Chapter Text
Ben has no idea when he fell in love with Rey. There was nothing different — no flashy, romantic moment. He just looked at her from across the room, his heart skipped, and he knew. He felt it in his bones. He was in love with her.
Ben definitely isn’t shy, but he is a little standoffish and stoic. He knows this about himself; plenty of people have told him so, strangers and friends alike. He can be cold and brusque at first, but once they get to know him, people tend to like him. He supposes that’s why Rey has always seemed to dislike him. Their first interaction could not be called a meet-cute, to say the least.
That had been a particularly rough week for Ben, what with the stressors of his job and his mother carelessly inserting herself into every facet of his life. To say he had been looking forward to Friday night at Poe’s apartment was an understatement.
Poe has been throwing parties at his place about once a month since they were in college. The man would take any excuse for a party. An acquaintance got promoted? Party. Talk Like a Pirate Day? Party. New tattoo? Party.
Ben doesn’t mind the parties; in fact, they’re usually a pretty good time. He loves charcuterie and cheap beer. He enjoys spending time with his friends and the strange characters they so often find themselves involved with. And more than anything, they’re a great place to meet someone. Poe is the kind of person who’s never met a stranger, so there are always new faces coming and going at those parties. If Ben hooks up with someone at one of them, chances are he’ll probably never see them again. And that works for him. Dating has never been his strong suit (see previously mentioned standoffishness and stoicism), and in all his years of working with Snoke, he’s found that casual hookups are a much better reprieve from his loneliness and self-hatred than long-term relationships. So when he’s had a rough week and just wants to hook up? Yeah, Poe’s parties are the perfect place to find a casual fling.
So when Poe introduces him to Rey — a girl Finn had just met that day on the subway, Finn being a guy Poe had only met at work about a month ago — Ben is immediately on the prowl. She’s cute and hot, just his type, and perfect for him. But when his usual pick-up line (“Have I seen you around before?” “No, I’ve never met any of these people before today.” “Oh, well then it must’ve been in my dreams.”) meets a deer-in-headlights look, he’s a little surprised and — not gonna lie — kinda wounded. He’s had a shit week, and he so badly needs a pick-me-up. Rejection is the last thing he needs right now.
So maybe his next comment (“Or maybe my nightmares”) is a little rude and not as under-his-breath as he intends to make it, but he doesn’t feel all that bad about it, especially when she throws her drink in his face and walks away. His resulting rage, however, is cooled by the sight of her ass in those jeans.
He hopes she’ll be one of those randos who never comes back to hang out with his group of friends, but of course fate is never on his side. She comes to every party after that, and it isn’t until nearly a year of playful (on his side) animosity later that he learns the reason she was so turned off by his come-on.
It’s on a night when they’re out at a bar instead of at Poe’s place. Their friends meet up for Thursday happy hour, and it quickly devolves into chaos. Poe and Finn — who by now are well into a successful and fulfilling relationship, the lucky bastards — are hammered and sloppily making out on the dancefloor. Rose and Kaydel are doing shots at the bar, and Rey is challenging Snap to a dart duel. Ben might be the most sober of all his friends tonight, which is par for the course. He’s the Mom friend; he can’t help it. (His friends tell him he is also occasionally the Dad friend, the overprotective kind who makes sure that no one ever has to fight their battles alone, so maybe he’s just working through a complex courtesy of his perpetually absent yet overbearing parents.) He sits next to Rose, keeping his eyes on their group spread across opposite corners until he starts to get a little worried about the combination of sharp projectiles and Rey and Snap with multiple drinks in each of them. He makes his way over just in time to pull her out of Snap’s line of fire, which is somehow about a foot away from the actual bullseye. He must be drunker than Ben realized.
He still has his hands on Rey’s shoulders while he berates Snap, and when he’s done, he notices Rey is blinking up at him like she’s never seen him before. He takes his hands away and tries to offer her some water, but she shakes her head stubbornly.
“No, I’m having fun,” she slurs. “Don’t be a buzzkill, Ben. Ha! Buzzkill Ben. It rhymes!”
He laughs in spite of himself. He can’t help it; she’s cute. “It doesn’t rhyme; it’s alliterative.”
“That’s the problem with you.” She pokes him in the chest, a little more painfully than he would’ve expected from a drunk person her size. “You use big words.”
“It’s a problem that I use big words?”
“Yes. Now, if you’ll ‘scuse me, I’m winnin’.”
She lifts her arm to aim a dart, but he takes it from her and sets it back down. She gasps dramatically, but he ignores her.
“You are way too drunk to be playing with sharp objects. I’m calling Ubers for everyone. It’s time to go.”
She and Snap both groan, and soon there’s a slurred chant going of “Buzzkill Ben.”
He rolls his eyes and maneuvers them both back towards the bar, pulling up the ride-share app. He settles their tab while they wait and manages to flag down Finn and Poe who are well past appropriate public dancefloor behavior.
Soon, his friends are in their respective cars, and he’s walking with Rey to the subway. He’s only one stop down from her, so they often walk home together.
They haven’t even made it a full block before he hears Rey sniffle and sees her wipe her face out of the corner of his eye.
He’s immediately worried, so he stops her and asks, “Hey, what’s wrong?” He’s seen Rey cry before, but only when she’s happy (mostly cute dog videos, but also the time she found out Finn and Poe were dating, and a memorable occasion where she found a “really pretty leaf”). But he can tell that this is not a happy cry. Her lips are turned down, and her eyes are bloodshot — and not just from the alcohol.
She heaves a sob instead of answering him, and he’s honestly a little freaked out now. He and Rey aren’t super close. Ever since their disaster of a first impression, she’s kept her distance. Sure, they walk home together, and they have all the same friends. But they never really talk, just the two of them. Their walks are usually mostly silent, and he’s pretty sure she’s still mad at him for what he said the first time they met.
He wraps an arm around her shoulder, but she shrugs it off immediately. He tries not to feel stung at the rejection — he was just trying to comfort her — but then she starts apologizing over and over, and now he’s just confused.
“Rey, stop,” he interrupts. “Why are you apologizing?”
“You’re jus’ bein’ nice, and I’m bein’ mean.”
“What?” He can barely understand her because she’s still crying. Actually, she’s sobbing very loudly in the middle of the sidewalk, but Ben doesn’t care about potential public embarrassment because he’s too focused on making sure she’s okay. He steps closer to her and leans down a little. “Rey, take a few deep breaths.”
She does as she’s told, and finally she calms down enough to look him in the eye.
“Why are you upset?” he asks gently.
Her answer is quiet, but it makes his stomach drop. “I don’t like when people touch me.”
Oh god. He’s touched her without her permission tonight, multiple times, and probably on other occasions too. He starts to apologize frantically before she shakes her head and continues dejectedly, “I don’t mind when you touch me.” She looks down as if defeated.
He has no idea how to respond to that. “Oh,” he says, cleverly. “Uh... So if you’re not upset because I touched you, then why are you crying?”
Another tear falls, and she swipes at her nose as she says, “Because I’m tired of feeling like this. I jus’ wan’ be normal. How come everyone else gets to be normal and not me?”
“What do you mean?”
She starts to walk towards the train station again, and he quickly falls into step, not taking his eyes off her face. She kicks at a piece of trash on the ground and nearly falls over before she continues, “I have anxiety. People make me nervous.”
“You? ” he asks, stunned. Rey is one of the most personable people he knows, their disastrous first impressions notwithstanding. She’s kind, funny, confident, and she doesn’t take people’s shit. He likes that about her, and he can’t imagine a girl like her being nervous around people. It’s totally incompatible with his perception of her.
“I’ve had it since I was a kid. Something about... abandonment issues, I can’t remember what that therapist guy called it. Anyway. I guess I have this thing where... I don’t like to be vulnerable.” She kind of mangles that last word, but he knows what she means.
“Who does?” he responds sardonically.
“No, s’different. I can’t do it. Like, I start to be emotionally or physically vulnerable with someone, and my brain just says, ‘Nope,’ and I start to have a panic attack and I have to leave.”
“You’re being emotionally vulnerable with me right now,” he points out, as they walk down the stairs into the station, keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t trip.
“I’m drunk. Doesn’t count.”
He chuckles.
“Can’t be drunk all the time,” she says disappointedly.
He doesn’t know what to say. He had no idea she felt like this, but he knows from personal experience with his own anxiety that that means she’s just been masking her problems so other people won’t see them. She’s good at it, too, so she’s probably been doing it her whole life.
The train arrives. It’s mostly empty since it’s so late on a Thursday, and they find a couple of seats right away.
Suddenly, a thought occurs to him. “Is that why you had to leave the party early in December?” he asks.
“Yep.” She nods glumly.
Two weeks before Christmas, Poe had thrown a generic holiday bash “to cover all the religious and secular bases.” It was a way smaller gathering than normal, just their closest friends, no strangers, and somehow they had ended up playing Truth or Dare. Ben vaguely remembers answering some risque questions and doing a shirtless dance to “Santa Baby” (he was a few glasses of Jingle Juice deep), but he recalls clearly the moment Rey got up and walked out with barely a goodbye. Kaydel had just dared Rose to give Hux a lapdance — this was before they were dating — and Rey was next on the chopping block.
Jannah turned to her, “Your turn, Rey!”
“I don’t wanna play,” she said reservedly.
“Booooo!” Poe stuck out a thumbs-down. “You have to answer the question!”
“She hasn’t even picked Truth or Dare yet,” Finn reminded him.
“Yeah, Rey, Truth or Dare?”
“Um,” she paused, her fingers busily picking at her nails while she chewed her lip. “Truth.”
“What’s your number?” Jannah asked with an oblivious smile.
“My number?”
“Yeah, how many people have you had sex with?” Jannah turned to Kaydel, both of them dissolving into an oblivious fit of giggles.
They looked back at Rey, but she was already standing up to go. Her face was red, and Ben could tell she was breathing heavily. She looked uncomfortable, and up until now he’d thought maybe she’d just had too much to drink and was feeling sick. But apparently not.
“I’ve always hated Truth or Dare,” she says now. “It’s a game built on vulnerability.”
He’s never thought of it like that, but he supposes it makes sense. The questions usually involve revealing secrets, and the dares always require a level of exposure that’s intended to make players slightly uncomfortable. It definitely leaves a person susceptible to ridicule, as evidenced by the fact that his friends will never let him live his “Santa Baby” dance down.
“Sometimes just being alone with another person is enough to give me a panic attack.”
“We’re alone together right now.”
“Nuh-uh.” She points to a man in an unseasonably large coat at the other end of the deserted car.
He shakes his head in confusion. He has some understanding of panic attacks and anxiety — years of denying all morals to work for a psychopath would do that to a person — but Rey’s experience with those things is clearly different from his.
“I had no idea,” he says, looking at her reflection in the window opposite them.
“Yeah,” she says, dejected. She looks up, and their gazes meet in the reflection. She’s long since stopped crying, and she’s started to sober up a little. But her eyes are still red, and she looks so small and helpless, like a bird with a broken wing. He feels a desperate urge to hold her, which he has to shove down because he knows now that she wouldn’t appreciate it.
She stares at his reflection for a moment longer, then sighs and drops her gaze. As the train comes to a stop, they both stand and make their way to her building. It’s only a few blocks, and he knows she can handle herself. But she’s been drinking, and her street isn’t very well-lit. They’ve had this argument so many times, but the fact that she doesn’t say anything when he follows her to her stoop tells him just how upset she is.
She offers him a goodnight, then starts to climb the stairs, but she pauses when he calls her name.
She turns to look at him. “Yeah?”
“Thank you for telling me,” he says quietly.
“You’re the only one who knows.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
They’re silent for a moment as they both process their conversation.
“Goodnight, Ben.”
He watches her walk into her building, and he thinks about how grateful he is to her for trusting him with her secret.
From then on, he makes it his duty to ensure that Rey is comfortable and no one is encroaching on her space — physically or emotionally.
At the beach for the Fourth of July, when Poe starts to question Rey about her past sexual encounters, Ben interrupts. “Poe, just because you’re comfortable enough with your sexuality to have sex in public doesn’t mean that everyone else is.”
“That was one time!” Poe shouts. “And how was I supposed to know you were gonna be there?”
“You were in the library! In the spot where we had planned to meet to study together!”
“Semantics. You should’ve had your eyes closed.”
Ben scoffs, but with the conversation successfully rerouted, Rey gives him a shy look. It’s not quite a smile, but he thinks maybe she can tell what he’s doing.
When he and Rey are the only ones to show up at the movie theater because everyone else’s plans fall through, he suggests they skip the movie and just grab dinner to go. She takes the out, and they have a nice time eating their tacos on the train.
And when they’re all going to Endor for the weekend to celebrate the start of autumn, he stops Poe from forcing Rey to ride with him in his two-seater. “Don’t make Rey ride alone with me. Let her ride in the fun car with the rest of you. Hux can ride with me.” He glares at Hux, daring him to protest, but Hux isn’t that stupid. He acquiesces, and Ben does a double take when he notices Rey’s eyes are a little wet. She mouths her thanks to him, and he nods. As she grabs her bag to head down to the cars parked on the street, she looks back at him again. This time she does smile, and it’s that moment — that smile — that causes his heart to skip a beat. And suddenly he just knows.
It’s not like being hit by a crashing wave. It’s more like looking down and realizing the tide has risen up past his ankles without his even noticing. That’s what falling in love with Rey is like for him.
So when she propositions him with casual sex so that she can lose her virginity, he’s pretty sure he nearly faints.
The thing is, he absolutely wants to have sex with her. He’s in love with her, and she’s the hottest person he’s ever seen. Of course he wants to fuck her. And on top of that, he’d love to help her with this thing that she clearly perceives as a problem (i.e. her virginity, which came as no surprise to him, by the way. He spotted that shit from a mile away). She’s afraid it’ll hurt, and he really wants to make it good for her (although he’s never had sex with a virgin. Maybe he should do some research?).
The problem is that she wants it to be casual.
He’s done casual plenty of times before. It was basically his modus operandi for a few years. But with Rey? He doesn’t know if he can. If they have sex, or if they do literally anything together (and he means anything. Hell, even riding the train home together...), he’s afraid he’ll slip up and tell her he loves her. And he knows she’s not ready for that. She needs baby steps, not diving into the deep end head-first. He’s mixing his metaphors, but the point is he can’t tell her he loves her outright without scaring her off. Although... hmm, now that he thinks about it, maybe he can show her? In small ways, of course; he doesn’t want to startle her. But maybe, if they start hooking up, he can get her to be comfortable hanging out with him one-on-one. And maybe he can convince her to stay the night sometimes, and then one day maybe she’ll let him take her on a date. Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Okay, maybe he can do this.
So he agrees.
Their first kiss is not a revelation. Rey is unpracticed and tentative in a way that makes him wonder if she’s actually ready for this. But he has faith that she’ll stop him if she’s truly uncomfortable, so he puts a little more effort into making it good for her, catching her lip between his and using his teeth and tongue in such a way that he’s driving himself crazy.
And then she moans.
It lights a fuse in his brain. Hearing her little mewl of desire is everything he’s dreamed about since he met her. He can’t get over the fact that it’s directed at him and that she’s letting him have this moment with her. It’s enough of a mindfuck that she wants Ben of all people to be the person she has sex with for the first time, so the fact that her lips are on his is sending him into orbit.
He gasps her name in a way that would be truly embarrassing if he weren’t completely fucking in love with her. And when he pulls back just enough to see her pupils dilate, he loses all conscious thought as he tilts his head to dive back in. It’s frantic and should probably not feel as good as it does, but what can he say? This woman could probably stomp on his toes, and he’d thank her for it.
He is so gone.
It takes serious effort to remind himself that he is not allowed to voice his affections, but it’s difficult. So he pulls her up off the couch and backs her against the wall to distract himself. And what a good distraction it is, one of his hands in her hair and the other gripping the softness of her waist. She feels perfect against him, made for him in ways that he can’t describe. This is so not casual for him. God, he wants her.
He’s so distracted that when Rey pulls away to tell him she’s hot, he totally misreads her tone and makes a stupid flirty comment (“Yeah, you are”). And when he finally figures out that she means she’s getting anxious and overheated, he feels like a dick. He’s a beast, hormones raging and rendering him blind to the fact that the woman he loves is damn near having a panic attack in front of him.
He apologizes immediately and backs off a little, attempting to give her space so she can calm down without making her deal with her anxiety alone. She doesn’t have to do it alone anymore, and she never fucking will again if he has anything to say about it.
He even gives her an out, telling her that they can stop if she wants, even though for him, a meteor could strike Earth and he would still not want to stop kissing her. Probably the only thing that would make him stop is her being uncomfortable.
But Rey is no longer uncomfortable. He can see the shift in her when she shakes her head, suddenly calm. It’s something about the set of her eyebrows. It’s a look of determination, one he’s seen on her often enough. She gets that look sometimes when she’s about to rip a bigot a new one, or when she loses a bet and has to do a shot of sriracha even though spicy food is her nemesis, or when she decides she’s about to show up every person in the karaoke bar by absolutely smashing a Celine Dion song. It’s the look she gets when her fear is replaced by resolve.
And it’s that look that makes him want to take care of her even more. Yes, he’s the Mom Friend (and the Dad Friend and everything in between) and is constantly taking care of his friends to a fault. But Rey is the friend who acts like she never needs help, like she can do everything on her own.
Except he knows based on their political debates that racist homophobes genuinely frighten her because they have the power to make her and/or her friends’ lives absolutely miserable by the way they vote, but she bucks up her courage anyway to call them out on their shit. And she fucking hates being in pain, to the extent that she once admitted that one of her biggest fears is getting poked with a needle, but she takes those spicy shots like a champ (though, only after Ben manages to procure some milk for her to chug immediately afterwards). And honestly, who wouldn’t be terrified to sing a song by the greatest singer of all time at karaoke?
So he knows this particular look on her face means she’s actually a little bit (if not a lot) terrified right now, even if she really wants to do this with him. And it’s that fear that makes him want to fight for her, to reassure her and make promises that he’ll do his damnedest to keep. Unfortunately, because his brain isn’t working at full capacity — about half of the blood in his entire body currently resides in his pants — amidst his adoration, a certain other word slips out without his permission.
“It’s alright, baby. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna take care of you.”
He shouldn’t have called her baby. Not everyone likes that, and that’s not what this is anyway — not for her, at least. And he would be annoyed at himself for showing his hand if it weren’t for the way she bites her lip and gives him this look — one he’s never seen on her before. Her chest rises as she breathes deeply and slowly. Her eyelids flutter half closed. And he realizes it’s arousal. Rey is really, truly aroused by what he just said to her.
Holy shit.
He can’t stop himself from kissing every inch of her face after that, even when she tries to ask him something.
“Can you—?”
When she can’t quite get the words out, he just has to tease her for it, purposefully avoiding her lips as he asks, cajoling, “Can I what, Rey?”
She huffs but answers, “Can you take your shirt off?”
How could he say no? Especially since she’s being so sweet and brave tonight. He wants to reward her. He takes off his shirt, making a little show of it, a small smirk gracing his lips. And then she just... stares.
She acts like she’s never seen a man shirtless before, and it really makes him feel like a peacock, preening and displaying his feathers to attract his mate. It’s stupid and flashy, but he works hard for his pecs and he’s grateful that she notices.
But then, suddenly she’s teasing him, kissing him all over and making him shiver. As good as it is to kiss her, it’s something else entirely for her to kiss him. It’s a reminder that even though she doesn’t feel the same way about him as he feels about her, she at least desires him. And if she already likes him as a friend and also desires him as a sexual partner, surely she can’t be that far off from loving him. Right?
He can only hope.
So he redoubles his efforts to make her feel good. He wants her to enjoy this, her first kiss. What a goddamn gift she’s given him, letting him be the first one to touch her like this. It sets off something primal in his brain and makes his cock harder than a rock, and he feels a little bit like a neanderthal and not in a good way. So he disentangles himself from her and takes a few steps back, watching with a mixture of pride, arousal, and self-disgust as she breathes heavily and leans against the wall as if she might not be able to stand without it. But he literally cannot go on in this moment, or he will come in his pants like a teenager, and he knows for a fact that that would be going a few steps too far for Rey tonight.
The only up-side is that she seems just as disappointed to stop as he is.
He keeps himself in check long enough to walk her to the train (again, her lack of a comment about it being unnecessary tells him just how out of sorts this whole night has made her). But when he gets back to his apartment, he sits down on the couch and stares at the wall for approximately four minutes, rewinding his brain through everything that just happened until he can bear it no longer and tugs at his cock until he comes with Rey’s name on his lips and the taste of her still lingering on his tongue.
Yeah, he might be fucked. And he’s definitely going to have to keep his feelings to himself for a while. But that’s fine; he can wait her out. He’ll just have to stick around long enough for her to believe him when he tells her he loves her. After all, he’s always been good at playing the long game.
Notes:
You might find writing updates from me on bluesky
Chapter 2: The seeds of smiles are planted
Notes:
Poe’s costume in this chapter is my attempt to reclaim harry potter from its transphobic overlord. Love live harry potter, fuck jkr.
My endless gratitude to EmpressNavierDarcyHolmes who is a brilliant cheerleader and made some excellent additions to the smut in this chapter. Thank you <3
Chapter title from Emily Dickinson:
By Chivalries as tiny,
A Blossom, or a Book,
The seeds of smiles are planted —
Which blossom in the dark.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Ben dreads Halloween. As much as he usually loves Poe’s eccentric parties, there’s something different about October 31st that just makes him groan internally. He would never deign to dress himself in an outlandish costume, and pumpkins and witches, in his opinion, make for gaudy decor. But Poe loves it, as he loves every holiday on the calendar. And Ben loves Poe, so he usually forces himself to endure the cheesy music and spooky-themed desserts.
He draws the line at buying a costume, though. He figures he’ll just grab something from the back of his closet as per usual. One year, he just wore his work clothes to the Halloween party, and when Poe accused him of not dressing up, he argued, “I did. I came as a congressional chief of staff.”
Yeah, it didn’t go over great, but he’s never really been able to bring himself to care.
Until this year.
Because the thing is, apparently, Rey loves Halloween.
He figures it out pretty quickly when Poe texts the group chat in anticipation for the upcoming fiesta, and Rey responds: “i luv halloween!!!!!!!” followed by several emojis which he spends an embarrassingly long time trying to decipher. The pumpkin and ghost he gets, but the cowboy and pink heels? In the end, he uses his ineptitude with emojis as an excuse to text her.
And she clocks him right away. She accuses him of being “one of those guys who dress in a normal outfit and call it a costume because it vaguely resembles something else,” although with considerably more typos (seriously, does she have some kind of aversion to punctuation and spelling out words?). She’s right, though; that’s exactly what he was planning to do. Although, to be fair, he was going to rip up a flannel that he doesn’t wear anymore because it lost a button and he knows he’ll never bother to fix it.
That’s not no effort.
But now he knows his standard routine of passing off normal clothes for a costume isn’t going to cut it. Not with Rey. And he wants to impress her, damn it. Maybe if she realizes he’s putting effort in for her, she’ll realize how much he cares about her? Since he can’t tell her he loves her (yet), maybe this is one of those small ways he can show her instead.
A couple of days later after work, he’s ready to go all in. He hightails it to the nearest store selling cheap jeans that he can rip up artfully, he enlists his resident makeup artist friend Jannah to come over before the party and fix him up, and he googles werewolf costumes for so long he ends up on an unfamiliar, yet strangely enticing part of the internet dedicated to werewolf sexual fantasies. (When he finally stumbles out of that particular wormhole, he’s left slightly scarred but with a newfound appreciation for how creative people can be.)
The only problem is that he came up with this plan slightly too late, which leaves the whole jeans venture until the last minute, and well... there is literally only one pair left in the store that will even come close to fitting his admittedly large frame. The pants are certainly tighter than he’s usually comfortable with, but whatever. It’ll have to do. He’s already late to meet Jannah, and he’s not letting a little thing like poor circulation stop him from enjoying the look on Rey’s face when she realizes he put actual effort in for her.
And initially, he thinks he’s succeeded by the way she bites her lip at the sight of him from across the kitchen at the party and shuffles her feet while avoiding eye contact. But then, she squares her shoulders and scoffs.
“So you’re telling me this isn’t just stuff you got out of your closet?”
He tries not to show his disappointment when he responds, “I’ll have you know I bought these jeans specifically for this event.”
She gives him a mocking “Wow!” in answer, and he’s a little embarrassed at the way his heart sinks. It’s not a big deal. Seriously. He shouldn’t be upset that she didn’t realize that he dressed up for her. It’s not a big deal .
But it still scratches painfully at a part of his subconscious he doesn’t want to analyze currently.
He changes the subject, asking Finn about his costume in an effort to push away the negative feelings bubbling inside him. But he remembers what his therapist said about that and decides instead to refocus that energy into something more positive.
So she didn’t notice the effort he put in. That just means if he wants to get her to realize he loves her, he’s going to have to try harder. The problem is, how? What can he do to reveal his feelings to her without pressuring her?
He puts those questions on the back burner as his friends break off into smaller groups.
Ben silently mourns the loss of the sight of Rey in her pretty pink vest. If he had his way, he’d stay by her side all night, but he refuses to be the overbearing, possessive type when they have literally just started hooking up. So he contents himself with watching her dance from across the room. When she looks back at him and bites her lip again, his crotch twitches painfully in its unusually restrictive confines. It takes concerted effort not to force his way through the crowded room to take her in his arms, pull that bitten lip into his mouth, and kiss her until they both forget their own names. But he laughs when he sees Rose wave a hand in front of her face as if she’s been trying to get Rey’s attention unsuccessfully.
Well, maybe his effort with the costume isn’t a complete loss.
“Benny boy!” Poe shouts cheerfully, his voice loud enough to be heard above the music. He shoves a plastic cup in Ben’s hand. “D’you try it yet, Ben? I call it Spooky Sauce.” He widens his eyes expectedly, but Ben just grimaces.
“Yeah, buddy. I tried it.”
He attempts to hand the unfortunately-named, hideously green cocktail back to his friend, but Poe just shakes his head.
“No, thanks. I have my own!” Then he downs the liquid in his own cup in one go, like it’s a shot of the best liquor and not one of the most horrifying concoctions of alcohol Ben has ever tasted.
He eyes Poe’s costume warily. He’s wearing round, black glasses, the tightest white button-up possible, with some kind of cloak and tie combo, and to top it all off... black briefs. Well, Ben thinks to himself, at least he’s wearing a shirt this year.
“What are you supposed to be?”
Poe scoffs in disbelief. “Sexy Harry Potter. Duh.” He points at a tiny lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.
“Right. Of course.”
“Did’ya see my boyfriend?” Poe slurs. “He’s dressed as sexy Top Gear.”
Ben laughs. “I think it’s Top Gun , actually. And I don’t think it’s supposed to be sexy.”
“Pssh! You’re so straight, Ben. It’s tragic really. Don’t you know—” he leans in conspiratorially “—everything Finn wears is sexy? Ooh! Speaking of sexy!”
Oh, god , Ben thinks, groaning to himself, here we go .
“Did you see Rey?”
He frowns. Why would Poe ask him that? Does he know about his feelings for Rey? Ben hasn’t mentioned it to him. And he certainly hasn’t told anyone that he and Rey are hooking up. That’s off limits unless and until Rey decides to let people know. What is Poe insinuating?
“Yes...?”
“She looks hot! Like, if I weren’t a happily married man, I would totally be trying to get in her pants right now.”
“You’re not married,” Ben says stiffly, ignoring Poe’s other, increasingly drunken comments.
Poe doesn’t hear him. He’s too busy scanning the crowd until he finds Rey. His arm shoots up in the air as he points directly at her, waving his hand frantically in her direction as he says, “Over there, Ben! See? Cowgirl Barbie!”
Appalled, Ben steps in front of his friend, forcefully pushing his arm down and checking to make sure no one’s noticed Poe’s antics. “Poe!” he hisses. “Stop.”
“I know, buddy.” He rubs Ben’s shoulder in a way that’s probably supposed to be comforting, but it only serves to confuse Ben more. “Don’t worry. It’s okay, Ben. You are Kenough.” Then his eyes go wide in a sudden realization. “Ben. Benough!”
At this point, Ben is so confused and, frankly, a little alarmed — the night is still fairly young for Poe to be this drunk — that he reaches out to Snap as he passes by and asks if he’s seen Finn.
“Oh, he’s in the–”
“Bibble!” Kaydel interrupts hastily from Snap’s side with a pointed look at her boyfriend.
Snap sighs, beleaguered. When he speaks again, it’s in a high-pitched tone with an incomprehensible, garbled accent. Ben is honestly horrified, but he at least catches the word “kitchen” before Kaydel pulls Snap away.
Honestly, what even goes through his friends’ brains sometimes?
And what the fuck is a Bibble?
Whatever. He shakes the strange encounter off, heading to the kitchen with Poe in tow and depositing him in his boyfriend’s arms with the stricture that he lay off the Spooky Sauce.
With that out of the way, he’s looking forward to getting back to his new favorite pastime of flirting with Rey from across the room, but when he scans the dancefloor, she’s nowhere to be found. Rose is still there, accompanied now by Jannah, but Rey is gone.
So he goes in search of her, knowing that if she’s not in the bathroom, she’s on the fire escape.
Ben likes to think that the antagonism resulting from his rough start with Rey was cooled down by the various moments they’ve spent together on this same fire escape.
There was the first time last January when he just needed a break from the crowd of bodies during that month’s excuse for a party. (He thinks they were celebrating Rose and Hux finally banging, but he honestly can’t remember.) He slipped out the window, ducking considerably and squeezing his body under the sash only to find his usual sanctuary of solitude occupied. Not that he minded finding Rey there, especially when she was leaning on the railing in just the right way to give him a great view of her ass in those leggings...
“Not a fan of parties?”
Her face contorted in the standard scowl she always seemed to wear around him at the time. “I love parties,” she said dismissively. “I just got hot.”
He managed to refrain from stating the obvious — You’re always hot — but Rey’s scowl deepened anyway, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
She continued, “But it’s freezing out here, so...” Without looking at him, she climbed back through the window and shut it behind her forcefully.
Ben sighed. Apparently she was still pissed at him for being an asshole to her in the beginning. Oh well. No big deal; there was plenty of other ass at that party. He caught his breath (and his wounded pride) and spent the rest of the night drowning his sorrows in some other woman’s body.
The next time he met her on the fire escape was in March. It was his birthday party. Ever since he was a kid, his birthday had been cause for familial tension. One (or both) of his parents would inevitably fail to show, leading to Ben awkwardly trying to placate the present parent (usually Leia) before eventually being witness to the heated arguments that resulted when the absent parent finally appeared. Best case scenario, they’d both remember to spare him an hour, which they’d spend the entirety of bickering about something or other.
So no, he never considered his birthdays to be much cause for celebration. But this year was especially bad. He and his mom had only just started to repair their relationship, and truth be told, it wasn’t going well. She’d called him that day to wish him happy birthday, but they’d just ended up having a stressful conversation that resulted from misreading each other’s social cues. To top it all off, he’d had a brutal therapy session in the afternoon with his therapist Lor, who basically told him that Ben was primarily to blame for that particular miscommunication.
After that, all he wanted was to be alone and get some peace and quiet, but Poe and Hux wouldn’t hear of it. He knew his friends meant well, and usually he appreciated their efforts. But this was one of those times he wished he could crawl into a hole and tell everyone to fuck off without them resenting him for it.
So he made his way to the only spot in the apartment that was free of well-wishers and sat on the cold metal, leaning his head back and scanning the skies. It was something Lor had taught him. Whenever his anxiety started acting up, he searched for something visual — like something red, the letter G, things in the shape of a circle. Anything would do as long as it took his mind off his current problems. And he was certainly feeling overwhelmed tonight. He squinted through the light pollution to try to find a star. Any star would do. All he needed to calm his mind was for one star to peek through the clouds and reveal itself to him.
Just then, his solitude was interrupted. He closed his eyes in dread at the inevitable conversation in which whoever was about to sit next to him would try to coax him back to the party.
But no words came. Just silence.
He opened his eyes to find Rey doing the same thing he’d just been doing, leaning her head back as she stared at the sky.
He was honestly surprised she even came to this party. It was just the smaller group of friends tonight, rather than the laundry list of randos, and she knew it was his birthday. Someone had mentioned it in the group chat. And she still came. She didn’t even like him. But here she was. And not just at the party, but here on the fire escape with him.
They stayed silent for several minutes, Ben still relentlessly searching for that one star that would be bright enough to shine through the haze.
Finally, Rey’s whisper broke his daze. “What are you looking at?”
“The sky,” he said dully. “I’m looking for the stars.”
“Oh.” She resumed her previous position, tilting her gaze until she suddenly lifted her finger and pointed. “There’s one!”
He followed her line of sight and was convinced for a second until a blinking red dot accompanied the bright yellow spot. He snorted. “Rey, that’s a helicopter.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” She shot him an apologetic look, which was frankly miles better than the frown she usually wore around him. “I guess it’s too cloudy.”
He grunted in acknowledgement.
After a moment, she took a deep breath and turned to go back inside. “Well, I guess I’ll...” She trailed off before stopping. Almost reluctantly, she said, “Hey, Ben?”
He turned to her, silently.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but... you don’t seem... happy. I mean, it’s just, it’s your birthday, and...” She sighed in defeat. “Is everything okay?”
He frowned. Of all people to catch on to his foul mood, it would be the one person at this party who actively dislikes him, wouldn’t it?
“Just a shit day,” he grumbled. “Shit week... Shit life.”
Yeah, he was a melodramatic bastard sometimes.
She frowned, tucking her hair behind her ear.
He immediately felt guilty. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a bummer. I just needed–”
“No, I get it.” And the look she gave him made it seem like she really did. “Birthdays can be hard.”
That was the first time he wondered if maybe there was something hidden beneath the surface of Rey. She was usually so happy and bubbly — with the exception of whenever she was in his direct company, of course. But if she knew what he meant, then maybe her pain ran as deep as his.
Before he could explore that train of thought further, she gave him a grim smile and said, “Take as long as you need out here. I’ll hold off the cavalry.”
He couldn’t help but laugh to himself. “Thanks.”
She turned to leave, and Ben saw a flash of silver as her earring caught the light.
Her star -shaped earring.
After that, their relationship began to shift into something friendlier, more tolerant. Rey’s perpetual scowl disappeared and was occasionally replaced by small smiles. Sometimes she even laughed at his jokes. Ben hoarded every one of those laughs, treasures earned by his constant effort to be less of a broody asshole around her.
And he supposes that in the end, it paid off. Or at least, it’s in the process of paying off. They’ve met out on the fire escape a few times since his birthday, usually just to share a companionable silence in the need for a break from the masses.
He expects tonight to be no different, so he’s surprised when he climbs through the window only to find her crying. She tries to wipe her tears before he can see them, but she’s not fast enough.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, concerned.
Rey is a happy cryer, tears streaming endlessly whenever she sees anything that bears the passing resemblance of joy. But the look on her face is distinctly lacking in any traces of smiles or laughter. This is not a side of Rey he’s seen before — at least, not when she’s sober — and it puts him immediately in the mindset of fix, comfort, help .
So it’s no surprise to him when the term of endearment slips out.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
It’s an accident, really. He doesn’t mean to say it. But the fact is, he loves this woman with her constant need to put on a brave face and her endless exuberance and her unabashed kindness. So yeah, he says it. And he doesn’t feel bad about it... until she moves away from him. Not far, just a few inches. But it’s enough to remind him that she does not reciprocate his feelings.
But then she apologizes and starts rambling about how she forgot to ask if he was seeing someone, and then she accuses him of being interested in Jannah, which... okay, yeah, he and Jannah hooked up last year, but that was a one-time thing. He made that very clear to her from the get-go. So the fact that Rey is... could she be jealous ? The possibility of it lifts his mood. Jealousy means interest. Interest means he might possibly be getting somewhere.
He can’t help but laugh when she asks if he wants to be with Jannah.
“No! The only reason I even asked her to do my makeup was because I wanted my costume to look legit for you .” At her startled look, he immediately backtracks. Baby steps, he reminds himself. “You accused me of not putting any effort in, and I had to prove you wrong.”
“Oh.” She looks adorably embarrassed and hides her face in her knees.
He can’t help but tease her for it a little. “Is that why you were crying?”
“No!”
She’s lying, and she’s not even trying to hide it. He smirks to himself. She is totally jealous.
He knew logically speaking that if Rey wanted to have casual sex with him, then she must find him physically attractive. But this? This is something else. She wants him for herself. He pulls her into his side, unable to contain his joy. She’s jealous. She wants him to be hers —
“Just so we’re clear,” she adds, “if you change your mind about doing this with me or if you find somebody you’re interested in, just tell me.”
Oh.
It’s like the air being deflated out of a balloon. That’s how quickly his elation evaporates.
Because okay, yes, she doesn’t want to share him, but only in a temporary sense. And that’s what makes his heart squeeze tight.
She still doesn’t know that she is the only one for him and has been for a while. There is no one else. And he has no idea how to make her see that.
“Thanks,” he says, doing his best to keep his sarcasm at bay, “but I think I’m good.”
They’re silent for a moment. He runs his thumb along her shoulder until it catches on a neon green feather that must’ve gotten stuck there from someone else’s costume. He snags it as she pulls out of his arms and turns away from him.
A piece of his pride dies, but he has to ask before she leaves this conversation, “And you would tell me, right? If you... found someone else?”
She twists her mouth in a weird smile. “Ben, I’m not gonna find anyone else.”
Is she serious? She could probably have her pick of half the guys at this party, especially with the way she looks tonight.
“You might.”
“It took me almost thirty years to find you . You think I’m gonna find someone else I’m this comfortable around in the next couple months? Unlikely.”
That’s a new piece of information. She’s comfortable with him (which, he concludes, must be why she doesn’t mind when he touches her, although he still wonders about that...). “Comfortable” isn’t exactly the kind of passionate love declaration he’s hoping to hear from her one day, but it’s definitely a start. He can work with comfortable. In fact, he thought it would take a while before she got there with him, that he would have to put in a little more work to show her that she can trust him and be herself around him. But clearly, she’s way ahead of him.
So he lies and tells her, “Then I think we’re on the same page.”
She stays a bit longer to confirm that they have plans for after the party. And if his pants weren’t already bordering on tourniquet-levels of tightness...
But then she surprises him.
“I like your costume, by the way. I’m impressed.”
She runs a finger down his face, following the line of the scar that Jannah drew on earlier. He has to force his eyes to keep from fluttering closed and makes a dumb joke about the incident with Snap’s Edward Scissorhands costume from a few years ago. Better to try to make her laugh than to let her catch onto the fact that he’s slowly being consumed by his steadily growing arousal.
She doesn’t quite laugh, but her eyeroll is on the flirty side, and he takes it as a win as she climbs back through the window.
He pockets the feather.
Every night this week he has lulled himself to sleep reliving the image of Rey lying topless in his bed, moaning and whining his name as he indulged himself in her tits. And every night he has drifted off to sleep with a smile on his face. So it brings him great satisfaction to hear her ask him to take her to bed almost as soon as they get to his apartment.
He carries her to his room, setting her down at the foot of the bed as he kneels in front of her. He decides he’s going to take his time undressing her (to her comfort level) tonight, so he starts with her shoes, taking each one off slowly, delicately, reverently. He wants her to feel loved, to feel worshipped, to feel enjoyed . Just because they’re technically friends with benefits doesn’t mean she shouldn’t get the full experience of intimacy. He even massages his thumb through her arches just to watch her eyelids flutter in relaxation.
The mood is distinctly more intimate than their hook-ups from last weekend. This moment is soft, quiet. And that’s fine with Ben. Maybe if he puts how much he loves her into every touch, she’ll pick up on his feelings.
He’s decided he has three goals for this casual fuckbuddy relationship with Rey: 1) to help her accomplish each baby step as she deems necessary; 2) to somehow convince her he loves her without making her run for the hills; and 3) to get her to return his feelings. That last one will be the toughest of all, but honestly he’s kind of struggling to figure out the second one too. Not so much the first one. He’s got that shit handled.
She kisses him once, twice, then a third time, twisting her tongue with his. And when she pulls away and shimmies to lie on her back, he chases her lips, something possessive clawing at him as he watches her go. He’s not usually one to be territorial, but he’s also not usually one to be in love. Something about having this sweet woman sink into his bedcovers and lay her head on his pillow makes his heart ache almost as much as his dick.
She runs her hands underneath his shirt and up the length of his back, so he quickly discards his flannel and tee, letting her look her fill with half a smirk on his face before getting back to work on her clothes. He pops one button at a time, slowly, slowly , until she gets annoyed and rips her vest off. He laughs, but she makes him pay for teasing her when she grinds their pelvises together.
It catches him off guard, making him work to hold back a groan. Rey only bites her lower lip in response.
God, that lip . And the way she sinks her teeth into it...
For a moment, he wonders if he has as much of a handle on these baby steps as he originally thought. Frankly, if she keeps looking at him like that, he might not survive another sexual encounter with her. He’ll probably die of apoplexy or a stroke, or maybe he’ll spontaneously combust. That last one feels like the most likely considering how tight his pants are currently. Then again, if he has to die, the only place he wants to do it is in her arms.
But that’s too much of a thought for this moment, even for his overdramatic ass.
With great difficulty, he carefully refrains from moving his body against hers. Both times they did this last weekend, she went from enjoyment to anxiety attack so fast he almost couldn’t keep up. He wants her to have all the power to control this situation, and he hopes that’ll help her keep a level head. But god , it takes herculean strength to keep from grinding his hips into hers.
The tantalizing sight of her cleavage spilling over her bra doesn’t help. He’s almost too focused on that to notice how preoccupied she is with palming his ass over the fabric of his jeans. Almost. It definitely gives him something of an ego boost to think maybe she likes the way his ass looks — or, at least, feels — in these stupid, constricting pants.
He tries to move lower so he can get a better angle of his mouth on her tits, but her hands squeeze him tightly, making it impossible for him to move.
He laughs. “You know, if you wanna feel up my ass so bad, you can put your hands in my pants.”
“No, I can’t,” she says, half-pouting and half-laughing. “There’s no room. Seriously, where did you find these jeans, the boys’ section at Target?”
“As if I would buy jeans from Target.”
She narrows her eyes.
He grimaces, mumbling, “They’re from Aeropostale, and they were the only size left.”
She tosses her head back with a laugh, and he’s so happy she can joke at a time like this. No, seriously. Last weekend, she was so overcome with anxiety that he almost wondered if she was even having a good time. But there’s no anxiety now. She’s smiling and joking and laughing . He basks in the compliment of her steadily-growing comfort with him.
But he also doesn’t want to get things too far off track. He was really enjoying where this was headed, and now she’s distracted. That simply won’t do.
So he rolls his hips against hers. Just once. Not enough that he’s taking control, just enough to cut off her laughter and make her bite her lip again.
He smirks. “Payback’s a bitch, huh?”
Her face sets in determination, and she wriggles around underneath him. He watches intently as she removes her bra and rests her arms above her head in a challenging move, presenting herself to him like a feast.
She has no idea what she’s started.
She is a goddess, and he will gladly worship at the altar of her breasts. He licks her sternum, sucks her nipples, bites her cleavage, and laves the pain away with his tongue. He gets completely lost in the religious experience. Meanwhile, Rey pushes her hips into his so desperately that if he were giving it back to her, they’d be dry-humping. As it is, he keeps still, focusing intently on the work of his hands and mouth until she huffs, displeased.
He knows exactly what’s wrong. She wants to come, and she can’t like this. He could probably jerk his pelvis against hers and get her there quickly, but he doesn’t like the idea of doing it for her when she’s still so new to the experience. He wants her to have as much space as she needs to keep her head above water. But it does give him an idea.
Unfortunately, it means he’ll have to give up his hold on her tits — a pity because he could spend all night right here with his lips wrapped around her nipple — but it’ll be worth it in the end when he gets to watch her come. His cock pulses painfully just from the thought.
He moves them into a seated position, with her in his lap, facing him. He uses his grip on her hips to help her along, letting her grind against him as much as she wants. It’s nice, and he’s enjoying it. But she’s not.
She gives up after a while; obviously whatever build-up she had going has dissipated. He mourns the fact that he might not get to watch her come tonight after all when he gets another idea. He hesitates with this one because he doesn’t want to push her too far. But it doesn’t feel very different from what they were already doing, and maybe he should give Rey more credit for knowing her own boundaries. After all, she’s been really good at letting him know when she’s uncomfortable so far.
So he asks, “How do you usually do it? When you make yourself come, I mean.”
“Um...”
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says quickly. He really, really doesn’t want to pressure her.
“No, I–” She pauses, thinking. But then she meets his eye.
He gets lost for a second, noticing for the first time how her eyes seem to change color in the low light. He wishes he’d paid more attention in his high school art class. Maybe then he’d be able to paint a replica of her eyes from memory. Then again, he’s not sure a painting could ever do them justice. He doesn’t think even the best artist in the world could capture how it makes him feel when she looks at him like that — like she could fucking eat him, like she’s aroused and nervous and excited all at the same time. Like she’s about to trust him with something special.
“I usually lie on my back.”
All the blood in his body rushes south. The only thought left in his brain is how badly he wants to see it.
“Do you wanna show me?”
She nods, and his brain short circuits.
Holy shit, he is about to watch Rey masturbate. Right in front of him! He’s going to hold her while she touches herself. This is a literal wet dream of his come true.
He forces his brain back into working order because no way in hell is he fucking up this opportunity. Quickly, but with what he hopes are smooth movements, he repositions them, turning her around in his lap so that he can watch over her shoulder.
He wants to see every move she makes, every facial expression, every twitch of her muscles. He wants to memorize the way she gets herself off so he can replicate it when she eventually (he hopes) allows him to do it for her.
He holds her legs open gently, wishing she were wearing shorts — or rather, nothing at all. His other arm wraps around her waist to tease her breast. She takes a deep breath, gearing herself up. He almost decides to give her another out, to remind her that they don’t have to do this if she’s not ready and that she calls the shots here. But before he can, she moves her hand beneath the waistband of her bright pink pants and sighs, her body sinking into his.
He can practically feel the languid release of pleasure as it flows through her limbs. Her head rests against his shoulder, her back against his front, her ass directly against his crotch. Every one of her moans sends zings of pleasure down his spine.
This is one of the hottest moments of his entire life, and he’s not even the one touching her. He is absolutely fucked .
Raggedly, he asks, “Can you come like this?”
She lets out a high-pitched moan in response. He’ll take that as a yes.
“Oh god.” His hips move of their own accord, grinding into her as he sucks at her pulse point. “So pretty,” he says. He can’t help himself. Words start coming out of his mouth, and he has no desire to hold them back. “Love watching you do this. Bet your fingers feel so good against your little clit.” He growls against her ear. “Bet mine would feel even better.”
She must really like it when he talks dirty to her because it always seems to make her go a little unhinged, and this time is no different. Her hand speeds up, even while she does her best to hold her little noises in.
But he wants to hear everything. So he keeps going in the hopes that she’ll let out another one of those pretty sighs.
“That’s it, baby. Make yourself feel good.” He massages her nipple, his other hand squeezing her thigh tightly. He continues talking, his words descending into a ramble. “You look so good like this, so pretty, with your hand in your pants and your tits out for me.” He’s like a man possessed, his mouth has a mind of its own. “You want my teeth around those sweet tits?”
“Mmhmm... ” She’s pretty and pink and perfect in his arms and he has to let her know.
“I bet your clit is as sweet as you are. You’re so sexy like this sweetheart, getting yourself off just for me. Fuck, wish I could see what your hand’s doing.”
Maybe he can’t see it, but maybe she wouldn’t mind if he felt it.
He shifts the hand on her thigh to hover over the seam of her pants where her hand disappears. He can’t see much about the way she moves her fingers through the fabric, so he drapes his hand over her pants with a feather-light touch. It’s just enough that he gets a sense of the movement of her fingers, but it’s so gentle that he wonders if she even notices.
“Keep going, baby,” he whispers. “Can’t believe you’re touching yourself in my bed . God, so sexy. I’ve thought about this. You have no idea. Shit , Rey.”
He’s so far gone in the depths of his arousal that he almost doesn’t notice that he’s about to come. He can only hope that she’s right there with him, but he has just enough brain power left to check that she’s okay with it if he comes too.
She gives him a little “uh-huh” in the sweetest, sexiest voice, and he just knows that one little sound will play on a loop in every wank fantasy he has for the rest of his life.
And then she bites her fucking lip . She keeps doing that, and it drives him crazy. Every time she does it, he wants to suck that lip between his own teeth. But right now, all he can think about is getting that lip out of her mouth so there’s nothing muffling the noises she makes.
Because there’s no guarantee how long this thing between them will last. Maybe she’ll never love him back or want to have any kind of non-casual relationship with him. She could end it at any point, decide she’s comfortable enough with him for some things but not with going all the way. Or she could find someone she actually has feelings for and would rather lose her virginity to. Or she could change her mind entirely and decide she’s just not ready. Or maybe the next step after this one is the Big One, and then their relationship will be over before she realizes he loves her. There are so many ways it could all go wrong between them. Their first meeting is evidence of that. And unless he manages to find some way to make her fall in love with him, one day their relationship will be over, and he has no idea when that day will come. So just in case this whole situation ends in heartbreak for him, he’s going to store up every piece of information about this woman that he can so that he’ll at least have the memories to look back on. And he’ll soak up every moment, every minute, every second just in case it’s the last.
“Come on, let me see you come. I want to watch. I want to see you scream, sweetheart.”
He puts his thumb on her chin, tugging on her lip, and he’s rewarded with a loud, keening moan as she throws her head back and pumps her hips against her fingers.
He does his best to stay alert and watch every single movement. It’s difficult because his own orgasm hits him just then like a ton of bricks. But he never takes his eyes off her, memorizing the way she tilts her wrist to press on her clit during the aftershocks, noticing how she squeezes his arm with her other hand to increase the pressure of his grip on her breast, watching the crease between her brows slowly smooth out as she comes down from the high.
He comes in his pants for the first time since he was in high school, and he doesn’t even care. This is one of the best sexual experiences of his life, and he’s had no shortage of those. Maybe it’s because Rey is amazing, maybe it’s because they’re perfectly compatible and totally in sync, maybe it’s just because he loves her.
If only he could figure out how to get her to love him back.
Notes:
The star and the feather might be too cheesy, but I don’t care because they make me so happy 🥹
Chapter 3: A parcel of vain strivings
Notes:
This took way longer than intended. I was out of town and under the weather and... life, yk? And then I decided to split the chapter in two anyway, so hopefully the next one will be up much quicker. It just needs a couple more look-overs. Shout-out to my beta EmpressNavierDarcyHolmes who is amazingly helpful with that!
If you're doing a read-along with the original fic, this chapter (and the next) corresponds with Ch. 3 of Trinket.
Chapter title from "Sic Vita" by Henry David Thoreau (bc I've decided chapter titles in Ben's POV will not come exclusively from Emily Dickinson poems!):
I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond together
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Getting to see Rey again as soon as possible is Ben’s top priority. Or, at least, it would be if his mom’s birthday weren’t the day after the Halloween party. And due to decades of miscommunication and hurt feelings, it’s been several years since he’s made an appearance at said occasion. But this year is different. He’s trying to remedy his past mistakes, to be more understanding and less presumptive, to work on fixing old wounds rather than letting them fester. It just sucks that trying to be a better person and fix his relationship with his family means it’ll be a little longer before he gets to see the girl he loves.
He tries to get back into the city to see Rey anyway, but it doesn’t work out. He’s pretty bummed, and maybe he’s just seeing what he wants to see, but it seems like Rey is kind of bummed, too.
So he decides to make the next weekend extra special. He gets two tickets to a Walking Dessert Tour because he knows how much Rey loves sweets. And okay, yeah, he also loves dessert, but he tries to eat it sparingly these days because he’s in training for a half-marathon. So he knows he might regret it at dawn the next day when Phasma comes by for their Saturday morning run, but it’ll be worth it to watch Rey moan over tarts and macaroons.
He looks forward to it all week and can’t wait to surprise her. And of course, he also can’t wait for whatever they do afterwards. He can only hope the sugar rush doesn’t send them both into a coma before he can get his hands on her tits again.
He also will not admit to how often he jerks off thinking about said tits.
But then, just as he’s gearing up to leave work for the weekend, he gets a text.
rey: i cant hand out tonight :(
rey: *hang
To say he’s disappointed would be an understatement. He was really looking forward to seeing the look on her face when she saw the red velvet donuts.
Ben: Oh okay. Is everything alright?
rey: yah just dont feel well
Ben: Are you okay? Have you talked to a doctor?
He knows she has an aversion to the medical profession and will avoid it at all costs, including at the detriment of her own personal health. He tries not to chide her about it very often because he doesn’t want to be patronizing, but he doesn’t mind telling her she should see a doctor when she’s literally sick.
rey: chill mom, ill be fine in a couple days
Like he said, patronizing. Well, in for a penny...
Ben: Are you sure? If your doctor’s office is closed, you should still call. Most of them have an on-call doctor on the weekends.
rey: ben im not sick. i just dont feel well
Ben: Oh.
Ben: Can I bring you anything? Soup? Pasta?
He also types “A cuddle?” but deletes it. That’s probably going a bit too far for friends-with-benefits, and Rey seems kind of prickly at the moment — which is fair because she’s not feeling well, but still he should dial it back a little.
rey: no thx i have everythng
Ben: Okay. If you change your mind, I’ll be glad to come by.
rey: thx
Ben: Let me know when you’re feeling better, and we’ll hang out then.
rey: ok
He supposes he could still go to the Dessert Tour on his own or invite a friend last minute, but the prospect just isn’t as appealing without Rey. Sure, he’s been craving a slice of apple pie all week, but he’d rather spare himself the side stitch and go without. It just won’t be as fun without her. He sends the tickets to his coworker Mitaka who he knows won’t ask questions like “Why did you have two tickets for this? Who were you planning to go with? And why aren’t you going with them?” Unlike some other people he knows (namely, Poe) who would definitely ask those questions...
Instead of his grand Friday night plans, he stays in with a bottle of Jack and settles for an apple-flavored breakfast bar. It’s a poor substitute, but then again so is his fist.
Of course, he can’t stop thinking about Rey, wondering if she’s feeling any better and what might have been ailing her in the first place. Her texts were pretty minimalist on the details. She basically only said that she wasn’t sick and was just not feeling well. That could mean anything. It could be one of those excuses that a person uses when they feel too guilty to ghost you. Maybe she feels like he’s been coming on too strong and wants to get some space without hurting his feelings. Maybe she’s realized how he feels about her and doesn’t want his unrequited attention.
Or maybe she just has a headache and he’s anxious over nothing.
But that thought inspires a new one. What if her anxiety is acting up? They have done a lot of those baby steps lately, and it wouldn’t surprise him if she needs to slow down a little. But she could’ve just told him so if that were the case!
Then again, if it really was her anxiety causing those problems, it might have caused her more anxiety to tell him. He remembers what that was like.
Ben started having anxiety following his father’s heart attack. When Snoke wouldn’t allow him to take time off work to go see him, something snapped in his brain. Soon he was having panic attacks every day. It took several months and a damn good therapist to work through it. But in the end he quit his job and reconnected with his parents, and things are going much more smoothly in his life these days. His family isn’t perfect, but he’s been working on forgiving them and communicating with them more and more over the course of the year. They’ve been surprisingly understanding and accommodating — or, at least, his mom has. And his anxiety attacks are mostly a thing of the past. He wouldn’t go back to the way things were a year ago for the world.
So he knows how Rey feels, and he remembers how talking about it sometimes seemed to make it worse. His therapist helped him get past that roadblock, but Rey may still face a similar issue. That would certainly explain why she doesn’t want any of their friends to know about it. Most of them are pretty chill, but some of them don’t know the meaning of the phrase “personal space.”
The thing is, if it is her anxiety and she is uncomfortable talking about it, as seems to be the case, then he shouldn’t ask her about it. She knows she can talk to him if she needs to. After all, she did tell him about her anxiety in the first place. But he decides to give her some space to come to terms with whatever she’s going through before he reaches out.
It kills him to do it, though. He wants to text her every hour to make sure she’s doing okay. He thinks about her as he falls asleep, wondering if she’s managing to get any sleep tonight. He replays some of their previous encounters during his post-run shower the next morning, and he’s dying. He wants to see her again so badly.
It didn’t use to be like this. Before they started hooking up, he thought about her plenty but never this much. He supposes part of it has to do with the fact that he’s concerned for her. But mainly, it’s because now he knows what it’s like to be with her. Now he knows what her lips taste like, what her skin feels like. He knows about the scrunch between her brows when she comes. He even knows what she sounds like. She’s all he can think about.
Giving her space is agony, but he pushes through.
To take his mind off whatever’s going on with Rey, he invites Poe and Hux to go out with him to grab a few drinks.
The bartender has just handed them their first round when Poe asks, “So who’d you go home with last weekend?”
Ben rolls his eyes. Poe has never been one to mince words or keep things to himself. And usually, Ben indulges him. He’s not ashamed of his sex life. Whatever embarrassment he might have once held discussing the topic Poe cured him of a long time ago.
“Nobody.”
“Again?” His eyebrows raise. “Ben, seriously, how long has it been?”
“Um...” He shrugs. “Since May or June, I think?”
“Ben!” Poe sits up straight. “It’s October! That was...” He counts to himself on his fingers. “Four or five months ago! Is everything okay? I mean...” He gestures at Ben’s crotch. “You know... Like, is everything working?”
Ben exhales a sharp laugh. “Everything’s fine. I’m just taking a break.”
He puts a hand on his arm. “Cause, you know, you can tell me. If something’s wrong.”
What was Ben saying about embarrassment? “Nothing’s wrong, man.”
“And it’s nothing to be ashamed of!” he continues quickly. “It happens to every guy at some point. Right, Hux?”
“Don’t drag me into this.”
“See? Hux knows. I mean, it’s never happened to me, but you know—”
“Poe,” he stops his friend with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Everything is in working order, I promise.”
He squints. “You swear?”
“I swear.”
“Okay, then what is it?!” He gasps, leaning in and lowering his voice to a whisper. “Do you have warts or something?”
“Poe!”
Hux snickers.
Ben sighs. “Medically, everything is normal with me. I’m just... taking a break from... casual hook-ups.”
Poe frowns, exchanging a look with Hux who asks, “Does that mean you’re looking for something more long-term these days?”
He wants to tell them the truth. He doesn’t often keep things from his friends, especially Poe, who’s known him since they were in diapers. But this isn’t just about him; it’s also about Rey. And if Rey’s not comfortable with anyone knowing, then neither is Ben. It would be nice to get some advice from his friends. Frankly, he could use it, considering he has no idea if what he’s doing with her will really get her to fall in love with him or if it will just result in his heart being broken. But he’s not going to risk what he has with her, and he can always talk to his therapist, Lor. So instead, he tells them something else, something he’s been working through with Lor for the last several months.
“It turns out I’ve been using casual sex as a coping mechanism over the last decade or so. I decided to take a break from it a few months ago, and...” He shrugs. “I think it’s done me some good.”
They’re quiet for a moment, processing. He appreciates his friends. They’re polar opposites, really. Hux is usually quiet and reserved, but he knows how to cut loose. And Poe is typically bouncing off the walls, but he can be thoughtful and sedate when the situation calls for it.
“When I was working for Snoke,” he continues, “I had to be on all the time, constantly on the offense, looking for ways to hurt people before they could hurt me. I mean, you guys remember what it was like back then.”
They both nod grimly. Hux used to work for Snoke too. He and Ben met in college before vying for the same internship with Snoke’s staff. In the end, they both got positions with the congressman and worked their way up the ranks, so Hux personally knows the hardships of working for a morally bankrupt hardass. Snoke took a particular liking to Ben, which meant it was easier for Hux to get out first. And since he’d been through it before, he let Ben lean pretty heavily on him after Ben quit too. Hux was there for him when he needed it, and he’ll forever be grateful for it.
Poe, too, understands what he means because he’s been with Ben through it all. There was a brief blip right after he started working for Snoke where he kind of disappeared into his job and went MIA on his friends, but Poe soon broke him out of his isolationist mindset. He forced him to go to parties and bar crawls, even when Ben wanted more than anything to be alone. At first, he resented it, but he soon realized that being with people outside of his stressful career was the only thing keeping him sane.
“I guess I was having sex just to drown my sorrows, to shut up that little voice in my head that kept telling me I was on the wrong side.”
Poe smiles, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of you, you know. All the work you’ve done in the last year. You seem so much happier. So much lighter, ya know?”
He smiles tiredly. “Yeah.”
“Work going okay with Ackbar, then?” Hux asks.
“Oh yeah. Ackbar’s great. And it’s a stable working environment, so it’s way ahead of the curve.”
Hux lifts his glass in a salute.
“What about your parents?” Poe asks. “How are things with them?”
Ben nods. “Better. Still not great. Last weekend was my mom’s birthday.”
“Oh yeah! How’d that go?”
He shrugs. “She told me she was glad I came, which was nice. And my dad was... well, he was as warm as he gets. At first, it was fine. But then Mom started grilling me about work, and Dad gave me the cold shoulder after I mentioned training with Phasma.”
At Hux’s confused look, he explains, “He thinks I’m gonna try to strong-arm him into exercising more.”
Hux nods while Ben rolls his eyes and shrugs. “Same old, same old, you know? It was a lot better than that kind of thing used to be, but I still left early.” He leaves out the fact that part of why he left early was because he hoped maybe he could spend some time with Rey, but he can’t tell them that. Besides, he didn’t even get to see her anyway because she was asleep by the time he got back to the city.
Poe hums sympathetically. “Well, baby steps, right?”
Ben grins to himself. “Yeah. Baby steps.”
“So you really haven’t had sex since June?” he returns to their earlier topic, a skipping record in the making. “What have you been doing this whole time? Just the five knuckle shuffle?”
Ben and Hux both give him a look. “What are you, fifteen?”
“What did you want me to call it? Masturbating? We’re in public!”
“Like being in public has ever stopped you.”
Poe grins, wiggling his eyebrows in a self-satisfied way. “True. But seriously, Ben, I need details.”
“The details are that I haven’t had sex since June. That’s all you need to know.”
“Oh, come on!” He snaps his fingers. “Have you finally given toys a go? You know, if you need recommendations for butt plugs, I’ve got you covered.”
Ben shakes his head ruefully. Only the fact that he’s known his friend for so long and is used to his antics by now stops him from going beet red. “Thanks, I’m good.”
“Seriously, it’s no trouble—”
“Poe,” he stops his friend — a little less gently this time — before he can say anything else. “I think I know how to get myself off at this point. But thank you.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself. What about you, Hux? Need any pointers?”
“Nah,” Hux grins lazily. “My girl’s got that covered.”
Ben smiles. He’s happy for his friends, although he does wish Poe would lay off every once in a while and perhaps become more familiar with the concept of boundaries. But mostly he’s happy for himself these days. Casual sex may not have been doing him any favors, but this thing with Rey isn’t casual. Not at all. Not for him.
He only wishes he could say the same for her.
He doesn’t hear from her all weekend, and by Wednesday when he still hasn’t received so much as a text, he can’t help but feel like her lack of communication is more of the silent treatment than the “let’s dial it back a little” variety. He’s still not sure what’s up with her, but he’s not going to be the first one to reach out. Pushing her could be more harmful than helpful.
But he also can’t help but feel like he’s fumbling, which is basically what his brain always tells him when things aren’t going the way he hopes.
He focuses on work to overcome the sting of rejection, but he can’t stop himself from thinking about her whenever his mind is unoccupied. Pretty soon he starts to feel like he was right in his first instinct and she’s feeling guilty about not returning his feelings. It eats away at him, the idea that he might be screwing up this thing with Rey. Being with her is maybe — no, definitely — the happiest he’s ever been. On several occasions, he pulls up their text thread and composes, deletes, re-composes, and re-deletes a dozen or so messages. He just can’t figure it out, can’t decide what would be the best way to broach the subject with her. Is it too much to send a long, rambling text in which he apologizes if his feelings make her uncomfortable? Is it too little just to send her a simple “Hey”?
He still hasn’t come to a conclusion about what to do, despite the fact that he has lost more than a few hours of sleep this week debating it, when he gets a text from her out of the blue on Friday at work.
rey: r we on for tonight?
His body sinks into his office chair when he reads the message. He’s never felt so relieved in his life. He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs loudly. He still doesn’t know what’s been going on with her, but honestly, who cares? He didn’t fuck it up! That’s all that matters.
When Mitaka sends him a weird look and asks if he’s alright, he sits up straight, clears his throat, and shoots him a thumbs-up.
He sends Rey a quick text to confirm, but then — with the confidence of a man who feels like he just dodged a bullet — he asks if they can get dinner too. She responds that she can pick up something for them to eat at his place, which is not exactly what he was going for, but frankly he’ll take what he can get. He’s just so happy not to have messed this up.
He plans to ask her why she bailed on him, or at least to ask her if she’s feeling better. He knows that’s what Lor would advise. Good communication and all that. But he gets a little... distracted.
She just feels so good pressed up against him. She’s wearing those tight little leggings that send sparks into his brain like crossed wires whenever he sees her ass in them. He finds he likes them even better when she’s sitting in his lap and he can grip her thighs and run his fingers along her panty line. The material is so thin, he can feel her wetness through his own sweatpants when she presses their hips together.
And unlike last time when he refused to take any semblance of control, this time they are fully dry-humping. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s on top that gives him the courage to grab her hips and guide her to move against his cock, but it only takes a moment for her to take over. She changes the angle in just such a way that has him gasping and twitching, and she fucking smirks.
This is even better than the last time, he thinks. How can it get better every single time they’re together? This woman is fucking perfect for him, a literal goddess sent to earth to show him what heaven can feel like.
When she starts picking up speed, he tosses his head back and just watches. She rides him with confidence — a far cry from the anxiety and insecurity he’s seen so often in her lately. She alternates between catching her bottom lip between her teeth and releasing it to let out those sweet whimpering noises he loves to hear from her when she’s getting close. Her bare breasts dangle tantalizingly mere inches from his face, and her pelvis grinds firmly against him. It’s a combination of sensations that is sure to make him come any second. He needs her to get there. Right now.
“That’s right, baby,” he murmurs, hoping his words will do the trick like they did last time. “Use me. Come on, baby. Take what you need.”
And she does. She absolutely uses his body for her pleasure, and all he can do is marvel at her helplessly as she comes beautifully in his arms. He grabs her tight, holding her close against him.
“Rey,” he whispers as his orgasm hits, his lips trailing over the smooth skin of her neck. She sighs in response, entwining her hand in his hair and tracing soothing circles on his shoulder.
Once he’s descended from his high, he mutters under his breath, “Fuck, you’re good at that.” She must hear it because she laughs lightly and moves off of him to lie down. He follows, not content to part from her any longer than he has to.
They spoon on the couch as they recover from the overwhelming pleasure. He can’t help but press his lips to her shoulder and trail his hands over her stomach, thinking to himself, Don’t leave, don’t leave, please don’t leave.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asks, wishing he could keep her here forever.
She hums a contented noise, which he takes as a yes. He grabs the remote and starts shuffling through titles until Rey stops him with a gasp.
“The Princess Bride! That’s one of my favorites.”
He presses play, but he doesn’t pay any attention to what’s happening on screen. He’s not a big fan of this particular movie himself. It’s a little too cheesy and historically inaccurate for his tastes, although he does enjoy the sword-fighting scene. But Rey loves it, and he loves Rey, so he’ll watch it as many times as she wants.
Mostly, though, he just watches her. She smiles to herself as the grandpa begins narrating, snuggles up against his chest even tighter, and whispers “As you wish” along with the guy on the screen as she drifts off.
He’s barely even paying attention to the movie, so content to watch her eyelids flutter shut and her mouth part slightly as her muscles go slack, but for some reason, when the narrator reveals that whenever the guy in the movie says “As you wish,” what he means is “I love you,” it gives him an idea.
It’s silly, really. It’s its own form of cheesy, and he’ll probably never admit to it. But if The Princess Bride is one of Rey’s favorite movies, then she must like cheesy. He can’t help but wonder if maybe she needs something like that, something cheesy and romantic and gushy. And maybe one day she’ll need to know that he truly cared about her all along. So as he lets his eyes fall closed, he remembers the endearment he used the other night on the fire escape.
He wants to tell her how much he loves her so badly. But if he can’t, he’ll settle for calling her “sweetheart” so that at the very least every time he wants to tell her, he can do so in his own way.
Notes:
I post updates on bluesky occasionally if you're interested. Thanks for all your kind comments! Any bit of encouragement is more helpful than you know <3
tasu7 on Chapter 1 Thu 14 Aug 2025 02:22AM UTC
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