"We have to get out of here!"
"Working on it!" he yells back over his shoulder. He scans ahead frantically. They're being driven closer and closer to the town edge and the rough plascrete wall that surrounds the place is starting to loom. If they can't lose these guys they're going to get jammed up against it and he really doesn't like the odds of them being able to talk their way out of it at that point.
His flight boots weren't made for running and he curses under his breath. Exit, exit, where in the shifting flux is the exit from here? He scans the dark sky but the town lights are everywhere and the gate lights are lost in the general glare against the cloud layer.
Left? Away from the damned wall at least. They've turned a lot of corners so far.
He runs right past it, then curses, skidding to a halt. Rey nearly ploughs into his back.
"This way!" He grabs her arm and yanks, pelting down the side road. A curl of hair is sticking to her cheek, nearly in her mouth. He looks back over her shoulder but the bounty hounds chasing them haven't appeared yet. Maybe this will work.
"What? Poe!" Then she sees what he did and yelps with excitement, putting on another burst of speed from somewhere.
Somewhere along the way, somebody started using the far end of this dead end between the buildings as a dumping ground. Broken crates, garbage sacks, wooden slats, shuffled pieces of what might be furniture or might be chunks of vehicle, it's hard to tell and he doesn't really care. The important part is that most of it is shoved right up against the protective wall and if they can get to the top of the stack, they might be able to jump to safety.
The leading edge of their pursuers rounds the corner and the cry goes up.
Rey shoots her blaster backwards, the energy splashing harmlessly on the cobblestones ahead of the mob. The first ones flinch back but they keep coming. "But I don't want to hurt them," she says breathlessly. "It's not their fault."
"Don't have to explain it to me," he grunts, leaping up to grab his first handhold. "C'mon, climb."
He scrambles. The stack isn't all that stable but there's a lot of it so it's mostly working. He grabs her by the forearm and hauls her up with him. She shoots again, near sobbing with adrenaline.
"Go, Rey, go!"
She climbs, getting higher and he fumbles with his own blaster, thinking if he can just hold them back a little longer Rey can get out and… he has no idea what to do after that, but it has to be better than the situation that they're in right now and he'll definitely take that as a win. He aims for a wall above their heads and sparks and chips rain down, aims for another. It gives them a few precious seconds as nobody wants to be the first one to take a shot to the face no matter what the bounty is on foreigners. The three in the lead backpedal, trying to scatter to the sides in the little room they have and it jams up the ones behind them.
"Poe, it's too high!"
He snaps his head up and damn it all to the seven hells and back, she's right. She's gotten up nearly as far as she can, and it's still a good four meters to safety. Her hand stretches up, slapping against the wall with fingers wriggling as if that alone will bring the top down to her. She jumps, jumps again and he can hear the sob in her throat.
"Hold on, hold on, I'll lift you up!" He starts to turn back to her and something in the pile shifts, twisting. He loses his footing and suddenly he's half on his back, sliding down in a pile of wreckage. Shit. Shit.
Rey shoots a look of horror over her shoulder. Her eyes snap to the mob that's nearly on top of them, nearly on top of him.
"I can't!" she pleads. She spins back, turning to him instead of trying to get over that karking wall. She plants her feet as if she's trying to find stability. "I won't leave him!"
"Rey!" he yells. "Get out of here!"
"I don't know how!"
It happens right in front of him. There's something stupidly sharp jammed into his back, one hand caught underneath him with his blaster and Rey hasn't even got hers up anymore and they're going to be dragged down off this pile in about four seconds and beaten bloody at best and they'll be lucky to be still be alive afterwards to be hauled off to whatever passes for the local jail while somebody calls the First Order and tells them they've got two of the Resistance in body bags and what the kriff is she thinking—
—and suddenly somebody is standing behind her.
Black on black on yet more black, toweringly tall. Pale skin. Dark eyes. Wild hair and a mouth twisting in a snarl.
And he knows he's never seen that face before in his life, but he knows that body, knows that uniform, knows exactly who he has to be looking at even if he can't possibly be looking at what he thinks he's looking at because that is not even remotely possible and for a second that lasts the entire heat death of the universe, he's frozen between knowing and believing.
The man's right hand is hard against the back of Rey's neck, bare fingers digging into flesh as if she's a doll he's holding up.
No, that's not a man at all, that's Kylo Ren that's Kylo kriffing Ren standing there as if summoned from the depths of the deepest gravity well he's ever been ordered to fly through and he watches with incredibly weird clarity considering the alternate universe he's just cracked his skull open on as their heads move in eerie tandem to look back down the street.
Like they're both puppets on the same set of strings, they raise their left hands together.
The shockwave rips over his head.
He twists his head around painfully in time to see every single one of their pursuers drop, hitting the ground kicking. Most stop moving almost instantly but some still twitch, spasming on the stone. He turns back in time to see Rey start to drop her hand but Kylo doesn't. His outstretched fingers start to curl and Poe's blood freezes in his veins because he knows that gesture much too well, knows it all the way down to where his nightmares live.
"Don't hurt them!"
And he stops. The leader of the First Order half tilts his head, eyes narrowing but his hand actually stops moving. "Why?"
"Because it's not their fault. Not really. They've stopped, Ren." Her voice wobbles and then steadies. "We stopped them. Please don't do it."
"They were going to hurt you for the money. Kill you. One will sell you in pieces if it will bring more." The voice is the same and not the same and Poe shudders. There's remembered agony drifting underneath that deep calm and he decides then and there that he never wants to hear Kylo Ren actually angry. How can the man just stand there and sound like he does while discussing what sounds horribly like organ harvesting?
"Don't." Her voice is clear enough but her chest expands once, twice. "They're desperate. You don't need to hurt them for it."
Poe shifts, struggling up on one elbow. At the scraping sound two sets of eyes swivel down to stab him as if they had both actually forgotten he was there and the worst part is that for a moment her eyes are empty of anything approaching recognition. Her blaster lifts and suddenly he's staring up the dark barrel of it from ten feet away. He freezes into immobility. Over her shoulder, Ren is glaring down at him.
He's going to die.
Then Rey wrenches her arm aside. "No!"
Ren growls. "Then I'll carve it out of him." The black gloved hand stretches for him and Poe wonders what he ever did in his entire life to deserve being taken out by the strongest hallucination he's ever had.
Rey reaches out her hand and put it on Ren's. Lightly, so very lightly, pushing it down. "No. You won't do that either."
"Rey."
"He's my friend."
The rumble in the air isn't something he ever wants to hear again and he tells it to go live with his nightmares and make nice. "That's not enough."
"You know it is. Please."
Finally the hand lowers.
Then nothing moves. Poe afraid to even breathe as they stand frozen as if neither of them know what to do next.
Then slowly, carefully, his face bends down to hers as she half turns into his body and suddenly it's like he doesn't even exist anymore. He's never been more grateful for anything else in his life.
Long pale fingers start to hesitantly move on Rey's neck, curling around softly to stroke skin. She swallows and worse Ren dips his head and then his mouth is in her hair and his long, mad eyes close and Poe feels suddenly like he really needs to not be looking at this. But there's nowhere he can go because nobody has to tell him that it will absolutely be worth his life if he's stupid enough to bring himself to Ren's attention a second time in as many minutes.
"Thank you," Rey breathes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I panicked."
"I'm here."
She hiccups and then there is laughter, if soft and tinged with hysteria. "Yes, you are. I'm so stupid." She brings a hand up and angrily scrubs at her eye. "I didn't mean to call you. Then again, I never mean it, do I?"
There's something raw in her voice.
"Liar. You always mean it. Which is why I'm always here." His hand hesitates and then touches her cheek. Black gloved knuckles carefully move over her skin, tracing the edges.
"Why is it like this? Why is it always like this?"
"I don't know." And the absolute softness of it is strained and terrible and Poe is pretty sure he wouldn't want to know this even about his best friend, but definitely not about anybody who's responsible for so many deaths his robes ought to be dripping blood. "You need to stop needing me."
"I can't."
Breath expels and he doesn't know if its his or hers or just theirs. Finally Ren lifts his head and Poe finds himself staring into dark eyes locked to his above the crown of Rey's hair.
Shit.
He braces himself for it but nothing happens. Rey's blaster dangles in her hand, her face pressed into the black hollow of his throat. His hand is locked on the back of her head, holding her against him.
The moments tick by and inanely all Poe can think as he lies sprawled on his back is that the Supreme Leader of the First Order doesn't look anywhere near old enough to have done even half of what he's done.
Then the man takes a step back, his fingers unlock and he's gone.
Rey scrubs her face and fumbles her blaster back into its holster. The groans behind him suddenly start up again as if a recording just switched back on and he realizes belatedly that they're not actually out of trouble yet, not by a long shot.
"Can I move now?" he asks as he starts to move. "Because I think I need to start moving now because we really, really need to get out of here at this point. Like, right now or even sooner."
"Poe?"
"Later. Way, way later, Rey, or we might still end up on tonight's menu. I promise you can explain it all to me much later after I drink something that guarantees I won't remember anything about it."
She half slides down the pile of rusted machinery and he reaches out and lets her grab his arm and together they're on their feet and escaping.
