Title: Too Many War Wounds
Paring: Kylo Ren X Reader
Warnings: mentions nightmares. Slice of life.
Spoilers: Yes, for Star Wars: The Force Awakens but it's 2017 and that was two years ago and y'all should have watched it by now
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The bedside beside you was bare, and cold, sheets rumpled as your forehead, bleary in the early morning light and fuzzy in the frigid pre-noon air. If it weren't for your lover's need for the crisp temperature, you'd be snuggled under as many blankets as you pleased and the thermostat blasting warmth into your lungs. But alas, your lover was the one and only Commander Kylo Ren of the Knights of Ren, of the First Order, and while you had an extra blanket, he needed the fresh sting of living on a snow planet to sleep better at night.
Stretching to rise, you reminisce over what has been the years of you knowing Kylo Ren; a first you had only been lovers, a throw, just a gasp in the night and a beating heart beside his own to aid his needs. But needs and wants mixed, and those things turned from casual to completely caught, and you were the other person living in his quarters, living in the quarters, by his side.
A toe out of bed heralds a chill, but you steel yourself, and place your foot, and the other onto the ground, and stand. Your bones click, stretching into their proper place, and pacing, you follow your lover's footsteps to the living area. Where else could he have gone? The great Kylo Ren was many things, yes, but he was still a man, with roped muscles across his sloping shoulders that quivered in the morning cold, with hair that fell across his eyes as he looked out the pane of glass that viewed the planes of the new Starkiller base.
"The dreams chase me, ________." His voice is deep, in the mornings, before he has a cup of caf in his system and his usual black attire. But here, he sits on the edge of the lounge in only his sleepwear pants, feet bare, eyes wild. "They do not relent."
You place a hand onto his arm, feeling his icy skin on your palm. "Is that why you never sleep?" alongside me? You leave the end of the question to yourself, and wait with patience for the Knight of Ren to process your words.
"Perhaps."
Your hand finds itself curling around his arm, wrapping yourself closer to him, sharing what heat has not been stolen from you from the lack of thermostat in the little rooms he shared with you. Slowly, you keep your proximity, and rest your head upon his chest to hear his heart as it beats. It's a rare privilege to see the greatest warrior the First Order had primed this close, and even greater to be like this, with him, seeing him be so ever so delicate and human. You're not sure if he's like this with all the women he has slept with, or just you, but there's no way to ask him, and you are only a lonely little programmer for the ship and planet-wide mainframe, one of many, and you have no way of knowing whether or not that Kylo Ren shares the affection you have for him.
"Running is not cowardice, and fighting is not bravery," you whisper, remembering words you had heard as a child to the cool surface of his bare chest. "It's human instinct to keep what you have, and do what you can to defend, and protect it."
His arm wraps around your own, bringing you tighter to his chest, toward him. "What wise words from one from humble roots." You hear him chuckle, and feel the tingle of his fingers running their way through your hair. "I know nothing of that, my family are -," he catches his words, and frowns, "Were known for greatness."
His scar is still healing, puckering at the edges from his lack of care to it. You know what it is like to suffer from an accident, having a long surgical scar alongside your stomach from an operation as a child, but you can see it in his eyes, in his soul, the emptiness in the air that isn't shared that he hates himself more than ever. Ever since he was told to kill his father. Ever since he was beaten in battle with the scavenger girl, Rey. He'd been closed off before, sure, but now, there was nothing. It felt like you were waiting for love that mightn't ever come.
His arm unwound itself, his form separating from proximity. At once, you lose the beat of his heart from your hearing, and feel a sadness form inside your chest. "I know you do not love, Kylo Ren, for a warrior can only love the battlefield and the taste of glory," you feel the words leave your lips before you can stop them, "But please, for all sake for your career, your well-being, those who love you, try to stop this war you have with yourself ... it's tearing you apart."
He stills. "You don't think I'm trying?" He asks you. His voice is hot, snapping, like he's chiding a child for a silly mistake.
"Healing takes time, and I will always stand by you until you cast me out from your bed," you retort, voice as strong as you've ever felt it come spewing from your lungs. "You cannot expect yourself to be a warrior if you take one battle too hard, for there will always be more, and not always with sabers and the Resistance, no, there will be battles in your mind and skin and places never expected," you feel a rapture of anger take over you, filling you. "And no matter what way you look, Kylo Ren, I will always love you for all that you are, for each part of your body, no matter what crimes or mistakes you have made in your life."
He stands there, silent. His eyes, large and brown, are soft, sad, hit hard with the words you had served him like a waiter at a diner downtown in the nearest galaxy. The cold had always needed Kylo Ren, but for once, he seemed to heat up with your words, with the fire in your breath, and before you knew it, his fingers were winding around your own, encapsulating your own, bringing you toward his chest.
"I never knew I hadn't said I loved you too," he whispers, the deep morning voice murmuring into your hair. "I am sorry. I would have thought you knew." You titter at the absurdity of that, for the thickness of Kylo Ren despite his greatness. He adds, "I'm only thirty years old, _______, but I feel like I have too many war wounds, and not enough wars fought to earn them. I see them at night."
You nod, wrapping your arms around him. "I'm here for you. I'll chase those dreams away. I promise." The bedside might have been bare and cold as you woke, but for him, you would always be warm, and there, and present no matter what arose. And that you vowed.