Forever His | A Kylo Ren Assassin AU

The Storm

TWs; violence, home invasion, torture, drugging, sexual situations, death. 

You flinched at the flash of lighting outside your window, feeling a twinge of uneasiness as thunder boomed in the distance. Rain fell in sheets, pounding against the windows, rebounding off the roof so loudly a constant, dull roar echoed through the house. 

The power had gone out hours ago with no chance of restoration in sight. The automated voicemail you received from the power company confirmed the outages had been reported, but until conditions were safe they couldn't send technicians out to work on fallen lines. According to the message over 50,000 people were affected. The group bonding experience no one asked for. 

It was on nights like these when your thoughts often found their way to Poe. In another life the living room would be filled with candles, puddles of wax forming on the hardwood floors because neither of you ever remembered to put anything underneath them. He would have distracted you, knowing how anxious storms made you. You would be hysterically laughing, limbs awkwardly intertwined as you fought to keep your balance on the Twister mat, his constant stream of dirty jokes leaving you breathless. Or angrily disputing the outrageous cost of Park Place, a furious swipe across the dining room table that left a colorful array of counterfeit Monopoly bills scattering the floor and the game board digging into your back as he fucked you. Teasing, laughing at your impatience, taking your mind so far from your fears it would only occur to you hours later they ever existed. He would have held you after, stroked your hair, murmured that you still owed him $1,100. Caught your hand when you playfully swatted his shoulder, whispered he accepted other forms of payment...

Sighing, you turned from the window, wondering why you tortured yourself with what ifs. The pretty picture you painted in your mind was a fantasy. A work of fiction that would never be. Could never be. 

Poe was still alive, but only in the most clinical sense of the word. For a lack of a more tasteful expression, he was a vegetable. A shell. No brain activity in months. Not since the accident. But even before then, you hadn't shared a night like that in years. Carefree. Happy. The image you conjured wasn't the man you married. 

You supposed that was how you'd learned to live with his loss. You hadn't been on good terms. You hadn't even been on decent terms. The neighbors probably could have attested to that. Some of the fights had been loud. Nasty. More than once one of you had stormed out. Slamming doors and speeding away from the house, trying to escape the truth you both knew but neither would admit. 

It was over.

You didn't want it to be. Poe had been your first everything. First date, first kiss, first love. When you got married straight out of college you were convinced it would be forever. How could it not be? You were both so stupidly happy other people couldn't stand to be around you. Your mom stopped dropping by for unexpected visits because neither of you had an ounce of self control and the stamina of rabbits. You cringed at your own Instagram pictures because you were that couple. That unfairly perfect pair that life simply worked out for. 

Until you weren't. 

It felt vain to think it, but you weren't the one that changed. Jobs changed, you traded your beaten up Buick for a mid-sized SUV you already pictured filled with car seats, you made new friends, traded all night parties for the occasional weekend bar crawl, accepted that while you loved to sing you weren't the next Ariana Grande, you bought your first house together. A lot of things were different, but not you. You were the same person you'd always been, just a slightly more responsible version with a mortgage and a job you loved as a junior editor for a publishing company. 

But Poe? Poe became a different person, seemingly overnight. More accurately, a weekend. Travel was a normal part of his job as a freelance journalist. He went where the stories took him. Sometimes to places that you wished it didn't, not knowing if he was safe for days at a time was torture. But it was what he loved, you couldn't tell him to abandon his passion in life for your peace of mind. He'd always dreamed of writing exposes, bringing justice to the world and never having to deny the daredevil side of him that couldn't stop from flirting with danger. That weekend shouldn't have been any different than any other. You'd expected him to come home, catch you when you ran into his arms, and smile that impossibly handsome smile of his before murmuring in your ear, "I'll tell you all about it later, right now I want you in my bed, Mrs. Dameron."