This AU looks at Rey and Kylo meeting in a time when none of the events of The Force Awakens happened, a few years down the road. The story is a fill for dietplainlite's prompt for the words "Reylo: fire, lock, green."
Even before he walks in the door, just ahead of closing time, she knows he's coming.
All night, the awareness has simmered hot and low inside Rey, likes the fires she keeps banked in the crude hearth that serves as the pub's oven. She feels the tug of his nearness, with wariness and anticipation that leaves her clumsy and distracted.
Her customers must sense something off in her as well; missing her sunny smiles and excited conversation, tonight they wander away to other grog shops after only one drink. By closing time, only a lone droid trader remains, nursing an ale. There are plenty of places to forget yourself in Daaka Outpost, and any drink you desire. Liquid is freely found there, unlike Jakku. It's a supreme joke to Rey that after finally giving up on waiting after so long and moving off-planet, she's found the wet green paradise she dreamed on the days when the desert sun cracked her lips.
Everything in Daaka is so green, the color sears itself behind her lids when Rey closes her eyes. Everything that is above the knees. Daaka, called the Last Outpost by most of the locals due to its remoteness from any government, owes its lushness and moisture to its endless rains, the downpours that never stop and leave its citizens wading in mud most of the spring and summer seasons. Rey's first purchase with profits from her little pub were a pair of mottled grey-brown hip-high boots. They were the ugliest and cheapest ones available but when she wore them, she was blessedly dry for the first time since she'd arrived on the planet. On the nights when she managed to avoid thinking of him, she dreamed of the heat of Jakku.
The rains are especially ferocious this night, with water slapping the windows so hard Rey's worried they'll shatter. And the mud, the damned mud, thick enough to drown in. The floors will need extra scrubbing, she thinks, though in her tiny place, that doesn't take long.
She's wiping down the bar and debating with herself whether she'll have time to mop up before he arrives when she feels a frisson skating up her spine. The sensation blossoms into a burst of fresh awareness at the back of her mind, leaving her brain tingling; the pleasurable ripple flows back downward through her body until she's shaking and leaning on the edge of the bar. She distantly hears the creaking of the pub's front door opening and without looking, she knows.
"Was that hello?" Rey murmurs.
The remaining customer snaps out of his daze and peers up at the new arrival.
"You're done with your drink. Leave." Spoken through his mask's modifier, Kylo Ren's words are neutral enough but Rey feels the flavor of his impatience through the thing that binds them. She feels his need, and the power that pushes the droid trader into nodding obediently and shuffling out the door into the deluge.
The door slams shut with the thrust of the wind and rain and the Force behind it. With a flick of his wrist, the knobs twist and the bolts fly into place, locking the door.
Rey drops the rag in her hand and steps backward.
Kylo Ren raises a hand and gestures for her to come closer. Beneath his impenetrable mask, Rey can feel his wanting overflow into sheer greed.
She laughs, and shakes her head. Taking another step backward, Rey spins and runs for the backroom door.
Dashing through the doorway, Rey throws herself onto the rough pallet that serves as her bed. She switches on the lamp alongside it, and grins when she hears his hurried steps. By the time he reaches her door, she's already slipped out of her tunic and trousers.
There are no windows in the little room she keeps for herself, no need to worry about who can see her bed, her technical manuals or the doll or Rebellion helmet she couldn't bear to leave behind on Jakku. There is no one in this world but her- and sometimes him when she lets him in.
Kylo Ren. Sometimes another name when he's inside her and they're so connected, she loses track of where they begin and end.
The tightness inside Rey eases as his human face is revealed. He sets his heavy helmet and lightsaber aside carefully, but his clothes are discarded with abandon. Rey lounges on her pallet, watching the knight unveil his lean and scarred form while she slips a hand into her underwear.
"How did you get that one?" she asks, using her toe to poke a particularly nasty, older-looking scar on his right shin.
"I was careless. My master Snoke taught me a lesson." Kylo's eyes are drawn to her hands, moving rhythmically between her thighs. "Doesn't matter now." He goes on his knees before her and crawls in between Rey's legs, bracing himself over her. She removes her hands from her wetness and touches his lips. The glowing lamplight casts long shadows under his eyes, but his full mouth looks more vulnerable than ever to her. Rey thumbs his bottom lip before dipping the soaked fingers of her right hand into his mouth. Tasting her gratefully, Kylo kisses her hard and the connection between them is at once blown wide open and muddied with the fog of desire.
Rolling onto their sides to face one another, Rey and Kylo fit together, their mouths and bodies stroking and touching lightly. It's been weeks since they were able to luxuriate in each other like this. It gets harder all the time for him to find excuses to visit the Last Outpost. The ease with which they come together, interlocking, reminds Rey of the engine of the freighter she'd worked on to earn her passage to Daaka. The pieces separately didn't make much sense but with a little polishing and the right placement, it was a simple fix. The gears flowed together, one piece setting off the next until the machinery fired as one powerful engine.
"…not a machine…" mutters Kylo, kissing his way down her throat and across her breasts. In his mind, Rey sees a flash of a melted black mask and feels his confusion.
He quickly shutters it and sets to making her moan with his teeth grazing her nipples and his long fingers sliding against her clit. Nudging Rey onto her back, he draws down her underwear and tosses them aside. His tongue joins his hands in opening up her sex, spreading her thighs to make room for his face. Rey digs her heels into his back, urging him on, stroking his silky hair. She guides him to her sweet spots, tugging on him when it's too much, and whispering his name when it's just right.
There is a restless fire in Kylo, she feels it burning in him all the time, but when he's lost in her, his focus is sharp and unshakable. He watches her face as she builds to orgasm, watches the twists of Rey's face as she grinds against him, pleading for harder and more. When she comes, gasping and thighs clenching, his eyes never leave her face.
Falling back, Rey shivers with the aftershocks. Kylo cuddles around her until she feels almost too hot, and she rolls toward him. Snaking a hand between them, she finds him still hard and leaking.
"You enjoyed that?"
"You know I did." He touches his forehead to hers, and his happiness floods her. "More?"
Rey traces the shape of his curious face, her fingertips grazing his long nose, overlarge mouth, and serious brows. She thinks of Jakku, and the junkyards, and the mud of Daaka, and feels her face stretching with another smile. She tries to convey the thought to Kylo but it's too amorphous even in her own mind.
"What?"
"I was just thinking. Something about…how I waited for so long. I don't know." Rey snuggles against his chest, and laughs. Her fist tightens around his cock, stroking and keeping him hard against her belly.
A crack of thunder sounds and the rains renew their strength.
"Come back with me, Rey."
"What? Don't be silly. This is my home." Rey pauses in her ministrations and looks up at him. "Stay."
A tremor of fear comes through their connection. "I can't. Snoke will find me wherever I go. But with your Force abilities, he might be-"
Rey cuts him off with a kiss. "I'm not interested in the Force. I just want to live my own life. I just want to live." Kylo's resistance melts away with her kisses and the press of her hips against his cock. "Live."
She shows him, clearly this time, what she wants in her mind- the weight of his chest against hers, the imprint of his body on her. Kylo presses her into the pallet, and Rey accepts him in her arms, her legs wrapping around his waist. Thrusting inside her is easier than joining their minds; the slap of flesh and their moans drowning out the rains and the chaos inside them.
When his peak comes, his watchfulness falls apart, and Kylo is lost. Beneath him, Rey tightens around his cock and digs her nails into his back before stroking away the marks. In the mindless peace of his shattering climax, she feels- rather than sees a river of light flowing between of them.
"No matter what," she says in his ear, "We have this, Kylo."
Ben, a voice says and is gone before Rey can identify it.
"Yes," Kylo says, kissing her until the heat rises in her cheeks again. "We have now."
"And the rains. We'll always have the damn rain."
He laughs. "Yes, that too."