Summary: The love of his life has been returned to Poe, or maybe it's just a stranger wearing his lover's face? Kylo Ren insists the boy Ben Solo is dead, and yet he claims to love him all the same. Poe Dameron doesn't want to care again, but he never stopped. Sometimes happily-ever-afters hurt more than they should, but after six years of waiting for Ben to return, Poe will take whatever imperfect happy ending he can get.
Notes: So here comes my cheerful little contribution to the wonderful event that is knightpilotweek on Tumblr, written to the theme of "compromise." Shout-out to all the writers, artists and to the mods who make this fest possible.
This is my first attempt to incorporate Bloodline into my darkpilot headcanon, so here we go with a Ben Solo who didn't turn till he was in his twenties. It's also my first clumsy attempt writing darkpilot, so here we go, forgive me, fandom.
Poe's POV is very subjective, and very much coloured by his own hurt and disappointment, which made this story a challenge to write. Hopefully this will indeed become the first part of a series, and I'll get to dig into Kylo's mind next time.
The Art of Falling
I'm falling into you…
"Ben!" Poe gasped when sharp teeth bit down where his shoulder met his neck.
"Kylo," it rumbled from beneath the mop of raven hair. His full lips were nipping along his collarbone now and it really had to be some kind of special torture that he would be kissing him everywhere but on the lips.
"Ben, please," he whined, head falling back against the wall he was pinned against, and Poe writhed, hips arching forward to rub his awakening need against the one matching his. He should not be feeling a thrill at having strong, gloved hands pinning his wrists to the wall. "Kiss me already." He should not be begging this man for kisses.
They shouldn't be here at all.
He finally lifted his head from Poe's chest, and Poe got onto his tiptoes in the hope he would finally be getting the kiss he yearned for.
His arms were rearranged, wrists together so they could be held by one hand, and the other cradled his jaw, forcing him to meet eyes as dark as his own. Poe could see his own need mirrored in them, too. "Kylo," he repeated firmly, "call me Kylo and I'll kiss you."
A leather-covered thumb rubbed over his bottom lip and Poe dipped his head to catch it. He whimpered when it moved out of his reach before he could suck it into his mouth, leaving him with just a faint aftertaste of leather on his lips. "Ben, I…"
He shouldn't have ended up like this.
But from the moment Ben Solo stepped into their base, it had all been there again as if the last six years had never happened. Poe had kept his distance at first, too hurt, too angry, too full of fear, and it had been easy while he was locked up, but once he was released Poe's days had turned torturous. Every time their eyes met in the mess hall he felt like he had spent six years living a half-life just waiting for him to return. When they passed another in the hallway it was as if he was drowning in Ben's scent.
If it had been desire alone, Poe could have withstood. These years had taught him patience.
Yet when Ben thought that Poe wasn't looking he would gaze at him with such wistfulness and pain, and such heart-wrenching longing that it made the breath catch in his throat. The first time Poe didn't look away in time and their eyes met, he had known that no matter what name he used, he had no more managed to burn away the love they shared than Poe had.
And so here Poe was, the end result of a rash reckless plan, he loves me, I won't let him deny me any longer, and some pointed flirting with a radar technician.
It had been the culmination of weeks of sharp-tongued arguments and agonizing almost-touches, and wanting fists to fly just to feel him one more time.
He had counted on weakening Ben's resolve for when he finally found the courage to extend an olive branch after all the wrongs they had done another. He had known he couldn't stand a repeat of the Finalizer, where Kylo Ren pretending they were strangers had shattered him as much as the mental violation.
He hadn't counted on barely making it to his quarters before he was grabbed and hauled inside, and pinned to his own door with the barely restrained violence of a man who had killed for less.
Poe hadn't counted on liking it, even as that trapped trapped trapped just like in that chair fear thrummed through him like poison. But Poe Dameron had come too far to let new fears hold him back from what he had always needed.
The fingers on his jaw tightened, pinched, and Poe whimpered in pain. He settled against Poe with a content growl, rock-hard cock jabbing him, bellies and chests pressed together, and Poe was still on his tiptoes so he wasn't even awkwardly on eye level with his shoulder and it wasn't fair that he still wouldn't kiss him.
Surprisingly soft lips nuzzled the shell of his ear. "Kylo. Ren. Call me by true name, or I'm leaving."
Poe frowned, but more than the denial of his release, it was the sheer rejection that hit him. Suddenly, it didn't matter anymore what violence the man in front of him was capable of. Poe, quite frankly, didn't care. "You can't make me wait for six years, come back and then walk out on me for good over a name!" he demanded before he could remember, let alone care, that angering him might be his last miscalculation.
He felt him go very still against him, and then suddenly he was soft and pliant where he had been unyielding before, and there were hands in Poe's hair and lips against his, a pained, choked whisper of, "Poe," before they finally, finally melted together in a kiss that had been far too many years in coming.
Poe didn't know how they managed to tear off a ridiculous number of layers without going mad, or how they stumbled to the bed without falling and making do with the floor. His world was reduced to hands and lips marking, claiming. A heart-stopping moment when Poe fumbled with a bottle of lube hidden in the back of his nightstand, something ugly taking over his returned lover's face that made it very easy to think of him as Kylo Ren, and only Kylo Ren. "I needed you too much sometimes, I would touch myself and pretend it was you," soothed away the ire till it lessened to a fire Poe wanted to burn in.
And burn he did.
It wasn't until they laid together in a sweaty tangle of limbs, a softening cock still buried deep in Poe's ass, that it sank in to Poe that he could call him by whatever name he wanted, but it was Kylo Ren he had made love with, not Ben.
It had been Kylo Ren's forceful hands pinning him to the bed, not the gentle touch with which Ben Solo had once worshipped his body. Kylo's dominating kisses, him pushing Poe face-down into the mattress and thrusting roughly into him when he was barely ready but oh so very willing. Keeping him on that brink between pleasure and pain until he was sent over the edge altogether, and too swept up in sensations to see what was right before his eyes.
Tears burned in Poe's eyes as he shifted and stared at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. He could feel the cum slowly leaking out of him. Once, he would have bit his lip and squirmed against Ben, feeling deliciously debauched, and if he played his cards right it wouldn't take long at all till Ben's tongue reduced him to whimpers all over again. Now, it just made him feel used.
"Does it matter?" Kylo Ren's voice sounded soft now, the growl was gone. He faked sympathy pretty well.
Poe exhaled. He waited until his lungs burned before sucking in air. "Are you reading my mind?"
Kylo remained silent for the longest time. He still had his arms wrapped around Poe's rapidly cooling, sweat-slicked chest. "No, but you are very predictable to someone who has broken you before."
Laughter bubbled up in Poe. He could find no humor within it, so he stifled it.
Kylo shifted against him, finally releasing Poe from the suffocating cage of his embrace only to cradle his cheek with a gentleness which made something deep within Poe shatter. He stifled that scream, too.
"I'm sorry," Kylo whispered. "I never lied to you. But you didn't listen." He lowered his gaze, and Poe believed the mournful sadness etched into his face. Sometimes it didn't take lies. Sometimes the truth hurt more.
He sat up, unable to bear his touch or closeness any longer, or his painfully familiar smell. With his back turned to the man in his bed Poe felt a little bit more in control again. He rubbed his hands over his face, dug the heels of his hands into his still-burning eyes. Told himself this man would never see him cry.
With Ben Solo, he had shared everything freely.
The mattress shifted, a rustle, then calloused fingertips were touching his back, just a hesitant butterfly touch before they withdrew. "Is it so terrible? That I still love you?"
The sob he had been fighting back all this time finally wrenched itself free. He wanted to glare at Kylo, but he didn't think he could stand to look into his lover's face and see only a stranger. "That wasn't love, what you did to me on the Finalizer."
Unfair, maybe, to throw that back in his face when they'd just started over. The kinder man Poe could be for everybody else said so. He couldn't even say he was surprised that Kylo made him discover sides to himself he had never known, and certainly didn't like.
The choked noise Kylo made didn't sound too far from a sob itself. "I wanted you back. On the Finalizer." Arms snaked around Poe's middle and he was pulled back against Kylo before he could protest, a face pressed against the back of his neck. "I wanted to scream at you. I wanted to rip off my mask and demand you acknowledge me. Us."
"Acknowledge that monster?" Poe muttered bitterly. Tears were still burning in his eyes. Kylo's chest was hot pressed against his back, but Poe didn't feel warmed.
"Yes," Kylo Ren hissed. It sounded eerily like when he wore his mask.
Poe licked his lips and tried to go back to that chrome-colored hell. It took barely any effort at all.
Would he have taken him back, with the blood from Jakku still fresh on his hands?
Poe couldn't say, and that was frightening enough.
Kylo pressed his cheek against Poe's shoulder. "I need you," he whispered. "I still don't know if the Light or Dark will win within me, and you're the only thing I'm not conflicted about."
Poe pressed his lips together to keep from making a noise. If Kylo had told him that instead of tearing his mind apart, he would have forgiven everything. Now? He shook his head slightla. "I wish you wouldn't say thing like that. That makes it harder."
"Good." He pressed a kiss to one of the many bitemarks he had peppered Poe's body with. "I know I should stay away from you. I ruin everything I touch. But I would rather see you destroyed at my hands than not have you at all."
That didn't sound very much like love to Poe, more like obsession. But maybe obsession was the closest thing to love the Dark Side left you.
Maybe, a nasty little voice whispered at the back of Poe's mind, obsession was also all that was left after six years of watching your lover walk away from you.
He sighed heavily. The tension seeped out of him, he even leant his weight against the muscular chest pressed to his back. Call it weakness, but there was only so much fight he had left. "You didn't say you love me," Poe said, "when we had sex. You only told me I'm yours."
Kylo's arms tightened around him. It didn't feel protective or comforting to Poe, more like he was staking a claim, and he had to struggle against the sensation of being caged that was welling up in him. "You are," Kylo said simply. He didn't even sound cruel, just matter-of-factly. "But I love you, too. These aren't mutually exclusive."
Funny. The first time around, it had been Poe who spoke of love first. Since Ben was younger, he had waited for him to initiate their first kiss, and tell him he was ready to make love, but it had been Poe who confessed first. "I always thought I would be the one doing the pursuing."
Kylo's lips felt incredibly soft against the angry dark marks he had left on his neck. "There's no need for that. You are what I need." He found matching hand-shaped bruises beginning to form on Poe's hips, and pressed down on them. "Before Jakku you would have had to hunt me down. But Dad made me realize that loving you all wasn't what made me weak. I didn't get weak until I pushed everyone away. It left a void for Snoke to fill, and then he pushed aside everything that was me, too."
He remembered. They would spend every leave together, but in these last months and years Ben became more distant with every visit. The last time, it had been like sleeping with a stranger who wore his lover's face.
It had been like it was now.
Maybe, Poe realized, a leaden feeling more sadness than dread settling in his belly, this wasn't all wrong like his heart insisted. It might be right. Maybe they were simply picking up at the same dysfunctional place where they had left off.
There was a certain bitter irony to that, too. He had been unable to move on, for feeling like he had never gotten the closure he needed. Even when the only news of Ben he got were those of massacres, he had to censor himself from saying yes, I have a boyfriend, and could only find the strength for it half the time.
He placed his hands over Kylo's. They interlaced their fingers. At the very least they could still play the part of lovers.
"I did kill him," Kylo whispered sweetly into his ear, "that weak boy you loved. You will never get him back. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't kill the part that loved you. That part of him wasn't weak."
"He wasn't weak," Poe responded, but there was no heat left. He simply didn't have the fight in him anymore. Was he truly a mere 32 years old? His heart was worn-out as if it'd known enough emotions for three times as many, and was simply squeezed dry. "If you're not him, then I don't know why you are even here."
Kylo remained silent, and Poe suspected that he didn't know the answer either.
Poe wanted Ben, the Ben who would have picked a star from the sky for him, not this man whose blood-stained hands left bruises in their wake.
But it felt nice being back in his arms. He didn't bring him the happiness and peace he had hoped for, he was just a pale shadow of the man Poe had once loved, but it still felt… nice. In the end it had been just six years, they hadn't changed that much. Kylo was still the same solid fortress of a man in whose arms the world melted away. His voice still had the same pitch, maybe a bit crueler and more jaded, but still as sweet as ever to his ears.
It was only the rest of the world that had changed around them.
Maybe they could pretend until it became real.
Or maybe, and Poe didn't very much like to acknowledge the possibility, but he had never been the sort to lie to himself, maybe blood-stained Kylo Ren was what he deserved, this lauded Resistance pilot who didn't dare keep count of the people dead at his hands. Too many. The answer was too many for both of them.
"You don't need to know why I'm here," Kylo whispered. He didn't sound quite so deceptively sweet anymore, but gentle, and quietly hopeful. "But I promise I'll stay this time, if you'll still have me."
Maybe, just maybe, Poe could heal him, if he tried hard enough. Maybe they could leave their injuries behind, and through this Poe would learn to shed his hurt, and Kylo's sharp edges would blunt. And once they didn't have to kill any longer they could build the life their teenage selves had dreamed of. It didn't have to be perfect, it just had to be…
Poe turned within the circle of his arms and kissed him.
It was a victory, but after all he had cried and bled for this, victory didn't feel very sweet at all to Poe Dameron.
The End
I hope you enjoyed this story and please go check out the other contributions to Knightpilotweek on Tumblr!