#post-tlj

Chapter Title Reveal Soon to Come...

As Stars Through Our Souls by LadyRhi on AO3

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Chapter I: Wake Me to Dream Once More

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Chapter XX: And Darkness Embrace Me

Bare hands

Finn is startled awake, disoriented, grabbing for a blaster that isn’t there before taking stock of his surroundings and status. The small crew quarters on the Falcon—right. They are in hyperspace traveling to a prospective new base, and the noise that woke him was…?

The noise in question draws his attention to the adjacent bunk, where Poe is thrashing and moaning as if in pain. A night terror. Finn sits up at the same time BB-8 rolls across the narrow room from the charging station at the back wall, beeping and trilling in a pattern that would almost certainly make sense if Finn spoke Binary. Finn watches as the little droid, with seemingly practiced movements, rolls forward and backwards rhythmically bumping into the side of the bunk, then extending a pincher-arm to tug on Poe’s sleepshirt.

After several unsuccessful bump-and-tugs, BB-8 rotates his optical sensor over towards Finn. “Here, let me try?” Finn asks, moving across to sit at the end of Poe’s bunk, well away from BB-8 and the top half of Poe’s body. Night terrors were not foreign to Stormtroopers, so Finn was well-accustomed to avoiding the fists of terrified, disoriented dreamers. As BB-8 goes back to bumping and tugging, Finn shakes Poe by the calf—kicks could hurt, but were more likely to hit hips or shoulders than bloody noses or blacken eyes.

“Poe. Poe…” He says Poe’s name in increasing volume until finally Poe shoots up, swinging wildly. “Hey, you’re alright, you’re okay, You’re in the Falcon, you’re safe, I’m Finn, BB-8’s right there, you’re okay.” Finn rambles out information and reassurance while holding his hands up in a surrender position while Poe orients himself and realizes there aren’t any threats outside the ones in his subconscious. After a moment his eyes focus—first on BB-8, who beeps a concerned-sounding pattern, then on Finn, who tries to look as unthreatening as he can.

“Fuck.” Poe says with feeling, laying back with his hands covering his face. Finn takes a gamble and lays his hand back on Poe’s knee, hoping to ground him but not sure if it will be welcome. ‘Troopers normally didn’t welcome casual touch, but Finn himself has appreciated it whenever it’s been offered. He’s satisfied when the knotted muscles of Poe’s thigh relax slightly at the contact.

“Where am I?” The words tear like fire from Rey’s throat. She makes it to her knees before a wave of vertigo hits. “Where’s my squadron? What have you done?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I’ve done nothing.” Kylo’s tone is carefully controlled, but the weariness seeps through. “In that order.”

It’s the slow dull edge to his voice that catches her attention and momentarily stills her. Her gaze snaps to the darksider; taking in the mottled bruising on his face. The drying blood caked at his brow. He’s injured and exhausted. She can read it plain as day in the deep hollows beneath his eyes. The way his breath hitches a little with each intake - and the wince he tries to hide as it does so.

All the easier to take him down, she thinks.

Mouth pressed in a determined line, Rey pushes herself to her feet and reaches for Han’s blaster at her belt. Cold panic surges up her spine as her fingers grab at nothing. She steps towards the Supreme Leader, stumbling as her brain takes several seconds longer than it should to register the movement.

“Before you ask,” Kylo holds up a hand in supplication, “it wasn’t me.”

“How,” she begins fiercely, “do you expect me to believe it could be anyone else?”

“We were attacked!” He snaps, the hand now curling into a fist and thumping the gnarled bough he sits upon. “The First Order, the Resistance… Someone blindsided us both, took our weapons, dumped us on this asswipe of a planet... And I’ve been sitting here for what feels like hours now trying to work out how.”

“Wow,” Rey says finally, arching a brow in disbelief, “your interrogation tactics have certainly grown more elaborate. Whatever happened to just strapping me in a chair and rifling through my brain?”

“No. Listen.” Kylo leaves his seat and steps in closer. There’s a raw intensity to his expression that has Rey reaching again for a weapon that’s not at her side.

“You didn’t just launch an escape pod and wind up on this planet, marooned and weaponless, any more than I did. We’re the two most powerful Force-users in the galaxy. How is this,” he throws out an arm, gesturing to the dense forest surrounding them, “even possible?”

The Enemy (of my Enemy is my Friend) - Chapter 1 excerpt Coming soon to A03 & FFNET by acowlorsomething

It was near a crackling campfire that Poe found himself with blasters pointed at him. Not exactly a new situation, but still.

“Resistance hypocrite,” one of the salvagers, a woman with red hair in a bun said. “If it were up to me, you’d be rotting in a sarlaac pit.”

”I guess we just can’t talk this over?” Poe said. “Minus the sarlaac pit?”

”Nice try, Captain.”

It was in that moment that Poe heard the familiar ignition of a lightsaber behind him, crackling and almost volatile, but somehow, reassuring in the fact that it was there.

”Captain Dameron is under the protection of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren,” Kylo said evenly as he stepped forward. "If you want a chance to back down, I suggest you take it.”

By DarkSideOfMe on Ao3  for @miranda13ao3​​

Read it here on Ao3.  25k+ words  Rated E

Summary: A bounty hunter decides that the former Supreme Leader would make an excellent prize and manages to get the jump on Ben while he is on a mission for the Resistance, encasing him in carbonite. Rey is quick to mount a solo rescue mission and helps Ben recover from the hibernation sickness when she eventually gets him back.