Chapter Text
Rey is such a coward because she actually fakes sick on Monday.
She just isn’t ready to face Ben, she has no idea what she’s going to find there. Maybe cold indifference? Maybe pity? Maybe regret? She doesn't want to find out.
But she also can’t hide forever, so on Tuesday she goes to school and doesn’t make eye contact with Ben at all.
That works fine, for a bit, until her eyes slip and she finds his already on her and he looks—
She doesn’t have words for how he looks.
It shakes her enough that she keeps her eyes rn herself for the rest of the week.
It’s not until Friday, when she’s walking out to her bike that she realizes he’s waiting for her at the flagpole.
She seriously considers just turning around and walking the other way, and yeah okay maybe she’s a little bit of coward but she’s not one to run so she hikes her bag up on her shoulder and walks right up to Ben.
“You can’t honestly tell me you blew through everything in your drawer,” she says, hoping it relieves some of the weird tension.
It absolutely doesn’t.
“Rey,” Ben says, and he looks— he looks— miserable. “Listen I am so sorry if you felt like I— like I pushed you into something you didn’t want to do, I never would have— have even kissed you, you know? Not if I didn’t think you wanted me to. Just please tell me if I hurt you? Or if I did—“
“Whoa,” Rey reaches out and touches Ben arm without thinking, she can’t watch him spiral. Is that what he thinks? That she didn’t want to do what they did?
“Ben I— I wanted to sleep with you. I don’t regret sleeping with you,” she whispers to him, moving closer because she doesn’t want anyone else to hear her. She doesn’t want him to be embarrassed, or something.
“Really? Because I will hate myself Rey I swear to god—“
“I promise,” she says, and his chest is moving up and down so fast but he takes a long breath and his shoulders fall.
“Okay,” he breaths in and then out again. “Okay so maybe— was I just not good at it? Because I told you it was my first time and I didn’t— I learn quickly, and I’ll get better, I’m sure— I should have just paid more attention to you but I was so— you know— it was just a lot… for me, I mean. In a good way but. A lot.”
Rey’s brain can’t catch up with her eyes, her ears.
“What are you talking about?”
“Well me, and you because— you obviously don’t want to talk to me anymore and I can’t quite figure out why but I just— wanted to make sure you were okay and that I— you could tell me, you know, if you wanted me to do things differently. I would, I could try.”
Ben Solo looks desperate . Rey steps back.
“I don’t get this,” she says, a little dizzy, “I just thought you like— felt bad for me. Or wanted free weed, or something?”
Ben’s mouth opens and he blinks at her.
“What?” The word is too loud, it transforms his face, burning away the soft, tender desperation that had been present a moment ago and morphing into something bitter and horrified before he’s softening back into frantic and confused. “Rey I— I’ve been in love with you since like ninth grade. I bought all that weed so you’d talk to me. I wanted to— to hang out with you. I have tried so many times to talk to you, for years. And I just figured okay— she doesn’t like you, Solo, drop it, but then I thought— you know that— that maybe you liked me? When we—“ he swallows thickly.
Only Maz has ever told her that she loves her, and only when she was leaving.
She’s never had an I love you that wasn’t also a goodbye.
“You didn’t hurt me,” Rey says, shaking her head. She’s moving toward him again, closer than before, and she touches his arm again, looking down at her shoes. “I just— I always thought you felt bad for me, before. And now I just figured you’d be like, ashamed of me.” She shrugs, still unable to look at Ben’s face. She feels her eyes burn.
Suddenly there’s a thud right next to her as Ben’s bag hits the grass at her feet. She barely has time to look up before his hands are on her face and his mouth is against hers.
Ben is kissing her. Someone whoops behind them, she finds she doesn’t care. She pulls Ben back when he tries to pull away, but stops when she hears Poe yell “Finally Solo!”
Ben is in love with her. Has been, even Poe knew it.
“I’m so sorry,” Rey says, shaking her head as more tears threaten to spill. “Ben I’m so sorry I didn’t text you when I got home and I’m sorry I freaked out and avoided you and I’m sorry that I assumed the absolute worst of you,” she breaks off in a small sob, “when I had no reason to. I— I don’t know how to do this. Care about someone, be cared about. That’s… new.”
Ben leans down and kisses her again. He’s pulling her body against his and running his hands through her hair.
“We’ll figure it out together,” he tells her. “Please come over. Please—“
“No,” Rey says, and Ben pulls back to look at her. “Come to my house? My foster dad is gone for the weekend.”
She knows Ben’s house is nicer, just as empty, better snacks. But she doesn’t want to hide from Ben right now. She has had a taste of feeling seen and she wants more.
“Yes,” he says, “absolutely yes.”
***
Plutt’s house is a shithole compared to Ben’s. It’s really a bunch of trailers stuck together, double wide and a single and a half bath tacked on.
It’s sort of crooked, and narrow, and everything is an ugly brown.
Rey leads Ben into her room, pulling him inside and shutting the door.
It’s freezing cold, the metal stings her fingers as she pulls her deadbolt closed. Old habit.
She forgot that Ben is probably used to heat, and she scrambles to plug in her little space heater.
She doesn’t know why she holds her breath, but she can’t help it as he turns around and takes stock of bedroom.
The sun is already setting, it’s snowing, everything smells like iron and Rey’s gardenia perfume. Ben touches her dried flowers, the small stack of books on her desk, then he turns his dark eyes to her.
“I know it’s kinda pathetic,” she says with a shrug, “we should have just gone to your house I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“It smells like you,” Ben says. Rey shifts on her feet, nods. “I love it.”
Then he’s walking toward her, wrapping an arm around her and kissing her. She could drown like this, drinking him down.
“Thank you,” he tells her, “for bringing me here.”
She feels seen.
Rey’s bed is not as big as Ben’s but when she sits on the edge he doesn’t follow her, instead he drops to the floor between her legs. Her feet are on the floor, she realizes it’s dusty, he’s going to get his pants dirty.
That’s the thought that makes her blush first, before Ben is unbuttoning her jeans and she realizes just why he’s getting dirty in the first place.
“Ben,” she says, as he tugs her pants down. She kicks them off. “You don’t have to—“
“I need to make you come,” he tells her, leaning up and kissing her mouth. “Please let me make you come, please .”
She doesn’t have any air left in her lungs when he gently pushes her back on the bed. Her legs are still hanging off the side, her underwear is still on.
Ben kisses her between her legs, right over the plain blue panties she’s wearing and her stomach muscles all jump.
“I’ll make it better this time, I promise,” Ben says, and he sounds so focused all she can do is squeeze her eyes shut. Her underwear are soaked and sticky when he pulls them off of her. “You want me to? Right?”
Rey whimpers and nods her head fast because oh, she really does.
Then Ben’s mouth is on her, kissing her in a place she has only ever explored in the quiet darkness of her bedroom. The same place that he fucked into her just a few days before.
His tongue slides up from the very bottom of her slit to her clit, which he first tries flicking with his tongue. Rey jerks a little bit and Ben pushes a finger down against her center, sliding into her.
Rey can’t help the sounds she's making now, all breathy little moans and whimpers.
She can hear Ben slurping at her. It’s obscene.
When his lips close around her clit and he sucks she almost flies off the bed. He pulls back, startled, and she is about to apologize before he’s back between her legs and sucking again.
He uses two fingers on her, pumping in and out slowly and stretching her gently and she knows she’s close to coming. It’s heavier and hotter and louder than anything she’s ever felt before, and her thighs start shaking, it’s hard to pull in air.
Ben holds her, throws her legs over his shoulders and doesn’t relent at all.
Rey comes so hard she feels like she’s drowning. Her vision spots and she feels a new rush of wetness gushing from her pussy against Ben’s mouth, which is still— still— she tugs his hair, intending to push him off but he won’t move, is still licking her in long, broad strokes and she sobs as she flops back down with the realization that she might actually come again.
“Ben, fuck,” she whimpers and the sound of her voice spurs him on. He adds a third finger, pushes them up inside of her and sucks on her clit again.
She has tears in her eyes when she comes for the second time, sobbing out at the end of her orgasm. Ben licks her gently until she stops shaking.
She can’t breathe. She can’t think. She can’t do anything except laugh a watery little laugh as he looks at her, chin and cheeks shiny.
“Holy shit,” she says.
“I told you I could be better,” Ben smirks.
Rey laughs a little, chest heaving, and then she pulls her t shirt up over her head.
She’s naked now, chest flush, and Ben’s eyes drop to her body.
She likes being looked at.
“Do you wanna fuck me?” she asks him.
“So badly.”
He’s pushing her up further onto the bed and shedding his clothes so, so fast. Before she can think he is on her, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.
She can feel the hard line of his cock against her thigh, reaches down to feel him.
He’s so soft, so hot and hard.
Ben fiddles with the wrapper of a condom and gets it right this time, sliding it on easily.
“I won’t last long,” he says, “I almost came just from licking your pussy.”
He buries himself inside of her and she’s relaxed and open and wet for him, her body still singing.
He holds her close to him as he fucks her. He whimpers and grunts and kisses everywhere he can reach, the same desperation from the flagpole still coursing through him.
“Did you mean it?” she asks him, while he’s pumping into her.
“All of it.”
“Then say it, tell me. No ones ever— no one’s ever said it to me.”
Ben stops fucking her, holds himself above her on his hands.
“Rey, I love you,” he holds her eyes as he pulls back and pushes in again, slowly. “I love you.”
Her heart is beating so fast, so, so fast as he starts to thrust again. He keeps his pace slow, he keeps his eyes on her.
He doesn’t ask her to say it back.
She will, she will— soon.
“I’m close,” he pants, and Rey starts rocking her hips to meet him, squeezing him as much as she can and then he’s grunting against her neck as he comes inside of her. He looks beautiful like this, mouth open as if he’s surprised, as if he can’t believe what his body and her body can do together.
After, Ben ties off the condom and throws it in Rey’s little trash can, and then he’s on top of her again.
He kisses her over and over.
Rey doesn’t feel scared, which is so weird. This should be terrifying.
Instead it just feels warm and welcoming and so, so right.
She presses her ear against Ben’s chest, half on top of him, and lets his hands wander over her body, touching everywhere they can reach. She feels remade in his hands, pieced back together, born again.
She feels loved.