"I have an idea."
Rey looks at Ben expectantly.
"Thyon. The ancient Je'daii planet we're reading about. It was abandoned generations ago after endless wars left the surface unlivable. We explore the ruins, find relics, wisdom. There should certainly be kyber crystals left in the wreckage there. We'll need every weapon we can muster to bolster our power against Snoke and that means knowledge too," he pauses in his soft explanation and Rey is hanging on his every word. She's leaning closer and he gulps. His deep didactic voice is melodic.
"The problem is, it's in the heart of the galactic core. The First Order is pushing into the core now. We'll have control of those worlds in a matter of weeks. We don't want to get caught up in a skirmish or worse, get captured. We need to be as subtle as possible."
She gives him a sarcastic look which he meets with his bored one.
"…which I am capable of."
"Thanks to me."
"Tell yourself that," he says tearing his eyes away and returning to the instrument panel. He begins scanning through the data port and entering their destination coordinates. Tie fighters escort them far enough away from the planet so they can make a jump.
Ben pushes a lever activating the hyperdrive and they're sailing through the stars once more.
Rey is thoughtful a moment and then she asks, "What did you do to Plutt?"
He pauses.
"It's a technique," he says not meeting her eye.
"A dark side technique?"
He nods slightly.
"He'll relive his greatest fears and… experience the terror he caused others… for the rest of his life. Which shouldn't be long. He'll kill himself soon."
There's silence. Why didn't he just kill him? She wonders. Then Rey realizes, He did that for me?
The quiet is charged. The electricity between them is still palpable, but both are doing an admirable job of trying to ignore their feelings, and now trying to avoid eye contact. Rey feels nervous. She remembers him on Jakku with her, the final etch he aggressively made in the walker, his shoulder of support as she destroyed the past, the thrill at how he handled Plutt, the feel of his body on her back, big hands on her hips and lips on her neck on the motorbike ride. The knowledge that he wants her…
She's feeling hot and needs to leave. Rey stands.
"I'm going to, uh… yeah," she says awkwardly before setting out to explore the ship, instantly breathing a sigh of relief the moment she walks away. The tension is almost unbearable.
She soon finds the distraction she needs.
Never has Rey seen such luxury, how could she have? But there are things here she could have never imagined existed.
There are sitting rooms and dining rooms, game rooms and holo-entertainment rooms. Everything is sleek and new and stylish. At the end of the main hall she finds a massive sleeping suite. It's stunning. A sprawling four-poster bed is draped with white, red and gold linens. The room is surrounded by cozy seating, and the walls are decorated with paintings and sculptures. There's a beauty suite with a beauty droid (something she's heard about from female travelers.) There's a fully stocked bar as well. She looks at a bottle. Corellian whiskey, huh. One wall panel slides open to reveal opulent clothing inside.
Further along the wall a door leads to a master fresher room. Rey's mouth drops open. A heated square tub that could fit 10 people is the center piece of the room. An entire back wall is glass enclosed, with rain showers and hot stones and dispensers with sweet smelling soaps!
Her clothes drop as quickly as her jaw had. She could use a bath.
…
Rey doesn't know how long she's in there, but it's the closest to heaven she's ever felt. She's filled the hot tub with sweet smelling pink and purple suds. The sandy crust of Jakku washes off forever. She sighs deeply, laying back, laying her head on a cushioned edge, thinking of nothing but the sound of popping bubbles and the feel of her warm submerged body.
She almost doesn't hear when the door slides open.
The sound takes a full 30 seconds to register in her mind. Then she slowly opens an eye and sees him standing there in his tank top and ripped pants just staring. She does a quick intake of breath and chokes on some bubbles. Sputtering she looks down frantically to make sure her body is obscured from view.
"Kyl—Ben! What…"
"You looked so peaceful. I didn't want to disturb you," he says low and even.
"Get out!"
"There's only one facility on board. Seems to be enough room for two," he says seemingly undisturbed. He pushes off the doorframe and marches briskly past Rey in the tub and towards the glass enclosed rain shower.
Rey sputters half retorts but no full arguments exit her mouth. What is happening here?
Then he lowers his suspenders and pulls off his shirt and Rey goes red from head to toe. Flexing, rippling back muscles are all she sees, marred by scars and sweat and dirt. Ben reaches for the fastenings of his pants and looks over his shoulder, catching her stare.
They make the briefest of eye contact - his dark and hungry, hers wide and surprised.
And he drops the torn slacks. Rey gasps and quickly turns her head.
She waits for the sound of the opening and closing glass door before she leaps out of the water, snatches a towel and flees the bathing suite. She catches her breath outside the door. Water runs down her legs, over her feet on the cold mirror finish floors. What has gotten into him? What's gotten into her? He caught her staring! Damn it!
She mutters curses to herself as she pillages the closets. Everything is silk and satin and delicate. Nothing practical. She growls. Finally, she finds something like silken off-white slacks and a matching v-neck sleeveless shirt with lovely pink embroidery. She grabs a plush pink robe she absolutely can't say no to. Soft! She's never worn anything so soft! The excitement over the robe helps relieve her embarrassment.
Rey doesn't want to be here when he exits the wash room.
His head hits the wall the moment she flees the room.
He hadn't meant to be so forward, hadn't meant to be caught staring at her soaking blissfully in the bubbles. But when the door slid open during his own exploration of the ship, he couldn't tear his eyes away. It was so contrary to all the ways he's seen her before. He mentally catalogues all of her different kinds of faces and thinks they're all fucking stunning.
A part of his anatomy makes itself known.
He's not used to lusting. Let alone after an enemy. Well, former enemy. Quasi-enemy? That is still to be determined. He knew that he wanted to possess her, but now it's clear, he wants her in this way as well. Every which way he can have her. But…
He wants to keep them focused on the goal: Kill Snoke, gain control of the First Order, remake the galaxy in his image… Problem is, his focus vanishes like a kriffing Hutt in a gold mine whenever she gets too close.
He growls remembering her holding his weapon in defense of him on Mustafar, Rey wet and crying at the fire side in their Force connection, her kicking ass on Jakku like the beautiful feral thing she is, and her little sounds of contentment in the first soaking bath of her life…
His member twinges and he hits his head on the wall again. He can take care of this on his own here and be content, but the more he does this to himself, he fears, the more frequently the urge will come. Such thoughts were chased from his mind long ago… but the voice isn't there anymore to make him feel dirty and undisciplined.
He takes himself and strokes himself and groans into the sound of the falling water. He pictures her fiery hazel eyes looking up at him from between his knees…
Rey searches the ship, but there's only one sleeping room - that huge one with the bathing chamber she just fled. There're all service droids here, apparently no need for quarters for living crew members.
So, Rey makes her way to the observation room instead. It's a large oval room with comfy gray suede-like cushion couches hugging the walls all the way around. In the center of the room is a square table, with a hidden control panel. Attached to the table on each side is a puffy, warm comforter (space kotatsu table) and the floor is all thick cozy carpet. Rey squishes the carpet under her toes and giggles at the new sensation. Above her is a translucent view of the stars through the ship's hull. It gives the room a soft blue light. This will certainly do.
Rey sits at the table and slides open the panel. A few buttons and a few minutes later a meal rises out through the center. If possible, it's even better than the food on Ben's First Order shuttle.
She's never felt this cozy or been surrounded by this much softness. Rey curls up under the blanket in her robes, rolling around and relishing the sensation. She looks up at the stars then closes her eyes. Free. She's free from her past forever.
As sleep claims her, he finds her.
Slowly he approaches. So, this is where she ran off to?
The man who called himself Kylo Ren sits on the floor his back and head leaning against the foot of a couch as he watches. He's wearing a black short sleeve v neck undershirt which hugs his chest and arms snuggly, and some silken black slacks.
He watches the gentle rise and fall of her chest with every soft, even breath. Watches the peacefulness of her features; There's no anger, confusion, fear, or violence. Just sleep. She looks cozy wrapped in all these soft things like a nest and it causes a corner of his lip to twinge up in a half smile. He thinks this is what she deserves. It's only a fraction of what he could give her if she stayed at his side. He'd give her every soft and beautiful thing in the galaxy, because the whole galaxy would be theirs.
Ri'ia she's so young. So soft.
Then his demeanor darkens.
He could kill her. But she trusts him. And he no longer wants to. He never did want to hurt her in the first place, did he? He wanted her power, wanted her understanding. Well, he has her understanding, but she could still choose to stand against him.
If she did, if she chose to oppose him, if he was forced to kill her, he thinks he'd likely slay himself as well… or was there another choice? Could he choose to follow her instead?
He shakes his head fiercely. I've sacrificed too much to this path. I can't let her make me weak. Weak and foolish like…
Ren stands, determined not to let her worm her way into his heart any longer…
And then she speaks his name.
It's a whimper.
"Ben," she cries in her dream. All his black determination falters. That tiny word is like lightening in his heart and it hurts.
He decides to stay.
She's not sure what wakes her. Perhaps her fluffy layers have made her too hot. Or maybe it's the sound of another person breathing nearby.
Breathing?
Her eyes fly open at the realization.
He's here! He's on the other side of the table, his long legs half covered by the opposite blanket as he lays seemingly asleep. Is this the force connecting them? Rey shirks the blanket and robe and crawls around the table towards him.
She stops a few inches from him and raises herself sitting on one leg over him.
No. It's not a force connection. He looks as solid as ever and she can still hear the gentle hum of the hyperdrive and that familiar tug in her chest is not active.
That means…
Rey gasps and puts her hands over her mouth and falls back on her bottom. He's here! With me! Why?
That means he came and found her while she was sleeping.
That means instead of taking that giant suite for himself, he decided to stay.
And that means he didn't bother her or touch her. He just… fell asleep?
Though they've been much closer in their force connections than this, something about this feels far more intense, far more important. They've slept beside each other in the force every sleep cycle since their rendezvous… but this… to seek her out in person….
Look at how beautiful he is, her brain says, and she doesn't bother to admonish herself.
The man she fought, who killed his father and tried to kill her friends, who slew countless others in the service of a dark master… now free of that master, had sought out her comfort, is sleeping beside her like a child. She wouldn't have thought his pride would allow it.
His arms are crossed as he lies on his side facing her, his long locks cascade over his face. Everything about him is wide and huge and coarse and strong. His expression is peaceful and Rey notes how handsome he is this way, without pain, anger, aggression or distrust in his features. He looks younger, more human. She realizes she's never actually seen his sleeping face, only ever felt him at her back.
How is this possible? How have they come this far?
The feelings are too big.
She reaches out a shaking hand towards his luscious hair, remembering its softness on Ach-To. She brushes some back and looks down upon the scar she gave him. Without thinking she touches it gently again.
His eyes fly open.
A big hand snatches her wrist and Rey feels herself falling back. She hits the ground with an oof and when she looks up Ben has her pinned, straddling her hips, his face hovering just over her with wide eyes. His surprise gives way to confusion.
"Rey?"
And from surprise, his face betrays something deeper, an ocean of emotion behind his piercing eyes as he understands what's happening.
Rey can't breathe, and it's not because of the weight of him on top of her. The intensity of his gaze it too much, the reverence of that look, the softness in his light brown eyes. It's too raw, too new, too different, too real. Rey panics and does the only think she can think of to break the moment.
She lifts her head and kisses him.
His lips are soft and plush, there's stubble on his top lip and chin and he smells like the forest. She feels him tense at the pressure of her mouth.
Ben is nearly shocked out of his skin! He does a quick intake of breath and reels back.
He looks down at her wide eyed and Rey panics again, doing the second-best thing she can think of to break the moment. She lifts her knee and kicks him in the balls.
Ben rolls off her in agony and Rey flees down the spiral staircase.
Ben, in the fetal position, huffs through some painful breaths, hands cupping his bruised testicles as he tries to figure out what the fuck just happened.
What did I do? What did I do?
Rey runs to the suite in a frenzy carrying her pack and looking for half decent fighting clothes.
He's going to kill me. I'll just run away, hide on an asteroid somewhere, change my name, live out my days in the outer rim, I can do this… She thinks deliriously.
Rey flings off her soft things until she's just in a strapped white breast band she found (a fabric bra) and her white undershorts. She digs through the closets looking desperately for anything practical to wear when the door hisses open behind her.
"Do you always molest men in their sleep… then assault them?"
Rey freezes at the sound of his voice, low and dangerously calm. She slowly rises and turns to face him.
"What are you doing Rey?" He asks as he approaches like a predator. Her state of undress is an added bonus. Rey backs away until her back hits the wall. He looks around at her half-filled pack and the fancy dresses tossed all around the room. He places a hand on the wall next to her head, balancing on a muscular arm as he leans over her in the dim light.
"Stop running away," he rumbles.
She fixes him with an impetuous glare.
"I'm not running away."
"What are you so afraid of?" The murmur of his deep voice is so soft, it's alarming.
"Afraid?"
"You're shaking," he says as his opposite hand comes up to her shoulder. He caresses the scar the Sith gave her with his thumb and Rey shutters.
"You're delusional," she says with far less conviction than she is trying to muster.
He leans forward and whispers in her ear.
"I know what you want."
"You don't," she says breathily, trying to keep her wits about her but failing spectacularly with the warmth of him all around her and those lips at her ear.
"I do. Because I want it too."
Her heart practically stops. Her breathing too. The temperature between them rises.
"Stop running."
He leans back locking eyes with her again. His hair is shaggy, stubble on his face, beauty marks stark in the dark, eyes deep and soulful and starving.
"I only like nice men," she hears herself say.
He chuckles darkly closing the distance between them.
"No. You don't."
And he captures her lips. His are warm and full and firm. She feels them moving over hers and her mind blanks except for the feel of him. Soon she's moving her lips back against his and the sensation is soft fire. It consumes her body. Her hands fly up to his hair and his impossibly large arms encircle her, one hand rubs up and down her bare back, the other grasps the back of her neck.
He hums a gravely hum that pools directly in her nethers in a way she's never felt before. She opens her mouth for breath and his lips come crashing back down on her. A soft moan escapes her and it causes a visceral reaction in Ben. He presses his body hard against her, lifting her up, yearning for more contact. He slides a trunk like thigh between her legs and she lifts hers and…
"ARggh!" Ben recoils, his manhood still tender from her earlier assault. He steps back, dropping Rey down and her hands fly to her mouth as he doubles over.
"Oh Ben! Oh, it still hurts?"
In truth he had barely been able to walk through the ship after her, putting up an act as he cornered her. He almost forgot his pain until the brush of her leg brought back the stark reminder that he was still very much not ok.
He grunts and hobbles to the bed and she supports him under his arm.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I panicked," she rambles, depositing Ben on the bed as he immediately rolls into a ball.
Rey frets over the giant wounded man before her, when he reaches out and pulls her down with him.
Rey squeaks a scream before Ben has her wrapped up in his arms, pressed up against her back like a big spoon.
"Shut up and sleep," he says with hot breath into her neck.
"Ben?" She whispers.
A big warm calloused hand rubs across her belly, a thumb grazes the bottoms of her thinly covered breasts. The friction between them is impossible, Rey rubs back against the wall of muscle behind her, there are warm kisses on her neck and then she arches her back, pushing her bottom back against him… And he flinches and groans in pain again.
"Oh!"
He growls and slaps the bed in frustration and Rey can't help the laugh that escapes her lips.
She gasps and covers her mouth, looking over her shoulder she meets his murderous glare and it's the funniest thing she's ever seen.
Rey laughs again, not stopping herself this time, all the nervous, unbearable tension and the ludicrousness of her assault on him and his painful predicament come spilling out of her in a mirthful titter.
He rises on one arm and in indignation spits, "This is your fault!"
"You probably deserve it," she says through her laughter.
He shakes his head and lets her laugh, the sound of it a beacon in his dark existence. He watches her writhe with mirth in just her underclothes under his sheets in his bed…
When Rey comes to her senses, she notices the look in his eye, the strain of the fabric of his black shirt over his chest, her lack of clothes in a bed with a person who was once her greatest enemy. Color rises in her cheeks and she moves to put some distance between them when he reaches out again, and this time more tightly confines her with the strong expanse of his arms to his chest.
"I said shut up and go to sleep."
Her face is now on his chest in the crook of his shoulder. She breathes in his sweaty and earthy scent and swings an arm across his middle, embracing him. It's the safest and most wanted she's felt her entire life.
Their breathing slows, and soon they drift off to sleep together.