Work Text:
“The court is tilted.”
There’s a chorus of groans, as Ben pushes on his knees with his big palms and too gracefully jacks himself back up into standing position. A symphony of exhaustion ensues, from the argument he brings up every single time the Knights get assigned Court C.
Rey places her hands on her hips, as he turns to her with a sneer on his long face. His sunglasses, expensive things that nobody should wear as well as he does, glint in the evening summer sunset when he shrugs at the whole court with a frown, and Poe groans at the statement.
“What,” Ben prods, as Rey raises a, heh, Solo cup full of sparkling rosé to her lips. “What, Poe. What.”
“The court isn’t-“
“The court is absolutely-“
Rey turns to look at Rose, currently sprawled back in the shade with a broken and casted foot slung up across the wrought iron bench they’ve all relegated her to. She’s even got a matching cup of wine in one hand and a small plate with assorted charcuterie in the other. Looks the vision of a loved woman.
She rolls her head a little, lolling it back with a deep sigh, as Rey bites back a snort. Yeah, yeah.
“The ground has shifted.”
“I will get a fucking level-“
Hux, unhelpful as ever, chooses to chime in, “you’d need a bloody big level.”
All the men shut up for a moment, as Rey takes the chance to look over her shoulder and evaluate how long this is going to take.
Ben snorts, and barges his way between Poe and the picnic table they’ve set up camp at to grab his lager from under the red striped umbrella he has to duck under. The lager he specifically brings for himself, beer snob that he is.
“Whose turn is it?” Finn asks from the picnic tables bench, hands up and retwisting the small nest of braids at the top of his head. He’s trying a new thing, this sort of braided topknot situation. Rey doesn’t hate it, not by a long shot, though she did tell him that if it drives him crazy enough to need to fix it every forty-five minutes, is it really worth it?
“Rey-bies, I think?” Poe murmurs, forcing them all to turn to Rose, their referee, for confirmation.
Rose sighs, and makes a big show of reorganizing her charcuterie set up on her thighs before she grabs her phone and pulls up the spreadsheet Rey sneakily made while at work about two hours before tonight's tournament started.
She hums, while she pulls up the google doc, “uh, yeah. Rey takes the extra turn this round, then Poe, and then Finn again. Rey, Poe, Finn.”
Ben grumbles, something about the court again, as Rey turns to glare at him before she reaches for the Rebels last orange ball in the little plastic caddy by the edge of their court.
Rose fully broke her foot, her fifth metatarsal to be exact, while walking in two inch tall heels downtown for some reason or another three weeks ago. Apparently, there’s a grate in a place where there just shouldn’t be a grate on third street, and thus, the Rebels are down one of their star players and the rest of them need to pick up the slack.
Rey bounces on her knees as she steps forward, socked feet softly thudding against the playing field, before she stops with a purse of her fine lips.
She plans her shot, crouches down, and lets her ball rip down the runway with an underhanded toss.
Well, less of a rip in all honesty. More of a bounce, bounce, ro-o-o-oll across the spongey, soft ground. Made up from the same stuff that kids playgrounds are, except obviously meant for adult games like Bocce and not Recess.
She’s not terribly far from the Pallino, all in all, but-
The Rebels never said they were particularly good at this whole bocce ball thing, right?
That is to say, Phasma and Hux’s balls are still ultimately closer to the little white, golf ball sized chunk of rubber and plastic sitting right across the mid-field line.
“Shit.” Rey murmurs, under her breath, as she unfolds her body back into uprightness and looks back at Captain Poe. So much for their slight lead, unfortunately.
Poe frowns, and slowly shakes his head at Rey as Ben jogs out from behind the table again with his measuring stick already in hand. “End of frame,” he grunts, towards Rose, as he gracefully steps down onto the sunbleached, poured rubber. His black socks stark against the ground. “Three points for Knights, let’s rotate.”
“Three?” Rey squawks, twisting her head to examine the playing field again. Phasma is busy gathering a plate full of butter crackers and the fromage blanc Rose picked up on the way here. Mitaka looks up from his phone, briefly, though Rey’ll excuse his inattention to this very appalling statement due to the fact she knows he’s in the honeymoon stage with a new girlfriend.
Ben nods, just once, as Rey grits her teeth and feels her cheeks heat from something other than the bright sun probably burning the skin off of her face.
Rey throws her arm out towards the court in serious disagreement, already stepping towards the field of play as she points and gestures to the orange and black bocce balls. Poe’s throw is much closer than Ben’s, tilted court-ass-
“That is not three, Solo. Two.” She firmly states, silently stomping and turning back towards their teams again. Rose looks almost comatose in the corner with her grapes, and Poe and Finn have huddled by the shade of the snack table together while Phasma explains whatever is left on the big spread to them.
Traitors.
“Three,” Ben grits, knuckles white around the pole in his hand as he glares down at her, stepping slightly into his space. Not that she can even see his eyes, thanks to those damn sunglasses, but she knows he’s doing it. She can feel his disdain. Ben Solo and his constant fucking disdain.
“Measure it, then, dickhead.” Rey hisses, tilting her chin up at him all the meanwhile. God, she hates when he does this little song and dance. Stubborn fucker, always has to be right. Rey has known this man for, what, years at this point and he still can’t admit-
Ben scoffs, and nods, already bending down onto his knees. “I will.”
He hits the rubber with a slight grunt, though it is thankfully rather forgiving on the knees it is still a long way down for his behemoth body. With the too long limbs and too much boy under his skin, anyways.
Serves him right, Rey thinks, as she sighs and crosses her arms over her chest, and begins impatiently tapping her foot near his knees. Petty jerk.
She watches as Ben leans down, stretches his arms and places the stick between the Pallino and the ball Poe threw. “Two feet, seven inches,” he calls up to her, exactly. No more, no less.
Rey nods, tightening her jaw as she watches Ben sit up again. He shifts, and-
“Cheater!” Rey screams, drawing the attention of not only her team, but Ben’s, and about half the other players competing in tonights 8-team tournament. A pair of Bocce knock into each other from afar, as Rey’s blood pounds under her skin as she looms over Ben’s cheating back. Holy fuck, she can’t believe she just caught that. “Benjamin Solo, I just saw you move-“
“I did not fucking cheat-“ He shouts back, leaning up off of the ground and raising his hands in the air, like he’s innocent or some shit. He shifts again, turning towards Rey and obviously moving to stand with a grunt-
“Whoa, whoa-“ Poe calls, half-running towards them both. Deescalator of the year, over here, yeah right-
“I saw you, I saw you-“ Rey seethes, stepping forward again and into his space.
“Rey-“
“I did not fucking cheat-“ Ben shouts back, head tilted way up at her. Throat exposed, wide mouth-
Rey whips around, towards Poe, whose face has blanched. Yes, okay, alright. So maybe Ben and Rey have a history of getting into it when they play against each other, and maybe it’s gotten aggressive in the past-
“I saw him,” Rey hisses, one hand pointing towards Ben’s dirty, socked heel. “He nudged his ball closer to the Pallino when he was moving. I saw it. He’s a dirty fucking rat- ”
Ben growls, and says something under his breath that makes Rey’s spine tingle. Oh, this fucknugget-
“Ben-“
“What did you just say?” Rey shouts, wanting to hear him more clearly. Wanting to make sure she understood what he said.
“I said you’re being delusional-“
“You asshole-“
Poe’s arms snatch at her body, one across her stomach and one yanking her left shoulder back, and become the only things that stop her from pounding Ben Solo into the pavement. Into next week. Into next year-
“Ben,” Poe asks, quite a bit calmer than Rey, who is still baring her teeth at Solo. Hux, the team’s less than enthusiastic second in command, as Ben is somehow their team captain despite being a fucking cheat, arrives to listen and evaluate as well.
Ben sighs, sitting up and resting on his heels like this is all just too exhausting for him. Rey can hear the eye roll in his voice, when he insists that, “no, I did not. I do not fucking cheat, alright?”
Rey scowls, not believing him. Ben is competitive, because competitive sees competitive. Like, the kind of competitive that would cheat in their fucking local bocce league despite the grand championship prize being a fifty buck giftcard to Maz’s cantina, the bar at the bocce court-
Rey snarls, for good measure, when Hux asks Ben to finish measuring so they can reset for the next frame on the other side. It takes him a moment, with all the shuffling the reorganization of his stupid limbs requires, but Rey watches Ben readjust the white pole, and measure out from the Pallino to his ball with a beleaguered sigh.
There’s a moment of almost painful silence, as Rey scrunches her nose and grumbles in agony under her breath. Poe’s arm, in response, tighten around her waist.
“Two feet, five inches.”
“Oh you fucker-“ Rey shouts, drawing an absolutely scandalized gasp from a neighboring court. Yeah, alright, if Ben wants a show Rey’ll give him a fucking show-
“is that-“ Hux asks, whispers really, toward Ben, as Rey hisses, spits, writhes-
“Closer, yeah. Knights , three.”
“Knights , three!” Poe shouts, still holding onto a wriggling Rey. Fucking men and their fucking stupid caveman brains-
“Calm down, hissy fit,” Poe grunts, yanking her away in the process, “go, eat some cheese about it and prosper.”
Rey frowns, but allows Poe to reorient her towards the umbrella covered picnic table. Mitaka, bless his heart, stares at her in horror with his thumbs paused over the keyboard of his phone, while Finn passes her lukewarm cup of rosé to her and a prosciutto wrapped breadstick. She nods at Mitaka, having forgotten this is the first year he’s been in the local league. He’s never seen one of Rey and Ben’s famous knockout arguments before, she doesn’t think. At least, not as far as Rey can recall.
Rey sulks, and chomps into her breadstick with a growl, before Finn grabs her plate from wherever she’d hidden it previously and places it in front of her while Poe, Ben, and Hux begin to set up for the next frame. Gathering balls, and tucking them away safely in the crappy plastic caddy, while Rose calls out “ Seven to five!” for the score.
Poe thanks her, from afar, and Rey bites into what will ostensibly be called her dinner for tonight. Phasma laughs at something Finn says, and refills Roses cup for her when she asks, and-
And maybe, yes it certainly is, pitiful that Rey can be so easily bought with good food and good, mostly good, company. That Finn knows all her buttons, somehow, and can feel comfortable enough nudging at her hip with his and poking fun at Mitaka for this girlfriend he won’t stop talking to when they all sit together. That Rey can turn her head, and look over at Rose, who whistles something ever so slightly provocative at a strawberry faced Hux. Who automatically scowls and goes back to helping reset the court.
Maybe it is pitiful, as Poe and Ben return with caddy in hand, and Ben snickers at Poe for picking up a hard manchego he recommended.
In Poe’s defense, though, as Rey makes an abomination of cracker, cheese, and strawberry and pops it in her mouth with a pleased hum, it is a damn good manchego.
“Little fuckin’ raccoon.” Ben grunts, eyeing Rey up and down for a moment. She scowls, and fights the urge to launch a grape at him, as Ben asks Rose what the next frame’s player order is.
“You guys have such a weird dynamic,” Finn mutters, as Rose hems, and haws, and calls Poe and Mitaka up to the court once more.
Mitaka stands, and Ben takes his place at the table, straddling the bench across from Rey with his long legs, as the man clumsily takes a bocce from the caddy. Rey snorts, or at least tries not to, when she watches Mitaka nearly drop it on his foot with a wide eyed expression, before clumsily catching it with both arms.
“Who’s throwing the Pallino? Rebels? Knights? ” Poe asks, pointing between the players. Rey’s pretty sure it’s the Rebels turn, but she doesn’t have time to respond before Ben is stealing a strawberry from her plate-
“Hey!” She yelps, leaning up and swatting at his hand as Ben shrugs and leans back. He eats the whole thing, up to the stem, in one bite. And he just looks at her, out of the corner of his eye, as he does so. Ass-
Someone has, thankfully, chimed in and informed Poe that it’s the Rebels turn to deliver the Pallino, and Poe and Mitaka have begun heading off to the far end of the court, so Ben interrupts whatever conversation Phasma and Rose are having about the latter’s broken foot with aplomb.
“Did you guys hear that the Crait Foxes might get disqualified?”
“No-“ Phasma breathes, as Rose slaps her hands together and nods. Ah, yes, gossip.
“Phas,” Rose titters, flapping one of her hands in the direction of the bleach blonde business type, “oh my god, Ben and I saw the whole thing when we were packing up last week.”
“I packed up,” Ben grunts, under his breath, shooting Rey and Finn a look all the meanwhile. Yes, yes, Rose with the broken foot, lovable but limited in helpfulness-
“We’re out in the parking lot, loading stuff back into Ben’s car-“
“Rey brought butter chicken and samosas last week,” Finn comments, snidely, as Rey looks out towards Poe and Mitaka. Poe does some strange stretch with his quads, while Phasma rolls her eyes and asks where from, only to groan when Finn informs her it was from the good Indian restaurant down the block.
Poe gears up, and delivers the Pallino with a steady glide down the court. It stops maybe a foot or two past the middle line.
“Anyways,” Rose breathes, through whatever food she’s shoved in her mouth, “Ben and I are packing up, and, I swear, Maz was chasing DJ with a broom. Like, fully-“
Rose mimes a thwacking motion with her hands, drawing Rey's attention back to her and away from the game. Poe rolls his orange ball down the court, undershooting the Pallino by a good three feet. Again, Rey silently muses to herself, it’s not like any of them are actually good at this sport.
“And Ben and I overheard her yelling at him,”
“Like, actually yelling,” Ben gruntily adds, while reaching towards Rey-
He snatches a square of cheddar from her plate, and Rey smacks at his hand again with a growl. Jerk. Cheese stealing jerk.
“Ben, stop antagonizing Rey,” Rose loudly chastises, though Ben just waves her off with a grumble, before popping the cheese in his mouth. He does this just to piss her off, she swears. It’s like Ben Solo was born to piss her off. He’s hopeless.
Rey mouths thank you to Rose, as Ben uncovers his own plate from under a paper napkin and pulls it towards him again. Asshole, has his own fucking plate and still eats from hers-
He grabs a stack of spicy salami slices, the ones that Rey had thought were all gone by the time she arrived, and she snaps her slowly opening jaw shut when he deposits them on her plate with a clearing of his throat.
“Anyways,” he grumbles, nodding once towards Rose and not looking toward Rey in the process, “Maz is yelling at DJ, DJ is running away from Maz like a bat out of hell, and it turns out-“
“They haven’t paid their dues for three months.”
“Three months?” Phasma and Finn gasp at the same time. Rose nods, sagely, from her bench in the corner.
“Three months,” she confirms, “apparently the checks keep on bouncing. Which, I get like, one or two months. If you’re tight on cash, own up to it, you know? Maz’ll give you a break. Probably.”
“But three months,” Ben drawls, as Rey watches him begin to meticulously stack half a dozen or so crackers with brie and herbed chevre, side by side. Like he’s making lunchables for himself, rather than make and eat one bite at a time like a normal person. Weirdo.
She kicks at his leg, just cause she can, as she shoves a piece of brie wrapped in the spicy salami between her teeth. Mitaka, meanwhile, delivers his ball with ease from after, face screwed up against the unabating sunlight.
And completely overshoots the Pallino.
“Mitaka!” Phasma yells, over her shoulder, “less muscle, you’re overcompensating!”
Finn chokes on the chardonnay he’s drinking, and Rose leans her head back and laughs at the face Mitaka makes. A what the fuck kind of expression, right before Poe shoulder-checks him and says something with a jolt of his thumb towards the group.
Rose, in traditional Rose fashion, makes a whole slow struggle of grabbing her phone again to call up the next set of players, once Poe begins his sauntering, overly cocky reapproach with Mitaka in tow.
“Uhh,” she murmurs, quietly, “Ben and Rey are up next,” to a communal set of groans, “play nice, kids.”
“Great,” Ben grunts, already moving to his feet. Rey shoves her half finished plate towards Finn, and asks him to keep an eye on her food and drink for her while she’s gone.
Finn nods, and grabs a napkin to protect her precious treasure as Rey turns back to Ben with a scowl. He tucks his hands in his pockets, further accentuating the undone button at the top of his Henley, like the slut he is.
“Shall we?” Ben grumbles, the corner of his mouth poking up in a small smile. And Rey doesn’t dare nod, when simply steps out from behind the picnic table and strides past him, though his long legs make his steps to catch up nearly effortless.
She’ll be cordial, she supposes, as she steps forward and out into the sun with Ben. As she scowls at the court and plans her strike while they wander down the concrete lined patio area between each sunken court together, the heat from a cloudless day radiating up and through their socks. Rey can be cordial, she swears. She’s a grown adult, and is perfectly capable of acting like one.
Ben, at least, does not purposefully provoke Rey more than he already has, as his long strides easily outpace hers. As he heads for the cracked caddy propped up on the edge of the concrete, and reaches down to grab them both their respective bocce with a tall-guy noise.
Rey examines, maybe a little too thoroughly, the hefty orange ball Ben sets in her outstretched hands. Like he’s even capable of sabotaging it, or something.
“Ladies first,” he hums, stepping to the side. Not even ladies first here, but Rebels first. Mitaka went last, so it’s obviously Rey’s turn considering-
Whatever, she thinks as she steps onto the warm rubber and tosses the heavy ball between her hands. She’s not going to let him get under her skin. Rey’s better than that, obviously.
She shoots a small scowl at Ben though, just because she can, right before she leans down and lines up her shot. The playing field is pretty clear, benefits of going third, and all Rey has to do is get at least as close as Poe-
She takes a breath, lifts her arm back, and takes a step as she begins to release-
“Choke.”
Ben coughs the word into his elbow, halfway through Rey’s toss. Right when she lowers her arm, halfway through her delivery-
Her bocce flies upward, soars in an ungainly arc, and smacks into the rubber with a deafening thud before skewing about half a mile to the left of the Pallino.
Rey barely understands what’s just happened, what he just did, for the first few seconds after it happens.
What the fuck, Ben.
Rey snaps around to look at him, astonishment catching up to her heartbeat. She can feel her blood start to boil under her freckled skin, as he smushes his lips together and scrunches his nose up underneath his annoying, expensive, brand-name sunglasses-
“You shithead!” Rey screams, stomping towards where he’s still perched up on the concrete, making him a solid couple inches taller than he usually is. “You ginormous moose, you hulking redwood of a dumbass, how dare you-“
her hands act before her brain, shoving at his big, broad chest with a growl. Of course it does nothing, he’s built like a brick shithouse, but at least it feels good when he grunts under her weight and staggers a bit-
“Rey,”
“Do not Rey me,” Rey shouts. She moves to grab him by the collar, drag his face down to hers with a snarl, but he’s faster than he looks-
“Rey!” He has the audacity to yelp, as he nimbly ducks away from her arms, slips through her fingers really, and scrambles down onto the court. He’s still got his bocce tucked in one of his massive palms, with a furrow in his upper brow. “C’mon,-“
“You screwed me up! On purpose! You jerk!” She hollers, not caring if she’s drawing an audience. So, yeah, okay. Tallie might shoot Rey a dirty look next time they’re both in the women’s restroom, but for fuck’s sake-
“So what?” Ben shouts back.
Rey looks at her ball, points at it, and looks at Ben. So what? She has a perfect shot, right down the middle of the not tilted court. And he- he-
“Unsportsmanlike conduct!” Rey hollers, bringing her hands to her mouth and making her voice as loud as possible. She turns towards the rest of the courts, where half the games and half the players have temporarily paused to witness her and Ben’s argument, “Ben Solo is a cheat and has unsportsmanlike conduct! Sore loser!”
“Rey-“ Ben kind of sputters, his voice creaking. “Rey, you’re embarrassing yourself. Go pick up the ball and-“
“Bocce doesn’t do do-overs!” She explains with a scream, throughly exasperated by his behavior and throwing her arms back out to her sides and turning on her heel to face this fucker.
Ben scowls at her from above, mouth agape, as Rey’s heart pounds in her chest and her lungs heave with the force of her exclamation.
He nods, twice, and moves his bocce into his off hand. “Fine.” He mumbles, petulantly. “Fine, I will go pick up your bocce for you. Take a goddamn breath and-“
He turns.
Ben makes the fatal, fatal mistake of turning his back on her, when he begins to walk away. His big, sturdy, broad boy back. The back of a man who deadlifts in the garage on weekends, and knows what’s in protein powder. Like, actually understands protein powder.
Oh fuck no.
She’s not okay with that, as a matter of fact.
And Rey’s not quite sure what instinct possesses her, in that moment. What part of her brain forces her muscles into their sudden movement. Later, when she’s reaped her consequences, she’ll explain it to their friends and loved ones as a moment of insanity. Perhaps even, a moment of pure, unadulterated instinct, through nervous and unsure laughter.
Like a cavewoman, or a marmoset. She’ll try to rationally explain. Whatever those little rodents are that she sees evolutionary illustrations of as the parent of all mammals. Yeah, one of those. It’s like Ben Solo singehandedly drags a fucking marmoset through her chest, when he turns his back to her.
Rey feels the ancient power of the marmoset in her veins. And it is overwhelming in its power, when she throws himself at his spine like a feral, rabid cat.
And there is something glorious as well, in her immediate ascent, when her legs lock around his barrel and he curses under his breath at her actions. As their friends shout in alarm at the sudden commotion happening in front of them, and Rey pythons herself around Ben Solo’s big, broad back.
Something intensely freeing, in her anger, when he sputters and she digs her fingers into his supple skin and firm musculature with a screech. The kind of musculature that would make Michelangelo sweat, and gives Rey something to dig her little claws into.
And when Ben immediately loses his balance upon her frenzied leaping, continuing to curse a hurricane under his breath as Rey hollers directly in his ear from a mix of upset and an unsteady swooping in her belly at the sudden, jolting movement he makes in response to her sudden weight, well-
Oh shit, she realizes, a moment too late. Oh shit, the marmoset may have betrayed her.
Nobody ever said that Rey was good at this whole Bocce thing, and all of it’s associated sporting risks, as Ben sways back a step and Rey’s heart shoots up into her throat at the sudden redirection of his big, big body towards the porous rubber.
Nobody told her Ben would start falling backwards, either, in his effort to overcorrect their shaky movements.
Oh shit shit shit-
——
The air in the hospital is sterile, kind of clean in the unnaturally thin way that makes Rey’s inner nose itch. Or maybe it’s the cold lights built into the acoustic panel ceiling when she leans her head back, knocking her skull against the drywall behind her head.
She feels like she’s back in high school, a little bit, when the man wobbling and swaying on the exam table beside her grunts in unease. Like she’s in trouble, sitting outside the principal's or nurse's office in school and waiting to get yelled at.
Rey narrows her eyes, slightly, When her partner puffs out his cheeks a little with a wince. The nurse said the pain medication might make him nauseous. That he might need a bucket at some point.
“Are you gonna-“
“Nope,” Ben loudly grunts, shaking his head. The movement blows the air out of his lungs, she thinks, as he deeply inhales and copies Rey’s backwards tilt towards the wall with a grumble. “Nope, I’m not”
He thunks his skull against the back wall, Rey winces at the sound, as she scowls at his previously dislocated shoulder and how it’s been stuffed into a blue sling two nurses had to wrestle onto him, and the black eye and skinned knees that have come with-
Well-
“I’m sorry.” She says, not for the first time that night. “Like, insanely sorry.”
He exhales, and says between deep, steadying breaths. “I know.”
Rey nods and rubs her forehead with her scratched up hand, a little strangely, when she leans towards him in her stiff backed seat. She delicately places a hand on his skinned knee, gathers all of her taunt emotional strength, and squeezes out an, “I’m really sorry.“
“I know.” He insists, with near equal fervor, in return. Casually though, with a small shrug at the end. Eugh.
She pulls away, and furrows her brow at him. He lost his shirt somewhere in the scuffle, though he’d had a big hole in the side seam anyways from where Rey’d scratched and pulled at him. It’s a loss, but not a big one, all things considered. Though, it had been a very nice shirt;.
The claw marks she put in his sides though, of which evidence is still buried under her fingernails, that’s another story.
“you look like shit.” She airily mutters, in an effort to further the reasoning for her repeated apologies.
“I thought the battle scars were an improvement.” he teases, a little wearily, with a slow tilt of his head towards her.
Rey gulps, and makes a strange noise in the back of her throat. Oh god-
Rey hadn’t even thought about scars, in all honesty. The image of the stitches in his cheek scarring makes her blanche, sit up a little straighter in her seat and suck in a breath as something rises in her chest that she wasn’t entirely aware of until now. Shitfuck. “Ben, I swear, if you scar I am never playing Bocce again. Holy shit. I seriously mauled you-“
Ben’s demeanor shifts at her panicked statement, quiet in the way he tilts towards her and sits up straighter in his seat. Soft, but intense, in his complete and uncanny focus. Focus that makes Rey snap her jaw shut as she heaves in any air she can access with a gulp.
She might be panicking, actually, as he narrows his eyes at her. This is so bad.
“Rey,” he slowly grunts, softly but still very firm in his tone when he delicately reaches out and wraps his whole palm around her shoulder, turning her slightly towards him, “I am okay. I love you to a, quite frankly, disgusting degree. I am fine . I’m not going anywhere . And we are still married and extremely annoying about it. And you are not killing your social life for me. We are fine.”
“I hurt you.” She raises, in argument. Because a part of her also knows the argument should end there. Full stop, she hurt her husband. Nothing is okay right now.
Ben nods, solemnly, and with a small wince that doesn’t do any of this justice, “you did.”
Rey blinks and bites her lip in thought. She tastes iron when she does so. She hurt her husband. She’s an awful human being, actually.
“I really didn’t mean to, you know.” She nervously warbles, while staring at her knees, “and I’m really fucking sorry, Ben.”
Ben kind of sighs, like he’s frustrated at this whole train of thought she’s apparently gone down, but he shakes her shoulder and nods at her with a furrowing of his brow when she chances a glance back up at him again, “sweetheart, you were forgiven before this even happened, and I know you didn’t intend for any of this. Please don’t pity party us right now, for god’s sake. Neither of us need it. You’re okay, I’m okay. Can we talk about Bocce now?”
Rey scrunches her nose up, and grabs Ben’s slung hand once more in her firm grip. Holds him there, as he exhales and gently rubs adjusts his obviously painful shoulder after pulling his gaze away from her body. “You really don’t hate me?” She cautiously adds, her voice ugly-squeaking when she poses the question. Because she needs to know. For her own sake. If she’s totally flushed their marriage down the loo or not.
The look he gets is near angry when he looks down at her again, angrier than she’s probably ever seen Ben get.
“Christ, I’m still married to you, Rey, and I’m not planning on that ending anytime soon,” With a too-dramatic roll of his eyes and a redness to his cheeks, “Now, everything is fine and every one is fine. Alright? Plus, this isn’t on just you. I provoked you too. I was an asshole, and you just grabbed the bait I offered. Just fucking accept that. We’re fine. I love you, with or without-“
Rey purses her lips, as he flaps his injured arm a little and gestures to his fucked up face with his free hand. Even though it is entirely her fault they’re currently holed up in an emergency room, relying on Ben’s better insurance to get them through the itemized bill. She didn’t have to jump him the way she did, that was a decision she made. A bad decision she made. He can be stubborn about this all he wants, but-
“I rolled and got myself cut up so I wouldn’t squish you , ” He further stresses, face still sneering, “ I made the choice to lean into the court edge. So, just shut up and let me be thankful that I didn't land on top of you and kill you, love of my entire goddamn life.”
Rey crinkles her nose, and lowers her head in shame. Yeah. Yeah. Rey’s immensely lucky Ben has as much core strength as he does, if he hadn’t been able to twist at the last second, if he had landed on her instead of the edge of the bocce court, they might be in a situation a lot worse than a panicky emergency room visit. Broken ribs, punctured lungs, cracked sternums…
The terrible list goes on, really, or at least it had according to their attending doctors when they heard what had happened.
Because Ben is twice Rey’s weight, apparently. Normally that isn’t a big deal, never has been for them, but when he’s falling towards her? Collapsing towards her torso?
Rey’s ribs still smart when she inhales, despite Ben’s best efforts to spare her, but the gratitude for his quick thinking and hasty shifting of his weight is not lost on her. Especially when he uses his gentle fingers to push a lock of escaped hair behind her ear, and his expression softens as he pulls his eyes to her.
“I could have squashed you, Rey. What would I do then? Who else would put up with me the way you do?”
“God I hate you,” she murmurs, in a mixture of sick relief and settling guilt as she stands up and beelines for the space between her stupid idiot husbands spread knees once the gravity of how badly both of them could have been hurt begins to orbit around her head, “I hate you, I hate you, Ben Solo. I hope you know that. I’m so sorry I fucked you up so badly. I’m so angry at you-”
He’s laughing at her outburst, although he stops with a wince when his muscles in his face pull at his torn skin. Rey slots herself against his chest and locks her arms around his hot naked torso with a huff and a smushing together of her lips.
She shoves her face into the place below his neck for good measure, next to his steady sternum, as he jostles his arm and sucks in a shallow breath. She loosens her grip, slightly, when he does so. She feels so bad about literally all of this
Ben just holds her, for a moment, as he uneasily breathes beneath her.
“God, but I love how angry you can get,” Ben rasps, hot air against her ear as he tightens his hand on her back and digs his fingers into her spine, “You’re kind of beautiful when you can’t stand me, you know. Pissed off but so pretty over a stupid yard sport none of us play properly anyways, it’s mesmerizing. It’s one of my favorite emotions on you. Your fire? Half the time, I do it on purpose, because I love you so goddamn much? Because you glow.”
Rey groans, and resists the urge to pull Ben tighter, even though the impulse is exceedingly difficult to resist when he growls in her ear about how he wants to take his little angry wife home and into bed. How he wants her somewhere safe and quiet and just them.
Though, unfortunately, that train of thought seems to go kibosh when another wave of nausea or pain or something drives his head against her shoulder with a wimpy wheeze not a moment later, as Rey pulls a hand down his bandaged sides. When a noise that sort of makes Rey nervous leaves his chest, and has her pulling back just a bit.
He curses, and mutters something about a raincheck or two into her ear with a groan and a nuzzle into her skin, as Rey silently uneasily exhales, and feels him pull her back against his skin.
She smushes her mouth into his chest, when she brings up a hand to his head and grasps onto his thick mop of hair once he begins to growl something about not really feeling well, that his body is feeling sore and hurt and how he’ll miss fucking the attitude out of her if this goes away, so it can’t, actually. Where’s his pain meds anyways? How long does it take to write up a prescription? Can they go home?
Rey hushes him, her cranky husband, gently and with the compassion Ben gets from her the vast majority of the time they’re together and not purposefully causing problems at Bocce. The kindness she swore to the nurse that she treats him with, ninety-nine percent of the time they’re together.
She tries to smother her smile, a little, when he grumbles and softens in her arms as response. When he yields towards her, allows them both to feel shitty about all this in a moment of uneasy silence, as Rey strokes an arm up and down his back with a sigh.
“We don’t have to quit Bocce, I guess,” Rey breathes, softly and forgivingly towards them both, “but I am forcing Rose on your team and you’re coming with me to the Rebels, come hell or high water, Solo. Deal?”
He laughs, again, more deeply and solidly this time. He sucks in a breath, too soon into it, and wetly coughs into Rey’s neck with a shake of his shoulders. Oh, gross-
“Ow,” he grunts, with a nod and a tightening of his arms around her torso. “Fucking hell, Rey, what did you do to me? Christ almighty, woman-”
There’s a part of Rey that wants to protest his accusations of injury, that wants to say he started this all because he so clearly did-
But the look on his face, when she pulls away with a scowl already on her skin, stops her dead in her tracks. She really fucked him up. Like, to the point where she’s concerned what her mother-in-law will think of her kind of fucking up. A bad fucking up.
And, after all, she does still love her terrible, no-good, cranky husband.
So she nervously and delicately kisses his shredded cheek, instead, with a shake of her head and a sigh. Bites her raw lip in thought for good measure as she dips away and exhales.
Ben grabs her jaw, before she can shift too far out of his reach, and firmly forces his mouth on hers. Presses his slightly bloody lip against hers, with a shuddering sigh.
“Hot wife,” he grunts, softly, “Angry, beautiful, magnificent wife. I love you. I love you.”
Absolute fucking shithead of a husband-