#force dreams

[thechaoticcherub]

The Hallway

Read it on AO3 

I’m really proud of this one guys, I hope you enjoy! I’m guessing part two will be up tonight. 

The Hallway-Part I

Rating: Explicit

CW: Rough sex 

Word Count: 3,374

The dreams started out simply enough, your usual nighttime visions interrupted by the glow of a crackling red saber in the distance. Or the glint of the helmet, ridged with red lines from where it had been repaired. Once or twice your were disturbed to see his figure there, in your mind’s eye. Hulking in the shadows of whatever dream you had been having. Burning eyes on you, you always woke sweating from those dreams, your body trembling uncontrollably as you roused yourself. Its a dream. Just dreams. They can’t hurt you.You told yourself this over and over and yet, your mind lingered on those snippets. Was it that you were worried he would hurt you? Or did you fear that eventually those dreams of Kylo Ren would go away. You had no reason to dream of him, you had very little contact with him. Once or twice in the medbay you had watched his wounds healed by the medics. As a trainee, you were allowed no where near the Supreme Leader of the First Order. His eyes had maybe twice flicked to you as you went about your work, as bacta bandages were adhered to whatever wound he had come in with. That apparently had been enough for him to infiltrate your dreams. You were thankful that no one knew or cared what you might dream about Kylo Ren. And so far, the dreams had just been snippets, little images of him, as if he was background character. Even if your mind hyper focused on him.

That changed very suddenly one night, your dream had been nothing before…shallow, pointless and all at once, everything shifted. The world fell away and you were running before things reformed around you. Running through a hallway of the star destroyer, close to the medbay. You recognized the stretch of dark walls and gleaming polished floors. You knew you had to make it to the medbay but every time you turned the corner thinking you would be there you were met by another long stretch of familiar hallway. Panic settled into your chest, looming disaster seemed to be on the horizon unless you could make it to the blast doors into the medbay. You hurtled around the next corner, your feet oddly noiseless but your breathing loud in your ears. You were met with the crackling energy of a red lightsaber, so close that you had to reel backwards to avoid it. Kylo stepped in front of you, the lightsaber in the tiny amount of space between the two of you. You could feel the scorching electric-like heat. Prickling pinpoints of fear trickled through your body from where the heat was most acute, your chest. Your heart hammered. Kylo’s eyes blazed down at you, you could see that reflection of the horrible weapon in his dark eyes. His hair was in his face and his breathing was hard as if he too had just been running.

“Why do I know you?” He snarled. Your mind was slow, confused, the dream was like a fog over your brain and you couldn’t think straight.

“Why am I dreaming of you?” You countered, your voice seemed to come from a great distance. As you spoke you became aware that this was a dream and momentarily it seemed to fade. You could see your room, feel your blankets and the warm cover of sleep. Then you were back in the cold hallway and Kylo’s burning lightsaber was very real once again. Your question seemed to stump him, you watched his brow knit and he didn’t answer it.

“Step back, girl.” He snarled, moving the lightsaber even closer to your chest. You swore you could feel your skin start to burn so you hurriedly stepped away from him. His eyes lingered on you, looking you up and down. Thankfully, your dream self was in your medbay uniform, not the underwear and shirt you usually wore to bed. Without warning Kylo stepped forward in towards you once again, you hurriedly stepped back and your back was met with a wall. He was so close to you now you could feel his breathing. He still held the lightsaber between you, up towards your throat now. The cross guard that pumped the excess energy was so close to your shoulder you felt as though it would burn straight through your clothing. The length of the saber jutted up a diagonal from your body. He held it there, completely steady except for the crackling, unstable power that came from the saber itself. Your eyes seemed to be captured in his. Up close, Kylo was more beautiful than you could have thought possible. Even through your fear you saw that. His pale face littered with beauty marks,  his full red lips, even the scar running down from his forehead over his eye and down his cheek was striking. You let out whimper,

“Its just a dream,” you told yourself. “A dream…Just a dream.”

“You’re wrong.” He growled from deep in chest, “This is a nightmare.” You didn’t have time to scream in the dream as he drove the lightsaber towards you. You woke up in your bed panting and shaking. You couldn’t calm your nerves. Your body was lit up and the slightest touch of your blankets or your hand brushing against your legs made you twitch as though it caused a shock of electricity. You stomach clenched at the thought of the look in his eyes, but, you were horrified to realize it wasn’t only out of fear.

*

You found it very hard to concentrate on work and studying over the next few days. Your mind kept flashing back to Kylo Ren standing so close to you in your dream. The look in his eyes, the feeling of the lightsaber burning so close to your skin. The excited prickle in your skin and how tight and strange your body had felt after you had woken up again. You had never felt like that for anyone, and now Kylo Ren threatened you in your dreams and you couldn’t focus on anything but him. You half hoped you would see him in the medbay, just to get to see his beautiful face, his big strong body and, you hated yourself for wanting to look, but just glimpse the lightsaber you were sure would be clipped to his belt. Just to see how it compared to your dream version, the one that was seared into your minds eye. It was strange, you never thought you had looked closely at the weapon before that dream…how could you know the precise color of the red wire running up it? How did you know how thick it was? How could you envision the ridges and lines running up towards the dark metal cross guards. You even fooled yourself into thinking you knew the smell of the electric energy pulsating out of it. No, your subconscious made it up, if you saw his real weapon, it probably wouldn’t look like that at all.

Your superiors yelled at you a few times to get back to work on those days following that dream. You were usually excellent at your job and you studied the work of the medics meticulously so you could duplicate their excellent work but you found yourself distracted and disoriented.

“Quit day dreaming!” The head medic had shouted as she took over a procedure on a young stormtrooper that you should have been able to handle with your eyes shut. You hated the disappointed looks people were throwing you as you used bacta to bandage up officers and storm troopers with shaking hands. Everyone was surprised that you let this go on for days. One off day was one thing, but multiple in a row? Completely unacceptable. It didn’t help that every single night you still dreamt of him, not in the same way as that night but still, his eyes appeared to you in dreams, seemingly staring into your soul. You saw his hand closing around his lightsaber, twisting and tightening. Every night you woke, thinking of him, your hands shaking, your stomach clenching and in a new and horrifying development, your underwear wet, sticking to you.

By the fourth day of hands slipping, eyes glazing over and lapses in judgement you had, had enough, you spoke with the head medic, explaining that you hadn’t been sleeping properly. You blamed your mistakes on lack of sleep and exhaustion. She was sympathetic although unafraid of showing her disappointment in your performance,

“Since we’ve had no trouble with you before this and you’re usually so attentive, I’ll let it go for now.  You need to get it under control.” She spoke in clipped tones, barely looking up from her datapad.

“Yes, Ma’am. Of course.” You said hurriedly, you knew what you needed to ask but you almost chickened out. Your heart hammering in your chest you looked up at her, “Ma’am…I...could I get prescribed something to help me sleep?” You asked. She eyed you for a moment, you forced yourself to stand still and meet your eyes, even though you were nervous. Abruptly, she turned away from you and you fell in step behind her as she went to a panel in the wall. She put her hand over a scanner and pressed three separate buttons. The panel in the wall opened, there was a shelf of medications. Bottles of liquid or pills. She took out a bottle and opened the top and pressed one pill into your hand. “Take it an hour before you want to be asleep.” She said.

“Thank you!” You said, relief flooding through you.

“You better be on your best game tomorrow.” She added as she turned away from you.

That night, you lay in bed, happy that tonight you would perhaps have the dreamless sleep that you needed. Tonight you wouldn’t see those eyes, or his big hands, or feel his breath, or hear his voice. You couldn’t help the disappointment that flooded through you but you tried to push it aside. This was good, this was what you needed. Your job was more important than stupid dreams of the Supreme Leader.

When you fell asleep you were immediately pitched into a dream and again, you were running in the same hallway, by the medbay. This time, instead of not understand why you were running, you knew. He was coming and you couldn’t let him catch you. You were so close to the medbay, it was right around the next corner. You would turn and see the doors, relief flooded through you for a moment as you reached the corner. Safety was ahead. Then you turned and realized it was the same stretch of hallway you had been in. The door to the medbay still just around the next corner. Disappointment and terror flooded you, you almost gave up. You wanted to fall to your knees and cry but you kept running. You had almost reached the middle of this hallway when he stepped out from another hallway to the right. Kylo was facing you, that hateful, crackling lightsaber held poised and ready. You were almost level with him, you tried to turn but as you whipped around he caught a fistful of your hair and dragged you towards him.

You almost screamed but it must have stuck in your throat because nothing came out. He dragged you back into his body, one hand still clutching your hair and holding you back, braced against his body, the other arm wrapped around you the lightsaber still clutched in his hand. Again you felt the impossible electric heat, buzzing through your clothes.

“You again,” he breathed into your ear, tugging your head back by your hair. “Looks like you can’t escape your nightmares, medic girl.” He said. His body was hard and warm against your back, it felt so real. Like he was actually there, holding you pinned against him. In your head you chanted that it was a dream. The glow and burn of the lightsaber sent that familiar pulsing through your body. The clench in your belly reminding you of the disgusting thoughts you had had whenever you woke from dreams of him. “Or,” he growled as if something was dawning on him. “Is this perhaps a fantasy, not a nightmare?” He asked. It was as if he had read your mind. All those things you had hoped never would be known by anyone seemed to be known by him.

Kylo removed his hand from your hair only to grab your arm and tug you around to face him, the arm holding the lightsaber now holding it threateningly at your back. You could feel it singeing the hair at the nape of your neck. You looked up into his face once again, trapped against him. Again, you were struck by how handsome he was. Your mouth opened, staring up at him, your breathing was hard and you couldn’t differentiate between fear and excitement. With a hiss the lightsaber retracted, the air felt comparatively cold and made you shiver. He shoved you hard backwards into the wall, his body pressing into yours, keeping you there.

Even in the absence of the lightsaber you felt a sputtering, sparking heat between you. It pulsed from where he held your arms, down into your stomach.

“I’m in your head,” his voice was like dark velvet, it spilled out of his mouth and sent shivers through your body. “Should we see how far this little fantasy goes?” he breathed, his hand moved from your arm down to your waist and towards the waistband of your pants. You were too paralyzed with fear to struggle, and even if you had tried, he was keeping you pressed tight to the wall with his body. His hand tucked into your pants, bypassing your underwear and running his fingers along your pussy lips. First, a burst of intense pleasure shot through your body. Your knees went weak and your mouth fell open. Next, shame spread through you, even though it was a dream, even though he wasn’t real, you hated that he could feel how wet you were. You had never been touched like this, not by anyone other than yourself. You whimpered at the feeling.

“Maybe nightmares are your fantasies, hm?” he said, leaning in so close to you that you could feel his lips move against yours. You almost leaned in to kiss him but his long, thick fingers were softly stroking up and down your cunt. You could feel the leather of his gloves, the ridges of the stitching catching on your sensitive lips. Your breath caught as you gasped. You opened your legs a little, as best you could while you still stood with your back to the wall. At your movement he ripped his hand back out of your pants, “Filthy girl,” His voice cracked out suddenly, sounding disgusted. “You want your Supreme Leader this badly?” He asked, looking at his gloved fingers now shiny and sticky with your wetness. Your cheeks burned as you looked at the evidence of your own arousal on his fingers.

“No…” you whined, trying to deny it, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening.

“No?” he snarled. “We’ll see,” he was pushing you to the floor, onto your knees before you had a moment to even consider struggling. You couldn’t believe you would dream about something like this, you had never even thought of experiencing something like this. You tried to wake yourself up, you told yourself repeatedly it was a dream and you could wake up at any time but it was becoming obvious that you couldn’t just force yourself out of a dream like this.

In a flurry of movement he was ripping his pants open, tugging them down and panic flared inside of you, panic and something else. Some deep, primal need. You wanted it. You wanted to see his cock, to take it, pleasure it. You wanted it to stretch you open. You didn’t even know where your mind was coming up with these wants, these needs. Instead of seeing his cock, instead of grabbing your head like you thought he might, Kylo dropped to his knees behind you. His hand ran up your back, you felt it as though his hand was on your your plain skin, pushing back your nightshirt instead of on the uniform shirt you seemed to be wearing in your dream. He shoved you over so your face was pushed into the floor. You could feel him behind you, you could feel his hands ripping you pants and underwear down around your knees, exposing you to him. You also could feel your soft bed against your cheeks, and blankets tickling your legs. No, now it was the cold floor once again. Kylo stroked his fingers over your slit, teasing around your clit. You were pulsing with need.

Fill me up, please…please…I need it. I need…n-need your cock. You couldn’t voice the words that were running through your head. His hands took your hips and you could feel the tip of his cock at your entrance. He knew. He knew what you needed, he knew you were longing for it. As if to add to the this torturous need you felt something tingling around your clit. The little nub seemed to be pulsating with need all of its own accord. You let out another strangled whimper as Kylo pressed his cock closer to you, closer to your entrance.

“Little slut, you couldn’t resist your nightmare, could you?” He asked. His breath came out in a huff as if he was restraining himself from plunging himself deep inside of you. The pulsing, fluttering feelings around your clit continued, stroking it and stoking the fire inside of you, plunging you into deeper need. Your mind was blank. It felt so real. Too real. He was right there, teasing your pussy, ready to push in.

“N-no.” You managed to answer him. His cock pressed into you finally. Finally you would get relief, you would feel your walls stretch open. But to your horror, the feeling of need only mounted as his cock pushed deeper and deeper into you. You gasped and pressed yourself back. He slammed himself inside of you and yet, the feeling of needing to be filled remained, it lingered in your stomach and you whined in exasperation. The feeling on your clit faltered and then fell away as Kylo shoved his hips forward. He grunted and you realized in the way he was jerking his hips forward, he wasn’t getting the release he was seeking either. The feelings only mounted, he thrust his hips forward. You should have felt as though you were being split in two, stretched and opened for his thick cock but it just felt like more and more need being injected into your veins. It wasn’t enough, it couldn’t be enough. You needed to feel him opening you, you needed to clench around his thick cock.You could feel his movements, you could feel him behind you, his cock buried in your wet cunt but the fulfillment wasn’t there. Kylo grunted again, his breathing was rough, his cock was thick and hard inside of you, steadily getting harder. His thrusts became anguished and wild, his hand locked into your hair and pulled your head back. As he did that, things began to fade, you desperately reached back to grab at his thigh, to hold him into you but he was vanishing at each thrust, at every touch. Your room was coming through in all your senses. You could feel only your pillow, your mattress, you could smell your own things. Before you could even open your eyes you started to sob. You were still filled with need, your pussy wetter than it had ever been before. Your breathing was ragged and your chest heaving with sobs. You reached into your underwear, stroking your pussy lips, finding your clit soaked, hard and so sensitive that as you grazed over it you twitched. It wasn’t as good as his fingers had felt, but that had just been a dream.

If you enjoyed this please consider sending me a ko-fi

[keldae]

These Dreams Of You

could be considered a follow-up to this.

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He’s in his apartment on Coruscant -- a place he hasn’t set foot in for almost a year. This feeling of warm comfort, of languidly rolling over in his bed, is one that he’s almost forgotten about entirely. He frowns -- why does this feel so strange?

But then he sees her in his bed next to him, curled up on her side, gazing up at him through her eyelashes. He smiles and leans in to nuzzle her nose, and for a second, everything feels perfect -- or almost perfect, anyway. “Hey,” he murmurs, his voice low and gentle.

“Theron.” How does her voice make his name sound so good? She smiles at his caresses, all but purring. “I miss this.”

“I miss you,” Theron whispers, and wonders where that thought came from. How could something be wrong in this moment of blissful comfort?

Xaja shifts slightly, her smile fading. Theron can feel the tendrils of dark, painful grief snaking back into this moment before she speaks again. “I need you, Theron. Please…”

“How could you need me?” Theron reaches to caress her cheek, frowning. “You’re--” You’re dead, floats through his mind, and now he remembers why this doesn’t feel right, and he wishes he could forget it again.

Fear flickers through Xaja’s eyes as she seems to shrink under his hand. “Theron, hurry, please. He’s… he’s hurting me again...”

“What? Who’s hurting you?” Theron tries to grab her shoulder, and panics when his hand goes right through her like she’s made of mist. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know…” Her voice is quiet, but he can’t tell if that’s because she’s fading away from him, or if it’s due to the tears he can hear her trying to hold back. He desperately reaches for her again as she cries out for him, as the apartment around them suddenly grows dark and terrible. He can hear a cruel laugh in the background, one that reminds him too vividly of Yavin IV and Ziost. “Theron, help me, please!”

With a ragged gasp, Theron jerked himself upward, for a second panicking until he recognized his surroundings. This wasn’t Coruscant… this was the sketchy back-alley hovel he’d taken up residence in on Zakuul, deep in the Old World where the Knights weren’t likely to look for an offworld spy. The narrow bed he laid on was cold, sheets strewn in all directions from his restless movements. And when he reached his hand out to where Xaja should have been at his side, he felt nothing but a hard mattress and a cold, painful grief.

“Fuck,” he whispered as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his head into his hands. Over two years after Xaja’s murder at Zakuul’s hands, and the grief hadn’t eased at all. If anything, his nightmares about her were getting more and more vivid. He wasn’t sure yet if this was better or worse than the ones he’d been having previously, the ones where his overactive brain decided to imagine what her final moments alone before her death had been like.

At least being alone in the dark as he was, with only Tee-Seven for company, there was no one to witness the tears on his unshaven cheeks, or the shuddering of his hunched shoulders as he tried to smother the grief again. He balefully frowned at the chronometer on his ocular display -- two in the morning, local time. He had a feeling he wouldn't be going back to sleep tonight, not with the lingering fear and grief drowning him.

"These dreams of you are gonna drive me mad," he finally mumbled as he wiped a hand over his eyes and took a shaky breath. He'd all but given up meditating, given how the Force seemed to have drop kicked him over the last couple of years, but maybe trying again now would calm him down after the nightmare. Leaving the bed, he knelt in front of the window that looked out over the Eternal Swamp beyond the city walls. He then closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing as he tried settling into the patterns Master Zho had taught him. In, and out… in, and out… in, and out--

Help me, Theron. Please!

Theron swore and flopped onto his back as Xaja's voice whispered in the back of his mind. "Never mind," he groaned, "I've already gone mad." When he had said he would have done anything to hear Xaja speak to him again, he hadn't meant being haunted into insanity by dreams of her. It shouldn't have been you. It should never have been you…

"Fuck, I miss you," he brokenly whispered to the empty air above him. "I want you back." He bitterly snorted. "Why can't I hallucinate you lying beside me where you belonged?" If this was the Force's way of giving her back to him in some form, it was a cruel comfort. He was pretty sure this counted as proof that the Force hated him personally.

"I'm sorry," he finally mumbled, squeezing his eyes closed as he felt tears trickling down his skin again. A low hum emitted from the corner -- no doubt Tee-Seven offering his concern -- but he couldn’t respond. He could only shake his head. "I need you back, Xaja. Never should’ve let you go to begin with. This just... hurts too much without you." He took in a shuddering breath. "I don't know what to do without you here."

So much for not getting attached, he thought with a snort of sarcastic amusement. He tried to tell himself to not risk it with the pretty Jedi during their time together on Rishi or Yavin IV, and that was even during happier times when she had still lived, a bright spot in his galaxy. He clenched his jaw in an attempt to smother down his grief and tried to think about something else… anything that had the hope of getting his mind off of Xaja, his dreams of her, and the regrets he carried with him.

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Hours later, as he was sipping a mug of lukewarm caf and scowling at his datapad, he gave a start at Tee-Seven’s sudden beep of warning. The droid’s sensors had picked up someone walking down the alley toward Theron’s cramped residence -- someone walking quietly, but not exactly sneaking about. Frowning, Theron got to his feet, setting the caf down and reaching for his blaster. No one should have known he was here; no one had reason to be knocking on his door, the raps echoing in the stillness of the apartment.

Cautiously, Theron cracked the door open -- and a second later, wasn’t sure if he was relieved his visitor wasn’t one of Marcus’ operatives coming to track him down, or more uneasy that this was an Imperial asset looking him in the eye. “Nine,” he sighed, easing his grip on his blaster. Cipher Nine might be a notorious sociopath and an infamous Imperial spy, but Theron was at least reasonably sure that the old man wasn’t here to end him. If Reanden Taerich had wanted him dead, he could have killed him easily enough on Nar Shaddaa last year.

“You’re a pain in the ass to track down, you know that?” Reanden dryly said by way of greeting, shifting his hands into his jacket pockets. The older spy’s hair had gotten more grey in the last three years, and there were new lines on his face, but those calculating dark eyes were still as sharp and piercing as ever.

“Apparently still too easy,” Theron grumbled. He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. What the blazes had Cipher-kriffing-Nine been looking for him for? He settled for a direct approach. “What brings you out here?”

Reanden paused, dark eyes glancing to the alley for a moment. “That’s a conversion best not had out here,” he finally said, his voice low. “You mind?”

Barely keeping from rolling his eyes, Theron stepped back to allow the old man inside. His tone was acerbic as he gestured to the shabby room. "Make yourself at home." The door was secured behind him.

Turning, he watched Reanden survey the one-room apartment with its scarce furnishings, lazily shrugging one shoulder. "I've seen worse," the old spy as he sat in the one chair in the room. Somewhat surprised to not hear a snarky comment from the old timer, Theron found himself sitting on the bed as Tee-Seven started happily beeping upon recognizing their visitor. Even more surprising, he watched as the elder man patted the droid’s chassis with something approaching affection. "So this is where you ended up."

"Busted him off Coruscant when I left," Theron shrugged casually. "He was being wasted in a military hangar."

"Same time you took the Serenity?" Reanden offered a tired smirk as Theron started. "Heard about that through the vine."

"... Xaja would have hated her ship being left to rust in a hangar," Theron protested, for a second certain that the old man was ready to tear him a new one for stealing -- no, liberating -- his late daughter’s starship.

"She would have," Reanden agreed, his voice quiet, sombre, and definitely not the verbal fight Theron had been expecting. “Definitely the Corellian in her.” 

Theron frowned as the old spy looked down at his hands, the normal snarky demeanour fading into a familiar heartache. “You didn’t sneak onto Zakuul for a social call, old timer,” he finally said. “And you definitely didn’t drop in to catch up with me.”

“Bite me, kid,” Reanden muttered, glaring up at Theron for a second before seemingly standing down and sighing. “There’s a lot of people searching for your hide in particular, but, no, that’s not why I’m here. I’m here on unrelated business -- only just figured out you were onworld about two hours ago.”

“And you tracked me down because…?”

“Because I figured you’d have a personal interest in this.” Reanden unflinchingly met Theron’s gaze when the younger spy frowned in confusion at him. “Sorand… has a theory that he’s asked me to look into, and I believe Lana will only be a couple of steps behind me on this.”

A personal interest for Theron that Cipher Nine would be involved with… and on Zakuul…? Maybe, he thought, the old man had an idea to kill Arcann directly for what he’d done to Xaja. And Darth Imperius was clever, with his own reasons to hate Zakuul -- perhaps father and son had figured out a plan. Or had Korin gotten into something? “What’s up? You find some sort of a vulnerability in that half-metallic bastard?”

“Not yet.” Reanden opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, paused, then shook his head. “What do you know about Force bonds, kid?”

Theron frowned in confusion. This was not where he’d expected this conversation to go. “Not a lot. Connections that form between Force-users, usually people close to each other.”

“Like a student and their teacher; a parent and child,” Reanden slowly agreed, “or siblings.” Theron felt his frown deepen as the older man looked at him. “Sorand had... formed a bond with Xaja, presumably some time during the Revanite incident. He’s been having intermittent dreams since…well, since the attack; they’ve been getting more intense over the past few months.” He sighed and raked a hand through his hair, an uncharacteristic sign of anxiety that Theron wasn’t used to seeing from him. The next statement left in a rush: “He believes there’s a chance that Xaja might have survived the attack. He suspects that if she's still alive, she’s probably on Zakuul, and she's in some sort of danger that he can't identify.”

For a second, Theron felt hope flare within his chest, his heart in his throat -- then reality kicked back in, and he felt his shoulders slump. “Dreams? If dreams were real, Taerich, I’d be piloting a Hutt pleasure barge overrun with gizka. The only dreams coming true now are nightmares.” He blindly gestured with one hand toward the wall, and the Spire beyond it, as if to prove his point. "You saw those reports of what happened to Marr’s fleet. There's no chance she made it."

"He swears up and down that he can feel her, or at least feel something where his bond with her was -- and he says it feels nothing like the broken bond he had with his mum.” Reanden grimaced, shifting forward in the seat. He rested his elbows on his thighs, fingers interlaced over his knees. “Look, I'm about as Force-sensitive as you and have no idea what a bond is supposed to feel like, but I trust my kid. He wouldn’t… offer hope where there isn’t any. He’s not that cruel." He shrugged. "At the least, I promised him I would do some snooping. Figured you'd be interested."

Sorand was a pretty sane, reasonable Sith, Theron knew. Unless the siege on Dromund Kaas had driven him completely insane… but Reanden, even with his clear biases toward his surviving children, should have been able to recognize that. So if Cipher Nine thought Imperius' hunch concerning a long-dead Jedi was worth investigating…

But if they're wrong? Theron raked a hand down his face as he stood up and paced to the window, then back again. "I can't do this," he heard himself whisper. "Getting my hopes up, and then finding out it was a false hope… I can't do that and lose her again." He had done that enough with the first reports of the infamous Outlander assassin, whispers of whom indicated they matched Xaja's description, unless there were other tiny, feisty redheaded women with blazing green eyes and blue lightsabers. Nothing had come out of that.

"What makes you think I can?" When Theron glanced over, he was struck by the tangible grief in Reanden's dark eyes, the sorrow making itself evident in the stoop of his shoulders. This wasn’t the Cipher Nine of legend, infamous saboteur and assassin -- this was a grief-stricken father. "My children mean everything to me, my daughter included. I need a confirmation, one way or another."

"Fuck," Theron muttered as he stared out the window for a moment longer, then finally looked back at Reanden. "If he's wrong and we're chasing a false hope, and she's still de-- still gone…"

"And if he's right, and Xaja's alive and in some sort of distress? Could you live with yourself if you didn't even try to help her?"

Help me, please…

Theron groaned and sat back down on the bed, the mattress creaking under his weight. Weird coincidence that Nine would show up with this new theory after last night's dream, he thought, and felt himself frown. The Force didn't operate in coincidences like this, did it? He wished he had Master Zho's guidance right then -- or Hells, even his mother. Somehow, he felt like Satele would at least offer some sort of advice. And he would take any answers he could get right now.

"I... dreamed about her last night," he heard himself admit quietly, before his brain quite caught up to his mouth. "It was different than the normal nightmares about her. She was… she was scared, and kept saying 'he's hurting me'. She didn't say who 'he' was, but…" He bitterly laughed and raked his hand through his hair. "And now I'm hearing her voice in the back of my head. I think I'm losing it."

When he finally looked back at Reanden, the older man was frowning in thought, clearly considering what Theron said. "Sorand thinks he felt her fear too," he added at length. "Said he could feel pain and cold -- thinks they might have been from her end of the bond. He didn't say anything about her being hurt by anyone though. I haven't been in contact with Korin, so I don't know if he's having dreams too."

"And you haven't…?"

"Pfft. Do I look like the type of person to have dreams from the Force?"

"You're as likely as me, old timer."

"One of us didn't get thirteen years of Jedi mind training as a kid." Reanden shrugged. "Not to mention you've been onworld longer. If Sorand's right, and Xaja's here, proximity probably can't hurt."

The idea that maybe, just maybe, Xaja was somewhere on this damned rock turned the spark of hope into a tiny flame in his chest. Theron closed his eyes against the sudden desperate yearning to have her in his arms right then, and for a moment was grateful Reanden couldn't sense his feelings. "You've got some sort of plan for looking, right?"

"I've got about forty percent of a plan," Reanden acknowledged. "You and Tee-Seven share what you've turned up so far, and we might have more of a plan before Lana turns up."

"Forty percent isn't much of a plan," Theron dubiously pointed out, not mentioning he was pretty sure he only had about five percent of a plan to search for Xaja himself… and only thirty percent of a plan to kill Arcann, which was rapidly being bumped down the priority list.

"This coming from the guy who blew up a Sith warship in his underwear."

"Never gonna live that down, am I?" Theron asked with a sigh as he made his way to the computer console, ignoring Reanden's smirk. "I've been doing recon around the Spire for the last few months…"

[dingoat]

Starlight and Marshlights

So uhhhh lots of really evocative imagery been going on in werewolf!au and I’d draw every second of it if I could but there’s not enough time in the world to let me get out everything I wish I could get out but I’LL MAKE DO

I love everything about what’s been going on in this story though omg

[captaingondolin]

Anakin having dreams about the distant rather than the immediate future. Kylo Ren. The fight with Rey. Then backwards from there. Luke, old, lonely. Han, Leia, Chewie, the Falcon. Ben Kenobi. His mother with a man he's never seen before. He tries to solve the mystery. He goes back to Tatooine sooner, meet the Lars family. He knows they'll raise his child in his visions, and he fears what that means. He's not sure about the other child. He saw Alderaan, and then... didn't. A shadow so dark he can't make sense of it.