Chapter 1: This Means War
TW: Themes of sexual assault (Not by Kylo) it doesn't get too far though.
'~*~'
'
"So what's the deal with the guy next door to me?" Rey asked as she leaned back in her chair and tucked her legs up underneath her.
Finn and Poe, the guys who lived on the other side of her new flat, both looked at each other then rolled their eyes in unison.
"No idea exactly, other than he is a really moody git," Poe answered as he poured Rey some more wine.
Finn shrugged and nodded, "He was here before we moved in, everyone else in the building is lovely though."
Rey returned their smiles. It had been a difficult few months for her, she had broken up with her boyfriend because he had cheated on her… for the second time, and become quite nasty, violent even. She had been the one who had to move out of their flat, as he refused to. She'd sofa surfed at a friend's home until she could get the cash together for a deposit, because her ex had refused to give her back the money she had put down on their flat. Bastard.
Looking at the silver lining though, the building she had moved into was sunny and bright, the other residents were friendly (excluding one), and she had a balcony where she could grow a few plants and sunbathe. And she still had her job, which she loved.
Rey had already warmed to Finn and Poe, they had been the first to welcome her, even helping her carry her few belongings up from the van she had hired when she moved, and had then invited her to dinner once she had got everything into her new place.
It had all seemed to be perfect, life had finally appeared to have given her a much needed break… until that is, she had discovered that her other nextdoor neighbour liked to play heavy metal music loudly at 3am.
At first Rey had figured it was a one off, pulling a pillow over her head and trying to ignore it. But after three consecutive nights of loud music that seemed to be aimed specifically against the wall her bed was next to, she had got up, pulled a dressing gown on, and gone to knock on their door.
It was answered (eventually) by a hulking guy dressed all in black who glared at her as if knocking on his door was some kind of personal insult.
Rey had mustered a smile and asked him politely to please turn down his music or put headphones on. He'd shot a smirk at her, told her no, and shut the door in her face.
'
Over the next week, it became apparent that the man was hell-bent on annoying her. Rey had invested in some earplugs, she didn't like sleeping with them in as not being able to hear properly made her sleep lightly, but it beat not sleeping at all.
She eventually swapped her bedroom around with her living room, it wasn't very practical but it solved the noise problem, and she had started sleeping normally again. The morning after she has swapped the rooms around, as she was hoovering the room that was now her living room, someone banged loudly on her door.
She answered, assuming it must be the postman, but she was met by her problem neighbour, "What kind of person vacuums at 8am? Can't you do that later?" He growled at her. His hair was tousled and he had the look of someone wrenched from a deep sleep.
Rey blinked at him in surprise, then a rebellious part of her remembered his smirk from their first encounter and she gave him one of her own, "No," she said and shut the door in his face. Karma could be such a bitch.
'
Rey had thought, (perhaps rather naïvely), that would make him think back over his actions and change his ways. Unfortunately for her, her neighbour took it as a skirmish and retaliated by constantly shoving junk mail through her letter box. He seemed to think that that would annoy her, but the inconvenience was so minor that Rey couldn't be bothered to be irritated by it.
After a few weeks of that, and of Rey failing to berate him about it, he seemed to give up.
'
Rey hadn't thought about him in several weeks, when their paths crossed again. She had had a long day at the garage, managed to spill tea all over herself, walked into a door and then stupidly answered a phone call from her ex. She was tired, scalded, bruised and very, very grumpy. So when she entered the lobby of her building to see her neighbour a few paces ahead of her, she called for him to hold the lift.
He lengthened his stride, got in well before her, and closed the doors straight away, treating her to a smug smirk as he disappeared from view.
Rey was not currently feeling very rational, and this, on top of everything else, sent her off the deep end… THIS MEANS WAR.
'
Rey waited till 11pm, then went outside to the building's car park, located his car and undid one of the front tyre valves, shoved a grain of rice in it, and did it back up. This would cause the tyre to repeatedly deflate, no matter how much he pumped it up, he would either have to find the rice or get a new tyre, and because she wasn't actually doing any damage, it wasn't an actual crime.
'
A few days later, after she had just got home and was trying to decide what to make for dinner, there was a loud banging on her front door. There was only one person who did that.
Rey pasted a friendly, innocent expression on her face before answering it.
"What the fuck did you do to my car?" he asked without preamble.
Rey raised an eyebrow and folded her arms, "Do? Why, is there something wrong with it?"
He practically snarled and Rey had to fight the smirk that threatened to reveal itself.
"You've done something, the fucking tyre keeps going down, I know it was you, and you better fix it. Now."
"I don't know what you are talking about. If you think something is wrong with it, you should take it to a garage."
He glared at her, taking in her dirty, oil covered jeans and t shirt, "You're a mechanic, so you can look at it."
Rey tilted her head, "I can, but I won't. I only do favours for friends or people who ask me nicely." And she shut the door once again in his furious face.
That evening Rey indulged in a glass of wine with dinner.
'
He took to smoking every time she put washing out, blowing streamers of smoke directly at her racks of freshly clean clothes.
Rey brushed that one off- her ex had smoked, and while she didn't like it, being on the top floor meant that there was usually a bit of breeze which lessened the effect.
It was the weekend when he took it to the next level. Rey had put down a mat and was sunbathing, she'd finished all her chores that morning, was going to dinner at Finn and Poe's later and she had nothing to do but lie in the sun, letting it soak into her skin. It was utter bliss.
She had her headphones on, listening to Coheed and Cambria, so any noise from her neighbours wouldn't intrude on her little bubble of calm.
Then something smacked into her back, exploding to cover her in cold water. Rey squealed, ripping her headphones out of her ears as she sprang to her feet.
She turned to find him and a friend grinning at her like children, "Oh! Sorry, we were having a water fight and got carried away," her neighbour told her.
Rey pushed her anger down as best she could, "Then maybe you should play downstairs with the other children," she told him icily, picked up her mat and went inside.
'
Rey got dressed and made brownies to take round to Finn and Poe's later. While she baked, she considered her next move, but she didn't come to any concrete conclusions before she went next door for dinner.
It was a warm evening and they ate out on the balcony, watching as the sun sunk into the horizon, painting the clear sky pink and orange.
Finn had made what he called an 'Anything' cocktail, which as the name suggests, contained anything he felt like or that needed using up.
They tended to be hit and miss but this one he had got spot on, and they got through two jugs of it before calling it an evening.
By the time Rey left, she was happy and cheerful and more than drunk. So at first, when her doorknob didn't seem to turn, she giggled a bit, assuming she was too drunk to make it turn and tried again. After several more tries however, she inspected her hand to find it covered in some kind of cooking oil. That little… well, massive, shit.
Rey walked (not quite straight) to her neighbours and banged on his door. There was no answer, but she could hear music coming from inside, so she banged again. He opened the door with that infuriating smirk on his face.
"You!" she accused, then wiped her oily hands on the front of his t-shirt, "You are a massive land based tool!" He grinned at her, and her stupid intoxicated heart did a little skip.
"Are you drunk?"
Rey poked him hard in the chest with her index finger, "Maybe. That is not the point! You either clean my door, or I am sleeping on your sofa!"
He shrugged and stood to the side, opening the door wider, Rey frowned at him, and he gestured down his hall, "Come in, then."
Rey blinked, "What?"
"You said you were going to sleep on my sofa."
"I didn't mean..!" Then Rey had what her muddled brain thought was a good idea. "Fine," she said and stepped past him, weaving her way down the hall and into the living room.
There were some other guys on the sofa, they possibly said something but Rey went straight out of the back door onto the balcony, stood on a chair and started to climb over the glass and metal barrier that separated her balcony from his.
She had got half way when someone yelled "Shit!" and strong hands manhandled her back on to the side that wasn't hers.
Rey wriggled in their grasp, "Do you have a fucking death wish?" They asked as they set her feet on the floor but kept hold of her.
"I was fine, let me go! Look - my window is open," she gestured vaguely at her balcony.
"You are drunk, there is no way I am letting you climb over that!" The hands on her were large and very warm.
Rey turned in their grasp so she could glare at whomever it was that was holding on to her, it was her douchey neighbour... he really was huge.
She poked him hard in the chest again, "Take your hands off me, you giant shit biscuit!"
He merely smirked, so Rey punched him in the stomach and stamped down on his instep.
Before he could recover she was over the partition, her window wasn't open but she had her back door key with her and tried using that.
"Jesus, woman, you are crazy!" Came an indignant call as she finally fit the key in the lock and opened the door.
"And you're a muscle bound cretin," Rey answered as she almost fell through the door.
'
The next morning when Rey surfaced, she decided she needed to up her game and settled on a 'Shock and Awe' approach.
After showering and cleaning the oil off her doorknob, she went out to the shops, got a bottle with a spray nozzle on it and some fish she found in the reduced aisle.
When she got home, she left the fish in its unopened wrapper on her window sill, in the full sun and filled the bottle with water and bleach.
It appeared to be her lucky day as there was washing out on the shit biscuit's balcony and everything he owned seemed to be black…
Rey checked to make sure he wasn't looking out of his window, then switched the nozzle to squirt rather than spray and made sure she hit every item of clothing he had at least once, not too much, but so everything would have marks of discolouration.
She went inside and ordered him a lot of catalogues, then ordered two pizzas, coke, wings and a tub of ice cream to be sent to his flat. Then she locked up and went out for the day.
When she got home, she found a note on her doormat, written in a surprisingly delicate script,
Thanks for the pizza, it was just what we needed!
Rey swore to herself until her eyes fell on the fish still sweating on her window sill, then she smiled. Once again she waited till it was late, then crept down to the car park and put the fish under the bonnet of his car, in the aircon.
The next day, she rang his doorbell, as she left for work at 7.30am.
Rey had had another gruelling day, so on the way home she had picked up some chinese. As she opened her front door she trod on something and looked down to see what at first glance, looked like a snake.
She yelled and jumped backwards, almost spilling her food, before she realised that it was just a rubber toy.
Rey flushed, anger and embarrassment warring for dominance, but her body just decided to go with weariness and she dumped her things and ate her food out of the container, sitting in the dark. Her mood descended further as her ex kept ringing, even though she ignored him. Despite being beyond tired, he body refused to allow her to sleep - her ex's behaviour was starting to really worry her. So in the end Rey resorted to a bottle of vodka.
'
Someone banging on her door at 1am pulled her from a dreamless sleep, she hauled herself to her feet as the banging continued and wended her way to her front door. A prickle of suspicion washed through her just before she opened it, but she pushed it down, it was obviously her shitty neighbour, again.
Only it wasn't her neighbour, it was her ex. He gave her a disgusting, drunk, sloppy grin, "Why don't you answer your phone, babe?"
Rey had to work hard not to back away from him, "Take the hint, Geoff, go away."
He frowned at her as he loomed closer, resting his meaty hands on either side of the door frame, "Don't be like that Rey, I miss you, you should come home."
That made her angry, and made her forget that he got physical when she mouthed off at him, "This is my fucking home now! You cheated on me! Twice! I am done with you, and all your shit, now fuck off and lose my number while you're at it!"
He moved his arm to push her door open further and used his other to grab her upper arm in a painful grasp.
"You don't get to speak to me like that," he hissed as he pressed her against the wall, his tone changed to wheedling as he added, "I can make you love me again, Rey, don't fight me."
Suddenly, Rey was genuinely afraid, she used her free hand to push at his chest, yelling at him, "Get off!"
His mouth on hers silenced her as he tried to kiss her, she bit his lip and he moved his hand from her arm to her throat as he pushed her further inside her flat.
She was truly panicking now, her hands futilely pulling at his thick fingers around her throat as his other hand quested up her top. "Don't fight it, babe. We used to be so good together, I can show you and you'll see. I'll make you feel good."
His mouth moved to an ear and he bit the shell of it, so hard she thought he must have drawn blood.
Rey's vision was going spotty, she brought up one of her knees to try and get him in the groin but didn't make enough contact to really hurt him, he just snarled at her and gripped her throat tighter, and she couldn't scream... she couldn't scream, she couldn't scream.
Rey banged her fists on the wall behind her, as hard as she could in her weakened, dizzied state.
His wandering hand slipped inside her jeans and Rey couldn't hold in a whimper, "Shh, just relax and enjoy it," he told her in a husky voice, his breath stinking of stale beer and roll ups.
"Get your hands off her now."
Geoff paused to turn to the still open doorway, Rey couldn't see and didn't recognise the voice, it was menacing and dangerous, she knew no one like that.
"You've got the wrong idea mate, this is my girlfriend, she likes it rough," Geoff said.
"I somehow doubt that she'd go for a shit stain like you," the voice told him, "Now fuck off before the police get here. I called them a few minutes ago."
Geoff shook her like a rag doll, "You been sleeping around behind my back, Rey? You're gonna need to be punished." His fingers moved further into her underwear and Rey managed to get out a terrified squeal.
Geoff's arm was wrenched away, then his other one and he was pushed backwards as someone grabbed hold of her and pulled her out of her front door and pushed her against someone else.
But these hands were gentle on her, a voice asked her if she was okay and she managed a brief, painful nod before she lost her lights completely.
'
Rey flailed as someone shook her awake, her hands were held down and a gentle voice said, "It's okay, honey, I'm a paramedic. You're safe now, but I need to check you over. Come on sweetheart, I need you to open your eyes."
Rey opened her eyes to blink in the bright light, she didn't recognise where she was, but she couldn't see Geoff anywhere, so she allowed her muscles to relax slightly.
The blonde woman who hovered over her gave her an encouraging smile, "Can you sit up?"
Rey nodded, and the paramedic helped her up, "What...?" her voice was a painful rasp.
"Try not to talk for now, just nod yes and no while I ask you some questions, can you do that?"
Rey nodded.
"Okay, your name is Rey?" Rey nodded, "Can you remember if you hit your head at any point?" Rey shook her head, "You're ear is wounded, are you sure you didn't hit your head?"
Rey nodded, "Bitten," she grated out.
The paramedic grimaced in disgust, "Okay, you up to talking to a police woman? I can stay with you?"
Rey nodded again.
Rey ended up writing out what had happened because her throat was too raw to answer questions that didn't have a yes or no answer. She still wasn't entirely certain where she was until she saw her moody neighbour across the room talking seriously to a policeman.
The paramedic kindly helped her back to her flat when the police were finished with her, "Will you be okay now? Is there anyone I can call for you?"
Rey shook her head, Finn and Poe were away for a few days and the friend who she would have called was probably the one who had given Geoff her new address, and she had no desire to see them until she was in a state to rip them a new one.
"You just need a good sleep, no work for you tomorrow either. Stick to liquids for the next few days and drink something hot with a good amount of honey in, it will soothe your throat."
Rey tried to muster a smile for the paramedic as the woman left, but she couldn't quite get there.
As the door shut, she suddenly felt afraid. She went around her flat and turned on all the lights, but there still seemed to be shadows everywhere around her.
She quickly pulled on her nightdress and dived under her duvet, but that made it worse because she wouldn't be able to see if someone was creeping up on her.
For the same reason, as soon as she put her headphones in, she had to pull them out again. Her breathing became panicky and hurt her throat as it sawed in and out. And she choked on the mouthful of vodka she tried to down as it burned her abused throat like fire.
Rey pulled on a cardigan, grabbed her keys, wrote a note and left her flat to knock on her neighbours door. He answered quickly, almost as if he had been waiting for her.
She handed him the note, he glanced at it quickly, then nodded and stood aside so she could enter. Rey's eyes spilled over and she angrily wiped the tears away with shaking hands as she walked into the living room. She froze as she realised her neighbour had guests; there were four guys sitting around with beers and holding game controllers, she went to back away but collided with her neighbours chest.
He gripped her arms gently to stop her tipping over, "It's okay. You're safe here." His voice was low and warm, somehow comforting even though she didn't know him.
Rey swallowed painfully and turned to look up at him. His expression was soft, brown eyes warm as he looked down at her. "You can sleep in my bed and I'll take the sofa."
Rey blushed, shrugging anxiously. He gave her a small smile, "Or you can sit on the sofa with us? I can get you a blanket?"
Rey gave him a small embarrassed nod. Right now she couldn't be on her own, and while these people were pretty much strangers, they had helped her and hadn't hurt her.
As her neighbour disappeared to get a blanket, his friends made room on the sofa and Rey hesitantly went and sat down.
At first she was tense, unable to sit back, but once he returned and draped a surprisingly beautiful crochet blanket over her, her body relaxed and she was fast asleep in seconds.