Chapter Text
“And this is going to help how?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, young man.”
Rey’s eyes shot to the ceiling at General Organa’s words. The woman was nice enough, but she made Rey feel about two inches tall when she was pissed off. And she was always pissed off when Kylo Ren–no, Ben–was in the room. They were standing in the General’s office and Rey couldn't help but notice how she automatically fell into her inspection-queue stance when she was in front of the woman’s desk. Other times, not in this room, Rey felt comfortable and relaxed with Leia; she considered her a friend. But it spoke volumes how the woman could go from telling crude stories in the mess that made even the most outspoken pilots blush, to the formidable military officer before her.
“I just don’t see how holding hands with a scavenger–”
Rey’s eyes snapped down from the ceiling at Ben’s words and she glared at him. “My name is Rey.”
He smirked at her, an easy, flippant twist of those full lips, and she didn’t like the warm flush over her body that followed it. “I know, sweetheart.”
He turned back to Leia as Rey opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with that little endearment.
“–holding hands with a scavenger is going to win me any favor here.”
The General sighed. “I swear, you’re just like your–” She stopped, and the words fell hard and heavy in the room. She shook her head, her mouth tight, and that look that had Rey straightening her shoulders was back in her eyes. “You don’t have to get it, or understand it. You just do it, because I’m your commanding officer and I told you to. I get thirty complaints a day that I should lock you up with the rest of them, and I’m tired of it, Ben. I’m tired of having to explain to them why I still believe my son still is in that egotistical, calloused shell somewhere. I’m not accustomed to my decisions being questioned, and I don’t like it.”
Ben opened his mouth to protest, but Leia snapped her fingers, stopping him. Rey didn’t think she used the Force, but she could never tell with this tiny, frightening woman.
“Rey has been kind enough to agree to this charade, and believe me, she’s getting the lousy end of the deal. People like her, Ben, and dammit, I hope they’ll at least tolerate you if she’s standing close enough. I’ve already discussed this with Rey, and I’m not asking for much from you. Just...be kind to her. Hold her hand or not, I don’t care, but at least try to be civil?”
He turned to Rey then, looking over her head to toe; sizing her up. She turned toward him and, for a moment, couldn’t remember why she had ever agreed to help the man. He’d looked broken on Starkiller, and maybe he had been. She’d felt enough of his wavering, shattered energy on that dying planet to choke her, to startle her out of sleep for weeks after. But now that he was here, now that he’d killed Snoke and brought them General Hux by the scruff of his neck, Kylo Ren looked like Ben Solo, and Ben Solo looked hard and angry and mean. His hair was longer, his eyes were colder, and the still pink and shiny scar that slashed across his face only added to his resentful and harsh demeanor.
He licked his lips, quirking his eyebrows at her when it became obvious that she was looking him over, too. Rey made a crude gesture with the hand facing away from the General, and he laughed. It was a cruel sound, but he wrapped his ridiculously huge hand around Rey’s, threw a pointed look back at his mother, and tugged Rey out of the General’s office.
“This is rich,” he muttered as he slammed the door shut behind them. Rey yanked her hand out of his and turned to leave when he wrapped a big, heavy arm around her middle and pulled her back flush against him. He didn’t wear as many layers now, and she could feel the startling heat of him through his dark grey linen shirt.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he muttered against the curve of her ear. Just as she was about to turn and spit in his face, he set teeth to that sensitive bit of cartilage and skin, sending equal measures of anger and hot curiosity flashing through her.
“Rey?”
She groaned at the sound of her friend’s voice. The noise morphed into something like a giggle when Ben sucked her earlobe between his teeth, and she was a little more than miffed at how little she was having to fake enjoying what he was doing.
“Oh, hey Finn.” Oh, kriff. She sounded like a total flake, vapid and aloof and not at all herself. She turned toward her friend, but this just made Ben nuzzle his face into the crook of her neck. It was giving her chills, the things he was doing with his mouth, and she wished he would stop. Almost.
“What are you doing?” Finn asked. His eyes were wide and he looked like he’d just been handed warm dog shit.
“Uh–”
Ben detached himself noisily from her neck and propped his chin on her shoulder. “Just letting Gener–...Mother know our intentions.” His voice was silky and awful and Rey didn’t have to see his face to know that he was smirking again. “All inter-officer relationships have to be reported.”
“You’re not an officer,” Rey muttered, squeaking when he ducked and bit her shoulder.
Finn watched this with a face that was slowly morphing from disgusted to appalled. “Rey, you? And him? Seriously?” He sounded hurt, and she couldn’t blame him. Not with the ugly scar on his back that marked him from hip to shoulder.
Rey didn’t like lying, not to her most important person. And Finn was the most important person to her on this entire planet. But General Organa had asked for her help. And she wanted to help, even if her son didn’t deserve it and was the actual worst. She owed her that much after all the Resistance had done for her.
“Mmm-hmm,” was all she managed, and she promised herself she’d tell him the truth at her first chance.
Ben turned his mouth into her ear and whispered absurdly loud, “Let’s get out of here.”
It was the only sane thing he’d said in the last few minutes and she still hated him for it, how he said it in a way that had her trying to remember any dark corners they could duck into. She tugged him down the hall by his hand and shot an apologetic glance over her shoulder at Finn. She hoped he wouldn’t hate her long enough for her to explain.
Once they rounded the corner she rounded on him. But he slung another one of those long, strong, stupid arms around her waist and turned her even further, bumping her back up against the wall. His other hand planted on the wall next to her head and he leaned in close.
“What are you doing?” she spat in a furious whisper. “What was all that?” She motioned vaguely in the direction that they’d come, where Finn was probably still standing, hurt and confused.
“Playing my part, sweetheart.” He bumped his forehead against hers and his nose brushed her nose. Her mouth fell open and she could feel her breath fanning against his face. He was close, he was so very close to her. Close enough that she now knew that he smelled like motor oil and something oddly floral. Close enough to see that the scar she’d given him had sliced through one of the dark freckles on his cheek, bleaching half of the thing to a light, pinkish-brown.
He licked his lips again, as he had in the office, and wouldn’t look anywhere but at her open mouth. Would he kiss her? She thought he might, if the scene outside the General’s office was anything to go by. She found herself shifting, readying herself for the contact. This didn’t make sense. Did she want him to kiss her?
“This isn’t in the script, buckethead.” Her voice didn’t sound right. She’d said the words she’d meant, but they came out all wrong. She sounded flustered, of all things. She sounded weak, weak for him, and she really didn’t like that.
He growled, baring his teeth. They were crooked. “I like it when you talk dirty.”
She bumped her lips against his then, not sure why she did, and not sure why she’d waited so long to, either. But he teased her, nibbling and nipping and only barely kissing her, his eyes open and looking right into her. This didn’t feel like pretend. This felt like something else entirely, and she wasn’t sure how she’d arrived here. What had happened in the space between his mean, assessing perusal of her in Leia’s office to now, with her crowded up against the wall and him giving her half kisses, his eyes wide open and just watching her.
Then she heard the crowd of people pass, and she realized. He kissed the corner of her open mouth, his tongue flitting briefly inside, then pulled away once they’d passed. Rey felt suddenly cold and almost like she’d float away without his big hands on her. Like all the air had been drawn out of her.
But he looked fine. Totally unaffected. He straightened and wiped the corner of his mouth and rolled his shoulders. “I’m going to my room. I’ll find you at dinner.” He tweaked her cheek. “Don’t bother saving me a seat; we’ll just share.”
And he was gone. He was gone and he’d made fun of her and she’d wanted him to kiss her. She’d felt something, wanted something, and he’d…
This was already confusing and they were only a few yards away from the office where they’d agreed to it. Rey didn’t want dinner. She wasn’t at all hungry. She wanted to find Finn and talk this over, tell him the truth.
Though she wasn’t so sure of the truth herself, now.