Chapter Text
Ben turned at the flutter of green in the corner of his eye to see Rey twirling away from him, her strappy heels snapping against the sidewalk as she hurried away without a word. Apparently, he didn’t warrant so much as a goodbye and it stung more than he expected.
“Rey, wait!”
She didn’t look back, crossing the street and turning at the next block to head towards the subway. Disappointment sank into his stomach like a heavy stone.
His uncle spat somewhere behind him, scowling as he wiped the blood out of his graying mustache.
“Stay the hell away from my student. She has a bright future ahead of her and the last thing she needs is your bad influence to distract her.”
“I transferred to Julliard, you prick,” he snapped, whirling back to his uncle with a dark desire to tear something apart, even if it wasn’t with his hands, “without your help or anyone else’s. I graduated and actually enjoy my fucking job, unlike most people. I hated every moment I was in that engineering program but you didn’t care, so long as I was upholding the great family tradition of building bridges.”
“I didn’t have to take you in,” Luke growled back, pointing a finger into his face, “Your mother was ready to send you to a boarding school, but out of the kindness of my heart, I opened my home to you--”
Ben scoffed. “What, so I am obligated to do everything you say for the rest of my life? You’re so full of shit.”
He stormed off, not willing to waste another moment on Uncle Luke. He could go fuck himself, as far as Ben was concerned, and so could Rey for just darting off without letting him explain. He was so stupid for thinking she was anything more than a good lay.
Seething, he went back through the stage door to find Poe and Kaydel, announcing flatly, “Everything is terrible, let’s go get fucked up.”
Kaydel laughed, “Wow, you screwed it up already? You’ve been gone for five minutes.”
Poe snickered, looping his arm through hers, “Leave it alone, Kay. I feel like tequila and that usually goes with chips and salsa, not listening to you two bickering all night.”
“Ugh,” she relented, “whatever. Let’s get sloshed until I no longer care.”
That was fine by Ben. There were quite a few things he wished he didn’t care about and Kaydel not liking him was the least of his concerns.
Rey felt numb by the time she climbed up to the third floor of her building. She went through the motions of unlocking her front door, switching on her kitchen light, and setting her clutch onto her kitchen counter.
She had work in the morning, there was no way she’d be able to skip two shifts in a row, though the register in Plutt’s dinky, stuffy store was the last place she wanted to be. It was also the least likely place she would run into Ben, so there was at least one benefit to Plutt snapping at her for eight hours. The only comfort through those long hours was the knowledge that in a few months, she’d never see the greasy blobfish again. She hated that she had to rely on him for this long.
After aging out of the system, she had assumed her foster father would play no further role in her life. Then the reality of living in Chandrila without a single ally set in. Unkar Plutt laughed in her face when she trudged into his hardware store, before shoving a vest at her and putting her to work.
What did I always say? Trash like you won’t ever amount to nothin’.
Rey stumbled out of her heels, struggling with the tiny buckles. She moaned as her feet flattened against the wood floor, still aching but no longer screaming with pain after walking several blocks and up several sets of stairs.
Ben punching his uncle kept replaying in her head, down to how his muscles clenched, his arm swinging back to gain momentum, and then how his knuckles cracked against Luke’s nose, the older man stepping back as blood poured from his nostril.
Professor Skywalker was so hesitant to put faith in his students and her neighbor--his nephew--was the cause of that. She remembered the gruff way he had introduced himself in their first meeting. He had told her then that she would need to make sacrifices to complete the program, that it required true dedication and she shouldn’t bother if she wasn’t prepared for it.
He couldn’t be disappointed again if he didn’t believe in anyone.
And Rey, who never had a family of her own, who couldn’t imagine choosing to turn away from those who were supposed to love you most, yearned to please him. Part of her wanted to prove Plutt wrong, that she could do something with her life even if she came from nothing, but she also wanted to prove to Luke that even if Kylo had failed, she wouldn’t. She was stronger than anyone.
But Kylo Ren was no longer a faceless asshole she would never meet. He was Ben Solo, talented stage actor, who had used her pussy to warm his cock before fucking her with it only just last night. He came inside her. They weren’t strangers anymore.
Was he really the failure that his uncle made him out to be?
She shouldn’t have run--the instinct was pervasive after a lifetime of fleeing from raised fists--and before Rey had realized what was happening, she had been gripping the handlebar in the middle of a subway car, gasping for breath as her sweaty palm slid on the cold steel.
She tried to focus on the stats homework she’d ignored all weekend, knowing her plans to graduate early would fall through if she blew off her summer classes, but the numbers in her textbook were starting to bleed together. It was impossible to focus when her traitorous mind kept returning to the happily surprised expression Ben had given her when she turned the corner to meet him by the stage door as if he hadn’t expected her to come. He had anticipated being disappointed.
Maybe she would be able to finish the rest of the unit when she was behind the register tomorrow, Rey decided after rereading the same equation three times. Clearly, she wasn’t going to be productive right now. She was thankful it wasn’t due until Monday at 11:59 PM.
Shutting her ancient Dell laptop, Rey sighed. There were a couple of slices of pizza left over from last night but she wasn’t feeling particularly hungry.
She went through the motions blindly, staring into space as she put two small nugs into the top compartment of her grinder, then twisted the joint pieces. She packed a full bowl, tamping down the bud with her thumb, then went over to the window, where her bic lighter was sitting on the sill.
Usually, she only smoked a couple of hits, just enough to get a nice buzz, but tonight, she didn’t want to feel anything. So she packed a second bowl when the first wasn’t enough. She didn’t want to think about how right she had been, to hesitate. Rey had survived for so long on her own, what had she been thinking, letting him into her home? Letting him into her pussy? She had never needed anyone before, she definitely didn’t now.
She was so fucking stupid. Rey had spent her entire life on her own for a reason--people weren’t to be trusted.
She first met him when he was urinating in public.
Clearly, he had questionable morals, and she had known this from the beginning.
Rey swayed, setting her bong down on the carpet before it slipped through her fingers and shattered three floors below.
She had the sense to shut her bedroom window before collapsing in her bed, dizzy and slow. The light shining from her kitchen through the open bedroom door was too much stimulation, but standing to flip the switch was out of the question. Rey closed her eyes, the thrumming beneath her skin growing quiet as she took a long, steadying breath. She hadn’t smoked this much in a while, hadn’t felt uncomfortably high since she was a teenager, trapped under Plutt’s roof with only one escape.
Rey woke to her phone alarm, still dazed, numbed from the past few days.
Plutt was in one of his moods, she could sense it crackling in the air while he watched her count the cash drawer. Clearly, he was still upset that she took yesterday off, despite the fact she never called out, even when she probably should have. It was early on a Sunday morning, though, so at least the store would be quiet enough for her to work through the rest of her stats homework.
It was about fifteen minutes before she was supposed to get off, her stomach on the verge of cannibalizing itself after only a crumbly granola bar during her break, that Plutt poked his greasy face from his back office to bark at her.
“You’ll be staying until close. I had to give Teedo the day off since he covered your sorry ass yesterday.”
His door slammed shut and she gaped at its dinged surface, too stunned to respond. That was that.
She swallowed back her rising fury, knowing that prodding him would only result in further punishment, and it roiled in her gut like it was a bubbling cauldron, boiling and acidic, only harming herself. It didn’t matter, she told herself.
Her days here were numbered.
This was hardly the first time she had worked from opening to closing time, but in the past, she had at least known to pack herself something more substantial to eat. She didn’t have anywhere to be but her tiny apartment, and she’d finished her stats homework and prepared some notes for the meeting she had scheduled with Professor Skywalker on Tuesday.
She was not looking forward to that, to say the least. Rey knew it was going to be all kinds of uncomfortable.
No, what infuriated her the most was the lack of consideration. Rey had worked for Plutt years before aging out of the system, frequently for nothing more than a meal at the table because according to him, nothing in life comes free, brat.
Even if you’re a frightened eleven-year-old girl.
She scowled into nothingness, thankful that at least the store was empty. It was hard enough to plaster a fake smile for customers on a good day and she wasn’t sure she could manage it. But if there was one small, tiny benefit to working at Plutt’s Hardware, he didn’t give a single shit about quality customer service. He was more likely to call a customer a dipshit than to actually help them, which was unfortunate because most of them took one look at Rey and assumed she was a clueless girl behind the counter, meant to be condescended to and ogled.
The bell at the door jingled and Rey forced her best approximation of a smile as she turned to greet whoever had entered.
“Welcome to Plutt’s Hardware, how can I help--”
And to her horror, there stood Ben Solo, his expression thunderous.
He needed to move his hands. The rage and hurt trembled through him, his stomach was queasy from too much whiskey the night before, and a headache was building behind his eyes. He wanted to throw his fists through a wall. He also wanted to get his deposit back one day.
Instead, he rolled out of bed in the late afternoon, shoving his giant feet through the legs of a pair of dirty jeans off the floor and into sturdy boots.
The tiny, corner hardware store that he had used for years had been squeezed from the neighborhood thanks to gentrification, forcing him to venture into a seedier area for supplies. He had all the lumber he required, but he needed a new circular saw blade and some wood screws.
Plutt’s Hardware was small and grimy, but that all faded away when a familiar voice called out to him and his gaze landed on an equally stunned Rey, standing behind the register. She paused mid-sentence, lips pursing together.
Ben should have turned around and marched right out of the store. He should have stomped down to the gym to spend an hour with a punching bag. Anything would be a better idea than what he actually did, his feet bringing him closer to her without any input from him.
He was a glutton for punishment.
She looked pale, concern twisting unbidden in his chest.
“What are you doing here?”
There were many more pressing questions he could have asked, such as, why did you run away last night?
She floundered for a moment. “My job.”
He blinked down at her, trying to puzzle her together.
“But you have a job at the theater--”
Ben really shouldn’t care but he couldn’t ignore the swell of worry rising in his chest. Rey looked dead on her feet and it was no wonder, between two jobs and her courseload, that she hadn’t run herself completely ragged. He knew exactly how hard Luke pushed his students.
“I also have rent to pay for and over-priced textbooks. I don’t have a family to just swoop in and save me from my problems.”
Ben scowled, unappreciative of her snide tone.
“What, so you think I should just blindly obey my uncle’s wishes for eternity, too? That’s bullshit.”
She glared back at him with startling intensity and Ben sensed he’d touched on a sensitive subject.
“Not everyone is so fortunate to have a kind uncle to take them into their home!” she retorted hotly.
“No, Rey,” he said with increasing volume, “it’s a fucking load of shit and you know it. Stop pretending you know a single thing about me, just because Luke told a lot of stories.”
She bristled. “Maybe I know enough!”
He stared at her, his heart pounding. Why the fuck did he even care what she thought? Ben had a dozen sharp responses on the tip of his tongue that he never got the chance to say. A door slammed open, and a third, gravelly voice broke between them.
“What the hell is all that racket?”
Ben whirled in the direction of the voice, finding a greasy, stout man at its source with a face that resembled a blobfish.
“Get back to work, you little whore. I don’t pay you to stand around and flirt.”
His vision whited around the edges as he was blinded by searing rage. He almost feel Rey shriveling in shame behind the counter, mortified by her abhorrent boss. Ben couldn’t understand what she was doing here in this shitty shop, taking this abuse. Surely there were other minimum wage jobs better than this?
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Ben growled, his fingers curling into fists.
The man only chuckled back cruelly. “I raised her. I’ll call her a whore if she’s going to act like one. We have the right to withhold service--get the fuck outta my store.”
Ben glanced at Rey in disbelief. That couldn’t be right. She was staring at the floor, trying to hide her gathering tears. He could see them threatening to spill and it no longer mattered that she ran away last night, or even that they had been arguing moments before. Every cell in his being throbbed, rejecting the wrongness of this scene.
“Fine,” he snapped, “Rey, we’re leaving.”
“The hell she is,” Plutt barked. “Mind your own damn business, pretty boy.”
Ben ignored the pudgy man, knowing that he had to contain his temper this time. Uncle Luke was one thing--in his opinion, he was completely justified in his reaction--but if this man was telling the truth, he probably shouldn’t punch out the person who raised her. It felt like a clear overstepping of bounds, though he loathed the way he spoke to her.
Plutt hardly seemed like an ideal guardian to a small child, Ben wouldn’t trust him with a dog.
“I’m not going to let you talk down to her like that,” he spoke slowly, adding with emphasis, “and neither is Rey.”
She stiffened behind the counter, he could see her jerk slightly at the mention of her name.
“Ben,” she started to warn, Plutt chuckling darkly over her hiss.
“Oh, really?”
“Ben, just leave it alone--"
God, that made him so fucking mad. She was giving up without trying to stand up for herself. He could understand why she might not throwing her fists around like he was inclined to, but he thought she had more of a backbone than that. Where was the fiery woman who screeched at him for pissing on her wall?
“No, Rey, fuck that! Why are you putting up with this shit?”
If she wasn’t going to tell this creep to go fuck himself, then it was up to him, wasn’t it? He knew she wasn’t his girlfriend, he should still be upset after what happened last night, but there was something hopeless in her expression that rankled him to his core.
“Because she knows her place,” Plutt sneered nastily. “I raised her right so she never got lofty ideas. Trash like her will never be anything but that- trash.”
Ben shook with rage, his fists trembling at his sides as he tried to remind himself that getting arrested for assault wouldn’t help Rey in the least. Unless he was trying to prove a point that he was a violent lug. His knuckles itched to crush the man’s bulbous nose.
“The only trash here is you. You’re not good enough to lick the soles of her shoes.”
The man bristled. “Didn’t I tell ya to get the fuck off my property? I don’t need this!”
Plutt bustled forward, tugging his stained jeans higher on his hips and blowing himself up like a pufferfish. He stepped aside to maneuver around Ben and get to Rey. As if he would allow that to happen.
“Get outta here before I decide she ain’t worth the trouble!”
Panic leeched into her tone when she interjected, “Just go, Ben, please, I’m fine--"
It was so far from fine he nearly laughed. The frantic edge of her voice grew sharper as she babbled,
“I’ll see you later, I promise, I’m fine, I’ll be okay, I just…I just need this--"
“You heard the girl!”
“She doesn’t need you,” Ben insisted, crossing his arms just below his pecs to jut his broad chest out further. Solely based on mass, this man was much larger than Ben was, and therefore less likely to be intimidated.
Something in his gut told him not to leave her there and Ben had learned the hard way that it wasn’t a voice he should ignore. His instincts are often right. They had been about changing schools and trying out for his role as Pale, hell, even throwing that pebble up at her bedroom window the other night- each had been the right choice, of that he was certain.
Plutt roared, throwing his hands in the air.
“Fine!”
Rey couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She could only stand there uselessly as her entire world was upended in her face.
“You want her so bad, take the little slut! I don’t need subpar employees who only hang around for a paycheck, anyhow.”
Subpar. Rey had worked nine hours on her feet with the flu last November and she was subpar. She had covered Teedo’s shifts when he got shit-faced and forgot to even call out. She had cleaned the store more times than she could count because no one else was capable of picking up a broom or dust rag. Rey thought she might be sick, her stomach churning with hot-and-cold flashes of panic.
“But--"
Her voice broke, tears gathering in her eyes.
“I should’a kicked you to the curb years ago, dirty, little rat.”
Rey sucked in sharply. Usually, she brushed off his cruel comments but the blow was more than she could bear. She stared at the man that had raised her, who had tormented her as a girl with reminders that she would never amount to anything, that it was a waste of time to even try.
Maybe he was right.
Ben collected her study supplies she had splayed on the front counter, her pens and highlighters poking from his pocket and textbooks stacked in his arms.
Just like that, she had no job.
She tucked her chin against her chest to hide the hot tears streaming down her cheeks, refusing to give Plutt a final victory to lord over her. Rey shoved a few sheets of loose paper into her worn backpack, letting Ben wrap a massive palm around the curve of her shoulder to guide her to his side of the desk. He took her backpack from her limp hands, sliding the textbooks into the middle pocket like it was a natural thing he’d done for her a thousand times before.
He focused on the heat of his heavy palm soaking through the short sleeve of her t-shirt, her vision blurred as she took a final glance around Plutt’s Hardware & Paint. It hadn’t belonged to her but she had put more into the store than its owner ever had, and though she wouldn’t miss working there, it had been part of her life since she was a child. As a teenager, she had joked that the store was more her guardian than Plutt was.
The summer humidity clung to her oppressively as they stepped onto the street. Ben’s hand continued to lead her away, gently rubbing her back in a soothing motion. She didn’t feel his touch or hear his voice over the roaring crash of waves in her ears.
Finn had dragged her to Junari Point when she first met him, claiming it was a crime that despite growing up in the city, she had never gone to see the nearby coast. Rey had stood with her feet in the sand, out of reach of the lapping seawater, and stared into the thunderous, rolling waves on the horizon. Though safely out of reach, she hadn’t been able to shake her sense of trepidation. If she went out far enough, the waves wouldn’t hesitate to swallow her up and crush her against the rocks.
They had gotten a full block away before she came to a sudden halt.
Her life was over. She already existed from paycheck to paycheck, every nickel and dime put into that stupid apartment, and without her job at Plutt’s, she had no chance of covering the whole rent payment. Even if she cut out weed- which she had done in previous lean months- she couldn’t stop eating.
Oh, fuck, she was going to end up homeless, and when the stress of not having a roof to sleep under became too much, it would affect her grades. She’d lose her conditional scholarship. She’d be kicked out of the program, drop out, and then she’d really be fucked.
Rey would have puked if the contents of her stomach weren’t too valuable to lose.
“Rey…?”
She looked up at Ben, trying to remember how she was supposed to feel about him when she was currently consumed with rage.
“You should have let it go,” she said through clenched teeth.
Ben stared back at her, stunned by her response.
“Everything was fine. I was getting by--"
“It wasn’t fine,” he growled. “He was treating you like shit and you had given up. It was like watching someone kick kittens!”
“I hadn’t given up! I was biding my time, I’m so close to the end…I had a plan, dammit! This sure as hell wasn’t part of it!”
His giant paws closed around her biceps as if he was on the verge of physically shaking sense into her. Pedestrians flowed around where they had stopped on the sidewalk, shooting them dirty looks for blocking foot traffic. Rey paid them no mind. Who cared what strangers thought when her life--her dreams--had been shattered into itty, tiny pieces?
In the end, Plutt was fucking right. It killed her inside to admit it.
Two large arms coiled about her middle. Dragging her so close that each of her senses was taken up by him. Leather, cedar, clean rainwater. Encompassing warmth. A low, deep rumble that she felt as much as she heard.
“He isn’t right. That asshole may have raised you but obviously, he doesn’t know a damn thing about you.”
Rey stopped resisting the sobs that wracked her whole body, clinging to his bigger form for support when her knees collapsed beneath her.
“It’s going to be okay,” he assured, rocking them back and forth.
“It’s not,” she cried, her tears soaking his white tee. “I’m going to lose my apartment!”
A passerby knocked into him and Ben covered the back of her head protectively, wrapping himself around her as he warned him to watch it in his most menacing tone.
His gaze softened when it returned to her, his fingers combing through her hair.
“Move in with me,” he said.
That was not what she expected. Based on the small grimace twisting his full lips, it hadn’t been what he expected to say either. Rey couldn’t even consider his offer. Could she?
“That’s crazy,” she breathed.
He grinned.
“We barely know each other!”
His grin widened manically. “I don’t hear a ‘no.’”
And he never did.
Rey had known she couldn’t leave it alone even before moving in with Ben. Which was complete insanity. But not relevant at the moment.
Chewing on her lower lip, she fortified herself, reaching forward to rap her knuckles on the open door.
Professor Skywalker, seated behind his desk and a rather hazardous stack of papers, glanced up at the knock. It was still his open office hour but she had arrived at the tail end of it, not wanting this conversation to have enough room to drag out. She’d say her piece and hopefully, he wouldn’t change his mind about writing her a letter of recommendation for graduate school.
“Miss Johnson,” he greeted, setting down his pen to give her his undivided attention. He sounded somewhat surprised as if he hadn’t expected to see her so soon after what happened outside the theater.
Though he made himself fairly accessible as tenure faculty went, Luke had never been the type to coddle or handhold his students. She didn’t often take advantage of office hours, preferring to email any questions she had in the interest of saving time on both of their parts, but she felt this was something she should say to his face.
“Hi, Professor Skywalker, there was something I needed to tell you.”
He gestured toward the open chair across from him and she took a steadying breath, entering the small office and sliding into the proffered seat.
Rey didn’t believe in mincing words. She might as well get right to the point.
“Ben is an amazing actor,” she said, charging ahead to prevent interruptions, “he’s also my boyfriend.”
Luke’s mouth, parted in shock at her initial statement, slammed shut at what followed it. Rey had to admit she was surprised herself. She hadn’t told Ben that yet.
“I…see.”
Rey wasn’t sure that he did.
“But even if he wasn’t both of those things, I don’t think it’s fair to twist his story to your benefit. You told me yourself that this program required passion and dedication, and he didn’t have either of those. Not for engineering, at least. That hardly makes him less of a person.”
“Miss Johnson--"
She wasn’t really interested in excuses.
“You do realize that Juilliard is more difficult to be accepted by than our program, don’t you? Does it really matter if he’s building bridges as long as he’s happy? Not many can say the same after entering their field.”
Rey nodded her head in satisfaction when he made no argument. She hadn’t come here interested in what he had to say in defense, only to speak her mind.
“This is between me and my nephew,” he finally said as she stood again.
Rey agreed wholeheartedly. “Then perhaps you should stop talking about it with your students. And, no offense sir, but you made me part of it when you yelled at my boyfriend in the middle of the street. While he was kissing me.”
He had no further retort. With her head held high, she left his office.
Rey wasn’t sure anything would come of their short conversation but a week later, Ben came home from rehearsals with a bewildered expression on his face. Apparently, his uncle had given him a call. It may not have been a proper apology but it was an acknowledgment and it was more than either of them expected.
“My mom must’ve knocked some sense into him,” he mused, throwing his arm around her as he joined her on the couch.
Rey smiled and said nothing.
One year later
“I know I haven’t worked here since graduation but it still feels weird walking in through the main entrance with the rest of the patrons.”
She said the term with a tone of derision only someone who had spent time in customer service could have. She still wasn’t sure how she had made it to the other side of the box office window. Her new TA position was barely a step up but Ben would let her have it if she tried to pick up a part-time job to help more with rent. Their new apartment had a lot more space but it also was much more expensive. Regardless, he was adamant that she spent time studying rather than at minimum wage jobs that wouldn’t pay what she was worth anyway.
Rose giggled, her arm looped through Rey’s. Ben had only one artist comp per showing but he’d bought Rey a ticket so they could attend together. She and Rose had worked in the box office for years without seeing a show together, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Rose loved theater.
Rey was just thankful that Ben wasn’t a singer. As much as she loved him, she would struggle if she had to sit through a whole musical. She didn’t have the heart to explain that to Rose, though, who at times would randomly break into a song and then look at Rey expectantly as if she should know the lyrics and belt out the next verse from memory.
“You should get used to it, Ben’s practically a star.”
Rey smiled to herself, agreeing completely. The stage loved him and he loved being on it, there was no doubt in her mind that it was where he belonged.
“You’re probably right, still weird though.”
“Imagine how strange it would feel if Ben ends up getting picked up by a TV show,” Rose countered. “You’ll be seeing him everywhere.”
Rey shushed her with a wide grin. “That’s supposed to be a secret.”
They took their seats and the lights went dim. He blew the audience away, as usual, and they met him outside the stage door, slipping away for celebration cocktails together with Rose, who didn’t stop gushing for a solid hour after the performance ended. She had delighted in Ben’s awkward squirming, not quite comfortable yet with Rose’s level of enthusiasm.
He brought her home and fucked her into their bed, kissing the tip of her nose after cumming inside her and then burying his head between her thighs to lick her clean. He was thoughtful like that.
On Sunday he’d take her to brunch and they’d smoke back in the apartment afterward for a lazy afternoon.
And maybe it wasn’t according to her plan…
…but life was good.
The End