Chapter Text
Kylo Ren was good at lucid dreaming.
He'd heard stories that his grandfather's dreams had been premonitions. Kylo's weren't, but he preferred it that way. Vader had dreamed of tragedies he could not prevent, and to Kylo's thinking, knowing the future was useless if it gave you no advantage. Instead, he savored his own dreams where he could control every detail, living out any idea that occurred to him.
He had found that tea brewed from wormwood helped with the dreams, and although it was frightfully bitter, he drank it with relish. With enough practice, Kylo eventually no longer needed the tea and could control almost any dream if he wished it. Sometimes he did not and just let the dream play out as his subconscious directed. His sleep was more restful that way, and it was interesting to see what his brain would do when he relinquished conscious control. But when the nightmares came, or when he was frustrated with his still-limited power in the waking universe, Kylo took over and directed his dreams to the outcomes he desired.
There were legends of some beings, strong in the Force, who could travel in their sleep to commune with one another and visit the Dreamlands, a realm beyond the waking universe. This realm was not a planet that could be found on any map, but it was a world all the same with its own seas and land, a moon, and even an underworld where faceless dark creatures flew. Kylo had tried many times to reach the Dreamlands and failed. It was the one feat of dreaming he had never mastered, and so he told himself that realm was only a legend after all. If the dream realm were real, surely the Force would have opened it to him.
And yet sometimes, he revisited the legends, drank the bitter wormwood tea, and imagined what he would do if he found his way to the Dreamlands. Command the faceless flying things, perhaps, or conquer some dream city and take it for his own. Sometimes, when he finally calmed after a fit of rage over some frustration in the waking universe, Kylo would stare into the hollow eye sockets of his grandfather's helmet and imagine bringing the Dark to a city of golden sunset light, forcing the clouds that swathed it to rain themselves dry and fade into nothing. Driving the Light out of that place. Ruining everything beautiful there, too.
After Hux retrieved him and they began the flight back to Snoke so Kylo could finally complete his training, Kylo slept and tried once more to reach the Dreamlands. His body ached from the wounds he'd recently sustained, but more than that, his mind ached. What had happened had left him too baffled to be angry. Baffled by the girl called Rey who had risen from nowhere, crossing paths with Kylo's father briefly as she rose and Han Solo fell. It was not supposed to be this way: Kylo had destroyed the last thing holding him to the Light. He had killed his father and shown where his allegiance lay. And so, he should have won. The girl should have accepted his offer of training. . . or she should have died.
But she did neither of these things, and the universe still insisted on working against him. The Force still eluded his full command. Kylo hoped—no, insisted to himself that Snoke would show him his error and just how to bend the Force completely to his will. . . how to turn himself completely to the Dark.
Until then, he would search for the Dreamlands.
But when Kylo Ren slept, he found himself somewhere else. He knew he was dreaming and should have been able to control it, yet he could not will himself away. As ever, the Dreamlands evaded him. He stood instead in an interrogation chamber. He might have expected Rey to be there in the restraints before him; his subconscious could quite reasonably be dwelling upon the girl and Kylo's inability to best her in either mental or physical combat. Or he might have expected the restraints to be empty, reminding him of her escape. Yet neither was the case.
Instead, he dreamed that he was with Poe Dameron.
Why? Kylo wondered. Why would his subconscious present him with a captive Poe when he had already gotten exactly what he needed from the man, when Kylo hadn't let himself think about Poe in days? Was it because Poe had, like Rey, ultimately escaped?
Whatever the reason for his presence, the dream version of Poe was as troublesome as the real one. He writhed and struggled with his restraints, lips drawn back to reveal gritted teeth. His face was bruised and bleeding as it had been in real life from the Stormtroopers' treatment of him, and Poe's dark eyes were trying to glare a hole through Kylo's mask. Apparatus, Poe had called it. A creature, Rey had called him.
Kylo spread his right hand over the mask and removed it, dropping it to the ground with a resounding, metallic clank. Poe jumped, startled by the sound, then resumed his struggling. Kylo took a step toward him and studied him with a curious expression.
“What are you doing here?” Kylo asked in much the same tone he took in interrogations: quiet, as if he were only mildly interested in the response.
Poe gave a sarcastic bark of a laugh before he retorted, “You're the one who had me imprisoned.”
Kylo frowned in thought. He knew he was really only speaking to a part of himself, but also that this self was playing a role. He could no more get a true answer to his questions from his own psyche than he could from the real Poe Dameron before Kylo read his mind. But then there was the paradox: Kylo could also control the dream-Poe's responses if he wished. In a way, it was like reading Poe's mind: I can get anything I want from him, but I can't make him give it willingly.
And maybe that was why Kylo Ren dreamed of Poe Dameron: to work out the frustration building within himself. In the waking universe, obstacles kept throwing themselves in his path. But in his dreams, Kylo could dispense with any inhibitions, physical or mental, and awake with a clearer, more open mind to receive Snoke's training.
I can kill him, Kylo thought, gazing into the resentful, low-lidded eyes that glowered back at him. Poe's eyes had always had that look about them, like they were half-closed in a daydream. Kylo had noticed it when they first met so long ago, and he marveled at his subconscious's ability to recreate every detail about the man so perfectly.
Kylo moved to stand before Poe with two quick strides, and he lifted his hand—bare, he noticed, no gloves in this dream for some reason—to grasp the captive man's throat. Those eyes opened wide enough then, and Poe's lips parted to draw in a frightened breath. Yet he didn't express his fear or plead for mercy; a second later, Poe had already masked his apprehension to cast a smoldering look up at Kylo.
Infuriated, Kylo's already deep voice fell to a snarl as he told Poe, “I could make you cower if I wanted to. I could kill you a thousand different ways or torture you until you beg me to kill you.”
“You could have done that when you were awake!” Poe snapped, rasping from the pressure on his throat. “Why didn't you?”
Kylo's hand dropped, and he took a step back as Poe inhaled sharply. Kylo could see a livid print on the man's neck where his hand had been, but he was too preoccupied to pay it much attention.
Instead, Kylo was thinking, He's right. I could have killed him then. I should have. Then he could no longer hold me back.
“This is just a dream,” Poe taunted Kylo once he regained his breath. “Do what you will and get it over with! It won't make any difference.” In Poe's words, Kylo could hear his own inner self, full of doubt and uncertainty: No matter what I do here, it makes no difference out there in the waking universe. I've failed Grandfather by letting Poe escape, by letting the girl escape, by letting our weapon fall to pieces under my very feet. The only thing I succeeded in doing was to kill Han Solo, and that will mean nothing if I lose. I will have killed my father for nothing.
Poe dropped his eyes, then lifted them again to glare up at Kylo through his black lashes.
If I lose, I will have left him for nothing.
With a roar of frustration, Kylo lunged at Poe and grasped a handful of the pilot's dark, wavy hair to yank his head back.
“Shut up!” Kylo screamed at him, even though he knew he was only screaming at himself. He didn't care. If silencing the dream-Poe could muffle Kylo's own self-doubt for a while, Kylo would settle for that.
Poe winced when the back of his skull met the hard surface to which he was bound. When he opened his eyes again, tears had pooled along his lower eyelids, but Poe blinked them back.
“I want to kill you,” Kylo cried, curling Poe's dark hair around his fingers and pulling it tighter. “I want to make you hurt. I want to make things go wrong for you instead of for me, just once!”
Poe shouted right back at him, “This isn't things going wrong for me?!”
“You got out of it! You always get out of it.” Kylo brought his free hand up to grip the side of Poe's jaw, his pale fingers standing out in stark contrast against the darker skin. He didn't want to kill Poe, not really—not even in a dream where death was not real.
What Kylo wanted was to make Poe Dameron listen.
“Your life has always been perfect while everything fell apart around me.” Kylo was no longer yelling; his voice had dropped back to its normal register, but his words were as harsh as if he'd screamed them. “My parents sent me away to train with my uncle while you got to stay with your father. He actually loved you!”
Poe's startled gaze jerked over the pale face looming above his. “What are you talking about? Your parents loved you too. And you broke their hearts.”
Kylo leaned closer, until his nose almost touched Poe's, and hissed, “What about my heart? What about I wanted?”
“From where I am, it looks like you just take what you want,” observed Poe with what was almost a sneer. “And kill whatever you don't.”
“There are things even the Dark cannot take for itself,” Kylo muttered. “Love. Pride.”
“You had that.” Poe's eyelids lowered even further than normal until Kylo could barely see the glitter of his dark eyes under them. “You threw it all away. You chose to.”
Kylo's rage crested again, and he snarled, “I never had your luck and your pretty face! All your friends—you've always had everything!”
“I didn't have you.” This time, Kylo was the one to startled, and he drew back a few inches as Poe stared up at him, almost through him. “You threw me away, too. You're right, there are things no one can make theirs by force. I couldn't make you come back to me.”
This isn't the dream I wanted, Kylo thought. Even now, I'm failing.
“Ben,” said Poe Dameron.
Don't call me that, thought Kylo Ren, but he couldn't say it. All his control of the dream seemed to have slipped away as he looked down into the face of the handsome man still gripped in his hands.
“You just destroy things, don't you, when they get in your way?” Poe spoke slowly, as if he were tired. But of course he was, because Kylo's inner self was tired of everything. “And what you can't destroy, you try to escape. You dream some other reality where you have all those things you can't take.”
“I didn't want to be here,” Kylo told him. “I tried to dream something else.”
Poe's mouth twisted in a bitter half-smile. “So did I, Ben.”
This time, Kylo could say it: “Don't call me that.” The words came out in a whisper, and somehow, his head was bent over Poe's again. His fingers were aching from being clenched in Poe's hair, but he didn't want to let go. Not couldn't. He didn't want to.
“This is just a dream. You'll get over it. Just like you got over me,” Poe murmured. “I loved you, Ben.”
Kylo retained at least some control of the dream: he was able to wake himself when he couldn't stand to hear any more.
–
Poe Dameron jerked awake with a choked gasp, half-sitting up in bed before he realized where he was. He touched his temple and the side of his face. Poe found healing scabs there, but no fresh blood. No hand gripping his jaw. No fingers tangled in his hair.
Next to Poe's bunk, BB-8 whirred and gave a soft, inquisitive beep into the darkness. Poe's low cry must have startled him out of low-power mode.
“It's okay, buddy,” Poe mumbled sleepily as he lay back. He put a hand to his mouth, then let it fall again as he closed his eyes. “I was just dreaming.”
–
to be continued