For trope_bingo
Jul. 18th, 2017 04:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofleithianTitle: Freefall
Summary: In a galaxy where Finn never rescued Poe, Poe ends up doing the unthinkable.
Prompt: Free Space -- Darkfic
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Notes: Call this a personal challenge to myself to make something involving Poe and Kylo...well, dark. I don't know if this is dark enough, but hopefully it works.
Also special thanks to delisalicious on Tumblr for helping me.
Rest now, Poe. I'll have more questions for you later.
That's the last thing that Poe hears before he slips into a deep sleep. His dreams are confusing things, terrible things, monsters with multiple tentacles stretching out and snatching Ben far away from him. No matter how he reaches, he can't reach Ben. No matter how he shoots at the monster, it won't let Ben go. He can only watch, helpless, as the monster drags Ben into the darkness, Ben continuing to scream for help.
Poe jolts awake, and he's on the rack again, in this dark room. There's no one here to rescue him. No one who can save him. The Resistance isn't coming back for him. He knew all along when he signed up for this mission that the Resistance wasn't coming back for him, but it doesn't hurt any less, the idea of being stranded here.
Poe lies down on the rack, staring up at the ceiling in that moment as if he can will away his surroundings just by focusing on the ceiling.
***
Ben -- Poe refuses to call him Kylo Ren -- enters the cell in that moment, and the moment he unmasks, Poe is still struck by his beauty, by the way his curly dark hair falls around his face, by how piercing his eyes, too expressive brown eyes, are. He's still beautiful after six years, and Poe's already longing for him.
No. No, he can't. He can't want this. This...
Is your husband, a part of him says. Your torturer and your husband. Right now, Poe can barely wrap his head around it.
"I said I had questions for you," says Ben, and his voice sounds as Poe remembers it. Nothing like that muffled imitation-Vader voice that Poe encountered on Jakku. "Actually, I have an explanation."
"What's there to explain?" Poe says, trying to sound calm, even confident. And yet his head is a medley of questions. How could you? How could you betray me like this, betray us?
"Your thoughts betray you," Ben says, and in that moment, Poe has this sickening feeling that there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
There is silence. Then Ben says, "The Supreme Leader forced me to acknowledge my own anger, my own pain. He showed me that I didn't belong in the Jedi Order, and I never did."
"Ben -- "
"And he showed me the truth about his mission. The only reason we're considered evil is that the Resistance deems us so, and they're self-righteous, vain children wanting to relive their glory days."
"I -- I don't believe this." Poe can still remember how the village was slaughtered. His own voice, pleading with Kylo Ren and the stormtroopers to stop. The First Order would have done anything to extinguish their enemies, and yet Poe thought that he could at least spare one, because they were innocents...
"Perhaps not you. You're a soldier to the last. But you're outnumbered, Dameron. You're surrounded by murderers, traitors, thieves, scoundrels, narcissists..."
"Did Snoke tell you that?" Poe says. "You're even sounding like him."
"I sought truth and I got it, Dameron. Does that answer your question?"
No, Poe thinks. And he doesn't think it ever will.
***
They bomb Jakku later in the day. Poe knows that something's wrong when they lead him up towards the bridge of the Finalizer still in cuffs (that way, he can't escape). They're poised over Jakku, and one of the First Order gunners says, "Your orders, sir?"
General Hux is there, and there's something in him that Poe doesn't like. He looks, in that moment, fanatical, crazed with power, almost as if he is eager for the destruction to come. "Destroy the entire planet," he says. "Wipe this wasteland from the face of the galaxy!"
"What?" Poe struggles against the restraints; he has to stop this, he has to stop this before Hux destroys the whole planet. "No!"
He turns towards General Hux. "You can't do this!"
"It's harboring a fugitive," Hux says. "By association, all harboring him are guilty. Just as the villagers on Tuanul were."
Poe looks up at Ben, and he swears that he could actually cry from the silent pleading he's doing. Please, Ben, this isn't you. Stop this. At least convince Hux to spare one...
But Ben does nothing.
Poe watches even as the Finalizer rains fire on the landscape -- from up above, it looks like miniature fires are raining on the planet. Pure white. Poe isn't Force sensitive, but he knows that innocent residents are being slaughtered by the moment. He doesn't close his eyes even as the destruction continues.
And Kylo Ren watches the destruction, and Poe wonders what has become of his husband.
***
When Poe's shown to his room later on, it's Kylo Ren's quarters. It's a dark chamber, and Poe wouldn't be surprised if every part of that room were painted black. And on the table...
Is that Vader's helmet? Or is Poe hallucinating? It's hard to see in that dark room, after all.
It's twisted, warped, badly burned, but it is Vader's helmet, and Poe swears that it's glaring at him in the darkness -- or are his eyes playing tricks on him?
He steps towards the bed. In the darkness, Kylo Ren's mask shines before he removes it. And in the darkness, he seems almost vulnerable, almost exposed. It's a face he wouldn't show to just anyone, after all.
"So I'm sharing quarters with you?" Poe says.
"Yes. You're not my prisoner, after all. Not any longer."
"You're kidding me."
"You're my companion. My husband. You belong to me, and in time, you will fight alongside me."
Poe can't help but shiver. Ben runs a thumb over Poe's lips, over the upper one first, then the lower one. Poe can't help but moan at the touches.
"You've been so lonely, haven't you?" Ben says. "You crossed...planets to find me. You would have crossed galaxies if you had to."
And he sounds almost moved even as he does say it.
"I'd do anything for you, Ben." Poe places a hand on his chest to feel the beating heart beneath.
"I know." But you can't save me, is the unspoken message.
Poe's heart aches and his mind is a mess of thoughts even as he falls asleep. It's unsettling, having his torturer share his bed.
Or rather, he's sharing the torturer's bed. He's sharing the bed and the quarters of a man who was brainwashed to join Snoke (it has to be the case. After all, Snoke's already told a whole variety of lies to Ben, hasn't he?), the monster's in his bed, and he looks surprisingly peaceful and even innocent. Angelic.
Poe murmurs softly to him, "I'll always love you, angel" before he falls asleep himself, his dreams a mixture of nightmares about being unable to save Ben, watching him be dragged into the darkness all the while.
***
From there, Poe takes on the task of saving Kylo Ren -- saving Ben. It's not going to be an easy task, but he has to try. It's one of those things that really is just a given. Tekka did say, after all, that the First Order took Ben prisoner, and from a certain point of view (as much as Poe despises that phrase), it's the truth. Ben is a prisoner in his own way. Snoke did this to him.
And Poe is going to do whatever it takes to save his husband.
Right now, the First Order is still on the hunt for BB-8. (Kylo's promised him that he will return the droid unharmed) A girl, a familiar-sounding girl (unless Poe is seeing ghosts again?) helped BB-8. (Poe makes a note to thank her when he sees her)
In the meantime, Kylo seems to be fighting his own battle in terms of trying to make Poe see things his way. Poe can't. He really can't.
It just can't work that way.
***
The first time in a while that Kylo actually tries to make their connection mutual, when he tries to show Poe the Dark Side, Poe panics and flinches away. Just the presence of Kylo in his mind, and he's transported back to the torture room. He's all but tumbling back there, back into the torture chair, with Kylo's hand slamming him against the chair, and his groan.
He's tumbling back there, and he flinches away.
he's in my head dear stars he's in my head again need to get him out need to get him out out out...
and he's back in the present, on the Finalizer, just in a different room than the one he was tortured in. He's on the Finalizer, he's not in the torture room, and Kylo's looking at him with a flash of guilt in his eyes. Poe remembers what Kylo said about the interrogations giving him no pleasure. In his husband's mind, he can hear his thoughts. What have I done?
"I was too hasty," Kylo says, "Forgive me."
Poe doesn't know if he'll be able to.
***
It's later on that the Hosnian system is destroyed. Poe doesn't feel it the same way that his husband feels the explosion, but he can feel it nonetheless over their link.
His head feels as if it's going to split open. And he can hear the echoes of screaming all the while. The screaming that howls through his brain, rending it open. He can feel his husband's distress, his pain as well, and it feels doubled, the pain, the echoes of impressions, and Poe feels a sort of terror along with it.
The Republic is gone.
So many people there, so many innocents, wiped out, and Kylo's done nothing. He's just stood by.
Poe collapses to the floor. He's vaguely aware of the medics carrying him away even as the world seems to fade to white.
***
Kylo visits him before he heads out to Takodana. Poe can feel his presence in his mind as he checks for injury, and it doesn't feel like the overwhelming pain that Poe felt even as Kylo sifted through his memories, all but tore down his defenses as if they were made of tissue. It's gentler, sweeter, and Poe swears he can feel the Dark Side inside the man he loves.
And yet there's light in him as well. Bright, pure light. Poe can feel it in the love that he still has, the love that he still shares. Light and Dark, a contradictory balance in his beloved. His beloved, standing above him like an angel. A twisted fallen angel, but an angel nonetheless.
Kylo sifts through his mind, and, satisfied at what he finds (no lingering damage), he wirhdraws, balances his forehead against Poe's.
Poe finds that as much as he hates this, every part of it, he also craves it. Craves Kylo's touch, his presence in his head. He can't let go. He's good as addicted.
"You missed this, didn't you?" Kylo says softly. "Reach out to me."
Give into your hunger, Kylo says without speaking.
Poe gives in. He's been so hungry for Kylo, for too long, and Kylo is so close that Poe wants to hold him.
He doesn't reach into Kylo's mind, but he kisses him, It's a hard, aggressive kiss, hungry, and he runs his hands through Kylo's hair, drawing him in close. His body melts into the kiss, and Kylo gets hungrier. Eventually, they break the kiss and Poe's body is screaming for more.
"Give into me completely, Poe." Kylo says. "Give in to me. Give into me and I will give you pleasure beyond compare."
"Anything?" Poe says. He shouldn't, but he misses this mañ so much.
"Anything."
***
They bring back a girl from Takodana. The moment Kylo brings her onto the ship, Poe swears that he's seen a ghost. She had Alora Danes-Skywalker's hair, Alora Danes-Skywalker's stature. Her eyes are closed, but it wouldn't be a stretch to think they were Alora's eyes as well.
She looks too much like Alora. Could they be --
If she isn't, then it seems that Poe has come into contact with a ghost or a clone.
She resists Kylo's probe, and Poe has to admit he's pretty impressed. And yet there's something in himself that resents her -- what did she have that he didn't in the torture room, when Kylo, his own husband, was hurting him? He hates Kylo, hates himself as well.
You failed the Resistance. And now you're living on the Finalizer as Kylo Ren's pampered prisoner just because you think you can reach him...
It's long after Kylo comes back from his meeting with Snoke that Poe confronts him for it. "You got inside my head."
"I did do that." No gloating, nothing like that.
"Do you know how badly that hurt, knowing that my own husband did this? My own husband, invading my mind. My own husband. And I still love you even after what you did..."
His voice cracks. Kylo has this look in his eyes of pain that fades as quickly as it comes.
"I love you." Poe says. "Stars help me, I love you." For you, I'd go to the ends of the galaxy and back just because I love you so much. "Even after what you did to me, I love you. And you don't even know what that hell is like, loving you."
He swears that he sees a stab of pain in Kylo's eyes.
"I love you," Poe says again. "I love you."
A hand laces through Poe's hair. "I know you do."
Kylo places his forehead against Poe's. It's the closest thing that the man he loves comes to saying "I love you" back.
"Come with me," Kylo says. "You don't have to serve them any longer." Kylo says "them" with a certain amount of venom, and Poe thinks of you just changed the sides, it could apply to Kylo as well.
"You could leave the First Order."
"I've gone too far for that."
"Then..." And Poe can't believe he's saying this. "Let me join you. Not the First Order."
For him. For him, only to save him.
"Because I'd go to the ends of the galaxy for you if I could." And all against a part of Poe screaming that this was wrong, that he can't do this, Poe says those words.
He won't be joining the First Order. He'll be trying to save Kylo, the best way he knows how. He couldn't save him before. But he can save him now.
Kylo's face...for a moment, Poe swears a smile dances over it. And, "I know you would."
***
It's on the battlefield that Poe faces off against his squadmates for the first time. He's never expected he would do this, but Starkiller Base is under attack, and Poe, along with others, is sent out to engage the X-wings. Every former teammate that Poe shoots down already makes him feel sick. Every time he fires, he feels like a murderer. A legitimate one, and a traitor at that.
It's for Kylo, he tells himself. All of it's for Kylo.
It doesn't make him feel any less ill.
When Starkiller Base fires, Poe can only watch as the red lasers streak across the sky like comets again. It doesn't take a Force Sensitive to know that the Ileneum system is gone. And he feels his husband's shock -- and another life being snuffed out.
Later, Kylo returns in time, with the scavenger once more. Her escape attempt was a good one, but it didn't stop her from ultimately being knocked out just with one Force push. And Poe all but runs towards his husband, shaking.
"I killed them," Poe says.
"I know. And you did the right thing, Poe. They would have killed you." Kylo reaches up to touch Poe's face.
"Yes, but...I killed them." His voice cracks, and he doesn't cry, but he knows he's close. "My own teammates..."
"It's always hard the first time you do it."
"Because it should be," Poe says. "Because it's wrong."
"Your enemies aren't going to show you mercy."
"I suppose not." The Resistance will never forgive him. Poe can't say that he can blame them. "But it's still wrong."
"You'll understand."
"I don't think I will." Poe wets his lips. "But I'll stay, because..." I want to save you. "I love you."
"I know you do." Kylo says.
Even going back to the quarters that he and Kylo share, Poe doesn't know how he'll endure the rest of the days. But he will do whatever it takes to save Kylo, no matter what.
Summary: In a galaxy where Finn never rescued Poe, Poe ends up doing the unthinkable.
Prompt: Free Space -- Darkfic
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Notes: Call this a personal challenge to myself to make something involving Poe and Kylo...well, dark. I don't know if this is dark enough, but hopefully it works.
Also special thanks to delisalicious on Tumblr for helping me.
Rest now, Poe. I'll have more questions for you later.
That's the last thing that Poe hears before he slips into a deep sleep. His dreams are confusing things, terrible things, monsters with multiple tentacles stretching out and snatching Ben far away from him. No matter how he reaches, he can't reach Ben. No matter how he shoots at the monster, it won't let Ben go. He can only watch, helpless, as the monster drags Ben into the darkness, Ben continuing to scream for help.
Poe jolts awake, and he's on the rack again, in this dark room. There's no one here to rescue him. No one who can save him. The Resistance isn't coming back for him. He knew all along when he signed up for this mission that the Resistance wasn't coming back for him, but it doesn't hurt any less, the idea of being stranded here.
Poe lies down on the rack, staring up at the ceiling in that moment as if he can will away his surroundings just by focusing on the ceiling.
***
Ben -- Poe refuses to call him Kylo Ren -- enters the cell in that moment, and the moment he unmasks, Poe is still struck by his beauty, by the way his curly dark hair falls around his face, by how piercing his eyes, too expressive brown eyes, are. He's still beautiful after six years, and Poe's already longing for him.
No. No, he can't. He can't want this. This...
Is your husband, a part of him says. Your torturer and your husband. Right now, Poe can barely wrap his head around it.
"I said I had questions for you," says Ben, and his voice sounds as Poe remembers it. Nothing like that muffled imitation-Vader voice that Poe encountered on Jakku. "Actually, I have an explanation."
"What's there to explain?" Poe says, trying to sound calm, even confident. And yet his head is a medley of questions. How could you? How could you betray me like this, betray us?
"Your thoughts betray you," Ben says, and in that moment, Poe has this sickening feeling that there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
There is silence. Then Ben says, "The Supreme Leader forced me to acknowledge my own anger, my own pain. He showed me that I didn't belong in the Jedi Order, and I never did."
"Ben -- "
"And he showed me the truth about his mission. The only reason we're considered evil is that the Resistance deems us so, and they're self-righteous, vain children wanting to relive their glory days."
"I -- I don't believe this." Poe can still remember how the village was slaughtered. His own voice, pleading with Kylo Ren and the stormtroopers to stop. The First Order would have done anything to extinguish their enemies, and yet Poe thought that he could at least spare one, because they were innocents...
"Perhaps not you. You're a soldier to the last. But you're outnumbered, Dameron. You're surrounded by murderers, traitors, thieves, scoundrels, narcissists..."
"Did Snoke tell you that?" Poe says. "You're even sounding like him."
"I sought truth and I got it, Dameron. Does that answer your question?"
No, Poe thinks. And he doesn't think it ever will.
***
They bomb Jakku later in the day. Poe knows that something's wrong when they lead him up towards the bridge of the Finalizer still in cuffs (that way, he can't escape). They're poised over Jakku, and one of the First Order gunners says, "Your orders, sir?"
General Hux is there, and there's something in him that Poe doesn't like. He looks, in that moment, fanatical, crazed with power, almost as if he is eager for the destruction to come. "Destroy the entire planet," he says. "Wipe this wasteland from the face of the galaxy!"
"What?" Poe struggles against the restraints; he has to stop this, he has to stop this before Hux destroys the whole planet. "No!"
He turns towards General Hux. "You can't do this!"
"It's harboring a fugitive," Hux says. "By association, all harboring him are guilty. Just as the villagers on Tuanul were."
Poe looks up at Ben, and he swears that he could actually cry from the silent pleading he's doing. Please, Ben, this isn't you. Stop this. At least convince Hux to spare one...
But Ben does nothing.
Poe watches even as the Finalizer rains fire on the landscape -- from up above, it looks like miniature fires are raining on the planet. Pure white. Poe isn't Force sensitive, but he knows that innocent residents are being slaughtered by the moment. He doesn't close his eyes even as the destruction continues.
And Kylo Ren watches the destruction, and Poe wonders what has become of his husband.
***
When Poe's shown to his room later on, it's Kylo Ren's quarters. It's a dark chamber, and Poe wouldn't be surprised if every part of that room were painted black. And on the table...
Is that Vader's helmet? Or is Poe hallucinating? It's hard to see in that dark room, after all.
It's twisted, warped, badly burned, but it is Vader's helmet, and Poe swears that it's glaring at him in the darkness -- or are his eyes playing tricks on him?
He steps towards the bed. In the darkness, Kylo Ren's mask shines before he removes it. And in the darkness, he seems almost vulnerable, almost exposed. It's a face he wouldn't show to just anyone, after all.
"So I'm sharing quarters with you?" Poe says.
"Yes. You're not my prisoner, after all. Not any longer."
"You're kidding me."
"You're my companion. My husband. You belong to me, and in time, you will fight alongside me."
Poe can't help but shiver. Ben runs a thumb over Poe's lips, over the upper one first, then the lower one. Poe can't help but moan at the touches.
"You've been so lonely, haven't you?" Ben says. "You crossed...planets to find me. You would have crossed galaxies if you had to."
And he sounds almost moved even as he does say it.
"I'd do anything for you, Ben." Poe places a hand on his chest to feel the beating heart beneath.
"I know." But you can't save me, is the unspoken message.
Poe's heart aches and his mind is a mess of thoughts even as he falls asleep. It's unsettling, having his torturer share his bed.
Or rather, he's sharing the torturer's bed. He's sharing the bed and the quarters of a man who was brainwashed to join Snoke (it has to be the case. After all, Snoke's already told a whole variety of lies to Ben, hasn't he?), the monster's in his bed, and he looks surprisingly peaceful and even innocent. Angelic.
Poe murmurs softly to him, "I'll always love you, angel" before he falls asleep himself, his dreams a mixture of nightmares about being unable to save Ben, watching him be dragged into the darkness all the while.
***
From there, Poe takes on the task of saving Kylo Ren -- saving Ben. It's not going to be an easy task, but he has to try. It's one of those things that really is just a given. Tekka did say, after all, that the First Order took Ben prisoner, and from a certain point of view (as much as Poe despises that phrase), it's the truth. Ben is a prisoner in his own way. Snoke did this to him.
And Poe is going to do whatever it takes to save his husband.
Right now, the First Order is still on the hunt for BB-8. (Kylo's promised him that he will return the droid unharmed) A girl, a familiar-sounding girl (unless Poe is seeing ghosts again?) helped BB-8. (Poe makes a note to thank her when he sees her)
In the meantime, Kylo seems to be fighting his own battle in terms of trying to make Poe see things his way. Poe can't. He really can't.
It just can't work that way.
***
The first time in a while that Kylo actually tries to make their connection mutual, when he tries to show Poe the Dark Side, Poe panics and flinches away. Just the presence of Kylo in his mind, and he's transported back to the torture room. He's all but tumbling back there, back into the torture chair, with Kylo's hand slamming him against the chair, and his groan.
He's tumbling back there, and he flinches away.
he's in my head dear stars he's in my head again need to get him out need to get him out out out...
and he's back in the present, on the Finalizer, just in a different room than the one he was tortured in. He's on the Finalizer, he's not in the torture room, and Kylo's looking at him with a flash of guilt in his eyes. Poe remembers what Kylo said about the interrogations giving him no pleasure. In his husband's mind, he can hear his thoughts. What have I done?
"I was too hasty," Kylo says, "Forgive me."
Poe doesn't know if he'll be able to.
***
It's later on that the Hosnian system is destroyed. Poe doesn't feel it the same way that his husband feels the explosion, but he can feel it nonetheless over their link.
His head feels as if it's going to split open. And he can hear the echoes of screaming all the while. The screaming that howls through his brain, rending it open. He can feel his husband's distress, his pain as well, and it feels doubled, the pain, the echoes of impressions, and Poe feels a sort of terror along with it.
The Republic is gone.
So many people there, so many innocents, wiped out, and Kylo's done nothing. He's just stood by.
Poe collapses to the floor. He's vaguely aware of the medics carrying him away even as the world seems to fade to white.
***
Kylo visits him before he heads out to Takodana. Poe can feel his presence in his mind as he checks for injury, and it doesn't feel like the overwhelming pain that Poe felt even as Kylo sifted through his memories, all but tore down his defenses as if they were made of tissue. It's gentler, sweeter, and Poe swears he can feel the Dark Side inside the man he loves.
And yet there's light in him as well. Bright, pure light. Poe can feel it in the love that he still has, the love that he still shares. Light and Dark, a contradictory balance in his beloved. His beloved, standing above him like an angel. A twisted fallen angel, but an angel nonetheless.
Kylo sifts through his mind, and, satisfied at what he finds (no lingering damage), he wirhdraws, balances his forehead against Poe's.
Poe finds that as much as he hates this, every part of it, he also craves it. Craves Kylo's touch, his presence in his head. He can't let go. He's good as addicted.
"You missed this, didn't you?" Kylo says softly. "Reach out to me."
Give into your hunger, Kylo says without speaking.
Poe gives in. He's been so hungry for Kylo, for too long, and Kylo is so close that Poe wants to hold him.
He doesn't reach into Kylo's mind, but he kisses him, It's a hard, aggressive kiss, hungry, and he runs his hands through Kylo's hair, drawing him in close. His body melts into the kiss, and Kylo gets hungrier. Eventually, they break the kiss and Poe's body is screaming for more.
"Give into me completely, Poe." Kylo says. "Give in to me. Give into me and I will give you pleasure beyond compare."
"Anything?" Poe says. He shouldn't, but he misses this mañ so much.
"Anything."
***
They bring back a girl from Takodana. The moment Kylo brings her onto the ship, Poe swears that he's seen a ghost. She had Alora Danes-Skywalker's hair, Alora Danes-Skywalker's stature. Her eyes are closed, but it wouldn't be a stretch to think they were Alora's eyes as well.
She looks too much like Alora. Could they be --
If she isn't, then it seems that Poe has come into contact with a ghost or a clone.
She resists Kylo's probe, and Poe has to admit he's pretty impressed. And yet there's something in himself that resents her -- what did she have that he didn't in the torture room, when Kylo, his own husband, was hurting him? He hates Kylo, hates himself as well.
You failed the Resistance. And now you're living on the Finalizer as Kylo Ren's pampered prisoner just because you think you can reach him...
It's long after Kylo comes back from his meeting with Snoke that Poe confronts him for it. "You got inside my head."
"I did do that." No gloating, nothing like that.
"Do you know how badly that hurt, knowing that my own husband did this? My own husband, invading my mind. My own husband. And I still love you even after what you did..."
His voice cracks. Kylo has this look in his eyes of pain that fades as quickly as it comes.
"I love you." Poe says. "Stars help me, I love you." For you, I'd go to the ends of the galaxy and back just because I love you so much. "Even after what you did to me, I love you. And you don't even know what that hell is like, loving you."
He swears that he sees a stab of pain in Kylo's eyes.
"I love you," Poe says again. "I love you."
A hand laces through Poe's hair. "I know you do."
Kylo places his forehead against Poe's. It's the closest thing that the man he loves comes to saying "I love you" back.
"Come with me," Kylo says. "You don't have to serve them any longer." Kylo says "them" with a certain amount of venom, and Poe thinks of you just changed the sides, it could apply to Kylo as well.
"You could leave the First Order."
"I've gone too far for that."
"Then..." And Poe can't believe he's saying this. "Let me join you. Not the First Order."
For him. For him, only to save him.
"Because I'd go to the ends of the galaxy for you if I could." And all against a part of Poe screaming that this was wrong, that he can't do this, Poe says those words.
He won't be joining the First Order. He'll be trying to save Kylo, the best way he knows how. He couldn't save him before. But he can save him now.
Kylo's face...for a moment, Poe swears a smile dances over it. And, "I know you would."
***
It's on the battlefield that Poe faces off against his squadmates for the first time. He's never expected he would do this, but Starkiller Base is under attack, and Poe, along with others, is sent out to engage the X-wings. Every former teammate that Poe shoots down already makes him feel sick. Every time he fires, he feels like a murderer. A legitimate one, and a traitor at that.
It's for Kylo, he tells himself. All of it's for Kylo.
It doesn't make him feel any less ill.
When Starkiller Base fires, Poe can only watch as the red lasers streak across the sky like comets again. It doesn't take a Force Sensitive to know that the Ileneum system is gone. And he feels his husband's shock -- and another life being snuffed out.
Later, Kylo returns in time, with the scavenger once more. Her escape attempt was a good one, but it didn't stop her from ultimately being knocked out just with one Force push. And Poe all but runs towards his husband, shaking.
"I killed them," Poe says.
"I know. And you did the right thing, Poe. They would have killed you." Kylo reaches up to touch Poe's face.
"Yes, but...I killed them." His voice cracks, and he doesn't cry, but he knows he's close. "My own teammates..."
"It's always hard the first time you do it."
"Because it should be," Poe says. "Because it's wrong."
"Your enemies aren't going to show you mercy."
"I suppose not." The Resistance will never forgive him. Poe can't say that he can blame them. "But it's still wrong."
"You'll understand."
"I don't think I will." Poe wets his lips. "But I'll stay, because..." I want to save you. "I love you."
"I know you do." Kylo says.
Even going back to the quarters that he and Kylo share, Poe doesn't know how he'll endure the rest of the days. But he will do whatever it takes to save Kylo, no matter what.
