Chapter Text
Ben knows what Rey is doing, but for the life of him can’t figure out why. She’s stalling. It’s been two days since they were awoken in the middle of the night by Hux and all of the progress she had been making on the saber has suddenly ground to a stunning halt. Instead, she spends her time pouring over ancient Jedi texts that he knows she’s read numerous times. Enough to have portions of them memorized at the very least.
He had been antsy when she pulled them out of a satchel, and when she finally took pity on him and handed them over for him to look at she sat and listened to him effuse over them for hours. He told her about calligraphy and she teased him about it in turn, but, because he never travels without his kit, he had actually showed her, and the teasing mostly stopped. She spends their evenings talking at him in a rambly way he’s come to love, while teasing information out of him, stories about his dad and Lando, whom she’s met, whispered confessions about the truth of the academy, the sudden pressure of knowing your family as your family only to discover the entire galaxy thinks of them as heroes. He wants to tell her everything, even if the words are slow to come and hard-won.
The half-assembled hilt is left forgotten when before she would work until she was nearly falling asleep sitting there.
So that’s how Ben knows she’s stalling, that and she’s been staring at the same page for an hour and her reconstruction is already well past the stage depicted in the diagram.
“Rey,” he says, stretched out on the mattress now. A concession she allows while she’s working. It’s only marginally better than his blankets on the floor.
Rey startles and snaps the book shut. “Nothing!” They stare at each other for a moment, and Ben notices a blush suffusing Rey’s cheeks. “What I meant to say was what?”
Ben coughs to cover a laugh and Rey rolls her eyes at him. “What did you want, Ben?”
“You’re scared,” he tells her and she glowers at him. “You are.”
“Just because we can,” she waves between them, “feel things, doesn’t mean you need to point it out.”
“What are you afraid of, Rey?”
She blows out a heavy breath and puts the book down, then stands from the chair, only to nudge him with her foot. He moves over and she settles next to him, her arm pressing against his. The touch is casual and comfortable, Rey’s been doing it more often, and Ben tries to reciprocate but feels awkward every time, like he’s forcing it, but he can feel the way the force hums in pleasure around them when he does it.
“It’s easier here,” she finally says after a few moments of quiet.
“It is,” Ben agrees. He knows they can’t stay here forever, that life is moving on without them. He wonders if they stayed how long it would take for the news to break across the galaxy, that they’re both missing.
“If I don’t finish what I came here to do, I don’t have to leave, at least, that’s what I keep telling myself. I know I could have left weeks ago, as soon as I found the crystals, but I’m not strong enough to get the Falcon out from under the snow, so I took it as a sign.”
“We could get it out together, and then you could go back.” Ben offers with an ache in his chest. Rey shakes her head. She’s frustrated, annoyed, and sad. “Or we can just live here forever.”
That at least gets a quiet laugh out of her. “Trade one desert for another? I think I’d like to live somewhere green now, or in a city for a little while, in one of those apartments that almost touches the sky so you can see the whole of the city beneath you. I’m so tired of running, Ben.” Her head lands against his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he agrees, relaxing into her presence. He wants to wrap his arm around her, but doesn’t want to dislodge her either.
In the end, Rey makes up his mind for him, sitting up again and reaching into a box of ration bars. “Lunch?” she asks, pulling out a second.
“Thanks,” he says, taking what she offers and tearing it open, these are nothing fancy, just proteins and nutrients to carry you through your day. He thinks they taste like dirt, but Rey insists they’re not bad.
“You should come with me,” Rey says, toying with the wrapper between breaking off bites of the bar to pop into her mouth.
“Come with you—no, Rey, I can’t. Just like you couldn’t take my hand, I can’t go with you.”
“I wanted to though,” she tells him, voice small, “she misses you, you know. Your mom. Sometimes she asks me how you’re doing, because, even though I tried to close this stupid thing between us, sometimes I could still feel you, prowling around like a trapped rancor. So you can if you want to.”
Ben bristles at being compared to a rancor but doesn’t speak, and this time it’s Rey who shuts herself away in the refresher. He grapples with the fact that his mother misses him, after everything he’s done. There are days where he refuses to look in the mirror, ashamed to look himself in the eye. He’s broken, but Rey knows this and still lets him stay, has opened up to him, trusts him. Ben knows his mother knows this too. Maybe he can.
When Rey reappears her eyes are rimmed in red and Ben feels terrible, but she ignores him, sitting at the table and beginning to work again. Maybe it’s too late.
He falls asleep, jerking into wakefulness and feeling overheated and the reason is in his arms. Rey. Tucked up against his chest, one leg slung over his hip, hands curled up between them. She’s apparently piled all of the blankets on top of them, which is also contributing to the heat. He hasn’t been this warm in weeks. He needs to move. Now.
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again, but you snore,” Rey mumbles sleepily and Ben inhales sharply. “Don’t freak out, you were asleep, I was tired, it’s fine.”
“I don’t snore,” Ben defends.
“Uh-huh,” Rey nods.
“Well, you drool,” he says and Rey wriggles closer, he can feel the dampness of her drool through his shirt sleeve.
“Shhh, go back to sleep. You were being so loud.”
“My snoring?” he asks, bewildered.
“Ha! So you admit it,” she tilts her head back and opens one eye to look at him, “You do snore.” Ben shakes his head and Rey sighs, closing her eye once more. “No, I meant your thoughts. Now sleep.”
Rey drops back into slumber almost immediately, but Ben can’t, equal parts stunned by this turn of events and embarrassed because his cock is rock hard, pressing against Rey’s stomach, and she didn’t even say anything about it.
Ben does manage a few more hours of sleep, but still wakes up before Rey, giving him time to sneak into the refresher and take care of things. Because he’s still hard, and if she really didn’t notice, which is incredibly unlikely, he doesn’t want her to notice now when she’s awake and actually alert.
Taking himself in his hand he works his cock in quick strokes, jaw clenched, leaning against the fresher wall for support, other hand clamped over his mouth so Rey doesn’t hear a thing. He nearly loses his balance when he comes, ropes of white hitting the opposite wall as he groans into his palm. After the blissful haze of his orgasm fades, he curses that it’s just a sonic. It still cleans up, but it takes longer, if it were water the evidence would have been gone immediately.
Still, he takes his time getting dressed, lingering until he feels like he can’t. Rey is working already when he steps out, feet bare. The floor out here is freezing. He curses, hurrying to his pack while Rey laughs.
“You good?” she asks, and when Ben looks at her while he pulls on his socks there’s absolutely no question. She knows what he was doing.
“Great.”
“Fantastic, grab me a bar for breakfast, please.” Ben hands her one and then confiscates the Jedi text from the table to read while she works. It won’t be long now.
She works until she needs a break, which is late, Ben is fighting sleep. Rey stands, stretching, her fingertips just brush the ceiling. “Food, and then I’m taking a shower. Can we share the mattress again tonight? It was nice to not be freezing while I slept for once.”
“Yes, yeah, yes we can do that, yeah,” Ben rambles and Rey smiles at him like he actually makes her happy. Or his words do at the very least. It’s going to be torture.
It is torture. Rey faces away from him this time, but then drags his arm over her body, and tugs the blankets up until they’re just under her nose, she sighs, wriggling against him. Quickly, and as subtly as he can he shifts his hips away from her. He’s fine for the moment, but he’s very aware that it won’t last, so he closes his eyes and practices his meditative breathing to fall asleep fast.
“I want to live somewhere where it rains,” Rey says into the silence.
“What?” Ben asks, having been on the verge of falling asleep.
“I like the rain, I want to live somewhere where it does that.”
Ben nuzzles his face into her hair. “Whatever you want, sweetheart,” he whispers, slightly slurred with sleep, and if Rey answers, he doesn’t hear it, because he’s already slipped away.
The morning is quiet, and Ben realizes, somewhere along the way, in this tiny place away from everything and everyone, they’ve settled into a routine. Rey heats water while Ben pulls out the two mugs they have. He found them his third day here after insisting on going through Rey’s stock to see what all they actually had. She picks what they’re eating if it's not a bar while he adds the packs of caf to the water. She eats while she works, or thinks about working, and he reads. It’s so different from his usual mornings filled with Mitaka or a droid waking him up, being talked at on his way to meetings or trainings, then suffering through said meetings or battling the Knights. It’s crowded and small here, but he likes these mornings best. He’ll miss them, he realizes, as he squints at notes jotted down in someone’s hand along the margins of the text. Their handwriting is atrocious.
Rey whines into her caf, “I can’t do this, Ben.” She’s sitting still as stone, but he can feel her nerves ricocheting through the bond. “It’s not going to work.”
“It will,” he tells her, rising to stand behind her and look down over her shoulder at the chaos on the table. She had completely dismantled the original saber, pulled everything she could from it that was still in working order, then dumped out one of her bags, metal and mechanical bits clattering all over the table and floor, sorting through it to find what she needed and what she wanted.
“Can you look at it?” she asks, twisting to look up at him.
“I am looking at it,” grinning when she snorts a small laugh into her caf, “but yes, I can.”
It’s roughly as long as her forearm, and half of the casing is off, set aside and waiting to be placed then sealed closed, but for now, all of the inner workings are exposed. He steps beside her and leans closer, making sure every wire is attached and the crystal is seated securely in its chamber.
She’s going to be absolutely lethal with it. “It looks great. You should, uh, probably activate it outside though, just to be safe.”
Rey nods and then laughs, “Worried I’ll slice this place in half?”
“It’s a valid concern!” he defends, and she laughs again, picking up the shell she’s crafted. “You looked straight into my saber the other week.”
“I still maintain that I was not going to activate it, but fine. This place is too small though, so yeah, I’ll go outside.”
Ben steps back to let her work, the Force strong as she focuses, hands hovering over the hilt snapping the piece into place. “I did it,” she gasps, standing up and spinning around rushing for the door, only pausing long enough to yank on her boots before darting out into the snow. The wind bites at Ben’s cheeks as he stands in the doorway watching her.
Several feet away she turns back around and looks at him, takes a deep breath and slides her thumb along the button. It takes a second, but Ben can feel it, the power in the crystal. When it hums to life it’s a brilliant, vibrant yellow and Rey whoops in delight, other hand lifting to brace the hilt now and twist the secondary button. The other half bursts into being and she jumps around in delight.
“I did it!” she yells across the distance to him, deactivating the blades and rushing towards him. He catches her as she collides with him in the narrow entrance, arms braced around his neck and thighs bracketing his waist. Ben’s hands grasp the backs of Rey’s knees, her feet dangling, snow dripping from her shoes. “I did it,” she whispers against his lips.
Ben has a moment to wonder when they got this close, and then she kisses him.
He has the wherewithal to use the Force to pull the door shut and then staggers backward until he hits the table. The tools and equipment still on it rattle, and something rolls onto the floor, but he doesn’t care. Rey’s lips are chapped from the constant cold, but his are too as he meets her enthusiasm with his own. It’s sloppy. It’s the best kiss Ben’s ever had.
He adjusts his hands on her, cupping her ass and hoisting her up higher. Rey wiggles, kicking her legs until each boot hits the floor with a thump, then grins against his mouth and tugs on the long ends of his hair, making him gasp. Her tongue meets his and they both groan into one another. Ben feels hot, and his cock swells, trapped in the tight confines of his pants. He drags his mouth from Rey’s, reveling in her whine as he kisses a wandering path from the corner of her lips to her neck and down. Rey rocks against him, a tiny whimper in the back of her throat as he gently worries his teeth against her skin, then laves his tongue over the spot until she pulls harder on his hair, yanking him away from her.
Rey’s eyes are bright, her cheeks flushed, and her lips are slick with spit. “Beautiful,” he says at the same time she says “Bed.” They frown at one another before Rey laughs and kisses him again, a quick thing, then wriggles out of his arms.
“Not much of a bed,” Ben says, looking over at the sad mattress and pile of blankets.
“It’s enough of one though,” Rey says with a little smirk, fingers dipping into his pants, her nails scraping gently against his lower stomach and making him gasp.
Ben nods, “You’re right,” grasping Rey’s wrist and pulling her hand away, pressing kisses to her fingertips as he crowds her back to the bed. Her heels hit the edge of it and they stop, chests brushing with every deep breath they take, then Rey grabs his hand and lowers down onto her knees, dragging him with her until he’s sitting and she crawls into his lap, looping her arms around his shoulders and sinking low enough to rub against his erection. He hisses, hands on her hips now, maneuvering them fully onto the bed while pulling her closer. He leans back, falling fully onto the mattress while his thumbs delve beneath her sweater to feel her warm skin as their mouths meet once more.
Rey is restless atop him, hands fisting in his hair, then roaming over his shoulders and chest, down between them, drawing up his own sweater, exposing his stomach to the tepid air of the room. She presses in, tracing the dips and ridges of his body while his teeth tug at her lip. Ben wants to take things slow one moment and rush the next. Strip the clothes from her body while drawing a map of her with his mouth. Rip everything off of them both until they’re pressed so tightly together he can feel the beat of her heart in his own chest.
“Off, off, off,” Rey chants into the kiss, pushing his shirt up even more until it’s trapped between his back and the mattress and his armpits. Ben presses another hungry kiss to Rey’s mouth then sits up just enough to yank his shirt over his head and toss it away. As he flops back down, Rey sits up and pulls her own shirt off, staying there to take him in while Ben does the same, eyes unable to focus on one spot for long.
Rey runs her hands over him fully, and Ben’s breath stutters out of him, his abs contracting at her touch as her fingers trace the round scar she left on his shoulder, then down to the jagged outline left from Chewie’s bowcaster above his left hipbone.
Ben is a mess of scars, but so is she. There’s one right below her collarbone, thin and short, silver white from age, he brushes across it gently, wondering when she got it, another near her belly button and of course the one from the last time they saw each other, high on her arm. There are more though, small circles on her arm, normally covered by her wraps, and the long sleeves of the sweaters she’s been wearing here.
“Rey,” he whispers her name, thumb rubbing them gently.
She smiles and ducks down to kiss him, moving his hands to her still covered breasts. “Later,” she promises, then reaches behind her to unfasten the band. “I’m okay though, safe, with you.” Ben nods, managing to kiss her nose and her chin before finding her mouth again while tugging the fabric away from her body.
He wants to look, but he doesn’t want to stop kissing her. He can look later. His hands slide up her body to cup her breasts gently, fingers stroking over the soft flesh. Rey moans into their kiss when he grazes the pebbled peaks of her nipples and presses further into his hands.
She isn’t idle while he touches her, her own hands still exploring, nails scratching gently, and he knows he’ll be a mess of red ribbons later. Proof that she was there. Her thumbs trace his own nipples, then she pinches them and Ben’s hips thrust up against hers as he curses into her mouth.
“What do you like?” Rey asks, shimmying down his thighs so she can better kiss his neck and chest.
“Anything,” he gasps as she kisses the puckered edge of his scar, “all of it, if it’s with you.” Rey hums against his chest, kissing her way further down his body. “What about you?” He asks, needing to know.
Rey sits up on his thighs, reaching up and undoing her hair with a grin. “If it’s with you? All of it.”
Ben lunges at her, mindful of the small space they’re in, but needing to be closer. The Force is a frenetic pulse around them as he tugs down her pants while she works the buttons of his own, then she’s kicking them off of her legs while he gets his down over his hips. His cock bobs free in the air between them and the sound he makes when Rey wraps her hand around him isn’t a sound he’s ever made before, and hopefully won’t ever make again, landing somewhere between a whimper and a wheeze. Then he’s free of his own pants and it’s just them.
“You’re pretty,” Rey whispers, hand languidly stroking him, her thumb smearing precum around the tip of him while the rest leaks onto her hand as she moves.
Ben stares down at her, his arms are already shaking where they’re braced on either side of her head. “Me?” he asks, then shakes his head. “You’re the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen,” he tells her quietly, then gently removes her hand from him. “I need a minute,” he confesses, and Rey nods, bringing her hand up and sticking her thumb into her mouth, sucking it clean with a moan.
Briefly, Ben thinks, perhaps he’s already died somehow, because this is better than any dream or fantasy he’s ever had. “Can I taste you?” He asks, rocking back onto his heels, palms dragging heavily over her body to her thighs, pushing them apart until he can see the glistening wetness of her. Ben groans, “Please let me taste you,” he begs, thumbs tracing closer to her center.
Rey spreads her legs wider and sighs, “Yes.”
Ben wedges her thighs further apart with his shoulders and cups her ass with both hands, tilting her hips up. He runs his nose up one thigh and then the other, does the same with his mouth, peppering kisses against the sensitive skin there, but not where he wants to be, not yet. She’s squirming beneath him, lower lip worried between her teeth as she watches him, one hand fisted in the blankets, the other resting over her breast as if he distracted her from continuing to touch and tease herself. He opens his mouth and sucks a bruising mark on her inner thigh.
“Ben,” she gasps his name, rocking her hips toward him, but he just licks the spot and makes a matching one on her other leg. “Ben, please!” She wriggles closer to him, the hand that was in the blankets now edging up over her hip and towards her mons.
Ben clicks his tongue and pins her hand in place. “If I need you to show me what to do, I’ll ask,” he tells her, and then finally puts his mouth where she wants it. Rey shouts his name, hips bucking against his face as he licks a messy stripe through her wetness, pressing inside of her for a moment, then up to flick at her clit. She’s so warm and wet and tastes like sweetness and musk and salt. He’s addicted already. Ben lets go of her hand to wrap a hand around his dick, squeezing hard, because he’s so turned on he could probably come just from getting her off. He’s never been this much of a mess. It also doesn’t help that he can feel things through their bond, her own arousal. It slips through in snippets, and he’s thankful he’s not subjected to the full onslaught of how he’s making her feel, because he absolutely would make a mess of the blankets beneath them.
He sucks and kisses and teases until Rey stops saying words and is only making noises, and he no longer feels the threat of an impending orgasm. Finally he presses a finger into her entrance as his lips wrap around her clit, he slowly adds a second finger. Rey sobs and reaches for him, her hands fisting into his hair as she rocks against him, and then she’s gone. He feels it and groans, her cunt pulsing around his fingers, and her clit throbbing against his tongue, but he also feels it through the bond, like a star exploding. He works her through her release, gentling his kisses to her clit when she hisses, not fully relenting until she nudges him away.
Ben sits up again, sucking his fingers into his mouth while staring down at Rey. She’s flushed from her chest up and her hair is a mess around her head, her pussy lips are puffy with want as her release leaks out of her, dampening the blankets beneath her. Ben drags a knuckle through the wetness, and licks that off of his finger too.
“Your turn,” she rasps, eyes dropping down to his cock, her tongue peeks out from between her lips, licking at them, then she pushes herself up onto her elbows.
“No,” Ben says, shuffling forward on his knees. “At least, not right now, if that’s okay?”
Rey falls back down again with a wide smile and Ben follows her, kissing her until they’re both breathless. “It’s okay.” She reaches between them, touching the head of his cock where it rests just above her bellybutton, her stomach is a mess of his pre after just one kiss. “I have an implant,” she tells him quietly, staring up at him.
Ben nods, “me too,” and Rey grins, pulling him down for another kiss. Ben shifts above her, hooking one leg over an arm to open her up more to him and then with her hand around his cock she notches it against her entrance.
They stay like that for a moment, frozen and staring at each other. Ben’s tongue feels heavy in his mouth with all of the things he wants to say but can’t, but the bond is open, and tears are gathering in the corners of Rey’s eyes.
Rey reaches up and cards her fingers through his hair by Ben’s temple, and he turns to kiss her wrist. “I know,” she tells him, “I know,” and then she releases him as Ben eases himself inside of her.
She feels even better around his cock, and he has to stop not even halfway in to breathe and focus on anything else to last long enough for her to come again.
“Feels good,” she slurs, hips twitching minutely and Ben has to dig his fingertips into her to keep her still. “Sorry,” she says, her own hands pressed low on her pelvis, like she wants to touch but is waiting.
“Don’t be sorry,” Ben says, “I just want to make this good for you, and it's been a really long time.”
“It’s already good, Ben, it’s with you.”
“Fuck,” he groans, sinking fully into her. “You feel so good,” he tells her, leaning over to kiss her again.
He moves slowly, hips rocking gently against hers, keeping his thrusts shallow because he can’t handle more than that, he wants more than that. Ben trails sloppy kisses to her shoulder, where he presses his forehead against her cheek, panting open-mouthed against her skin, kissing her when he has the presence of mind to. Rey clings to him with one arm, nails digging into the skin of his back, making him groan, then he cries out against her when her other hand slips between them, wrist pressing into his lower stomach with every twist of her fingers against her clit.
“I’m close,” she whispers into his ear and he nods against her, “Ben, Ben, Ben,” she rambles his name until it sounds like one word.
Ben grunts, pace faltering as Rey whines ‘yes’, her hand shifting from his back to grasp his hair again as he groans her name, cock jerking within her as he comes and he feels her body shudder as she comes around him this time. If feeling her earlier release felt like a star exploding, this feels like entire star systems flying apart and then colliding back together again. It’s the most intense thing he’s ever felt before, and in the aftermath there is bliss.
He rolls to the side of her, but brings Rey with him, not willing to let her go or leave her, his cock is still snug within her warmth, but he’s softening. He reaches behind her for a blanket and drags it over both of their bodies. Rey hums in thanks as his cock slips from her body, making him release a quiet grunt of displeasure, which makes Rey laugh into his chest.
“Sleep, Rey,” Ben says, tucking her hair behind her ear and brushing her cheek with his thumb.
“You won’t leave?” she asks, leg slipping off of his to press between them.
“No,” he tells her, kissing the top of her head. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Together,” she agrees, wrapping an arm around his waist with a yawn.
Rey’s hand is warm in his, and he lets his thumb caress hers, because he can, because he wants to.
“Are you ready?” she asks, clipping her saber onto her belt while taking one last look around the room. They’re both weighed down by their packs, the crates of supplies are now empty, and the small heater has been disconnected. “I think we have everything.”
Ben nods, “I think so too, and yes. I’m ready. I think.”
“Don’t worry,” she tells him, “I’ll protect you.” She opens the door and drags him out into the harsh frozen landscape. The sun hazily filters through clouds, but the wind that’s been battering their little shelter the entire time they’ve been here has finally stopped for the most part.
“I know you will,” he tells her with a grin as they make the trek to where their ships lie buried in the snow. One of them will likely stay here forever, rusting into the snow fathomless years from now or maybe found and picked apart by the locals if the surface of the planet ever melts enough.
“And so will your mom,” she continues, stomping through snow drifts. Ben doesn’t want to contradict Rey, because he does believe her, but he’s terrified of seeing her again after everything. He wouldn’t blame her if she sentenced him to a lifetime of isolation somewhere with his connection to the Force suppressed. He hopes Rey is right, but it’s been a long time.
When they finally reach the stretch of land hiding their ships Ben can’t feel his toes, can barely feel Rey’s hand in his own.
“Let's hurry,” he says, and Rey nods, teeth chattering. Together they reach out, and it nearly takes Ben out at the knees, feeling their power tangle together this way. He hears Rey’s quiet gasp as she feels it too. The snow cracks and rumbles, and he’s sweating at the temples when The Falcon finally breaks the surface. Rey opens the ship while he focuses on spreading his energy to keep the ship above ground until they can get it started.
Under Rey’s touch and with multiple curses to encourage things along the engines finally whir to life and Ben exhales in relief. Rey looks over and smirks at him. “You were worried,” she laughs, sinking into the pilot's chair and pulling on the yoke.
Ben lets his focus falter, and falls into the chair next to her with a groan. “This ship is a piece of junk,” he tells her.
“Well, I never doubted her,” Rey coos, petting the console in front of her. “Last chance your supremeness,” she sings, “I can drop you—”
Ben grabs her hand with his left, cupping her cheek with his right one, and turning her head to face him, leaning in and pressing his forehead against hers. He can feel the joy suffuse their bond before he even speaks. “Take me home, Rey.”