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They never speak.
It was the first time it happened since Crait. Rey was eating with her friends, ignoring Be-Kylo. He was Kylo. She had to keep reminding herself. She felt her heart rate pick up, and she knew he felt it too.
His emotions crashed into her, a mix of sadness, disappointment and...relief. He was relieved to see her, to see their connection hadn’t disappeared.
She couldn’t say the same. It would be easier to have a clean break. To forget everything that had happened.
Rey wanted nothing more than to scream at him, ask him why, why couldn’t he see they belonged together, but she could never join him like that. Anything but that. But kriff, how she wished she could join him.
Instead she brooded silently, chewing too harshly and ignoring whatever Finn was trying to tell her until Kylo faded from view.
His eyes burn into her long after he is gone.
***
They fall into a tense routine, sitting in silence until the bond dissolves. Rey pretends to read the Jedi texts, Kylo pretends to read a datapad, and after a few minutes stretched out into infinity, she’s left alone again.
Rey exhales. She could always feel Kylo, but even more so after physically seeing him. His posture wasn’t the only thing that told her he was tired after being stuck in meetings all day. Rey could sense it too.
What she couldn’t make sense of was the serenity rolling off him in waves the minute their eyes locked.
***
It’s been almost a week since she last saw him. Rey tells herself she’s not worried about him. She tells herself she doesn’t miss him.
It’s late on one of her rare days off. She’s sitting on the roof near her quarters, watching the stars. She never got moments like this in her previous life. There was hardly any relaxation, just constant worry about where her next meal would come from.
Rey shivers, surprised at how chilly the night air has gotten. She doesn’t move. Not yet. She can wait a couple more minutes before she gets too cold.
She’s watching a shooting star burst across the sky when she’s enveloped in a cozy warmth. She jumps in surprise before burying herself into the black blanket. Rey doesn’t need to turn around to know who it’s from.
Kylo sits next to Rey quietly, and together they stare into space.
Rey admits she’s starting to feel at peace around Kylo too.
***
A year passes, and Rey tells no one of her connection with Kylo. They’re...friends now, she’s pretty sure. He’s almost smiled at least four times, and he occasionally makes her laugh. They never talk about the war or what happened on the Supremacy. Instead, they talk about themselves. It’s surprising, Rey thinks, how nice it is to have someone listen. Sure, her other friends listen, but not in the way Kylo does. He listens with his body, as if he is a drowning man and she is the only person who could save him. Or maybe she is worth him saving himself for. She lets herself dream.
It is after the funeral when they connect again. Rey is on her bed, sitting numbly, still dressed in her best clothes she can’t seem to muster the energy to take off. He appears next to her, back bowed and head in his hands.
Anguish. It hangs heavy around Kylo, a practically impenetrable cloud. She knows he’s trying to keep it together, his body aware of her presence.
She inches closer, until their thighs are touching, and wraps an arm around his shoulder. She knows she’s breaking an unspoken rule - they never touch. All she has is the memory, so long ago, when he gingerly grasped her hand and gave her hope.
There is no hope in her quarters. The dam breaks, and Kylo’s shoulders shake as desolate sobs wrack his body, mourning a loss he had already virtually come to terms with. Or so he thought.
Rey sits quietly and rubs his back as they grieve together - a general, a princess, a mother.
***
It is the end of the day, and Rey is tired. Hours of ship repairs have left her limbs sluggish, and she collapses into her bed dressed in her underclothes. She is drifting off when she feels her mattress dip, and a large presence appear next to her. She clutches her sheets a little tighter and looks over, and sure enough, Kylo is sharing her bed. His slumber seems to be tumultuous. A deep wrinkle divides the space between his brows, and he grunts, incoherently muttering at invisible enemies.
Rey considers leaving. She knows she could never. Instead she presses her finger to his forehead, gently soothing the grimace off his face. Instead she curls up next to him, and lets his now deep, heavy breaths lull her into sleep.
***
They create a new routine that always ends with them falling asleep next to each other. They never discuss it, but Rey can’t imagine falling asleep by herself now. She doesn’t think about what it could mean. He’s always gone by the morning.
Except for today. In the hazy morning light, Rey wakes to find Kylo pressed into her back, as if his body was carved to mold around hers.
There is something else pressed into her back. Rey’s body stiffens when she realizes exactly what the long, hard thing poking just above her hip bone is. Her mind races a mile a second. She could hope and pray to the Force their bond will dissolve before Kylo wakes up. But since when has the Force ever done what she wants it to do?
Rey contemplates getting up, even though it’s the last thing she wants to do right now. She’s worried what Kylo might say, waking up in such a compromising position. It’s not so much that she doesn’t want what this could entail, per se, but more so that she’s scared. A bantha caught in the crossfire, so to speak. Lately she’s felt a tingling in her stomach, a spark of something she didn’t want to think about until this very moment.
She is in love.
Kylo begins to stir beside her, and with it their bond comes back to life. She senses his spike in mortification a half-second before he is rolling away from her at light-speed, an apology at the tip of his tongue.
Rey stops him with a finger pressed over his lips, and they stare at each other for an eternity.
Rey finally lets herself look at him. Really look. She maps the way his hair falls haphazardly across his face, still rumpled from being smashed into a pillow all night. She commits to memory his amber eyes, bleary with sleep, following hers as her fingers move from his lips to trace the constellation of moles on his cheek. His mouth parts gently in a silent gasp, almost as if he can’t believe she is real.
And his feelings. Rey’s not sure if the morning is making him more open to her than usual, but she is overwhelmed, inundated with his love for her, his doubt that she would want him back, his fear of crossing a boundary and losing her forever, something that he’s not sure he would ever recover from.
Rey leans into Kylo, and presses her forehead to his, her hand coming to cup his jaw.
“Don’t be afraid. I feel it too,” she murmurs before tilting her chin down and meeting his lips with her own. His surprise quickly turns into something deeper, more untamed.
Kylo kisses her back with a ferocity only Rey could match. Much like they moved in the throne room so long ago, they move together, like every galaxy suddenly snapped into place.
Rey is in Kylo’s lap, her fingers tugging on his hair as he kisses a line down her throat. Her breathy moans turn into a whine when he pulls her closer, rubbing her against his still-hard cock.
“Kylo-”
“No,” he growls. “Call me Ben. You can call me Ben.”
Rey lets herself say the word she never even allowed herself to think.
“Ben. Ben. Ben.”
She accentuates every chant of his name with a roll of her hips. Ben is a breathless mess underneath her. His hands creep up her ribcage under her shirt.
His lips crash into hers again, and she’s smiling, almost laughing, at how right this all feels - his mouth, his fingers, his cock.
Ben thrusts up towards her as he fiddles with the waistband of her pants, eyes asking a silent question.
Rey nods, and he starts to pull them down agonizingly slowly, inch by inch until finally-
The bond snaps shut, and Rey is left a quivering mess on her bed. She screams in frustration and pent-up energy, fisting the still-warm sheets where Ben, her Ben, had been moments before.
***
It’s that evening when the bond connects again. Rey is fighting with her hair, trying to get it untangled and tamed into some semblance of presentable. She’s only wearing a thin robe, having just got out of the fresher. She senses Ben’s presence before he appears behind her in the mirror, wearing a pair of loose-fitting sleep pants and not much else.
“Let me.”
Rey drops her hands to her lap, and Ben’s hands replace her own, gently working out the knots in her hair and soothing her scalp at the same time.
She closes her eyes, letting herself lean into him as he begins to braid her hair into a crown circling her head.
“Did you have a good day?”
Rey hums an affirmative, too relaxed to actually form words.
“That’s good.”
He continues to braid, securing the final product with a tie from her desk. He kisses her neck and murmurs, “there you go, sweetheart.”
Rey immediately feels the wave of anxiety coming off him, afraid he said the wrong thing.
She turns around on her stool and pulls Ben into her, smashing her mouth into his to quell any thought he has. It does more than that - quelling any thought Rey has beyond the feel of his beautiful lips on hers, moving against hers like it is the only place they should be.
But Rey has other ideas, thinking of the other places his mouth could be. Ben goes still, and Rey suddenly realizes Ben saw what she was just thinking.
“Is that what you want?” Ben asks her hesitantly, almost as if he can’t believe her desires are real.
“Yes. I want you, Ben. Just you.”
Ben’s lips move again against hers, more insistent this time as he kisses down the column of her neck, pushing down her robe to reveal her breasts. She gasps when he sucks one into his mouth, swirling his tongue over her nipple. It’s not long before he’s kissing lower, down her ribcage to the top of her hips where her robe sits bunched around her thighs.
He pauses, and Rey doesn’t wait for him to ask. She pulls her robe off, leaving her bare in front of him.
She revels in Ben’s awe as he stares at her, taking in every inch of her body like she is the only woman in existence in the universe. He doesn’t have to say how much he wants her because she can feel it. She feels it most, though, between her legs, exactly where she needs him right now.
Rey almost slips off her stool in shock when he dips his head there, not falling only because Ben grips her and keeps her steady. His brow scrunches in concern.
“Where’s your bed?”
Ben scoops her up, and she presses her mouth to his ear, whispering to him exactly where her bed is until he lowers her gently onto her covers, sliding down to rest between her thighs. He gazes up at her, marveling.
“You’re so beautiful.”
He begins again, kissing the inside of her thighs, taking an agonizingly slow time that Rey has absolutely no patience for.
Rey tangles her fingers in his hair - which is as soft as she imagined - and pulls him closer to the meeting of her thighs. She pauses when she feels his nerves spike.
“I...I’ve never done this before,” he mumbles.
Rey strokes his hair in what she hopes is a calming way, sending as much reassurance as she can muster over the bond.
“I’ve never done this either. We can figure it out. Together.”
She senses Ben’s restored confidence as he finishes kissing her thighs, finally placing a featherlight kiss on her clit, causing her to whine in pleasure and buck up into his face.
Ben breathes a laugh, and places a large hand on her stomach, lightly pushing her until she’s lying down, thighs slung over his shoulders.
“There you go,” he murmurs, keeping a firm hand on her torso before diving in again. His technique is uncoordinated, roving lips searching for something. It is times like these that Rey is grateful for the bond. She sends him signals, telling him exactly when he does something right. After a few minutes of fumbling, they ease into a rhythm. Ben lightly sucks her clit and Rey moans, begging him for more. Ben happily complies, pressing two fingers into her and causing Rey to see stars. Just one of his fingers is at least two of hers, and she’s never felt so blissfully full before.
Every thought flies out of Rey’s head. There is only Ben, and the heavenly feeling of his mouth on her clit. Rey grinds into his face, and he takes it all, takes all of her, thrusting his fingers in and out until he hits a spot that makes Rey keen. He does it again, and Rey clenches around him, coming hard.
She thinks she screams. She’s not entirely in her body to be sure. When she comes to, she breathlessly looks at Ben, his face screwed up in a strange expression. Worry eats away at the euphoria coursing through her body.
“Ben? Are you ok? Was that ok? Did I do something wrong?”
Ben’s demeanor instantly softens, and he pulls himself up to kiss her forehead, balancing on his arms to hover over her.
“No, not at all. You’re perfect. I could feel you through the bond and it was...a lot more intense than I was expecting.”
His eyes roam over her flushed face, counting the freckles on the bridge of her nose. He kisses each one, teasing her until she grabs his hair and crushes his lips to hers.
Rey’s hands wander lower to his bare stomach, and lower still, to his cock. Ben sucks in a breath and maneuvers himself so she can pull off his pants, leaving them both naked. They stare at each other, savoring the moment they know is about to happen, a boundary crossed that could never be uncrossed.
Rey takes Ben’s face in her hands, and strokes the scar she gave him. She places butterfly kisses along its length, ending with a gentle press to his lips. He smiles a dazzling smile that lights up his entire face. Ben is glowing with joy, radiating so much happiness that she is here, with him, that Rey feels it herself.
She kisses him again, hungry and needy, teeth clacking together in an awkward melody. Rey wraps her legs around his waist, urging him closer.
Ben suddenly goes rigid, and pulls away from her abruptly.
“Implant? You have an implant, right?”
Rey nods and grabs Ben. She wriggles her hips until his cock is resting against her folds.
“Please. I need you.”
Ben takes a minute to make sure he’s in the right position and whispers, “I’ll go slow” before nudging into her. Rey gasps as he pushes the oxygen out of her lungs the deeper he goes. Every inch of him is a puzzle piece of herself she didn’t know was missing, and she is finally complete. After what was either ten seconds or ten days, Ben bottoms out, panting with the exertion of it all.
She thought she was full before. Now she feels as if she’s been split open, ripped in two and then stitched back together by Ben. She digs her heels into his backside, ready to take more.
“I’m good. You can move.”
He does. When his hips slam into hers, they groan in unison.
This must be how mountains are born, how blackholes are created, how planets are rearranged. Rey can feel her own pleasure, and Ben’s pleasure, and Ben feeling her own pleasure. It is almost too much, and Rey is on the brink of implosion.
“Ben!”
His name seems to be the only thing she can remember as he fucks her. The air around her hums with their desire and anticipation. Ben’s cock is sending her closer to an edge. It’s his fingers fumbling for her clit that will push her over.
“Ben, I- I’m gonna-“
She can’t even finish the sentence before she shatters into a thousand pieces. Every inch of her body is like a live wire buzzing with pleasure. She is coming down from her crest when she peaks again, but this orgasm is not her own.
Ben is trembling above her, shaking from his own orgasm rocking through his body.
When he is spent, he collapses next to her, pulling Rey into his arms. She snuggles into him, savoring the sense of home his arms bring.
Ben nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck, sucking a kiss into the hollow beneath her jaw. He hesitates, and murmurs so quietly she almost can’t hear him.
“I love you.”
Warmth floods Rey’s chest, and tears of joy prick her eyes.
“I love you too,” she whispers back, squeezing her eyes shut so her tears don’t fall.
He knows her too well. Ben’s hand ghosts over her cheek, wiping away her sadness.
“I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. Always. I promise.”
Rey feels Ben fade away as their bond dissolves. She almost doesn’t want to get up, just to linger in the first feeling of family she’s ever experienced for a little longer.
Instead she forces herself out of bed, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the way to the fresher. She stops, running a finger over the slightly skewed braid still in her hair, smiling at the reminder that maybe, just maybe, she was worth coming back for.