Chapter Text
“You don’t have to use a condom, I’m clean, and on birth control.”
“No, it’s fine. I prefer using one.”
“Really? That’s—oh, you’re huge.”
“Do you—should I make you come first?”
“It’s fine, I’m ready.”
She moves a little to the side, so Finn could reach in and get his toothbrush. She ignores his pointed look.
“No, don’t, don’t touch—”
“Sorry.”
“Can you—can I fuck you from behind?”
“We’re just going to get right into it, huh.”
“Sorry, I don’t like kissing.”
It’s a bit of a challenge, brushing her teeth with her left hand.
Gingerly, she tries to rotate her right wrist, but the pain is still as sharp and immediate as it was this morning, so she stops and lets her hand rest on her side.
“No, it’s fine, I get—ah. Fuck, that’s—that’s a really big cock.”
“Just tell me if I’m hurting you.”
“Keep—keep going. That feels good.”
“Is this okay?”
“Yes. You can pull my hair if you want.”
“No, this is fine.”
She leans onto the sink and spits out foam. Finn won’t stop staring at her, a little accusing.
“I bet I’ll still feel you inside me tomorrow.”
“Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to push you so hard.”
“It’s fine, you can be rough.”
“No, I just need you to—can you—”
“What is it? Is there something wrong with my hand?”
“No, just—”
“I think it’ll look pretty around your thick cock. Do you want me to—”
Idly, she thinks that maybe by the time her right hand stops hurting she’ll end up ambidextrous anyway. That’s something, at least.
“Maybe you—can you not talk? Sorry. Shit… You can talk if you want.”
“You didn’t mind it when we were sexting last week.”
“I’m going to pull out and jerk off on you, is that okay?”
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry, this will just be—no, don’t, stay—stay like that.”
She leaves Finn in their cramped, moldy bathroom, and locks herself in her room.
It’s barely a room. Just enough to fit her mattress, really, but it’s hers. She stretches out, lazy, while she listens to Ben Solo’s grunts as he pumps himself.
She wonders why he sounds so off tonight. Even she can tell neither he nor the woman he’s with now are in it anymore.
“Fuck. Shit, sorry, I—”
“It’s okay.”
“No, I should’ve—”
“Can you go to the bathroom and wet a cloth so I can wipe my back?”
“Of course. Sorry again about all that. I’m usually not—I just have a lot on my mind.”
Rey turns on her side and closes her eyes.
She didn’t hear him take his pants off that whole time, which means his phone is still in his pocket.
Sure enough, she hears him as he pads away somewhere, closes a door, and turns on a faucet.
“Fucking shit.”
He sounds upset. Tired and upset. He sounds like this a lot of the time, but it’s often because of work, not sex.
Maybe he’s not used to not being able to make a woman come. Because he’s usually good at it, from what she can tell from the other times, anyway.
“Fucking—fuck.”
He really needs to do something about that temper of his, she muses, turning and lying on her back again. He has an MSc and a PhD, at twenty-nine, and yet his vocabulary gets very limited when he’s in a dark mood like this.
She looks at the exposed wiring on her ceiling, and wishes, not for the first time, that she can hear his thoughts too.
The sound of rushing water stops, but two, three beats later and she still doesn’t hear him do anything else. He must be standing there by the sink with a wet cloth in hand, and just—breathing noisily through his mouth.
When his breath hitches in a way that makes Rey think—inexplicably—that he’s about to cry, she takes her earphones off and closes the spyware app.
She has her eyes closed again, patiently waiting for sleep, when she feels her phone vibrating on the mattress.
When she sees Ben Solo calling… she abruptly pushes herself up in bed, forgetting her right hand. Air rushes out of her lungs.
Cradling her right hand on her left, she takes several deep, measured breaths and wills the pain to subside. Her eyes are moist from unshed tears.
Dimly, she’s aware that her phone has stopped vibrating. But before she can even sigh in relief, it starts again.
“Hello?”
“It’s—it’s Ben Solo. From work.”
“What—”
“I know it’s late, and I know I shouldn’t be calling. I just…” She hears the unmistakably familiar sound of train doors closing, followed by the automated voice announcing the next stop. “I just wanted to apologize.”
When he doesn’t say anything else, she clears her throat softly and asks, “For what, sir?”
“I shouldn’t have let you go home alone, that night. I should’ve—I should’ve just driven you home myself. I just thought it wasn’t appropriate—in my car—you’re so young—and I’m—I’m your boss, so I thought—actually, no, I didn’t think, because if I did I would’ve just gotten you an Uber. It isn’t a safe neighborhood, where you live, is it? Most of the buildings there are old and won’t pass inspection. There are establishments there that I know for a fact are—whoever—whoever hurt you—they—it’s not a safe neighborhood.”
“Sir, it’s fine—” She gets out of bed, and starts pacing what little floor space she has. “It’s—you don’t have to—”
“No, I do, I do have to,” he insists. Have to what, exactly, Rey herself isn’t clear on. “Anyway.” A sharp exhale, as if it’s tugged out of him. ”That’s really all I called to say.”
“All right, sir,” she murmurs, quiet as she waits for him to end the call.
“Did I wake you up? Sorry if I woke you up.”
“No.” She gets back on her mattress and sits, feet on the floor, knee bouncing. “No, you didn’t, sir. I was still—up.”
“Why? It’s late. Is it—is your hand bothering you still? What did the doctor say?”
“They said—that it’s going to be fine.”
“It’s not broken? You don’t need a cast or—or something?”
“No, sir.”
“Which hospital did you go to, because—”
“Please, sir, I asked you this morning to leave it alone.”
“Okay. Okay, I’m—”
“And please stop apologizing, because none of it is your fault.”
She hears the automated voice announcing his stop. Ben Solo himself is quiet on the other line as he gets off the train.
She opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again, stumped. What is she supposed to say, exactly?
“I should—” he starts, “I should apologize to your boyfriend too. Can you tell him, for me? Is he—if he’s there with you and mouthing for you to drop the call already, that’s fine, you can.”
“Finn—Finn is not—” She looks down at her socked feet, and sighs. “He’s not here.”
It occurs to her then that he can hear her breathing, because she can hear his too, slow and even, on the other line.
“Did you have another job?”
“Sir?” she asks, stalling, unsure where he’s going with this.
“I confirmed with HR and your contract says you have a full-time position at First Order… Did you have another job?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
“Your exact words were—I can’t lose this job too. Did you mean the last job you had before First Order, or—”
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” she blurts.
“I only asked because—” When he speaks next, his voice is muffled, and directed at someone else. But just as quickly his voice comes back, clear, closer again. “You always leave the office at exactly five o’clock, and when you had to stay late that day, you looked… distraught. At the time I just figured you had a date—I mean, not that I—” That sharp exhale again. “So you didn’t have another job that you recently lost?”
“No, sir.”
“Fine. I just… I’m getting on an elevator now. Can you hold? I might lose signal.”
“Okay.”
“Are you still there?”
“Yes, I—do you need to—”
“HR told me we have the best package for an entry level admin support assistant position… Is First Order not paying you enough?”
“First Order does, it does pay me enough, sir. But I don’t understand—”
“Why do you sit in your cubicle every day at lunch eating this—this tiny sandwich? I mean, sure, you’re small, but that one tiny sandwich can’t be that filling.”
“Sir, this is really not—”
“No. No, you’re right, this is none of my business. I don’t like it too, when people pry. Sorry, can you hold?”
“Okay.”
“I’m just—”
“It’s fine, sir.”
She hears a scuffling sound that she can’t place. “I just wondered… if you were lonely.” She feels her body stiffen, and a cold feeling wash over her. “You look like you are, and I—people at the office—the engineers—and Bazine too, she must be—” She hears a beeping sound that she thinks is from an electric door opening, and then the loud barking of a dog. She’s heard him call the dog Chewie, sometimes Chewbacca when he wants to seem stern. “Are you? Lonely, I mean.”
“I’m not, sir. I’m just fine,” she insists.
“Sorry, can you hold? I need to—it’s my dog, he—”
“If you need to end the call, sir—”
“No. No, I—unless you need to end the call?”
“No. I’ll… wait.”
This time he does finally put her on hold.
She hears the first ponderous notes of the piano, before the sounds of violin swell to meet them.
She lies back in bed, and waits.
“Do you have a pet?”
She startles, hearing Ben Solo’s voice again. She’d almost fallen asleep to his hold music.
“I—no. No, sir,” she mumbles, carefully sitting up.
“Good. Don’t get a pet. You’ll be a slave to their every whim.”
“I… okay.” She props her pillow against the wall and leans on it.
There are shuffling sounds on his end, and she thinks maybe he’s getting in bed, or adjusting his bed sheets.
“Why were you—”
“Are you going—”
They stop and then say, “Sorry, you can—” at the same time again.
The silence stretches, but she’s too mortified to break it.
“What did you want to say?” he asks eventually.
“I was just—I was just wondering why you were on the train. Earlier. Didn’t you drive to work today?”
She hears a click and she thinks maybe he’s turned on, or maybe turned off, a bedside lamp.
“I like to ride the train, sometimes. The late night train,” he clarifies. “It’s a nightmare when something happens and I actually have to ride the train when other people are there. Like during the morning rush hour? You can barely move. And being physically close to so many people like that? But the late night train is… not so bad. You still get the experience of riding the train, but it’s… peaceful. Most times.”
“Is it—like a hobby?”
He laughs, just a little, a huffing sound. “No. It’s just something I do when I—I don’t know—when I want to feel normal.”
“What?”
“Normal people ride the train,” he ventures.
She wants to laugh, the way he sounds so uncertain, like he’s not all that sure.
“I suppose they do, yes.”
“You ride the train.”
“I do, but—” I’m not a normal person, she thinks. “What—what made you feel… not-normal today?” Belatedly, she adds, ”Sir.”
He’s quiet on the other line for longer than he should be, and she shuts her eyes and winces inwardly, realizing she shouldn’t have asked.
But just as she opens her mouth to say he doesn’t have to tell her, she hears him clearing his throat and saying, “I need to do something that I don’t want to do, but I have no choice—it’s what’s—what’s best for First Order. And… and other stuff too, but you don’t—it’s not why I called... Can I ask my question now?”
She doesn’t want him to. Whatever it is. Except she’s asked him three, just now, and he answered them all. “Okay.”
“Are you going to be in your cubicle again tomorrow? During your lunch break?”
She can’t seem to think of a reason why she should lie. “Yes.”
“Are you going to eat that same tiny sandwich?”
“No.” Once again, a true thing.
“What are you having for lunch tomorrow then?”
“I—” A can of soda, she thinks. “Why are you asking?”
She hears that same clicking sound, and wonders if he’s fidgeting with the light switch of his bedside lamp.
“Most—most times I wish I could just stay in my office too, and not have to go out to lunch with the other engineers.”
“Why?”
There’s a beat of silence before Ben Solo’s laugh bursts out, a jolting surprise. “I actually can’t stand any of those assholes,” he confesses.
She feels a smile spreading slowly on her face, just hearing the echo of his laugh in his voice. “What? But you work with them every day.”
“I’m an asshole too, when—I hate who I am, when I’m with them. We’re all sitting at some restaurant and I look at them and try to listen to whatever fucking drivel they’re talking about, but the whole time I’m just thinking, I wish I could be like the new girl. Doesn’t give a shit. Ignores Bazine’s little snide remarks and just sits in her corner cubicle… I bet you wouldn’t spend your lunch break—the only time in the day at work when you can have an hour and a half of peace—sitting with a bunch of assholes. Would you?”
She—wouldn’t. “No. No, I guess I wouldn’t, sir.”
“Before you came to work at First Order, I hadn’t even realized that’s what I’ve been doing… Anyway, I should—”
“What was that—” she blurts out, before she can bite her tongue, “that—your hold music?”
“Oh.” She thinks he sounds… shy, maybe. “It’s Rachmaninoff. A piano concerto. Jesus. I sound so pretentious, don’t I?”
“A little,” she concedes, biting her lip to stop from smiling, “but it’s fine.”
She covers her phone’s mouthpiece so he won’t hear her yawning, but maybe he still does, because he says, “I should let you sleep now. It’s—” He cusses under his breath. “I didn’t notice the time, I’m sorry. I’ll let you go now.” She hears shuffling sounds again, maybe him lying in bed, or maybe sitting up. “Good night… Rey.”
That gentlest of tones again, the one he rarely uses.
She lets her other questions die on her lips. “Good night… Sir.”