Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rey has never actually met Ben Solo. They do, however, speak on the phone for at least an hour every Thursday.

Well, Rey speaks. Rambles, really.

Ben does a lot of listening. At least she thinks he’s listening—hopes.

For all she really knows, he could have his headset sitting on his desk with his laptop set to never fall asleep while she spends an hour or more talking to herself and the tank of guppies she’s come to imagine sits beside his work station, equally as ignored as Rey. She isn’t sure why she envisions the tank—so far Ben seems like the last person who would take the time to care for any living creature, including a tank of tiny fish.

But, for whatever delusional reason, imagining him all alone makes her feel sympathetic in a way that’s, well, inconvenient. He makes her life a living hell, and yes, he’s a person and it’s exceptionally unkind to hate people, but if anyone knows what it’s like to be lonely, it’s Rey. So she’d really rather spend as little time as possible feeling like she has anything in common with him. Especially something as intimate as loneliness.

Because there is loneliness in his voice (the few times he does choose to speak during their calls) and it resonates with some dark corner of her subconscious. Imagining the fish does a good job of keeping him where he belongs—which is very, very far away from that corner.

Certain days lend themselves to certain caricatures of him in her mind, and since she has no real image of him to solidify or debunk her theories, she fluctuates between them.

Corporate Asshat.

Wall Street DudeBro.

Socially Awkward Nerd Living In His Mom’s Basement.

None of them seem right, and yet, at the same time, they’re each right on the money. In her imagination at least.

Most days he’s the latter, and Rey does not spend much time thinking about the fact that this is perhaps the judgiest judgement she’s ever made—nor does she allow herself to dwell on the fact that it’s probably a more accurate depiction of her own life than his. Minus the mom, obviously. Admittedly, there has been one time—okay, two times—where he’s popped up in her dreams as a softer version of the Corporate Asshat, but you’re sorely mistaken if you think Rey would let that version see the light of day.

No, thank you.

Just thinking about it makes her stomach knot with embarrassment.

It is universally unacceptable to have wet dreams of your clients and that is not a road she needs to go down more than once.

Okay, twice , but she was sleeping for god’s sake.

It. Couldn’t. Be. Helped.

During a particularly quiet period backlog grooming session, she stops mid sentence and clears her throat, then doesn’t say anything else right away. She’s testing her theory that Solo logs onto the call then disappears to do whatever it is that’s more important (pooping) (feeding his guppies) (killing small animals) than what is actually his company’s development.

When there’s nothing on the other end aside from dead air, she puts her mic on shush and opens the Zoom chat, mildly thankful he’s not in one of their Slack channels, lest he have access to her at all hours of the day and night. Her fingers hover over the keyboard for a minute. She could easily force a dropped connection and just disconnect from the WiFi. He probably wouldn’t reach back out.

It is something she considers every week, but it would be so unprofessional, and she needs this job.

She rolls her eyes and breathes a hot sigh through her nostrils, setting her fingers to work across the keys.

Johnson : <Still there? Or did our connection drop?>

His response is immediate.

Ben Solo: <I’m here.>

Rey lets out a frustrated noise and pushes her keyboard closer to the monitor quad before making a fist in its place and putting her head down to meet it. Finn leans over from where he sits behind her (too close for comfort, really; this company needs to find an office bigger than the size of a child’s shoe box) and gives her shoulder a squeeze.

Thursdays are...notoriously awful. Perhaps she should make an effort to be less obvious.

She flips Finn the bird over her shoulder before un-muting her mic and resuming her dull but necessary development report.

He’ll have a cup of tea ready for her by the time she’s done and they’ll take a break in the lobby and neither of them will speak of the torture she endures every Thursday morning and it will not be perfect, but it will be alright. Her day will go on and by the afternoon, she will have forgotten about the agonizingly awkward PBG.

She really isn’t kidding when she tells Finn the following week that every single PBG goes the same way. She’s said it before, of course, but for some reason he never takes her seriously.

“It can’t be that bad; you don’t even have to see him in person. Imagine having to go into their office every week for these things. That’s what I have to put up with. I think you’re getting off easy.”

“No,” she corrects, holding out her cup of tea, pointer finger aimed at him as she talks around a bite of bagel. “Getting off easy would be having a Process Owner who knows how to include adequate requirements the first time and who actually accepts stories based off their acceptance criteria, not some idea they had in their head and neglected to share with you. Easy would be knowing the software I have to build without extracting information like I’m pulling teeth. Easy would be--”

She doesn’t get to finish because a piece of bagel falls from her mouth and she and Finn both start to laugh. By the end of their break, she feels a little less like strangling someone and a little more like the life choices she’s made up until this point weren’t all bad.

The next day she comes in at six in the morning to find an email from Solo, the time stamp from about two hours earlier (does he sleep!?) and her week goes back to resembling hell, or something like it. 

To: Rey Johnson

From: Ben Solo

Subject: RE STRY0011887 - AFE Request Application 

Ms. Johnson,

 

You may refer to my worknotes logged on story STRY0011887; I have associated several defects and have updated our acceptance criteria to reflect the necessary changes. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

 

Regards,

 

Ben Solo

Senior Process Owner

First Order Enterprise

She toggles over to the system where they log all their open work and pulls up the story mentioned in the subject line, finding what can only be defined as a plethora of defects essentially rendering the application (i.e. the hours and hours of work she put into completing this project on time, as requested) useless.

Peachy. Essentially everything I moved to testing at the start of the week is garbage . 

I love this job. I need this job. I love this job.

She’ll have to completely re-build the application so the tables are extensible, and the thing is, this is exactly how she was pushing to build the damn thing from the very start, but of course that was the one time Ben Solo decided to speak up. She daydreams about telling him exactly that, of sending the sound bite of their meeting from that week where she expressed these very concerns. Or maybe, at the very least, reminding him that acceptance criteria is established at the beginning of a project to keep this kind of thing from happening—to keep everyone on track, not just the developer. There are a myriad of ways she could go about showing him how she is right and he is wrong, but none of them feel like they’re worth her time and energy. Because in the end, Rey does not own their process and this guy doesn’t even listen to her. Probably. 

She closes her eyes, her nostrils flaring a little as she tries to find that happy place inside. The one her therapist says exists if she searches deep enough. It’s hard to get there (it always is) but eventually, in the end, she manages it.

Her response is petty, perhaps, but it is also suitable. Suitable enough.

To: Ben Solo

From: Rey Johnson

Subject: RE: STRY0011887 - AFE Request Application

Got it. 

Thanks,

Rey Johnson

Senior Developer

Resistance LLC

It takes everything in her not to backspace over the automated signature that attaches to the bottom of all her replies, as she does not feel especially thankful in this moment. For the sake of a polite paper trail, she leaves it.

She needs this job more than she needs Ben Solo to know he’s ruining her week.

She hits send then locks her screen and goes to find her boss. Poe is the only other person willing to come in to the office before the sun rises and usually he’s down for a game of ping pong to get the blood flowing. Or in Rey’s case, bring her blood pressure back to a more acceptable level.

If she has to rebuild the damn thing, she’ll do it when she’s good and ready. And you better believe she’ll log every damn second of the next three days back to First Order Enterprise.

She almost hopes she has to work overtime to get it done, just to spite him.

Scaveng_er: <To be honest, he’s just sort of...an asshole?>

She only thinks about it for a half second before hitting send. She hasn’t mentioned any names and she doubts Poe reads through every staff member’s direct Slack messages. That would just...that would take too long, right? Right. Surely. Shit.

Finn sends a message back in the same second Rey deletes the one she sent.

FN2187: <Have you Googled him?>

Scaveng_er: <Why would I google him?>

FN2187: <...to know if he’s hot, obviously…>

Scaveng_er: <It doesn’t matter what he looks like. It matters if he’s a decent human being. And decent human beings don’t waste other people’s time by making them completely redevelop based off completely new requirements.>

Scaveng_er: <Nor do they ignore their developers when they’re on a call literally intended to talk through requirements of the very stories that end up being reconfigured after the initial development cycle anyway.>

Scaveng_er: <Seriously. I don’t understand why we have PBG calls if we’re not going to groom the stories in the first place. If he wants a weekly review, I should just join their morning standups.>

She stares at her screen for a few minutes, waiting for Finn’s reply and wondering if she should delete everything she just typed. She has her headphones on and can’t hear anything but sees movement out of the corner of her eye as Rose leaves the room. Rey’s heart sinks to the pit of her stomach.

Shit. Shit. Shit.  

A few minutes later Finn finally messages her back.

FN2187: <Sorry; Rose needed a quick code review. Why do you keep deleting everything. I missed most of that.>

Scaveng_er: <It’s nothing.>

Scaveng_er: <No. I haven’t googled him and I don’t plan on it.>

Scaveng_er: <I have a perfectly suitable mental image of him anyway. He’s in his late forties. He’s balding, wears terrible wire frame glasses, and he eats oatmeal every morning. Plain.>

FN2187: <No brown sugar?>

Scaveng_er: <No brown sugar.>

FN2187: <That’s disgusting, Rey.>

Scaveng_er: <Well don’t yell at me about it. He’s the one who eats plain oatmeal.>

Scaveng_er: <All right. I have to go. Connix and I have that presentation next week and we have to “practice”. She’s very anal about that kind of thing.>

Rey and Kaydel do practice. They practice for hours . They practice so much that Rey could give this presentation in her sleep, with her eyes closed, even if all the equipment failed and her demo application breaks in the middle of the demonstration and their powerpoint is accidentally deleted. There is nothing Rey knows better than this presentation—Kaydel too for that matter.

On the morning of, Rey treats herself to a coffee—not the brewed stuff but the sugary, syrupy, sweaters-for-teeth kind of coffee that costs five-close-to-six dollars and will probably give her a stomach ache later on in the day. That or her hands will start to shake by lunchtime. Either way, it’s worth it.

The morning is perfect. She doesn’t spill anything on her blouse (which is a miracle, really—even Finn comments on it) and when she enters the conference room, there’s a spread of donuts and muffins and she might actually begin to drool.

She forces herself to bypass the baked goods, promising she’ll be back, and goes over to the front of the room where Poe and Kaydel are working to get all the equipment hooked up.

Poe looks up from where he’s hovering over Kay’s laptop and when he sees her his face lights up. It is nice to be looked at as if you’re appreciated. No. It is nice to actually be appreciated.

“Don’t you look like a—”

“Poe Dameron, if you even say ‘ray of sunshine’, I will personally pummel you.” Rey sits her cup on the table and opens her laptop, syncing it with the projector as Kaydel passes the printouts of their slides her direction. “That’s a cheap joke. Do not ruin my good mood,” she adds, with mock authority.

“There she is,” he muses, taking a step back, but flashing a dubious grin her direction anyway. “You ladies need anything else from me?”

“Nope,” Kaydel says quickly.

Rey opens her mouth to say much of the same, but changes her tune when the reality of the rest of the day hits her like a brick wall. “Unless you want to take over development for the day,” she says, raising her eyebrows a few times, quickly, trying to see how far she can push him. “You know, on account of this very prolific presentation we’re about to give, which will surely bring in a lot of new accounts, of which there will be numerous hours bought—many jobs secured.”

Poe’s face is almost serious as he deadpans a short, ‘no’, and Rey wrinkles her nose as she takes a sip from her very sugary (very wonderful —no—life-affirming) drink.

“It was worth asking.”

“It was a nice try,” he concedes.

True to her word, when the presentation is set up and their company’s logo is plastered across the screen in the front, Rey pushes back from the table and weaves her way through the room of black and blue suits. The room is full of men which makes the pride she already feels for herself and Kaydel surge just a little. She might hate aspects of her job from day to day but then there are moments like this, where she remembers the reason she gave up her old job for the sake of this one. There are not enough women in engineering, or science, or IT. She likes being one step in the right direction.

Maybe it’s from mentioning development, or maybe it’s just the fact that he’s always floating around in the back of her head somewhere, but Ben Solo drifts to mind and Rey’s otherwise sunny disposition falters for a second. She’s tempted to add to her previous thought, suggest that it is because of Asshats like Ben Solo that women avoid these industries, but it’s not entirely true. And besides, as soon as the thought is there, it is gone. Nothing can or will bring her down off this high, because she has sweater-coffee and this presentation is going to be baller.

She pushes the negative thought down and tells Ben Solo to stay where he belongs. Which is away.

She’s tied up in her own head when she reaches the back of the room and grabs a plate, aware of what’s going on around her, but only just barely. It all happens in three succinct moments and it’s like an out of body experience. She’s watching herself from somewhere above and beside at the same time. It might be an alternate universe, or this universe, or it might not happen at all.

First, their hands meet—just the tips of their fingers, but it’s enough to send a spark of electricity up her arm. Then the words “sorry,” and “fuck,” are floating between them, and Rey—Rey isn’t sure which word came from whose mouth, but she knows he said one and she said the other and all she can hear now is the timber in his voice. It makes her knees go weak. It knocks the wind out of her like a softball to the gut, and then a hot coil settles somewhere below that and starts to unravel. She loses herself to the coil for a moment before she remembers where she is and what she’s about to do, and yes—yes, this is not the time for those thoughts. Those are thoughts she’d rather not have as she’s preparing to stand in front of a room full of people.

Then when she looks up, it happens all over again but this time the world seems to realign a little bit. She re-enters her body— thank god , except maybe not, because she’s still feeling a little weak in the knees and there’s a definite heat between her legs—and she only has to clear her throat once to find the ability to speak again.

He is...a tree. No. No, he’s not a tree. But she might like to climb him as if he were.

No . Not the time—not the place.

But... oh . If it were…

She could speak, but she hasn’t yet. She should. She really should. Instead...

Instead, she is staring, and she knows it, but there are few things in life which are truly beautiful—and when you find something that is, it should be appreciated. Fully. It only takes seconds to traverse the landmarks of his face and Rey files each inch away in a perfect little box at the back of her mind. There are moles—he has moles like she has freckles—and they are perfect . Every single one.

He is not classically handsome. Or maybe that’s just it; maybe classic is exactly the way his features would be described. His hair is long and by some fashion of cataclysmic benevolence, he has not caked it in gel or hair putty like so many men do. It falls in soft waves at his shoulders. Rey has never been one to enjoy men with long hair, but this...she could get used to this. It takes a great deal of self control to keep herself from reaching out and running her fingers through it—just to prove her theory—that it is actually silk, not hair at all.

When he says, “You take it,” she almost doesn’t hear him.

“I—” She sounds out of breath, which is just, shit —it is literal shit. Terrible timing. She is almost surely being punished for something.

You wish you were being punished…

Her cheeks betray her thoughts, though hopefully not to him, and a dusting of red ghosts across her skin.  

When she doesn’t say anything else, he tries again, and this time Rey—this time, Rey will pull herself together enough to be prepared.

“Jelly-filled is all yours,” he says. She thinks he gives her what might be the start of a smile, but it’s really only the corner of his mouth, so it’s hard to tell, and in any case, the second it’s there, it’s gone. It’s a blessing in disguise really, because it gives her the space she needs to pull herself out of it and remember where she is.

“Thanks, but, I—” Words. What are words? She jabs a thumb over her shoulder and then visibly winces at the idiocy of the action and makes a sorry attempt to rectify it. “I shouldn’t eat jelly-filled anything right before a presentation, anyway. I’d be asking for a mess if I did that.” She takes a cinnamon twist instead and before either of them has the chance to say anything else, Poe is standing at the front of the room, clapping his hands together and welcoming everyone.

Rey makes her way back to the front of the room where she does everything but touch the donut, because really, what was she thinking? A cinnamon twist? It’s extremely phallic and how is she possibly supposed to eat it without thinking...yeah, nope. Not going there. Suddenly donuts sound like a very bad idea and eating is the furthest thing from her mind. Which is a definite first. She can’t remember the last time she wasn’t hungry.

Throughout the entire hour, Rey tries to keep her eyes from lingering on him. It is a fruitless effort, of course, as Rey is pretty certain she narrates the long-term benefits of a new plugin specifically to him, with no one else in mind. It is possible that Poe and Kaydel both notice the fact that she’s hardly looked around the room over the past five minutes, but she would hardly know.

Not that it looked like he minded. He held her gaze easily.

As is standard, there is a time for questions at the end of the presentation. The concept of streamlining onboarding and offboarding processes is not overly complicated, nor is it a new and groundbreaking concept. In fact, it is quite possibly the one process that could be described as universal. Maybe that’s a stretch, because there are a million other processes that are equally as common and equally as important, but still. There are several new configurations which have been introduced along with the most recent upgrade, which is, after all, the main reason they are all present.

As people raise their hands and ask questions, and Poe comes to join them at the front, Rey lets herself ease out of the moment to consider other things. More specifically the man who has still not dropped her gaze.

In any romantic comedy, this would be the moment where Rey trips on a wire and succumbs to widespread embarrassment, heretofore ruining what might have otherwise been an extremely successful moment in the canvas of her professional career. And, possibly, depending on how things turn out afterward, her personal life. Because, yeah. She’d really like to explore her personal life after this. Thankfully, it is not a romantic comedy and there is no tripping. Not yet at least. Even if the downside of that is the fact that there is no guarantee that another meet cute will occur, this time with a better outcome, and her personal life may remain exactly as it has been for the past ten years. Nonexistent.

Then Kaydel is looking at her and Rey slams back into reality. She carries her gaze back and forth between Kaydel and the group of clients who are graciously not making her feel too mortified for zoning out. Poe gives her a quizzical look before sweeping in to save her.

“We’ve got a little static up here, so it’s hard to hear. Could you repeat your question?”

She only realizes that a question has been directed to her when she sees who the question is coming from, and how she missed his mouth moving, or that voice washing over her is just completely beside her. Because. Yeah. When it lands on her this time, it knocks her off her feet all over again.

It is natural that there should be questions and that some of them should be directed her way, considering she is the second half to this two-person presentation. It is also natural that each of the companies Resistance develops for should have a representative present. Given the nature of...well, things. The fact that the possibility had not entered into Rey’s mind before now, is, well...idiotic, neurotic, embarrassing, stupid. There could be an entire dictionary filled with words that define her lack of forethought.

He’s been asked to repeat his question, which he does. Well. And it’s all right there in front of her. Not only in the way he introduces himself—because of course, of course he would be here—but in the way his voice carries across the room. It lands on her ears differently this time.

He speaks so seldom on their calls, that she’s not altogether used to hearing the cadence. It’s—it’s actually quite nice. Yes. Yes, she could fall asleep listening to that voice. It would carry her into a dream-scape well. It would treat her well there, too. Tell her just what is needed. Tell her that she is good, yes, enough. That voice would stay with her, and maybe he would too.

Somehow, she manages a response that must be sufficient because Poe looks satisfied and Kaydel looks relieved that Rey has not ruined everything they’ve built in a matter of seconds, and the room goes back to what it was doing before. But Ben.

Because, fuck . Of course he is Ben. Of course he is here.  

Ben’s lips—which are so full she can see them from behind the podium and stop it, stop wetting your own lips, not the time —they purse and she swears this time he’s really smiling at her, even if it’s more like the thought of a smile. She still has no idea what he asked, or what she said in response for that matter, but it doesn’t matter. In that moment—this moment—her entire life seems to realign for the second time in under an hour, clicking beautifully into place.

It doesn’t make up for the way he sweeps all her hard work under the rug or leaves her feeling like absolute garbage on a weekly basis, but it does help. Without really knowing, somehow she just knows : He’s not Corporate Asshat. He’s not Wall Street Dudebro. And thank god he isn’t Socially Awkward Nerd Living In His Mom’s Basement. He’s...she doesn’t know what he is, but she thinks she’d like to find out.

Everything she thought she knew before is shattered into a million tiny particles, dancing in the air around them like specks of dust in the sunlight. Like tiny guppies swimming in a pool of fresh water.

When the presentation is over and the light applause has subsided and Kaydel has stopped giving Rey that look—the one where her eyes are wide and her head is tilted to shield anyone else from hearing what she’s whispering or the harsh tone she’s using—Rey leaves the front of the room to find her seat. With shaking hands, she straightens the papers sticking out of her Franklin planner and powers down her laptop. She feels like an idiot for being as frazzled as she is, but that’s the thing. It shouldn’t matter that Ben Solo is possibly the most aesthetically pleasing being she’s ever laid eyes on. It shouldn’t matter that her first thought upon seeing him was that she’d like to be under him. Nor should it matter that he’d looked at her the same way.

But for some reason, it does.

And now Rey is replaying every conversation they’ve ever had over and over like a loop inside her head. She’s thinking of the sketch that’s buried at the back of her calendar, right there on the table in front of her. Somewhere in December, or possibly January of next year, she’s depicted the various ways in which she’d like to kill him. It would be so easy for him to see it. And she would be mortified, though there is no way he could ever know it is a sketch of him, because she was so wrong . So very, very wrong. Her impression of him was so far from the truth that it seems sacreligious.

Poe leans down beside her from where he’s standing off to the left and Rey shoots back, tearing her eyes away from where they’d been locked on the planner. He looks more than pleased, which is good.

Yes . This was good. This went well. Many hours will be bought. Many jobs secured .

Then Poe speaks, and of course, she misses it the first time.

“I’m sorry?” She thinks her voice might have cracked or wavered, but she can’t be sure. Her ears are doing that thing where it’s like she’s under water even though she isn’t. She can’t really hear anything, inside her head or out.

“I want to introduce you to Ben Solo, from First Order Enterprise.”

Right, she thinks. That’s a totally normal, natural thing to do. You should do that.

Fuck. Shit. Balls. All of it.

When she takes a deep breath and stands, the chair scoots back too quickly and she loses her footing. It is a good thing Ben is there to catch her before she falls. It is a good thing he is there to help keep her balanced.

It is a good thing.

It is a good thing.

It is a good thing.

And then, he speaks.

Chapter Text

Rey’s skin is like fire under his touch. Even through the material of her blouse, she can feel it. If anything having the silky fabric between them makes her blood course more heavily. She feels feverish in a delightful way—heady to the point of overflowing. It’s indescribable. Terrifying. Better than breathing. When she is steady on her feet, he releases her elbow, and lets his hand skirt the air around her until he seems sure she won’t capsize again.  

Rey is beside herself with sheer disbelief. How can this be the same person who makes her life miserable on a daily basis?

But, his face...yes. He’s brooding, she thinks. There something below the surface that keeps his features firm as stone, and when she sees it, Rey thinks she understands a little better how he lets himself act the way he does. The only real softness is in his eyes. Maybe his lips too, but she’d know better if she could test that theory...

It shouldn’t be attractive, but it is. The broodiness, that is. And there, just there , in the taut line between his eyes, is the man she’s come to know, along with all his tension. If she could just reach out, she might be able to wipe it all away with the press of her thumb. They are closer now than they were before and there is no plate of baked goods on which she can redirect her attention, so all Rey has left to do is stare. She could look at Poe, but who would, when this man is standing beside him?

That’s unfair. But...it’s true. In a way. Her life could definitely be worse. 

She tears her eyes away from Ben, to catch her breath, to play it cool, to make sure she isn’t dreaming. Poe is there beside her and his mouth is moving. Rey thinks she hears something of an introduction, then Ben is reaching his hand out and somehow—somehow, Rey manages to pull back the words that were spoken and extend her own hand before she’s left looking like too much of an idiot. Because here she’s had him pegged as the loser, and really, has it been her all along?

“Hello,” he says. There is so much timber in his voice, Rey thinks he might have been a lumberjack in a past life. He could pull it off.

Her hand is shaking a little as it extends to meet his, but if he can tell, he doesn’t let on. His touch is all fire and electricity, and somewhere out in space, there is a supernova, and it’s all because of this. It’s stupid, really, to be so blindsided by something as commonplace as shaking hands. But it sweeps her off her feet, pulling from the inside of her belly backwards and through her spine. There are butterflies in her chest and her toes and every stupid cliche that has ever been written is happening to her in this moment.

Yes. Stupid. She is stupid.

“It’s nice to meet you.” The words are hers, because it’s her voice, but she has no idea how she’s speaking them. Did she really just give an entire presentation? How is it possible that she knows enough words to do that? Speaking seems so...hard.

It is comedic, how lost she is.

Logically, Rey knows they’re in the conference room, but she might as well be six feet underground, or drowning. Drowning actually sounds quite nice. It would be easier, for sure. Probably relaxing, by comparison. Warm water, sun breaking through the current to help her float beneath the surface, safely away from whatever is happening here.

But drowning would mean forgoing this, whatever this is. Whatever is making her heart beat with a flurry of endorphins, whatever has swept her brain clean of any logical, methodic or rational thought she would have claimed to have a few hours ago. Thank god for the hindbrain, because the rest of her brain is failing her.

Things. He and Poe are both saying things, and she must be saying things too, because she hears her own voice, but Rey—Rey is lost. They are entirely too close, and yet, still, she is light years—galaxies—away. Rey would like to climb between the folds of his suit jacket and stay there, maybe forever. The pull she’s feeling toward him is ridiculous considering the fact that she doesn’t know him at all.

“Rey’s one of our best developers,” Poe says.

“She is,” Ben agrees as he nods his head. She feels her cheeks flush and her stomach drop. His black hair flops a little, one strand falling over his eye and he pushes a giant hand back through it so that his vision is clear once more. The downside of not using gel. Rey thinks it is completely worth it; she’d tell him if she were given the opportunity. “Your insight into internal processing as a whole is enviable.” He breaks the hold they’ve had on one another to look at Poe before he continues. “She’s really diversified the way we handle ourselves as a company; it’s more than I expected.”

She should hate the way he’s said that as if she isn’t standing right there. But she hardly even notices.

The words knock her off her feet and for a split second, she’s a little worried he might be implying that she’s overstepped her boundaries. Had she not been watching his face as he spoke, she might have come back with something defensive, but thank god, they are not on a call. Though his tone is not as convincing, there is not a hint of disdain in his face. If anything...he’s looking at her with absolute reverence.

It is quite possible that Rey has been reading Ben wrong for months.

All this time...as it turns out, he is just a very good listener with very poor verbal delivery. At least in terms of word choices. The way he says things...there is no problem with the way he says things. If anything, knowing this is the man behind the mask, she could listen to him for hours. Thursdays might have just moved up in ranking. But, still, how he ended up in IT is clear. Ben is not a good communicator.

“Your presentation was excellent,” he says, stealing her away from her thoughts. His eyes are on her again, that same brooding look in his eye like he’s holding something back or might throw up or pass out if he loses his concentration for even the slightest second. There is something under the surface that needs to find release. Or maybe Rey is projecting.

Standing here with him in front of her, so physically so, she feels like she knows him, and that’s just it. She doesn’t know him. Not really. Perhaps there could be an argument made that she knows parts. But to only know part of this man seems unfair.

“Thank you.” She can still manage manners. Even if she doesn’t offer much in way of conversation in return. Maybe she isn’t as good at communicating as she thinks she is. “Kaydel did a lot of the heavy lifting, but we make a good team.”

His lips are tight as he nods, and there in the corner of his mouth is that hint of a smirk she’d seen before. It suits him. It really does. Rey has to tear her eyes away from him; she doesn’t know what else to say. Development is the only thing they have in common—it’s the reason they’re both here, after all—but it seems...trivial.

People are moving around them but Rey and Ben—they exist in a bubble, unperturbed and wholly content to sit in each others company. Poe is also there.

Then someone calls for him from across the room, and he excuses himself, seemingly ignorant to the fact that he’s an unnecessary third wheel anyway and to her astonishment, Rey actually feels like she can breathe.  

When they’re alone, Ben’s face softens and he speaks, perhaps an octave lower than he had been before, though the fact that it is even possible to do so is unreal, all things considered. He has the deepest voice Rey has ever heard, and her very expensive headset does not do it justice.

“It really is nice to finally meet you,” he says. “I feel like maybe...I might owe you an apology. I know I can be...hard to work with.”

Rey’s mouth parts but that’s it.

How had she gone months, and months thinking Ben was one thing when in fact, he is the exact opposite? Without Poe there to act as a buffer, there is an underlying silence, not for lack of things to say, but for the mountain of what could be said. What should be said. Rey finds herself looking between his eyes and how he manages to hold her overtly intense gaze is beyond her. Distantly, she knows that her mouth is still hanging open but she can’t call upon enough nerve endings to close it. They are all preoccupied. Much busier with far greater matters which might, possibly, consist of keeping her body from giving in to him right then and there, in front of her coworkers and every client who has ever even thought of signing with Resistance.

She is wondering if it’s just her, or if…

“I feel it too,” he says, so quietly she almost misses it.

And Rey. Rey is weak, from the knees down. “Would you like to get coffee?” She has no idea where the words come from. It’s so far beyond how she usually is—with men, with people, with clients for god’s sake—that she doesn’t even feel like herself. Surely some little alien has sunk its teeth into her brain and now has control over her central nervous system.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Alert the local news. It’s finally happening.

His eyes dart over her shoulder and Rey follows his gaze. The travel cup is sitting lonely and forgotten beside her laptop and planner, equally as uncared for. Her neck snaps back to him and she waves a hand dismissively between them.

“It’s cold.”

Ben nods like that’s that.

“Do you—I know it’s the middle of the day, but…”

“I can take an hour. They let us have lunch occasionally, even if it’s frowned upon.”

“Okay,” she says. She feels herself nodding, though it’s a little out of body. “Okay then.”

There is a small diner across the street from Resistance headquarters. The coffee is more like jet fuel and the seats are a little greasy, but it’s within walking distance and they also serve food. Somewhere between the start of the presentation and now, Rey’s appetite has returned, ten fold. A bell jingles overhead as they pass through the door, and all eyes are on them as they walk through the tight quarters to a booth in the back. The clientele is...less than one might desire in terms of polite company, but Rey has only ever seen it as a plus if it means no one she knows is there.

Ben takes up so much space that Rey feels like she should move tables and chairs, clear a path, warn people to move out of the way lest he knock them over.

He is, quite frankly, a national treasure.

They should add him to the map, put a plaque at his feet, and schedule tours. Tours of his face. Of his body. Of his moles. Rey is convinced.

When they’re seated, Ben reaches over and grabs both menus, placing one in front of Rey. “What’s good here?”

Rey laughs before she remembers who she’s with. She quickly makes amends and clears her throat, putting the menu back where it came from. “Everything,” she says easily.

A little woman makes her way over, small notepad in hand and a pencil at the ready. Her eyes are beady, made large by huge, bottle-cap glasses and her lips, which are wrinkled from decades of smoking are forever pinched in a taut pout. She is the embodiment of skepticism and Rey loves her for it.

“Little one,” she says, softly eyeing Rey. She looks to the side and drags her eyes over Ben’s frame. His shoulders are hunched over the table, hands folded atop the menu. He is just...too big. He is too big. And Rey cannot believe that he has fit in this building, much less the booth. There is uneasiness in his back and something else has consumed him now that they’re not alone. “Who is this?”

“This is Ben.” His eyes move to meet Rey’s. Somehow, she knows they’re on the same wavelength, which is just unbelievable, processing the same thoughts even though there’s no earthly reason it should be possible. Rey has never felt a connection like this with anyone—not even Finn, and she always thought they were cut from the same cloth. Rey is floundering for a word that describes who he is because client doesn’t feel right. Neither is friend or acquaintance. He’s just... god, she doesn’t know but she wants to.

“We work together,” he says for her when the words just aren’t coming. “She cleans up my mess.”

Her face is betraying her again, something it’s doing a lot all of a sudden, but this time Maz is here to see and that just makes Rey feel tiny and miserable and caught, like she’s tinkering with the dark side. Like she’s treading a fine line between safe familiarity and something else. Something dangerous. The pouty line of her lips pushes forward in thought before evening out. “Rey is good at fixing things,” she says finally. Then, thankfully, she levels her gaze and drops the conversation. “The usual?”

“Yes,” Rey says quickly, thankful for an out.

“And you?”

Ben doesn’t even glance at the menu. “I’ll have the same,” he says. He sticks the menu back beside Rey’s without even asking what “the usual” is. Rey feels herself smile and suddenly nerves are no longer a thing. Safety be damned. If this is danger, she wants a taste.

Honestly, by the time their food comes, Rey is tired of hearing herself talk, but she’s afraid that if she stops, he’ll leave. That or there will be silence which will give them time to think and thinking will lead to the obvious which is a question of serious ethics. What the hell is going on?

And then, then he will leave. And she definitely does not want Ben Solo to leave. So she keeps going, and by something or someone merciful, he keeps sitting there, listening with rapt attention. The thing is, he doesn’t look like he wants to leave. Not even slightly.

“Come on, Ben. There has to be something you like about your job.”

“There isn’t,” he says with the same deadpan inflection he’s used the past three or four times. She’d been floored to discover that he hates his work, but at the same time, it made so much sense. “What do you like about yours?”

She takes a bite of her toast which is slathered with butter and jelly and chews as she thinks. “The challenge. I’ve always loved tinkering. I used to work at a garage, fixing cars.” His eyes grow a little wide and Rey feels a surge of pride at being able to keep him on his toes. “It was messy, and I loved that about it. No one has ever understood this, but something about the smell...and the feeling of dirt under your nails...there’s something relaxing about being able to visibly fix or clean a mess, you know? It’s cathartic. Development is kind of like that for me. There’s a clear problem. A clear solution. All you need are the parts, fit them together in the right way…”

She takes another bit of her toast and smiles through her teeth as she chews. She is not a graceful eater, but being graceful really is not the point in eating. Nor is it necessary.

Ben nods his head in a thoughtful way. “I can see that in your work,” he says finally. “You’re very organized.”

“Tell me something,” Rey says after a moment. She puts the toast down and clears her throat with a sip of water. “Why are you such an asshole over the phone?”

He nearly spits out the bite of egg he’d been about to chew. Rey laughs but doesn’t let him off the hook.

“I literally dread talking to you.” She doesn’t know why she’s telling him this. He would never know if she would keep her mouth shut, but where she was at a loss for words earlier, she’s clearly making up for lost time now. “You know,” she stabs at a piece of egg on her own plate and raises the fork between them as a gesture of fact before proceeding. “My office mate once kept a tab of how many pencils I broke during our Thursday calls.” Ben’s eyes go wide and Rey thinks he might lean in, either out of shock or the belief that being closer to her will somehow help him suspend his disbelief. “He stopped at twelve and forced me to use a pen instead. So far, those have been significantly harder to snap but you do a good job of pushing me to limits I never knew existed. I’m sure the day will come.”

This seems to help him find his tongue. “I’ll be better.” It’s quiet. A promise. It sort of, almost, makes Rey feel guilty. But everything she said was true, and he is an asshole. Even if he doesn’t mean to be. And she would hate to know that other people are treated the same way she is.

“Thank you,” she says. She takes another bite of egg. Ben drinks his coffee and raises the mug in Maz’s direction for a refill, unable to meet Rey’s gaze.

He insists on paying for her. It is his one condition. A thank you. A promise that he intends to do better, or so he says.

It pushes back against every fiber of who Rey is in her very core. “I really can’t let you do that,” she says. Maz is looking over the register and even though she’s hardly four feet tall, she’s easily towering over both of them.

“Please,” he says. He reaches out and pushes her hand and wallet away, swiping the ticket from between her fingers before she even realizes what’s happening. His thumb brushes her knuckles but one of his fingers skirts the inside of her wrist and her stomach drops the same way it has every other time he’s touched her today. It is this that causes her to drop her guard and finally gives him the space he needs to swoop in and handle the bill.

“Thank you,” she says as they pass through the door to leave. The bell jingles again and they’re hit with balmy warmth. “I almost forgot it was afternoon.” Rey closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath and her shoulders instantly relax. There is silence beside her. Peeking one eye open, she searches for Ben’s face.

Up, up, up…”You are so tall.” She doesn't intend to say the words out loud. Could kick herself for doing so. But he doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice really. His face is screwed up in agitation, both eyes squinting so tightly that Rey is floored he’s even able to see. “Prefer the clouds, huh? Why am I not surprised?”

Rey bursts out laughing and just as she’s about to apologize for making not one, but two uncalled for comments, her phone begins to ring. She holds up a finger in gesture for him not to go anywhere.

“Oi, what is it? I’m on lunch.”

Finn’s voice is slightly exaggerated on the other end of the line, but when she pulls the phone away from her ear, she is shocked to find that he’s right. She’s nearly an hour past her allotted lunch, which is already rather generous.

“Shit,” she says. “I’m just across the street. Tell Poe not to get his panties in a wad. I’ll be there soon.”

When she hangs up the phone and turns back to Ben, his face indicates that he understands.

“I have to…”

“Yeah, I should get going.”  

Neither of them move to leave.

For as long as they’ve been talking, there is a still a mountain, a continent, an entire sea of words still left to be said. Rey almost laughs at the thought and a little bit of that mirth bubbles over before she can catch herself and play it cool. Ben’s eyes narrow, but aside from that, there is no other motion across the planes of his gorgeous face.

“What?”

Rey huffs out a ridiculous cross between a laugh and a snort. “How is it possible that I hated you so much and…” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”

He nods. It is what she expected, but she’s a little disappointed in the movement too.

“Well,” she says when it is clear he will not be filling in the silence. “It was very, very nice to have finally met you. I’m—”

“Have dinner with me.”

Her face screws up. She’s sure of it, not because she can feel it (though she does, feel it, that is) but because he retracts almost instantly as, as if she’s burned him.

“I’m sorry—” she reaches out and tries to wipe away the damage she’s done by making gestures in the empty air. “It was a reflex. You just—you kind of...it was demanding. Are you...”

“Please. I...I’m sorry, I’ve never... I’m fucking this up so badly.” Ben pushes a hand through his hair. He’s almost wincing which Rey finds even more endearing, somehow.

“This could go very poorly, you know.”  

“I do.”

She wrinkles her nose. There is part of her brain that is only thinking of the phone which is now burning a hole in her pocket. She’s wasting time she doesn’t have by standing here talking to him. But the other half of her brain is screaming that literally nothing else matters, and of course, it is right. The other half of her brain can go screw itself. She lets out a sigh. “I have one condition.”

Ben is nodding so much his head might fall right off his shoulders. “Of course, anything.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “I would need to know, for certain, that you won’t sabotage my career.”

“I couldn’t—I would never.”

“You could though.” She crosses her arms, but the second she does, his face drops and he suddenly looks twelve years old, and as if he’s just been told he can’t have the puppy he’s been dreaming of since he was five. “But...you won’t. Right?” She uncrosses her arms a little, bringing one hand to play at her lips as she thinks things over, trying to weigh what feels like a lifetime of what-ifs and what-thens in her mind, all within the span of three-maybe-five seconds.

And then, as if it was even in question, she says, “Okay,” and he looks like she’s handed him the moon—as much as he can, at any rate.

As they walk across the street, Rey’s arms still crossed, her right thumb stuck between her teeth and Ben at her side, his hand hovering gently at the base of her back (not touching, though she can feel the heat and the weight of its presence) a thought pops into her head.

“You don’t have any guppies, do you?”

He doesn’t bat an eye at her question which in some weird way (which Rey would really rather not explore) makes her want to say “screw work”, and drag him off to the first secluded space they can find so that she can make good on her promise to explore any one of the numerous theories she’s contrived about his lips and his hair and his arms over the past however many hours it’s been since she first laid eyes on him.

“No,” he says evenly.

Rey bites her thumb a little harder and nods her head. “Good, good.”

When they reach the front of the building, Finn is at the door, his arms folded and a scowl across his face. Rey thinks she sees one of his feet bouncing. He’d make a very good mother.

Chapter Text

They don’t have dinner that night. In fact, it is almost a full month until their schedules align in a way which makes them available for more than twenty minutes here or there. The anticipation has done a fair number on Rey’s heart and her gut, in no certain order. She bounces back and forth between hoping their dinner date never comes and wishing it would come just a little bit faster.

In the weeks since their first meeting, Thursday has passed three times, which means that Rey has well and sufficiently lost her breath for good. There is little chance it will ever return. Finn has made her mortifyingly aware of the fact that she’s a nervous laugher, and even Poe seems to have taken note of the fact that a paradigm shift has occurred in their working relationship with First Order Enterprise. It is startling, how knowing a person in reality can change your perception of them online.

Rey is loading up her laptop at quarter after ten on a Friday night when the admittedly outdated smartphone in her back pocket buzzes. Her first instinct is to ignore it, to check the text when she gets to her car and can settle in as the engine warms. But then the buzzing continues. She pulls it from the confines of her jeans to find that it’s not a text at all, but a call ( who calls people anymore? ) and the number is not one in her contacts. Though, the area code matches her own, and that sparks enough curiosity in her to warrant answering.

“Hello?” she says, pinching the device between her cheek and her shoulder as she continues to place the various items which litter her desk into the pockets of her backpack.

The voice on the other end is slow and deep—one which sends a chill down her spine despite the professional nature which usually accompanies it. Except this time, the call is being delivered through a network linked to her personal phone rather than through a hyperlink in her email. This time, it doesn’t have a story number or sprint attached to the subject line. This time...she can tell it’s meant for her ears, and her ears only. If she were to record this call and replay it later in the week, it would be for personal reasons wholly unrelated to developing.

“Is this a good time?”

There are so very many aspects about this call that catch her off guard; she can’t quite tell where to start. Halting her movements enough to peek out the door and look down the hall to ensure no one else is left in the office, she settles on asking, “How did you get my number?” The corners of her mouth pull upward and something inside her blossoms.

There is a light huff of amusement on the other end. She can hear Ben lick his lips and clear his throat. “I might have done some digging.” There is a beat where she waits to see if he’ll continue with the second half of that sentence—the cadence of his voice indicating that there is more to be shared, should he choose. He lets out a sigh, not one of irritation, though a month ago she might have expected that, but one of embarrassed defeat. She waits patiently for what is to come. “It felt unprofessional to continue asking about your schedule...and other things...through work email, so I might have looked through our contract files...though in retrospect, now that I’m saying it out loud, to your face, I realize that is also unprofessional. I’m sorry...”

“You’re not saying it to my face,” she says, leaning against the doorway. She crosses her arms and props her elbow against her wrist as she holds the phone to her ear like a lifeline and presses her lips together as she considers the words she’s about to say. “Would you like to fix that?”

His response isn’t immediate, which does nothing to quell the storm inside her. She can already feel heat creeping up her neck from her chest; soon it will have covered her face and she’ll wish she’d never answered the phone. Even so, the little girl who always had to take care of herself is standing firmly in the back of her mind, reminding her not to apologize to anyone for who she is or what she wants. Rey doesn’t take back the cheeky offer, but she does move from the doorway and zip her backpack, grabbing her jacket and tossing the bag over one shoulder as she waits for his response. Which, is not coming as quickly as she would have liked.

He starts a few times but doesn’t adequately finish any of his sentences until a heavy moment later. In the end, what comes out makes her stop in her tracks. “I would love to, but I have to admit something first.”

Even though they haven’t seen each other again since that first meeting, Rey and Ben have spent a significant amount of time getting to know one another—and he’s right—the way they’ve gone about it has been all wrong. The number of personal details littered into documentation emails and backlog grooming calls is, to be frank, embarrassing. If either of their employers were to request copies of their correspondence, one of them would surely end up without a job.

For as many times as their schedules have not aligned, or their conversations have drifted far too close to the margin of what is appropriate for work, it is a wonder that it never occurred to either of them to exchange personal phone numbers. It is also a wonder, after the amount of rescheduling they’ve both had to do, that neither of them seems to doubt the others legitimate interest. Were it anyone else, Rey would almost surely think she were being given the shaft—and were it anyone else, Rey would almost surely be giving them the shaft in return.

But it’s not anyone else. It’s Ben. Ben, who used to make her life a living hell and has somehow managed to give her a reason to get up in the morning. Ben, who she was convinced hated her and whom she hated in return. Ben, who is larger than anyone should have the right to be, whose features are pieced together in the most sporadically appealing way, and who (in the three short weeks they’ve actually known each other) has somehow managed to make her feel like she’s worth something.   

Rey is exiting the building when he drops this bomb—admissions, confessions, they’re rarely, if ever, good—and then it’s her turn to respond in silence as she drags herself up the stairs which lead to the parking lot.

“Okay…” She’s a little breathless, in part from walking, in part from the uncertainty of what he might say. As soon as she thinks she’s out of the woods in terms of being dragged around by this guy, he does something like this. Reminds her that he’s really fucking good at being vague and ambiguous. He seems to teeter on the fence of saying exactly what’s on his mind and dancing around the bush like it’s on fire. As she crests the staircase, she takes a deep breath, but it gets caught in her throat.

“You see,” he says, voice quiet. “I really would like to fix that.”

It’s dark out, and due to a lazy maintenance staff, there are really only a few lights illuminating the dark corners of the lot, something Rey has mentioned on more than one occasion to their building’s landlord. It’s unsafe. There could be lurkers.

As it turns out, there are.

But the broad-shouldered man standing before her is the furthest thing from the villainous imaginings of her nightmares. What little light is there has cast him in a perfect shadow. The length of his hair frames his face, making each of his generous features seem even more unwieldy. It does things to her. It makes her heart rate quicken. Makes her throat catch to the point where he almost certainly hears her clear it through the receiving end of the phone.

“Hi,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. She sounds echoey on the line, further confirming what she almost can’t believe to be true. That he is there, standing before her, in the flesh. In the flesh .

Oh, the things she would do…

“Hi yourself,” he says as he pushes off what has to be his car. He takes a few steps forward to meet her. She had almost forgotten how tall he was. Almost. Because she is by no means short, but good lord. This man is nothing short of a building. One architected with careful clarity; a chiseled spectacle to behold. A thought she’d had the first day they met comes back to her, more true than ever. His likeness really should be erected in a museum. Preferably in marble.

After they’ve stood for what seems like an eternity, just staring at one another, Ben brings his phone away from his face and Rey follows suit.

“What are you doing here?” She wants to know—wants to believe the answer is as obvious as it seems—but the off chance that she’s wrong is daunting. “How did you know...I wasn’t planning on being here this late.”

Ben puts his phone in his pocket and steps forward until he’s more in her space than not. “It was a lucky guess,” he says simply, the timber of his voice threatening to wake the world around them. “The past few Friday nights we’ve both worked late, so I thought I’d drive by on the off-chance…”

“Are you stalking me?”

Rey intends the words to be playful, but even she can admit that there is more hesitance, more concern, in her voice than would lead him to understand that intent. He’s quick to backtrack.

“No, I— Jesus fucking Christ— I’m an idiot.” He passes a hand through the light waves of his dark hair before letting it drag down his face as well.

Rey’s mouth drops open and she can’t help but laugh. “I’m kidding, calm down.”

Ben lets out a sigh of relief, but it seems forced. She can’t tell for sure, with the lights and all, but she thinks his face grows a little more pale than it was before. How it is even possible, she has no idea.

“Is this what you were admitting to?” She takes a step forward, lifting her shoulder and the backpack a bit so the strap doesn’t continue to slip away. Ben observes her as she does so and extends one long, muscular arm to ease her of the burden. His fingers are strong, warm. They sweep against her and sear through the fabric of her shirt like embers of a dying flame.

“No,” he says slowly. “No…I brought coffee, actually. It seemed late for dinner.”

“You’re admitting that you brought coffee?”

He holds back a smile and Rey tries her best stay grounded. She’s processing the words he’s saying, but she’s still stuck back ten seconds ago when he touched her like it wasn’t going to set off a flurry of alarms inside her body. Like it wasn’t going to break a dam and release every ounce of self control she’d been clinging to in an effort to remain composed.

Because, composure is great, but there are other worthwhile things in the world, and Rey has never been one to deny herself the pleasures of existence.  

Ben takes her backpack and sits it on the trunk of his car, just below the yellow beam of an overhead lamp. It adds another long shadow to the mix, meaning they’re all pretty well doused in a concoction of light and dark. Ben pulls open the driver’s side door and leans in. Rey takes advantage of the moment to appraise him from behind.

The female gaze and this man’s body. Both are worthy endeavors and Rey has every intention of making her agreement with them known. When he returns to his full height, she expects to see travel cups—the white, paper kind with a little cardboard band which will try (and fail) to keep their hands from burning. Instead, he’s holding a thermos.

“Too late for dinner, but not for coffee, huh?” She watches him as he nods gently toward the back of the car and moves around to join her backpack at the trunk. A whisper of a smile takes hold of her lips and as she joins him there, she can’t help but let her happiness at seeing him encompass the rest of her face. All of this. Him—her—both of them here, like this…if anyone had told her at the start of their partnership that things would go this direction, she would have laughed in their face.

How very wrong she would have been.

“It’s never too late for food,” she says as Ben hands her the metal lid which is now acting on its secondary purpose, an agent for delivering the warm black beverage to her veins. “You don’t have a cup,” she observes.

Ben’s face hardly moves as he takes her in. His full lips push forward a little, as if he’s tasting the words before he says them, then they pull back and form a quick smile. He ducks his head, the curls that frame his face falling forward with the motion. When he pulls his head back up, he says, “It’s okay.” Soft, like an apology, or a proposition.

Rey puts both hands on the lid and brings the edge to her lip, taking a careful sip, then holds it out for him to do the same. Ben steps forward and the action, it is intimate . The way he looks at her as he leans forward, as he steadily locks his gaze with hers and lets those same, full, flush lips touch to the metal in her hands—it is sexual. Rey’s heart stops. Her breath catches in her throat and she could come from the way he’s looking at her.

When he’s taken a sip of the coffee, Rey brings it back to her own mouth and completely ignores the way it burns her tongue as she drinks her fill. It’s a distraction, and that’s what she needs right now. In an attempt to clear her mind and keep herself from jumping him right here, right now (though she doesn’t even know if he’s interested in that ) (with her) (or at all), she clears her throat and recalls the conversation they were having before they ended their call.  

“What was it you needed to admit to? You’re killing me with that, you know.” It isn’t a lie, and her face must give way to the reluctance she feels toward knowing his answer. Something in his eyes softens. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that.”

They’re close now. Perhaps the closest they have ever been in this short stint they’ve known each other. There is a brief moment, where somewhere in the dark recesses of Rey’s mind, she reminds herself that they have only just barely met—and that moreso, more than anything else, he is her client, and she his contractor. They are coworkers. An argument could even be made suggesting there are work-related power dynamics that could cause problems should they enter into any kind of personal relationship. But, it’s too late for that, isn’t it? Because they’re standing so close they’re breathing the same air.

Rey opts to ignore every single logical concern, and Ben—Ben must decide to do the same.

He steps closer still, and at this point, he is so far in her space that he might as well be in her . There are no boundaries at this point; they’re two sides of a coin, the yin and the yang of the energy which surrounds them. They are the good and bad of the decisions they’ve made and have yet to make, and it is the sweetest sensation. He removes the lid from her hands and deposits it on the trunk alongside the thermos to which it belongs. Rey lets her arms fall as her eyes remain locked on his. Tentatively, as if the force of his gentle fingers against her sun-kissed skin could cause her to shatter, he reaches out with both hands and takes her face between them.

“What I needed to tell you,” he starts, stepping in until their noses are touching, until he can make out each individual freckle that dusts the planes of her face, until his lips are so close to hers that as he speaks, their skin brushes, “is that I can’t promise I’ll be able to contain myself if I do see you in person.” He smells like bitter coffee, like the outdoors and sweat—the good kind, the kind that is specific to a single person—and it is nothing of what she expected him to be. “But it feels a little late for that.”

“Does it?” Her heart is hammering out of control, beating steadily into her ribcage to the point where it may bruise. Is that even possible?

Speaking, like this, where there is a direct transfer from her mouth to his—it is more intimate than anything Rey has ever experienced in her life. His eyes dart between hers and she is unbearably aware of his large hands, his long and adept fingers cupping her face. He only has to come a fraction of an inch further before their lips are truly married in what can only be described as rhapsody.

This. This must be what it is like to watch a star die—effervescent streaks against a boundless sky.  

Everything up until this point has been a careful calculation. Before Ben was an actual person, back when he was just a voice and Rey would count down the seconds until she could be free of him and the headache he caused, she had rules. They consisted mainly of guarantors. Things which would ensure she remained at a distance. But then the curtain was pulled back, the mask removed, to reveal a person . There was a whole person, to which belonged heartaches, struggles, a life . Yes, for a time, he had made her miserable. But someone had made him miserable first. Rey...she knew that now. And he knew things about her. Things of her life which made her a person. In some ways it had been easier to share those accounts than it had been to share their development work.

When Ben’s hands leave her cheeks to dive back into her hair, fingers getting lost in the strands that are tied at the back of her head until the buns there are more than partially fallen, she doesn't mind. When they drop to her shoulders and traverse the curves of her arms, down and across—the edges of this thumbs skirting the outside of her breasts—Rey lets out a moan of relief. To have him touch her—it is everything.

“Come here,” he says against her lips as he pulls her in at the waist. She is hoisted atop the car’s trunk before she even realizes her feet have left the ground and Ben’s lips are at her neck. He breaks away for a moment to look her in the eye, both his hands still locked at her waist in a vice grip. There is a look of physical pain on his face which is quickly replaced by something like morose disappointment. “I don’t want to—”

She can already tell by the thickness of his voice that he is half lost to himself and to her. She doesn’t need him to confirm that they’re both feeling the same thing. “Don’t tell me what you don’t want to do,” she says, shaking her head slowly as she scans the scene before her: him, leaning so far into her that he’s almost bent in half over the small car, him with his dark hair and even darker eyes, all but dripping with need, him. Here. With her. “Tell me what you do .”

It’s a whisper. It’s a plea. A command.