Work Text:
"Ben! I didn’t think you’d be here," he says, passing off his flight helmet to a friend to hold. But they’re not his words. They're the words of a sixteen year old cadet just starting on his pilot's license. He hasn’t set foot on the academy’s campus in years. Nevertheless, joy blooms in his chest, warms him all over. He strides over to Ben, beaming. Ben cracks the smallest of smiles—just for Poe, always for Poe—and hugs him.
And if he clutches a little too tight, then Poe pretends not to notice.
He pulls back and looks at Ben.
He's taller than Ben.
No. That's not right. He’s never been taller than Ben, not a single time in his life.
He grins down at a fourteen year old child that is Ben. Ben is lanky, paler than he's ever seen before. There are dark bruises under his eyes and he looks so, so angry, but there’s a softness in his gaze when it rests on Poe. Poe is overjoyed to finally see him again after three years. He can hear his friends talking behind him, and he thinks maybe he should introduce Ben to his classmates.
"How are you?" Poe asks but his voice's pitch is wrong. It's too low. It shouldn't be that low for sixteen.
"I'm fine," Ben says. "I go by Ren now."
Poe raises his brows. "Ren? What'd you do, smudge the bottom of the B in your name off on accident?"
Ben frowns. "No. It's my Jedi name. Kylo Ren."
Poe freezes, his muscles coiled tight and his spine too stiff. No, no. That's not how this exchange went. He looks over his shoulder at his group of friends and they’re all faceless. Poe stumbles away from Ben, feels an aching in his temples and a sharpness in his lungs. His mouth tastes like blood.
Ben doesn’t seem to notice his reaction and looks around. "Where's BB-8?" he asks.
Poe starts to open his mouth, to tell him 'it's on Jakku,' but his jaw snaps shut with a click. He doesn’t even have an astromech yet. He hadn’t met BB-8 until the Republic. Ben never met BB-8. "No..." he whispers. Ben casts him a glance, hurt flitting across it before it becomes an emotionless mask.
"No, what?" Ben says, too calm, too cold.
"You're not Kylo Ren," Poe says, voice shaking. "You're Ben. This isn't—this is a memory. Ben’s dead."
Ben's eyes widen. "Poe, are you okay? I’m standing right here, very much alive. You're talking nonsense—"
"Get out of my head," Poe grits through clenched teeth and he doubles over, the throbbing in his head increasing; it feels like something's trying to burst out of his skull. The air is full of static and a white noise fills his ears. He presses the heels of his palms into his closed eyes. He can't look at Ben—he can't—
"You're not supposed to be here!" he shouts, tears streaming down his face.
He feels Ben's hands on his shoulders, an attempt to steady him. "Poe, calm down, you're panicking. Do you need me to call someone—"
Poe shoves Ben away. "You're not him, you killed him," he cries. "Leave Ben alone. Get out of my damn head!" There's a tingling at the base of his spine and it's growing, it hurts, it burns.
It's Kylo Ren. He knows it is. He's playing with his head, infiltrating his memories, polluting them. And he'd almost fallen for it.
Almost.
"Get out!" he shouts, and suddenly they're at his childhood home in Yavin IV. He's on the roof and Ben is on the ground, pouting at him the way only a ten year old knows how, and Poe stares at him in horror.
"No," he manages as Ben says, "That isn't fair, Poe," and Poe makes him angry and Ben uses the Force and lifts Poe into the air and Poe is flying. No, not flying, crashing; the engines of his A-wing are failing and he hears BB-8 beeping frantically at him, and the comms are going wild with chatter from his commanding officers as he tries to pull up, tries to steady the ship—
And his mother's hands wrap around his own tiny ones on the joystick and she's larger than life and smarter than anyone he knows, even his father. She’s saying, "Don't be afraid, it's like falling without ever hitting the ground," and Poe loves her more than he can express with words; she is the bravest person to ever live, she is the best pilot in the galaxy, she is the center of his universe—
And General Leia is holding him close to her chest. She is not his General yet, she is much younger and much happier, but today she is weeping. Ben is standing in the doorway of the bedroom, keeping quiet. Poe is eight years old and he wants to fly away, needs to be anywhere but on the ground, and he’s sobbing so hard he's getting dizzy. Ben is letting Poe borrow his mother because Poe's is gone and never coming back, she’s never coming back, she's never coming back—
And he’s kneeling by BB-8, holding out a drive to it, saying, “Take it and get as far away as you can, I’ll come back for you, I promise.” BB-8 disappears into the sand dunes of Jakku and Poe is hiding behind the wreck that is the stripped X-wing he was given for the mission, he is firing at Kylo Ren and the blast is frozen in the air, and BB-8 is long gone and Poe is scared and relieved all at once because BB-8 is clever but it’s defenseless, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to keep his promise, just like all the others he couldn’t keep to Leia, to his mother, to Ben—
“Stop,” he sobs out, his voice a wisp and his throat raw—was he screaming? He must’ve been screaming—and he slumps back against the cool metal of the rack he’s strapped to. Kylo Ren’s gloved hand is in front of his face. His cheeks are wet with tears and the tears sting the scrapes on his face. He feels the warm trickle of blood down the back of his neck, staining the collar of his sweat-soaked shirt. “Please, stop.”
Kylo Ren regards him. He caresses Poe’s face, tender, and the leather feels too rough and too cold against his feverish skin. Something in his mind disconnects—he doesn’t know what—and he feels like an outsider in the shell that is his own body, scraped clean of everything that made him Poe. He hears himself breathing, harsh and fast in the empty space of the room. He knows there are bruises forming on his neck, his chest, his wrists, but he doesn’t feel them anymore. “Thank you for your cooperation,” Kylo Ren says, and underneath the mask’s voice filter he can hear Ben.
Then Poe is alone and he knows he will die here.
He closes his eyes.