Work Text:
The first night she sneaks out of Unkar Plutt’s prison— home —it’s November second. Halloween has just recently come to an end, and the moon is shining down on their town, casting shadows of increasing blackness as she walks past townsfolk still drunk on the fear and terror of the holiday. They barely notice her as she strides past them, wiping the remnants of the deadly nightshade she’d used to keep her guardian down on her tattered, brown dress in the hopes that no one can tell what’s on her hands.
No one knows who she is, anyway, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t notice that someone is now walking about the town who doesn’t ordinarily belong.
She can’t worry about it too much, though, she’s on a mission. The Halloween she’s just experienced—from her window, but still—was one of the greatest nights of her life until Unkar had managed to pull her away from it again, and she hopes beyond anything else that she can replicate that joy, that she can find a way to smile, to have hope in spite of the sorrow she lives in.
If she’s going to succeed, she has to find Halloween Town’s pumpkin king; she has to find Kylo Ren, and find a way to get him to show her a little more of that magic. She doesn’t know how this’ll work, but she hopes—she prays —it does. It’s been too long since she had a miracle—actually, it’s been never. She’s never known peace since Unkar stitched her to life in his house years ago, and effectively made her his servant.
Kylo might be her last shot, and so she makes her way up the cobblestone street, past the graveyard, and toward the house on the far end of the street that seems to loom above all the rest. Even from a distance, she can see that a light is on in the window of the single, tall tower that stands above the rest of the house, and his shadow is moving about inside.
He’s awake.
She just hopes he’ll be receptive to a visitor, and he won’t send her away or haul her back to Plutt’s to receive her punishment for sneaking out. The skeletal figure seems like a half decent man, but like the rest of the town, she doesn’t really know him, and so she can’t tell if he’s good or if he’s as evil as some of the monsters that reside in Halloween Town.
Either way, she’s about to find out.
A werewolf howls in the distance, it’s cry fierce through the increasingly silent night as Rey finally creeps along that last stretch of street toward his house, and stares at the wrought iron gate that’s blacker than midnight on a new moon. Her hands are shaking as she reaches out and touches it, finding the gate is, for the time being, unlocked, almost as if it were waiting to be opened.
Or as if he’d simply forgotten to lock it.
Snorting quietly in amusement, Rey creeps inside, and tilts her head up to stare at the light coming from the tower. Kylo is now at the window, his long fingers gripping the sill as he peers down at her. Since he is backlit, she can’t see his face, but she can imagine it from what she’d seen days ago, she can imagine the dark grey circles surrounding his eyes, the way his cheekbones jut out almost like he is nothing but a skull, but there was still a thin layer of skin which remained, and the dark, raven waves of his hair that framed his face, making him look like the perfect picture of a creature of death.
Yet he’d been the life of the party. He’d paraded about, causing fright and mischief everywhere he went, putting the trick into trick or treat, and for a man who was mostly a skeleton—albeit a broad skeleton—he seemed unexpectedly lively. She has to know what made him tick, she has to find her escape here, and she had to obtain her freedom.
“Well, one of us is going to have to say something,” he shouts, and now she can imagine the smile. “Did I leave the gate unlocked again?”
“I’m afraid so,” she replies, amazed by how steady her voice is as she shouts up to him.
A small laugh escapes him, and he crosses his arms as he leans further against the windowsill, those long fingers tapping casually against the stone. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before.” He straightens his posture, then looks down at her inquisitively. “Who are you?”
For a split second, she freezes, unsure of how to answer this question, because this is the moment of truth. This is the moment she discovers whether or not he’s going to send her back to her own personal hell, or accept her into his home and help her to see the magic she was robbed of witnessing earlier.
Swallowing nervously, she meets his eyes, and decides to be blunt. “I’m Rey, you wouldn’t know me,” she tells him. “I’m a creation of Unkar Plutt’s and he keeps me in the house. There’s no way we would’ve met before tonight.”
His expression is unreadable, but when he speaks, she can hear in his voice that he knows about her situation. “How’d you escape?”
“Knocked him out with deadly nightshade, put it in his soup.” They both chuckle at this, then she steps a little closer to the tower. “Then I came here.”
“Why?”
“Because all my life I’ve been kept locked away in there, I’ve been miserable until tonight, and I finally got to see what I’ve been missing all this time.” She looks down at herself, at the stitches that keep her arms and legs together, shoddily done from years of self teaching. “And I wanted to experience it again.”
Another minute passes in silence, then he holds up a single, skeletal finger. “Wait there,” he says, then he disappears from the window, and if she had a heart, it would be racing as she becomes aware that he’s coming down from his perch to meet her.
In those final few seconds before he arrives, Rey brushes off dirt from her dress, and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear in a last ditch effort to make herself presentable. Then the door at the base of the tower opens, and the tall figure of Kylo Ren is standing in front of her. “Hello.”
“Hello,” she replies, taking another cautious step forward as she takes him in, realizing everything she’d pictured a moment earlier had been entirely correct. “So you’re the pumpkin king.”
He winces, but just barely. “I am.”
The look of disappointment on his face is obvious, and concern fills her sculpted features as she approaches. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.”
Another sorrowful expression crosses his face, then he opens his door a little more. “I… would you mind if we took this discussion inside?”
“Considering I am the one who came to you, I’d be more than happy to,” she says, then she flinches, realizing how that sounds. “I just mean, to keep you company, and to um, experience the—“
“Magic, I remember.” He then falls silent, and opens the door a little wider, summoning her forth with a wave of his hand. “Join me.”
She does, and she does it with a smile. The interior of his house smells like pumpkin bread, not death like she’d expected. The fear he creates is the sort people go out looking for, the sort that is done in an almost good faith. He does it for fun, living for the screams and fright produced from the one day a year in which he can properly come to life. It’s honorable, and it sounds like precisely the sort of thing that she would love to see.
Together, they ascend the staircase into the tower, and as they approach the top, he holds out his hand for hers, his long, skeletal fingers outstretching in her direction as she watches them. It takes her maybe two more seconds, though, to take his hand she’s so shocked he wants her to hold it.
When she takes it, his fingers curl around hers, and she is surprised by how warm they feel against hers as he guides her into an enormous room surrounded by a small bounty of scientific equipment, and… lights? Yes, those are lights. Rainbow colored lights are sprawled out across the room, lighting it in an array of color. It’s such an odd sight to see, but it’s beautiful all the same. “What is all this?”
“Christmas,” Kylo replies, and suddenly there’s a mystified look in his eyes as he stares about the room. “This is Christmas.”
“Christmas?” Rey approaches a little fir tree at the far end of the room, running her fingers over golden colored garland. “What’s Christmas?”
The wonder, the joy on his face, it’s like watching the sky when it’s full of twinkling stars. “Rey, through the woods, there’s a door.” His excitement is refreshing, and she’s enthralled by it as he jangles an ornament in front of him. “Many doors, but the one I walked through…” He looks up at her. “Rey, have you ever seen snow?”
*
When she’d set out to have an adventure that night, she’d never imagined this. Everything is red, orange, and yellow like a flame, and the breeze has loose strands of her hair fluttering in it as she walks by his side, their hands joined, fingers laced as they walk in this magical wonderland. Neither of them says much, but they’re both utterly enthralled by their surroundings, and it fills the void perfectly.
Autumn dances in the air, and as their hands sway back and forth in the space between them Rey smiles, catching a hint of his as they walk in the fading daylight. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere incredible,” is all he says, then he leads her further into the woods, the leaves crunching beneath their feet as they approach a strange sort of clearing.
A part of her wonders just what the hell it is, but then they’re nearly upon it. Even from a distance she can see the doors built into every tree with little designs painted on each one. The sight of it makes her feel warm and giddy, and Rey squeezes Kylo’s hand a little more tightly, barely resisting the urge to jump up and down like a little kid.
There’s magic here, just like she’d asked, and just like he’d promised, and she couldn’t be more excited. “Wow…”
“I found it last night,” he admits as they walk even closer. “I couldn’t believe it.”
She looks at the markings on the doors as he talks, observing a strange, four-leaved painting on one, two hearts overlapping each other on a second, and a tree decorated with rainbow lights like in Kylo’s tower on a third. He guides them toward the last one, dragging her a little as she struggles to catch up to his increase in pace.
His excitement is exhilarating, and for a man who isn’t even alive, he feels like he must be in some way. He most certainly isn’t dead. “You should see this,” he says, then his skeletal hand reaches out for the door knob, and closes around it. “If you want.”
“I wouldn’t have followed you out here if I didn’t,” she reminds him, then she watches as he smirks, and pulls the door open.
A rush of cold air blows her hair back from her shoulders, but she doesn’t shiver as he guides her through the frame, white flakes of a mysterious substance brush past her face as she looks on in shock, but she can’t see anything on the other side just yet.
The world seems black for a minute, and the only thing she can be certain of is Kylo’s hand in hers as she is led forward through what must be some sort of tunnel. “Where are we going?” she asks, blinking fiercely as more cold, wet flakes strike her face.
“To Christmas,” he replies, calling to mind the word he’d said about the garland earlier, and she can’t see him, but she knows he is grinning. Wherever this Christmas is, it must be somewhere magical, and she can't wait to see it.
Shivering with excitement, Rey blinks against a blue-white light, and looks up to see that the tunnel has faded away into a cloudy night sky. Above them, the stars are twinkling through a thin break in the cloud layer, but the thick, white sheets are dumping more of those little flakes onto their faces in droves. “What’s this?” she asks as she holds out a hand, catching some of them in her palm.
“Snow,” he says, leading her down a gentle slope of white as the grin on his face grows more broad. “This is snow.”
“Snow…” The word falls softly from her lips, and she’s smiling at him as she repeats it again. “Snow.”
Both of them laugh, then he begins to let their hands swing between them as he leads her toward a new strange sight ahead. A town exactly like theirs sits in a valley, but instead of doom and gloom and fright, there are lights and music and cheer, and it’s everything her home isn’t.
Rey loves Halloween, but it is shrouded in the bad memories brought about by being possessed by Unkar Plutt, and Christmas is not.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathes, looking up to find Kylo is already staring at her. If blood flowed through her veins, she’d be blushing. “Thank you.”
He almost looks like he wants to blush, too, and a tiny pinch of color fills his cheeks as he brings them to a stop beneath a string of lights, and the two of them watch as the snow falls on the street. “I’ve been learning about them for the last few days, coming here in my spare time in the hopes that it might spark joy in my life again.”
A frown falls on her lips, and she runs her thumb over the back of his knuckles, drawing his attention as they stroll through the streets of the town, which are empty in the dusk they walk under. “Earlier you sounded sad when I referred to you as the pumpkin king. Was this what you meant?”
“Yes,” he says truthfully, his voice somber and serious as he looks above them at the glittering lights. “Bringing fright, creating terror, it just hasn’t entertained me in far too long. I needed an escape.”
“I see.”
“Much like you, though I think we are escaping vastly different circumstances.”
“We are,” she assures him, then he brings them to a stop in the center of the town, beneath a cross section of a string of lights with an interesting looking gathering of leaves at the center. A strange feeling of familiarity enters her at the sight, but she shakes it off in favor of looking at him again, noticing he’s drifted a little closer to her now. She doesn’t mind the proximity, though, not one bit. “But escape we must.”
“Quite right.” He turns to face her completely then, his free hand grasping for hers as he looks between her eyes. “What if I were to bring a little bit of Christmas to Halloweentown? Do you think… do you think it would be a good idea?”
Bewilderment fills her mind at the thought of their home covered in snow and lights, a stark contrast to what currently awaits them when they return. “Christmas in Halloweentown?” she whispers, her voice low like it’s a secret even though no one else is around. “You must be mad.”
“A little,” he admits, then he shrugs. “But perhaps if it’s introduced properly… the people of the town wouldn’t be so opposed?”
He sounds innocent and almost boyish as he says it, and it’s oddly charming. It makes her drift a little bit closer to him, tilting her head up to hold his gaze as she squeezes his hands a bit more tightly. “Perhaps,” she says, then his face positively lights up like the trees that line the street they stand on. “I don’t want to go back, though. I want to stay.”
“Because of Unkar?” When she nods, he raises their joined hands between them, and looks down at them hesitantly before holding them close to his chest. “Rey, I promise you never have to go back to him again.”
“Never?” Does she dare let hope fill her stitches? Does she allow herself to dream that a better future lies ahead? She has never been truly happy in the many, many years she’s spent in Unkar’s home as a thing of his creation. She’s only known misery. Is it possible such an eternal joy can exist?
“Never,” he repeats, then he brings her hands to his lips, and kisses them gently. “I could use some help decorating the tower.”
Rey is beaming at him now, and she nods eagerly as he lowers their hands again, saying yes in every way she can before she opens her mouth. “ Yes, ” she replies, repeating it over and over until she throws her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close in a sudden—but not unwelcome if the way he returns it means anything—embrace.
Kylo lifts her from the ground, spinning her about as snowflakes continue to pelt their bodies, but neither of them cares. They’re too caught up in a new kind of magic, the kind brought about from pure joy and happiness.
When he pulls back, she finds herself hypnotized by him again. His eyes are shining and in them she can see herself, she can see the smile that’s broad on her face as he looks at her with what she can only describe as adoration. White flakes fall on his eyelashes from above, and he blinks them away, forcing them to drift into the air again as her gaze follows, moving up again to look upon that strange gathering of leaves that’s hung above their heads. “What’s this?” she asks.
His gaze follows hers, then mischief fills his eyes as he looks back down at her. “Mistletoe,” he answers, and oh , suddenly she remembers where she knows that plant from. It’s on the page before deadly nightshade in Unkar’s book of herbs.
“Isn’t there…” She looks down nervously, unable to watch his eyes as she speaks. “Isn’t there a tradition when one is beneath mistletoe?”
“There is,” he answers, then he squeezes her hand, and her attention is drawn back to his expressive face, which is currently conveying hope. “But we don’t have to honor it.”
“What if we want to?” she asks, then she can see that little hint of joy peeking in again through his dark irises. “Could we honor that tradition, Kylo?”
He shakes a little in her arms, but then a skeletal hand comes up to support her chin, his thumb finding her lower lip as he tries to find a way to answer her. “We can.” No one’s voice has ever spoken to her more softly than his in that little moment of before, no one has ever been so tender or gentle to her, and it’s the most exhilarating part of her adventure so far when he begins to lean toward her, and both of their eyes drift shut.
Rey wishes she had a heart so she could feel how it would beats, how it would race as Kylo gets closer to her. Right now, her mind is in a frenzy, her thoughts moving at a million miles an hour as she gets closer and closer to him, and she can’t even think about anything but—
Suddenly he’s kissing her and time stands still, the wind doesn’t move, the snowflakes stop falling, the world no longer exists. Halloweentown, Christmas, the forest, and everything in between is now gone, and there’s just this—there’s just them.
His lips are surprisingly soft, his hand oddly warm against her face as it moves up to caress her cheek, and they begin to move in harmony.
It makes her understand so much of what she’s missed in life so far. She realizes what peace is, what contentment means, and so many other things that defy the description of words. There’s a feeling like bubbles drifting about in her mind, and she feels lightheaded and dizzy, but he holds her steady as he kisses her, as they stay close in this sweet embrace, and she lets her fingers drift up to tangle themselves in the snow covered locks of his raven hair.
The world around them is cold, but the fire he’s ignited in her soul burns hot, keeping them both warm as they kiss in the snowfall, all their past miseries lost to this new delight.
Eventually, Rey pulls away, but he rests his forehead against hers, and she doesn’t retreat further, perfectly content to just remain like this with him for as long as time will allow.
Neither of them speaks, as if they’re afraid that interrupting this beautiful quiet will destroy everything, but the fear is irrational. They do not need to have it. They have each other now, and she’s never been more grateful for the talent she has with nightshade.
“Let’s bring Christmas back with us,” Kylo says after a while, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. “I’m ready if you are.”
“I’m ready,” she replies, grinning at him again as she places a hand over his, lacing their fingers together before bringing their joined hands to their sides. “I was born ready.”
At this, he pulls back, revealing that her joy is mirrored on his face as he begins to step back toward the door leading to Halloweentown’s forest. “Then let’s go home.”
For once, the prospect of home is no longer frightening, and she delights in taking those first steps forward, to beginning this journey with him. She's not going back to her old life, she’s going to a new home now, she’s going somewhere where she can finally thrive.
Together, she and Ben are going to bring a little cheer to the gloom of Halloweentown, and though their task is an uncertain one, she feels as though the sun is finally shining down on her face.
She feels as though she’s finally free.