Disclaimer: Nope, don't own it, though I am a huge fan.

~Cult of Personality~

Rey wasn't entirely sure whether or not the insolent man sauntering back into the studio behind her after closing the door to the hall was even a DJ, let alone the one she'd been hoping to meet. Mr. Windu had warned her that Ben had a bit of a temper on him, so she was trying to tread carefully, but his lack of both manners and desire to initiate conversation made it quite difficult to reign in the urge to smack him silly. 'Maybe he's just some random intern.' He seemed about her age. He wouldn't be too old for it, especially if he was in grad school. Regardless, she had a job to do, so she sighed and set her tools down, switching on all of the equipment.

"So, what seems to be the problem?" He shrugged. She rolled her eyes. 'Yeah, he's a real charmer.' She fiddled with some of the dials and switches, and seeing nothing wrong with the pure mechanics on the board, moved on to the speakers. "Do you mind testing the microphone, there? I can't really fix anything if I don't know what's wrong." He cleared his throat and snuffled a bit before popping in what was probably a cough drop and stepping up to the mic.

"Check." The feedback from the speakers morphed his already croaking voice into a nightmare shriek with bass undertones that rattled through their very skulls and they both stumbled back with their hands over their ears.

"Well, I think we found it." He glared over at her, blinking hard as his jaw worked.

"No shit." Rey rubs her ears before going over and turning off the mic. She walks back over to the speakers and grips them, but suddenly he's there, helping her pull them out from their position against the wall. She crouches down and checks the panel on the back, noticing that the AMP knob seems to be halfway out of the socket. "Oh, fuck me…" Something tells her that she wasn't supposed to hear that, but she couldn't resist.

"I'm kind of on the clock right now, ask me later." Ben sucks in a breath and begins coughing and thumping his chest. She turns around as he throws an elbow over his mouth and she looks him up and down in amusement. "Wow, are you really that prudish?" He narrows his eyes at her and looks away when she snickers, going back to the issue at hand. As soon as she tries to change the setting, the knob pops off in her hand and she whistles. "How the hell do you manage that?"

"Max is old and senile and fucking deaf, that's how." She snorts.

"Wonder whose bright idea it was to hire him for a radio station, then." The curly-haired male shrugs, not having been old enough to even apply for jobs back when Max was probably hired. All he knows is that the guy could play synth, had had a band back in the day and was a holdover from when some crime boss used to run this place. When he opened his mouth to reply, however, she'd already flopped back down on her belly to mess with some wires hanging out the hole where the knob used to be.

Ben figured that Rey didn't really need his help, much less supervision. Girl worked for Geek Squad, probably knew what she was doing better than he would, so he grabbed his phone from his coat pocket and went out to lounge on one of the couches in the waiting room. He could avoid unnecessary conversation that would make his throat hurt and prevent himself from staring at her ass all in one fell swoop; he thought maybe he could also get a nap in, and laid down to do so when he belatedly remembered that he'd just chugged two shots of espresso-based syrupy sludge.

With a sigh, he admits to himself that it probably hadn't been the best idea and stands right back up to go down the hall and grab a cup of water from the break room. On the way there, he spots Max riffing sound effects on his synth for that goofy radio show the station plays during the daytime, something about quirky robots and their adventures. Ben gives him the bird through the open studio door before turning a corner to get to the break room. He downs a cup and a half of cold water before deciding that he should probably do the polite thing and bring some to Rey, as well.

In the hall, Ben passes Governor Snoke as he exits Valorum's studio, and the young man attempts to give him as wide a berth as three feet of space would allow. They give each other a curt nod, the politician directing a somehow steely and slimy smirk at him. Unable to really do anything, the DJ trains his gaze forward until he makes it back to his studio.

Once there, he takes several deep breaths, trying not to let the guilt and anger overwhelm him. 'It's alright; I am here, and I am free, and he won't touch us again. He has no reason to.' Forgetting which water he'd already drank from, he simply picks one then chugs it down before tossing it in the trash and bringing the second one in to Rey.

"Here." Unceremoniously, he sets the plastic cup down on the ground a little ways from her tool box. If she spilled it on accident and wrecked anything else, he'd never hear the end of it. Then, without waiting for any kind of response, he crosses back into the waiting room and flops back down on the couch to get some much-needed sleep. Espresso or not, he found he was actually quite drained now, and definitely tired enough for a nap.

Meanwhile, Rey was actually about halfway finished when she heard her "supervisor" come in and out of the room. By the time she gets up into a sitting position, he's already made his way back out to the little lounge area and seems to have passed out on the couch. 'Good thing, too; he looked absolutely exhausted.' She gets back to work and is just about done within a few minutes. When she leans back to grab the knob and stick it back on, she notices that he'd left a cup of water for her and can't help but smile a little bit. 'Guess he's not entirely rude after all.'

Instead of waking up the sick young man, Rey decides that it should be easy enough to check the speakers by herself, and plugs everything back in before closing the door to keep things quiet for Ben while he slept. She brings the volume down to a mellow level before flipping on the microphone and speaking.

"Check, one two three, check." With a nod, she looks over to see Ben still sleeping soundly and cranks it down a couple of notches. "Check, one two…" Her voice comes out all fuzzy, and, making note of it, she proceeds to do the same procedure at various volumes. For whatever reason, the low-range settings seemed to be having trouble. 'Whatever this Max did probably fritzed a couple of the oscillators, or possibly worse.'

The brunette resists the urge to sigh by reminding herself that this is a lot better than Waddo's current appointment; poor guy was out driving all over town to repair and refuel cell tower generators in the cold all day. He should be retired by now, but refused to let a single day of his life go by without at least attempting to make money. She sucks her teeth and takes a gulp of water before peeling back the foam on all the speakers so that she could give them each a thorough check-up.

It took a couple of hours to go through and double-check everything, but eventually Rey finished the job, her voice coming out clear and smooth on all volume settings. She peeked out at Ben, but he was still fast asleep, and she found that she didn't really have the heart to wake him yet. A few minutes probably wouldn't do any harm. She could easily take her time cleaning up and putting everything back in place.

Pushing all of the speakers back only took two or three minutes, dumping all of her shit back in her tool box even less, and checking her phone for messages she knew she wouldn't have took all of two seconds. Her boss had texted while she was replacing some wire, and when she explained the situation, he'd pushed her next appointment up until 2pm, so she had another whole hour to spare, at least.

Rey checked to be sure, but Ben was still somehow sacked out on that sofa. 'Didn't he down a whole large coffee when we came in here? How is he sleeping right now, and so heavily…?' With a mental shrug, she put her hands on her hips and looked around the room for something interesting to do. Did DJs here even have their own personal studios? If so, who did this one belong to? She highly doubted that this Max person was Kylo Ren, and Ben seemed too much of an ass to make for a good radio show host.

There were some drawers in the back, a few of them full of paperwork, schedules for when to play certain ads, a thin folder with "BAN LIST" written in black marker. 'Huh, I wonder if it's for songs or for callers.' She puts it back, but the next three rows of drawers are simply jam packed with CDs in alphabetical order by artist, only about a sixth of which interested her. At first she considered pulling one out to listen, then wondered how she'd ever manage to put it back correctly. Whomever these belonged to clearly knew everything's exact placement with how meticulously they were packed in. Pouting a little, she closes the drawers.

On top of the cabinet was a small-ish cardboard box with tomato sauce cans printed all over it, probably from Costco due to the top two-thirds having been taken off; surprise, surprise, it also contained several CDs, though less organized and unlabeled. A few flash drives and SD cards were also strewn about, and she wondered how in the world anyone could possibly pick things out quickly from this collection when she realized that there were numbers written on all of the things in the box with that same black marker.

Her curiosity officially piqued, she grabbed thumb drive number seven and walked over to the desktop they had hooked into their setup. It started up pretty easily, and, for whatever reason didn't actually have a login screen. The brunette quickly plugged the plain, grey piece of plastic into the USB port and pulled up the files to find… remixes, hit song titles with numbers after them, likely to indicate which version or rendition it was. At first she simply blinked in surprise, then remembered that there was only one radio host at this station who actually played remixes and couldn't help the giddy smile that lit up her face. 'This is Kylo Ren's studio…'

Unable to resist anymore, she clicked play on "Maria Maria v2.4" and laughed quietly to herself as the bass practically rattled the sound board. It sounded much better than the worn-out speakers in her car could do. 'But wait, does that mean…' She looks up to see Ben's black-clad form pushing itself up on the sofa, his hair all over the place. He blinks and runs his fingers through his hair, looking decidedly confused, then locks eyes with her. His expression is hard to read, but she thinks she can see irritation flash in his eyes as he gets up to cross into the studio proper.

"I take it you've finished, then."

"Y-Yes, I just thought I'd-"

"Go snooping? I see that. Do you know the way back to Mace's office or should I-" A bout of coughing interrupts his offer to walk her, but she shakes her head. The building wasn't terribly large, after all.

"Oh, no, I can find my own way, thanks." He nods and for a moment they just stare at each other. There's a faint scar running up from under his shirt collar, over the curve of his jaw and his right eye, almost to his scalp, and she wondered how she'd missed it before. Ben sniffles and glances over at the computer and she snaps out of it. Rey nods and gives him a polite smile before grabbing her things and heading for the door.