Work Text:
He was the opposite of tiny.
Big nose, plump lips, and tall as hell, Ben was a huge man.
Where his height scared the shit out of most people, his puppy eyes and pliant smile could melt pretty much every woman in town.
He was big and charming, broad and worked up, and an irremediable asshole.
He was against the frame door, with his muscles flexed in a casual pose. Rey thought she might have combusted years ago with the look he was giving her, all dark eyes and inviting mannerisms.
Yeah, she thought, I would have died.
Who was she trying to fool? She could have died right there, and she would do it happily because it was Ben, and he was looking at her like that. She knew for sure that he wanted her, and this time, only her.
Goddammit, woman. Control yourself.
Ben started to approach slowly towards her, with his hands holding his hips tightly, giving himself something to hold on to avoid reaching for her.
Rey didn’t move a muscle. She told herself that it was because she feared him, but it was far from that. He would never hurt her on purpose; the only time he ever did it was years ago, back to a time when Ben didn’t know what he had in front of his eyes, in his hands and inside his heart.
Now, he does.
And she can feel it.
When he stops moving, she was staring directly at his broad chest, not wanting to look him in the eye. With the heat emanating from his body, fast and hard sharp beats from her heart, and tension rising between them, they stood quiet during ages.
Ben was giving her time.
He thought that if he moved to fast or too bold, she was going to run away, again, and his heart might handle it, but he didn’t want to find out.
He fucked up astronomically years ago. Being an irremediable asshole during his young adulthood, trying to present himself as the cool guy his dad used to be.
Han Solo once was an untamable man and a free spirit, during his gold times, only attached to his old Camaro and his big San Bernard, Chewwie. At first, Ben tried to be like his old man to bond with him and to have something to talk to, but as the years past, his dad just looked interested when his son was nearby the refrigerator.
Stupidly, Ben thought it was because he wasn’t doing it properly, having Poe as his best friend and Rey around all the time. During the Holydays of his 21’s, when Poe told him after a fight that he didn’t want to be around anymore, Ben put his asshole smirk and told him to fuck up with his pretty boyfriend, Finn. Months later, when he was lying in bed with Rey and whispered that she loved him, he placed his empathy and emotions aside, put the same smirk that ended up his friendship with Poe, and broke Rey’s heart.
Days later, she was gone.
Months after that, he stopped talking with his parents.
And a few years later, his dad died, and Ben understood how lonely he was.
“That’s not how your father wanted you to be,” his mother told him when he hugged her for the first time in years, the day after the funeral. “The man was an absolute disaster with words, and failed in telling you things, but he wrote you something.”
That night, he read the letter his dad wrote him in the security of the stream behind the family house.
Ben broke the rough, unkind, and bitter shelf he carried during years trying to impress his dead dad and realize how wrong and mistaken he was.
I was the best version of myself when I wasn’t lonely, Han wrote to him. Seeing you remake my biggest mistakes and putting everyone aside because you thought that I was going to be pleased… I wasn’t a good father, and I’m so sorry that I couldn’t put you on the right path from the very beginning .
The next day, when he was a complete mess and felt himself lying in the bottom of a pit, Leia told him that he got nowhere to go but forward. For the first time since he was a child, Ben listened to his mother.
It took years to heal and learn, to forgive and move on.
He was friends with Poe again, he even manages to be his man of honor the last year at the wedding with Finn.
But Rey, who hasn’t even blink or move in front of him, was someone who he hadn’t had the chance to apologize to until months ago. Ben didn’t even blame her for not wanting to look in his direction during weeks.
Were hard, even nearly impossible to befriend her again. The man knew that was risking everything getting so close to her, showing her how much wanted to be by her side the way both needed years ago when he fucked up everything.
But he was so tired of waiting, and so was she.
Gently, Ben tilt her chin up, and Rey’s eyes closed in the way up.
The fear, the doubt, the anxiety was there. But so did the assurance, the hope, and calmness that came along with being around this Ben. The one who she fell in love with all those years ago, who only showed to her when they were the only ones in the world.
This time she knew this version of the man in front of her wouldn’t vanish when someone else showed up. She knew, even in her nervousness, that this was permanent.
Rey felt his fingers dance from her chin to her hair and to her temples. She gasped when sense him getting closer, but she stayed still, glued in her place.
The first time they ever kissed, all those years ago, was the other way around. Her fingers drew his beautiful face, tracing his large nose and dancing above his closed eyelids. She felt the soft waves of hair slipping through her fingers, to finally place one digit over his plump lips.
I'm going to kiss you, she warned him.
Ben shivered from head to toes, and if she weren’t paying attention to every move he made, she wouldn’t notice.
But,dear Lord, she did.
She saw him tremble under her gentle touch and notice the tip of his ears getting crimson color. His lips were slightly parted, breathing unevenly and hard, his whole body leaning to her.
All because of her.
The anticipation had them trembling, and when she couldn’t take it anymore, as an act of bravery, she cut the distance between them. They kissed gently and softly, so much emotion shared in their touch. That was the beginning, and there were too many encounters before that to sum them. Every time was the same: silky tension and velvet caress in the serenity of the woods, by the side of the stream behind his property.
It was beautiful when it was only the two of them.
Then, she left with a broken heart.
Cautiously, Ben placed his thumb above her bottom lip.
He used to dream about her, whispering words of love and apologies against her skin. It was beautiful till he waked up.
Since he saw her, all those months ago when she returned, all he wanted to do was hold her, but the fear of messed up things, again, held him back every time.
Swallowing his worry, he cut the distance between them.
“You still holding on,” he whispered in her mouth.
“Let go, sweetheart.”
Shivering, Rey did as commanded.
She kissed him back, returning home.