AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi friends! I know, I KNOW, this isn't any of the things I promised to update with. The ReyloPromps account is going to be the actual death of me because they keep posting things I want to write. This one is based on the prompt: "Ben and Rey had a one-night stand as a friends with benefits to relieved some stress and for some unlucky reason, both their birth control plans failed, resulting in pregnancy."

I decided to combine it with an idea I had floating around about the quarantine. There will be a few content warnings on a few chapters, but don't worry, I'll keep it clean for you folks. The content warnings have to do with potential triggers, not smut. (If you want a smuttier version of this same story, please find it by the same title on my Ao3 account, since FF won't let me post a link here. You don't need an account there to read and comment on my works.)

This will be a short little ficlet, only a few chapters, I think. It'll be a slapdash thing, honestly. I'm devoting a lot more mental energy to my other fics, this is purely for light writing fun and because I can't resist the prompt.

And it will mostly be fluffy stuff. Planning on having it all posted throughout the next few days because I'm stress-writing my way through some hard real life things and I need the happy fluff.

-Don't look too closely at a particular plot device, lol. It's only sort of like COVID, so I get to make up my own convenient cure.

Content Warnings For This Chapter:

There is intimacy referenced here, because ya can't have an unplanned pregnancy without it, but I promise to keep it to the T rating.

CHAPTER ONE:

Feeling Bad & Feeling So Good

It started with the quarantine.

That's when everything went sideways.

Ben went through one of the drive-thru testing sites, concerned because several of his coworkers had been confirmed to have the virus. Afterwards, he was instructed to self-isolate until the results were texted to him the next day.

That's when Rey got his message. They were supposed to meet up with their friends that evening for dinner — none of them being particularly concerned about the illness and still eager to support local businesses for as long as they could. Everyone was going to be there. But the moment she got his text that he wasn't going to make it, and she called him.

"You have to come!" she pleaded. "Rose is introducing me to some guy and it's going to be so awkward."

"I definitely want to see that," he chuckled, "but I can't."

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled. "I guess you have to be socially responsible. But you might not even have it, you know."

"Or I might. Can't risk it."

She sighed in a disappointment. "I mean, it's definitely the right thing. Want me to bring you some take-out after we're done? Or have you gotten more groceries since last time I was at your place?"

Ben was an excellent cook, but his schedule was too busy most of the time to allow for much dedication to the craft. Rey always thought this was an excuse, a little bit, and suspected that mostly he didn't like to cook for himself alone. He had the time to come out to their social gatherings, which could have been spent in his kitchen if he were really passionate about it. As a result, though, he ate a sad, utilitarian diet. His cupboards were pretty much empty, containing only the most meager offerings, even though he could afford to stuff them full. Rey teased him about it sometimes.

Today she didn't, because today it genuinely worried her.

"I'll be fine," he'd said evasively. "You shouldn't come by anyway. It's called isolation for a reason."

"But if you get that text tomorrow that you do have it, you're going to be locked into your own apartment for two weeks with no supplies. You were so busy scoffing at the panic-buyers that you didn't even get anything ready yourself!"

"You were scoffing at them too," he pointed out.

"Of course I was! But I can afford to. I am prepared."

His warm chuckle came trickling through her speaker. "You are so far past prepared, Rey."

She spent the next several minutes trying to persuade him to let her bring some food and supplies over, but he wouldn't let her. She didn't like it. The virus currently sweeping around the world in a veritable pandemic was known for high fevers. She didn't like the idea of him going through that misery by himself without adequate nutrition or medication.

"Fine, I won't bring anything," she said. "I have a better idea."

He sighed, no doubt bracing himself for something outrageous.

"Come over to my place!"

He barked an incredulous laugh. "How is that a better idea? That's worse, Rey. That's much worse."

"It is not! Ben, I'm serious. I have enough for both of us, so you won't starve, and I'll be able to keep an eye on you in case you have any complications and need to go to the hospital."

"Except the part where you'll get sick too."

"That's only if you're even positive. And besides, it's a small price to pay for making sure you don't die."

He chuckled again. "Such drama. I'm not going to die."

"Probably not from the virus, but I'm not letting you go hungry either. Ben, you're coming over."

He resisted for a while longer, but Rey knew she'd win in the end. Ben could be a big pushover sometimes, if she tried hard enough. And she did win. Barely an hour later he was setting his duffle bag of things down next to her pullout couch, a man too big for her small apartment, but very welcome nonetheless. He looked sheepish and grateful.

Rey was on the phone with Rose when he came in.

"What am I supposed to tell Armie's friend? He was really excited to meet you," Rose said with unveiled disappointment. "He's from England, like you. I think we was excited to talk to someone from home."

"We're in the middle of a pandemic! I'm sure he'll understand. If he's still single when this is all over, I'd be happy to meet him."

"Fine. But I still think you're being needlessly risky, having him stay with you. You aren't sick. And you work from home already, so it's not like you've been exposed in the workplace like most of the people who have tested positive."

"I still could have been exposed anywhere, we don't know," Rey said, glancing at Ben who sat down on the couch and picked up her remote and began browsing through her subscription channels. He was as comfortable in her apartment as she was in his.

"Yeah well, if Ben is already there, you have been. You guys are ridiculous."

"You have your live-in boyfriend to spend a quarantine with. He's alone. So am I. We might as well be alone together to fend off boredom."

"Right," Rose laughed. "You mean you get to bone him as much as you want over the next fourteen days and pretend it doesn't mean anything. Whatever. Just call me when it's all over and let me know when you two are getting married."

Well that was the cue Rey needed to end the conversation immediately. She told Rose to enjoy the evening and she'd call her sometime to check in.

Because for as much as Rose and Finn and the others teased them about it, Rey and Ben were not a thing. They never had been. Back in college, Ben had been a grad student and roommates with Poe, Jessika's boyfriend and Finn's best friend. He started hanging around the group by association. Everybody else thought he was kind of a jerk because he was quiet and serious and didn't laugh often, but Rey had hit it off with him almost immediately. They got along ridiculously well. It never became anything more than friendship, and it never would, because that was complicated, and messy, and it involved putting everything at risk. Neither one was willing to do that.

So they didn't.

Ben dated other women. Rey dated other men. They talked about their various romantic pursuits to one another. And they kept each other exactly in that sweet best friend spot that worked so well. It was easy.

Just like it was easy having him in her apartment. So easy, she didn't even think twice about it.

"It's a good thing you're an actual food hoarder," Ben said that night over dinner.

"I am not a food hoarder!" Rey protested, pushing over to him a heaping plate of pasta primavera.

Ben pointed his fork at the overstuffed pantry and then the hallway closet which was equally stocked with non-perishables. He raised a brow at her expectantly.

"I'm just unusually well prepared, I told you," she laughed.

"I think that's why they call your kind of people preppers."

She did have a weird thing about food, it was true. It went way further back than this recent pandemic, and her hoard was not a result of running out and buying up supplies like a madwoman. As soon as she landed a good job and could afford more than the bare essentials for the first time in her life, Rey had started slowly stockpiling. She needed to keep an overly generous supply of food around her at all times. Mostly it was about comforting herself. She felt safe, surrounded by her hoard. Her endless days of hunger and scarcity growing up made her into a food-anxious adult. She never wanted to be that hungry again, no matter what.

"Make fun of it all you want," she said smugly, "but it's a good thing I'm as well supplied as I am, or I wouldn't have enough for both of us."

Because Ben was a huge guy and a huge eater. He was build like a mountain. That was fine. She could get him and herself through it — in fact, she had so much, she'd still have a crazy amount left over once this illness burned itself out.

"I am grateful," he said, the temptation of a smile ghosting at the corner of his lips. "And I'd feel bad eating your stockpile, but you're the one who bullied me into this, so it's your own fault, really."

"I'll accept that," she said. "But I'm gonna want you to cook for me a couple times while you're here. Because rare is the occasion that I get to taste the fine culinary delights of Chef Solo."

He chuckled soft and low. "You're really twisting my arm here. But fine, I'll cook for you."

And he meant it, she knew. But it took a while for that to actually happen. The next day, the fever started before his test results even hit his phone. By late morning he was shivering and miserable on the pullout couch, a lump shrouded in piles of blankets — even though Rey worried being so wrapped up would make his temperature soar. He didn't care. He felt chilled to the bone. She gave him a fever reducer, confirmed the drone delivery of his anti-virals for the next day, and made soup. For the next three days she sat beside him on the pullout, monitoring his temperature, making him eat soup and hot teas whenever he woke from his fitful naps. She put his head in her lap and combed through his sweaty hair with her fingers while they watched comedies on Netflix. And when he croaked requests for her to just talk, because he liked listening to her stories, she recounted anecdotes about her strange sad childhood. Ben was the only one she'd ever told about these things. He didn't judge or react, just let her talk. Even in his feverish haze, she knew he was listening intently. So she cradled his head and brushed her cool fingers along his burning face and soothed him back to sleep as often as he needed.

Just when he started to feel better, she got sick.

And their roles smoothly reversed. Rey decided that Ben was way better at the whole care thing than she was. From the minute she began to spike a temperature, he was watchful and attentive. He drew her a warm bath to help her fever come down when it soared too high. When she shivered under the pile of blankets, he put her socks in the dryer for a couple minutes before sliding them onto her icy feet, the warmth so deliciously soothing it almost made her cry. He made even better soup than she did, and persuaded her to drink iced protein shakes to help her recover faster. He called her doctor, explained the situation, and got her anti-virals delivered as well. And he let her sleep with him on the pullout — insisted on it, actually, so that he could keep an eye on her.

His chest was hard and broad. It made a nice pillow when she was blearily focused on whatever romcom he'd put on. When she cried — because being sick made her a weepy mess — he held her.

Being that sick was miserable, but Rey had never had anyone to take care of her through an illness before, and it was incredibly comforting. She wasn't all that sorry that she'd let him into her home and expose her to the virus.

Eventually they were both finally fever-free and left to wait out the rest of their quarantine, and then it actually got to be fun. When they weren't watching a show or movie, they were playing games, or organizing her food storage (Ben was an organizational enthusiast, it turned out) or finding the funniest pandemic-related memes to show each other. Sometimes they'd do a bit of remote work, when they wanted to be responsible. Or sometimes they'd have ridiculous baking competitions which Ben always clearly won, with his beautiful, perfect creations, but which he always insisted Rey won with her bizarre slapdash messes that tasted pretty great.

They'd gotten used to taking care of each other, and it was weird when Rey finally went back to her own bed. So at night she'd linger with Ben as long as she could, and she'd crawl back into bed with him when she woke up in the morning. It was just nice to have his company. She sought it without shame, because he seemed to enjoy it just as much.

They didn't talk much about the people they were seeing — or not seeing, rather. Ben was a few weeks out of a breakup with Bazine. Rey hadn't had a boyfriend for a couple months. They were both in need of a good tumble, but it took them a while to admit that. Even after they did, however, they didn't jump straight into bed. It took them another day or so.

It finally happened one random afternoon. They'd spent the morning perfecting the variations of french toast and were now lounging in unabashed comfort, the cozy smell of maple syrup heavy in the apartment. Outside, a light rain pattered against the windows. She was leaning up against the back of the couch, her legs crisscrossed under her. Ben's head was in her lap again — turns out he really liked that — and her fingers busied themselves raking through his glorious hair, braiding and unbraiding, playing with it the way they both liked. They had some kind of true crime dirty money documentary playing on the TV.

She couldn't even really say how it happened, except that Ben got bored and started to tease her with light, suggestive touches. She caught his hand and stilled his wandering fingers.

"Pretty bold of you, Solo."

"Oh. We're going to pretend you weren't thinking about it too?"

Rey blushed, but cocked an eyebrow at him all the same. "I have thought about it, yeah, but not right now. This documentary isn't exactly exciting in that way."

"Money laundering doesn't get you hot? It totally gets me hot." His mouth twitched into a teasing grin and he sat up, maneuvering to the side of her.

She laughed. "I didn't invite you over here to hook up."

"Yeah, I know. I wasn't my plan in accepting your invitation either. And we definitely don't have to."

She released her hold on his wrist, and it was as good as permission for him to keep going. "Well what else are we going to do?"

"Hmm...good point. We've kind of exhausted everything else I can think of. I'm starting to get a little bored. Are you bored?"

He brushed his fingers up the back of her neck, leaning down to graze his lips against her neck. She shivered.

"Yes," she said.

"I mean." His voice was low and husky as he nosed her shirt a few inches away from her collar before planting a little kiss there on her skin. "We can always watch more documentaries?"

"No..." she breathed. "Your plan is much better."

The problem with Ben was that he was ridiculously good at romance.

She didn't want to know how he got so good at it, because the answer probably involved a lot of practice with a lot of women — and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

But his prowess and skill had become a big problem for her since the very first time they hooked up.

They'd both been really drunk after celebrating graduation — him with his graduate degree, her with her undergrad. Everybody was out celebrating that night. Rose spent the evening gushing to Rey about how great her new boyfriend was, and Rey had just broken up with her own so this was a particularly sensitive subject. She'd been crying by the end of the night, and Ben had been so kind and reassuring, telling her how great she was. And...well, she wasn't exactly sure how it happened that time either, but somehow they ended up in bed together. And she wasn't drunk enough to forget about the experience the next day. It stayed with her. Like something so intense it couldn't have been real. Apparently it had stayed with him too, because after that it became a semi-regular occurrence.

They didn't ever talk about it after.

Talking about it would make it complicated. And neither of them did complicated.

Usually it was just a stress-relief thing. Or one of them was sad or lonely. It only happened when they were both between relationships. They didn't seem to need specific reasons to fall together in this way.

Like now. Nothing but boredom and a little too much oxytocin running around their brains from so much caring for one another led them into each other's arms, and into the blankets strewn around the pullout couch.

The main reason Ben's skill in this department was a problem was that she caught herself comparing other men to him all the time.

Well, not all the time. Rey wasn't really the kind of girl to round all the bases on the first date, so there hadn't been a long line of partners to compare him to. She required some assurance of a real connection with someone before letting herself be this vulnerable. So there hadn't been many since she started occasionally sleeping with Ben, but the ones who had been there always fell short. None of them were as good at this as he was.

Maybe it had something to do with the utter lack of pressure with Ben. There was no wondering what came after. No expectations. She could just enjoy and feel and be in the moment with him, no strings attached. And no anxiety to perform well. If it was bad (it never was) then there would be no repercussions. Or maybe because it had always been so easy to be around him. Whatever the reason, with each other they were always relaxed and acutely attuned to each other's needs.

Her other partners had tried, poor things. Most of them weren't bad, in their own way. They tried to make her feel this good. Sometimes she managed it. Mostly she faked it.

It really didn't help her experience with these men that Ben was in her head the whole time, so much better at this than they were.

The thing was that he always took his time. It didn't feel like he was racing towards some destination, or trying to coax a certain number out of her before he could chase his own. It didn't feel like he had any goal in mind, really, except talking her along for a sensual discovery. He was a wanderer, exploring and meandering, slow but never frustratingly so. He seemed more interested in worshipping everything he discovered than performing the required rituals.

Nobody, nobody could do it like he did.

They just connected on another level, so far above the physical. It worked. She didn't want to think about it too much, and so she didn't.

"No one is as good as you," she breathed into his ear.

She said these things in the heat of the moment sometimes. Because she meant them. Because she knew he loved to hear them. It always made him purr and hum and produce all manner of pleased rumbling noises.

"That's because you're mine," he whispered, low and aggressive.

Ben was a possessive fool when they were caught in the throes of passion. Rey was definitely into it. With him. Not with anyone else, though. If any previous boyfriends had try to say anything remotely close to that, she would have clocked them in the teeth and left. Nobody talked to her that way. Like they owned her.

She didn't belong to anyone.

But Ben had license to do or say whatever he wanted. Because she trusted him. Down to her core, she trusted him.

There were lines they didn't cross of course. They didn't kiss. At least not on the mouth. And they did not say the L-word, ever. The rules were unspoken, and they both knew them instinctively.

So he could say that she belonged to him, and she could admit that he was superior to any other partner, and none of it really meant anything. Because this was just a hookup.

And they never talked about any of the things they said during hookups.

Talking about it meant making it complicated. And they did Not. Do. Complicated.

Until suddenly, complicated found them.