A/N: tfa_kink de-anon to the prompt "angsty soulbond, they both reject it." I tried to remind myself I had no idea what I was doing, but the prompt wouldn't leave me alone. Please bear with me and this odd little midnight creation.
Content warning: nothing beyond canon-typical violence.
I Find No Solace (In You)
When she meets him, she hates him, and she relishes in how simple things are. If she feels an odd feeling of warmth and safety even amidst the terror of him tearing into her mind, and if that helps give her the strength to resist, she calls it a blessing from the Force. She is good and he is evil. She has no reason to think it would ever be more.
After he leaves the interrogation room, he spends half an hour emptying his stomach of its contents, and two more curled into a ball trying to stop shivering, and stop feeling like there are claws in his mind tearing ripping pulling leaving him weak helpless frightened. His fear spikes, for Kylo knows.
She dreams of him. She doesn't think much of it, wouldn't anybody have nightmares after being captured and tortured?
He feels her through the Force. She has taken permanent residence in the back of his mind, yet the awakened soulbond is completely unlike the apprentice bond that binds him to his Master, or once tied him to Luke. A new sun has been born at the edge of his solar system, it keeps trying to burn away the darkness he covets. He tells himself she has tainted him.
It is residue from the mind trick he used, as if he left an imprint of himself in her mind. There is never any doubt to her to whom this link leads, she will never forget the feel of Kylo Ren's mind. Even from half a galaxy away he chases away the loneliness in a way so profound and deep in her soul that it remains closed even to her new friends. Rey tells herself that it is a taint.
She is his light in the darkness. He doesn't want it.
His father looks at him with love as he dies. He has killed his own heart, but Rey's sun keeps shining bright.
Their lightsabers clash and yet something within her feels so happy and light and at peace, as if everything is going to be fine as he long as he remains at her side – is this what happens when Force users meet? Rey is weighed down by wounds she doesn't have. She won't realize until later that she is hurting where Chewbacca shot Kylo.
She catches herself searching for scars whenever she feels the phantom pain of his slashed face.
Luke explains it. There is nothing he can do. He is very sorry.
Rey doesn't know if she is sorry. She can feel Kylo's turmoil. No distance can keep them apart. She feels what Leia once vowed was there, a flicker of light. She feels his pain, his doubt, his fury, and that part of her that is his whispers she could heal him if only she tried.
The next time they meet the flicker of light she felt in him is almost snuffed out. It feels like oily darkness is seeping from his soul into hers. His teeth are very white as he flashes her a smile that is more of a snarl. "I've been training."
Rey's face is cast in blue as her lightsaber ignites. "So have I."
They are in the midst of a giant free-for-all battle, this is no place for soul-searching.
I could have saved him, she thinks later. Maybe she loves him, but she knows that is the soulbond talking. You can't love someone you don't know except for a monster.
The next time, they are alone. First they are fighting, then they are screaming. "How could you?" Rey cries, "he was your father!" He laughs in her face until he feels like crying. "I'm a monster," he tells her. For the first time, Rey is inclined to disagree. The bond burns until everything else is burned away. His hands are trembling as he cradles her face, right before he kisses her. Later, he tells her he is sorry. Rey doesn't ask which of his many crimes he regrets. She knows that he has no answer for her.
The next time, they are alone.
Just like the time after that.
Fate has cast them in the role of star-crossed lovers. Who are they to disagree?
When he is in battle, the Dark Side keeps slipping between his fingers. She has infected him, she keeps feeding the Light he has tried so hard to vanquish.
Rey tells herself he is different, that he is good deep down and tries his best. Finn turned his back on the Order, and Kylo will too, she just has to be patient. But the news of his battles and interrogations keep coming. He is her soulmate, fate isn't be that cruel… or is it?
Something's got to give.
It's a massacre by the time Rey arrives with the Resistance reinforcements. The bond draws her to Kylo Ren like a moth to the flame. He is cutting through their lines like a demon until Rey's lightsaber meets his, blue on red, and halts his path of destruction.
Their duel takes them away from the main battlefield just like that fateful day on Starkiller base. They have both grown used to the tender touches and glances of quiet concern. They are both angry. Neither of them holds back.
"Stop it already!" Rey yells when she can't take it anymore, "it's not you! You've got to stop before it destroys you!" She leaps back and sacrifices a precious opening to stab her lightsaber in the direction of the battlefield, a graveyard now. "You're better than that!" She doesn't know if she believes it anymore. His darkness is choking her.
He tears off the mask and what she sees makes the blood freeze in her veins. He wears the same pained and desperation expression as he did that day on the bridge of Starkiller Base. There's no way this is going to end well. "Maybe it's you who needs to change," he growls as their blades meet once. His crackles and sizzles angrily with a fury matched by him. "You act like a child! The Dark Side will always be more powerful."
"It ruins everything it touches!" It ruined you, she thinks. Look what it did to your family.
He pushes forward with no mercy. "It makes me strong!" There is an ugly rage to him with the next swipe, Rey shies away from it more than from his blade. "But you have been making me weak!"
And there it is, Rey thinks, this is the turmoil she has been feeling the past weeks. This is why he turned ever more vicious in his battles, while she trained more fervently than ever before. They have both been trying to prove that the bond hasn't changed them.
"You think letting yourself love is weak?" Rey says, hurt, then almost misses a step when she realizes this is the first time they have spoken of love. They haven't, because it isn't. It's fate. Calling it love implies you have a choice.
He laughs harshly, and lowers his lightsaber. "I'm not letting myself do anything. You're in my head. I can feel you all the time."
Rey feels cold all of a sudden. She nods. "It never stops," she echoes. "I never thought I'd miss being alone."
They stand there, awkwardly, while the battle rages on in the distance.
They know they have a choice to make, but they're scared. It will cost them, no matter what they choose.
In the end, it takes no words. They both feel the change in the soulbond. Ever since they gave in to it, the bond has pulsated between them strong and vibrant. It is fraying now as they withdraw from it and close themselves off from it as well as they can.
Rey finds herself surprised how well that works, as long as they work together – she doesn't miss the irony. Maybe they have more control than she realized. "I can still feel you," she cautions.
Kylo looks grim. "And you always will. Once soulmates meet the bond will never go quiet again."
Rey narrows her eyes, and resists reminding him that she was fine until he poked around in her head.
They go back to silently watching another until the noises of battle fade, and they are out of time.
"So," Rey says, cautiously taking a step towards him. She's still holding on to her lightsaber. Now that their tentative truce is over, she knows she can trust Kylo less than ever before. "That's it then?"
It feels so anticlimactic, almost disappointing after the anguish she put herself through for her tender feelings. No one is even dying in the snow this time.
Kylo softens for a moment, she can feel it in their muted soulbond, too, but then she is swamped by vile darkness, and he regards her coldly. "That's it. You won't be my weakness any longer. Next time we meet…"
She nods. "I'll stop you. I let you keep hurting people… my friends, because of this thing between us. But that's over." Like many in the Resistance she is at a loss what to actually do about Ren, nobody wants to be the one who robs General Organa of her only child. But he is her responsibility. Rey knows she will figure it out now that the soulbond is no longer filling her heart with false hope.
They walk in opposite directions, neither daring to stop or look back.
Back on the ship Rey is reunited with Finn and Poe, BB-8 chittering a mile a minute in droid speech she still barely understands. Their love almost manages to chase away the cold where the bond used to warm her from within.
Kylo notes that his new sun has dimmed. It is better that way.
The End