#this only exists to feed my band AU delusions

[artamee]

ROTTMNT SHIRT 🎸🐢

Kick off the new year with a Rise of the TMNT MAD DOGS™ band tee! Pre-orders end January 7th. Link HERE

I got these mineral wash shirts printed by Raw Paw, an artist-run print studio in Austin, Texas. They manage shipping & handling and are great at what they do. I bought one for myself (creator sample) and I’m obsessed with it—the print quality is great! You can also get it as a tank top.

[niteowlsabinewren]

My Nightmare Ends

Take my lips

Kiss me sweet

Take my feelings

Stop me from sweating fear

My sweet nightmares end.

Saturnus, I long (from Veronica Decides To Die album).

Synopsis: this story started as AU, but soon I surrendered to the fact I swallowed more than I could chew. So it was ultimately transformed into 5-chapters of nightmares and inadvertent manipulation of the Force bond that ended in some unexpected results. Kylo Ren wakes up as the First Order general after a successful coup against Snoke staged by him and other high ranking generals (something similar to how German generals ultimately rebelled against Hitler). He is deeply depressed ever since Han’s death and meets Rey on Coruscant under rather twisted circumstances. There’s happy ending, tho: I’m not only a perv, I’m also a sappy perv.

References to 2004 film “Closer” (because Padme Amidala working as a stripper was too alluring to this basic Reylo bitch brain of mine to pass unexploited), mature content warning and a trigger warning for mental illness.

“They understood: in every alternate reality of the multiverse, the forces of destiny gathered to bind them together – the rising darkness and the light to meet it. But unlike what their masters and foes predicted, it will not be their ruin – it will be the Balance everlasting.”

 Prologue

Rey wakes up in cold sweat, again. Ben’s eyes: hungry, desperate, pleading, loving… no, Kylo Ren: the murderer, the traitor, the enemy. The strain of nightmares makes her thirsty, like an animal: she drains her meager daily ration of water in one long, greedy gulp.

She almost chokes.

I cannot drown like this, Rey muses, dark mood setting in – the Resistance needs her. Near her bed, Rose Tico sleeps, a bacta bandage still covering part of her bruised nose.

What little she managed to decipher from the Jedi texts helped her manipulate the Force to the extent she blocked any unwanted intrusion but the skill still needs some…

Fine-tuning.

*

Kylo Ren wakes up in cold sweat, again. His father’s forgiving, pleading eyes… no, Han Solo, the criminal, the murderer, the traitor. White noise he took last night makes him thirsty, like an animal: he drains the whole bottle down in two long, greedy gulps.

He almost chokes.

Gods be willing, he will choke and drown one day soon.

He needs to talk to his medical staff about these… side-effects. He either dreams of Han Solo, or of her – of Kira Rey, of her eyes full of hope and forgiveness. No: of traitor, Rebel scum, of Jedi that must be destroyed. It’s either his highs or his lows or both in these seemingly endless nightmares that border on lucid dreaming.

The White Noise does wonders for his burning sense of guilt and shame, as well as his ever looming depression, but still it demands…

adjustments.

Chapter I.

It’s the first day of his leave as the general of the First Order, General Kylo Ren. Fighting against another General, who also happens to be his mother: he was actually registered as Solo-Organa in Hanna City - all records of his existence atomized with the remainder of the Hosnian System: a deranged display of violence he didn’t condone, not even then.

But then again, he didn’t oppose it directly, either.

He would rather stay onboard Supremacy, their flying capital providing more than enough for anyone’s comfort. He has no friends and no acquaintances in the freshly re-organized First Order: only enemies, or should he say, an enemy – Armitage Hux.

But they land on Coruscant – any other planet he’d easily scorn, but it is different here. The place is probably the only soothing place left for him in the whole galaxy: everything else is just too painful or sickeningly tedious. He sighs. He takes his shuttle and his adjutants and his body guards with him, but gives them leave as soon as they land. Even they struggle to hide immense relief for being freed from his presence – and the feeling is mutual.

*

Of course, his reputation precedes him, so it proves nearly impossible to move anywhere without being noticed, feared or exalted. This sort of unwarranted attention tires him, but the rage is subdued by the White Noise. The name suits it well – he invented it. It’s exactly what it is – a constant low static, muffling the voices of guilt and pain and of his mother’s presence in the Force; muffling the Dark Side and the Light Side alike, drowning both cosmic and the life Force in him so he just remains relatively numb. It’s not an unpleasant numbness, but it’s not pleasant, either.

It’s just – nothing.

The rubbles of Jedi temple, first destroyed by the Empire, then re-erected by Luke Skywalker, then again demolished under Snoke’s orders, stand as he left them. Why is he here, anyway? Perhaps it’s because this part of the town is generally avoided: the First Order infected it with fear and threat, and the victory of the Dark Side over the remnants of the Jedi Order spread unnerving feeling, one even layman can sense. Still, this place of ruin and despair is somewhat comforting, and he doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s because it’s so empty, and so perfectly deserted it’s almost serene; perhaps it’s because it reminds him of his own self so it alleviates his crushing loneliness.

There is some comfort in nothingness, apparently.

And there is an establishment nearby – among the many seedy taverns, coffee shops where the patrons recline in half-sleep induced by soporific aftertaste of various drugs, night clubs and casinos.

He remained loyal to the principles of the Jedi to retain the powers he so carefully nourished all these years, and then because of the wounds Snoke left in the wake of his training. Touch became first strange than insufferable to him – still, he has needs.

Roaring needs.

So in lack of better alternative, he becomes visual in his guilty pleasures: and discovers he has a thing for Twi’leks, finding sort of lustful melancholy in the fact how Empire handled Ryloth.

There is a part of him that both wants to ravish and be ravished the same way.

*

He enters the ovoid room filled with diverse and devious life forms – humans not quite human and aliens that resemble nothing of their respective species. The room is dimly lit, gilded, crimson and covered with mirrors – all of which create a nauseating effect and remind him unnervingly of the throne room: only without the corpses of Snoke and his knights, the former fellow Jedi. His own image, reflected multifold from the mirrors on the opposite side of the room, greets him like a mockery. Many frightened eyes directed his way – that fear would feed him only if he could channel it like a Knight of Ren – a skill the order subsequently passed onto Sith. Now it is only highly irritating, all those jittery bodies around him. He almost cringes at the sight of the manager, a particularly obese and conniving Jablogian that he knows from before.

„Welcome, General Ren,” the lump bows before him and his despicable neck pouches fall over one another like disgusting lard they are. „Your usual booth? And usual Twi’lek?“

„Yes,“ he squeezes through gritted teeth, abhorring the fact that he has to waste even one breath on the creature. And as he strides between the tables and patrons parting before him like tide, something else draws his attention. Something – a humming energy. Weak, but distinct. His eyes dart instinctively in the direction of the energy source as that radiance becomes brighter and stronger, even below the buzz of White Noise.

And there it is, the source. Or should he say, there she is.

Force is truly perverted, he confirms yet again.

It is one of the dancers, a young creature of no more than twenty (too young, he grunts, clenching his fists), swirling around the pole in a highly elaborate routine that was apparently more of a testament to her physicality than to her sensuality. He stops and turns away from the startled manager to come as close as he can to the podium (a group of Aqualishes vacating their table in panic as he does).

He thought it might be a delusion created by the medicine, but no: this one is strong with the Force, completely untrained and powerful, all that raw strength making a whirlwind of energies in the room, overflowing his own bridled one. Sharp jitter of frustration spikes through the White Noise: what he really wants to do is to absorb this creature energy’s signature in the Force, to see her for what she really is. Exasperated, he removed his cap in a downright breach of every First Order protocol and although mere physical vision is so crude compared to the power of the Force, still he cannot claim that he’s not being gratuitously rewarded. She should play a part of a sex slave in her metallic, copper-hued bikini, matching short wig and a narrow tail of translucent fabric in front and at the back covering exactly nothing (if anything, only accentuating her strong and well formed legs and bottom), but in his eyes she is a war goddess. He knows the air of war – he could recognize it half-dead. And that is exactly what she promises, even if unaware: the metallic surface of her ensemble reflecting the crimson lights around her so she appears as though she’s bathing in the blood of her enemies; her muscular arms flexing under golden serpent-shaped bands, her nostrils slightly expanded in deep focus, her intensely kohl-contoured eyes fixed on the target, and full lips colored deep red closed tight.

She doesn't detect the Force – she detects his hungry gaze and regards him in turn completely undeterred, even if slightly contemptuous. She sees the uniform – old Brendol Hux guided their design, so it's intentionally flashy, over-the-top, menacing sort of shameless self-promotion even when compared to the Empire, but it doesn't frighten her, none of it: his long gaberwool coat or his stature that was usually regarded as intimidating. She slides down the pole – her act is over and she is only slightly out of breath, with a shimmering, thin trail of sweat between her breasts: her face still emanating firm sense of superiority. This was her manifesto – a forewarning, directed at him.

„The girl,“ he gestures at her curtly. „Send her.“

“I must warn you, General, that one has a bad temper,” the amorphous mass of lard squeals behind him. “The only reason I hired her is because no one wants to work anymore, especially during night-shifts, with all these insurgents and rebel criminals running amok. It is so good to have your presence here, General, to restore the…”

Breaking his blabbering skull never seemed so alluring.

“I said,” he snarled. “Send her to my booth.”

And before the manager has the opportunity to defile his personal space with more sleazy flattery, he stalks away.