still.

“Don’t. Don’t say that.” Poe shakes his head, as if trying to shake Finn’s—admittedly hasty, maybe even foolish but no less untrue—admission out of his head. “There are some choices you don't get to make.”

“The Resistance was supposed to be a place where I could decide for myself what path I wanted to take,” Finn protests, battling the tightening in his throat and the inexplicable burning in his eyes. He balls his hands into fists and gamely fights the feeling off. “The Resistance is supposed to be safe. This wasn't supposed to happen here. This isn’t how it’s supposed to—”

Poe lurches forward and touches Finn lightly on the arm. “Finn. Finn, buddy, I’m sorry,” he says, rubbing his thumb in slow circles over the inside of Finn’s elbow.

“Master Luke told Rey and me over the comms this morning that we both have capacity for the Light and the Dark,” Finn mumbles, leaning forward and pressing his cheek against Poe’s neck. “ ‘You two have much anger and hate in you,’ he said. It’s our job to harness it and lock it away in a box in our minds or something. To live in the Light, and never give into Darkness.”

“Yeah?” Poe starts rubbing up and down Finn’s back in long, slow, soothing strokes.

“I—I don’t know. It was easier believing I was pure Light,” he says, wrapping his arms around Poe’s waist. “It was easier not knowing.”

“It doesn't mean that… you’re not good,” Poe says, sounding uncertain. Poe’s long fingers trail up the back of Finn’s neck to move through his short, curly hair. “It doesn’t mean… You are, Finn. You are.”

“Sometimes I miss the black-and-white of the First Order,” Finn says, with a sigh. “Things were either good or bad. Right or wrong. There were no shades of gray. Good things didn’t happen to bad people. And good people were never hurt when they were supposed to feel safe and loved and protected.”

Finn feels Poe take deep breaths, chest rising and falling against his own. The steady rise-fall-rise of Poe’s chest against his makes him feel a little better. Helps anchor his unsteady heartbeat.

“Sometimes I feel like this is one long nightmare, and then I’ll wake up and it’ll all just be gone. Everything will be back to normal,” Poe says, his breath rushing against Finn’s neck and earlobe in a warm tickle. “I know it’s not, that it won’t be. But sometimes that makes it easier to just… wake up and deal with the day. I’m not sure it’s the best way to cope.”

Finn doesn’t know why Poe’s telling him this now, but he holds himself very still in Poe’s arms. He doesn't want to upset the balance, to startle Poe into silence. He wants Poe to be able to trust him enough to tell him what’s inside his heart and mind. Wants Poe to let him help, as Poe helped him.

“I wish you’d let me help you,” Finn says.

“I wish I could. You don't know how badly I do.” Poe’s fingers burn on the back of Finn’s neck. His palm is a brand on his back, over the scar. “I don’t know what I’d do if I hurt you.”

“You could never hurt me.”

It feels wrong to say that, almost, but at the same time, right. It feels like both, in equal measure. It feels true.

“I could, without meaning to. Without even trying,” Poe says. “If you committed yourself to helping me… And then you got hurt because something brought back memories of your time with the Order, I would never be able to forgive myself.”

Finn pulls back until he’s holding Poe at arm’s length, hands loose around his upper arms. Poe’s eyes are still red, but he’s gotten some of his color back. One single curl of hair hangs over his forehead and Finn runs his thumb over it, tucking it back into place. Poe’s eyes close, and his lashes brush against Finn’s wrist.

“I could never blame you.” Finn stares at his eyelashes as they fan over his cheeks. “I would know it wasn’t your fault.”

“That’s not the point.” Poe turns his head and Finn ends up awkwardly caressing his cheek.

Finn cups his hand over Poe’s cheek and turns his head back, so that they’re face-to-face again. “I know. I know, and you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’ll always worry.” Poe opens his eyes and flashes Finn a shallow smirk. “You take care of yourself first. And then you can start to think about worrying about me, okay?”

Finn has a feeling Poe isn't going to budge on this point, so he concedes.

He drops his gaze. Leaves his hand curved against Poe’s cheek for a moment before slipping it away. “Okay.”

---

TBC

This is so good! I'd love to see it on AO3 to bookmark it!
I really love the way you portray their dynamics : Young!Kylo being defensive and zealous and desperate to prove (to himself) he belongs ; and as an adult confused by the events of TFA and having no one to talk to about it. I have a feeling Phasma as you wrote her here is the only person he can actually talk to as a peer, eve though she is only a silent sparring partner.

I really love your Phasma by the way, she has a keen eye and is entirely pragmatic. I also really love the way she speaks of the first order, the best villains are the ones that are convinced they are on the right track. Really you took the prompt and used the smut as an insight into the characters and the world itself. Insighful!smut is the best smut!

How does it feel, anon? How does it feel to have written the greatest fic ever?

prompter here: this is the cutest and i'm so happy to see those babies! daaaaw

Poor Ben. Hux is a master manipulator here. Excellent writing anon!

Okay, this is amazing. Not only is it intriguing and just the right amount of disturbing for a non-con fic, it's also wonderfully written – possibly the best writing I've seen on the tfa kink so far (although I must admit I'm quite new to this fandom and still looking, jftr). PLUS, dark!Poe is a revelation; I was 95% sure it couldn't be done in any convincing manner but you sure as hell did it. :D

Loving your story, please continue soon!

OP here, I am rolling in joy and anticipation~~

This is amazing.

I'm the OP, and I really love it! Please continue; I'm looking forward to it ;)

Not above anon, but I'd fallen in love with this prompt some time ago and started to write a bazillion words forit over here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6049092 (WIP)

I saw this prompt today and DAMN I alrady have almost 800 words written LOL

Eithe of them sneezing is adorable. Bless you for this ptompt.

A+ prompt, wow. Thirded!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 234 of 252

PROMPT POST #2 - CLOSED

This post is closed to new prompts!

Re: Finn/Poe Concussed Poe

Re: FILL | Meeting in the Middle [3/?]

fill: "Reconcile" [1a/2]

fill: "Reconcile" [1b/2]

Re: FILL: Hux/Kylo, awful kid!fic 2/2

FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 1/5, I think)

FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 2/5)

FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 3/5)

FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 4/5)

FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 5/5)

Re: FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 5/5)

Re: fill: "Reconcile" [1b/2]

[FILL] Poe is raped on the resistance base (Finn+Rey, Finn+Poe) 10/?

[FILL] Poe is raped on the resistance base (pre-Finn/Poe, Finn & Rey) 11/?

Re: FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 5/5)

Re: FILL: Hux/Kylo, awful kid!fic 2/2

Re: FILL: Gen AU, age chances - Jakku (part 2)

Re: Fill [3/?]

Re: fill: "Reconcile" [1b/2]

Re: Rey/Kylo Ren, Black Jewels AU

Re: FILL: Kylo/Phasma, working out (Part 5/5)

Re: [FILL] Finn/Kylo, one-night stand gone wrong

Re: Kylo/Hux- h/c, blinded

Possible fill

Re: Gen. or maybe dub-con Luke/Snoke - Luke captured by the First Order