#if you can say kylo ren is an innocent baby then anything's game for existence

[solohux]

Just Like You

♡ For @lenuchka who wanted a fic that featured Kylo teaching Ares about the Force. Enjoy! thank you for your support! ♡

“Close your eyes, Ares.”

“No.”

Kylo frowns, rolling his eyes. Stubborn boy, though it’s no surprise, having inherited his father’s great sense of impatience and obstinacy. A dull ache has begun to spread through Kylo’s coccyx from sitting for too long on the cold floor but he doesn’t complain, having taken almost all morning to attract his son’s attention long enough to get him to sit still. His legs are spread out wide with his eight year old son sitting between them, chest-to-back, both of them ready to take another step together in Ares’s Force training.

“No?” Kylo echoes. “Why not?”

“Because the last time Dada told me to close my eyes, he took my gamepadd from me,” Ares says, matter-of-factly, still hurt.

“It was homework time,” Hux calls out from their adjoining bedchambers. “And I’d asked you to put that infernal game down twice already.”

“Well,” Kylo laughs. “I’m not going to take anything from you. I’m going to help you find the Force and you’re going to see if you can feel anything, remember? Try to lift Teddy off the ground. Like we talked about.”

The little brown Ewok plush sits in front of Ares, a little smile on his face and a pair of little aviator goggles resting atop his head, ready for flight. Kylo has his fingers crossed, anyway.

“Okay, Papa,” Ares says.

“Good boy. So, close your eyes,” Kylo presses a kiss to the top of his son’s dusty brown hair, reaching around him to cover his eyes with his palms. Ares giggles loudly and kicks his legs, trying to tug at Kylo’s fingers but loses.

“Papaaa! I can do it on my own!”

“Okay, okay,” Kylo chuckles, amusing himself, hiding the hesitation that’s dwelling deep inside his gut. Ares’s nightmares have been getting stronger, haunting the poor boy to the point where he can longer sleep in his own bed but needs to in the constant company of his parents during the night, fearing the Skeleton Man is coming to get him.

Kylo has an inkling about the identity of his son’s bogeyman but keeps his suspicions to himself, fearing that informing Hux would mean the monster in question is able to probe through the General’s weak mental shields and pluck the information out. After all, the monster was able to get to Ben so effortlessly. Kylo isn’t going to allow his own son to become a weapon.

“Breathe through your nose,” Kylo says to Ares, placing his hands gently on the boy’s hips, making sure that he knows that his Papa is still here. “It’ll help you focus. What do you see?”

“Just black. Nothin’.”

“It’s alright. The Force is there, it’s trying to talk to you, I can feel it,” Kylo closes his eyes too.

“What’s it saying, Papa?”

“It’s saying hello. It wants to help you and guide you, be your friend.”

The Force is thick and potent around them both, flowing naturally through them and Kylo tries his very best to channel his knowledge of the Force to Ares through their connected minds, a bond that as existed since before Ares was born, still a foetus in the artificial womb of their medbay lab. The boy’s Force sensitivity isn’t as strong as his father’s but Kylo can sense his potential for greatness lying dormant inside of his young mind, waiting to be awoken—or moulded and shaped into a weapon.

“I see something, Papa! Inside my head!” Ares exclaims, bouncing up and down on his bum. Kylo can feel the boy’s pure and innocent excitement projected onto him. “I can see a flower! And a bee!”

“The Force flows through all living things. Plants, animals, people. Everything you see and hear has a connection to the Force…except for your Dad.”

“I heard that!” Hux yells, clearly annoyed. Kylo couldn’t resist the dig at his husband’s lack of Force sensitivity.

And for a moment, everything is harmonious. Kylo can feel his pride swelling in his chest; Ares’s connection to the Force is growing stronger and stronger with each passing moment, there can be no doubt, competent enough to move onto the next step.

“You’re almost there. You’re doing so well, Ares. Just a little more. Open your hand. Try to make Teddy fly,” Kylo guides, opening his eyes and giving Ares’s right arm a little bit of a push to encourage him to stretch his fingers out. The boy follow his father’s instructions and reaches out, unfolding his small fingers and opening them up in the same manner that Kylo does when he’s bringing forth his telekinetic powers.

“Papa?”

“I’m right here, star-bright. Just picture it in your mind. Teddy is in the air because of your power, because you’re holding him there. See the Force, feel the Force.”

Kylo watches from behind Ares as Teddy begins to shuffle, jarred by an invisibly entity but the little bear soon stills again and it all seems to be over. Perhaps Ares isn’t ready to tame his telekinesis, to delve deeper into his powers so he can move and control things—

His attention is grabbed by Teddy’s levitation, slowly rising into the air and spinning around. Kylo can’t help but smile a toothy grin, wrapping his arms around his son’s tummy to hold him.

“I’m so proud of you,” Kylo says, kissing the side of Ares’s head. “That’s it. You’re doing it. My clever boy.”

But Ares doesn’t react. Kylo tilts his head to gage his son’s reaction but finds no smile on his face and no sparkle in his eyes. Instead, Ares’s brows are drawn together in a frown, his little nose scrunched up. His outstretched hand trembles, sending Teddy into shudders as he spins rapidly in front of them.

“Ares? Concentrate, control it. Don’t let it control you,” Kylo says but is unable to hide the tremor in his voice.

“It’s so cold,” Ares murmurs, scrunching his eyes tighter closed. “Papa? Dada? Where are you?”

“I’m here, I’m right here, Ares.” Kylo shuffles quickly, moving from behind his son to kneel in front of him, brushing his fingers through his messy hair. “Focus on my voice, star-bright. Come back to me. You’re safe, nothing can hurt you.”

“No, no, leave me alone!”

A sudden blast of air sends Kylo reeling backwards, skidding on his ass and stopping a few feet away from his upset son, tears streaming down his little freckled cheeks.

“Ren? Ares!” Hux is in the room, then, taking his place beside Kylo and in front of their distressed boy.

A quick probe of Ares’s mind shows Kylo just why his little one is frozen with fear. Dark clouds settle over his consciousness, consuming his innocent connection to the Force and dampening everything pure that resides there. Even when Kylo tries to push through, they seem impenetrable, hellbent on surrounding his son and keeping him cut off from his parents’ light.

“Ares. Baby, it’s us,” Hux says, holding Ares’s cheeks in his palms. “Open your eyes, don’t be scared. We’re here.”

Ares cries a little more, lip quivering, but still, his eyes remain tightly shut as though gripped by fear. Kylo has to push deeper, fight against the darkness that has made a home inside of Ares’s mind, a gloom that Kylo knows all too well. It’s the same eclipse of his mother and father’s light that he felt inside of his mind when he was a child, the same shadow that kept him feeling isolated and alone. It’s not going to do the same to Ares.

Forehead-to-forehead, Kylo eases himself into his son’s mind with a gentle push and faces the darkness head-on, standing like a pillar in the centre of the storm. Winds batter against him but he doesn’t falter, imagining his son’s future as a weapon at Snoke’s disposal, as a rabid cur on a short leash doing the Supreme Leader’s bidding as his father before him has done. Kylo won’t have it, he won’t have his precious son becoming a mindless monster.

“Come back to me, Ares,” Kylo whispers, both aloud and inside of his son’s mind. “You’re stronger than him. Dada and I won’t let the darkness hurt you. We’re not going to leave you. Let us help.”

In a whirlwind of light, the darkness growls and roars in anger as it’s pushed from Ares’s mind, fleeing in cowardice as a wisp of smoke, defeated for now but not destroyed. With a gasp, Kylo comes back into reality, finding the pale green eyes of his son staring back at him, red-rimmed with tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Papa!”

Kylo lifts Ares into his arms and cradles him in his lap, rocking him as the boy clings onto him. Hux is nearby, smoothing his fingers through Ares’s hair in an attempt to soothe him, a technique that never fails to quell the boy’s fears.

“The Skeleton Man,” Ares sobs. “He was there. He was trying to talk to me! I couldn’t see you or Dada any more!”

“Sssh, star-bright. It’s alright, he can’t hurt you now,” Kylo says, hushing him. “You know that Dad and I would never allow anything to hurt you, right?”

“A-and Teddy?”

“Teddy is here too,” Hux says, making the bear move as though he’s walking up Kylo’s leg and into Ares’s arms. “We’re all here, Ares. We love you so much.”

Ares sniffles, resting his cheek on Kylo’s shoulder and settling down, his tears slowing until they stop completely and he seems calm. The next moment, the boy is asleep.

“Snoke,” Hux says.

“He’s trying to turn him,” Kylo replies, keeping his voice down, shrouding the three of them in a Force-veil to temporarily hide them from the monster’s prying eyes. “Hux. We have to do something. He’ll take him from us, like he took Ben from his family.”

“I know, darling,” Hux says, leaning forward to give Kylo a kiss on his forehead. “We will. We’ll do what we have to. Whatever it takes for Ares to be safe.”

One word stands out like a beacon in Hux’s mind, one that Kylo has been thinking of for a while now though too afraid of executing it alone to carry it out. But with Ares’s safety in danger, he has no doubt that the Order will follow him and Hux into mutiny.

#kylux #kylux babies #ares hux ren #i love writing ares ;__;