Chapter Text
Moodboard by the lovely @vittra88
His phone is ringing when he unlocks the door to his apartment.
Ben looks at the offending object, which is currently blaring a song (a term he uses loosely in this context) called Telephone by someone named Lady Gaga - not his first choice of ringtone, but that’s apparently what friends are for - and then down at his sodden clothing.
His run had been great, leaving him weary and pleasantly aching and dripping with sweat and now that real life once again comes banging on his door he can’t help but be slightly dismayed.
Today Ben has gone the extra mile (and then some) in an effort to outrun his problems, and while he’s old enough to know that that never works, he’s also young enough to still occasionally try.
As it is - and no matter how far he runs - his job is still stressful (if, admittedly, better than it was a year ago), his mother is still a menace (not insignificantly contributing to problem number one) and his love life is still a mess (which, ironically, contributes to problem number two), and the weekend ahead is going to be boring and lonely and interminably long (which could be made better by fixing problem number three.)
It’s like his life is a rube-goldberg machine for emotional pain.
But right now all that is rendered somewhat distant by the post-run endorphin-high and he feels tired and sweaty and everything hurts and Ben really just wants to take a long shower.
Lady Gaga (what kind of a name is that anyway?) seems to disagree with his plans as launches into another refrain and Ben eyes his phone balefully before picking up.
It’s probably just work, asking him to come in on a Saturday and truthfully Ben dreads the weekend ahead enough that he might just say yes.
“Solo?”
“Hey.”
It is not work.
Ben’s heart stutters, because as of late he needs to brace himself a little before he can talk to her without making a fool of himself.
“Hey,” he answers, more softly now.
“Ben. Hey.” She chuckles nervously. It doesn’t make the weird feeling in his chest any better. “I think I said that already.”
“You did.”
“I was afraid you weren’t home.”
“I wasn’t. Went for a run.”
“Oh, I hope I didn’t…?”
“You’re not interrupting anything, Rey. What’s up?”
“Oh,” she says again, in that melodic voice of hers. She sounds troubled, and one part of Ben’s mind is already drawing up a battle plan for what to do if she’s in trouble, whereas the more primal part of him wants to just break some bones and ask questions later.
“Are you alright?”
“What? Yeah,” she laughs reedily. “I’m fine. Uh…listen, Maz has offered to take Noah for the day and I feel like I haven’t been out of the house since March and even that was just because Noah had his tetanus shot, which… you know, potentially life saving but not exactly riveting stuff and… Ben, I feel like if I don’t get out of the city for a few hours I am going to combust. Please please please say we can go for a hike?”
There’s a part of Ben that’s hardwired to never say no to Rey, even when he’s dripping and aching and all he wants to do is take a long shower and eat his weight in lucky charms.
“Of course.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Ben tugs his clammy tanktop away from his chest and grimaces when the fabric only gives with a wet squelch. “Just let me jump in the shower and I’ll meet you outside of your place in thirty minutes?”
“You are literally the best.”
“Yeah?”
“The bestest.”
Ok, so what if that makes his heart flutter? That’s not a crime. He should know, he’s a lawyer.
“Feel free to tell me more.”
“Don’t push it, Solo.”
He laughs, even though a part of him wishes that she would, actually, tell him just how good he is for her. In great detail. Every day for the rest of their lives.
“Ah, well,” he finally says, “it was worth a shot. I’ll see you in a bit, Rey.”
👟👟👟👟👟
When he turns onto her street, Rey is already waiting at the curb, a ratty backpack by her feet and squinting down the road until she spots his car. She’s wearing an emerald-green t-shirt, skinny jeans, and a pair of sneakers that Ben would have thrown out months ago if they were his. It’s not exactly ideal clothing for hiking, but then again it’s not like they’re planning on scaling Mount Everest.
She’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, which is frankly adorable, and her hair is up in her customary three little buns. Which is also adorable, really.
But then again… few things about her aren’t.
“Hey,” Rey says again as she hops into his truck. Up close she’s even more gorgeous. Her hair is messy and a little curly, like she went to bed straight after her shower. The green shirt compliments the hazel of her eyes, which Ben anyway spends too much time thinking about. A stylized owl, the sort you’d usually find painted on the wall of a nursery, is printed across the front of the shirt and Ben has never wanted to be shitty clipart of a bird more in his entire life.
He does his level best to look at Rey’s eyes, rather than the owl’s, even though it’s a struggle. Her t-shirt strains across her chest, because now that she’s nursing her previously tiny breasts are plump and full and utterly delectable.
(Not that he's noticed.)
(Ok, he has noticed.)
(He is, objectively, going to hell.)
Rey’s smile is radiant as she clips on her seat belt and turns to him and she's sunshine and light and he loves her.
(Absolutely, without a doubt going to hell in a handbasket. She’s his best friend, for crying out loud. She has a kid. She has 99 problems and he doesn’t need to be one of them. Rey doesn’t need him to make everything more complicated than it already is.)
“So, where are we going?”
“Virdugo park,” Ben mumbles, eyes on the traffic to find a gap big enough for him to pull away from the curb. “Have you been?”
“Nope.” She scrunches her nose, and Ben really needs to stop thinking about how beautiful she is before the situation in his pants becomes a problem. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I don’t get out of the house a whole lot.”
Because of her kid - Noah - who’s absolutely adorable but also thirteen months old and because of her dead-beat ex, who is not in the picture anymore.
Ben had lov-
Ben had liked Rey from the moment he’d been introduced to her by their mutual friend Poe almost three years ago, but he had also hated her boyfriend at an inversely proportional rate and felt an immediate and all-consuming need to deposit Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley in the dumpster behind the cantina. (Where he so very obviously belonged).
Alright, maybe Ben had been an angrier man back then. What of it?
But when Snap had vanished in a puff of hot air - like an exceptionally annoying vampire - the moment Rey announced that she was having a baby, Ben had been more than a little sad that he hadn’t followed through on the impulse that first day they’d met. On all his impulses, actually, especially the ones that involved dragging her into a dark corner and kissing her silly.
“It’s nice,” Ben says, while he tries to discreetly white-knuckle the steering wheel. He loves Noah, but he hates that Rey has to take care of him all on her own. “The elevation is minimal, but the parking space is near the river bed, and it’s quite the climb to get all the way to the top. And on a day like today the view should be spectacular.”
“Sounds like you’ve been?”
Ben shrugs.
“Dad and Chewie used to take me up there when I was little. I haven’t been in years. But it’s a mountain. I expect it hasn’t changed much.”
“No, mountains don’t really do that,” she says with a smile. “Must have been nice.”
Yes. One of the few nice memories that he has of Han. Ben glances over at Rey, and he can tell by her forlorn expression what she’s thinking about.
“Hey. You can take Noah up there, once he’s gotten the knack of walking without face planting every three steps.”
She’s still looking lost, so Ben forges on, maybe unwisely.
“I’ll come.”
Which sounds way too much like he’s expecting her to take him and only him and it’s not like he’s opposed, but as previously mentioned… Ben doesn’t want to make this any more complicated than it already is.
“Or Finn and Poe, I’m sure they’d love to come. They adore Noah.”
Rey chuckles bleakly.
“Then I’d just have to watch them make-out the entire time. No thank you.”
“How about Hux?”
“I don’t really picture him as the outdoorsy type?”
“True, Rose might have to threaten him a little.”
“A little?”
“A lot. Don’t think she’s not capable.”
“Oh, I know that she’s capable. I’m just not sure if Hux could survive in the wild.”
“True, he’d probably spontaneously develop an allergy to trees… or rocks.”
“Rocks?” Rey scrunches up her nose.
“Nothing is beyond him,” Ben says with a grin. “My point is: Noah will have so many uncles, he won’t even have time to miss anything.”
“I know,” Rey sighs. “I just… want him to have a dad, you know? A real father? With the way I grew up, I always wanted my own kids to have a proper family. Mom, dad, golden retriever and a minivan?”
“You forgot the picket fence.”
“That too, obviously.”
“Listen, Rey,” Ben swallows and dares to reach across the center console to touch her arm. “Your son has the best mom any child could ask for. He doesn’t need a dad.”
But, Ben thinks not for the first time, if the position is open he would not mind filling it. Among other things.
Rey sighs.
“I had no parents. Noah just has me.” Rey muses sadly. “It’s like there’s this curse hanging above my family.”
“Well, there’s an upwards trajectory,” Ben jokes.
“So maybe when his time comes, Noah will find a partner that doesn’t leg it at the first sign of trouble?”
“One would hope so, although, if the trend holds, your grandchildren will be in a polycule.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Ben laughs.
“No. It’s just that, by that logic, the phrase ‘it takes a village’ will take on a whole different meaning a few generations down.”
“The more the merrier?”
They’re both joking, but underneath all these quips, Rey is serious too. He can see it in her eyes.
“Yeah, sure it is,” he murmurs.
Rey nods and throws her head back with a groan.
“God, look at me, yammering on about my fucked-up love life again. You must be so sick and tired of it.”
“Nah, it’s fine.”
She rolls her head to give him a strained smile. Her small hand flexes in her lap, and Ben wants to find Snap Wexley and methodically break every single bone in his useless body.
It’s a recurring dream of his, one Ben has almost as often as the one where he’s the one who gets to change Noah’s nappies and wake up to Rey every morning for the rest of their lives.
Ben feels suddenly a lot less happy than he did a minute ago.
Because in the end, no matter which dream, he always wakes up.
⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️⛰️
Virdugo Park is exactly like Ben remembers it, even if the trees used to look a lot bigger as a regrettable, if inevitable, side effect of having grown two feet and a couple of inches since he last was here.
Rey is ahead of him, practically bouncing up the steep path, while Ben follows at a more sedate pace. It's not like he minds, because the view is spectacular, but also his glutes have been low-level cramping since they left the car an hour ago. He really should have done some stretching after his run.
Ben considers himself fit bordering on athletic - sport as a coping mechanism for work related stress, family drama, and sexual frustration will do that to a man - but this hike might not have been the wisest choice he's made.
Not that he's going to tell Rey any of that.
"How are we doing back there in the peanut gallery?"
Her smile is brighter than the sun as she skips backwards to look at him.
Yup. There is no way he's going to tell her just how much his calves ache.
"Fine. Just keeping an eye out for wildlife."
Rey falters.
"Are there bears up here?"
Woodpeckers. Rabbits. Maybe a deer if they’re lucky. Cute, fluffy things that would make Rey smile if she saw one. No bears that he’s aware of.
But this opportunity is too good to pass up.
"Loads. But I'm not worried."
"How come?" Rey’s eyes dart to the left and the right of the path, looking for wayward ursines, and Ben struggles to contain his smirk.
"Oh, I'm like 97% sure I can run faster than you."
"Just because you have stupidly long Sasquatch legs. A bear would probably think you're part of the scenery."
Ben laughs.
"But seriously,” Rey is biting her lower lip, which - if he’s honest - does things to Ben. “… are there bears?"
"Further up in the Appalachians, I think,” he mutters, subtly adjusting himself. “But not down here. Too many people, not enough privacy."
"We've literally not seen anyone," Rey grumbles.
"Might be too early."
Rey hums thoughtfully.
"I think I like it better this way."
"Alone, accompanied only by a cryptid and the looming fear of getting eaten by a bear?"
"When it's just the two of us." She sighs coming to a stop so that Ben can catch up with her. "I love the air. City air doesn't smell like this."
Rey closes her eyes and Ben, through sheer force of will, looks solely at her face as she inhales deeply.
"Love the breeze and that it's quiet. So tranquil. Like the light is more than just photons and electrons, but something I can touch,” she scrunches up her nose, eyes still closed and pointed skywards. “Good God, on a scale of 1-10, how naive did I just sound?" "
Ben might have been staring - possibly staring slack-jawed, which is even worse - at the play of shadows across her features, at the way her freckles seem to glow in the muted sunlight - which does look indeed like he could, if he wanted to, just lick it off her cheek like so much honey - and he quickly looks away pretending to adjust the straps of his backpack when her eyes suddenly open again.
"Adorable." He murmurs, the word slipping put before he can stop it and maybe, just maybe, there's a chance that she hasn't heard-
"That's not a number."
Nope. She heard. And now she's squinting at him.
"I just think it's cute," Ben says, trying to salvage the conversation. "Little city girl, afraid that the big bad wolf is going to get her."
"A minute ago it was bears I had to worry about." She sticks out her tongue at him and Ben wants to bite it. "You’re terrible. I just think this is nice. I haven't been in a proper forest since… actually I'm not sure I recall. A while ago. So don't make fun of me just because I'm enjoying the quiet."
"Good to just hear yourself for a little bit?"
He winces, because he can be such an ass, but Rey just nods, albeit a little mournfully.
"I'm going to sound like the worst human being, but sometimes it’s so loud at home. I can hardly hear myself think."
"Hey," Ben reaches out to touch her shoulder, "you're doing great, you know? You're a great mom and Noah is so lucky to have you.?"
"Aye, aye, sir." Rey gives him a smirking salute. "So, are we gonna climb this mountain or what?"
"It's barely a hill, actually."
"Ah ah… don't squash my budding sense of achievement, Solo."
"I stand corrected, this is definitely a mountain."
"Atta boy."
🥾🥾🥾🥾🥾
Ben Is about ready to eat his words when they reach the top over an hour later.
Actually, eating just about anything would be good at this point, even if it's humble pie.
No, that’s not true either. The thought of eating anything makes him feel queasy and slightly nauseous. Sweat is beading at his hairline and between his shoulder blades, even though the climb wasn’t strenuous at all. He recognizes these symptoms as the early stages of hypoglycemia, which is not good at all.
He should, in hindsight, probably have had that bowl of lucky charms.
Ben forces himself to ignore his roiling stomach to focus on Rey, who is looking out at the vista sprawled out in front of them with glowing eyes. The baby hairs that frame her face are dancing in the wind, her t-shirt is tight in all the right places, her smile is luminous, and there’s a little bit of sweat on her upper lip that he wants to lick despite his budding nausea. Even if he keels over right here and now and tumbles all the way down the hill to the car park, this will absolutely have been worth it.
"Wow, would you look at that? I can see all the way to the river. Is that New York over there?"
Ben squints against the sun. The ‘river’ (it’s really more of a stream), is probably one of the tributaries of the Solleu, and he’ll eat his shorts - don’t think of eating, Ben - if New York is actually visible from up here. Ben tries to remember the names of the towns that they drove past and comes up lacking.
"I’m not sure? We're like 30 miles from the city, I don't think you can see that far, even in this weather."
Rey turns from the view to critically survey the small plateau that they're on.
“And here I thought I was hiking with a native.”
“Hey,” Ben shrugs. “I used to know this crap, but the last time I was up here was like 20 years ago.”
“Right, sometimes I forget that you’re ancient.”
“You’re an inch away from being left alone on this hill.”
“Mountain.”
“My mistake.”
Rey laughs and leans against the railing, facing him.
"What was it like? Coming up here?"
"Still after the quintessential American dad experience?"
She shrugs.
"I might have to take notes. I’m sure there will be a test at some point."
Ben sighs. But he still answers her, because - as mentioned before - saying no to Rey just isn’t in his genetic makeup.
"Han wasn't always the best dad, you know?"
"Believe it or not, but you mentioned that once or twice."
One of their few points of contention. Ben sighs again.
"Han… he took me up here when things were bad at home. I didn't realize it at the time, I was too little, but I sort of figured it out later. Mom would… talk more than usual, and he’d talk less and less. And when it got too much he'd bring me up here and drink beers with Chewie, sometimes stronger stuff too, and we'd pretend to be smugglers, hiding from the law. My contraband was pinecones and interesting rocks.”
“Veritable treasures.”
“Priceless gemstones and rare spices from the east,” he laughs. “I bet mom still has a few of them. It was… pretty good, all things considered."
Rey has that far away look in her eyes that tells him she's thinking of her son and of the experiences she can’t give him. Ben wants to point out that she’s perfectly capable of coming up here and splitting a few beers with a friend - he knows the right man for the job too - but he suspects Rey doesn’t want to hear that right now.
"I know I said this before too, but if you ever wanna sue Snap, then I happen to know a good lawyer."
"It's not quite up your alley, Mr hotshot corporate lawyer?"
"I meant my mom. She's a lot scarier than me."
"Don't I know it." Rey mutters. Ben laughs at her petulant tone - Rey has nothing to fear from Leia, who wants her to date her son almost as much as the man in question - and he sways a little as his world suddenly tilts on its axis. Rey’s hand, small and calloused and surprisingly strong, shoots out to steady him. "Whoa. You're OK, big guy? Air too thin all the way up there?"
"I'm perfect."
"Sure you are," Rey says with an odd inflection, before she cocks her head at him. "No offense, but you look terrible. Pale. Well, paler than usual. Are you sure you're OK?"
Rey steps closer to touch his cheek - which is really no biggie between friends, but nuzzling into her palm definitely would be - and Ben freezes, afraid that he’ll give himself away.
Rey pulls her hand back and frowns.
"I don't think you're running a temperature. But maybe you're coming down with something?"
"My blood pressure might be low,” Ben clears his throat and wishes fervently that her small, hot hand was still on his cheek. “I technically haven’t had breakfast."
Her frown deepens.
"Define technically?” She says. “I thought you went for a run this morning?"
"Yeah, but then you called." He shakes his head when he sees her look of dismay and again the world goes blurry for a second. "I ate a banana and a bit of trail mix. I should be fine."
He isn’t. He knows it. Judging by the still deepening frown on Rey’s face, she knows it too.
“The one day I forget to pack snacks," Rey grouses, patting her pockets. "Damn it, Ben. I didn't even have chewing gum."
"You are such a mom."
"Apparently not."
"Don't worry about me, Rey. Seriously." He gives her his bestest, bravest smile. "If you feel guilty, you can always let me take you for dinner later. At the cantina, I know you haven't been in ages."
"Don't distract me with tacos, Solo. This is serious."
"As am I."
Please say yes.
"It's not like I can carry you if you faint on me."
"It's downhill, so you could always try dragging me by the ankle."
"Might scuff up your chest,” Rey says absentmindedly, still frowning up at him with a worried expression. “Not sure if I can risk that, it's your best feature."
Part of Ben wants to concentrate on the fact that Rey has noticed his chest - say 'thank you bench presses' - while the more survival oriented part of him wants to concentrate on not keeling over.
“Have you been noticing my chest, Niima?” Ben asks, and he must be feeling even more light-headed than he’d thought, because that’s absolutely an inside-voice sort of thought.
But Rey merely gives him one of her patented 1000 megawatt smiles.
“That’s a bit like asking me if I noticed the Statue of Liberty.”
Ben gulps.
Well, right back atcha, Niima.
The owl on the front of her shirt is giving him a disapproving look as his eyes dip lower for one delicious, absolutely ill-advised second.
“I’ll," Ben licks his lips hungrily, “I’ll keep that in mind, but only if you say yes to tacos."
"When have I ever not said yes to tacos?"
"Ok, I set the bar too low."
Rey laughs and punches him lightly in the chest that she apparently finds aesthetically pleasing, only to immediately grab onto his elbow when he sways.
"Christ, Ben, we need to get you off this mountain."
He wants her to enjoy the view and the air and the quiet that she's so very much earned, but his pulse is racing and just for once it's got nothing to do with the fact that Rey is touching him, so Ben has to reluctantly agree. Her day will be even more ruined if he faints up here and knocks himself unconscious.
"Yeah, right. Let's go. We can be back at the car in an hour and at the cantina in two.”
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It becomes clear alarmingly quickly that Ben is probably not going to make it back to the car in an hour. Or in two hours. Or at all.
His pulse is thready and weak and he’s sweating all over, which is just unfair because somehow he also feels like he’s frozen to the bone. He shivers under his thin henley and fervently wishes he’d brought a jacket.
Rey is ahead of him, again skipping down the path, even though her previous cheerfulness has been replaced by frequent, anxious looks back at his stumbling form.
He’s ruined her day, just because he didn’t have the good sense to pack some food. All she asked was to get out of the city for a few hours and Ben can’t even get that right. It makes him want to cry. Rey is all that is good and light and he’s-
“Ben!”
He snaps out of his spiral of self-recrimination - top three symptoms of hypoglycemia, anyone? - to find that he’s knee-deep in the bushes lining the path, without the faintest idea of how he got there.
Rey is by his side in an instant, which is a blessing because Ben suddenly realizes that he is two heartbeats and a stiff breeze away from falling over like a freshly felled tree.
"Jesus, Ben, you're heavy. Don't hold back on my account."
"Sorry," he slurs as he sags against her.
Rey curses under her breath. Her body is small and hard against his flank as she ducks under his arm to lead him back to the path.
"Fuck, fuck fuck. Hey, stay with me big guy." Rey is gently urging him to the ground. Truthfully, it’s more of a controlled descent than sitting down, but it’s not like Ben can do anything about it. Currently he’s happy not to just fold over her shoulders like an accordion. There’s an awkward moment when her chest is right in his face - and future Ben will absolutely curse current, half-conscious Ben for not paying more attention - and then he’s sitting on the slightly damp, packed soil of the footpath .
"That’s it,” Rey murmurs. “Your blood is having a tough enough time reaching your thick skull without having to travel all the way to the upper stratosphere."
Ben is vaguely aware that he’s leaning against a tree, but he doesn't entirely remember what happened between him standing knee-deep in the underbrush and Rey sinking to her knees next to him.
She looks so worried and he wants to tell her that he's fine, really, but all that comes out if his mouth is a slurred groan.
Rey curses again, even more colourfully than before.
"Ben? Hey, Ben, stay with me, ok?" She cups his cheek and where normal-blood sugar Ben had the good sense not to nuzzle into her palm, this hypoglycemic version of him knows no such qualms.
Her fingers are so soft against his stubby cheek that he wants to sigh… or purr.
" 'm fine," he finally manages to say.
"Yeah, sure. You're a picture of health."
Ben nods, even if it's just an excuse to rub more of his face against her palm.
"This is silly," Rey huffs. "I got food."
"Huh?” He blinks sluggishly, eyes falling to her discarded backpack. “But you said…"
“No, no,” her hand pushes against his cheek, forcing him to look at her and not at the ground. “here.”
And then Rey shows him.
"Right here," Rey murmurs, withdrawing her hand from his cheek, which causes him to whine pathetically, and her face flames scarlet as she cups her breast. “You can have this.”
Oh.
Oh.
Oh dear God.
Ben should probably say something.
yespleaseohdeargodthankyouyes
No. Not that.
He blinks sluggishly and forces those thoughts to the back of his brain. The dizziness is making it hard enough to think, even without all the blood that is currently merrily surging towards his cock.
“You can't be serious… "
His mouth is dry and he faintly wonders if that's another symptom of low blood sugar, or if that's just a side effect of how - inappropriately, terribly, stupidly - turned on he is.
"I am, actually."
"That's not food."
"Hey, my son would beg to disagree."
"You're acting like you're offering me a snickers."
His panic has given him the illusion of a second wind and he tries to get up, but as soon as he tries to rise the splotchy blackness behind his eyes is back with a vengeance.
Ben groans and flops back down.
Rey touches his shoulder as if to steady him. Her thigh is against his own, her other hand rests on his knee. Every point of contact is deliciously warm.
"I don't see why you're acting so weird."
Because you're offering me to suck your tits. You're perfect divine tits that I have been dreaming about for months. And, sweetheart, if I put my mouth on any part of your body, how am I ever going to stop?
All of that would be spectacularly stupid to say, so he doesn’t.
"Really? You don't?"
His attempt at levity falls flat when Rey just looks at him with a deep crease on her forehead.
"It's just milk, Ben. Babies drink it all the time."
"I am definitely not a baby, Rey” Ben scoffs. “Christ. I mean… I'm not complaining. I just… I'm sure it tastes great. Not that I think about it. But it… shit. Fuck. Rey… you know what I mean. This isn't about what it is, it's about who we are."
Now it's her turn to arch her pretty eyebrows.
"A man who very selflessly drove his best friend out to the mountains and is now paying the price and his best friend, who happens to be a woman, who happens to be lactating, who has it in her power to help her very best friend in the whole wide world?"
Best friend.
Ben bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper.
Right.
Because that's the crux of it.
How deep down the friendzone do you have to be to get breast milk fresh from the teat and it's 'no biggie'?
"Rey…" He tries again, even though he knows the expression on her face. It's the same one she gets when she sees a nice piece of furniture by the curb that is absolutely too big to carry up three flights of stairs to her flat, or when she wants pizza at 2am, or when Ben has said something stupid about British snack foods. It's Rey's 'you're not going to change my mind' expression.
"Don't be silly, Ben. It's not like I can carry you back to the car."
She has a point. He hates when she has a point.
"If you…" he tries weakly. "If you give me a few minutes I'll be good to go."
Rey gives him the sort of pitying look that's reserved for idiots, small children, and Poe.
"I don't really see that happening."
She leans back, away from him, taking her warmth with her, and rucks up her shirt before he can protest any further. The bra underneath is not what Ben would consider sexy lingerie and it looks a lot more complicated than a bra has any business looking.
“It’s a nursing bra," Rey says, sounding a little self-conscious. She needn't be, really. She'd look perfect in a length of sackcloth.
Ben bites his lip. He just knows that he’s been staring. But how can he not, when this literal goddess is kneeling before him, shirt rucked up under her armpits and miles and miles of freckled skin exposed and so so close that he can smell the faint strawberry scent of her body wash. And her breasts right there, separated by nothing more than the thin fabric of a weird bra. He can see her nipples, for crying out loud.
More importantly: He is going to suck on her nipples.
The panic rises again, like the tide, and Ben digs his fingers into his thigh to push it back down. Because, apparently, this is actually happening.
The day could not get more strange if it tried, and Ben suspects that it’s already trying quite hard.
“I know it's not sexy...” Rey adds with a small smirk that Ben doesn’t notice on account of not looking at her face. And then she unhooks the front of the complicated looking bra, exposing one of her breasts.
His throat may have been dry before, but now he’s suddenly parched.
“Rey…” he rasps. Her nipple, darker than he expected and engorged and the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his wretched life, pebbles in the cool air.
“Ben,” Rey says, and her voice is low and urgent. “Let me help you.”
His body is slack when she grabs his shoulder, pulling him forward until his face is level with her swollen nipple. Absent-mindedly he wonders if he’s hallucinating. That’s a symptom of extreme hypoglycemia, isn’t it?
“Don’t be afraid. Just take what you need,” Rey coos and tugs at him again.
Ben has little choice but to close the last few inches remaining between them. Her skin is hot and impossibly soft against his lips, except the tip of the nipple itself, which is a hard little knot. Without his permission his tongue swirls around the peak, chasing the taste of her skin.
Rey makes a small sound and her hand fists in the hair at the nape of his neck.
“You need to, ah, suck.”
Is her breathing heavier?
Ben can’t tell anymore. All he knows is that his heart is racing and his mouth is on her tit and if he doesn’t get to truly taste her he will surely die.
So he wraps his mouth around her more firmly and gives her a tentative, gentle suck.
Nothing happens, no milk spills into his mouth like he expected, but Ben does hardly notice, too engrossed in the feeling of her silky skin against his lips. He sucks again, slightly harder, and Rey jolts and groans.
Ben immediately pops off her nipple and pulls away to look at her.
“Am I hurting you?”
Her eyes find his, slightly unfocused, pupils blown and dark, and she works her mouth a few times before she shakes her head.
“No no, just sensitive.” She smiles faintly. “Noah doesn't take any prisoners when he feeds. You can… you know… harder. I’m used to it.”
Her hand, still on the nape of his neck, pulls him closer again and he goes oh so willingly.
Ben swirls his tongue around her peak again, it's wrong and he's disgusting for wanting this so much, but he can't help himself, before he opens his mouth further to pull as much of her breast into his mouth as he can and starts sucking hard. Her dainty fingers splay flat against his neck, angling his head just so and he can feel her shudder before him.
"Just - oh - just like that, Ben. You're doing so good."
And then her milk fills his mouth. Hot and thick, much sweeter than he anticipated. It’s creamy and perfect, and she is perfect, and all of it assaults his senses until he feels like he might pass out. Ben moans unabashedly from the pure decadence of it and doubles down, slurping and sucking greedily.
"Ben," Rey murmurs as her fingers card through his hair. "That's it. That's so good. Keep going."
And he does.
His hand cups the underside of her breast, gently squeezing the swollen, taut flesh. Her tit is perfect. Where he used to think his hand were just another stupidly large part of his generally awkward, impractically outsized body, he now realizes that they’re just the right size and shape to cradle her divine, perfect breast in his palm. Rey pants above him and arches her back, pushing her chest more firmly against his greedy mouth.
Without asking for permission, Ben switches to the other side.
The bra is a foreign, unwanted thing, the tiny claps too fiddly for his shaking, clumsy bear-paws and there's a moment of awkward fumbling as she rushes to help him free her other nipple.
Rey whimpers as he latches on. She gasps when he suckles her. She groans, needy and deep, when her milk starts to flow.
"Can I… I need…" she stutters. "Let me… the angle, it will be better for you if…"
It takes his milk-drunk mind a second to comprehend what she wants, but then he helps her scramble into his lap so that she's straddling his thigh.
She’s right. The angle is better.
Her hard little nipple is just the right height for him to latch on without bending forward awkwardly. And her small hand cradles his head just right, pulling him closer, closer, and closer still, until his senses are flooded with nothing but Rey.
His Rey.
His generous, perfect, adorable, goddess at whose altar he'll gladly worship until the day he dies.
His hand cups her breast, massaging her skin gently to stimulate the flow. She’s so soft. So full and ripe.
Ben thinks, with the tiny part of his mind that is still capable of such things, that he’ll die if he has to stop now.
Rey moans - and it is a moan, he's sure of it. Not a sigh, or a grunt of pain or a groan of embarrassment, but a moan of pleasure.
His heart swells, knowing that he's giving her pleasure.
Other parts of him swell too.
Ben tries to angle his hips away from her - more easily said than done with his face glued to her chest as it is - to spare Rey the unpleasantness of being confronted with his sizable and still swelling erection, when he becomes aware that her hips are rocking mindlessly against his thigh.
Just small, almost imperceptible motions - back and forth, back and forth - but her breath is hot and moist against his crown, and she’s whimpering, and her hips are angled just so… and he knows what she is doing.
Fuck.
Without any conscious permission from his brain his hands wrap around her waist. She’s so tiny, so lithe and firm, that his fingers almost touch on the small of her back.
Ben groans against her, his baritone mingling and melding with her breathy moans as she arches against him. He helps her rock against him, pressing her down and dragging her over the ridge of his leg. Letting her take what she needs.
His hands are busy, meaning that he can’t lift her nipple to his mouth anymore, and he strains to reach her still, but then her own hand is cupping her breast, squeezing and pressing them upwards, into his mouth.
“Ben,” she gasps as he latches on more firmly. "Go on. Please. So good... you're doing so good."
All he can do is grunt helplessly, completely lost in her. A part of him is sure that he’s hallucinating all of this, but since it’s hands down the best dream that he’s ever had, he doesn’t especially mind.
He licks at her nipple, around her areola, and the line between drinking from her and just straight up worshiping her tits has become blurred. Ben doesn't care. Can't care, too lost in her smell and her taste and his own, unbearable arousal.
Rey isn't faring much better, apparently. Her breath stutters and a sharp little crease of concentration has formed between her brows. Her lower lip is trapped between her teeth as she grinds and writhes on his lap.
“Ben,” she whines again. “Ben…”
All thoughts of low blood-sugar and milk and even - lo and behold - her gorgeous, perfect tits are forgotten as Ben leans back against the tree to watch her grind on his thigh.
Rey is so beautiful, with her spine arched and her head thrown back. Her chest is flushed, nipples juicy and red and pebbled into tight little buds. She's still squeezing them, even though Ben is no longer drinking from her, and twin streams of liquid are running over her fingers, down the underside of her breast, across her flat abdomen, until they soak through the cuffs of his shirt where he is still holding her.
Ben himself is hard as rock. As hard as he's ever been in his life. His cock throbs against the zipper of his jeans, bordering on painful, but he won't give in to the temptation of freeing himself, even though every inch of him is begging for release.
This needs to be about her.
"Ben," she whimpers. "More. Please."
That, not that he can give her.
He shifts his leg, even if his still-cramping muscles scream in protest, spreading her thighs across his lap, opening her up. Giving her a better angle to grind against and moves her hips faster. And faster still.
He can feel her heat, burning brighter than the sun, through the layers that separate them as she rides him.
"I… I… oh…" Rey sobs, the tendons in her neck stark and taut against her tan skin as she desperately chases her orgasm. “Oh God…"
The pace of her hips increases, a rolling motion, like crashing waves against his shore.
She is so beautiful as she comes, panting and shivering above him.
Rey collapses against him, bones less and shaking. She blindly mouths at his neck.
"Ben," she whispers. "You did so good."
And apparently that is all that Ben needs for his balls to tighten to the point if pain and then his vision is whiting out as he comes in his pants like a fucking schoolboy. The sound that escapes him is inhuman, drawn out, and he mindlessly pulls her closer against his body and thrusts his hips up against her clothed center - seeking warmth, seeking friction, seeking something that only she can give - as he comes in waves and waves.
It doesn’t seem to want to stop - Ben doesn’t want it to stop - as he holds her as tightly as he can. Like, if he only held her hard enough, she would never leave.
They sit like that for a few seconds that feel like hours, Ben breathing like a freight train, she whimpering into the curve of his neck, as they both come down from their high.
"Rey," he murmurs, mouthing at her temple. He wants to apologize. Wants to ask if he can keep her. He wants to ask her when they can do this again. If she would like to have dinner with him. Or breakfast. Or if it's too soon to ask her to marry him.
If he can keep her forever.
But Rey stiffens when he kisses her temple, before she frantically scrambles off his lap and out of his arms.
"Rey?" Ben asks, instinctually reaching for her, but she just scrambles back further. She pulls her t-shirt down hastily without even properly straightening the cups of the bra first and he can still see her nipples through the material, can see the circular wet splotches that form where she is still leaking for him. "What…?"
"I… we should get back to the car," she mumbles, eyes looking everywhere but at him. "I need to check on Noah. I… we've been gone too long already."
"Rey, I…"
… I'm sorry.
… I didn't mean to.
… please.
… I love you.
But he can't bring himself to say any of that so he just leans bonelessly against the tree, watching her as she stands on still wobbly legs, shaky and nervous line a newborn fawn.
"Can you walk?" Rey asks brusquely.
"What? Yeah, I think so,” Ben mumbles, his brain struggling to cut through the post-orgasmic haze to understand what's happening. “Rey, can we…"
"We really need to go." She cuts him off.
Rey doesn't offer him a hand to help him up, and when she turns to walk down the hill it's more like she's running from the bear that he teased her about, than as if she’s hiking with a friend.
Which, Ben realizes with a sinking feeling, they probably aren't anymore.
🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛
Rey cranks the radio up the moment the engine is running - a classical station that he knows for a fact she hates - and Rachmaninoff floods the cab at a deafening volume, rendering any attempts at talking to her moot.
The drive back is almost automatic - it’s not like New York is hard to miss - not requiring any conscious thought, and Ben’s mind is still spinning from everything that happened in the last two hours.
When he looks over at Rey he sees her sit up ramrod straight, her hands twisting and pulling at the strap of her backpack. She’s staring fixedly out of the passenger side window and Ben knows that she's crying - he made her cry - and… he's an animal. A monster.
This woman is everything to him and as things stand she’ll never speak to him again and it’s all his fault.
Ben wishes that he could do something to help her, to sooth her, but the inches dividing them might as well be miles.
Rey only snaps out of it once they're in front of her building.
"I…"
"Rey…"
"Ben…"
"I…"
"I should go. Thanks for-" she falters, bites her lip hard enough that Ben winces. "I'll see you around, ok?"
Ben wants to talk to her. To apologize, to finally tell Rey how he feels about her, to grovel and beg, but in the end he just snaps his jaw shut with an audible clack. He’s made his bed, it’s time to lie in it.
"Yeah, see you."
Please. Please please let that be true. Please don't vanish. Please don't leave me.
The car door falls shut behind her before Ben can reach for her and he's alone with his regrets and the cold tacky mess in his pants.
His hands still shake against the steering wheel when he puts the car back into gear, but this time it’s nothing to do with his blood sugar and everything to do with the mess that he’s made of both their lives.