AN: Crossposted from AO3. Done for the TFA Kinkmeme.

By no means is Kylo Ren a Master of the Force, but under Snoke's tutelage, he will become one. Of this, he is sure. Snoke has chosen him as his disciple of the Dark, has invested his grand, terrible strength into molding the Master of the Knights of Ren, and Kylo is well-aware that this honor bestowed upon him is ripe with heady, tempting power.

The man is cruel, and does not hesitate in the application of unconventional methods to ensure that his student follows his instruction. There is no limit to what Snoke will do to achieve his goals, and it is this facet of his personality that intimidates Kylo the most. Snoke selected him out of all of his apprentices, evaluating the balance of Light and Dark within his soul, and deemed him worthy, but the training is exhausting, torturous, and tremulous.

Just once does Kylo allow himself to compare his teachers. The newly-reformed Jedi Order had emphasized the philosophies of the Light – there is no emotion, there is peace – while also speaking on the significance of resisting the temptation of the Dark. Even as a youngling, Luke had seen his dangerous potential, and Kylo can still remember the mixture of pity and resignation always evident in his master's eyes.

Kylo Ren is the only person in the universe who knows that Luke Skywalker's self-exile was not due to his shame at failing his apprentice, but rather his revulsion towards himself for ordering his most promising student to slay the Jedi Order and begin this horrible mission.

In contrast, the agony of Snoke as he forces his way into Kylo's mind to instill knowledge of how to fully and completely utilize the power of the Force seems almost kind.

He has spent years learning how to build the shields up in his mind, mastering the technique of protecting his thoughts from the prying tendrils of other Force users. It is as close to perfect as Kylo's power will allow it to be, and Snoke has yet to even fathom the secrets he's keeping.

As per command, Kylo captures the girl, fully intent on violating her mind to gain the information he needs. The slight discomfort of damaging another person through interrogation has almost entirely vanished at this point, he's done it so often, and as she stirs and goads him, he takes his mask off to stare, unwavering, at her naive innocence.

It is the first time that anyone has resisted him, other than Snoke during their training sessions, and the first real inkling of frustration towards her flows through his body as he redoubles his efforts.

When she looks at him, defiant despite her ensnared position, and says, with calm, utter confidence, "You're afraid you'll never be as strong as Darth Vader," sheer, unadulterated panic arcs its way through his entire being. He is compromised, everything is compromised because of this tiny slip of a girl, this scavenging junkrat that has no right being as strong as she is. He wants to break her down, invade and destroy her mind until she is a trembling, incoherent mess, overwhelmed by the limitless power of the Force, but he has not succeeded in his mission yet, and she still has the knowledge of the map somewhere in her head.

He despises her for it, and barely restrains himself from hurting her physically when the realization hits that she has not seen through him. Her awareness of his idolization of Darth Vader is acceptable, as long as she remains unaware that his true envy stems in his grandfather's ability to turn towards the Light after the cruelties of betrayal and insanity overtook him. This rat, Rey, has no idea how much strength Anakin had to defy the Sith on his deathbed, and he refrains from dealing her permanent damage as he observes her scared yet determined features.

The breach in his ability is terrifying, but his cover isn't blown, so Kylo Ren looks at the girl as his face smooths over into an emotionless mask. Snoke could be in his mind at any moment, and he cannot afford the risks. There are no allies here, on Starkiller or on any other planet in this forsaken universe, and it does him well to remember that.

Her escape is upsetting, though not entirely unexpected, and Kylo finds that the best way to disguise his true emotions is to lay waste to the equipment and soldiers around him in a supposed temper tantrum of frustration.

The arrival of his father is unwelcome, though not unexpected. Snoke's voice is an oily whisper in his head, reminding him of what he must do to truly dedicate himself to the Dark Side, and Kylo grimly thinks that if he is not a Master of the Force, at least he is a Master of Emotional Condemnation.

He wavers as his father touches his face. No one knows, he's been alone for decades, and it has been so long since anyone has deigned to touch him of their own free will that he can feel the tears welling up in his eyes before he reminds himself of all that is at stake. The briefest moment passes between them as their eyes lock and he can see his father begging him to forsake his destiny, and Kylo steels himself with apathy.

The look in Han Solo's eyes as he is impaled upon his son's lightsaber is one that Kylo Ren will never allow himself to forget.

Above him, the agonizing screams of Rey and that traitorous Stormtrooper echo throughout the facility, and a wicked part of Kylo is pleased that they're feeling even an ounce of the burden he has suffered the majority of his life.

Explosions wrack the oscillator, and he hones in on the rat's location before following after her. He feels Snoke's approval emanating through the Force, and their weapons clash with the excruciating power of twin souls suffering.

The girl he despises is more attuned with the Force under no training than he has ever felt with 29 years of it. She cuts him down, despite his frantic pleas – Let me be your teacher, please, I need you – and as he lies on the frigid snowbank, lightsaber burns agonizing across his chest and face, he feels a reassuring flood of relief.

He's failed. He's going to die while Snoke and The First Order survive, but at least he will be free from this burden. Forgive me, Master Luke, he thinks, and the thought is bittersweet. The only one who knows of his mission will never speak of him again, and he will die as the villain Snoke has turned him into.

Kylo allows himself to cry as the planet trembles beneath him. His heart aches, his entire soul aches, and all the effort that he's put himself through for years amounts to nothing. The crippling loneliness that envelops him cannot be staunched, and he is reduced to pathetic, keening noises of desolation as the snow falls around him.

Against all odds, Kylo feels the presence of General Hux nearing him. There is no way to recover before the redheaded man comes across him, and anyway Kylo feels too raw to even attempt to conceal his appearance. Hux looks down at him without speaking. They stare at each other, in the quiet of the forest, before the man offers him a hand. Kylo takes the assistance, and as they limp towards the emergency evacuation ships, he stifles his fear at Snoke's potential awareness of his vulnerability.

"I sensed your weakness on Starkiller," Supreme Leader Snoke begins without preamble.

Kylo's shields are up, backed by the strength of the Force, and he maintains a blank face as he stands tall in front of the hologram. "I apologize, Supreme Leader. I allowed that girl to beat me, and it was immensely frustrating."

"It will not happen again. You have one week to recover," Snoke states calmly, a slight sneer marring his features as he gazes upon Kylo's face, wound still healing. "After, we will escalate your training."

"Yes, Supreme Leader," he responds, turning and exiting the room in a billowing of ebony robes. His emotions are carefully reigned in, but the terrifying niggling of Snoke's suspicion refuses to dissipate. He unsheathes his lightsaber as he enters a control chamber, and channels the fear into anger as the machinery around him collapses in a sparking, smoking mess.

It is not until much, much later that Kylo allows himself to carefully evaluate the situation. There is a large possibility that Snoke felt the entire spectrum of his revealed emotions, and that's the biggest threat. He can explain away the loneliness – Snoke's frequent prying into his mind has come across this more than once – but the relief and despair are harder to justify to the Supreme Overlord.

In the privacy of his mind, he prepares security measures. His shields are strong and will hold against Snoke's prying thoughts, but as a precaution he develops reasoning for the emotions. It is much safer to spend the entirety of the night establishing these failsafes, even if they will never be spoken aloud.

They serve as a sort of buffer, in case Snoke does manage to break past the facade of undying, utter loyalty.

Snoke's training, if it could be called such, almost tears him apart. His resolve is strengthened after failing to extract the information from the girl from Jakku, but even being prepared for the onslaught is not enough to resist the sheer darkness of the man.

Their sessions are brutal, and Snoke's tendrils snake past his deepest thoughts. Kylo hears the man mocking his deeply-buried desire for the girl, and he calmly explains that mere physical attraction is a common thing easily forgotten when considering more significant facets of their regime's plan.

When Snoke crawls into his thoughts, the hurt is brutal. Kylo knows that it is possible to slip into the thoughts of others without their knowledge, without bringing them pain, but he also knows of the delicious rush of adrenaline and dark, evil pleasure that only stems from nonconsensual prying. It isn't hard to imagine which form the Supreme Leader prefers.

It's all about layers, Kylo knows. Present enough different layers of truths, and those investigating, raping your thoughts won't uncover the deepest ones, but it still makes him anxious whenever Snoke deigns to connect with him.

He's never been strong enough to counter with slipping into the Supreme Leader's thoughts, before, but with his most recent session, the wall of the man's thoughts appears to have a breach.

It is a daunting task, crawling through the mind of another without their knowledge, but Kylo is not a normal user of the Force, and the information he extracts, though minimal, is vital. It takes all of his strongest efforts not to think of his success and instead minimize any and all reactions.

He encounters Rey as the Resistance swarms their transitory base. The alarms blare shrilly, and as Stormtroopers march out in waves to combat the fighters, he can feel her searching for him with the Force. She is doing nothing to conceal her presence, unlike him, and he gains the upper hand as he locates her.

It's a shame that the unbridled power of the laser within his saber is not a quiet one, else his attack to her turned form may have been successful. Instead of going down easily, she complicates things as she turns to counter his slash with the lightsaber she isn't worthy enough to wield.

She is fierce in combat, he'll give her that, but the stakes are too high for him to allow her to continue any further. Snoke's lessons have made his will stronger, his power more radiant, and cutting her down will be both a relief and a reassurance of his commitment to Snoke's cause. He has to kill her, has to remove her very existence from the Force, because the threat she poses to revealing him is much too high. She's a vulnerability of his, and surely any suspicion Snoke has built up for him will dissolve as he takes her last heartbeat from her.

Rey is beginning to look desperate as he bears down on her, intent on finishing this. A determined frown blooms across her features, and her eyebrows furrow as she attempts to concentrate. Kylo truly does not want to bother with her any longer, and he raises his lightsaber to deliver a killing blow when a blinding, crippling wave of light forces its way into his mind, and he can hear her clear voice saying, Ben, I know.

He stumbles back, his fatal attack an aborted motion of his arms, now, and he barely registers that the monstrous, "No!" that echoes into the dark is his own voice. The power of the Force that had surrounded him, aiding him in their battle, seems to vanish. Suddenly, he feels nothing like the Dark Force user that he is, and how could she do this to him?

Kylo knows that this sin will not be forgiven by Snoke, he knows that the invading torture that the Supreme Leader is so fond of is going to violate him in ways that will leave him broken and aching, but as Rey scrambles back towards the rocky terrain, and away from him, he can do nothing but watch her go.

He doesn't see her again for years.

Kylo Ren is 33 years old when he steps off of his TIE fighter and onto the stone ground of the Resistance's home base planet with Snoke's head in his hand. It is no surprise that he is immediately apprehended, hands bound behind his back and a gag fitted into his mouth. He does not protest or try to fight his restraints.

Luke, or Rey, or someone else has managed to create some kind of imprisonment that drains him of the ability to use the Force, and as he's shoved into the cell unceremoniously, Kylo feels the pressure in his mind dull until he's as useless, as unspecial, as the majority of the population on the planet. The release from the inevitable pulse of the Force is welcome, and he closes his eyes to enjoy the quiet, as brief as he's sure it will be.

He awakens to see his mother staring at him from the entrance of the cell. Kylo considers murmuring, "Hello, General Organa," but he can't even really bring himself to look her in the eye, let alone speak to her.

She does not speak either, though, so perhaps he's not the only weak one here. Instead, she begins to cry, quiet streams of tears running down her face as she looks at him. He wonders if she is disappointed, or if the tears are the result of hatred.

This happens for the first week of his captivity. Every day, without fail, she stands there staring at him.

He still can't look at her face directly, but he does manage, on the eighth day, to clear his throat and quietly say, "Hello."

General Leia Organa, commonly seen as one of the strongest women of not only the Resistance, but the entire modern universe, smiles for the first time in a week. "My child," is all she says, but it's apparently enough for him to utterly and completely break down into an ugly, sobbing mess.

Kylo is convinced she's Force-sensitive and caused this reaction.

When they are on speaking terms, his mother tries to call him Ben for the first few days. It causes a deep, deep ache in him to realize that any resemblance to Ben Solo has been dead for a long, long, time, and that he not only murdered his father but also his mother's son.

He honestly has no idea why she didn't kill him on-sight.

It's been almost a month since he landed on the planet, and his mother is the only person who has come to see him. He muses that maybe she's the only one authorized to do so, though that wouldn't exactly explain the five guards constantly posted around his cell.

Other than the visits from the general, he finds loneliness creeping in again as he sits in the cell. Now that Snoke is dead, he is free from the bonds that forced him to isolate himself from any and all human connection or affection, but it seems that the cruel irony of his life is still present. Sent on a deep undercover mission by his uncle, and once he achieves his goals, he's still just as fucking alone in the Light as he was in the Dark.

The thought causes him to laugh, a half-choked, dark noise that echoes almost manically, and the guards shift uncomfortably around him.

"Why don't you just kill me?" he finally snarls. The hurt has been building up for too long, for what feels like centuries, and he wonders if maybe he hasn't killed Snoke in reality and this is all an innovative form of torture from the man meant to drive him into insanity.

It would be a worthy punishment, he concedes, considering his treachery.

But the guard closest to his cell releases an uncomfortable clearing of her throat before turning to face him. Weapon held tightly in his grasp, she finally says, "Orders are to keep you contained until Master Skywalker and his apprentice return."

Oh. Kylo hadn't even been sure that Luke was still alive. They hadn't exactly parted on good terms – the revulsion that Ben Solo had witnessed in his master's eyes hadn't been faked in the slightest when they last crossed paths – but he hasn't entirely thought of the repercussions involving the Jedi Master's return.

Would he allow him to live? Or is the darkness inside Kylo Ren too volatile to let survive, in fear of it festering and developing into something too dangerous?

He tries to meditate again, to remove his mind from the body stuck in this Force-suppressing jail cell, but his mind is too dimmed. He can't do anything but sit here and rot, and even the daily visits from his mother are beginning to wear on him.

She clearly doesn't know what her brother made him promise to do, and nothing reminds him more that he destroyed her entire family than when he sees her watching him as though he's a rabid beast.

The days pass slowly after the guard's revelation, as though the time-stream itself has been reduced to a drawn-out crawl of anticipation. There is nothing left to do but wait, and Kylo remembers, in his invasion of Rey's mind, that sprawling wall of tally marks etched into the metal of a ship's wreckage. Maybe he should start counting down the days, like her. When she finally comes across the cell again, will the reminder infuriate her?

But he hasn't even been in this jail for long compared to the enduring encumbrance of his life's destiny, so the handful of tallies would be nothing but a tribute to her own endless anticipation of her family's return. He tells himself this, again and again, that sitting in solitude is easier than the constant deception of Snoke, the intensity of keeping a betrayal wrapped so tight that Kylo himself often forgot what his true mission was, but being kept alone with his own thoughts is almost as bad.

He has been contemplating using a piece of the bed to pierce the flesh of his own wrists, to finally force an end to this torturous standstill, when the doors to the entrance of his cell room open, and in walk Luke Skywalker and Rey.

Kylo watches them as they stop in front of his cell, waiting, daring one of them to speak first. He knows he looks like a wreck, hair greased back and the growings of a beard marking his face, but he maintains eye contact with his master.

"Ben," Luke starts, but the syllable has hardly made it out of his mouth when Kylo says, "Ben Solo is dead."

It certainly isn't the first time he's said it before, and he's fairly confident it won't be the last, but Rey still manages to make a quiet, choked noise when he speaks.

"Kylo Ren," Luke amends.

It's a good concession and he'll take it. Ben Solo was an innocent Jedi Knight tasked with a suicide mission, and Kylo Ren is the man who forged a reputation for himself out of hard work and endless bloodshed.

Luke is still staring at him, and Kylo can see that the pity and resignation reflected in them from decades ago has yet to fade. "I see you have been successful in your mission."

Rey makes that cut-off, choked noise again, and then she's crying, for some reason. He isn't sure why she's even here, all she's done is react like some sympathetic parent since they've started talking.

"As you commanded," Kylo responds, and he's a bit pleased that his voice comes out as casual as it does. He feels anything but nonchalant about this conversation. "I'm afraid I ended up a bit Darker than you intended, Master. What is to be my punishment?"

He really is hoping for the death penalty, if only so that this deep anguish in his very soul can be stifled once and for all.

His master opens his mouth, presumably to reply, but it's Rey that cries out, "What punishment!? Master Luke, you can't possibly be considering such a thing after all he's done for us?"

Kylo is moments away from requesting that she be banished from the room. He can't even look at her, there's this similar ache deep in his chest that reminds him of when he tries to look at his mother, and it's making it hard to breathe. This conversation doesn't even involve her, so why is she here?

"I've known since I first looked into your head," she confesses through her tears, and it is a shocking revelation that the reason she's so distraught is because of him and his suffering.

He actually does not have a response formulated, jaw dropping at the strength of her compassion for him.

"I made Master Luke tell me about it, I couldn't piece it all together at first, why he would be talking to you and allowing you to slaughter the younglings," she's rambling when he tunes back in to her voice. "And you've been alone all this time and you think we're going to kill you for what you've done, how are we any worse than the Sith?"

Luke looks between the both of them and seems to make a decision. He does not say it aloud, but he projects, I am sorry, to Kylo's unprotected mind. He guesses that Luke knows the task he assigned to his apprentice was one so severe that their relationship will never truly recover, and he retreats gracefully, leaving Rey and Kylo alone.

"Please stop crying for me," he manages to say, lump caught in his throat. He's never been good with crying women, hell, when his mother first sensed his internal struggle between the Dark and he Light, she would spend entire nights crying when she thought he was asleep, and this is just as difficult to navigate.

"Sorry," she huffs, rubbing vigorously at her eyes. "I just feel this emotion radiating from you and it's so strong and overwhelming and I might be projecting how you feel, a bit."

And isn't that terrifying, that she's somehow so attuned to him that she's expressing the emotions he's spend decades learning to repress.

"Is the Resistance not to be merciful and grant me my death, then?" he says.

"You're not going to die," she insists, and with the tears drying up he can once again see that headstrong warrior that's bested him on multiple occasions. "You're a Resistance hero, just like your grandfather."

"I have committed unforgivable sins," Kylo confesses, though it is nothing she does not already know. "Destroyed planets, killed for pleasure, tortured your friends. There is no Jedi path of Light for me, anymore."

"You think I don't struggle with Dark thoughts?" she says, disbelievingly. He is not sure how she can just glance over the endless list of things he has done, but they seem not to sway her. "There is more than black and white. The old ways are unnecessary and unrealistic."

"Then what is left?" He's feeling lost and dizzy at her words. She's a direct student of Luke Skywalker, epitome of the Light side of the Force, and she doesn't even believe in his teachings?

She unlocks the door to his cell, and when he does not move, she comes inside. He's sitting on the ground, tall knees wrapped by his arms, and she offers him a hand.

"I know you are not Ben Solo, Kylo Ren. But will you walk the path of the Grey, with me?"

And he's taking her offer, grasping the lifeline because it's all he has left, and as he tumbles into her arms, they're kissing, and crying, and he thinks for the first time in over 20 years that maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.