But What Will We Do When We're Sober?
It's one of the rebel pilots who finds the bottles of Shesharilian vodka, hidden away behind a stack of wooden crates in a forgotten corner of the old Resistance base. A new recruit—one of many—who is young and eager and not yet immune to the strange mix of violence and monotony that is the dichotomy of war.
Word of his discovery spreads rapidly from soldier to soldier and by the time it reaches Rey and Rose, plans have been made for its swift and proper disposal—on board the Falcon after the General has taken to her quarters for the night.
Rey can't help but laugh at their attempt at duplicity. After all, there are no true secrets in Leia Organa's military. If the unsanctioned gathering has managed to develop past a collection of hopeful whispers and into an actual event, Rey can only assume it is because Leia has allowed it to do so.
Perhaps the General senses the nervous energy that has taken hold of even her most seasoned fighters since Tangenine had fallen to the First Order without so much as a whimper, solidifying their control of each of the Core Worlds. Or perhaps she knows, as a former Solo, what effect a good drink and a touch of recklessness can have on the morale of men beaten down by the perpetuity of battle.
Regardless, Rey and Rose accept the invitation with vigor and when the planet's moon has taken its position at the highest point in the sky, they run from their barracks and out into the darkness of the night toward where the Falcon lays shielded in a shadowed forest.
There is a moment, just before they cross through the tree line, where Rey stops to appreciate the glow of the moonlight on her skin, the sound of Rose's laughter in her ears, the wind whipping through her hair—too cold for a girl borne of desert sun and growing colder each day. She breathes it all in, reminding herself—despite the hardships and despite the war—to be grateful for this life that is somehow her life—a scavenger, a nobody. A Jedi.
"Come on, Rey!" Rose gives a gentle tug on Rey's hand and just like that, they're off—laughing and running and half falling through the knotted roots that litter the forest floor until they reach the battered ship in the night.
They stop just short of the open door to exchange amused grins. They had expected to see the younger crowd—the newly recruited mechanics and the eager pilots with wide, nervous smiles. They had not expected to find nearly half the Resistance crowded throughout the hull of the ship, their cheeks rosy and their cups half full.
They step through the threshold and are immediately greeted by a familiar voice in the din.
"There you are!"
Finn shoulders his way through the sea of people, three cups grasped precariously over his head. Poe isn't far behind.
"Hi!" Rose calls cheerfully, reaching up on her toes to kiss Finn's cheek. She turns to Poe and nods with mock formality. "Admiral Dameron."
Poe waves a hand in front of their faces and says in a deep voice, "Admiral Dameron was never here. You will drink these drinks and forget what you have seen."
Rose laughs and Rey rolls her eyes good-naturedly.
"Save the Jedi mind tricks for the actual Jedi," Rose says with a raised eyebrow.
Poe grins. "Hey, it was worth a shot."
"Better drink up." Finn passes them each a sloshing cup. "The vodka's nearly half gone."
Rey does as she is told, first bringing the cup to her nose before taking a cautious sip. It burns all the way down, though it isn't an entirely unpleasant sensation. And there is a sweetness to the burn, like it's been mixed with the juice from a granadilla.
The second sip doesn't burn quite as much. Or the third. And by the time the cup is drained to the bottom, there is only sweetness left in her mouth and a faint pink stain on her lips. Her body feels heavy and her mind feels light and she smiles at her friends, her allies, her family. They each smile back.
Someone—probably Rose with her deft hands and quick mind—has connected a small stereo to the Falcon's emergency alert system, filling the ship with loud, thumping music that has them all swaying on their feet. The song changes—something faster and livelier than the one before—and Rey watches as Finn and Rose dance and twirl wildly through the crowd, their fingers never leaving each other's grasp.
"Shall we?" Poe extends his hand to her, eyes bright and nearly twinkling from the drink that courses through both their veins.
Rey hesitates. She's never danced with anyone before. She's never had anyone to dance with before.
But before she has time to think on this any further, Poe has grabbed her hand of his own accord and is pulling her toward him in a wild spin. She laughs and nearly falls, but his hands are steady on her waist before he spins her again and then they are a blur of movement. Rey has no idea what she's doing and if she had to guess, she'd say Poe doesn't either. But it doesn't matter because they're both smiling and they're both laughing and when their hands touch there is only friendship and camaraderie that extends between them, simple and sweet.
The music pounds in her ears so loudly that she almost misses it—the slight dampening of sound that marks the opening of the bond. But she feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up and a shiver runs down her spine despite the heat and suddenly she knows without looking that he is there.
She turns, one hand still clasped in Poe's hand, the other gripping a newly filled cup, and sure enough, there he is—the Supreme Leader. He sits, clad like royalty in a sea of blue and brown jumpsuits. His hair has grown longer and somehow wilder with time. It falls in waves to his armored shoulders, black and stiff as ever. She looks down at her leggings and her tunic and her wrappings—dirty from a hard day's work and damp with sweat. The contrast makes her want to laugh and so she does—long and loud.
He ignores her, as he often does when she's not alone, and instead turns his attention toward something in his hand—a datapad most likely, though she can't be entirely sure. She ignores him too, focusing her mind on the music he can't hear, the drink he can't taste, the dance partner he can't see.
She knows she must look ridiculous, jumping and spinning and thrashing to a beat that is anchored to her side of the bond, but she can't bring herself to care. It's easier not to care. To let her blood sing in her veins, smooth and slow and steady, blocking everything else out.
They dance until their hearts are pounding and sweat shines on their skin. Rey and Poe, then Rey and Finn, then Rey and Rose, then all of them together in a tangled mess of arms and legs and flowing hair. Rey thinks she feels his eyes on her—Ben or Kylo Ren or whoever he happens to be in this moment—but every time she looks in his direction he is studiously examining whatever it is he holds in his hands.
The song changes again—something slower and softer than all the others and suddenly, they're no longer spinning, but floating. One of Poe's hands grips her palm, the other is wrapped around her waist. They are still dancing, she thinks, but it's slower and closer than the other kind and if she didn't know what she was doing then, she is truly lost now. But Poe is still smiling as he mouths the words of an alien language to a song Rey has never heard, so she forces herself to breathe and to ignore the eyes that she now knows are boring into her back.
"He's a terrible dancer." Ben's words cut through the noise of the crowd, his voice somehow amplified through the bond though he hasn't moved from his seated position by the wall.
Rey clamps her mouth shut and presses just a bit closer to Poe, not wanting to dignify his assumption with a response. She can nearly feel the strength with which Ben rolls his eyes at this, but there is a bite to his irritation that she doesn't understand. It feels a bit like anger through the bond. Or greed.
The song slows to an end and Poe dips her back with a final flourish that almost leaves her on the ground and as Rey stumbles back to her feet, a second pair of hands appear on her waist to help her regain her balance. Ben's touch solidifies the connection as it always does and Rey spins to glare at him for the intrusion, but he is already making his way back to his seat and the object he held in his hands. Not a datapad, as Rey initially assumed, but a tall glass of amber liquid that, from the looks of it, is nearly half gone.
Feeling flushed and annoyed, she mutters something to Poe about needing air and heads for the door of the Falcon, snatching an open bottle of vodka from a table on her way out.
The night air is cool on Rey's burning skin. She drinks it in, grateful for the momentary quiet that surrounds the forest trees, dark and swaying in the shadowed breeze. It doesn't last long, though, as the silence is broken by the heavy thud of footsteps that could only belong to one person.
She whirls to face him and sways a bit on her feet, the bottle of alcohol swishing noisily in her fist.
"You're drunk," he says, his words colored with a kind of subdued amusement as he walks ever closer to her place in the trees.
She takes in his looming figure, noticing the slight laziness to his gait that is usually all hulking, formidable power.
"You're tall," she counters. "And also drunk," she adds, the best she can muster in her current state, though it manages to draw a tiny smirk from Ben's lips.
"Not yet," he replies as he brings the glass that Rey can now see quite clearly to his mouth.
She scans her surroundings, suddenly nervous. Their connection pulses like a tide. Sometimes it is nothing but a whisper in the back of her mind. Other times—when they touch—it becomes something much more tangible and clear.
"What else can you see?"
He considers this, taking a moment to glance around before answering. "You're in a forest, I think. I can almost see the trees. And I can feel the wind. Wherever you are, it's cold."
It's not much to go on, but it's enough to send a chill down her spine that has nothing to do with the wind that whips around them.
She juts her chin out defiantly, feeling brave and a little reckless from the alcohol in her system. "Planning on tracking me down and finally making good on your little nickname, Jedi Killer?"
If the drink has made her brave, it has made him honest. "You should know by now I could never kill you." The words spill from him like a sigh.
She can't help but scoff at this. "No. Just my friends. Everything I believe in."
Her words are cruel and she knows it, but after everything that has passed between them, why shouldn't she be cruel?
His mouth sets in a hard line. "I'm the Supreme Leader, Rey. I can't just ignore the Resistance when they're intent on causing chaos throughout the galaxy. What do you expect me to do?"
Her eyes are narrowed as she steps a bit closer to him. "And if I'm on the next ship that you blast from the sky?"
His answer is swift and infuriating and wholly unsurprising. "If you joined me that wouldn't be a problem."
"You're unbelievable!" she cries in frustration, quickly retreating back to the safety of the trees.
He is quick to follow her, taking wide strides until she is forced against the trunk of a wroshyr, easily trapped between the scratchy bark at her back and the armored chest at her front. She steels herself against his proximity, though there is no real threat to it and she thinks, not for the first time, that it is her lack of fear of him that will likely be her undoing.
"Things are changing," he whispers, his voice a low growl in her ear. "Haven't you felt it? We'd barely crossed through the atmosphere when the Tengenians surrendered last week. They wanted what we had to offer. They wanted to join the First Order."
She scoffs again, her breath turning to mist in the air. "They just didn't want to be blasted out of the sky like the Hosnian system."
He has the nerve to look wounded at her words and it infuriates her.
"I wouldn't do that," he insists.
"No? What about General Hugs or whatever his name is? From what I've heard, that man is out for blood and nothing more."
A darkness flashes in Ben's eyes. "Hux is dead."
"Oh," she whispers stupidly.
"I killed him."
Oh.
The darkness spreads like a tangible thing from his side of the bond, warm tendrils burrowing through her skin and coming to rest in her chest. She suppresses the shameful shiver of delight that courses through her veins at hearing this news and refocuses herself on the topic at hand.
"Well it doesn't matter. You can't hold a knife to someone's throat and call it a choice. What choice did I have when my parents sold me like a slave? What was yours when Snoke stole into your mind when you were still just a child? That's what you're taking from the people of the galaxy—the freedom to choose their own fate."
The darkness recedes and though she is grateful for it, she sees that Ben is left frozen and pale in its absence. She sighs and shakes her head, all the fight suddenly drained from her. "Let's just…not talk about the war anymore. Okay?"
She sinks to the ground, neatly crossing her legs under her and taking a drink from the bottle still in her hand.
"Okay," he agrees, moving to join her against the bark of the tree, all long legs and flowing cloak. "What do you want to talk about then?"
Rey shrugs. "I don't know…what does chocolate taste like?"
The question is so unexpected that Ben Solo—Supreme Leader of the First Order—actually smiles. It is a quick, blinding little thing that quickly disappears into his usual scowl, but Rey knows it is an image she will not soon forget.
"I don't know," he starts. "It's...sweet. And smooth. And a little…bitter? No, not bitter, just…dark, maybe. It's…hard to explain," he ends a bit weakly with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.
She nods, her expression serious as she considers his words.
"I've never had it before."
A moment of silence passes between them and through it Rey can hear the steady beat of the music that drifts from the Falcon. Then Ben's hands are suddenly on her waist and he is turning her to face him, their knees brushing against one another in the dirt.
"What are you doing?" she demands, though she makes no effort to pull away.
"Close your eyes," he answers.
Rey sighs, but for once does as she is told. She feels his hands leave her waist and come to rest on either side of her temples, his fingers just barely brushing against the skin there.
At first, there is nothing but the feel of his skin on hers, the rush of the wind seeping through their clothes, the smell of fresh dirt under their legs. Then something changes and Rey is no longer kneeling on the forest floor, but soaring through a haze of memories that do not belong to her. She sees flashes of Han, years younger than when she knew him. And Leia, with her hair wrapped around her ears in two perfect circles. There's the Falcon, cleaner than she's ever seen it. And a house in a field on a planet she's never been to.
She sees flashes of other images too—shadows and darkness that feel like anger and fear and ice in her chest. They flicker by, faster than she can comprehend them, until he finds the one he is looking for and they suddenly slam to a stop. This time, Rey's vision is filled with a pair of knobby knees, the skin that covers them raw and bleeding. Then there are hands—small, but steady as they unwrap a shiny square of foil to reveal a deliciously smooth piece of chocolate. The hands bring the treat to a pair of lips Rey cannot see and though she knows it is only a memory, an echo of a memory, she swears she can taste it on her tongue—sweet and bitter and dark and all of the things Ben said it would be.
She wants to stay there—wrapped up in his memories where he is just a boy with skinned knees and there is not yet a war to divide them. But the vision slowly fades and when Rey opens her eyes, it is not a boy who stares back at her, but a man with a long scar that cuts across his face—an ever-present reminder of the many ways in which they have marked one another.
For the first time in a long time, Rey feels a sliver of fear slice down her spine at his presence. Her logical mind knows she should get up and follow the sound of the music that whispers through the trees until it leads her back to the safety of the Falcon and her friends. She should drink and dance and laugh and, when the morning sun starts its ascent through the planet's atmosphere, she should run back to her barracks with Rose close on her heels, ready for another day's work.
But she doesn't do any of those things.
Instead, she tilts her head to look at him more fully and she reaches across what should be an impossible distance to press her lips to the corner of his mouth, marking him once more.
Like the vodka, the contact is warm and sweet and burns all the way down.
She pulls away after only a moment, content with what she has been given—with what she has been allowed to take. But she can feel Ben's greed burning through the bond again and before she can move, before she can think, he is pulling her to him and kissing her fully.
It feels a bit like dancing, she thinks. The slow kind. And though her head is spinning and her hands are shaking and the alcohol still buzzes in her veins, she has never felt more steady.
Ben's hands are everywhere, frantic and desperate to touch her before they wake up from what must surely be a dream—or else a cruel trick of the Force. She feels them in her hair, at her waist, and on her back, dipping under the length of her tunic to graze the skin he finds there.
He whispers her name against her lips and she whispers his back and she is suddenly afraid that the bond will close before she's had time to commit this all to memory—the fullness of his lips and the slide of his tongue against hers and the groan that seeps from his throat when she climbs into his lap and wraps her legs around his waist. But the Force seems to buzz excitedly around them—content, for now, to give them more time.
So she touches him back—his face, his scar, his hair, every part of him that isn't covered by thick heavy armor—and some parts that are. She feels the hard length of him between her legs and the sharp shock of pleasure that comes when she rolls her hips against it. She learns that there are different kinds of hunger, that she is starved in a way she never was before—even as a scavenger under a desert sun.
There will be time in the coming days to consider what this means, to carefully process what she now knows about the man who should be her sworn enemy—how he tastes like the ocean, how he holds her like a drowning man. But for now, she is happy to let the ribbons of the Force anchor them together under the moonlight that filters through the leaves of the planet's trees.
They only stop when their lips are bruised and their breath comes hard and fast and the cold has seeped through Rey's clothes, leaving her body shaking and her teeth chattering. He kisses her once, twice more, soft and sweet, before he unhooks his cloak and brings it to rest on her shoulders—heavy and thick and perfectly warmed from where it previously shielded his own body. Rey knows they can't have much time left, so she wraps herself up in it and allows herself to fall against his steady frame.
She thinks, as her eyes drift closed and the world bleeds away into darkness, that he maybe smells like chocolate.
-x-
Morning dawns on the Resistance base as it always does—a slow and steady shift from shadowed black to darkened blue and then the shock of orange and red that draws the soldiers from their beds and thrusts them, still yawning, into meetings and drills and carefully planned missions. Rey walks among them, unsurprised to find that—despite the brief respite they were offered on the Falcon—everyone has awaken to resume their duties as usual.
After all, the war is not over.
She is halfway to the galley for breakfast, Rose by her side, when she is intercepted by a captain whose name she can't remember. He says something about the General's office—that she is expected to report there immediately. Rey presses a hand to her lips, still bruised from the night before, and prepares herself for the worst. Banishment. Imprisonment. Treason.
As she walks down the wooded path toward her uncertain fate, she thinks that maybe it was worth it.
She expects to find all of the Resistance's leadership, their faces sharp and their eyes accusing. Instead, there is only Leia standing in the glowing blue light that reflects from a hologram at the center of her office.
"Leia…" she starts, her voice barely a whisper. But the General merely beckons her forward, her eyes still locked on the report that glows from the console in front of her.
"Leia," Rey tries again when she is less than an arms width away.
"—Rey," the General cuts in gently. "Look."
Rey finally turns to see what has so thoroughly captured the General's attention. She finds that it is a news report broadcasted from the HoloNet, the alien reporter's words clipped and droning. Rey doesn't really understand why it's important for her to see until she hears his name.
"…HoloNet News received a report late last night from Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order—a political faction that has steadily been taking control of many of the Galaxy's planets, including the entirety of the Inner Core. Ren is currently en route to the Western Reaches, where he plans to liberate the many so-called scavengers that occupy the land on the desert planet Jakku. Furthermore, Ren reports he is prepared to enter the beginning stages of a negotiation process with the remaining planets in the galaxy. As for Leia Organa and her band of Resistance fighters, Ren has declared that while he will strike in defense of his military, he would otherwise readily accept the terms of a ceasefire…"
There is more, but Rey hears none of it. There is only the rush of blood in her ears and the cool grasp of Leia's hand in hers and the shadow of a ghost on her lips. And in the soft light of the morning that filters through the windows that line the General's office, Rey has never felt more sober.