Work Text:
There are words crawling up from Rey’s lungs. Up her throat, climbing her tongue.
They’re words that she had been hearing echo in her mind, in her own voice, telling herself a truth she didn’t want to hear.
“I should have stayed with you.”
She had braced herself, when the bond had intruded on her. She’d been curled up in her lonely bunk in a tiny cell of a room, sinking in the silence. And of course, the force brought him to her.
The force announces the bond inside her chest. It’s a sudden tiny tug in the depths of her sternum always accompanied by a swoop in her stomach. A smaller, more subtle version of that moment she was suspended in air before splashing into Ahch-To’s cave. There’s always that fear of falling. And anticipation - nerves - and yes, excitement.
And the next moment, the feeling of being cradled in the force, like floating on a quiet pool of water.
And then the unmistakable presence of him in the force. His darkness isn’t dangerous, like a creeping chasm or dirty cave with dank murky corners. Instead, it’s like the dark endless nights on Jakku that she liked best, darkness protecting her from others eyes. It’s like the silence of being alone on the sands - the kind she could always trust to carry the sound of danger. It’s deep like the ocean, full and churning and calling to her exactly as it always has.
Rey had dreaded the bond opening, ever since it began, but especially in these long months since Crait. She had struggled against it with all her might, trying to block him. Trying to construct a duracrete barrier in her mind to prevent her from acknowledging the distraction of his eyes or his bitter yearning. His need for her never waned, not even after she ran from him on Supremacy. It’s still so all-encompassing that even he can never truly hide it from her.
She’s tried barricading herself from being needed. It was never going to work.
“I should have stayed…” Her voice wavers.
Rey had expected many possible reactions. She expected him to howl in triumph, maybe the galaxy’s loudest I told you so . Maybe possibly – horribly – laughing in her face; spitting at her that it’s too late for them now. That she was all alone, truly.
Instead, Ben shocks her. “Are you alright?”
“Alright?” is all she can manage as her face crinkles into a grimace. How can she answer when she wouldn’t know what alright feels like?
“Did they hurt you?” His voice carries a sharp edge of alarm.
He touches her.
His touch is instinctive, quick and purposeful. He doesn’t hesitate to gather her off the bunk and see for himself if she’s injured.
The subtle hum of the bond flutters.
Rey’s eyes widen as he removes his gloves. He’s only done that once before for her, over the light of a fire. She was lost then, too.
When his warm palm lands on her, even over her arm bands, the hazy edges of the bond begin to deepen. The force gathers around them, thickens, winds around them. But it’s not suffocating, no. It just seems safe. Like the incomprehensibly far miles between his space and hers have shrunk. The tether between them tightens and holds her.
Ben’s eyebrows are furrowed together, his jaw visibly grinding. His hands are lifting her arms, moving her wrists, landing soft and solid on her ribs as he turns her. He’s efficient at this - triage. His methodical inspection is clearly from experience dealing with too many breaks, cuts, burns.
But he’s so gentle. Each time he moves to a new limb, his eyes flick to hers, waiting to be warned off. He’s only checking her for injuries but Rey basks in his care. No one has done this for her before. With him, somehow, Rey is allowed to need help. This must only be taking a minute but for Rey, she soaks up this moment.
Being touched and seen.
“Oh, I’m okay, I’m not … hurt really.” Rey stumbles, unfamiliar with care. “But…” she starts, just to keep him from pulling away.
He stays in place for her. One hand gently stays at the crook of her elbow. Still over her arm bands - Rey’s never been more aware of those little strips of rough fabric.
Rey’s eyes fix to his chest. “I thought you wanted me for my power - just my light but-“ sensing he’s about to protest, Rey presses her hand right on his sternum to still him.
Their touch is a circuit now. Rey’s hands on his heart, his hand over her arm band.
She could swear their pulses have synchronised. Maybe it’s just the force. But she could steep in this feeling like a warm pool of water.
These words are difficult to form. Rey feels her mouth opening and closing as if she’s trying to chew on her thoughts before she spits them out.
The force is fickle, Rey knows this. It’s brought him to her because she needed him but it could cut their connection at any second. Voicing the terrible regrets that have been growing in her mind is unfamiliar enough to make her skin crawl but she can’t leave this half unsaid.
Rey needs to talk to the one person who will hear her.
Her lower lip quivers. Fear prickles all over her.
Trying, fumbling, Rey starts.
“All the clothes they’ve given me are white.” It’s what she’d noticed, a symptom that told her of the disease. That had made her see what was wrong this whole time - why no one looked her in the eye, why she got hugged instead of held.
Why hugs were rare, and tended to come from the side, with one arm. They happened while other people strategised her role in the Resistance. How to make her visible, how to use her image to win support. She wanted to be useful but…
Rey had thought she wanted to be a Jedi. But Jedi aren’t real, they’re emblems.
She was trying to do more than just survive now that she was out of Jakku, and she had water and shelter and food and sleep for the first time in her memory. Rey was trying to fill in the details of herself when she had only been able to be an outline. Surviving didn’t allow her space in her mind for opinions, preferences, for finding out she liked or disliked colours or scents or sounds.
Every detail about her was weighed against the question “is that like a Jedi?” And the answers somehow were always “No.”
Rey chafed against the expectations.
“I don’t think I’m a person to them,” Rey admits. It’s a thought she’d been swallowing, forbidding her own mind from forming the words to herself. And now it’s escaped and soared the short distance to the man in front of her. Kylo Ren, the enemy she missed more than air.
The way everyone in the rebuilding Republic looked at her, the hero they wanted her to be, it was exhausting. It was lonely.
Rey craved the way that Kylo Ren looked at her. The way he’s looking at her right now.
“ They want me for light side power. They want the Jedi back. I’m not even that light really! But you-“ a sob escapes instead of a word. Her eyes clamp shut and her face suddenly burns.
“All of you. Because you’re you.” As if that’s the most obvious thing in the galaxy to him. As if she was everything.
Rey can feel he’s angry on her behalf. He’s on her side. She’s nodding, and she might cry, but the emotion that wells up in her lungs isn’t despair. It’s relief. More than relief, she’s ecstatic. Almost delirious to have let this truth into the space between them.
Rey opens her eyes to be met by his own lidded gaze, so dark and deep and ready to take her in.
Suddenly, Rey is not close enough to Ben.
Moving on instinct, Rey presses her face to the broad expanse of him. Cheek against his chest, Rey grips her fingers into his tunic, closer to any person than she’s ever been. He presses her to him. Holds her like life.
The pull to him is so soothing now that she lets herself feel it without shame. It’s the same pull as the planets to their stars, the tide to the shore. It’s the pull of green growing plants to the bright beating sun. It’s the pull of the force and she wants it so much.
Her breathing, she notes distantly, is quite fast.
And her fists are gripping his clothes with white knuckles, and her forehead is pressing, rubbing back and forth, against his sternum.
And this is not close enough.
She tugs against the fabric in her hands. Ben’s head lifts from where he’s been pressing his face to her hair. “Rey?”
“How do I?” Rey’s not sure what she’s trying to accomplish.
Probably silly but, she wants to see skin.
Rey tries finding fastenings, skittering her hands on the seam near his collar. “Closer,” she huffs, trying to define what she wants.
“Closer,” he agrees with a smirk before flicking her hands away and leaning down to her to surprise her again.
His lips connect with hers, and Rey hears a surprised, high note escape from her own mouth, then a sigh. And then she hears herself growl as she leans into his face with her own.
Rey thought kissing would be messy, if she thought of it at all. She’d thought of sinking her teeth into Ben, scratching him with her nails. Making him stay and marking him as hers. Kissing, however, utterly astounds her. Overwhelms her. His hands cupping her skull, his bare fingers winding in her hair, the tilt of his face as he consumes her.
Is he hungry too?
She can’t touch him enough. If she could run through the galaxy to be in the room with him, she would. Her fingers grip his hair at the base of his skull, finding them damp with sweat. Her palm runs over the skin of his neck, before bringing her fingers to her mouth and tasting the salt from his skin.
He stares at her fingers and her lips, his own mouth open. His eyes, they’ve gone impossibly darker. And he’s crackling with a sharp, jagged energy Rey can’t define.
Then he wraps his hand tightly around her wrist, bringing her fingers up so he can suck on them himself. His mouth is hot, and his tongue runs strong and slick across the pads of her fingers. When he groans, she feels it hum against her hand.
Rey wants to feel more of him. Taste more skin. Lick the inside of his mouth.
Rey tries quickly to relieve herself of her clothes - her white clothes. She can’t get them off fast enough, but she doesn’t want to stop kissing him. Her attempts to do both make him giggle, a startling sound for them both. He gets the rest of his tunic off and flings his undershirt away, which utterly distracts Rey for a moment. So much skin to make her own.
Ben, helpfully, grasps the draping fabric of Rey’s tunic over her left shoulder and rips it with a glint in his eye. Rey wonders if his barely-concealed smirk means he knows how happy it makes her that he’s tearing the resistance’s awful Jedi costume that she hates wearing.
And then it occurs to her, she could know what he’s thinking.
She’s halfway through kicking off a leg of her trousers when she abandons her task to grip his face, thinking maybe eye contact will help.
He looks up from staring at her bound breasts. A flicker in the force of confusion and a hint of annoyance that he wasn’t done staring. So Rey huffs, “the bond!”
“Yeah?” is his clueless answer, more interested in watching his hands span her hips. Rey gives his head a shake to refocus him before throwing her mental wall down and crossing to his mind.
They both gasp. It’s everything, being connected again. Being bonded without fighting it. Whole, and allowing herself to acknowledge that he makes her whole. That he’s been waiting to be her home. He’s had his walls down for her this whole time, waiting for her to slowly tip toe across their link back to him.
It’s what he’s always done for her, isn’t it. The way he isn’t pushing her, just welcoming her. Inviting her into the space in him that was always hers.
I want this always. Please. That thought radiates from her.
Their arms wind around each other, hands on so much exposed skin. So warm.
Don’t leave me . That plea flows from him.
The desperation in him makes Rey frantic with need. She feels slightly separate from her skin, heartbeat pounding, breath hissing through her lower teeth, mind ringing with curiosity.
Instinct has her pressing her centre to his thigh, seeking some sort of relief. She can feel the lips of her own cunt heating against the leather of his trousers. And through the bond, his absolute shameless delight rings into her mind and down her spine.
He grips her hips, shoving his thigh closer and tilting her pelvis so that sharp sensation spikes into her centre. His knee is bent but he is so much taller, her toes lift off the ground to accommodate his leg between hers. Gravity pulls her down onto him, pushing blunt pressure to the nub at the apex of her core.
He kisses her breath away as his hands slowly tilt her hips back and forth against him. Rey holds on for dear life. Her nails scratch his shoulders and she’s not sorry at all.
She has no idea what she’s doing aside from chasing this addictive feeling. Rey’s desire is more abstract than Ben’s, she knows. Pressing her body against his, naked but for her breast band and underwear, the humming she feels isn’t attached to ideas, aside from feel, take, give .
They’ll probably fuck, Rey thinks. Fucking - that’s not something she had thought much about either. On Jakku, touch was dangerous. She didn’t touch anyone and she barely even touched herself. A waste of hydration, really. But there is this need that Ben wakes up in her. It’s a churning, wild need to touch as deep as possible. That’s fucking, isn’t it? That’s the feeling of wanting Ben.
And Ben. His lips are stung red from hers and his chest is heaving like he’s never had enough oxygen. The energy from him, he wants so much with her. He has a list running through his mind - dreams and ideas and images he hasn’t allowed himself to dwell on, swirling out in the open bond between them. Rey is so surprised - Ben is ravenous for her.
“Come here” he demands, and her stomach swoops low as he sweeps her into his arms to carry them both down to the floor.
She lies back, thrilled at his body kneeling above her, caging her in like he’s caught her. His remaining clothes stretch over his thighs as Rey rubs her own legs against them.
Rey’s floor is cold, compressed dirt. But the grainy dust doesn’t stick to her skin, or get caught in her hair, here in the bond. How strange that she’s less present in her own surroundings. She wonders what his floor is like, where he is.
His hand reaches beyond her, into the room she can’t see. His tunic materialises as he catches it in his hand, before he gently rolls it and fits it behind her head. “Does that work?” he says, slowly letting go of the object from his side of the connection. It stays, cushioning her from the floor, and they think how? in unison.
Rey remembers, ages ago, the same quizzical look on his face during their first bond. Affection zings like lightning through her veins at the memory. The rush makes her throw her legs and arms around him, smushing him towards her.
His head dips to her collarbone, worrying the skin between his teeth. Every time he bears down with his mouth her needy cunt shivers. She’s wanted, she’s consumed.
He reaches her bound chest and grabs at the fabric with such fervour that it digs into her ribs, rough threads chafing more marks into her skin.
Rey is surprised - her bare breasts affect him so strongly she feels something akin to an electric shock through the bond. He descends on them with a groan, mouth and hands everywhere, fitting his hands over them, calloused palms and hot skin. Sucking and pinching to the point where Rey thinks she’ll lose her mind. Her thoughts are unwinding into fragments.
Rey’s hips buck off the floor, trying to grind against his torso.
She whines out loud. The vibrations of her throat feel indulgent - just voicing that this feels so good. A distant part of her wonders if anyone on his side or hers can hear the sound of her connecting to him.
One of his wide palms slides between Rey’s legs and presses, deliciously, over her cunt and the little slip of fabric still left between them. With a shameless little cry, she brings both her hands to keep him in place, grinding fast, needy beyond the point of thought. She chases the feeling while he watches her, the shadow of him kneeling over her and the weight of his stare dragging her further towards relief.
Open your eyes , his voice pleads over the bond. She does, and keeps them open even as she begins to twitch, tears prickling in her eyes. His focus makes her scalp prickle like prey.
Her body can’t contain this - she’s going to overflow. His palm works her through her panties, even after her own hands have clawed scratches into his forearm. He’s drawing something out from deep within her- water from a well she didn’t know existed. It’s too much. It’s so much, and Rey wants more .
The swirling well grows into waves, the waves rolling over her. The rolling waves become peaks, crashing down and rinsing her. It splashes out of her - tears from her eyes, sound from her throat, juice from her cunt.
Her peak releases her like a sigh, and Ben’s mouth is on hers immediately, his end of the bond full of delight.
Dreamed of you. Every night. All day. Never thought of anything else.
A little dip of worry flickers through Rey’s heart before she can clamp it down: what if she hasn’t measured up to his dreams? The stray thought flies across the bond of its own volition, and Rey feels his mind catch it, hear it, see it. His possessiveness soars and an actual growl leaves his throat. He shoves one arm behind her back, gathering her up to his lap to kiss her with abandon. Like he has a point to make. Everything everything everything rings through his mind, something he wants to show her, prove to her, teach her. Rey’s legs wrap around his hips, pressing her over-sensitive clit against his hardness. Her soaked underwear sticking against her makes her jump, but maybe, she thinks, she can fuck him like this if she moves them to one side.
That thought shoots through the bond too, and lands in his mind like a punch. “Get these off,” he huffs. She kicks to help as he drags her last scrap of clothing down her legs, fabric flying, then her unsteady limbs flop open as she lies back on the floor again. His hands spread her legs, caressing warmth into her from her knees to the top of her thighs.
“Let me, please.” He says, eyes fixed to the apex of her legs, thumbs teasing her hair.
“Let you what?” Fuck her, right? That’s what they’re doing.
He searches her face for a second, before a shy smirk appears on his lips, and another possessive thrill ricochets through his side of the bond.
Ben lies down between her legs and presses his face directly to her.
The first feeling of his tongue makes her yelp, but then her hips chase his face. He is, she can tell through the bond, exceptionally happy with himself. His mind says wet - dripping-heat- sweet—
He rests up on an elbow, licking his lips. His fingers dip past her folds to gather the sloppy wetness there and bring it to his tongue like he’s found a jar of sweet syrup.
“Let me that ” he says, by way of explanation.
A giggle erupts from Rey as she grips his hair and pushes him to keep going. Whatever this skill is he’s got, Rey wants more of it and now. He chuckles on his way back to her centre, a sound she folds deep into her heart.
His mouth latches back to her, tongue and lips and wet slippery noises. He eats like he fights, she observes, one of the many stunned thoughts racing through her. He’s unstoppable, insistent. He steals her breath. He drinks her like water. Like she’s going to save him with the juice of her.
When he slurps at her clit, her hands grab her own hair, the sting on her scalp grounding her.
When one of his fingers slides into her and presses up, a surprised “Ah!” falls out of her lungs.
Rey wants everything.
She wants his mouth running over her, lapping at her. She wants him to suck her clit. She wants him to keep filling her up. One finger, then two, still not enough. More of your hand Rey finds herself demanding through the bond. She can’t vocalise words at the moment.
He gives her three fingers. The thumb of his other hand replaces his tongue on her clit, soothing the stretch.
He leans up to watch his fingers disappear into her and come out glistening. He tries memorising it, the sight flowing into their bond. Rey sits up so she can see too, using his shoulder for leverage.
Rey’s cunt is wrapped around him, flushed pink and stretched wide. Gripping his thick fingers and making a mess of them.
And they can do this through their bond?
If the force separated them this very second, would she still be spread this open with nothing inside her? Naked in the dirt? Outside of the soothing focus of the bond? The thought makes her squeeze around him, as if that would keep them together for longer.
She’s been dreaming hasn’t she? Distracted by need, she’s forgotten that the bond is fickle and uncontrollable. He could disappear any moment - the force could take him away and leave her alone. Alone and naked and cold.
“I want to stay with you. I want to stay,” Rey says. Ben looks up at her, fingers stilling.
Tears prickle at Rey’s eyes. “I want this more than anything.” The words jump out of her. Tight chest, crackling voice. But at least his face looks like her words are everything to him.
“The bond’s going to break off again and we’ll be so alone and-“ Rey draws a shuddering breath. “How do I get back to you?”
Her question tastes sour. This fear had just crawled out of her lungs and interrupted everything. He’s gone completely still. Is he afraid too? Or did she just ruin this… whatever they were doing?
Ben’s jaw sets.
In a rush, Ben gathers her into his arms, drawing her into his lap so that her back is flush to his chest. He crushes her, deliciously. It’s soothing, being held so tight that her inhaling ribs move his arms. He trails kisses on her shoulder and nuzzles her neck.
In their bond, his energy focuses on their bridge, their tether, the flow of thoughts between them. The connection isn’t a string anymore it’s a rope, a lifeline. Their bond holds them together as tightly as his arms do.
“Stay.” He murmurs into her hair.
“What?”
“I won't let go of you. I just won’t.” He’s gritting his teeth, Rey can hear it. His knuckles are white, he’s holding her so hard. “You’re going to stay. You won’t leave. Stay with me.”
“Yes,” Rey hisses, aching.
Aching and empty, and needy.
"I need you closer. Hold me closer." Rey wouldn't mind if they crushed each other. If they were trees and their roots were tangled. If they braided their bodies. Anything to stay together.
Stars, she needs him. Her hips are grinding back onto him, seeking.
"How close?"
"I just- I need-“ Rey huffs, frustrated, grinding harder. “Give me everything.”
He hesitates, loosening his grip. “Sweetheart, you want me?” A little breathless, a little quiet.
As if he could doubt her now.
Rey throws a glare over her shoulder at him. "I need you as close as you can be to me, Ben. And don't let me go.”
Ben doesn’t let her go.
Rey leans up so he can take his clothes off, but he only removes one hand from her to frantically shuck off his trousers and underwear. His lips stay on her shoulder blades, then wind back up to her neck while Rey stretches her spine to push her hips back. She can hear the beat of his heart in their bond.
Inside inside inside she wants me inside.
The first press of him is startling- it’s so good. It’s heady. The stretch is sharp and painful and exactly what she needs. It grounds her to him.
They tangle together in the force too, the space of their bond blocking almost all of the world around them. It grows and grows.
He’s agonisingly gentle with her, holding her in place so she can’t shove back onto him. Rey hisses and groans with equal impatience and satisfaction. His hips settle into place at hers, and his arms brace him above her as he folds his chest over her back. Rey could purr when he nips her neck.
It’s already so much.
She can feel their equal desperation, their need for this, the way this completes them both.
That pull in the force, it’s nearly satisfied.
Begging the force not to separate them, they start to move.
Uncaring if she’s heard, Rey cries out, but her voice only echoes in the bond instead of her room at the base. As if she’s cushioned from the base, the cold lonely room, the place she wanted to leave. As if she’s only inside the force, surrounded by their power together.
Their bond winds around them both. Their connection intertwines further and further as she stitches herself to him.
Surrendering to this power, Rey dives into the force.
She’s submerged.
He’s there with her, half in his world and half in the force with her. His power and strength hold her so she doesn’t float away. And stars, he feels so good.
His arm reaches all the way down to her clit, swirling around her nerves. His fingers travel to stroke her labia where he’s splitting her, his side of the bond humming with possessive adoration.
Then he brings his fingers back up to lick her wetness again. His sated moan makes her clench tighter.
“Keep me.” She gasps.
“Need you.” His voice echoes in his chest against her back.
“Make me stay.” Rey arches her back to take him deeper, connecting them further. Making him hers.
Rey can’t feel anything but Ben’s body. Draped over her, holding her, his lips at her neck. He’s her shelter and she is safe.
His forearm presses against her sternum to grip her closer. So close that every snap of his hips throws the air from her lungs. She’s forgetting that there ever were distances between them, systems across the vast galaxy separating their bodies. She’s refusing to acknowledge that they could be occupying different space. No, they’re together. His body is her home and he’s inside her and their minds are blending like ink and water.
His fingers are back at her clit, right where she needs him, pulling her towards her peak. Pulling power in the force, pulling her to him.
She’s close. So is he. They chase it together. The force is a rush around her, she floats in it, she flows through him as a river to the sea.
His mind is echoing All of you all of you all of you.
It’s what he wants to take and keep and hold. Because you’re you.
The moment her orgasm reaches her, the rush of power physically pulls her. She’s untethered from where she was and she comes and comes and comes to him.
Her body pulses, her heart and her muscles and her lungs. The force pulses. His heart and his body. She feels everything, so loudly and fully.
And then, the force lets her go. She surfaces, gasping for air, out of the hold of the bond. And… she’s not in her room on the Resistance base.
When her eyes refocus, she is somewhere else. Dark, sleek floors and walls. Filtered air. The hum of engines, the echo of space. And Ben’s arms still around her, pressing kisses into her shoulder blades.
“I’m here! Ben - I’m here!”
“You are!” He flips her so she’s on her back and collapses to his elbows over her. They stare at each other, panting. They’re sweaty and exhausted and there’s come dribbling out of Rey but they’ve done something impossible.
Rey pictures what the Resistance will find in her room. Discarded white clothes everywhere, broken hair ties, and two halves of a sabre left behind along with its unwanted legacy.
The image makes her giggle.
She tosses her rumination to him over the bond. They get to giggle together, a new and sparkling thing for them both.
Stars, it worked.