Mortimer Bowdane was a beautiful creature.

Before, Ben had never taken the time to ask himself: "What am I attracted to?" Too busy with slaughter and repression of the masses in the name of the First Order and his master, something like that was trivial. But a shaggy, golden mane, periwinkle eyes, sun kissed skin and a set of lips for servicing the Gods seemed to tick some sort of box for Ben.

Mort met Ben at a similar height, and his build matched what had made Kylo Ren a physical killing machine. Minus the malice and with added gentility (seemingly mismatched with his physique), it hadn't occurred to the Knight how much he would enjoy it until he experienced it; being held down in sexual submission, cuddled afterwards or held securely during a night terror to prevent him doing injury to himself. The well-travelled, indiscernible accent crooning comfort in his ear always helped too. You're a'right. You're a'right. I've gotcha. Easy, easy….

Even if he was immediately out of Ben's eyeline at that very moment, it mattered not; not when those magnificent features were ironed into Ben's psyche. That was partially Ben's fault, with chocolate eyes shuttered to the room.

But mostly Mort's, for wandering below the waist, where he knew Ben wouldn't have the strength to lift his head to spy him.

"Fuck!" The near-anguished snarl spawned a full-mouthed chuckle from beyond the darkened realm of his own eyelids. Ben tried to lessen the heated pressure, lifting his hips for some bare relief and Mort, as always, accommodated him.

One of Ben's scarred hands (the lightsaber tended to spark over the years, hence his eventual adoption of gloves) lowered and tangled itself in the sandy tresses. Those wonderful sounds of selfless slurping and gagging continued but the enjoyment was clearly mutual.

"Good boy…" Ben choked, arching his hips and driving for the back of his beloved's throat, and Mort (who took great pride in doing so) took him flawlessly.

He chose to deny himself the heavenly envelopment for a moment, just a moment, to lift his pelvis and smear his weeping tip along Mort's cheek; marking him as his own. Not that Mort needed reminding and reclaimed the object of his oral fascination without too much delay.

The warm encasement of his partner's mouth receded slowly, tongue peeling along the shaft and his nostril exhales ruffling the tuft of hair that kept Ben's nether regions toasty.

"Turn over, love." Came the husk that greeted Ben each morning before he even opened his eyes. "Can't reach ya like tha'." So, he complied; despite the extra effort required to get his knees to cooperate from their weakness and lying on his front instead. The ex-Knight ignored the double clicking; knowing what it was and what it meant but too immersed in the opposite of what he'd experienced earlier, Ben would take the abundance of physical touch and relish it. Even the iciness that worked its way between the cheeks of his arse.

"Ahhh….! Ahhh…!"

"Cold?"

"You know it's cold, Mort!" The blonde half of the pair, the Yang to Ben's Ying, reshuffled on his knees for traction as he chewed on his amusement. Mort was careful; the first lubed finger would be sufficient for now, having massaged those pasty cheeks and dipping it in the appropriate, puckered hole to work him loose.

Ben's head burrowed into the pillow to suffocate the whine as Mort's middle finger gently wormed its way past the guarding sphincter muscle, opening Ben gradually for comfort.

"How did I live without this….?!"

"I dunno, love." Mort chimed, his delight plain as he twisted his finger and Ben squirmed accordingly. "You mightn've been so prone to swingin' a lightsaber round…. Bu' you're makin' up for los' time now."

Indeed, he was.

Ben's fist made for his own taut, saliva-coated prick but found his hand being mercilessly swatted away by Mort's empty one.

"Ah! Bold!"

"Come on!" Ben whinged, frustrated by the delay and wagging his hips in want. "I need it!"

"You're a dirty, needy lil bitch, Ben Solo. Y'know tha'?"

"Yes…!"

Mort's initial movements were slow, no doubt intended to tease, the agonizingly leisurely thrusts of his hand into Ben's arse complimenting the filthy rhetoric and intensifying his reactions.

After a moment or so, Mort replaced one with two: the middle and the index. With a shuddering breath that meant he was just about coping with the sensation; Ben folded his arms in front of him and laid his cheek against them; as a grounding for his upper body.

"Mort." Ben snarled suddenly, the vexation and frustration becoming clear in an instant; though there hadn't been much build up. "Stop piss-arsing around and fuck me!"

Mort, having sat back on the balls of his feet and withdrawing his sopping fingers for fear of losing them, tilted that shaggy head and quirked a sandy eyebrow at his beloved's utter aggravation. One would think though, that knowing Ben the way he did and reading him as well as he could, that Mort would have just gotten on with it. But when did Mort ever miss the opportunity for a witty remark? Even at his own peril?

"And wha' do I get outta it?" The look of pure thunder over his shoulder and merciless clench of the sheets in his fist was probably Ben's best effort at restraint. And Mort knew it. "Dump my load. Right."

To that end, Ben re-settled himself in the flesh of his forearms while the jingling of Mort's belt and the thud of his heavy cargo pants hitting the floor lulled him back into the embrace of expectant sedation.

The unity and filling feeling of oneness pulled a guttural moan from Ben's vocal cords as he took throbbing inch after throbbing inch. It was enough to undo the starvation of touch, sight, smell and sound and plummet his stress levels until he was little more than a whining mess.

"So… Wha' was up your hole?" Mort, who didn't see the irony of the question, voiced it out of concern; complete with a post-coital kiss to his fiancé's dark, raggedy head. Ben, barely awake, inclined said head to receive it and jostled closer among the tousled sheets to support himself against Mort's tattooed chest. Needless to say, the ever-affectionate smuggler swallowed him to his torso without complaint or protest, despite the interrogation.

"Up until a few minutes ago: You."

"Oi. The wisecracks are my bag. Seriously though, you've been mopin' since yesterday. What's goin' on?"

If the former Kylo Ren thought he could get away with pretending to drift in blissful satisfaction and fulfilment, he needed to re-evaluate who he was speaking to. Mort, who lived with the erratic and often aggressive Nalesse Du Sade, had reading moods down to a tee. Granted, he got away with a lot more with Ben than he did with his sister.

"C'mon. Out with it. Is it your mam?"

Fuck. Ben thought, managing to disguise his sigh as a particularly relaxed exhale. That was quick. Might as well get it over with.

"I'm seeing her tomorrow. For the first time in… I dunno how long. I keep flip-flopping in my mind if I should go, or cancel, go, or just not turn up."

"Want me to go with ya?" Trust Mort, the ever-benevolent Mort who despised seeing his partner in such a dire condition, to want to make the inevitable as painless as possible.

"Nah. She likes you though. Said that you've balls enough to walk onto a heavily manned Resistance airstrip with a fake bomb strapped to your chest. Said it was the kinda shit my dad would'a done." The blonde smiled at the memory, and while Ben was adamant to endure the meeting alone, Mort would like the chance to see his soon-to-be mother in law again; minus being in a stun-addled stupor, strapped to an interrogation chair.

"I was going to ask Nalesse if I could borrow Shan and bring him with me."

"I don't think that'd be an issue. Why Shan though? I said I'd go with ya."

"I'm meeting her at Dex's." Ben had thought this through carefully. While the opportunity to see his mother and lay things out with her was golden and he wanted to do it, he didn't trust himself not to turn tail and run at the last second. "If Shan knows we're going to Dex's, there's no way I'll be able to drag him out till he's had his chicken bites-"

"Stubborn little bollix. Like his mam."

"You wouldn't change that stubborn little bollix for the galaxy."

"No. And I'll fuckin' fight anyone tha' tries. Go on."

"So, if I have Shan, I won't be able to run. He'll keep me calm and level-"

"Like a teddy bear."

"Yeah. And if he's there, we'll have something to focus on if things get quiet. He'll break the ice."

"Keep an eye on 'im, or tha's not all he'll break." A fair warning.

Mort shimmied down in the bed, effortlessly taking Ben with him; maybe there was time for a nap before dinner time, though it might have been advisable for pyjama pants at the very least should Shan come looking for his uncles to fetch them for dinner.

"You sound like you've it all planned so."

"Mmm…"

"Well, look, I'll be nearby with the shuttle. If ye need a quick exit, com me. If not, pick me up a slider and I'll see ye after."

"I want this to go well, Mort."

"I know you do, love. And I want it to go well for ya. But, promise me ya won't be disappointed if it doesn't."