Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Soft starlet, an angel from above—smooth and clear notes pushed from her throat that echoed through the darkness before a spotlight illuminated her sweet silhouette. It wasn’t a genre he liked, but he’d become one of those fucking groupies if it meant she’d know his name. Hell, she might already know his name, but he wanted more than that—wanted her to know him. Her indie-pop was like the music they played on the alt stations until the disc jockeys over at pop station central found it and rubbed their grubby hands all over it, overplaying the music until you had every bass riff, every E-flat and every backup vocal memorized.

From years and years onstage, Kylo had learned that every concert had a different smell; this one smelled ripe with weed and sweet like rose oil.

Getting shoved around by screaming teenage girls was less than ideal—he could have bought out the entire stadium if he wanted—but the chances of recognition lessened with each one that fought to stand in front of his lumbering six foot three figure. Still he tried to keep a low profile, wearing a black baseball cap with his hair tied back, a black hoodie and jeans. No makeup. Hopefully none of the riot-kids and spit-swappers at his sorry-mosh-pit-excuse for concerts found a place in the sultry tunes of Rey Sol.

But fuck, he had. Selfishly, he wished she hadn’t blown up—or that he’d found her before that. Wished that he hadn’t had to make up a story to tell to his bandmates as he skipped rehearsal to sneak off to go see her perform. This was only the second time he’d been able to watch her, as they’d crossed cities coincidentally during tour. They had played the venue the previous night, and the neon sign on the building flashing her name had prompted him to ask one of the PAs to get him a ticket and shut the hell up about it or they’d find themselves out of a job.

“No green in the desert, no green in that heart, but baby you got me right from the start,” she crooned, her voice raspy and sweet, a sweetness that stirred a fire within him. Burning through his head and tingling down his spine, firing up the dopamine receptors in his brain faster than a needle in his arm.

The melody played loudly and clearly through the stadium, the crowd singing the lyrics in unanimous echo. Kylo knew this song—it played everywhere. It was her new hit single from her upcoming album, Crossing the Distance, out for a few months as a teaser for more to come.

this ain’t love

more like hate

i’m so gone

because it’s more like fate

when the stars align

maybe we could go dancing

when worlds collide

come take me for a ride

when hell freezes over

that’s the day you’d be mine

but i’m lost in a daze

can’t get you out of my mind

He had often wondered who she had written the prickly-sweet words about, seeing as her older music had never focused much on love; if they did, they came out more metaphorical and indirect. Her songs focused on her devastating childhood, trauma, gardens, the Arizona desert, and aching bones, parched skin, heat waves over sandy plains. That’s what had drawn him to her. They seemed to share this sense of unified suffering, a common attribute that bound them together despite the contrast in genre.

He’d done his research on her, if not briefly. There wasn’t much to be found; she stayed consistent in revealing little detail about herself. Small parts of herself that kept her shrouded behind a gauze of mystery. Only 22 and flew to stardom when she went solo after four years with her band, REBELS. Her manager took a special interest in her, saw potential like she’d never seen before. That manager being Leia Organa of Triple R Records—his own damn mother, who he’d neglected to speak to in over a decade. It bothered him less that she managed Rey and more that she never offered to manage him. Leia, international superstar and world-famous actress, carrying a toddling Ben Solo on her hip and the weight of Hollywood’s feminist movement on her shoulders, trying not to crack under the pressure of her failing marriage to former-rock guitarist Han Solo. Ben had, of course, ruined what little good reputation she’d given him with her namesake, growing out his hair and punching walls and making harsh feminist political statements (that she agreed with but hated his methods for) in public, splattering his face on tabloids as a troublemaker at just 14. Wild-child, moon-child, storm-child; all names Leia had granted him after a long line of misbehavior.

Rey, ever the good girl with a reputation for kind eyes and fiery humor, was wrapping up her first ever solo tour, and it felt

“Nightmare, I don’t care,” she sang, swinging her hips to the beat, one hand on her knee as she pressed her back against the microphone stand and slid down, the fabric of her little skirt riding up to give the crowd a peek of that smooth honeyed skin. Everyone screamed, whistling encouragement to her as she peeked over her bared shoulder and winked. “Dark eyes, you’re so fine.”

take me under, paint me red

throw the towel, kiss me dead

rockstar devil, get a clue

you’re so bold and i’m brand new

Fuck. Kylo swallowed, willing himself to push away the image of her panting beneath him with that sly little smirk, chest flushed and hips writhing against his.

This was the part of the song that became rougher, where she pushed her vocals to the edge and the words came out more as a rasping scream, the part that definitely hadn’t given him a raging boner the first time he heard it. She let the last line grit from the back of her voice, feminine but husky and just…tantalizing, landing on bold and new in a shout. It showed raw emotion, more than her lighter songs about planting flowers in the desert and finding water in a drought. The song was definitely edgier than the others she put out, but the industry and what seemed like the entire world had eaten it up and fallen in love with it, just like they had with her. That, and the tempo was very…danceable. Something one could jump along to without thinking. Very pop punk.

(i’m so dead)

(because it’s all in my head)

(i’ve made my bed)

(because it’s all in my head)

(you’re so cruel)

(you’re so cool)

She let the rest of the song die out, finished, and let the crowd cheer for her as she took a huge sip from her water, smiling and panting.

As the noise died down, she grabbed the mic again, a joint weeping smoke from between her fingers. Kylo shifted on his feet, clutching his cup tighter.

“Hey guys, I’m so happy to be here tonight,” she said as she caught her breath. Another round of cheering, and she let it carry on until she had taken a billowing hit off her joint.

“Okay, I’m gonna let you in on a secret, since it’s the last night of tour,” she said with a wink once the crowd had hushed, but it only served to rile them up again until she made a big show out of hushing them with a devious grin, slender finger pressed to her lips.

“Everybody’s asking who the song’s about, and I’m gonna tell you.”

Screaming, cheering. A couple whoops and whistles. Rey moved to sit by the edge of the stage, legs hanging off as if engaged in a casual conversation with friends. Her dress fluttered around her in a pool of cream-colored fabric.

“I know, I know,” she giggled, and Kylo had to give it to her—she knew how to work a crowd, “It was inspired by this guy that I met at a New Year’s party. He ran right into me. Literally right into me. We’re polar opposites, just an impossible match, and he got on my nerves. Total prick, really. But he consumed my thoughts so much that I had to write a song about him, and I ended up wanting him in my bed instead of buried in my backyard. Well. Maybe still feel a bit of both.”

The crowd cheered, giving whistles of encouragement, and she gave a bubbly laugh.

But Kylo stood there, unaware he had dropped his drink until the girl in front of him turned and yelled something about her shoes.

All of the country and most of the world knew who he was—he was a legend in the making, someone they whispered about, whose songs you fucked hard to and put on blast after a breakup.

He tried every day to remain unflinching in his demeanor—mean, easily-irked, unpleasant.

It kept people from getting too close.

Yet somehow.

Somehow he had managed to let a certain silky-throated siren slip under his skin. 

And those words shot him right to the moment it happened.

A dark haze of smoke and sweat, glittering lights reflecting through the bottles of champagne lined up on ice on the bar top. It smelled like new furniture, burnt brownies, and sex. Classy for the party every A-B-C-list musician was invited to.

As he sat nursing a half-empty bottle of black label, Kylo was relieved that this party was open bar, free smoke, else he truly would have been miserable. This way he could find himself blissfully numb and mesmerized by the high shine of party lights and tight bodycon dresses. Perfect way to ring in the New Year. Whoopdeedoo. And everything was…perfect.

Until he had to take a piss, that is.

Until he stumbled into the bathroom and didn’t notice someone else had clearly just opened the door. Until he shuffled in and unknowingly trapped said someone else in with him.

He recognized her as nothing more than a blurry, tiny little thing in a cream colored getup that made the freckles on her skin pop.

Through the fog of his mind, he knew he should let her out, move out of the way. But as he leaned against the door to close it, he looked down at her through one open, hazy eye and made a single determination:

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

He hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until she stifled a laugh, instead opting to try a firm glare.

She looked familiar, but familiar in the way everyone knows thunder follows lightning.

Her flushed cheeks, smudged eyeliner and peculiar three bun hairstyle gave him something to dream about as she hid a smirk from him and folded her arms across her chest. It was then that he noticed the smudged flash tattoos that covered her arms, and he hoped in a blur that he hadn’t just sloppily hit on a teenage girl. It was weird enough that he trapped her in here, but he just couldn’t really move quite right. Too many xans earlier.

“Gonna let me out, hotshot?” Her voice had a vague, fading English accent that hovered between raised by a Brit in the states and American living in the UK for years. He guessed it was the former.

“Mmm, no,” he hummed, taking a sip from his bottle with one eye still closed, “Let me look at you.”

Bold, Kylo. Too bold. Too forward. Trapping this wom—this girl—in a bathroom and then eyeing her like meat. Fucking sicko. 

She could have easily pushed him over to get to the door and he would’ve fallen flat on his face, but that wasn’t the point. It also wasn’t what happened. The whiskey burned down his throat as he took another swig but nothing came close to the image of her snatching the bottle from his hand and taking a swig of her own. Those plush pink lips, swollen from lord knows what, pushed against the lip of the bottle as she squeezed her pretty eyes shut and swallowed. Her throat bobbed each time and she made a small grimace from the burn, crinkling her nose when she pulled back. It was quite a sight, watching her drink gulps of the hard stuff straight with little complaint.

With a slender thumb plugging the bottle, she whacked his shoulder with it, enough to sting—not enough to hurt, not really. Maybe if he’d been more sober.

“Corner me in a bathroom again and I won’t be so sweet,” she said sharply, a finger poking his chest.

The rest was a blur of her shoving him out of the way with little to no force and slipping from the cramped bathroom with his black label in hand.

Later, after his high had worn off and the blunt he nursed did little to resupply it, he felt glaringly aware of literally everything around him and decided to look for the one thing that had yet to leave his mind: her. He scoped her out in the middle of a crowd of amused, drunken celebrities, all of them enthralled by the story that the minuscule girl told with animated gestures. When she noticed him staring from afar, her demeanor faltered for just a moment, a flush climbing up her chest and blooming across her face. Her features hardened and she turned away from him. She really was fucking beautiful. All the more reason to stay away. 

So yes. He knew Rey Sol. They…knew of each other. He just didn’t think she was into him. Or that she even cared to think twice.

Chapter Text

It had felt like he’d run into a wall of bricks. Sort of in a good way. Standing, dumbstruck as he had watched her go through the rest of her set with all the ease of a well-oiled machine.

Sure, he had speculated that it was about him, but in all honesty he didn’t think anyone cared enough to think that way about him. For almost ten years, his sex life had deteriorated down to a quick blowjob once in a blue moon in hushed secrecy by an unpleasant ex with more daddy issues than Jesus. Shameful, full of regret after, but Bazine had a mouth like magic when she used it for anything other than picking fights and spiking his blood pressure until he boiled over. He hadn’t seen her or wanted to in a long while—she had taken to using him for free coke and verbal degradation—neither of which he tolerated from someone he could hardly stand. And after he’d blocked her number, he wasn’t interested in the offerings of LA, or anywhere. That, and he couldn’t be interested even if he wanted to be.

Always that stabbing reminder in the back of his head.

Phasma could take whatever—whoever—she wanted.  Her queerness was an appeal, a draw, something to lure in business. She had the androgynous energy, the dominant attitude as the tall, buxom drummer that made women melt when she made them call her Captain.

And Hux.

Hux was a bitter, mean twink, and argued with a sharp tongue until he had been allowed to come out too. He’d even hit on Kylo a few times and they’d hooked up once; but they hated each other so much Kylo had pulled Hux’s mouth off his dick and stormed off after he’d said something spiteful and rude with that stupid smug grin. 

But Kylo, with his wavering spectrum of sexuality, his interest in no one until he found someone—had to be hidden, stamped down to where he’d conditioned himself to feel nothing for any good-looking person he saw, not even a clinical acknowledgment of their looks. Didn’t matter how many times he’d complained, how many one-and-done escorts they’d paid for him to have and he’d ultimately ignored. He was different. Special. A true talent. Couldn’t be tainted or bothered or distracted by something as illogical as the temptations of flesh and feeling.

And he’d resigned to listen to that.

Until her.

He couldn’t get her out his mind, always pulsing in the corner like a beacon of light.

Women are weakness for you, Kylo Ren. Men are weakness. Love is weakness. An amplification of sins of the flesh. That’s all it is. If you let it weaken you, it’ll only bring a means to an end for this empire I’ve built. You’re invaluable to this organization, you cannot crumble. Remember who took you in when no one would, who trained you to excel. Remember who gave you your success, your money, your—

Kylo rubbed his hands over his face, his leg bouncing with such anxiety that the lamp on the side table wobbled.

One more hour. Just one.

He had been trying to cut his excess in half, which had proved itself the most difficult challenge he’d faced since trying to find a dealer whose dope hadn’t seen more hands than a whore on the Vegas strip. His reason for change came in the form of self-pity, accompanied by a sudden and overwhelming urge for self-preservation. But he had those moments before, ultimately letting the desire to be numb outweigh the fear of oblivion. Maybe this time it also had something to do with the fact that his memory of Rey Sol was clouded in klonopin-haze, and should he ever see her again, he wanted to remember it clear as summer day.

Kylo glanced at his watch. Slid his gaze over to the Altoids tin full of that high. Replayed the selfish image he had painted for himself ever since the night of that goddamned concert: perky, honeyed tits splattered in his spend, a plush pink lip between those pretty teeth, needy emerald eyes staring up at him. Fuck. He was such a pervert.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

He could go another hour. He’d have to. He was barely coming down from the last one.

He stood, pacing the room as his fingers tugged at the roots of his hair.

Felt a prickle at the back of his neck. A chill down his spine.

No. Not this again.

Voices, swarming in and out, one after another, overlapping until he stumbled back.

Hands. Wood. I was a carver, please-my granddaughter, she’s downstairs. Tell her I’m here, tell her I’m sorry for leaving, tell her I love her—

Ben, the heart, tell them that it was the heart. A green ribbon, the number six. I was only 23, I had barely started to live. Please, please please please—

Help me help me help me, I have to find a way home I need to find a way home I’m never going to get home if you don’t help me please Ben—

Where am I? Where am I? Where am I? Tell me where I am. Tell me. Tell me now. I need to know. Tell me, Ben.

Ben Ben Ben BenBenBenBen—

“Get out,” Kylo managed through gritted teeth, now hunched in on himself in the corner of the room, hands fisted into the roots of his hair. His head burned from how long he’d kept his eyes screwed shut, from how long he’d kept his mental defenses up. But he was so tired. He’d tried the meditation, he’d tried clearing his mind, tried psychedelics, antidepressants, antipsychotics, exorcism, religion—damn near everything.

Just another hour. One more hour until he could use again. He had to be careful, it was rotting him from the inside out. Just one more hou—

Help, they’re taking me! I can’t move, please help, I can’t go down there, I can’t I can’t I can’t—

You know we’re here, Ben.

(We’re here!)

We’ll wait for you until it’s your turn.

(Until you join us.)

But why wait?

Join us now. (Now.) Join us now. Let us take you. (Right now.)

Give us your soul, we’ll take good care of it. (The best!)

Become one of us, carry us with you everywhere, let us into your mind.

There’s a cord behind the tv, a door handle waiting for you—

Fuck.

He threw himself towards the backpack on the other side of the room, dragging himself across the floor so hard and fast it chafed his elbows and knocked the wind out of him.

“Get out,” he panted, hands shaking as he dug through the bag, scrambling for the pill bottle. When he found it, he slammed it open and stuffed three bars in his mouth, crushing them between his molars.

“Get out.”

The taste stung bitter on his tongue but he didn’t care.

He’d start using needles again soon if this shit kept up.

Melting and shooting everything gave much faster relief, so much better and so much stronger than snorting or smoking or crushing or swallowing.

But it sickened him to no end, the way he let himself get wrapped up in it so fast—it became an obsession, a need, more than just a way to cope.

Ben—

The voices, the deep thrum of the cities and the planet and the entire fucking universe—all of it got worse every day. Grew to mammoth proportions, building and building, even when he couldn’t feel it. When he took staggering, shivering tolerance breaks, it got worse, like plugging ears from loud noise, only for it to be louder on the return. The ache of needing that rush, the bone chill, the sweating, the rage, it all grew worse. When he used, he felt it all melt away; all the stress, the conflict, the swirl of fire and ice and the goddamn slip from the veil. Until he came down and had to use more and more and more and still more each time.

He’d spent time with his uncle as a teen trying to get control over it, but it became too much for Luke, who sensed demon spirits clawing their way to take advantage of a young Ben Solo—something the man had only had trouble with once before in his life, and never sought to deal with it again.

So Ben had been cast aside, and put on medication—whatever they’d give him, he took. He trusted them, they were his family.

Eventually the voices stopped. The spirits clawing at him or pushing him to speak—or yes, the dark entities luring him in and manipulating him.

But he became dull.

Subdued.

For the most part that had been a good thing, to his parents. But his mother worried away, saddened that her son had become a shell.

It didn’t matter to him.

Nothing much mattered to him after that.

Still, she refused to give them to him anymore, instead taking him to native meditation retreats, Buddhist temples, tranquility ponds, places deep in the forest or high in the mountains or low in the valleys. Spending hours muttering to herself as she padded around the house waving sage smoke through the air, swiping salt lines across every threshold, placing lemon halves in every corner and hanging cinnamon and herbs over every doorframe, telling Ben that we’re doing all we can, dove when he’d cry at too young an age to be worried about things like torture and existentialism and burning at the stake.

Eventually, Ben had shoved it down, overhearing arguments about the kid spooks me, Leia and I love him but I don’t know what to do, love, I’m so tired and I still have so much hell to raise—my career is not over. So he stopped complaining. They figured he grew out of it or it didn’t grow with his body like Luke had expected.

But.

Ignoring it didn’t stop the whispers at the back of his head, the icy tendrils nipping at his neck, the goddamn paranoia of it all. Spirituality and energy became something he feared instead of cherished. He was sneaking edibles and sleeping pills and too much alcohol by the time he was barely 11 years old.

Then, the dark tendrils of manipulation, the ones from the physical plane of existence. Old Empire Records, notorious yet respected; a representative sneaking upstairs during parties, flirting with nannies and drugging them, creeping up to him to ask why he was so afraid, so lonely. Giving him a number, an address, a contact. An out.

You’re so talented, young one, and they lock you away from the world. Don’t you think you’d like to be appreciated for what you can offer?

New voices—real ones. Ones that had been pushing him since boyhood, unbeknownst to his family—his family, so oblivious and busy and distracted, too wrapped up in their own lives to see the grooming, the corruption that threatened to break his very soul.

Now, in the blur of beige and brown, the spirits quieted to a dull hum, whispers behind a locked door. Kylo felt every muscle in his body relax and he laid back on the bed with a gut-deep sigh, sinking into the mattress as his feet remained planted to the floor. Grounded. Just to be sure. In case he felt himself slipping.

Then his phone buzzed on his bed, breaking him from a numb float of ease.

Surely his timer hadn’t finished so soon.

No. Of course not. Not that it mattered anymore; he’d given in.

A call.

He tapped the green button and lifted the phone to his ear, not bothering with formalities when the voice on the other end had so much to say.

“Where the fuck are you?”

Kylo didn’t respond right away. He was too busy trying to rationalize why this call was his excuse to consume more as he bit his thumbnail.

“M’busy.”

“Busy? You’re fucking busy? You wait around all day doing nothing and then find the time to do something when you need to show up? Explain that to management the next time they’re banging down your door. You son of a bitch. I’ve had enough of...”

But he had zoned out Hux’s barking, instead fixating on the tin on his bed, the way every inch of him trembled for it, the way his mouth watered at the thought of it flooding his veins. The release. The bliss. Forgetting, if just for a little while, that shit was fucked. He shouldn’t really cross contaminate, what with the benzos already heavy in his blood—it’d kill him one day. But wasn’t that the point of all this anyway? Why suffer to exist in a numb haze when the idea of releasing into death came so easy? When the act of destruction was so available, so inevitable?

Fuck it.

“I’ll be there later.” He slammed his finger on the End Call button and shut off his phone before crawling across his bed and snatching up that little tin. The voice in the back of his mind looked on in disappointment, but he had no care other than reaching that elevated headspace, getting the energy surrounding him to warp and fade into a temporary nothingness.

It was the last night of the tour, ending at home in LA. Kylo wanted it to be over. Touring exhausted every ounce of control he had when it came to resisting drugs. Not to mention the way Hux and Phas all but pushed it at him like parents pushing their toddler to eat a vegetable.

Last week had been different, though. Almost blissful that night, with her voice ringing loud in his ears, distracting him for all of an hour and a half, leaving him buzzing with a fascination he had yet to categorize.

Kylo showed up for soundcheck after it finished. He checked his watch and wordlessly tossed a bag of buttered croissants over to Phasma, who caught them from her place on the couch of the dressing room, eyes wide and makeup always, always impeccable. 5:50.

“Where have you been?” she asked, her English accent crisp and accusing. He ignored her and looked around, not sure if he was looking for the food situation for the night or the ginger terror that would try to knock his nuts in soon enough.He found the fridge, rummaging through the assortment of soda and water until he found what he wanted.

A little gasp escaped Phasma as he palmed the tab of a beer off the bottle against the counter, and Kylo saw her eyes narrow in the reflection of the mirror.

“Does your tardiness have something to do with a sexy little starlet and her sweet little song?” Her tone wavered between curiosity, amusement, and skepticism.

He whipped around, his voice guarded yet his eyes too revealing, so he swigged from the beer. Nasty. Fucking hated beer. There was no liquor here though, much to his dismay. “Why the fuck would you think that?”

“You look aroused and confused, a combination I never dreamed I’d live to see on you.” The woman looked overwhelmingly pleased with her sleuthing. Noting the look on his face, she continued, “Obviously you’ve seen her since last night. She’s back in town touting her long-kept secret—I’d be all over her too.”

“Don’t even know if the damn song is about me.”

“So you know. About the song.” She sounded almost excited, the glutton for drama that she was.

“‘Course I do.”

“So you know she wrote it while she was dating someone else?”

That piqued his interest, though he appeared uninterested. Little Miss Rey of Sunshine had written, produced, and performed a song about her wildest fantasies of a man while allegedly dating someone else? Nothing wrong with dreaming, he supposed. But he didn’t believe it for a second.

“I hope he’s into cuckolding.”

She snorted. “Whatever. Besides, you know that mingling with those millennial, hydroponic hippies will give you nothing but a severe case of genre displacement.”

“Are you suggesting I stay away now?”

“I just think you should be careful. You know your rules. Plus, hurting her will turn you into the bad guy.”

“I’m already the bad guy, Phas,” he said, chugging the rest of his beer before limping off to get his scheduled tongue lashing from the bass guitarist. Maybe he could rough him up before they went on.

Chapter Text

The concert left him hot and sweaty and exhausted. His throat hurt, his ears were ringing, he was soaked in sweat, and he wanted nothing more than to shower and flop into his bed at home and sleep for an entire fucking day. No managers, no assistants, no nagging from his bandmates. Just smoke clouding above his head, a glass in his hand, maybe that pretty starlet’s music drifting across the room and lilting him to sleep.

But he couldn’t do that. Of course not.

No, he had the pleasure of getting dragged to the Tainted Tap to celebrate the last night of the tour as a last hurrah. With the whole crew. Who he could give less of a fuck about. And especially the man who stood at the end of the high-tables all huddled together in a long row.

“Another round for all my friends, for the people who made me into the person I am today. And mostly, for myself. I am quite the inspiration. Cheers.” Hux smirked as he raised his glass to salute himself, and the others gave a hearty cheer, all of them too buzzed to fully take his toast to heart or even pay attention to it.

Kylo wondered, aimlessly, how he ended up forming a band with two of the most self-centered snobs the English had ever produced. Then he disregarded the thought and fumbled with the tin in his pocket, felt the bottle rattle against it, counting down the minutes until he could get high again.

Fuck it, once again. He’d take his pills right here.

So he did.

Everyone around the table seemed too absorbed in their conversations to notice him do anything at all, not that he wasn’t subtle. And he sat there sipping dark rum to get the bitterness out of his mouth. Nobody noticed him slide out of his chair and weave his way to the single-person bathroom across the dirty bar when he had to take a leak, and he was grateful for that. Maybe he could just slip out. He’d been there long enough.

The walls swayed as he pushed himself to make it to the bathroom that was mere feet away. A few more steps and he felt like he was moving in slow motion, things happening too fast and too slow to do anything about it. And when he rounded the corner, a woman of considerably smaller stature collided with his chest.

“Watch it,” a voice said, one vaguely English and entirely distinct.

And when his cloudy eyes met her sparkling clear ones, it was for the first time in his entire adult life that he wished he was sober.

———————

Kylo Ren was devastatingly beautiful. Such a nice face, with sad eyes and interesting features and a frowning mouth that needed her kisses, begged for them despite her conscience screaming otherwise. But he breathed coke more than air and spit at his crowds. He wasn’t nice.

Rey disliked him, knew she shouldn’t have written about him or said anything about it, but he stirred her insides in a way that frustrated her more than anything.

She loved every member of her crew and the band, but she had to call it quits. They had decided to take a week before celebrating the end of tour, what with some scheduling mishaps that caused her to be unavailable. And she shouldn’t have spent all last night and all day up with Rose, repairing her car and already working on more music. At this point, she would never get up for her six o’clock jog, nor would she want to do anything but lay in bed all day and sip on chocolate peanut butter milkshakes while flipping through the QVC channels and doom scrolling through Twitter.

She had been on her way to the bathroom to freshen up, AKA run for the hills after calling an Uber and texting her band groupchat that she hadn’t died she was just leaving, when she saw him step out of the restroom and into her warpath.

At a first glance, he looked like any other long-haired man in a bad mood—sagging shoulders, hair hanging in his eyes—but she realized too late who it was.

The tattoos.

It was always the tattoos. And the limping stagger. And the leather, and the platform combat boots, and the chipped nail polish that met the glint of silver rings. Messy—scary—hot. In a way she shouldn’t have enjoyed so much.

As they collided, Rey couldn’t say that she would have moved out of the way if given the time. But he knocked into her so hard she stumbled over into the wall next to them, she herself warm and buzzy from taking shots with her crew.

“Watch it,” she spat out, trying to hide how utterly terrified she was, but noticed that he looked like he’d been crying, and her voice died in her throat.

“Fuck, ’msorry,” he mumbled, running his hands through his mussed hair. He swayed a little, his hulking form like an oak tree in the breeze, and he put a hand out on the wall behind her to steady himself. Then he straightened up, and the sudden movement left him void of balance again.

Kylo leaned against the wall and spread his feet apart, assessing what stood before him, the gears in his mind turning to analyze something about which she hadn’t the slightest clue.

He looked a mess. And the redness sitting heavy in his eyes was not from crying, no—it was from substance.

And thus posed the predicament of the century, because why did she keep (literally) bumping into Kylo Ren in the most unassuming places, when he’d taken too much and could barely stand? Why was she so drawn to his dirty, his filth?

“Are you alright?” she asked, and it bit out of her just as harsh as she felt.

He seemed to snap back into reality.

“Perfect,” he whispered, his glassy eyes sparkling down at her, “Just leaving.”

“Are you sure?”

He hummed out what sounded like a yes, but he had taken to reaching out to roll a strand of her hair between his fingers.

No. No, no—no. None of that tonight, not when she could almost feel the way both of them stared at each other in a lockdown of wanting. Thick, heavy clouds of lust fogged her brain, shot down her spine and tickled into the warmth between her legs—the alcohol, she told herself. Not the tingly way she felt when he gently tugged on her hair, or how he smelled all woody and soapy and dark. As if dark had a scent.

She swatted him off before he could run his thumb down her cheek and render her incapable of movement, and he cleared his throat, keeping his hands to himself as if he hadn’t realized at all what he had been doing until she stopped him.

Rey took the opportunity to speak. “We haven’t—we don’t…know each other, but—“

“Oh, I know you, pretty girl. No green in the desert, no green in that heart,” he hummed, his slow baritone making her heart flutter as she blanched, blinking up at his in shock.

On one hand, holy shit. He knew her. He knew her song. He…remembered her, it seemed. How he did, she hadn’t a clue. He was shitfaced to heaven and back when they’d met. Shitfaced right now.

On the other hand, holy shit.

He knew her song. Did he know, though?

She supposed he was bound to find out eventually. But somehow she hadn’t envisioned them face-to-face for a conversation about it, and she certainly didn’t think he would put two and two together. Maybe he hadn’t.

“Um—I,” she paused and collected herself, drawing on the strength she knew she had, “Why are you here?”

That was a stupid question. He didn’t answer, just eyed her in a sort of amused, gentle regard. A bit unlike him, from what she’d seen of his rage fests and temper-tantrums.

“Are you...with someone?”

Rey looked around, peeked under his arm to try to find a pretty lost blonde, maybe one of his bandmates that she’d seen in passing, something to indicate he wasn’t out drinking alone at almost midnight. Why did she even care?

“Am now,” he slurred.

Rey snorted and attempted a scoff of annoyance, her way to stamp down the thrill in her gut.

What an ass.

“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes, fiddling with her necklace to stop the way her hands trembled, “I meant are you with someone who can watch you…you look terrible.”

She regretted the words as they left her, but she hadn’t been able to stop speaking in time. Damn all those tequila shots.

But he didn’t react, didn’t do much except lean further into the wall.

“Ever the kindhearted woman y’are, lil miss Rey,” he slurred, eyes closed, head tilted back, the hint of a smirk on his lips, “Not ‘ere with anyone who’d care.”

The way her name slipped past his lips like a prayer made her stutter in her chest, made all her blood rush up to her throat and her ears and her cheeks.

The walls of the dim-lit bar felt cooling against her now enflamed skin. Spreading his feet apart in a lazy attempt to stabilize, Kylo pushed himself up from the wall and failed to even stand, instead flopping back against the wall.

Through her foggy mind, she could tell from her limited knowledge of him that he was not his normal level of intoxication—he was acting off, could barely stand, couldn’t even hold his head up. Some drug had passed through him and made him a mess of bliss and loose lips.

But it wasn’t her job to babysit. She was so tired. Exhausted. Maybe she’d care more if she wasn’t about on the verge of falling asleep against the wall; if she actually knew him. But she had a mission, that mission being to go home and go the fuck to sleep.

“I…I have to go,” she said, pushing herself off the wall and making her way around him, towards the door.

“I’ll be here ’til they drag me out at close,” he called out behind her in what she imagined was an attempt at a joke, but there was nothing amusing about it.

As she stumbled outside, she couldn’t help the gnawing guilt that ate away at her stomach like acid. What if he straight up died on the sticky floor of the bar, and she had been the last to talk to him? The last to know where he went, and the only one who knew he wasn’t alright?

Thus posed quite a dilemma for her.

Because publicly—for the sake of her reputation and her sanity, she shouldn’t indulge in going anywhere near him.

But ethically? Morally? An itch in her mind told her it was downright dirty to leave him there like that.

She still had time before her Uber showed up.

Rey didn’t give herself a second more to think as she decided she would be the knight in shining armor tonight, and whirled on her heel.

But she couldn’t even make it to the door, because out came stumbling none other than the tall mystery himself, eyes warm when he noticed she was already heading his way. But she stopped dead in her tracks, refusing to move from her place at the edge of the curb.

“Miss me already?” Kylo teased, already having noted her intentions before she tried to erase them.

“No—I—“

“This…fell offa you inside,” he said before she could finish, holding up a delicate gold chain that dripped from his ringed fingers.

It took her a moment of squinting to realize what he was holding, and a moment longer to feel her heart jump in surprise.

Lunging forward, she gasped at the necklace, snatching it from him with a cry of relief, “Thank you. I need to get the clasp repaired but I haven’t had the time.”

He chuckled. A slow, low, rumbling sound she’d never heard before, and it almost reverberated into her own chest. It certainly traveled down to her pussy. Damn it.

When she looked up to him, she could see how he stood more sure of himself now, feet spread apart, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. Still high. Still smelled like alcohol. But not as fucked up as he looked just minutes ago.

“Did you just sober up off of nothing?” she questioned, suspicion thick in her tone. Was he even that fucked up to begin with? Was this his plan all along, to act stupidly high and get her to care?

“No…benzos just hit me hard ‘fore they settle,” he said, that glaze of relaxation still evident in his features, along with a twinge of seriousness threaded between. Rey nodded as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

And then he was staring at her. Drinking her in, watching every muscle in her face. It made her swelter. Hopefully the glow from the bar wouldn’t reveal too much of all that blush that refused to go away in his presence, under his gaze.

“Do you need something?”

He worked at his pouty lower lip, fighting a simper as she glared up at him, “Sorry. Didn’t expect to see a face like yours at a place like this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, bristling at the implication that she didn’t belong there.

“Don’t seem like the type.” he shrugged, the leather of his jacket rustling. A slight breeze had picked up and sifted through his hair. It looked so fluffy. Like she could run her fingers through it and it would feel good—

“Then you don’t know me at all,” she said, throwing his words from earlier back in his face.

I know you, pretty girl. No, he didn’t.

But he was right, sort of. She hadn’t ever been to the Tainted Tap, and it was quite a drive from her condo. (Quite a drive meaning she couldn’t walk to it like the bar near her condo.) That didn’t mean she never went to bars or hung out with friends.

Her feet moved for her, deciding to move down from the entrance of the bar over to a road sign stuck in the cement of the curb and hoping he’d take the hint.

Instead, he stood there for a moment, watching her as he fumbled in his pants for a cigarette. She heard the lighter, smelled the smoke, and didn’t even have to look his way to feel his eyes on her.

She checked her phone, hoping her Uber would be here soon—it said it was only a minute away.

“It’s rude to stare,” she snapped, finally turning to him, feeling her irritation bubbling up her throat, “Stop eyeing me like I’m your next meal.”

I’m the predator here, she wanted to say, fists clenched at her sides. But in all honesty, he was intimidating. Just a towering figure of muscle and broad shoulders and long legs, always dressed in all black like an omen of death. He very much could eat her up if he wanted to. It frightened her, to say the least. What with everything she’d heard about him. But it also made her wet.

Scared and horny scared and horny scared and horny—it was all she thought of as he approached her, a hand in his pocket, that limping swagger sizing her up as he flicked ash from his cigarette.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you want to be.” His voice came out smooth and low and slightly raspy, barely above a quiet utterance.

A cross between a squeak and a huff of indignation escaped her as she fought to take a breath that wouldn’t catch in her throat. She failed. And she knew he saw it, the flutter in her chest, the way her knees just brushed against one another. Because his eyes flickered down to look over her, to watch what he did to her.

“Good that you know better, then,” she said breathlessly, just as a car pulled up that matched the description of her Uber.

The driver confirmed he was her ride, and she threw herself into the backseat, not chancing a single look out the window at the man still watching her every move.

Chapter Text

Tour had wrapped, she ended on a high note, and now Rey could stretch her legs for a few months with nothing to bother her but a few charity galas and press events, maybe some interviews along with celebrations following her friends’ successes. It gave her ample time to make the new music she’d been itching at, and to experiment until she found entirely new sounds to work with. It also gave her time to meditate, and to try to understand more of herself.

Rey had made sure to get a condo in a place designed for retirees. No run-ins with people who might know her music, and definitely no paparazzi stalking her for a measly photograph for their tabloid. Privacy had turned into an essential despite the love she held for the people who appreciated her music. After growing up in near solitude for most of her life, she’d figured she wouldn’t need her alone time once her popularity exploded; she had been wrong, because now she valued it more than ever.

The building’s association wasn’t too keen to let her buy at first since she hardly fit their ideal demographic of active adults 65 and older, but when she explained her situation and got Leia on the phone, they were gracious enough to let her join them. They even agreed to keep it quiet that she lived there at all, and though some of her neighbors treated her as a ghost, many of them were kind when she passed them in the courtyard or in the halls. Sure, she could have afforded to buy a place in Malibu or even Atherton, but she didn’t want to; she didn’t feel like she belonged in a big house all by herself. Regardless, she was grateful to have a place to call home. It sat there patiently awaiting her return like an old friend when she’d leave for a tour, and to fall into its quiet embrace was more than she could ever dream.

Carrots, green juice, and chocolate.

That was all Rey had needed from the store. Sure, she could’ve ordered a pickup or even delivery from a chain grocer to her complex, but that killed the joy of shopping and picking out the items for herself. And the local market didn’t have that option. Being able to go into a little store and pick out whatever she wanted with no regard for how much it cost changed her life. She still remained frugal because old habits die hard, as the fear of poverty and hunger stuck with her after all these years like a gruesome scar. But it pleased her to grab chocolate without feeling guilty on the splurge. It pleased her even greater that she didn't have to steal out of necessity anymore either.

So with the carrots, juice, and chocolate tucked away in her tote bag, Rey made her way down the street, humming a new tune she’d have to record when she got home so she could send it to Rose. The local market near her complex was in walking distance and took less than five minutes to get to, but she often meandered through the park on her way back to admire the trees and the laughs of children and the chatter of birds, just as she did today.

A woman with a stroller carrying twins passed her, chattering away on the phone.

Two teenage girls, arms linked, giggled about how the tree in the distance looked like the face of an old man.

A jogger, panting and glistening and tall. He waved when he passed, and she beamed back.

An old woman and three low-riding dogs leashed around her waist waddled past, and she greeted Rey with a smile and a withered, kind “Good afternoon.” She had seen her around before, and each time they interacted the woman opened up just a little bit more at the recognition.

That was the thing about strangers. Their mystery faded as soon as she got to know them, like each one was a geode waiting to be eased open with the crack of a smile.

An image of a man in all black intruded the ease of her mind, and she scowled despite herself.

He was one stranger she could not figure out. She didn’t really want to, as it seemed that everything about him was put on display in a show of anger and violence, directed at whomever he could get his hands on.

But as she thought about it, there hadn’t been much violence or spite in that interaction they’d had a few nights ago—none at all, actually. He’d even noticed that one of her favorite necklaces had slipped as she raced out the door and took it upon himself to return it.

The thought alone made the butterflies in her stomach flit like she’d had too much caffeine, and she likened the response to an excuse of similar magnitude.

Idly, she wondered what Kylo was like sober—if maybe that was why she had yet to experience the whirlwind of fury only he could deliver. But it didn’t make sense, not really. Because drugs usually fueled rage-spirals, in her unfortunate experience with others. Though she supposed she was grateful he hadn’t lashed out at her; for him, it only ended in a hospitalization or an arrest or court dates and sometimes all three. She hadn’t done much snooping on him. Hadn’t allowed herself to, had convinced herself she knew enough through chitchat and gossip. But from what she could tell, he mainly went on rampages that harmed himself or property—any people he injured were men of similar build, those who had provoked him in bar fights or in what she could only assume were dick measuring contests. Then the occasional paparazzo, or a reporter.

So why.

Why did he tug on a lock of her hair like he was flirting with her?

Why did he look at her with all the humor and patience in the world?

There was only one explanation: he enjoyed pissing her off.

That pissed her off.

But she still had kept him in the back of her mind ever since that goddamned New Year’s party almost a year ago.

Almost a whole year, she thought as she tightened her cardigan around her shoulders. Rey had penned the song at the party, unable to stop the words that stuck in her mind like white bread on the roof of her mouth. Sitting in a corner while everyone rang in the new year and kissed and drank some kind of expensive champagne; no celebration for Rey, she had to get the words down before they drove her mad, just as they had for hours since meeting him.

And then came the day in late spring when she still had him cross her mind at inopportune times, and she had asked Leia, point blank: “What do you know of Kylo Ren?”

She should have known better, honestly. But how could she, when she spent her formative years with crackling radio, no tv, nothing but hunger and poverty and fear and old folk songs to get her by?

But Leia hadn’t laughed in her face or made fun of her for her ignorance. Instead, she explained with a sad smile that the picture of the young boy on her desk who she’d described before as nothing more than her son was, in fact, Kylo Ren.

Ben, she had called him.

Ben Solo.

And then Rey could see it. The manager whom she’d come to love as a parent, morphed with the recluse-former-musician living on a Montana ranch whom she’d met a handful of times before. Kylo’s nose—Han. His eyes—Leia. His swagger—all Han, besides the distinctive limp that Kylo sported. And his talent came from both of them.

Ugh. Here she was again, overanalyzing about a man who could care less about her, who she didn’t care for.

He trapped her in a goddamn bathroom. That was terrifying, to say the least.

At least, it was terrifying when she mulled over it a few days later, sober and horrified. At the time it had kind of been funny. But everything is a little funny when you’re crossfaded at a party.

He easily could have taken advantage of her, what with his hulking form and the tiny space preventing her from doing much else but standing inches away from him. Not even enough space to tackle him to the ground in feral-Rey-fashion. Now, every time she thought about it she kinda blanched, and hid away the flare of fire she felt when she thought about how he had looked at her. With stars in his glassy eyes, all soft and round and full of…admiration? His mouth that softened into an almost pout, features smooth and unable to hide a thing from her.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

Had anyone ever actually called her that before?

She’d gotten a lot of cute, plenty of pretty. Never a beautiful though.

Not even from Poe, who she’d been with for three years at the time, which irked her, to say the least. How could her own lover not call her something so simple yet so sweet? Did he not think her beautiful? Not that she’d ever worried about the details of it all, but it still made her think.

Well, that had to be it then. Getting called beautiful for the first time, regardless of the person, was sure to be memorable.

That’s what Rey told herself as she made her way up the steps to her condo.

Maybe she was just horny. She could call Poe if she really needed it. Stupid Poe, with his gorgeous face and his beautiful body and his shimmering laugh.

Rey and Poe Dameron had dated for almost three years.

Yeah, that one.

Poe Dameron, LA’s biggest flirt, no—probably America’s biggest flirt.

Poe Dameron, older than her by eleven years.

The famous singer, budding actor, the Moment and the Shining Star of Hollywood.

They broke up on (moderately) good terms after Rey realized they sought much different types of people, among other issues. The two of them had remained friends with benefits for awhile throughout the year before she told him she felt like their sexual relationship was hindering her from exploring other options.

Now they remained friends, but she wouldn’t put it past him to try to get in her pants again as he’d done it before, and she’d probably accept his offer if he called her up and asked right now, much to her annoyance. Rey wasn’t proud of it but the two of them along with the rest of his band shared a mutual agreement that absolutely nobody else outside the band was allowed to know about what the others did in the dark, and she did trust him to remain silent, despite the big gossip he was.

The band.

REBELS.

It started as her and Finn, fresh faced and newly-acquainted, playing covers in dirty bars in Arizona until they met Poe, who had called up Leia to check them out. Then it grew to Rey, Poe, and Finn, a happy trio opening up for bands at small-scale music festivals and writing their own stuff—very folksy and desert-rock back then. For a brief moment they had been a throuple, all together and happy with one another, but Rey and Finn realized they were best friends more than anything and told Poe he could keep dating them as long as they could stay together, but in separate relationships.

It worked for a good while that way, until the trio met Rose and Jannah and both their music and love lives flipped upside down. Finn melted for Jannah and Poe was fine to let him go to pursue that.

Rey admittedly fawned over Rose for a good bit of time; she always had a crush on the short, androgynous girl in utilitarian clothes who tuned their guitars, fixed their van, and played keys and mixed funky backgrounds like nobody’s business.

Nothing serious ever came of it, though, because Rey loved Poe a little too much. With the stars in her eyes and his laugh in her ears, Rey dreamt of one day having Poe’s curly-haired babies and singing to them while he taught them to play guitar.

The five of them played together in an experimental rock band that had grown larger in popularity over the last year despite Rey’s absence. Their music mixed ethereal pop with surf-rock and 70s groove, and it attracted a number of different crowds. Rey had spent a couple years playing with them before giving into Leia’s constant nagging to get her to go solo.

Her heart broke to leave the people she adored; they were the ones who helped her grow musically and emotionally and spiritually—but they assured her that they fully supported her exit, as she needed to make her own music and go her own way, and if she wanted to come back they would welcome her with open arms.

When she met Finn, she was seventeen—just shy of her eighteenth birthday—and still wandering Arizona, still hoping her parents might come back to find her and by some miracle they’d recognize her. But she had won a bet with an old man and got his old, barely usable guitar and had fixed it up, singing folk songs and tunes about wandering she’d made up and keeping the case open in hopes that kind strangers would leave a tip and maybe take her picture and share it. Rey was a scraggly, dirty, scrawny thing back then, sometimes mistaken for a boy when the desert nights got cold and she bundled up. Finn came to her one day and asked where she was going and if he could join her—he had escaped an abusive home life as soon as he turned 18, one crowded with dirty, sniffling kids and neglectful foster parents. The only things he had to his name were the clothes on his back, a rucksack, and an old banjo; he came all the way from the southeast by hitchhiking and walking and taking the bus when he could get enough change. He knew a good number of folk songs that he taught Rey, and pretty soon they had worked up a crowd everywhere they went. With Finn, she made her first-ever real friend, and felt a spark of what she imagined family might feel like.

Then they had made it to the Nevada border and Finn pushed them to keep going onto California, stop at Las Vegas and try to scrap up money and take their time going until they had a name for themselves. But she couldn’t. All she’d ever known was to wait and wander. At that point they lived out of Rey’s beat up car, the one she bartered for for years from Unkar Plutt, her dreadful guardian, and then fixed up with mismatched parts.

They had stopped for a few days while Rey agonized over leaving—and came across a dirty orange cat, who upon further inspection and care turned out to be orange and white and very very lost. He had a collar with no number, just his name: BB-8. So Rey convinced Finn to stay a little longer in hopes that someone would claim him. Their found cat adored Rey and followed her wherever she went, sleeping by her head at night and passing between her legs as she played outside, even letting her hold him like a baby and rock him back and forth, eyes closed in contentment. Rey had little experience with cats but this one was quite unique, according to Finn.

One night they begged the owner of a dirty dive bar in the next town over to let them play a set for a couple soft pretzels and sodas, and the guy was nice enough to humor the starving pair. Something about two kids with drive, he had said as he muted the TVs and let them set up in the corner by the door. No cats, and Rey had frowned as she made him a little bed outside behind some shrubbery with her worn-out coat. You’ll stay here, BB-8, she had insisted, and we’ll come back for you. He had chirped as if he understood perfectly and flicked his tail as he laid down.

Their set had brought in a crowd, and one individual in particular had caught her eye, with soft curls and pretty eyes and a handsome, roguish face that she felt belonged in the movies.

When they finished and received their pretzel payment, Rey and Finn had sat outside by BB-8, with the cat in Rey’s lap and her feeding bits of it to him after letting it cool between her worn fingertips. Finn admonished her for giving him so much when she needed to eat, but she argued that the cat needed to eat too, she was responsible for him now.

“How much did we get tonight?” she had asked with a sleepy smile, one hopeful and still glimmering with that charm only Rey had. Her body wanted to give from exhaustion, muscles sore and eyes drooping and stomach aching with those familiar hunger pains.

“Not much,” Finn said, rifling and sorting through the change and bills at the bottom of the case, perking up when one caught his eye, “But somebody left us a twenty. So that counts for something.”

Rey exclaimed in joy, clasping Finn’s hand in a grip of excitement, in solidarity, quipping out what they always said after a set, good or bad, “And we had fun!” Except this time there was a little more happiness, a little more glee.

He repeated it back to her, his smile brilliant and lovely against the dark night around them and yellow glow of the sign above them.

Good Finn, with his kind eyes and his determination and his optimism, so like Rey that he felt like a long lost puzzle piece, another side of her soul.

A shout broke them from their celebration, and they both snapped their heads toward the noise.

“BB-8? Is that you?!”

From the shadows came that same man from earlier, the one with the tan skin and gorgeous wild hair, the one who made Rey flush under the neon of the muted TVs.

BB-8 hopped from Rey’s lap with a start, yowling like she’d never heard. And then he leapt into the man’s muscled, outstretched arms, crawling up to his shoulders and rubbing his cheeks all over his neck, his face, his hair.

“My buddy! Oh man, I thought I’d lost you forever, little guy,” the man said, eyes closed as he let the cat lick his cheek with a sandpaper tongue.

“You should put a number on your cat’s tag, it’s dangerous out here for him with no one to keep him safe,” Rey said, a little haughty and slightly sad that she had to let go of her newfound friend.

But her sour mood all but dissipated when he turned his honey-dark eyes to her, stepping closer and into the full light of the bar’s sign, a lopsided, vibrant grin on his face.

“I had you, didn’t I?”

And that’s how Rey had fallen deep into the trenches of love for Poe.

They’d spent years flirting, years skirting around the topic, with musical chemistry and staccato kisses punctuated in the dark by soft noises of sneaky pleasure, a few instances of I’m too old for you and the more insistent I don’t care.

And finally he let her win the war, took it upon himself to let him have her the way he’d always wanted.

She couldn’t get enough.

Letting him dote on her like she’d never let anyone dote before—well, she’d never had anyone to let dote on her; letting him spoil her to the ends of the earth with flowers and food and dresses and music and yes, sex. Sweet and delicious and tender—in the beginning, because he didn’t want to hurt this beautiful desert creature, so seemingly innocent and kind and soft. And Poe was much older than her, had much more experience in everything. That had made her all the more into every aspect of their relationship that had bloomed into a joy-spark of feather-soft feelings and rambunctious giggles.

He didn’t deflower her, though he’d dreamt of it plenty; spreading her out on his bed, petting her until she soaked the sheets and mewed like a kitten for him, saying she wanted him to have her first and to be gentle, daddy, I’ve never done this before—all of this behind the shouts of his conscience screaming about how perverted and creepy it was.

He wasn’t even her first intimate relationship.

But everything they did was so new and fun and exciting that it felt like her first, and she often considered him to be that way just because it fit better in her heart.

He gladly accepted that. Their first time together once he’d let her have him had been similar to that fantasy anyways.

All she needed was to bat her lashes and call him daddy and he’d melt in her hands like caramel, sitting her on his knee and letting her have whatever she wanted.

At first.

But there was also a power dynamic there that developed and warped into something dark, given their significant age gap and the different stages of their lives that they lived in. They shared the same humor, same taste in music—but their ways of thinking differed the more they learned of each other.

It would sometimes build and build until one of them boiled over and burned the other. Rey couldn’t accept that he wanted a say in much of her life, and Poe couldn’t understand why he didn’t get an opinion. But that was what was spoken; it was more than just that. There were elements of control and spikes of selfishness and the bitter tang of possession. All the yelling of you’re such a difficult man, and I wouldn’t be if you didn’t give me a reason for it, brat.

They learned to ease over that after tears and strife, used a lot of psychedelics and weed smoke and meditation and sex to even that out, and kept an open relationship—open hearts, open thoughts, free to speak whatever they needed to without fearing judgement.

Until.

Until she grew tired of their back and forth, the yes no yes no maybe. Tired of hiding behind a peace-pipe and visuals and mind-blowing sex that didn’t feel mind-blowing once they dug to the root of their problems.

Grew tired of feeling tired.

Grew restless, and that had been something Poe feared—that she’d grow tired of him, want someone closer to her age, someone she could experience things with, or even just someone with different things to offer.

Rey realized that the sweltering passion of a couple came from more than violent sex and heated arguments.

They let go of each other all the same after three years, with a tone of finality that rang clearer than their goodbyes of before.

A new year, a clean slate, she had said to his watery, honeyed gaze and his pouting mouth, and for once she felt confident in her choice, if not a little sad for him. They remained friends. Had to for the sake of his band that used to be hers, wanted to because they still loved each other in a way that didn’t rub off with a simple sentence. And they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, plain and simple.

That was okay. They were fine, she was cool with it.

The dynamic just didn’t interest her as much anymore. Maybe it was because he was a huge flirt. Or maybe she had just grown out of her Poe-phase. He still knew what she liked and fucked her well, and maybe it was the comfort of familiarity that enticed her to keep feeding into their weird rapport.

Either way, as she put her small assortment of groceries away, Rey knew that she needed to distract herself. She recorded the new tune off her keyboard and sent the file to Rose, letting that occupy her mind for a while, messing with variations of the sound until she got bored and turned away with a huff.

Padding to her shelf of books, she ran her finger over the dips of each spine. She could read one of her twenty-something books for the nth time again—then she remembered her mini tradition she had started in years past. Each time she finished a tour, she would buy herself a special book, something she wouldn’t think to read otherwise. To get her mind to accept new ideas, get her creative juices flowing.

Rey had yet to do that for this tour. It was her first solo tour, she had made a promise, and she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten it this time.

So she stepped back into her shoes and slipped on her hat and sunglasses, making her way down to the used bookstore that sat at the end of the block by the kitty cafe.

When she stepped inside the tiny store, the smell of old books greeted her like a friend. The old man at the counter gave her a warm glance from over his reading spectacles as he turned the page of the book he read.

“Looking for anything particular, Miss Rey?” he asked in his quiet baritone, one that reminded her of what she imagined a kind grandfather to sound like.

“Something different,” she said as she meandered up to the counter, looking idly behind him at all the posters and flyers.

“There’s always something new to be found within the old,” he said, returning to his book as Rey nodded and smiled, pushing back from the counter to turn and wander the expanse of shelves that crowded the store from ceiling to floor.

Nonfiction, adult fiction, cooking, metaphysical, children’s, young adult, romance, sci-fi, biography. So many to choose from, and Rey found herself in the very back of the shop, flicking through a few interesting titles in the poetry section when the bell to the door sounded, and she heard muffled speaking.

The title she picked up next was one with deep creases in the spine, annotations in the margins and highlights over certain lines. Well-loved.

The Love Poems of Rumi. A 13th century Persian poet, as the back described him. Known for his beautiful prose and unforgettable words. Now translated to English.

Rey flipped to a random page and read the first lines that jumped out at her.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

What you seek is seeking you.

“The book will be over here somewhere, you shouldn’t have trouble finding it. It’s the only copy I have. My poetry section is sparse right now.” The shopkeeper’s voice had drawn near, and Rey kept her eyes glued to the page as she shifted down the aisle towards the wall and the opposite bookshelf, not wanting to move but not wanting to be in the way, still skimming over the words in quiet fascination.

A mumble that sounded like a thank you. The voice was deep.

Idly, she wondered what the man was looking for. She’d find out soon enough, she supposed.

A shadow crept up the end of the aisle out of the corner of her eye, followed closely by the man attached to it. Rey turned the page, reading intently, ignoring the looming figure a few feet away. And then she heard a huff. Or maybe a laugh. Some kind of mouth sound, followed by a voice.

“Of course.”

And when she looked up to see what all the fuss was about, praying to God that voice wasn’t who she thought it was, her heart dropped to her fucking feet.

Chapter Text

“It’d only be right for you to be here with that book in your hand,” Kylo said, chuckling to himself at the coincidence.

Rey looked up at him with a growing burn of irritation igniting her eyes, fingers tightening against the pages as she held onto the poetry book he had been looking for with no luck at other shops. He could drive to B&N or order it online but he didn’t feel like waiting that long, and the store was ungodly far away. Plus, he had nothing better to do besides mope around at home until he met up with the band in a couple weeks to work on new music. All the more reason to bumble around town until somebody recognized him, which wasn’t at all common around here. It was why he’d picked this area to live in the first place.

Pushing his hair out of his face, he studied her for a moment, taking inventory of everything she had to offer. Wearing a pair of soft linen shorts and a yellow shirt, rumpled like she’d slept in it. A purple bandaid on her knee, a pink striped one on the inside of her calf. A fluffy, cream-colored cardigan covered her arms and hung below the bottom of her shorts. She wore a pair of chunky sneakers that had seen better days, and mismatched tube socks—one yellow with bumblebees or flowers or something, and one plain and white. A baseball cap embroidered with a cactus decal that read ‘DON’T BE A PRICK’ hid her hair, tied back into two buns at the nape of her neck. Strands of it had fallen and framed her pretty face.

Cute. So cute without even trying.

Bare-faced and lips parted, she looked as if she was eyeing him all the same. Could’ve been his imagination though.

Kylo exhaled sharply through his nose, realizing how fucking weird he was for standing there and staring at her. Again. All he did was stare at her.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, scandalized as if he’d been stalking her.

“I live a couple blocks away,” he said, nothing soft about it as he gestured down at the paperback in her hand, “That’s my book.”

“It is not your book, I was here first,” she snapped back, her stubbornness rearing its head, “And I’m about to buy it, so shove off.”

“How ‘bout this?” he thought for a moment, his mouth moving before his brain could stop him as he edged closer, putting a hand over the book. Right by her fingers—slender and calloused fingers wearing dainty gold rings, fingers that twitched when they brushed against his. He burned. “I buy the book. You borrow it and return it to me when you finish. That way you can have another excuse to write another pretty song for me after I see you, hm?”

It was very flirty, very daring, especially for him. Not to mention awkward as hell. The hell was he doing? He should just let her buy the book and call it quits, leave her the fuck alone. It wasn’t that important to him anyways. Not if she wanted it more.

But today he had forced himself out of the house after nursing a couple blunts and before he could even think to break into the pill bottles. So he was shockingly sober, by his standards. The weed gave him little more than a quiet buzz at this point. And God, she was still beautiful. Radiant, overflowing with the gleam of brilliant shine and iridescent talent. He couldn’t stay away. Drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

Rey let out a haughty scoff, incredulous that he’d speak such words, and stormed past him, ears redder than a tomato. Kylo meandered after her to the front, where she stood at the counter and slapped the book down, digging through her tote to grab her wallet.

“Oh, looks like she beat you to it,” said the owner, glancing back at him with a twinkle in his eye and a quiet smile.

“I offered to pay for it, too,” Kylo shrugged, knowing that wasn’t entirely true, but wanting to see what she’d do about it.

Rey whirled on him, cheeks pink and face scrunched, an accusatory finger stabbing in his direction, “You did no such thing. You…ugh!”

Then she whipped back around and finished paying the man, who asked with a look of alarm if she wanted a bookmark.

—————

Rey could barely comprehend what the shop owner was asking of her, she was so flustered. She had to get out of here before his scent engulfed her and she all but drooled at the way he raked his gaze over her with the utmost interest.

Drooled? Flustered? What the hell was he doing to her that she couldn’t even think straight?

While in the past he had watched her with a glaze of what she could only imagine was lust, today he inspected every inch of her with wonder, curiosity, like a person seeing snow for the first time in their life.

As she stormed out of the bookstore, shoving the poetry book in her bag, she fumbled with her wallet and dropped it, spilling all the coins along with it.

Fuck.

The bell to the shop rang again and she heard those heavy footsteps approaching her as she bent down and shoved coins in her tote at random, fighting to get them all before anyone could help her.

Kylo walked around her and bent down with a grunt, collecting pennies that she couldn’t reach from where she had crouched.

“No,” she said, like a child not getting her way, “I don’t need help.”

But it was too late, he had already made quick work of it. The thoughtful gesture had her second guessing herself. It was kind…gentle. It made her falter in her frantic movement to collect as many coins as possible.

Then he ruined it with his dumb stupid mouth.

“Do you have to make a scene everywhere you go?” He sounded amused. Entertained, even.

Rey glared up at him as he grabbed the last quarter from beneath a bush inches away from them. Their eyes met, and there he was, watching her again with that same quiet reverence. Observation. She felt like a bug under a microscope.

When he held his hand out for her to take the coins, she didn’t dare touch him again. Not after his fingertips had brushed against hers in the back corner of that store and sent shockwaves through her entire system, leaving her a trembling, stuttering mess. All tingly everywhere.

So she presented her open tote to him and watched as he dumped them in, and suddenly she was very interested in the cracks in the pavement beneath her.

“Thanks.” It came out flat, void of emotion. He gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

Kylo eased himself up and offered her a hand, one she refused as she pushed herself from the ground, hands firm on her knees. If it bothered him, he didn’t show it. Just fumbled in his pockets and tugged a cigarette from a pack as she straightened out her clothes. He offered her one, and she turned her nose up at it.

“Not trying to die anytime soon,” she sniffed, and he rolled his eyes, squinting down at her as he took a drag.

“Remind me again how much weed you chainsmoke?”

“That’s different,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Mhm,” he hummed, eyebrows raised in mock agreement.

She had smoked the good shit for a long time now, with the help of Leia’s medical ID. And Poe. Not that she needed it, but it was Cali. And she had the money. And it was fun. Helped her meditate and relax after living her life so strung up for so long.

And then she was blushing scarlet—because how did he even know that anyways unless he watched footage from her concerts or spent a day with her? He certainly hadn’t done the latter. The thought of the former made her squirm, suddenly vulnerable, as if him watching her perform was any different from the hundreds of thousands of other people who did. Except it was different. He was…him. Whatever that meant.

Without really knowing what else to say, she stormed off with a huff and left him to smoke that cancerous stick, desperate to go back to her condo and scream into her pillow.

—————————

“Remind me again how much weed you chainsmoke?” Rey mocked in a deep voice, lighting the bowl to the bong and pulling the whole thing in one go, not a single cough as she released a plume of smoke into the car, “Fuck off.”

Rose giggled, looking over at her with heavy lids from the driver’s seat.

They sat in the parking garage of Rose’s apartment, on the top level so they could look out at the city and the mountains in the distance. Rey had showed up in a flurry of need and rage, fists clenched and nose scrunched as she prowled Rose’s apartment with all the predatory seethe of a woman scorned.

“Wait,” Rose said, catching her breath as Rey handed her the bong, “So you just bought the book without taking him up on his offer?”

“Yes! I’m not crazy enough to fall for that. He was just saying it to irk me.”

Rose clicked her tongue as she filled the empty bowl with more bud, shaking her head, “I don’t know, Rey. Sounds like he’s into you. I mean, no one’s ever heard of the man keeping a conversation for longer than necessary, much less a civil one. Or a flirty one.”

“He doesn’t like me—he-he wasn’t flirting with me. He just wants to watch me squirm.”

“That may be the case,“ she said, pausing to take her hit and leaving the sound of her playlist and bubbling water to fill the car. When she finished, she spoke again, smoke pouring from her mouth, “He probably does want to see you squirm. Underneath him.”

Rey squeaked her protest at that, watching Rose hit the rest of her bowl before coughing to hell and back.

But the thought made her hot with desire, and suddenly the car felt suffocating as she pictured his looming figure bending her over a counter, a big hand fisting into her hair or maybe even wrapping around her throat, palming her ass, merciless and strong and—

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, pumping at her shirt to cool off, “Even if some part of me does want to fuck him, it’ll never happen.”

“Why not?”

“You’re kidding.”

Rose shook her head as she handed Rey the bong again, who took it and stuffed it with a big hunk of bud, unbroken and dense. She didn’t know if it’d get her fucked up enough to forget, but she’d sure as hell try.

“I just can’t think of a scenario where we’d even have the opportunity to sleep together. I only ran into him at New Year’s and then at the bar a few nights ago and then at the bookstore. I’m not seeking him out”—her mind traveled to that goddamn poetry book, and she shuddered at the callback—“And he’s a total prick. He gets into fights all the time, breaks shit, trashes private property…dare I go on?”

“Rey, I can see it in your entire being, the way you look just talking about him. He’s a bad boy and it turns you on,” Rose said, and Rey pulled a hit so she wouldn’t have to look at her, “Don’t be ashamed of that. He’s hot. Not my type, but I can recognize beauty when I see it. And his music? Unhinged, in a sexy way.”

She didn’t respond for a minute, going at the bong again. Fucking hell.

“I hate when you’re right,” she sighed, exhaling more smoke into the clouded car, “Doesn’t change that he and I won’t be fucking.”

Rose shrugged, a little eh of skepticism leaving her mouth. Then Rey turned to her, a look of quiet longing in her eyes. The air in the car shifted from a light humorous banter to a thick haze of desire, eating away at both of them. It always went that way for them. One second in a flush of giggles and the next in a flush of lust.

“I can’t get him out of my head.”

Rose hummed in understanding, reaching up to run a thumb over Rey’s bottom lip. A little smirk tugged at Rose’s mouth when Rey reached for her thigh, “Couldn’t call Poe?”

“He’s not what I need right now—not what I want. I want something soft. Sweet.” Warm from the weed and Rose’s soft touch, Rey kissed Rose’s calloused thumb before letting it slip between her teeth and biting down gently.

“Your lucky day then,” she breathed back, leaning up to press a gentle kiss to her neck.

Chapter Text

Even after going solo, Rey always asked Rose to sample and design the layout for her songs, working through each detail with her with an unending well of patience. Once they had realized their musical chemistry during their time together playing for REBELS, the rest was history. But it also flowered into something more complicated.

The two women shared a strange dynamic, one which fluctuated from sexual friendship to platonic romance—the only way Rey could think to describe it. More than best friends, not quite lovers.

Rose knew most of Rey’s secrets before anyone else. Every dirty detail about her and Poe, every whisper and utterance of their relationship—good, bad, ugly, sad. She also knew how Rey felt for Kylo, about how she fought with herself and alternated between complete desire and utter disgust. How he ate away at her sanity without doing much of anything at all, how he occupied her mind for the better part of a year. How she wrote the song about him, for him, secretly hoping he’d hear it and wonder.

That also went for Rey knowing Rose’s hidden truths.

For instance, Rose had been in love with Finn since she met him. Had kept close to Jannah—romantically, noncommittally—long before that, but it wrenched her heart when the whole fiasco between him and Jannah happened, and Jannah ended up reciprocating his feelings.

Rey and Rose hooked up sometimes, just as they did tonight. Another entirely confidential, soft, well-kept secret. They whispered sweet nothings to each other under the quiet glow of moonlight and warm LEDs, sharing secrets and stealing kisses and trying to write love where they ached for people who would never return their desires. Tear-stained, sweat-soaked sheets, giggles of comfort, filling in gaps that wouldn’t stay full for long, but nevertheless easing the pain for the night.

On the best days, they would promise each other in tears that they’d become one under holy matrimony if neither of them wed by 40 and if the world hadn’t collapsed in on itself by then; on the worst, they sent memes to each other from across the room, procrastinating work. There were never any arguments unless it was about what food to order or what movie to watch.

No real commitment aside from the unspoken rule that they’d always stay friends no matter what. Not a bad dynamic, and they fought to keep it under wraps from everyone, texting in code and locking doors and sitting on opposite ends of the table at group get-togethers. Didn’t have to worry about too much questioning since they were already best friends.

They loved one another as one might love the four seasons—admiring the weather, but aware of the constant change. And they were okay with that.

In the morning, when Rey turned on her side naked as the day she was born, the sheets coming with her as she rolled over, it surprised her to find that Rose was awake and watching her intently.

“Something about this feels cosmic.”

Maybe it was just Rey’s groggy head or the bitter taste in her mouth, but she let out a dumb little “Huh?”

Rose hit her dab pen with a mischievous glint in her eye, coughing as the vaporous cloud slipped out of her lips. She offered it to Rey, who accepted it with little hesitation.

“I’ve been thinking about it for like two hours now. I think there’s a reason for your chance encounters with the Shadow.”

It was Rey’s turn to cough, and not from the weed pen. They had nicknamed Kylo Ren the Shadow, mostly due to his penchant for wearing all black, but also because he was elusive—mysterious in an ominous way, like a shadow creeping over you before you know what’s attached to it.

Rose went on, “You get the gut feelings, you have the metaphysical books, the crystal grids, the sage burnings, all of it. You can read people like they’re telling you exactly what they feel. Empath, that’s what Leia said, right? I only enjoy that stuff on a surface level. But doesn’t it feel…otherworldly to you? Don’t you feel drawn to him? You can’t get him out of your head. You were just on the phone with me before you went to the bar, talking about how it seemed like a place Kylo Ren would go to…and then he bumped right into you. Like you manifested it, o-or predicted it or something. And then you just so happened to grab the one book he wanted, at the one store he went to. Seems like…I don’t know—“

“Don’t say it,” Rey said, already anticipating her next word, namely that of fate.

But she said it anyways, and it turned into Rey huffing, and Rose giggling right next to her, which eventually turned Rey’s glower into a reluctant smile.

“Fate,” she repeated, laughing, “Fate fate fate, Rey, you just don’t wanna hear it.”

“I think we’re fated to annoy the shit out of each other. Every interaction thus far has been an inconvenience.”

Then she hit the pen again, so long that the light blinked and it maxed out. That was enough to send her coughing and choking like she was dying, but the subsequent high was totally worth the incomprehensible amount of drool and tears it produced. When she finally had it in her to talk, she pointed a finger at Rose, ending up reaching over and poking her right on her exposed breast, watching the soft flesh bend to her will and jiggle under it. So soft, and so not like the hard lines of Kylo fucking Ren. Not that she would compare them on purpose, no—it was merely an observation.

“I don’t like him,” Rey said, feeling her head drift way up to the clouds, “He confuses me. Yeah, I can read him, but all I get from him is a rolling wave of ambiguity. It’s like he scrambles my radar, if that makes sense. He wears eyeliner that looks better than any makeup I can do. He always looks fucking incredible even when he doesn’t. And I don’t like that. I don’t like any of it. I just want to forget about him but he’s always in my head.”

“Well,” Rose said, that same glint in her eye from earlier, “There’s a party tonight. In the Valley. One of my dad’s old clients, but he’s also an indie label manager. Super small in the scheme of things but he’s pretty…wacky. Wicked good time if you can handle a little sleaze.”

Rey scoffed, “I’m made of sleaze, Rosie.”

So the two of them spent the day messing around with that tune Rey had sent, mixing it with different software and eventually heading down to see if there was space in the recording studio for them to fuck with the wide selection of miscellaneous instruments laying around. Rey had brought three of her kalimbas with her, each one a different octave, and the mellow notes each one made did soothe her burning anger over the whole conflict with—shudder—the Shadow.

By the time they left to get ready for this party Rose was all but dragging her to, the two of them had mapped out a rough twenty second demo of the sounds they wanted to use, the basic notes and the key signature. Since there weren’t any lyrics yet, they couldn’t find a tempo or a rhythm to fit the notes into, or pull a melody from it. But it was still gratifying work.

Rey sat on Rose’s bed, drawing out rounded eyeliner on her lids in a soft brown, just enough to make her feel pretty but not too much since she still barely knew what the hell she was doing. Most of the time Leia hired a makeup artist or there was already one present whenever she needed one. And even then, they kept her looking fresh-faced. Otherwise, she opted to wear nothing at all because of her lack of skill, and she was too stubborn to ask for help. But tonight, she wanted to look nice. Maybe because it had been so long since she’d dressed up (not really, only a week). Maybe because she was feeling extra cute and kinda nervous about whatever the hell she was getting into with Rose.