Animus {Kylo Ren}
Anon asked: Okokok so I j read the imagine abt being best friends w young ben solo and being in love and it was s o cute so can you do one that’s fast forwarded to telegram future when he’s already been turned but he sees the reader again and everything (all those memories and feelings) come floooding back ?
juliatakescz asked: oneshot were you and ben were together when you two were younger. on a resistance mission you're captured, but you look really different, and kylo goes to interrogate you but doesn't realize it's you until he looks in your mind? lots of angst please?
A/N: and old prompt and a new one. this is just gonna be a short one (hopefully), but i love it and i couldn’t refuse. Pre-TFA, unedited, you’re gonna have a sad time.
He’s Kylo Ren, prodigy of the First Order, of Snoke, the Jedi Killer, and-
He’s Kylo Ren, and that’s all that matters now.
For the first few years after joining the First Order, after being gifted a TIE-Fighter of his very own, he made a point of shooting Resistance ships out of the sky, as if trying to destroy the very memory of the name Ben Solo.
He hasn’t thought about you in a very long time, nor his mother or father, but they are a choice. Snoke thinks you’re special. And perhaps you are, but Ben Kylo can’t know that.
So how was he to know when your ship was beamed aboard the Finalizer? You had just been trying to get some information from a contact on a First Order controlled planet; there was always a chance, a danger, but you never thought they’d capture you. Your life for the Resistance was fine, but to give up information? Unthinkable.
Your holding cell is barren, smelling of only your own sweat, blood, and the durasteel that held the room together. You could hear the heavy thudding of boots from the other end of the hallway, and the guards who had been quietly murmuring to each other went absolutely silent, looking the picture of innocence, apart from where your blood had been smeared on the white of their gauntlets. They hadn’t gotten anything out of you, but the sound of the footsteps filled you with a new, unfamiliar fear. The footsteps pass, and the Stormtroopers go back to talking amongst themselves, but not before knocking you out.
“It seems Kylo Ren isn’t ready for you yet.” Is the last thing you hear, and the snear in the speaker’s voice is palpable. Kylo Ren you had heard of, and it’s with fear crawling up your spine that you’re forced into a restless state of unconsciousness.
He doesn’t recognise you. He looks at your face for a full minute and doesn’t recognise you. He calls you by your name and doesn’t recognise you.
Sure, you had changed considerably, a few more scars from battles hard won, hair styled differently as you were want to do in order to keep a low profile, your clothes rough, as if scraped together from the Republic’s surplus uniform material. The busted lip and black eye were certainly new, courtesy of the Stormtroopers. There was none of the elegance that your diplomatic young life had afforded you with. Now you were Leia’s right hand, Lieutenant of the Resistance, and according to the Stormtroopers, Public Enemy Number Two, with only the General herself above you.
“[Y/N], what a surprise.” His voice is deadpan. You are still unconscious. With a single raised hand, he uses the Force to slam your head back, awaking you with a start and a loud swear. Your situation comes flooding back to you and your follow-up swears die in your throat.
“You’re taller than I expected.” As you say the words, something in your mind aches, a memory of Ben, strangely tall as a fifteen-year-old, who even then was a good foot higher than his mother. Kylo Ren is silent.
“How is it,” he advances towards you as he speaks, voice filtered through his mask, the cadence of it, however, familiar, “that the others cannot even get out of you the name of a planet?”
“We’re made of stronger stuff, I suppose.” Your words are surprisingly brave and are completely at odds with the fear in your voice. He takes another step forwards. The terror you exude is practically tangible. “I will not give you the Resistance. I will not give you Leia.”
Never has he come across a Resistance member who mentions the General - his mother - by name, who’s so adamant about protecting her above the whole Resistance. It appears the rumours were true, you really were the General’s right hand.
“Then I will take her from you, by whatever means necessary.” He hissed, his hand raising with an air of menace.
Kylo Ren was skilled at making his way through people’s minds, whether it be with ease, silently, making no disturbance, just pulling out the information and moving on, or he could make it hurt, make them feel each memory he touched as if he had pressed a branding iron to their flesh; though he was no Bor Gullet, he could certainly make his victims feel his malevolent intent. And with you? Someone potentially crucial to the Resistance, to Leia? He wanted to destroy you.
For the first few moments he did, tearing through the surface level thoughts, your fear and guilt at having being captured, your fluttering heart urging your screaming mind to just accept death. It’s as though he’s taken his lightsaber to the memories of your Resistance battles, lashing out at your victories over dead Stormtroopers. With tender strokes he made short work of looking through your recent memories with Leia, trying to find the root of your attachment to her, making each memory as excruciating as the last.
But then his own face was looking back at him through your mind’s eye.
The world around him stops; but the world in your mind starts up.
“You’re taller than I expected.” The Ben in your mind smirks at that, jumping off of the podium where he was addressing a bunch of twelve-year-olds armed with sticks and rubber band guns, none of them old enough to be trusted with anything even close to a real gun, so they work with what they’ve cobbled together. You can see the blaster sitting in a holster by his hip, but it looks old. You’ll learn much later that it’s his mother’s, from the Rebellion, it’s-
- later now, much later, perhaps even a year; you’re sitting on the counter of his kitchen, he’s cooking something but you can’t see what from this angle. He puts a half-cooked vegetable in his mouth and his eyes close with contentment before he offers some to you, it’s good, it’s-
- earlier now, you’re watching him, his eyes bright as he looks up at the ceiling, he’s got one hand behind his head, the other pointed towards the sky projected on his roof. You don’t look at the stars; he’s blinding in comparison, when he smiles at you, asking if you’re listening, you nod emphatically, how could you not be listening? He’s so passionate, it’s mesmerising, it’s-
- midnight, or close to it, you’re exhausted, but he’s asleep, head on your lap, holotape playing out a movie a few metres away. He looks so peaceful, you brush a strand of hair behind his ears just as you hear a sound. Looking behind you, you see Leia shuffling around in her pyjamas, soft and unguarded as her son, filling a glass with water.
“He really cares about you, you know?” And you do know. You know because-
- he’s smiling at you, one hand rubbing his forehead, looking up at you like you hang the stars in the sky. The things from his teenage room, things that Kylo Ren remembers as he watches this memory through your eyes, scatter about the floor, his history text book, his calligraphy set, his one treasured photograph. Kylo Ren remembers that photograph now, remembers this whole scene as it plays out, only from his perspective. He remembers your smile, the way you laughed at his antics, how he would go to the end of the universe if it meant hearing you laugh like that again. He loves you, you both know this. It’s there in his eyes, in this memory.
It’s there in his words.
“I love you too.”
“Get out of this ship.” He snarled, and you look absolutely terrified. He feels sick to his stomach after the influx of memories; he’s never wanted to hurt you, even now he doesn’t. Confused and scared you can only topple to the floor as he breaks the lock for your wrist bindings with his bare hands. “Do you know who I am?” You’re crawling to the door when he speaks, but he hasn’t made a move to come after you.
“You’re Kylo Ren.” There’s a shake in your voice that he loathes. You’re scared of him, of the boy you loved, and he feels guilt well up inside him. Snoke’s words echo through his mind, destroy the past, kill it if you have to, but he doesn’t have to. You don’t know who he is, you’re afraid of Kylo Ren, and the memory of Ben Solo is merely that. On top of that, he’s forced you to give up the location of the Resistance, which he had promptly forgotten as he received the influx of new memories, of old feelings, though you don’t know this. He’s destroyed you, and though he realise it, as soon as you take one stumbling step out the door, the Stormtroopers will finish the job.