hiiii - it's been a while! i'm not new to ffnet but i haven't posted anything for years and this is a brand spanking new account for a fresh-esque start. i've posted this fic on ao3 however also wanted to post it here because why not? i hope you enjoy this! it's kind of a crossover fic between star wars and some modern futuristic city riddled with crime, and the idea of Ben as a mercenary makes me hot under the collar. please drop a favourite/comment if you enjoy this and without further ado... read on x
Ben's never ran this fast in his life. There were moments – a second of pure instinct where he put his foot down and legged it, a bet he laughed off and then won – but he'd never ran this fast for this long in his entire life. No amount of training could have prepared him for the pure adrenaline, the impact of his feet on concrete, the jarring shock sent through his ankles up to his knees.
The Coruscant streets were never designed for sprinting, with too many people and too many side alleys and too many cars; but in the dead of night, after curfew, nothing can stop him.
Nothing except, of course, the men chasing him.
He knows he'll have to risk a glance over his shoulder, which would only take a fraction of a second yet potentially throw off his balance, his sight, his pace – a look which could bring him crashing to the ground and land him straight into their hands.
Turns out he doesn't need to look for that to happen.
The woman appears out of nowhere. She's dressed in all black, with a hood pulled up over her face, and Ben doesn't have enough time to stop. He slams into her at full speed, twisting awkwardly off his feet to try and stop the momentum, but he's still sent spiralling to the Coruscant street.
His wrist jars as his body comes down, and a string of loud expletives drop from his mouth before he can stop them.
Ben throws a glance over his shoulder and takes in the deserted street, the approaching sirens. His frantic eyes land on the woman he's crashed into. In the collision her hood has fallen back, revealing hair in a wild mess of curls around her face and angry hazel eyes. Ben's heart slams to a stop.
"Oh, my—"
He's up onto his feet in seconds, moving out of pure instinct, and his fingers wrap around a lithe bicep as he drags her into the closest alleyway. She fights every step of the way but she's small, and he's much, much stronger than she expects. Ben pulls her to the very end and throws her into the corner, winces as she yells out in pain, and he's on her in seconds, slapping a hand over her mouth and bracketing her legs with his feet.
"Shh," he hushes, wide brown eyes imploring her. "Please."
The collision has winded them both, has knocked the breath right from Ben's lungs, and his head drops for a moment while he tries to collect himself.
This can't be real, this can't be real, this can't be happening.
His breath is coming hard and fast, rushing against the hand at the woman's mouth. He's so close he could kiss her. Ben inches his head back up and peers at her through his hair. His eyes drop to her nose, his fingers. He's seen this before – he's seen what happens, he knows the smile behind his hand, he knows the fire in her eyes like he knows his own name. He immediately lifts his gaze back to hers, utterly captured by how beautiful she is, and immediately wishes he were anywhere else.
When the sky cracks thunderously overhead, Ben swears under his breath. It was meant to rain tonight. It was meant to storm. The deal had been tonight specifically because of the coverage a storm offered.
But this… her… this was not part of the plan.
Ben jolts on the spot when her icy cold fingers wrap around his wrist. His eyes dart between hers as he tries to find answers she doesn't have. He lets her pull away his hand, and suddenly there's nothing between their mouths save a few inches.
"You're real," she says, confused.
His lungs won't work. Ben stares at her, speechless, while the sirens draw closer. He draws his bottom lip into his mouth. "Who are you?" he finally asks.
"You're in my dreams..."
A drop of water plants itself on the woman's cheek, and Ben watches as it continues its journey down her cheekbone to the crevice of her mouth. He doesn't think he has any control of his body when he reaches out to swipe it away with his thumb. He doesn't miss the way she leans into his hand, just the slightest, the way heat spreads across her skin beneath his touch. Her eyes drop to his mouth.
He's never felt anything quite like this, even though he knows it can't be real.
"Hey!"
Ben's entire body flinches.
Fear flashes in the woman's eyes, and she pushes herself further into the corner, makes herself smaller than he ever thought possible. Something hot and dangerous swells in his chest – this isn't how she's supposed to be. What have they done to her?
The droplet he's wiped off her cheek is replaced with another one, and then another one, and then the rain starts – the gentle pitter-patter of it on the pavement beneath him, on his hair, his nose. Another crack of thunder splits through the sky, and Ben has no hesitations now.
"Hands on your head!"
He reaches a hand into his jacket, fingers curling around the hidden weapon strapped to his ribs, and spares one last look at the woman before he glances over his shoulder.
A man, maybe ten metres away, has his gun levelled at Ben's head. There's another behind him in a similar position.
It happens in the blink of an eye – one moment he's crouched over her, and the next he has his gun drawn with the trigger being pulled. Ben pushes to his full height as he spins, one hand curled tight around the grip of his weapon and the other supporting it at the base, and the second man falls to the ground just as quickly as the first does. Staring down the line-of-sight his gun offers, Ben surveys the long alley once more before inching towards the fallen men.
He toe-pokes the bodies just once, checks the tags on their jackets, and lets go of a long sigh. The golden insignia and deep red threading mean only one thing: Republic Troopers.
"Who are you?"
Ben doesn't turn around, but he can feel the colour drain from his cheeks. If he tells her who he is, she could run. And then he'd have to stop her. The thought twists violently in his chest… but he knows he can't lie to her either.
When Ben regards her once more, she isn't in the corner. She's perched just behind him, eyes wide, a hand clenched tightly in her jacket to keep it closed, and the moment she registers what he means is the moment her walls come right back up.
"You killed them."
He nods at her.
She takes a small step back, but there's steely resolution in her eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
Ben's voice doesn't sound like his own. "Doing what?"
"You—you dragged me back here, you killed those people. What do you want from me?"
Truly, he doesn't know. She was a figment of his imagination until five minutes ago, a dream he could never fully grasp, a vision out of touch with reality. But he's heard of it before. Nothing is impossible in Coruscant; the rule book doesn't exist. He'd just an inkling she was real because of it, but nothing he knew could explain this.
Standing here, now, knowing what he knew, having done what he'd done… he isn't sure of anything anymore.
"I won't hurt you," he says instead. "I can't."
The woman holds herself tighter. "How can I trust you?"
Ben can feel her trepidation like it's his own. He can feel her fear, her anxiety. And so he pushes himself backwards a step, even though all he wants to do is hold her close. He shakes his head. "You can't."
Pushing the gun back into his holster, Ben knows his time is running short. His hair is drenched and slick against the back of his neck, and the blazer across his shoulders is soaked through. He needs to leave before more Republic Troopers arrive – he needs to find his way back to the rendezvous before his men start to worry.
"You need to leave," Ben murmurs. "There's more coming. Wouldn't want you to get caught in the middle."
He moves to the side and motions at the near-empty alley. It's an invitation for her to leave and never come back – an excuse for her to run without second guessing.
She stays in the same spot, in the same stance, and rocks forwards on the balls of her feet at the mere possibility of it… but she doesn't. She's confused just like he is, intrigued by the thought he's real. That they're both real, both awake and in this moment together.
"Who are you?" she asks once more.
Ben grinds his jaw together and looks away. He wants to tell her – wants to give himself to her without thinking twice, and it's the most perplexing thing he's ever felt. But his world would rip her apart. He would rip her apart. And in a split second, he makes a decision that seals both their fates.
"Kylo Ren."
The words hit her in the chest like physical blows. She stumbles back half a step and her mouth drops open. A scream builds in the back of her throat, but nothing comes out – not a whimper, not even the slightest noise.
There's a moment of silence; of the rain pelting the ground, of the woman contemplating her next move. Of Ben wondering whether he'd just shot himself in the foot.
"No," she says instead, shaking her head. "No, I don't believe you. Kylo Ren… he's dead. I—I saw him…"
The woman trails off, and Ben nods, glancing down the long alleyway again. "You saw him die. All of Coruscant did."
Sirens in the distant city aren't getting any closer – despite his gunshots, they're getting further and further away. Coruscant curfew means just two things: people are always doing the wrong thing, or they're helping others do the wrong thing. A corrupt city doesn't have limitations, but it does offer quiet pockets and empty streets.
Ben breathes in deeply and tries to remember how to be someone he isn't, a thing of ghost stories and nightmares. He tries to remember how it is to be Kylo Ren. And then he levels a stare at the vulnerable woman in front of him.
"Funny how this city works," he murmurs, ducking for a moment so they're the same height. "That the reason I'm dead is also the reason I'm still alive… do you know how far up the corruption goes? Further than you could even imagine…" Ben steps forward and slowly closes the distance between them. "But you never once saw Kylo Ren without a mask, did you?"
"Monster," she spits at him, baring her teeth.
"Yes," he replies. "I am a monster."
Ben raises his hand and lifts a wet strand of hair away from the woman's face, but she doesn't cower from him. Her chin juts out and she stands defiant against him, against the memory of him, and Ben is torn in half by who he was and who he is now.
"You've been in every one of my dreams since I died," he breathes, "Every single one. And I saw you – that day, when I was in the chair – I saw you through the window. In the back corner, up the top… I thought you were just a dream."
The woman raises her chin and stares down her nose at him. "Kylo Ren was a murderous snake, he deserved to die."
A taut smirk curls the side of Ben's mouth. "Oh, he did."
Ben tucks the strand of hair behind her ear and passes his thumb across the wetness of her cheek. Light is glistening on the raindrops caught in her eyelashes, and water drips from her noise to her lips, to her chin and her jacket. The impulse to kiss her is stronger than his impulse to survive.
Instead, he drops his hand to her neck, thumb pressing into the soft skin beneath her jaw. Her heartbeat thrums erratically under his touch. His eyes fall to her mouth, and he moves forward until his lips are a breath away from her ear.
"You know I can take whatever I want."
Ben lets the threat linger for a moment before brushing his lips across her jawline. The woman freezes beneath him. A moment later he's twisting away and stalking down the length of the alleyway.
The woman's name is Rey Niima, but his information is sketchy at best.
Ben stares at the small number of images they have, his thumb pressing against his teeth, and he leans back in his chair. The leather squeaks at him, its noise filling an almost-empty room, and he matches it with a long sigh. He's been staring at her for a while; the same photos over and over, as if something in his mind is going to miraculously make sense of it all.
It's not going to happen. No matter how many times he looks at her, she's not going to give him answers. Not her face, not her clothing choices. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, and he doesn't have that kind of time nor the resources. He doesn't have any kind of time.
A knock sounds at his office door.
Ejecting the flash drive, Ben presses shut the laptop and sinks into his chair even further.
"Enter."
The door swings open with a rush, and in its frame stands one of his oldest and most cunning friends. The hulking figure hesitates just a moment before stepping into the room, and the door is closed gently behind him. But the look on Cardo's face doesn't inspire confidence, and the way his left eyebrow is perched just slightly above his right proves all the indication Ben needs.
"What is it?" Ben asks.
"It's not Yellow."
Ben stares at Cardo for a long moment, but his right-hand man isn't lying. "Fuck," he spits, drawing a hand down his mouth. "Can we refine it?"
Cardo shakes his head. "No. The vial turned Black – we can't make anything from it."
Fury surges through his body with reckless abandon. Ben stares at his desk as the waves of hot energy roll through him, and he tries to coax himself back from the edge, to fight the dangerous slope of his anger, he really does… but there's one more thing he needs to know, and he prays it won't send him off the deep end. He might not be Kylo Ren anymore, but the memory of his anger still shifts like fire beneath his skin. The chair squeaks as he leans forward.
"How much?"
His friend lowers his eyes to the floor, runs a hand across his buzz-cut hair, and Ben can feel the edge looming. "How much?" Ben's voice drops as he repeats the question.
"Three hundred and fifty thousand credits."
The sum is large enough he doesn't even need to think about it; Ben is moving before he can register how much the loss hurts them. He strides past Cardo, rips the door open and almost off its hinges. The warehouse is silence save for the raucous noise coming from the far-left corner, where a TV unit is blasting the previous nights' Huttball tournament. His men are crowded around the unit enraptured in the blood sport, but Ben isn't glaring at his men; he's glaring at the mole.
Hux swings his head around to regard Ben just as his hand shoots out. In a tangle of limbs and knocked over furniture, Ben shoves the First Order spook up against the closest wall, teeth bared and forearm crushing his windpipe.
"Speak," he spits, "Before I decide to send you back to the First Order without a fucking tongue."
Hux's eyes are bulging from their sockets, mouth open like a fish out of water. "I can't—I can't breathe—"
Ben slams his hand against the wall next to Hux's head. "You lost us three-hundred and fifty thousand dollars tonight. You. It was your intel. It was your deal. Why the fuck are we running Black instead of Yellow?"
If Ben weren't surrounded by so many people, Hux would be dead. After this, if he even looks at Ben the wrong way, he'd be out. Ben hasn't ever cared about the alliance between the Knights and the First Order, and he's certainly never cared about keeping Hux alive.
"It wasn't me," Hux whimpers, "It wasn't me, it wasn't, it was the First Order's job, it was their catch, not mine!"
From over his shoulder, Cardo warns lowly, "Ben… you think he'd be stupid enough to triple-cross us? We do need him alive…"
Ben glowers down at Hux. The pale male is shaking, hands feebly tapping at Ben's arms, eyes bloodshot with the force against his reddening neck. The smaller man tries to shake his head. "I'm not, I'm not that stupid— please," he begs.
For the briefest moment, Ben remembers holding Rey in a similar position. It's a lightening strike of an image, a momentary flash which replaces Hux's blueing face with Rey's, and it sends a jolt down Ben's spine. His arm goes cold from where he's pressing it into Hux's throat, and he drops it immediately. Hux drops, splutters, finally sucks air into his lungs, and scampers out of reach within seconds. Ben can't see anything except for the ghost of Rey's face.
"Boss?"
His head snaps to attention, eyes instantly on Cardo. "Find the shipment," he mutters, "And find out who gains the most from sabotaging the First Order."
Ben spares a searing look at Hux's rattled form as he storms for the door.
Rey shouldn't have been out – she should have been at home in her dingy little apartment, curled up beneath the fleece Finn gave her. But research didn't write itself, and sooner or later she was going to run out of things to document as far as the First Order went. Plus, a little post-curfew excursion never hurt her before, so… why stop now?
Perks of the job, Rey surmises.
Perks of the job did not include quite literally running into the man of her dreams (for the last five months, at least). Nor did it include his piercing eyes, his crooked nose, lopsided mouth, freckles, jawline, or stubble. Or the way his wet hair stuck to his head in the rain. The way his ears peaked up through the slicked locks.
Rey slams an arm across her face and moans as loud as she can.
She's been staring up at her ceiling for hours, mulling over the fact her knight in shining armour had called himself Kylo Ren. The same Kylo Ren who'd murdered many, who'd set alight the Resistance headquarters, who'd helped the First Order traffic drugs and weapons and, from what she'd heard, occasionally the odd person. The same Kylo Ren who operated Coruscant's mercenary-for-hire militia.
She knew Coruscant was corrupted. Hell, her previous boss was probably the worst of them. But what he'd said… that the corruption went much further up than anyone could even imagine? It's the kind of thought that sits uneasy in her chest.
And if he was Kylo Ren, why was he still alive? Rey had seen the execution by injection. She'd seen the same blue substance everyone else had. She'd seen the heartrate monitor flatline. But she'd also seen the attractive man in her dreams every night since.
The rush of blood in Rey's ears tells her everything she needs to know – he's telling the truth.
Rey draws a hand down over her mouth and mimics how his fingers had held her quiet. When her eyes shut, she sees him vivid and real and raw. Scared. Like a man running out of time.
Her hand trails from her mouth to her throat, thumb pressing into the same spot his had. And this time when she sees him, it's like he's a completely different person. It sucker-punches the breath from Rey's lungs, and suddenly she can't breathe, can't move. His forearm is crushing against her windpipe, eyes dark with rage. Teeth bared threateningly.
As Rey stares up at him, she can only think this is Kylo Ren.
It's only when the thought ricochets around in her brain that he sees her. His entire face changes; his frown eases, his lips part. Kylo rips his arm away from her throat and stares, eyes blown wide. An apology builds at the back of his throat, and Rey doesn't know how she knows, but she does.
Her eyes open to her bedroom ceiling.
Every inch of her being wants to run. Her body is stuck like glue to the bed, hand still covering her neck, and Rey doesn't understand what's just happened. But she knows it's real. It isn't a dream this time – nor a figment of her imagination plaguing her – Kylo is a real man with a real life, and she's somehow transported herself right into the middle of it.
Nothing in Coruscant makes any sense to her.
Rey releases a long sigh from the back of her throat, scrunches her eyes shut… but sleep never comes.
Her thoughts drift from work to the First Order to Kylo Ren back to work. From Finn to Poe. From the disappearance of her parents to Unkar Plutt. Like a bee to honey, they drift back to the alley, back to him hovering over her, back to the way he tried to intimidate her. Back to the way he'd set her stomach alight instead.
Throwing herself onto her side and pulling the blankets tight to her chin, Rey screws her eyes shut. "Leave me alone," she whispers to the emptiness in her room.
She doesn't expect it to reply, but the tired "You first," jolts her awake like a live wire.
Rey does a wonderful job of not flying from the bed, but her eyes snap open and in the darkness, perched right next to her, is Kylo Ren. His face glows with light radiating from a laptop, the sharp edge of which carves into his stomach, and Rey realises he's not wearing a shirt too late. She twists to face the ceiling, but her cheeks are flaming red.
"Don't you—don't you have something you could wear?" she asks.
"Didn't know I'd have a visitor."
Rey peers at his face, then the ceiling, then back to him. She knows she wants to ask him a thousand questions, but her mind is empty and she's drawing blanks. "What was that?" she croaks instead.
Kylo spends a long time regarding his laptop before lowering the lid. The lack of a bright screen plunges them both into the dark Coruscant night, but Rey can still see the way he works his jaw beneath her question. She wonders for a moment what it would be like to be in his head – the constant battle of wanting to tell the truth but not wanting to reveal too much. His silence draws on for a moment longer and Rey returns her gaze back to the ceiling. She folds her hands over her stomach and flicks one thumbnail over the other, fidgeting with no idea of what to do next.
"I shouldn't even be talking to you," she says, "you're a fugitive if you are who you say you are. I should call the Troopers. I should turn you in."
The threat is hollow, and Ren sees right past it. "Do it. I won't stop you."
His dare hangs heavy between them. Rey contemplates it – really thinks about it. Kylo behind bars for months before being put to death a second time. Rey doubts whoever saved him would be brazen enough to let lightening strike twice.
"Do it, Rey," he breathes, and she can't help but stare at him. Her eyes narrow the slightest, teeth worrying her bottom lip. He's been busy if he knows her name. The corner of his mouth pulls when he sees her register this, and his dark eyes glint with humour. He has her, hook, line, sinker.
The alarm bells start ringing through Rey's head. She has half a mind to reach over to her data-pad and send out an SOS beacon to Finn, half a mind to send for help. But Kylo is staring at her with inky eyes, without a shirt over his ridiculously thick chest, and Rey realises she doesn't want to. She doesn't want to call for help. Doesn't want to call for Troopers. Doesn't want to be anywhere but in her bed, staring at Kylo, staring at his hands and his neck and his mouth.
Rey flings herself upright, away from Ren and his eyes and his shoulders, and presses a hand over the pounding of her heart. "Why is this happening?" she murmurs. "Why can we see each other?"
The man in her bed hums lowly but doesn't offer a response. She feels the mattress shift under his weight as he stands, and watches as he moves to the window. Artificial light falls across the sharp line of his cheekbone, his nose. Flecks of his stubble glow blue.
"I can't see my surroundings," he says, "But I can see yours. Where are we?"
Shame washes through her body. "Uscru District."
But Ren doesn't even blink at the confession. Rey frowns and stares down at her hands. He doesn't seem shocked or surprised – everyone else she tells assumes she's an entertainer, but on her wage, she can't afford to be any closer to Central Coruscant.
"We're miles apart, and yet… here I am." Ren leans against her window pain and fixes her with unreadable eyes. "Science can't explain that."
"Science can't explain how you're alive," Rey fires back.
Ren smirks at her, dipping his chin as a sign of surrender. "No."
A minute turns into two. Rey has no idea what to do. How to act, what to say. How to feel. She bites at her bottom lip until its raw, and then there's a thumb at her chin. She hadn't seen Ren move but he's right next to her, towering over her, and he's never touched her before during a merge of their realities. They've never spoken during one, either – it was always a ghost of his image, the outline of his body. A fleeting movement until she was caught in a dream that was either hers… or his.
Ren's thumb presses under her chin until she's looking him in the eye, and he asks, "Can you feel me?"
Rey doesn't get a chance to respond – her bedside alarm blares in a broken buzzing, and she swears under her breath. Arching her body off the bed to slam her fist down onto it, Rey turns back to where she expects Kylo Ren to be, and realises with a start he's not there. He's not in front of her, or next to her window, or anywhere in her room.
He's gone.