Work Text:
"Let us eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." - Isaiah 22:13
At Niima there had been a dirty, hole in the wall, juke joint that didn’t even have a name or a sign. You went there after a long day to guzzle jawa beer, or if the taste of bantha piss was unacceptable to the palate (as the old joke went), you’d ask the sullen barkeep for a shot of clear amber liquor that was distilled from the innumerable cacti sprouting on Jakku. Sixty proof and liable to turning you blind, depending on who had brewed it. Rey’d had little taste for either, even if she had the credits to spend on alcohol.
So when she settles into the booth at a bar in Coronet where the servers are wearing velvet vests, she has to laugh at the menu, with its fanciful-sounding drink names. It comes out like a snort, mirth all twisted up with disbelief and a touch of contempt. There are men and women here clothed in the sleek glitz of nighttime revelry, money practically wafting off their perfumed hides and elaborate hair styles, chattering to one another in bright, gleeful voices. As if there’s nothing amiss, and no war going on, no soldiers in Imperial white swarming the streets outside. She supposes that’s the point of a place like this.
‘You couldn’t try to blend in?’ comes a voice behind her. ‘You look like you just crawled out of an AT-AT.’
Kylo Ren slides into the seat across from her. She hates how her heartbeat ratchets up, hates the inborn arrogance resting on his bare face in a manner reminiscent of conquerors and minor royalty, hates him. She keeps her voice mild, her face blank. ‘Was that an actual joke?’
‘An observation,’ he replies. ‘I’m not the only one to make it.’
‘You picked this location,’ she reminds him. Of course there are people watching. The integrity of their cloak and dagger routine is ruined this time – she has no convincing disguise, and there’s no weapon, that was part of the agreement. Her empty hands are on the table, fidgeting.
‘I did. There are no recording devices allowed,’ he tells her, eyes flicking around watchfully. ‘You’re primarily paying for discretion.’
He’s gotten thinner, she thinks. There are dark circles beneath his eyes and even though he’s dressed like a civilian there’s a rigid wariness in his bearing that marks him out as anything but. And then there’s the broad slash, puckered at the edges, that runs across his nose and cheek. The scar she gave him robs his face of the softness lent by his mother’s eyes and his full mouth.
It’s a dangerous face, the face of a monster.
Rey waits as he gets a drink. The server – she’s seen him hovering at nearby tables, she wonders how much of their conversation he’s overheard – is overly solicitous when she declines to order.
‘Even so,’ she says, when the server is well gone. ‘I don’t think it’s wise to talk now.’
‘Talk?’ His voice is deceptively soft. ‘Is that what we’re going to do?’
Rey flushes. She can’t help it. The memory of their last encounter rises up, unbidden – unwanted. His mouth on her neck, her collarbone, hands digging into her hip. Rey pushes down the flare of heat inside her, refuses to look away from the challenge in his black eyes. Something’s different today. He’s not angry, not exactly, she’s seen him furious and raging, out of control. This is different. She senses the Force energy vibrating beneath the surface even though they’ve both put up barriers against one another.
What Rey wants to know is why he’s throwing around easily traceable credits on overpriced alcohol at a crowded club in the capital city of Corellia. She didn’t even know he drank. He’s always seemed too ascetic for any of that. Wining and dining, all the varied pleasures of the senses that she’s slowly begun to sample in the recent year since leaving Jakku – no doubt Kylo Ren thinks he’s above such base impulses.
‘Long time no see,’ she says, instead. Four months of radio silence, not a peep on surveillance. The General had been anxious enough to pull her out of a scheduled mission when Ren finally made contact. ‘We wondered whether… you’d gone under. That something was wrong.’
He’s silent for a while. ‘I was completing my training.’
‘Oh. With – ?’ She catches herself – no names, not here. Her mouth forms the word anyway, the long vowel ending in a hard click of the tongue. Now everything falls into place: the long absence, the weariness, the flat affect he’s presenting. Who knows what he was made to do on Snoke’s orders?
‘Yes,’ he says shortly. ‘How’s your training going?’
Rey masks her irritation at the way he hedges. ‘Just dandy.’
‘So you’ve moved beyond meditating all day and levitating piles of rocks?’
‘Yes,’ she bites out. It wouldn’t do to let him know how much he gets to her. Sweetly, she adds: ‘It’s a shame I can’t show you everything I’ve learned. Maybe I could even teach you a thing or two.’
He smiles, without humour. ‘You could be so much more with a real –’
‘You’re not my teacher.’ This is an old argument, one he never tires of. ‘Never was, never will be.’
Instead of arguing further, Ren takes a long drag of his drink. Rey watches, her fingers dancing, itching for her lightsaber. She wonders what it would feel like, to face off with him now. He’s never been the fastest or the most graceful. What she remembers most about fighting him is how he’d pounded her back with sheer strength, an unfathomable fury in his movements – his imposing height and that soulless silver-black mask making the strength behind each thrust all the more terrifying.
But they’re no longer enemies, she tells herself. He’s betrayed the First Order, come back to the Light. Or so he says. At face value he’s the best deep asset the Resistance has got. The General seems to trust him. But how can she not, when he’s her only son? Han Solo’s death would otherwise have been for nothing. Luke had said: We all tell ourselves the stories that make sense. Rey pushes these thoughts away.
‘So,’ she says, lightly. ‘Has the apprentice become the master?’
He narrows his eyes. ‘It’s not so simple.’ The look he gives her says, you of all people should know.
‘But you’re done now?’
‘I’ve been given a task to complete, before I can finalize my training.’
She’s impatient. Being around him makes her restless, careless. ‘Care to elaborate?’
Ren ignores her question. He’s really pounding back that wine, she thinks, watching him.
‘Are you alright?’ she asks. They’re not friends, not by any stretch of imagination, and she trusts him even less, but something is wrong here. ‘You seem –’
‘You’re right. We can’t talk here,’ he says, grimly. ‘I have what you want.’
‘I want intel,’ she retorts. ‘Useful intel.’ She shrugs on her coat and follows him out.
*
It’s a walkup, above a bakery, closed at this hour, the smell of yeast fermenting lingering still in the evening air. She likes the scent – there’s something about the aroma of fresh baked bread that makes her happy. She likes food, feeling full, feeding others. Perhaps I’ll become a cook, she’d once told Finn, when they were playing the old classic what-would-you-be-if-you-weren’t-a-Resistance-fighter. After the war, that is.
Ren latches the door firmly shut behind them. The General herself had given orders to prepare this room for him. It’s Han Solo’s old quarters, back when he’d been an orphan boy on Corellia. The room’s austerity does not surprise her; had it been filled with furnishings that implied someone actually lived here she might have wondered a little. Nothing hangs on the walls, which are white and dull in the low light. A chair and a desk sit at opposing corners. The bed, white sheets neatly tucked in, seems vast and sterile. She looks away, wanders toward an antiquated shelf of books: a host of technical manuals, the titles of which read like scientific journals, and treatises on war. More manuals on weaponry; so many. Dusty tomes with colourful spines and titles like The Adventure of the Rogue Squadron and Rendezvous with Destiny. Children’s books, fairy tales. Perhaps Ben Solo had once thumbed through these books, his father at his shoulder.
It’s too intimate, Rey thinks, turning away. Like looking at someone’s face while they sleep.
‘Nice place,’ she says. This is a slightly absurd situation, and she feels almost as though she’s at a social gathering, using these party manners, as she and Finn call them.
‘It’s not mine,’ replies Ren, dismissively. He’s come up behind her, close enough to touch. She can feel the heat from his body. He has to bend to kiss her neck.
‘What is it,’ she says. ‘The task Snoke has set you.’
‘Later,’ he murmurs, hands fitting around her waist like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
‘Now,’ she insists, but it comes out stuttered, breathless, more a plea than a remonstration. His hot mouth on her skin is scattering her thoughts.
‘Don’t worry,’ he says, mockingly, into her ear. There’s heat pooling in her belly, tightening her insides. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’
‘You’re such an ass,’ she whispers.
He puts one hand to her neck, making her look at him. ‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’
Need has darkened those black eyes, a desire that he’s never expressed in words, only acts: of skin to bare skin, lips to shoulder, neck, her jaw; to mouth. He seizes her, spins her around until they’re chest to chest. He’s rougher tonight than he’s been before, crushing his mouth against hers, both of them fighting for breath, and it feels like a fight almost, like they’re opponents again. Her teeth catch on his lower lip, drawing blood, iron and salt mixing with Corellian wine on her tongue, and he jerks but doesn’t pull away. His hand fists in her hair to the point of pain, pulling her close.
Rey’s shivering as they undress each other, teeth practically chattering. She’s not supposed to feel like this, hot and cold at the same time, aching for him. Wanting this man of all men. But she lets him press her back onto the bed, finds herself rocking against his hand by the time he has his fingers inside of her. The soft slicking noises his fingers produce are obscene, she thinks, but it’s making tension, sweet and tight, coil inside her. Before him she’d never imagined this, her body responding in ways she hadn’t known it was capable of: soft gasps torn from her, her nails digging into the triangle of muscle behind his shoulders.
By the time he pulls his hand away she’s wet enough that it’s coating the inside of her thighs. She can feel the wetness on his fingers when he settles between her legs, and pushes into her. His mouth is at the place where her jaw meets her neck, his chest hard and damp with sweat against her own, her fingers buried in his hair. He moves and she rolls her hips to meet his and the long hot drag of it is the sweetest thing she’s ever felt.
Four months, Rey thinks. Too fucking long.
Perhaps that’s why he’s rough with her tonight, his movements urgent and forceful. She comes before he does, light sparking through her and every fibre of her burning. Soft little moans leave her mouth as she clings to him. Her vision seems to go black, a night sky bursting with stars, and then he groans into her neck, his fingers digging into her hips, where he’s pulled her to him so tightly that she wonders whether two people were ever meant to be this close.
He says her name into her ear, not scavenger or girl but Rey, Rey, Rey.
Then there’s silence.
He looks at her – flushed, mouth red and swollen – and she draws his face down and kisses him, long and hard. It makes her want to come again. She struggles to rise, and he moves back, slipping out from inside her. She’s suddenly empty and clenching around nothing, and she wants him so much it’s a tight, throbbing ache deep inside.
I will not say his name, she promises herself, even when she straddles him, letting him ease his fingers inside of her, hot and slick.
She comes again. She does not say his name.
*
When vision returns, and the power of speech with it, Rey gets up and picks up her clothing, tumbled in piles near the foot of the bed. In the dim light they appear to her almost sinister, clear evidence of wrongdoing. Beneath the bright steel and halogen of the ‘fresher she avoids the sight of her own face in the mirror. Rey finds purchase on the cool metal of the sink, the black tile beneath her feet.
That was the absolute last time, she tells herself.
By the time she’s done he’s already dressed, perched on the edge of the bed, long body covered up head to toe.
‘How much time do you have?’ she asks quietly.
Ren doesn’t look up. ‘I kill her. That’s the test.’
‘Who?’ she asks. Chills, cold and electric, run down her spine. She already knows.
He stares into the distance, looking past her at something she can’t see. She’s never seen eyes like his: so black they suck in light from everything else. ‘My mother,’ he says, mouth twisting.
He had wept when he murdered Han Solo on Starkiller. An odd detail to recall now, those tears shining on his cheeks. At the time she’d wanted nothing more than to drag her saber through his treacherous heart.
She remembers interrogating him, when he’d first turned on the First Order: Why are you doing this, Ren? There’s nothing for you here. He has never quite given her a satisfactory answer.
Now she knows. It’s not the Light that called him back. It was Leia Organa.
‘Oh.’
He holds out a data file in his palm.
‘Everything I could download from the databases,’ he says.
She steps closer, takes it from him.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to go back to him,’ he says tonelessly. ‘I’m going to kill him.’
She crosses her arms. ‘You’re not strong enough.’
He looks up at her with clear annoyance. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘I mean it. You’re going to get yourself killed. Even you must realize that.’
‘I’m ready. All my training has led up to this.’
There’s a note to his voice that’s both familiar and strange at once. It’s the note of finality, the sound of goodbye, she realizes. He’s talking like a man marching to his death. Has someone else spoken to her like that, once? She can’t remember. There are so many things she can’t remember, ghosts whispering at the edge of memory.
‘How can you know that,’ she says. Tentatively she sits herself down at his side, not quite touching him.
‘It’s the way it has to be. You said it yourself, the apprentice overthrows the master. I mean to see that through.’
‘You mean it’s the way of the Dark side.’
‘I thought that I was meant to bring order and peace to the galaxy. What am I now? A traitor, twice over. Crippled by the Light, devoid of all honour. This is the only path open to me.’
‘You could come back, to the Resistance. With me.’
Rey has surprised both of them. There’s a flash of something in his eyes – some unnamed emotion, too quick to catch, before his features smooth themselves out again. He’s built a fortress in his mind, impenetrable against the bond between them.
‘And what – run to mommy? Grovel for my life? I think I’ll do it my way.’
As if finding absolution would ever be so easy. He’s afraid, she thinks, of returning fully to the Light, of confronting all the ignoble truths about himself. She understands this without having to probe, because by now she knows him about as well as she knows herself. There’s no denying that anymore. Ever since that day on Starkiller when he’d lingered for too long in her mind Rey has been aware of the thread connecting them. It was so tenuous at first, but now it’s an anchor she can’t shake. It haunts her to think that she allowed whatever this is between them to grow unchecked, that this is the fruit of that bond. In her mind he’s a burning red-black figure, his emptiness crying out to her.
‘It’s alright, Ben,’ she says. ‘I feel it too.’ Her hand has found its way into his, somehow, and he leans into the touch like a man starved.
They bump noses, as though it’s the first time, and then their lips meet. She puts her arms around his neck like some girl in a stupid fairy tale, the damsel greeting her lover, the fallen prince redeeming himself, and pulls him down, until she’s dizzy and breathless.
Kissing him like this is a thousand times more intimate than when he was fucking her. Part of it is the way he looks at her when they break apart – not with contempt, or hatred, or fury, but as though she’s the only thing in his world. She finds herself intertwined with him, body and soul.
‘Come with me,’ he says. He’s breathing hard, they both are. ‘Right now.’
‘Now?’
She could do it. It would be so easy.
She wants cold starlight and the unutterable darkness of space, no one waiting for them, the wind blowing them to the ends of the galaxy. For them there’d be unimagined wonders inside spinning solariums and sunrises beneath the dusky Eden of a foreign star, grey-black metal shrouding their heartbeats from dark matter. They’d have passion and fury and a love so vast and searing it would bind them through this life and carry them through to the next.
‘I can’t.’ She amends: ‘I won’t.’
There’s home, her room back at base, with the little hydroponic garden that’s not exactly regulation and the seat by the window where she watches the stars. There’s Finn, coffee and jokes in the morning and the certainty that he’ll always come back for her. Luke, blue eyes crinkling, showing her how to spear a fish, to meditate, to find peace. There’s the future, as sweet and golden as when she’d first tasted it aboard the Millennium Falcon, the promise of a life beyond endless toil. Ren knows this. He's seen into her mind, her dreams and her nightmares.
‘This is where we part, then.’
The scar she gave him is a red-pink rope across a face she knows as well as her own. His eyes are hooks, pulling her close.
‘You’ll break your mother’s heart.’
And mine.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘But it's time to end it.’
She imagines him wounded, not of her own doing, the Force draining out of his beating heart. Rey’s not sure what she would do if he died, can’t quite picture how the rest of her life might go on. She wants to club him on the head, strap him down, as if that could pin him in place.
This time the kiss is gentler, more measured. She threads her fingers through his hair, tasting wine and salt on her tongue, and allows him to undress her. He’s a god of contradictions, both the silver-clad knight and the dread dragon, a mass murderer of millions and the boy who loved his mother. She can’t even remember for how long and how much she’s wanted him. Ren shudders against her neck, says her name again and again like it’s something sweet and wonderful.
They will both be sorry for this tomorrow, when duty calls and they return to their opposing trenches. But for now, there’s just the two of them, light and dark fitting together, and the Force, life itself, enmeshed between them, like desert rain soaking into lifeless sand, bringing forth an oasis from which all creatures drink.