Chapter Text
As long as he can remember, he’s heard a voice in his head.
But the dreams—visions—don’t start until he’s ten.
Years later, when Snoke isn’t listening, he sometimes wishes they’d return. He wishes you’d return.
…
You’re ten and sleeping soundly in your bed when a voice cuts through the darkness.
“Focus, young Padawan. I sense great distraction within you. You must be calm and at peace.”
The voice is older, your parents’ age maybe, but distorted, like it’s underwater. Your eyes snap open. You’re sitting on the ground, no longer in your room. You’re outside at either dusk or dawn, hidden from the greater space outdoors between two small tents. You rub your eyes, super drowsy (last week’s first vocabulary word) and try to understand what you were seeing.
There’s a slight breeze blowing your tangled hair into your face, and gentle sounds of wildlife all around. The sun behind you, setting or rising (you have no idea), barely illuminates (vocab word #2) the space. Behind the mountains in front of you is the moon. Wait, make that four moons.
If you didn’t live in the middle of your city with the closest camping area hours away, the presence (vocab word #3) of multiple moons would tell you—this is definitely a dream.
“I’m trying, Uncle Luke,” another voice says from behind the tents. Male too, but younger. You creep to your knees and crawl to the side of the tent nearest you.
There sits a boy, gangly and long-limbed, with curling black hair around his high cheekbones. His eyes are closed and he’s scowling. He looks close to your age, but considering strangers think you’re in second grade and not fifth, you can’t guess how old he is.
“Master Skywalker, Padawan,” the older voice says. It doesn’t come from a body you can see, but echoes in the air around the boy. “And remember- do or do not, there is no try.”
The boy huffs and murmurs something you don’t catch. You lean farther around the tent to get a little closer.
When you accidentally hit the back spike, causing it to twang, the boy’s eyes fly open to stare at you.
“Who are you?” he asks.
But before you can answer, that underwater voice says something and the boy, and everything around you, fades away.
You bolt upright in your bed. You’re in your room, in the dark.
Hopefully you get class credit for using vocab words while dreaming.
..
It happens again the next night and the night after. He never talks to you again, and you don’t look around the tents. Your teacher told you only words said in 'real life' and 'out loud' count anyway.
…
Boredom accounts for a lot of choices you make as a child, and usually it doesn’t work out in your favor. It pushed you to try dyeing your hair with lemon (running both your hair and the recipe Dad planned), it convinced you to leap off the shed wearing a cape and spraining both ankles, it even forced you to read the stupid encyclopedia when your cable was out last summer until you got a headache so bad that none of the medicines helped. (On the plus side, you know more “A” words than anyone in your class).
So after two weeks of ignoring the stranger in your dreamspace, you finally sit up from the soft grassy earth you’ve made your substitute dreambed and tiptoe towards the boy. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s not like you can sprain your ankles in a dream.
But remembering your past boredom mistakes, you still only hesitantly lean against a tent, ready to bolt if this turns into a nightmare.
“You’re not sneaky, you know.” His eyes stay closed, his hands resting on his crossed knees. He did that the first night too, looking like those old people in those weird medicine commercials.
“I wasn’t trying to be,” you say, crossing your arms around your stomach. It’s colder today, even though the sun is nearly directly above you. You try to wish for a coat to cover your cartoon pjs, but the dream doesn’t change.
“It’s my dream anyway, so I don’t need to surprise you,” you boast. A lie, but your mom told you to meet your fears head on and not let them know they scare you. If it worked when you got a shot, it could work on a stupid dream.
The boy’s eyes open. You hadn’t noticed, but they are dark and deep, the kind of focus you see in the neighbor who mom said came back from some tour. You don’t really know what that means, but she’s always sad. Why is this kid sad?
“This isn’t a dream,” he says. “This is a Force vision.”
You take a step tiny closer to him. “What’s a Force vision?”
“You don’t know what a—” He blinks and cuts himself off. The scowl is back and he’s muttering to himself before glaring up at you. “They’re important abilities for Jedi to see the past, future, and other places. I’m the only Padawan in the universe right now, so it makes sense I’d experience one.” He sounds smug and you want to roll your eyes. Boys.
But the pride leaks out of him as he slumps. “Except I don’t know what this is supposed to show me. All I’m seeing is our campsite, minus my Master, and some strange girl.”
You look around the now-somewhat-recognizable area. “So this is a real place?”
“Yes, Master Skywalker is training me here before we go on another trip.”
“Oh.”
You’ve never heard of self-referential dreams (not that you’d understand them if you had). You’re also passed the ‘I believe in magic’ phase, having discovered Santa and the Easter Bunny weren’t real years ago. Is it more likely this is a dream you made up, or that you’ve traveled somewhere else in your sleep?
You’re not sure what to say. He looks tired, those sad eyes sunken, and you have the odd impulse to help him. Plus, you’re bored, remember? Staring at the space between two tents is nowhere as thrilling as the dreams where you’re running or falling. But you can’t under explain why you’d show up in some stranger’s Force vision, why you keep dreaming about it, or whether this place is actually real.
After a few minutes, the boy sighs. “And you think you’re dreaming?”
“Yeah. I go to sleep and end up here. As soon as I leave, I’m back in my room and it’s morning." You shrug. "It makes sense to me.”
“I guess,” he says, wrinkling his nose. He gestures to the grassy area in front of him, where you you gingerly sit. This close, you see the freckles that dot his face, and the sharpness of his nose. He’s cute, and your face flushes when you realize it.
The boy doesn’t notice your perusal, instead focusing on his lap. He’s hesitant when he speaks again. “Through the Force, all things are possible. Maybe we can… figure out what this is… together.”
“That would be awesome,” you respond immediately.
He lifts his head and smiles, and the sadness in his eyes disappears. He holds out a hand. “I’m Ben.”
…
You quickly figure out the rules. He only sees you when he’s meditating, which explains why the times of day change. You only see him at night after you fall asleep. (At least that explains why you both think you’re experiencing different things.) You can only touch something he’s touched first (and how weird was it to try and open his tent only for your hands to pass through), you can only go where he goes, and only see and hear him.
You learn that Ben is the son of two powerful people in some ‘Republic.’ He used to live in a place called Chandrila. You look it up early on after you start talking, and you can’t find it. You even ask the librarian and your dad, but you can only find pages written in Sanskrit or suggesting baby names. Likewise, the Republic and his parents’ names bring no results. Even though Ben doesn’t have access to the information you have, he tells you your country, your planet, aren’t listed in the records Master Skywalker has.
Really though, you hope he isn’t a dream. After just two months, he’s become your best friend. You also hope he feels the same way.
…
You’re both thirteen when you he confirms you’re almost as important to him as he is to you.
You know almost everything about each other by this point. He only gets cagey when talking about some second Master he talks to, someone other than Master Skywalker, but you don’t care. Everyone is entitled to secrets. You’re mainly grateful he doesn’t care about your overzealous questioning of his life otherwise. He explains everything you ever see, down to the mechanics of the lightsaber he’s building. You haven’t been bored for over 3 years.
He’s been traveling the galaxy searching for Jedi artifacts (which he’s let you hold, so cool), and on some tear about Master Skywalker, pacing the width of his small room on their ship. (A spaceship! You gave up thinking this was a dream a while ago, because no way is your imagination good enough to make up the details of the ship, space, and the many places he’s visited.)
“And he won’t even let me read them! I’m his successor, and still he treats me like I don’t have a right to know.”
“It’s BS,” you agree from your place on his cot.
He stops to gawk at you with a confused look on his face. “BS?”
“Bullshit, uh, bantha shit.”
He sits on the floor across from you, leaning against the steel wall of the ship and ducking his chin into his chest. You can just barely see the tips of his reddening ears.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I’ve spent this whole meditation talking about myself.”
You shrug. You love listening to him talk, so it didn’t bother you. You tell him as much.
“Yes, but I’m told that friends must share experiences.”
“Is that what we are?” you tease.
He raises his head to focus his intense gaze on you. “Yes,” he says firmly.
Now it’s your turn to duck your head to hide a pleased smile. “I’m glad,” you tell your lap, “all that talk about Jedi not having attachments made me wonder.”
“Master Skywalker has explained what that means. All that to say, friendships are welcomed.”
“Good, that’s good.” You’re nearly breathless and can’t explain why except that Ben makes butterflies take flight in your stomach. He makes your crush on Zack from Chem seem like nothing. He makes you wish you could sleep the entire day just to spend more time with him.
“Tell me about you,” he commands, the entirety of his attention directed at you. Normally, you’d snark at him for trying to order you around, tease him for behaving like the pseudo-royalty he was, but something sparkled between you in that small room. You cast your eyes about the room to stop yourself from blurting out that “you’re so cute, sometimes I imagine you by my side during the day and it makes everything a bit better.”
You don’t say that, keeping a tight lid on your runaway brain, instead offering, “there’s a dance tomorrow for the last night of space camp.”
Ben knows all about space camp, and thinks the technological deficiencies of your world, which has little exploration, are amusing. “You mean a ball?”
You nod. That phrasing probably makes more sense to him, given his mom’s history. “Less formal, but yes. You go with an escort. There’s food, and we dress up.”
“Will you go with someone?” His voice is casual, and man, do you wish it wasn't.
“I don’t think so.” He doesn’t need to know that there’s no one you’re interested in enough to ask (or be asked by); that’s one of your secrets. Oh sure, you like boys, Zack is super hot, but if given the choice between spending less time asleep hanging out with some guy, or sitting in Ben’s room listening to him talk, there’s no contest.
“Then how will you dance?”
You probably won't, but that sounds lame. “There are non-couple dances, lots of jumping around.”
He stands and stalks over to you before holding out his hand.
You blink up at him. “Are you suggesting that we…?”
He doesn’t answer, just stretches his hand closer and flashing you a smirk. He looks like a movie-style scoundrel, with his hair in his face and that confident gleam in his eyes. Wetting your lips, you let him pull you up.
A spark runs the length of your arm, concentrating on where your skin connects, a bit like that pins-and-needles feeling when you sit on your hands but so much better.
Ben’s dark eyes study your joined hands. You wonder he feels what you do.
“Have—have we never done that before? Touched, I mean.” You were kidding yourself if you thought you sounded breathless before. Now you sound like you’ve completed every gym class ever, like you’ve run miles to finally reach the boy gazing down at you.
Ben shakes his head while flexing his fingers against yours. The action makes the spark ignite again, drifting up your shoulder and down into your stomach. When he releases your hand, chills take the place of that satisfying heat, and you feel like you lost something.
He drifts closer, reminding you of what he'd implied you'd do. His hands hover above your waist, and you clench your stomach in anticipation of more sparks. But before he can connect, he turns to the door outside his room.
“We’ve arrived,” he says, stepping away from you and clearing his throat. “I’ll… speak with you tomorrow.”
You don’t have time to react before you’re back in your bed, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. The low light shining through the curtained window beside you tells you that you have hours before you need to wake up.
What was that curse word Ben taught you? Kite, kriff? Yes, kriff.
And kriff- you have a crush on Ben and he probably knows it.
…
That only begins to matter when you’re fifteen, after Master Kenobi opened his temple and Ben spends time with more than just you.
He studies with other students, other Padawans, but with Tai, Hennix, and Voe the most. Or should you say Voe, Hennix, and Tai, given how often he talks about the other girl.
Ben rests on the floor of his room in the hut the male students share as you lounge on your back on his cot. He’s gotten more attractive with age, humans from whatever galaxy he’s in clearly not dealing with the trials of puberty you suffer through. He’s still a bit gangly, with that unfinished quality as he continues growing. But while you’re hiding your zits under concealer during the day and slipping into your nicest night clothes before bed, he manages to magically appear before you as intense, put-together, and handsome as ever.
“She keeps staring at me when she doesn’t realize I can see her,” he says of Voe. “If she spent more time practicing and less time watching how I do it, she’d be a better Jedi.”
The other Padawans have only been there for a year, and it seems Master Skywalker will slowly add more, but you’ve heard “Voe this, and Voe that” for months now. Okay, yes, he talks about Tai and Hennix too, how Hennix is the funny one, and he might find his second friend in Tai. But to you, it seems his focus remains on the sole girl close to his age.
Even though it makes your heart hurt, you’re still a good friend. And you’ll support him if he realizes his constant chatter about the other human girl are masking deeper feelings.
“Maybe she just enjoys watching you,” you say casually.
His brow furrows as he considers it. “No, she’s jealous, which will hurt her in the long-”
“Have you not considered she might like watching you because she likes you… romantically… and not because she wants to be better than you, or whatever?”
His head lifts and those dark eyes pin you in place. He studies you, his gaze traveling down your face and neck, before he snorts. “Doubt it.”
Kriff (you love their swear words because your parents can’t punish you for a ‘made up’ word), you hate to hear how little he thinks of himself outside his status as a Padawan. It’s like he can’t comprehend he has value other than being good at the Force. But you're a good friend, so you’ll convince him of his worth, no matter that it might push him towards this other girl. After all, she’s actually present in his reality.
You offer him a tremulous smile. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Ben, you’re--”
“And even if she did, I wouldn’t care,” he says idly, staring down at his hands.
Oh, that’s new. You ignore his interruption, more curious as to the new facet of his personality. Perhaps you were projecting your own insecurities, and he wasn’t interested in Voe, but Tai. Or Hennix. Or no one. “Why not?”
His gaze snaps to yours again. “Idiocy doesn’t suit you.”
“Being a dick doesn’t suit you,” you say, sitting up to better scowl at him.
He stands and strides towards you, mouth pursed and eyes narrowed. You’re reminded of that time two years ago when he did the same, implicitly asking you to dance. That was the first time you’d touched. You’d done so repeatedly since then, friendly hugs, teasing shoves to the shoulder, each time creating a spark of heat that chases through your veins, but you never attempted to dance again, never done anything that would imply you were 'more than friends.' When he reaches you, he crosses his arms and glares.
“You can’t think of why I wouldn’t care if some other girl was interested in me romantically?”
Some other girl, your brain latches onto that phrasing. Are you some not-other girl? You want to look away, but the intensity in his eyes lights a match in your chest. “Well, maybe the Code-”
“Not the Code. The Code allows it.”
“You’ve really got to stop interrupting me,” you say, frowning.
He rolls his eyes and sits beside you on the bed. He’s close, closer than normal. At this proximity, the annoyance he was projecting is unmasked as nerves, his frame trembling. You blink—is he saying what you hope he is?
You silently pray you haven’t misread the situation as you extend your hands towards him. If you’re wrong, you just won’t sleep…ever again.
But your visions of becoming an insomniac vanish when Ben immediately intertwines his fingers with yours. You stare at your joined hands and can’t help the smile that overtakes your face. “So…me, huh?”
“Yes.”
It’s a single word, an exhalation, but there’s so much meaning behind it, within it. With a giddy little sigh, you lift your head and lean forward. He meets you halfway, his eyelashes fanning across the delicate skin under his closed eyes. What trust this boy gives you, your best friend.
Gently, you press your lips to his. There’s no pressure, only a soft touch, his skin pillowing onto yours. Heat bursts from where you touch, like every other time you touch but oh so much better. He sighs, still trembling, and you tilt your head to better let your lips connect with his.
When you finally pull back, he’s smiling down at you, looking more open than his usual (slightly) glowery self. You both laugh a little and you lean your forehead on his shoulder while he wraps his arms around you.
“Do you suppose that counts as a real kiss, or was this more of a mental exercise?” you murmur into the skin of his neck.
He huffs, and the two of you work through the logic of your question. It’s no different from any other brainstorming session, but this time you get to feel his big hands at the small of your back and inhale his smokey scent.
…
You’re eighteen when you learn exactly what the Code allows. Ben has progressed so far in his study to become a Jedi. He’s brilliant and devoted to the tenets, which means the interpretation of “attachments” and “love” under the Code are just as important to you as his partner.
It’s been two days since you’ve seen him, not because he didn’t meditate, but because you couldn’t sleep. When you finally arrive in Ben’s room, he hurriedly stands and gathers you in his arms. His grasp is tight, cracking the bones in your back, but it’s a good hurt that chases away the sad numbness leeching into your bones.
“Where have you been?” he asks into your hair. The tone sounds angry, but it's undercut with worry.
Your mouth opens, but you can’t, you can’t. Instead, you bury your face in his chest and try to hold in your sobs.
Time passes; you don’t know how long you stand there, being held. Finally, you pull back and he shuffles you to his bed. The cot is barely large enough for Ben, much less you together, but he directs you to the side closest to the wall and squeezes in beside you.
“My parents,” you start, before another shuddering breath leaves you. “Acc—accident.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, pulling you towards him, wrapping one arm around your waist and the other gently stroking your hair.
He says nothing else, but he doesn’t need to. You’ve spent the last 48 hours hearing from mourners, the sincere and not. You’ll bury them in two days, the same day your advanced astrophysics program is supposed to begin. The night they… died, they had just left your ‘goodbye’ dinner. The program claimed that dedicated students could earn their bachelor’s through their PhD in six years (instead of the usual eight to ten), partially because there were no summer breaks. You were unlikely to see your parents for more than a day or two until the holidays came around.
Now, you’ll never see them again.
The tears reappear.
Before long, you quiet again and realize Ben is softly murmuring. Some of it is a little nonsensical, but the rest sounds like what would be your normal conversations—telling you about a new plant they found, how he flipped Tai backwards and ended a sparring match in less than 30 seconds, and the like.
“What are you saying?” Your voice sounds clogged and wet.
Ben’s hand falters in your hair. “I- I didn’t know how to comfort you. If you wanted to think about them or not. I thought you might want to be distracted with normalcy.”
You wiggle until Ben releases you and you can lean back to look at him. There’s a palette of purple smudges under his eyes, evidence of the stress he’s been under. You hope your absence didn’t make things much worse. But beneath that strain, his expression is open, and you swear you see love there. You’ve never said it to each other, but that feeling has kicked around your heart for years. You know Ben better than anyone, and you’re sure he feels the same. And the thing that will make you feel better now is to be with someone you love.
You lean in and lightly kiss him. He responds immediately, his body remaining still but his lips firming against yours as if desperate to remain connected. His tongue slips out to lightly lick against you, and yours meets it until you taste the salt on your own skin. You retreat to wipe your hand over your face.
“God, I’m gross.”
He snatches your hand and puts it on his hip, forcing it out of the way while he uses his other hand to clear your tears. “Not gross, sweetheart. Perfect.”
He’d started calling you sweetheart after your first kiss, explaining (with red ears and hiding his face) that his dad called his mom that. Another tear breaks free and trails down your cheek before Ben catches it and rubs it away.
“Would you--” You stop yourself, embarrassed to ask for what you want.
“What?”
“Would you keep distracting me?”
He starts talking again as his answer, God, about a bird or something. It’s not the distraction you wanted, needed, at all. His mutterings cut off when you stretch your mouth up to his.
He still doesn’t pull you towards him, but gives you delicate hummingbird kisses and you almost want to scream. It’s soft, everything is soft, and not what you want. Not what he typically wanted either, your more recently make-out sessions leaning towards the rough and forceful.
As if he hears your thoughts (and you honestly don’t know if he can—this weird dream world might allow for it but you haven't asked and he's been a gentleman not to mention it), his suddenly spins you onto your back, caging you between his legs.
This is the distraction you were going for, you think as he bites your bottom lip. You open your mouth to deepen the kiss as your hands claw into his hair to drag him closer. His mouth tears from yours to latch onto the skin of your jaw, lips and teeth alternating sharp bites down to your collarbone. You jerk your legs apart, forcing him to nestle between them, sending heat and want down to your thighs. His hips press yours down into the thin cot and you wrap your legs around his waist. He stops sucking a mark on the tender junction of your neck and raises his head to stare down at you.
His eyes are darker than endless space, twinkling like the stars you love, as he drags his gaze over your dried tears and bruised lips down to the hickey you know is blossoming on your neck. A very satisfied smile creeps onto his face, but you flex upward, turning that smile into a soft groan. He digs his hips into your inner thighs and the press of his groin to yours makes you whimper. You don’t want him to stop, but yanking his face down to yours does nothing. You change tacks and slide your hands beneath the loose fabric of his shirt and run your fingers up his spine while he studies you.
“How distracted are you going for, sweetheart?” He may look unaffected, but there’s a breathlessness to his voice that makes a satisfied smile creep onto your face. You drag your fingers over his shoulder blades and the strong muscles of his back.
“What’s the limit of the Code?”
He leans down to hiss directly against your lips. “There is no limit for us.”
With a firm tug, he yanks your shirt over your head. You can’t explain how he did it; one second you’re lying flat on your back with your 2-day-old t-shirt stretched against your skin, the next, it disappears somewhere on the floor. You don’t have the fancy magic Force skills (or whatever the hell he just did) to tug his shirt off without his help, but he obliges you by ripping it off his back and pressing back down to attack your mouth.
Oh, there goes your bra.
His hands travel everywhere he can reach, just as yours claw his back and neck, his sides and hips. You’d been building up to this for at least a year, baring your skin to each other in slow progression, and no matter how often you touch, it feels like electricity. It’s everything you want, and Ben seems to agree, as you both pull your leggings and his pants off together. He kneads your thighs and rests his hips back against you. That spark, the same one that lights each time you touch, zings through your body. You buck from the sensation of so much skin against yours and his own hips tremble.
You’re panting as he rocks into you, on the precipice of something wonderful and unrecognizable but you can't leap off that cliff alone. Finally, finally, he drags his hand down your chest, past your stomach, and slowly moves your underwear aside to press himself against you. But then he pauses, holding himself still, his arms and legs shaking with intensity.
You run your hands through his hair and down his back again, softer this time, urging him on with your intent touches. He huffs lowly, his eyes closed and ears bright red.
And then you understand. Ben’s being going off instinct so far (and way to go, Ben), but he’s otherwise lived a sheltered life and you’re the one who knows exactly how this should go, at least theoretically. You lightly kiss his lips, once, twice, a third time, before taking hold of him and maneuvering your body into the right position. He lets out an unearthly whine when you touch him, one that sharpens into a moan when you grab his hips and press him inside you.
Lightning strikes, coursing through your body in the form of white-hot pleasure. You’ve never done this before, but you know that’s not normal. You probably won’t get off from this encounter, but holy kriffing shit, you might not need it if that feeling runs through you again.
It does, as if it answered you, and you gasp and arch your back, your head falling onto his thin pillow as Ben stutters into you. He’s groaning and trembling in time with that heat, until it finally dies down and it’s just you two alone, no more supernatural bliss roaring through you. Just you and Ben, and heat and love.
He surges forward and captures your lips again as he continues thrusting, intently chasing his own pleasure. You don’t mind his focus; you have all the time in the world to teach him what you like, to enjoy that firebolt when he touches you again. And it helps that a slither of pride runs through you knowing that you're making him feel this way.
He groans when he finds release and stays above you, inside you, until his legs are no longer shaking. “So, this is passion,” he murmurs quietly into the slick skin of your neck. If you weren’t aware of every sound in that room, your heartbeat loudest of all, you would have missed it.
Before you can respond, he kisses down your neck again and his hands move in interesting ways, making it clear it’s now your turn. He’s always been a good student, and you have no doubt he’ll give this the same single-minded focus he gives everything else.
Good, you think lazily as his hand skims down your body, completely distracted from your grief. You’ll have more time to experience pleasure together.
…
You’re twenty-three when everything changes, and time runs out.