Kylo hasn't been to the beach since he was a kid. Since he was Ben. The scent of salt rubs his nose, and sand crunches under his shoes.
There she is, lifting up a hand to wave at him. In a black bikini. Heat shoots through Kylo from the top of his head down his spine and legs, and it's not from the sun.
"Decaf boy," she says, lifting her sunglasses and squinting. "You came."
He rolls his eyes at the nickname. You called. "I can miss a day of work." Truthfully, Kylo was glad to have an excuse to escape working with Hux on the Starkiller negotiations. Poe Dameron can wait another day, because suddenly Snoke doesn't seem to care as much, and Kylo can't see why but he has to listen to his boss. Gingerly, he sits on the sand and scowls.
"What?"
"I don't like sand." She raises her eyebrows and he flounders to add an explanation. "It's coarse, rough… irritating. It gets everywhere."
"Hm." Rey peers at him and scoops some sand into her hands. "Now it's really getting everywhere." And she dumps it down the back of his shirt. It itches as it scrapes down his skin.
"Rey!"
She laughs. "You're overdressed for the beach anyways. Pants? A long-sleeved shirt?"
You're getting everywhere, Kylo thinks. Inside me. She's opening doors he thought were long locked. "Every time we meet," he says. "Are you going to throw something at me?"
"I didn't on the bench." Rey lies down on her side, and Kylo's eyes trace her collarbone. "You didn't think I was going to let you off that easy, did you? I'm still not sure why I don't hate you."
Kylo's heart lifts. A seagull meanders close, studying them for any signs of sandwich scraps. "You don't hate me?"
"Well, I want to convince you to do something," Rey admits.
Kylo's hand digs through the sand anyways. "So there's a catch."
"Can you apologize to your father and pay his hospital bills?"
"He has insurance." Or does he? Considering he freelances… maybe not.
Rey huffs. "That's not the point."
He knows it's not, and another door unlocks and the truth slips out. "I can't face him, Rey."
"You know he's the one who gave me your mother's business card? I met him at Niima Coffee Post the same day I met you. He asked me for advice. He asked me if he should contact an estranged family member." Rey buries her feet in the sand and wiggles her toes until they break the surface. "He meant you."
"He doesn't love me."
"Why do you think that?" she demands. "He looked for you. He found you. My parents—whoever the hell they are—they haven't even bothered to look for me. If they even remember me. If they're not dead." She drops her chin to her chest, and Kylo feels something tugging at him about this girl, a feeling he recognizes in her tone. You're lonely, too, aren't you?
"I'm so sorry," he tells her as his fingers grope through the sand. He hates how gritty it is, and yet he can't stop. "My parents—they aren't really—I mean, we don't get along. We never have. They sent me away when I was ten to live with my uncle, supposedly because they were getting death threats. Both of them. But they just didn't want to be saddled with a kid anymore."
"Why would you think that?" Her tone is softer now. Waves crash yards in front of them.
"Because they almost never visited, and they rarely called. Even before, when I was living with them, Mom would rather work with her nonprofit than spend time with me. Dad would rather break some huge story than play paper airplanes or anything." He snorts, because the words "mom" and "dad"—it's been years since he used them. "I sound spoiled."
"Yeah," Rey agrees. "But you also sound sad."
Kylo's fingers close in on something hard, and he pulls out a sand-covered shell. He tries to clean it, the sharp edges nicking at his skin. "I was close with my uncle. I think they thought living with him would help me, but I wanted—" He stops.
"Them," Rey supplies.
Kylo swallows. The shell glints gold. A toenail shell. "I ran away the first time when I was twelve. They panicked. The police found me and brought me back, and Dad came but Mom didn't. I asked Dad to take me home. He said no, and I stopped calling them. When I was fourteen I tried to run away again after I got beat up at school, but my uncle caught me and he started locking doors, but I heard him calling my parents and my dad said he might as well let me run away. And when I was—well, almost seventeen, I ran away again, for the last time. They didn't find me. I don't think they even looked. They were tired of looking. Tired of me." And he doesn't necessarily blame them. "I got my GED and went to college. I changed my name when I turned eighteen. Snoke helped me." He holds the shell up to the sun and watches the light refract through. A few grains of sand still cling to it, though.
"Snoke," Rey repeats.
"He's like my father now."
"Does he love you, though?"
He scoffs. "Did my parents?"
"I think they do."
He doesn't want to hear that, because then everything will twist and he's not sure he can handle it. "So much for your relaxing weekend."
Rey takes the hint. "Do you want to go in?"
Kylo hesitates. He places the shell down on her towel.
"Pretty," she comments. Rey gets to her feet and leans over him, freckles popping against her flushed cheeks. Freckles run down her arms, her chest. "Oh, come on. Don't you want to wash all of that horrible sand away?"
"I'm not dressed appropriately."
"Kylo, there are about a thousand other men on this beach and all of them are shirtless. I'm not going to judge your physique for not being as toned as mine." Rey smirks.
He cocks his head, fighting the urge to grin back. "We'll see." Although he's more worried about what reaction he'll either see or not see when he takes his shirt off. More sand falls, tickling him. "Why are you doing that?"
"Because I can." And her mouth stays in a smile, but as Kylo yanks his shirt over his head, he notices her taking in his pecs and abs and feels grateful for every moment he spends tearing himself apart in the gym.
"Let's go." Rey beckons, and Kylo follows her into the waves.
"If he's been living in Ahch-To the whole time," Poe says to Jess Pava. "I will fucking stab something. That's only a half hour away!"
"As long as it's not him," Jess says as she scrolls through the file. "Or me."
"Don't worry. I was thinking more like a pillow." Poe wobbles onto his crutch. "Come on, Beebee."
The dog yawns.
"Beebee-Ate. Get up."
The dog lays its head back down.
"Oh for the love of God." Poe pokes his dog with his crutch. Reluctantly, Beebee-Ate climbs to his feet. "I'll head over and see what I can find."
"Okay." Jess sighs. "You really think this will help bring down FO Tech?"
"Jess, Luke Skywalker knows Snoke better than anyone." Poe limps towards the exit. "You know Snoke helped found Galactic Manufacturing with Senator Palpatine and Luke's father. Luke's undercover work helped take them down."
"I'm aware of that, but if he's been out of commission and off the radar for so long, why do you think he'd even want to help?"
"I just do." Poe shrugs. "And Leia will be happy to know Lor's found her brother."
Not that Lor's going with Poe to confront Luke. No, the man insists it has to be Poe. I'm too old, his message read. Ask Han if you need anything.
Poe slides into his car, grateful he can still drive even if it's not recommended with his leg. Beebee-Ate whines from the backseat.
"What's wrong with you?" Poe asks, but the dog goes to sleep. Fine. Whatever. In all likelihood the dog's just missing Finn and Rey. For which Poe doesn't blame him. Rey really wanted to hang out earlier, and Poe hated saying no. And Finn… Poe doesn't even know if he's imagining things when it seems like Finn returns his flirtations at times, or if it's real, and Poe's afraid to find out.
Poe, an ex-agent, is way more afraid of Finn rejecting him than he is of Snoke tracking him down.
A hand slams against his window.
"Can I help you?" Poe calls, fingers hovering over the button to lower the window. His gun's in the glove compartment, but he doesn't need it. Yet.
Beebee-Ate whimpers.
"Get out of the car," orders the voice.
Poe snorts and jabs the keys in the ignition.
"Get out, or we shoot your dog," comes a voice on the other side of the car.
Ice crackles over Poe's bones as he removes the keys and opens the car door. His heart leaps to his throat—what if they kill Beebee-Ate anyways?
A fist slams across his face, and Poe falls to the ground, his busted leg giving out on him.
"What do you know about Luke Skywalker?" demands a voice.
"Ben Solo?" Poe croaks, but as he lifts his head from the pavement, he sees a slender man with red hair glaring at him as if he's scum. Not Ben Solo.
"Where's Luke Skywalker?" The redhead nods at a tall woman who looks alarmingly familiar, though Poe can't place her. She sends a boot into Poe's face. Blood, hot and thick, streams from his nose.
"I don't know," Poe insists. Dammit. The information he has—if they check his phone—
"Search his car," the redhead orders. "Again."
The redhead tries to kick his face, but Poe jerks back this time. His head smacks into his tire and he cusses.
Growling echoes from the car. Beebee, no, they'll shoot you!
"Nothing," reports a male voice, hurried. "And this dog's gonna bite my hand off if I—"
"Kill the dog," orders the redhead.
"No!" Poe isn't afraid to beg. Not for Beebee-Ate. "Please. We haven't found Luke Skywalker yet—that's why—"
"We know you're lying."
"No—you bastards—"
"Let him go," interrupts a deep voice that resonates through Poe's head. He lifts his gaze to see a man he's never seen before, with a beard and overgrown hair and robes that resemble Lor San Tekka's, aiming a gun at the woman. A dog next to the man bares its teeth.
The redhead pales. "Who are—"
"An old friend. Get out of here, you FO Tech bastards."
"There are three of us and one of you," sneers the redhead.
"Want to try me?" The man cocks his weapon. "You play with weapons and you order your lackeys to beat people and you sell weapons to who knows whom, but have you ever been in a real fight?" He glances at Poe, and Poe sees surprising compassion in his eyes. Eyes that look all too familiar. "And you should know that I don't have a silencer. Once I fire, people will flock this place. Is that the kind of press your boss wants?"
"Let's get out of here," urges the male voice, and the woman nods. The redhead caves.
Their footsteps patter away, and the man holsters his gun and reaches down to haul Poe to his feet. Poe gasps as he tries to put weight on his leg and fails. He glances back into his car and sees Beebee-Ate shift—the dog was lying on his phone.
"Are you all right?"
"You're Luke Skywalker," is all Poe can manage to say.
"You are rinsing off before you get into my car," Kylo orders Rey.
She pops the blue and red gumballs at the bottom of the screwballs Rey insisted they buy, "because the name fits you" into her mouth. "Sure thing. Too much sand?"
"Exactly."
Rey disappears into the women's bathhouse, which is grimier than Niima Coffee Post's backroom. Salt clings to her skin, crusts her hair. She sticks her legs under a faucet to rinse every grain of sand from her leg. She feels the shell Kylo plucked from the sand in her pocket. A few stubborn clumps of sand stick to her calves, so Rey leans down to scrape them off. Damn, that stings.
Rey finds a mirror blurred with blemishes and splotches she doesn't want to know what from. Oh shit.
"Well," Rey proclaims as she exits. "It appears I'm slightly overcooked."
Kylo takes her arm and presses his thumb against her skin, which blanches before returning to a dull red. "Why didn't you wear sunblock?"
She takes in his red ears and his nose and starts to laugh. "Why didn't you?"
"I don't go to the beach often," he mutters, cringing as he tries and fails to put on his shirt. "Or ever. What's your excuse?"
She usually applies sunscreen the moment she arrives at the beach. Except, this time she chose to call Kylo instead, but Rey won't give him that satisfaction. "Let's get out of here."
"Do you have aloe at your home?" Kylo asks.
"No. I'll get some. I can afford some now!" She grins.
"I can stop at a pharmacy on the way." He pulls out of the parking lot.
"No, because I'm not going to attempt to put a shirt on right now. These shorts are all I can handle."
"I do have some aloe at my house," Kylo suggests. "We can stop. You don't even have to come in. I'll grab it and bring it to you and then drop you off. We're not far from where I live anyways."
Are you hitting on me or not? Rey can't tell. She can't even tell whether she wants him to hit on her or not. Oh, don't kid yourself, you do.
But that makes her feel as if she swallowed all the grime from that bathhouse. She remembers what he did to Han, and she tries to hold on to that, hold on to her anger, a familiar companion that cooed in her ear when Unkar yelled at her, that strengthened her when her parents didn't ever come for her. She never asked for anger to appear—it just was there.
And now, it's not, and it should be.
He helped you. He likes you. At least as a friend.
He's everything she's ever hated, and yet as she studies his angular profile, his almost too-large nose and his lips, his crooked smile and the beauty marks scattered across his cheeks, as she remembers his offer to help her when she was homeless, his generosity… she doesn't hate him. She likes him.
"Okay," Rey agrees.
When they arrive at Kylo's house, Rey unbuckles her seatbelt but he tells her to wait. Fine.
Kylo reappears with a bottle of green goop. Rey wrinkles her nose and winces. "It's green."
"Yes, Rey. It's green."
"I've only seen yellow before."
"Really?" The salt makes his hair stick out at amusing angles too.
"It'll be fine," Rey decides. "I'm presuming it's not some new poison that FO Tech invented."
"Of course not!"
"I was joking." Rey's heart throbs as she opens the bottle and squirts it into her hand. "Of course, there's only one way to tell." She smears it on his cheek, and he gasps and flicks the green gel back at her.
"Careful or you'll wreck your car," Rey teases as she squeezes more out and slaps it on his shoulder. He catches her wrists in his hands and his face is inches from her own. His breath brushes her seared skin, and he's looking at her as if she's something amazing, when she's just being annoying, and Rey doesn't understand what it is, but she feels it too. She drops her eyes to his lips, cracked from the sun, and bites her own.
"Okay," Kylo says, prying himself away. "Let's go."