Work Text:
He will not remember. He will not want to. He flees from the dark, towards the light, as he has been taught.
Lessons will fail him.
*
Luke knows himself well enough to know that he would be the victor in this fight if he had mastery over his own emotions. But he came here in desperate need. That is why he came. He needed to find what lurked on this planet, and he needed confirmation of its nature.
The planet is Exegol.
And he has found his objective, and it is no longer it: it is Sheev Palpatine.
The body, half-shielded by its machines and devices is almost blurry, and so is Luke's memory of the man's face. The rude fact of Palpatine's breath and speech is almost offensive in its own right, considering how time and memory should both have eroded him. "Skywalker," says the scion, the node, of another dynasty. "I can help you."
Luke draws a clean breath. "No."
"I understand you."
Luke draws another breath, but the apparition keeps speaking. There is no one here for him to harm with his words but Luke, and so Luke's training tells him to wait and listen and learn, seeking for openings.
"I know how frightened you felt, when you felt desire for someone you should not," and Luke thinks of Ben and why he has fled here, thinks of things that this remnant should not know.
Somehow the connection flares into life. He feels Ben, as he always felt Ben, closer than nephew, closer than under his skin. He loved Ben, so he thought it was right. He thought he would never do anything to harm Ben. His sister's child.
He remembers loving Ben, and holding Ben closer than the dust of Kyber crystals under his fingernails. He remembers that Ben was not to know.
He remembers stumbling to Ben's chamber, aroused by resonances in the Force, to find a Ben who did know...
The worst of it is that great betrayal didn't sever their connection. Luke can still fell Ben. Can still feel Ben's desire, greater even than his.
"Ahhhhh," moans Palpatine, and he pulls Luke close to him.
Luke has two choices. He could fight Palpatine on every front, and lose. Or he could let Palpatine continue with his invasions, and break free. He could give Palpatine some of what he wants, and leave this place.
He feels Palpatine in the Force, stroking his body needingly, reaching out from his body through Force connections to feel Ben. He feels agonized and ecstacized. Ben, he whispers, a prayer, and hopes it never reaches him.
Luke spills onto Exegol's jagged ground.
*
There is something terribly, utterly wrong in the Force. Luke wakes, and his first instinct is to find Ben. No matter that he should care for his other students. His lightsaber finds his hand; he stumbles onwards. He surges through Ben's door...
... and finds Ben sleeping, unsummoning, but even so, caught in darkness worse than Luke has encountered in many years. Luke reaches out and finds himself caught too. It is his own horrified struggles, his wresting free, that wakes Ben.
"No..."