He knew the place was going to be trashed again before he even got there, and he couldn't even really blame Kylo for trashing it.
The guy deserved to be locked up for life, but Poe wanted him locked up for something he'd actually done. Something deserving. Not this trumped up charge over nothing, when they should be calling him a hero instead.
He didn't like thinking about it, but the fact was that there were very few people on Kylo Ren's side, and somehow Poe had found himself on it.
So he'd signed up as Kylo's parole officer, mostly out of some fucked up sense of honour. Did it mean he liked the guy any more? No. Kylo was driving him nuts. I mean, Kylo always drove him nuts, and it only seemed to be getting worse the more Kylo was getting objectively better. Helping people. Saving them. Being a right fucking asshole while he did it, but at least he was doing something.
The constant nightmares Poe had once had about him had long ago shifted into other things. Heated, hungry things that Poe tried not to think about when he woke up and yet couldn't help it whenever he saw him. So, this whole parole thing had been a sort of torture.
What made it worse was the one thing that had always scared him the most about Kylo was gone.
He used his key to open the door and let himself inside, carrying bags of groceries in.
"I swear, if you've destroyed the coffee maker again, I'm not replacing it this time," he called into the house as he kicked off his shoes.
A door slammed. Heavy-booted feet stalked across cheap, government-issue linoleum floor. From the kitchen came the sound of a heavy appliance being dragged across a counter, and Kylo's response: a pained roar and a furious crash as the coffee maker exploded into pieces, having been hurled at the wall.
Kylo was not taking incarceration well.
Part of the reason, and the reason the muscles of his arms were screaming in the aftermath of what should have been an effortless demonstration of displeasure was the deceptively lightweight, slender collar around his neck. A power nullifier. He'd be wearing it for weeks, yet. The other reason was this ridiculous apartment they had him confined to— or more accurately, this ridiculous apartment they had sequestered him away in, aware that allowing him to stay at the Meadows with Ronan would be no hindrance at all. He'd been cut off from the Force, and in his enforced separation from Ronan, cut off from his power, too.
And his calming, stabilising influence. His release.
Kylo snarled wordlessly, swiped a line of mugs off the countertop to shatter on the floor for good measure and turned to wait for the inevitable, weary scolding he'd earned himself, a heavy scowl on his face. Dealing with Dameron was the last thing he wanted to be doing while so horribly unsettled, and the worst thing was that he was certain Dameron knew it.
"Cool, that wasn't childish or petty at all," Poe said mildly, and indeed, wearily. "You are only getting one mug after this. You can wash it when you need it." He regretting having taken off his shoes, and shoved his feet back into them, crushing the backs since he could lean down to tie them back up as he padded into the kitchen. He heard ceramic crunch under his feet and pointedly did not look at Kylo.
There was always something deeply... He didn't even know the word for it. Not erotic, exactly. Primal, maybe, about seeing Kylo in prime physical form, wreaking petty destruction. It would have been terrifying, normally, but he knew just how collared Kylo actually was.
He could only hurt him as deeply as any other person good. And physical pain had never been the issue in the first place. Kylo was chained by more than his collar: Poe was the only one who'd be able to convince them to clear Kylo to go home. He was his link to Ronan, too.
He was safe.
Which was a heady feeling of power, when dealing with Kylo Ren.
"You've got to hold out for three more weeks before the hearing," He said, putting the food away, as if he wasn't surrounded by shattered and broken machinery. "Can you at least pretend you're capable of that?"
He shouldn't poke the bear, but. It was hard to resist.
"You're breathing, aren't you?" Kylo hit back acidly, too tense for the flat, unaffected tone he might have used if he wasn't practically writhing with the fury of withdrawal. This isolation was going to destroy him.
His shoulders heaved, heat still prickling under his skin. His dark eyes tracked Poe's movements as he carried on stocking a kitchen he knew full well Kylo wouldn't use.
“Only because right now you’d have to work for it,” Poe replied mildly.
But a weird uncomfortable feeling flickered in his chest. Something almost like pity, but not quite. At first he’d almost enjoyed seeing Kylo laid low, like this. Taken a perverse pleasure in it. But it was getting harder and harder not to notice that this wasn’t just an inconvenience. This was destroying Kylo.
And he should have wanted it to.
So he stocked a kitchen he knew wouldn’t be used except by him, to make food that the man would probably refuse to eat. He put the last thing away with a sharp sigh.
“Is it really that bad? Being as blind as the rest of us?”
"That's what you think it might be like. To lose the awareness of the nature of reality itself. To lose access to the connection between yourself and every other living thing in existence. You think it would be like losing your sight."
Kylo's eyes narrowed, mouth twisting with contempt.
"You know why you're still breathing."
Ronan. Who hadn't even committed a crime by technicality, but was being punished all the same. Kylo wasn't sure he wanted to know if he was hurling himself uselessly at the invisible barrier placed between them.
“What, you think somehow the Force doesn’t connect those of us who can’t tap into it?” He asked, something dark flickering in his expression. “Yeah. I think it would be like going blind. Because going blind means I couldn’t fly.”
And he doesn’t feel like that needs a deeper explanation. Sight might seem real small to someone like Kylo, but for Poe, losing it would destroy the thing that made him.
Yeah. Poe knew. And he thought it was a particular stroke of cruelty, to separate Kylo and Ronan. But still...
“You think he’d be impressed with this tantrum?” Honestly, Poe wasn’t even sure. After all, the dude was in love with Kylo Ren. Maybe he thought childish tantrums were super hot.
He walked over, chin tilting up to make up for his short stature, getting far closer than he ever would have dared, before.
“You’re making this worse for yourself and you know it.”
"Don't pretend you would have the courage stand so close to me if you believed me simply blindfolded," he seethed, his fingers curling into furiously tight fists at his side. But as he was sure Poe had predicted, he didn't lash out despite the growing urge to slam his smug, insufferable face into the countertop.
"Use him again to torment me. I dare you."
He regretted the words as soon as they were past his lips.
"I've stood closer," He said bluntly. Though of course, that had been against his will and he'd been restrained at the time, but as far as Poe was concerned, that hardly lessened the courage.
His lip curled in almost a snarl, though probably not for the reasons that Kylo would think.
"Do you seriously think I'm here to torment you?" He hissed at him. "Is that why you think I took this thankless job? To watch you suffer and revel in it? I wish I could feel that way about you right now. I'm trying to make this easier for you, but you won't even try to look beyond your damned nose."
Kylo didn't recall Poe standing for much of that, which was a thought that had his lips quirking.
"I think you took this thankless job because you owe me," Kylo retorted. "And you think bringing me food and cleaning dishes is doing me a favour. Making all of this easier."
He hardly noticed the aggressive swell in his voice or the way he was looming over him, the threatening posture more habit than choice.
"No, this still isn't your favour, you idiot." Yeah. The looming isn't half as scary without the Force behind it. Poe's never been one to be that intimidated by physical size. He's basically a mongoose yelling at a lion and he doesn't care.
"I'm doing this because you shouldn't be here. Because I know that the charge was as bogus as you do. You really - I shouldn't have said a fucking thing about that favour. I'm bringing you this shit because I know that otherwise you'd be too petulant to even look after yourself. Even if I didn't give a shit, Force knows that Ronan deserves better than that."
"Then get me out of here," Kylo snarled, towering over him very much deliberately, now. "If you care so much about the injustice of my imprisonment. If you're concerned about Ronan. Enough with this pointless pretense. Enough trying to placate me with domestics. Get me out. That's what I want from you."
"I get you out and the next time they catch you, you get thrown somewhere worse and Ronan and I get thrown in with you!" He snapped. "Three weeks. Three weeks, Kylo, that's it."
There was a seed of something, growing in his mind.
It was a very, very stupid seed.
Kylo was self destructing. That much was apparent. Poe couldn't rescue him - at least not without making everything a lot worse - but maybe he could distract him.
His eyes met Kylo's for half a second, before suddenly he reached out and shoved him with both hands.
All the irritably heated things fighting to be first out of Kylo's mouth fell away in the simple, stunned moment, the surprise sufficient to have Kylo stagger back a step... only for him to round back on Poe, furious. He shoved back, eyes blazing, more than ready to fight his so-called probation officer right here.
He could feel his pulse spike, adrenaline hitting him. Yeah. Yeah, this could work. He could take a few bruises for the cause, right? A good fight, that would definitely get Kylo distracted.
The fact that his quickening blood was also slowly starting to throb south was something he wasn't going to think about, right now.
"That all you got?" He taunted, shoving back, harder this time. "That's all the meagre righteous anger you can muster? Pathetic."
Oh, Dameron wanted Kylo's anger? All of it? Kylo would oblige him.
He didn't need access to the Force to land a punch right on that smug, self-assured face— and so he did, putting his weight into the blow with a heavy swing of his arm and relishing the shock of pain as his fist made contact.
Pathetic?
Pathetic was thinking that Kylo Ren was powerless without his abilities. He'd teach Poe not to make that mistake again.
He felt his lip split against his teeth as he was knocked backward with the punch, his vision spinning for a second. Damn but the man could pack a fist.
He didn't say that. Instead, he scoffed, raising a hand to his lip and coming away bloodied, pausing for a heart beat - two - to glance at the man.
And then he was throwing all of his weight at him, shoulder first, to try to shove a man almost half again his size against a wall. It probably wouldn't work. What he didn't notice, however, was the chunk of broken machine right behin Kylo's heel...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
MoM
The guy deserved to be locked up for life, but Poe wanted him locked up for something he'd actually done. Something deserving. Not this trumped up charge over nothing, when they should be calling him a hero instead.
He didn't like thinking about it, but the fact was that there were very few people on Kylo Ren's side, and somehow Poe had found himself on it.
So he'd signed up as Kylo's parole officer, mostly out of some fucked up sense of honour. Did it mean he liked the guy any more? No. Kylo was driving him nuts. I mean, Kylo always drove him nuts, and it only seemed to be getting worse the more Kylo was getting objectively better. Helping people. Saving them. Being a right fucking asshole while he did it, but at least he was doing something.
The constant nightmares Poe had once had about him had long ago shifted into other things. Heated, hungry things that Poe tried not to think about when he woke up and yet couldn't help it whenever he saw him. So, this whole parole thing had been a sort of torture.
What made it worse was the one thing that had always scared him the most about Kylo was gone.
He used his key to open the door and let himself inside, carrying bags of groceries in.
"I swear, if you've destroyed the coffee maker again, I'm not replacing it this time," he called into the house as he kicked off his shoes.
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Kylo was not taking incarceration well.
Part of the reason, and the reason the muscles of his arms were screaming in the aftermath of what should have been an effortless demonstration of displeasure was the deceptively lightweight, slender collar around his neck. A power nullifier. He'd be wearing it for weeks, yet.
The other reason was this ridiculous apartment they had him confined to— or more accurately, this ridiculous apartment they had sequestered him away in, aware that allowing him to stay at the Meadows with Ronan would be no hindrance at all. He'd been cut off from the Force, and in his enforced separation from Ronan, cut off from his power, too.
And his calming, stabilising influence. His release.
Kylo snarled wordlessly, swiped a line of mugs off the countertop to shatter on the floor for good measure and turned to wait for the inevitable, weary scolding he'd earned himself, a heavy scowl on his face. Dealing with Dameron was the last thing he wanted to be doing while so horribly unsettled, and the worst thing was that he was certain Dameron knew it.
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There was always something deeply... He didn't even know the word for it. Not erotic, exactly. Primal, maybe, about seeing Kylo in prime physical form, wreaking petty destruction. It would have been terrifying, normally, but he knew just how collared Kylo actually was.
He could only hurt him as deeply as any other person good. And physical pain had never been the issue in the first place. Kylo was chained by more than his collar: Poe was the only one who'd be able to convince them to clear Kylo to go home. He was his link to Ronan, too.
He was safe.
Which was a heady feeling of power, when dealing with Kylo Ren.
"You've got to hold out for three more weeks before the hearing," He said, putting the food away, as if he wasn't surrounded by shattered and broken machinery. "Can you at least pretend you're capable of that?"
He shouldn't poke the bear, but. It was hard to resist.
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His shoulders heaved, heat still prickling under his skin. His dark eyes tracked Poe's movements as he carried on stocking a kitchen he knew full well Kylo wouldn't use.
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But a weird uncomfortable feeling flickered in his chest. Something almost like pity, but not quite. At first he’d almost enjoyed seeing Kylo laid low, like this. Taken a perverse pleasure in it. But it was getting harder and harder not to notice that this wasn’t just an inconvenience. This was destroying Kylo.
And he should have wanted it to.
So he stocked a kitchen he knew wouldn’t be used except by him, to make food that the man would probably refuse to eat. He put the last thing away with a sharp sigh.
“Is it really that bad? Being as blind as the rest of us?”
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Kylo's eyes narrowed, mouth twisting with contempt.
"You know why you're still breathing."
Ronan. Who hadn't even committed a crime by technicality, but was being punished all the same. Kylo wasn't sure he wanted to know if he was hurling himself uselessly at the invisible barrier placed between them.
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And he doesn’t feel like that needs a deeper explanation. Sight might seem real small to someone like Kylo, but for Poe, losing it would destroy the thing that made him.
Yeah. Poe knew. And he thought it was a particular stroke of cruelty, to separate Kylo and Ronan. But still...
“You think he’d be impressed with this tantrum?” Honestly, Poe wasn’t even sure. After all, the dude was in love with Kylo Ren. Maybe he thought childish tantrums were super hot.
He walked over, chin tilting up to make up for his short stature, getting far closer than he ever would have dared, before.
“You’re making this worse for yourself and you know it.”
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"Don't pretend you would have the courage stand so close to me if you believed me simply blindfolded," he seethed, his fingers curling into furiously tight fists at his side. But as he was sure Poe had predicted, he didn't lash out despite the growing urge to slam his smug, insufferable face into the countertop.
"Use him again to torment me. I dare you."
He regretted the words as soon as they were past his lips.
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His lip curled in almost a snarl, though probably not for the reasons that Kylo would think.
"Do you seriously think I'm here to torment you?" He hissed at him. "Is that why you think I took this thankless job? To watch you suffer and revel in it? I wish I could feel that way about you right now. I'm trying to make this easier for you, but you won't even try to look beyond your damned nose."
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"I think you took this thankless job because you owe me," Kylo retorted. "And you think bringing me food and cleaning dishes is doing me a favour. Making all of this easier."
He hardly noticed the aggressive swell in his voice or the way he was looming over him, the threatening posture more habit than choice.
"There is no easier."
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"I'm doing this because you shouldn't be here. Because I know that the charge was as bogus as you do. You really - I shouldn't have said a fucking thing about that favour. I'm bringing you this shit because I know that otherwise you'd be too petulant to even look after yourself. Even if I didn't give a shit, Force knows that Ronan deserves better than that."
You did dare him to bring up Ronan again...
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There was a seed of something, growing in his mind.
It was a very, very stupid seed.
Kylo was self destructing. That much was apparent. Poe couldn't rescue him - at least not without making everything a lot worse - but maybe he could distract him.
His eyes met Kylo's for half a second, before suddenly he reached out and shoved him with both hands.
"Buck up."
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All the irritably heated things fighting to be first out of Kylo's mouth fell away in the simple, stunned moment, the surprise sufficient to have Kylo stagger back a step... only for him to round back on Poe, furious. He shoved back, eyes blazing, more than ready to fight his so-called probation officer right here.
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The fact that his quickening blood was also slowly starting to throb south was something he wasn't going to think about, right now.
"That all you got?" He taunted, shoving back, harder this time. "That's all the meagre righteous anger you can muster? Pathetic."
no subject
He didn't need access to the Force to land a punch right on that smug, self-assured face— and so he did, putting his weight into the blow with a heavy swing of his arm and relishing the shock of pain as his fist made contact.
Pathetic?
Pathetic was thinking that Kylo Ren was powerless without his abilities. He'd teach Poe not to make that mistake again.
no subject
He didn't say that. Instead, he scoffed, raising a hand to his lip and coming away bloodied, pausing for a heart beat - two - to glance at the man.
And then he was throwing all of his weight at him, shoulder first, to try to shove a man almost half again his size against a wall. It probably wouldn't work. What he didn't notice, however, was the chunk of broken machine right behin Kylo's heel...