Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was raining when Ben stepped off the plane. He insisted on carrying his own bags—wincing as the curl of his fingers into fists tugged at the frayed edges of fresh wounds.

Holdo frowned in obvious disapproval as he carelessly tossed his duffel into the trunk, but for once, she refrained from commenting on Ben’s apparent lack of concern for his own welfare. Ben folded himself into the passenger side of the rental car and stashed his backpack down between his feet. He drew in a deep shuddering breath.

It took Holdo a few minutes to finish speaking with both the pilot and the bodyguard his mother had insisted accompany them before she finally slid into the driver’s seat alongside him. She pulled the hood of her coat down to reveal her pristinely styled lavender curls, miraculously unaffected by either the long flight or the bad weather.

“It’s a pretty long drive,” she told Ben as she slowly steered the car out of the hangar and onto the narrow road leading out of the executive airport. It was pitch black out, aside from the brief flashes of suburban streetlights. “I can wake you up when we get to the ranch, if you want to sleep for a bit.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion; the plane they’d taken from Detroit had taken off just before midnight. It was nearly one in the morning now—almost four back home—and Ben hadn’t slept a wink on the plane. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep in the car, either, not without his meds, and the thought of pulling out the bottle of sedatives he had tucked into the front pocket of his backpack right in front of Holdo turned his stomach.

“I’m fine,” Ben rasped. He’d been awake for several days now, but it still felt weird sometimes—to talk. He rubbed absently at his throat and watched as miles and miles of labyrinthine beige neighborhoods with orange and white porch lights passed them by.

It was at least half an hour before they even made it out of the city. Ben caught a glimpse of the lights downtown during a brief stint on the interstate, but Holdo exited the freeway a few miles south of all the glitz and glamor, and then they headed west, into the looming darkness.

The rain steadily increased in volume as they ascended into the mountains along a winding, desolate road. On the other side of the pass, Ben could see lightning in the distance, illuminating the clouds overhead in shades of violet. There were only a few scattered patches of light throughout the valley indicating a human presence in the dark, but a quick glance at the built-in GPS made it clear that they were a good thirty miles from the next major town. Ben was glad it was still night—the thought of that much open country ahead of them made him feel distinctly uneasy. The last time he’d spent much time out of the city like this was back in Georgia. Ben didn’t like to think about Georgia.

Ben’s relief when they finally reached something that might generously be called civilization was short-lived. Holdo swerved unexpectedly onto the side of the road just past the turn indicated on the GPS and swore quietly under her breath.

“Sorry,” she said, glancing over at Ben with a reassuring smile. “We’re almost there.”

That statement turned out to be wrong in the truest way possible. As soon as they pulled onto the dirt road that led away from town and into the foothills of the mountains separating this sprawling wasteland from the glittering city on the other side, it became abundantly clear that the luxury sedan Ben’s mother had secured for them was only just barely up to the task. With the rain turning a mix of gravel and sand into thick, slippery sludge, Ben watched impassively as Holdo’s features went taut with stress, both hands glued to the wheel as she tried to steer them around the puddles of standing water as the car slowly struggled up the canyon.

Their only real measure of progress in the blackness of the night, with flashes of lightning casting only momentary illumination on their desolate surroundings, was the estimated mileage on the GPS slowly counting down in increments of tenths as they inched closer and closer to the marker on the lefthand side of the road.

When they rounded the last bend and the headlights shone on what appeared to be nothing more than an atypically dense clump of trees, Holdo breathed out a loud sigh of relief. She didn’t say anything to Ben as she pulled the car around to the front entrance, which consisted of a simple iron cattle-gate held at a precarious angle between a disparate collection of rustic wooden fence posts that disappeared into the trees and looked to have been erected long before Ben’s father was even born.

Holdo parked the vehicle there for a moment and dashed out into the rain to pull the gate open before quickly jumping back inside to drive them onto the property. It was hard to get a good read on the place from what little Ben could make out within the narrow scope of the high beams, but he was surprised to find that the ranch seemed far bigger from inside the fence than it had looked from the road.

Apart from that, Ben couldn’t glean much from the building’s relatively unremarkable exterior. The façade was a dark, ruddy brown, the oiled wood slick from the rain, which was coming down now in sideways sheets. The shape of the house was odd, like it had once been several out-buildings later cobbled together into a sprawling polygon. The front porch was adorned with an excessive amount of hanging ornaments and charms, but between the wind and the rain, it was near impossible to make out any further details about the choice in décor.

Holdo was once again out of the car before Ben had a chance to ask her anything about his new prison. He watched patiently through the rain-streaked windshield as she sprinted up to the front door and then stood there for a second, huddled in on herself in her overly large fuchsia puffer coat, before the porch lights flicked on and a grizzled old man came lumbering out to greet her. The owner, Ben presumed. He’d made a point of not looking up any details about Skywalker Ranch online after being informed that his parents—finally managing to agree on something for the first time in twenty years—intended for him to spend the next seven weeks at an equine therapy center in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Holdo conversed for a minute with Skywalker, who looked none too pleased to see her, judging from the sour expression marring his wrinkled features. Something about him reminded Ben rather unpleasantly of a professor he’d had his first semester of college who had once called Ben a spoiled trust-fund brat with unrealistic expectations of success. The unveiled look of distaste on Skywalker’s face when he turned to glare directly at Ben through the sheets of rain sliding down the glass did little to disrupt the comparison.

Ben remained in the car until Holdo finished speaking with Skywalker, at which point she dashed back over to the car, giving a sharp rap against the window on the passenger side with her knuckles before disappearing from view to retrieve Ben’s duffel from the trunk. She’d acted more like a glorified babysitter than a social worker throughout much of this process, and Ben quietly resented her for it.

Ben’s jacket did little to shield him from the rain. He gingerly slung one of the straps on his backpack into the crook of his elbow and followed Holdo to the relative shelter of the front porch. Skywalker then turned the full force of his gaze on Ben, and there was nothing behind his eyes except seething malcontent.

Ben looked at Holdo instead.

“Ben, Luke,” she said breathlessly, setting Ben’s duffel down at her feet. “Luke, Ben.” A gust of wind roared through, drenching them all in a torrent of mist that curled beneath the porch rafters like ocean spray. “Jesus. I thought the desert was supposed to be dry.”

“It’s monsoon season,” Skywalker—Luke said matter-of-factly.

Holdo nodded, but her mouth twisted in an unpleasant way, as though she would have liked to personally blame Luke for the bad weather. “The plan is to be pretty hands-off,” Holdo confirmed with Ben as she cinched the collar of her coat tighter around her throat to keep the wind at bay, “but I’ll check in on things in a few weeks, okay?”

Ben indicated his assent non-verbally, and then, when Holdo’s eyebrows threatened to climb up into her hair, he added, “Sure.”

Goodbyes were brief. Ben watched the car disappear down the driveway and then turned to take in Luke’s perpetually sour expression.

“Come on,” Luke told him as he pulled the screen door open to let Ben inside. “I’ll show you to your room.”

The house was quiet; dark. There were the occasional lamps lit throughout: amber bulbs dimmed so low they didn’t even cast a shadow. Luke didn’t turn on any additional lights as he went, leaving Ben to stumble blindly along behind him as they moved through the house in silence, apart from the low rhythm of Luke’s haggard breathing. Luke didn’t say a word to Ben until they turned the next corner, moving out of the central collection of rooms into an adjacent wing on the eastern side of the house.

“So,” Luke said flatly as they slowly proceeded down the hall. “Seven weeks, huh?”

Ben’s affirmation came in the form of a low grunt.

Luke didn’t seem fazed by Ben’s reticence. “Well, here we are,” he announced as they reached a door at the end of the hallway. “Home sweet home.” Luke turned the knob for Ben, whose arms were laden with his bags, but he wandered off into the darkness just as soon as Ben shouldered his way into the room.

Ben immediately set his bags down on the floor and groped at the wall for a light switch. Once the room was illuminated—again with a dim, orange-hued glow that Ben was beginning to suspect was supposed to serve some sort of therapeutic purpose—Ben immediately realized that he wasn’t bunking alone. There was a person-shaped lump piled high with blankets on the bed in the corner to the left of the door. Ben was not pleased by this discovery. He was even less pleased when he turned to take in the rest of the room only to realize that there were three other beds—the rest thankfully unoccupied. For now, at least.

Ben rolled his eyes as he turned away from the snoring heap and set his bags down at the foot of the bed in the opposite corner, directly below two windows placed perpendicular on each wall.

The room wasn’t small by any measure, but with four twin beds crammed into every corner, it felt suffocating. The dark brown, almost black, paint on the walls only served to enhance the claustrophobic effect, though Ben supposed it was probably intended to feel safe, reassuring. The floor was hardwood the same ruddy brown as the house’s exterior, and although there were shelves and hooks mounted on each wall, all except the ones occupying the space immediately surrounding his new roommate’s bed were bare.

Ben turned to peer through the windows above his bed. He couldn’t see much with how dark it was outside, but they seemed to look out onto the rear of the property, and he could just make out the vague outlines of other buildings off in the distance.

Ben didn’t do much more than shed his rain-soaked jacket before turning out the lights and perching himself on the edge of the mattress. He rifled through the front pocket of his backpack, procuring the pill bottle he’d been reliant on since the day he regained consciousness in the hospital back in Detroit. Two would do the trick, he decided.

He was asleep within minutes.

Rey had already been awake for well over an hour by the time Finn walked into the kitchen and threw himself down onto one of the bar stools at the island. His eyes were half-closed, which was par for the course, as Finn had never been much of a morning person, but the pained expression on his face coupled with a hand clutched to his jaw pulled Rey’s attention away from the bacon sizzling on the stove.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Did you know we got a new guy last night?” Finn asked, without answering her question.

Rey shook her head with a frown. “Luke must have forgotten to mention it.” It wasn’t like Luke to overlook details like that, however, and it was the sort of thing that Rey needed to know, especially with Poe out on vacation all week.

“What happened?” Rey asked again, indicating Finn’s jaw with a nod.

“Oh, I tried to wake the new guy up just now, and he clocked me,” Finn said with alarming nonchalance. Seeing Rey’s eyes go wide, he quickly added, “I don’t think he was even awake when he did it.”

Rey pursed her lips as she spun back around to manage the bacon, which was now spitting grease all over the range. Luke had some explaining to do. “I suppose we’d better let him sleep, then.”

Rey didn’t have much of a natural affinity for cooking, but Din had been diligent in teaching her as a teenager how to manage in the kitchen by herself, and by the time she’d become the de facto breakfast chef for Skywalker Ranch, she could handle anything from pancakes to omelets. Cooking for a gaggle of wayward young adults was a sight easier than providing catering to an entire Scout troop, at least, even if Kaydel was infuriatingly picky.

Everyone was already seated in the dining room when Rey emerged from the kitchen a while later bearing a tray laden with pancakes, bacon, and fresh fruit—and a single bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for Kaydel. There was no sign of the newcomer that Finn had mentioned.

Luke didn’t say a word to her about the new arrival as they ate, nor did he bother to make an announcement to the others. Rey frowned, wondering at the reason for his silence. It wasn’t like Luke to keep things from her. She didn’t like it one bit.

Rey waited until after breakfast, when the others had dispersed and it was just her and Luke loading everything into the dishwasher and wiping down the countertops, to finally confront him about his lie of omission.

“When were you planning to tell me about the new guy?” she asked directly, her eyes laser-focused on Luke’s face as he bent down to retrieve a fallen fork from the kitchen floor.

“Today,” he replied without missing a beat.

“When did he sign up?”

“He didn’t.”

Rey didn’t know what the hell that meant, but she could tell that she wasn’t about to get the answers she wanted out of Luke anytime soon.

“It’s not exactly a great time,” she pointed out, raising her voice a little to be heard over the sound of the faucet as she washed her hands in the kitchen sink. “You do remember approving Poe’s vacation request, yeah?”

“I remember.” Luke turned on the dishwasher and turned to lean against the island, facing her with a guarded expression that Rey had long come to associate with bad news. “It was a last-minute thing. A favor for an old friend.” Whoever this “old friend” was, Luke certainly didn’t seem happy to fulfill the obligation. “You can handle a couple extra lessons this week?”

Rey nodded. She considered Luke carefully, still not convinced he was telling her the whole truth. “Well,” she said, “is there anything else I should know?”

Luke opened his mouth—then hesitated just slightly. When he finally answered, Rey had the sense that he’d decided not to say whatever it was he’d been planning to tell her. Instead, he said with a growing smirk: “Yeah, you’d better get Whisper’s saddle out. That kid’s huge.”

When Ben woke up, he didn’t know where he was. It took several minutes to calm the racing of his heart, to quash down the same sense of visceral wrongness that had seized him when he’d suddenly come to his senses in a hospital bed a week prior.

Ben sat up and took in his surroundings. The bed which had been occupied by his infuriatingly loud roommate the night prior was empty, the pile of blankets pulled back haphazardly and bunched up at the foot of the bed. Ben’s own bed, which was significantly shorter than his six-foot-three frame, was awash in orange light—not from the amber-hued bulbs that seemed to be a staple in every room at the ranch, but instead from the setting sun outside his windows.

Ben extracted his phone from his backpack and checked the time. It had been nearly eighteen hours since Ben had landed in Las Vegas; close to sixteen that he’d been asleep. He desperately had to pee.

Ben quietly slipped into the hallway, intending to find the bathroom without attracting any attention from the other residents of the house. The first door he tried, the one almost directly across the hall from the room he now supposed he should think of as his own, opened into a darkened bedroom with thick, patterned curtains drawn over the windows.

Ben closed the door to that room immediately and moved back down the hallway towards the door that led back into the central hub of the ranch house. There was another door just before it, on the same side of the hallway as the other bedroom. Ben tried that one first, but when he reached for the knob, the door flung itself inward to reveal a small dark-haired girl with rounded features, whose jaw dropped when she took in the sight of Ben looming above her.

“Oh,” she started to say, “I—um—”

“Bathroom?” Ben barked out gracelessly.

The girl nodded and jumped out of the way, gesturing abortively to the aggressively coral pink room she’d just vacated before skittering off toward the main house.

Ben checked his phone again as he stepped into the bathroom, which was spacious compared to what he’d become accustomed to back in Detroit. There were no messages, emails, or missed calls, either from Holdo or his dad, but then he realized he had absolutely no signal to speak of.

Right. Middle of fuck all.

He supposed he could switch on roaming, but what was the point? Holdo had said this was supposed to be a hands-off approach. That suited Ben just fine. He shut off his phone entirely and tucked it back into his pocket before taking a serious evaluation of the toilet.

It was small. Too small, in his opinion. He aimed carefully as he pissed, not wanting to be that guy, and washed his hands in the sink—also small, at least by Ben’s standards. The shower was similarly disappointing; he predicted at least three weeks of smacking his chin into the showerhead before his spatial memory kicked in. It was modern, at least, he noted with a small measure of satisfaction. Detachable, even.

Ben probably could have used a shower, if he was being honest, but this seemed like the type of place that had all sorts of rules in place about who could shower when and for how long, so he decided to forego it for the moment and instead ducked back into his room to grab a change of clothes. He dressed in the dark, managing to bang both elbows and knees into the bathroom cabinet in the process, and then decided to bite the bullet and finally emerge from his place of refuge.

The main house was quiet when Ben poked his head through the doorway. That suited him just fine. He took the opportunity to freely explore, the lights bright enough now to actually take in the details of his surroundings.

The décor seemed dated: mostly pastel relics hearkening back to the mid-1990s. There were botanical prints of desert plants on the walls; a mounted jackalope bust over the stone fireplace; a grand oil painting of cowboys on a red rock plateau with billowing clouds overhead hanging in pride of place above the largest of the chestnut-brown leather sofas. Ben supposed he should find the place homey, but the kitsch grated on him for reasons he didn’t want to give voice to. He still vividly remembered moving boxes of antiques from house to house as a kid—everything was a treasure, everything had a home.

The dining room was decorated similarly to the living room, though the detail that stood out the most to Ben was the fact that the distressed wooden table taking up nearly the entirety of the room was large enough to seat close to twenty. Ben really, really hoped there weren’t twenty other people whose names and faces he would be expected to learn by the time he left here. His singular roommate was already bad enough.

He'd have to take solitude where he could get it, he supposed. A peek through the window shutters revealed that a fire had been lit in the backyard. Ben could see several shadowed figures huddled around it. He didn’t linger, instead moving on to the next room.

It wasn’t until Ben wandered into the spacious, sage green kitchen that he realized he wasn’t alone in the house after all.

“Ben, right?” said the man leaning against the counter, a glass of wine in his hand. He looked a little older than Luke in the face, even though his silver-shot hair was still quite full and dark. There was a softer give to his features. None of the malice Ben had seen in Luke’s eyes was present on this man’s face.

The man waited until Ben gave a tiny nod before continuing. “I’m Din. Amilyn Holdo told you about the therapy requirements for your stay before you arrived, I assume?” His voice was soft, measured. Disconcertingly neutral.

Ben nodded again.

“I’m the therapist,” Din said with a little smile, seeming to realize that Ben had no context for this man’s presence at the ranch. “And Luke’s husband. We own the ranch.”

“Oh.”

“You’re welcome to join the others outside,” Din said, punctuating the silence that followed with a sip of wine. “Or not.”

Ben didn’t know what to say to him.

“Did you eat yet?” Din asked. “I was working late this evening, so Rey put some leftovers in the fridge. I could heat up something for you as well, if you’d like.”

Ben nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He took a seat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, thinking it was a less absurd prospect than the two of them sitting together at the outrageously long dining room table. He watched Din pull a foil-covered tray out of the fridge. Two ceramic plates came out from one of the upper cabinets. The enchiladas in the tray were divided between them equally.

“I get the impression you didn’t read the brochure, so to speak,” Din said as he set Ben’s plate down in front of him a few minutes later. His own was still in the microwave, the slow rotations drawing Ben’s eye away from Din’s placid smile. Ben knew psychiatrists like the back of his hand. That smile wasn’t anything new. “I can explain how things work around here if it would make you feel more comfortable.”

Ben shrugged and tucked into his dinner. He half-listened as Din gave him an overview of the intention behind the ranch’s operations: to provide a place for struggling LGBTQ young adults to gain confidence in navigating the world with a greater understanding of themselves—and the general schedule: horsemanship lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays, individual therapy sessions with Din Tuesdays and Thursdays, group activities and group therapy on Friday. Most of it mandatory, which was what Ben had expected.

“How are you feeling about everything so far?” Din asked at the end of his spiel. He was doing that thing therapists always did, alternating aggravatingly tiny bites of his enchilada with alarmingly earnest eye contact.

Ben shrugged again. “I’m not really here voluntarily,” he pointed out.

“It’s not a prison, Ben.” Same difference. “We really do want you to be as comfortable as possible during your stay here.”

“I’d be more comfortable if I wasn’t sharing a room with a guy who snores so loudly it rattles the picture frames on the wall.”

Din laughed unexpectedly. Ben was more accustomed to his smartass comments being met by disapproving stares; he found himself almost smiling in return, despite his overriding misgivings about Din.

“It’s part of the program for residents to have a roommate,” Din explained. “We’ve found it’s helpful for everyone to have that level of social connection while they’re here. But I know you’ve had trouble sleeping in the past—”

“Understatement,” Ben muttered under his breath.

“—so if Finn’s snoring is causing problems for you, we can try to figure something out.”

Ben pushed the remnants of his half-eaten enchilada around with his fork. His appetite hadn’t been the same since he’d stopped sleeping through the night, even after he’d gotten out of the hospital. He’d lost some muscle mass already. He was on his way to losing more. “It’s fine,” he lied. He didn’t want Din or Luke calling up Holdo and telling her he was becoming a difficult patient. She’d probably tell his mom. “The medication they gave me—at the hospital—it’s been helping.”

There was a sharp squeak from the living room. Ben turned his head to peer through the archway into the other room as a gangly girl with braided hair came traipsing in, a laugh still fading on her lips. She froze when she caught sight of Ben, a startled look on her face that she quickly schooled into a friendly smile.

“Hi, I’m Rey,” she said to him as she hurried over to the fridge.

Ben watched her rifle through the contents of the fridge for a moment before remembering he was supposed to introduce himself as well. “Ben,” he said, with more grace than he’d afforded anyone else at Skywalker Ranch so far. He pretended to himself that the reason for that wasn’t sickeningly apparent.

She was pretty. And she smiled again at Ben as she pulled an aluminum can from the door of the fridge before heading back out to the open sliding glass door. “Nice to meet you,” she called over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

 “Rey will be the one handling your horsemanship lessons this week,” Din explained when Ben turned his attention back to the other man. “We’d normally have you working with Poe, but he’s out on vacation until next Monday.”

“She works here?” Ben asked.

“Yes,” Din said with a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “She’s also my daughter.”

Ben went a little red. Evidently his gawking had not gone unnoticed. He was tempted to remark on the lack of a family resemblance, but remembered just in time that Din had told him he and Luke were married. Adopted, then. Or Luke’s kid from a previous relationship, but she didn’t look much like him either.

“You’ll have the rest of the weekend to settle in,” Din said. He’d finished eating and was moving toward the sink with a questioning look on his face. Ben nodded, sliding Din the rest of his dinner. “Sometimes Rey will take some of the others into town on Saturdays, but I would advise waiting until the next weekend before you leave the ranch. Take the time to relax for now.”

Not that Ben was even interested in gallivanting around town with a bunch of twenty-somethings who still thought the world was all puppies and rainbows. His brain supplied him with an image, unbidden, of Rey’s flushed features as she’d come in from outside. Maybe he was a little tempted. Maybe.

As Din finished cleaning up, Ben realized he still had a question. “Can I shower whenever I want, or…?”

Din laughed a little. “Yes, Ben, we don’t mandate when you take showers. It’s not a prison, remember?”

Ben flushed again. He didn’t like being made to feel stupid. “I just thought…since there’s a bunch of us….”

“It’s just you, Finn, and Rey sharing a bathroom for now,” Din informed him. “Rose was using it, too, for a few weeks, but now that the numbers have evened out a bit, I’ll have her switch to the bathroom in the other wing.”

“Okay.”

“Anything else?” Din asked, once again radiating that same infuriatingly effusive sincerity.

“Nope,” Ben said tightly, hoping Din would take the cue to leave. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Din said in parting, and then he disappeared, following Rey out the backdoor and leaving Ben blessedly alone again.

Ben spent the new few minutes poking around in the fridge and the pantry, trying to get a sense of whether he was going to have to spend the next seven weeks eating chia seeds and organic juice. There was, in fact, a bag of chia seeds sitting on one of the pantry shelves, but there were also boxes of Pop-Tarts, Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, and an unholy amount of sugary cereal. The fridge appeared to be stocked with a decent amount of fresh produce and deli meat and what Ben would have described as far too much cheese.

After satiating his curiosity and coming away satisfied with the ranch kitchen’s protein availability, at least, Ben trekked back into the wing of the house where his bedroom was located and began preparations for showering in a brand-new environment.

Ben didn’t like showering with the lights on. He hadn’t had much choice in the matter in the hospital, when he’d had nurses hovering over his shoulder twenty-four hours a day. He hadn’t been able to get his arms wet until the stitches had come out, and the single shower he’d taken back at his apartment before the flight had been hurried, with Ben right up against the clock as soon as he’d stepped out the front doors of the hospital thanks to his mother’s machinations.

Ben planned to relax this time.

The frosted window at the back of the shower made it a little easier to navigate in the dark. Ben managed to lower himself down into the tub without much trouble, though it was a tight fit, both side and longways. He turned the water on with his foot, wincing when the spray hit his arms and flowed over newly mended flesh.

In the dark, Ben didn’t have to face the evidence of who he was. What he’d done. There was only the water.

When Ben crawled into bed nearly an hour later, cheeks pink from the steam, his long-sleeved cotton shirt clinging to still-damp skin, he allowed himself to sit at the window and watched the group gathered around the fire. Sketchbook in hand, he started to block out the scene, his strokes a little bolder as he filled in the outline of one particularly coltish figure, silhouetted by the flames.

Ben took two pills once the figures began to disperse and slipped dreamlessly into sleep.

 Rey knew she was lucky in that she enjoyed her job more thoroughly than most, but even she couldn’t deny the fatigue threatening to overwhelm her by Monday afternoon. Mondays were usually chore days, where she’d dig out part of the corral, replenish the hay in the feeders, and take care of any other busywork that needed to get done around the ranch. With Poe gone, she not only had extra chores, but extra lessons on top of that, and even though Rey enjoyed spending time with Finn and his horse, by the time she’d finished his lesson around three, she was already wiped.

But she still had Ben’s lesson on the docket for that afternoon. And the first horsemanship lessons were always the worst.

Adding to Rey’s displeasure about her upcoming obligation was the fact that she’d barely interacted with Ben all weekend, only catching glimpses of him as he flitted in and out of the kitchen to grab the occasional meal before vanishing into his room again.

Even Finn didn’t have much to share with Rey and the others about his new roommate. When Kaydel asked about him, Finn shrugged and told them that Ben just seemed to sleep a lot.

Rey felt an uncharacteristic frisson of anxiety coursing through her as she glanced up from her notebook to catch a glimpse of Ben slinking out the back door. She hopped down off the fence, busying herself at the entrance to the tack shed while casting furtive glances at Ben as he walked across the yard towards the corral.

Ben carried himself in a manner ill-befitting his height, his shoulders rounded and hunched in like he was trying to make himself smaller. He was bizarrely proportioned, with features that seemed like pieces from different jigsaw puzzles forced together to make a semblance of a human face. It wasn’t until he got a little closer that Rey realized he was also significantly older than her—certainly older than was indicated by the ‘young adult’ aspect of their client profile. Why was he even here?

Rey would have asked Luke just that if she’d thought she’d get a straight answer out of him, but it was clear she was going to have to piece this one together herself.

“Hey,” Rey called out to him with a warm smile as Ben slowly made his way over to the tack shed. He was already wearing long pants and boots, but the long-sleeved shirt was a bit much for mid-August. Maybe he’d gotten mixed up about the wardrobe requirements. She’d have to remember to tell him that he didn’t need to wear sleeves on Wednesday. “So, I’m not sure how much Din told you—”

“Not a lot,” Ben interjected flatly. His expression didn’t change, his wide mouth still pulled into something distinctly morose.

“Okay,” Rey said, endeavoring to maintain a buoyant tone. She’d worked with plenty of angsty teenagers before. A depressed man in his thirties was something she could easily handle. “Well, normally you’d have Poe teaching you, but since he’s out this week, I’ll be helping you get comfortable today.”

Something crossed Ben’s face, but it happened so quickly that Rey couldn’t tell what the fleeting emotion had been, or what she’d said to cause it. “Anyway,” she continued, “we’re gonna grab our halters from the shed, and then we’ll go out to the corral, and I’ll show you the horses we’re gonna be working with.”

Ben nodded, his expression still inscrutable.  

After some prompting, Rey learned that Ben didn’t know much about horses and had only ridden once, on a beach in Mexico when he was a kid. Surprisingly, he seemed far less wary in the corral than the newbies typically were, and Rey found herself smiling at the way his face screwed up in concentration as she showed him how to loop the halter around Bebe’s neck to catch the horse.

Bebe, endlessly patient, stood perfectly still with softly blinking eyes as Rey first demonstrated how to slide the halter on before taking it off again so that Ben could try. “You won’t be riding Bebe,” Rey explained, “but he’s a great horse to practice on, and I’d rather have you comfortable haltering before we try with Whisper.”

There was a flash of apprehension in Ben’s eyes. “Which one is Whisper?” he wondered.

Rey moved over to take Bebe’s lead from him and then pointed toward the massive blue roan draft-cross standing leisurely at the feeder. “He’s a gentle giant,” she reassured Ben. “The only thing you have to worry about is getting him to move more than four steps in any direction. He’s just a big ole lazybones.”

Rey watched as Ben carefully assessed Whisper from a distance. “You can go try to catch him now, if you like,” she told him. She was usually more hands-on in the first lesson, but Ben seemed so at ease around the horses that she wanted to see how he handled himself. “Just remember what I told you about their blind spots, okay?” she reminded him. The last thing she wanted was for Ben to get himself kicked.

Ben approached Whisper with surprising confidence, only flinching once, when Whisper suddenly turned to dash across the corral to put himself out of reach of the halter in Ben’s hands. Rey smiled to herself as she watched Ben carefully work to get close enough to the horse to loop the lead around his neck. When he finally succeeded, Rey had to resist the urge to cheer.

Instead, she calmly led Bebe over to where Ben was standing with Whisper, a bit sweaty and breathless, as he waited to be told how to proceed.

“Good job,” Rey said, “now just keep the lead tucked into your elbow like I showed you and slide the halter up his nose. Yeah, make sure it goes past the nasal bone—right there. Okay, now just buckle it around his neck like that and you’ve caught him.”

There was something resembling a smile on Ben’s face when he turned to follow Rey out of the corral, and she pretended not to notice the way her heart suddenly skipped a beat.

“We won’t do any riding today,” Rey explained as she held open the gate for Ben to lead Whisper through. “We’ll just practice tacking up for now, and then on Wednesday we’ll ride for a bit in the barn.”

Ben was unrelentingly attentive as Rey showed him how to groom Whisper’s coat and feet, a process that took them about ten times longer than it would have with any of the other horses at the ranch just because Whisper was so goddamn stubborn.

“You can be more assertive with him,” Rey encouraged after watching Ben try and fail to pick up Whisper’s back right foot at least four times. “Tapping the bone won’t hurt him, it’s just uncomfortable.”

Ben seemed hesitant about following Rey’s advice but finally managed to get Whisper’s foot propped up against his thigh. His incredibly large thigh. Rey blinked a few times, trying to clear the fog that had descended over her brain the second she noticed the way his quads strained against his black denim jeans when he planted himself against Whisper’s flank.

When Ben straightened up again after finishing picking Whisper’s feet, he was dripping with sweat. Rey quickly busied herself in the tack shed, taking a moment to catch her breath before emerging with the only saddle that would fit both Whisper and Ben, as well as Whisper’s modified bridle.

“I’ll have you watch me bridle Bebe on Wednesday so you can get a sense for how the browband and the throatlatch work,” Rey explained as she went over the tack with Ben at the hitching post. “This one’s a bit different because Whisper doesn’t like it when we touch his right ear.”

Rey helped Ben get the blanket and saddle in the right position and then explained how to buckle the cinches, watching carefully as he worked. She quickly noticed that he struggled more than he should to push the prong through the hole in the latigo, his fingers shaky and stiff, especially in his left hand.

Rey didn’t have the patience to watch him wrestle with it for very long. She stepped forward almost immediately, her fingers smoothly replacing his own, and it was only when she stepped back to have him check the stirrup length that she realized Ben had gone bright red with embarrassment.

Rey pretended not to notice and had Ben measure his arms against the leathers so she could make the necessary adjustments in the stirrups for his absurd height. Rey pretended not to notice the way Ben flinched every time she got close enough to touch him too.

“I’ll show you how to do the bridle,” Rey said once she was satisfied with the state of Whisper’s saddle. “It’s a bit tricky, like I said before. You need to get your thumb up into the corner of his mouth, like this—and then once the bit is in you pull the crown piece all the way up and over his ears before adjusting the buckle, like this, see?”

Ben nodded, his eyes tracking the movements of Rey’s fingers with such intensity that she felt her own face start to flush.

After bridling, Rey had Ben lead Whisper by the reins around the back of the ranch, with Rey playing tour guide as they went.

“That’s the barn where we’ll ride on Wednesday,” Rey said, indicating the larger structure to the east of the corral. It wasn’t much of an arena, only big enough for her or Poe and one of their students, really, but a good chunk of the riding they typically did with the residents was on-trail, anyway.

“The garden,” pointing to a mazelike assortment of overgrown plants that Luke rarely allowed anyone else to touch.

“The pond,” which seemed to intrigue Ben, who likely hadn’t noticed it before—the dense growth of mesquites and cottonwoods surrounding the edges made the path leading to the little wooden gazebo extending from the far shore almost invisible. It was a large enough body of water to get some decent laps in, and it was spring fed, the natural movement of the water and the filtrating plants Luke had put in around the edges keeping the pond a clear, crystalline blue. Rey spent every July mostly underwater; it was always too hot to do much else.

“The casita is where Din has his office,” Rey explained as they moved back toward the ranch. “So you’ll do your sessions with him in there, but it’s also where Din and Luke live, instead of in the main house with the rest of us.”

She caught the briefest flash of a grimace on Ben’s face at hearing Luke’s name, but then it was gone, and Rey decided not to spoil the rest of her afternoon by trying to work out why Ben already had beef with Luke. Knowing Luke as well as she did—it could have been anything.

They finished walking along the perimeter of the backyard and led Whisper back over to the hitching posts to untack. Rey had Ben do everything on his own this time—including removing Whisper’s bridle—but she occupied herself while he worked by slowly breaking a carrot into chunks and feeding them to Whisper, in hopes that Ben would feel less pressured to move more quickly than he was able.

Rey couldn’t help but wonder what had caused Ben’s poor dexterity. Usually, it was the sort of thing Din or Luke would have warned her about before his lesson. There was a laundry list of medical conditions that Rey had become accustomed to working around during her time at the ranch. It was odd that Ben’s hadn’t been disclosed.

Rey had almost gathered up the nerve to ask about it when Ben finished pulling the saddle and blanket off Whisper’s back and she found herself suddenly distracted by Ben’s sweat-slick visage, something akin to a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Nice,” Rey said encouragingly as she helped Ben carry the tack back to the shed. “You did awesome with him.”

And just like that, the smile was gone. Once again, Rey found herself floundering, not sure what she’d said to upset Ben. The exhaustion flooded in again. She felt herself closing off automatically in response, the need to spend five minutes alone rapidly eclipsing the pleasant enthusiasm that had boosted her energy levels for the duration of Ben’s lesson.

“You can head back to the house,” Rey told Ben as he swung the saddle up onto wall with the others. “I can put Whisper back into the corral.”

He nodded, giving no indication he’d noticed the shift in her mood. And then he was gone, his massive frame blocking out the sun streaming in through the doorway of the shed for one brief moment before he hopped down and headed back to the house.

Rey watched him go and then pulled out her notebook with a sigh. Usually, she’d sit out on the fence at the corral while she made notes for Din on her pupils’ progress, or she’d go to the little gazebo by the lake and spend some time in quiet reflection before noting her observations.

But today? Rey just wanted to be done.

Ben’s roommate—whom he had at some point learned was named Finn, though they were yet to be formally introduced (and it was looking increasingly unlikely that they ever would)—poked his head into their bedroom sometime around sunset, a guarded expression replacing his typically sunny expression.

“We’re all eating dinner soon,” Finn said, almost as if it were a question. “Rey and Rose made spaghetti. Garlic bread, too.”

“Cool,” Ben replied tonelessly. He didn’t bother to look up from his sketchbook, where he’d been attempting to draw Whisper’s unusual proportions from memory.

He heard Finn sigh from the doorway. “Look, man, I just think it would help if you at least made an effort to be part of the group—”

Ben’s head snapped upward. “Listen, man,” he interjected, voice dripping with venom, “I’m not looking to be anyone’s friend, okay? So just leave me the fuck alone.”

Finn threw up his hands in surrender and backed out of the room, shaking his head with a loud scoff. “Unbelievable,” Ben heard Finn mutter to himself as he left. He didn’t close the bedroom door behind him.

Ben initially decided to ignore it, trying to focus his attention back on his sketches, but now that his solitude had been unexpectedly invaded, the bedroom no longer felt like a refuge.

Ben found himself tiptoeing through the house several minutes later with his sketchbook tucked under his arm. He navigated the main rooms with care to avoid being spotted by any of the others through the archway that led from the living room into the dining room, his feet following the trail of plush, patterned rugs to avoid making any sound, though there was little chance of being heard over the raucous chatter emanating from the dinner table.

Ben slipped out the front door to minimize the risk of detection and skirted the empty east wing of the house. It took him a few minutes to locate the path that led around the edge of the pond in the dark, but once he’d located it, Ben followed it to the gazebo on the other side. He parked himself there, on the little wooden platform that overlooked the pond, and then he propped his sketchbook in his lap again and began to draw.

It had been months since Ben had picked up a pencil.

The inclusion of the fresh sketchbook and pencils had been Holdo’s idea; she’d done a walkthrough of his apartment with his dad while Ben was still unconscious in his hospital bed and had come away with plenty of observations for his file. The same file she’d sent to Din after Ben’s mother had decided that the key to his recovery was being locked up with a bunch of queer kids with stars in their eyes who had no idea what real life was actually like. Ben’s pencil dug into the page a little harder.

So—he was drawing again. It was a new development. Something about the novelty of his environment—or maybe it was just the fact that he was sleeping again—had triggered the itch. None of it was particularly good, and the limited range of motion in Ben’s fingers was preventing him from fully relying on muscle memory.

Worse than that, though, was the fact that the connection between Ben’s brain and hands felt like a cut wire: nothing was getting through. He could still draw what he’d seen, but the things he felt, the things he dreamed—none of that was ending up on the page.

Maybe that was the problem. The nightmares were finally gone, but now Ben didn’t dream at all anymore.

Soon even the moon dipped below the mountains, and it quickly became too dark to draw much of anything. Ben packed up his sketchbook and set off toward the house, intending to sneak back in the same way he’d snuck out.

Ben’s plan fell to pieces the second he set foot on the front steps. The light flipped on, the lone bulb above Ben’s head illuminating Luke, who was reclined in the rickety wooden rocking chair by the door, his feet propped up on the porch railing.

“You shouldn’t be going off alone,” Luke said in a disturbingly even tone. It was hard to judge his expression; it seemed to hover somewhere between fury and smugness. “What would your mother say?”

Ben felt his face twist into something ugly and desperate. “My mother doesn’t get a say,” he replied through gritted teeth. “I’m not a problem she can just throw money at until it goes away.”

“You think that’s what she’s doing?” There was something infuriatingly knowing in Luke’s eyes.

“I think it’s what she always does,” Ben spat out, his fists clenching and unclenching with the rhythm of his racing pulse. “If she wanted me to feel differently, then maybe she shouldn’t have shipped me across the country instead of dealing with me herself.”

Luke, evidently, didn’t have anything more to say on the matter. His eyes followed Ben as he stormed through the front door, no longer caring who saw him as he marched back to his bedroom with single-minded purpose.

Finn was there when Ben flung open the door, sitting cross-legged on the mattress with a journal in his hands. His eyes widened in surprise at Ben’s entrance, but he didn’t get a chance to say a single word before Ben turned out the lights, grabbed two more pills from the bottle on the nightstand, and dove fully clothed under the covers.

Ben was aware of the door opening and then closing again behind him, and then he was out.

Chapter Text

Din’s office out in the casita by the pond was a far cry from any of the other mind-numbingly greige therapist’s offices Ben had found himself sitting in (both willingly and unwillingly) over the last two decades. It was as though rather than attempting to calm the mind, Din was intentionally trying to overstimulate it.

Ben laid down on his back along the length of the dark red sofa with his socked feet dangling over the side. He’d long overcome the pointless urge to appear dignified in front of a mental health professional whose ultimate goal was to unravel whatever dignity still remained. This position also gave him plausible deniability whenever he didn’t feel like making eye contact. Which was most of the time.

It was doubly convenient that the ceiling in Din’s office was covered in what appeared to be cave painting-style depictions of plants and animals: some that Ben could easily identify, others that he didn’t recognize at all. Awash in the soft glow of the flickering multi-colored Christmas lights that framed the room, Ben could almost convince himself that the paintings were moving.

“I’ve found with sensory-seeking patients, the chaos helps them to stay focused,” Din said from the armchair facing Ben, his phone set out on the coffee table taking notes via dictation—Ben had agreed to it at the outset. Anything he might have once considered hiding from someone like Din was already in his file.

“So I’m a ‘sensory-seeking patient’?” Ben wondered, his eyes still roving across the painted ceiling.

“You received an ADHD diagnosis in elementary school,” Din replied calmly. “Many people with ADHD respond better to stimulating environments. If it’s too overwhelming, however, I have another office space that we could use instead.”

“No,” Ben said automatically. “You’re right. This is less boring.” He was quiet for a moment, his eyes still tracking the imaginary movements of the cave animals, but when Din didn’t immediately launch into a topic of conversation, he couldn’t help but ask, “Aren’t you going to ask me why I don’t take medication for my ADHD?”

The reason was simple: Ben didn’t like the way it made him feel.

“I did read your file, Ben,” Din replied. “I apologize if I’ve said anything that made you think I wasn’t intending on coming to our sessions fully prepared.”

Ben shrugged. He didn’t really care one way or the other if Din had read his file or not. The fact that the file even existed was the problem. “You can ask whatever questions you want to ask,” Ben told him. “Waiting for me to bring up my problems isn’t going to work.”

“Noted,” Din said, and there was the hint of a smile in his voice. “How are you adjusting to everything at the ranch, then?” he asked.

“Fine, I guess,” Ben replied with another shrug.

“What about your sleep?”

“The meds are still working.”

“Any side effects?”

“I’m tired a lot when I’m awake. Doesn’t really seem like a bad thing, though, considering.”

Din hummed a little in acknowledgement. “Any other medical issues or concerns?”

Ben shot upright so fast it made him momentarily dizzy. “Like what?” he asked, tone sharp.

“That’s for you to tell me, Ben,” Din said. His expression was cool, like he knew somehow that Ben wouldn’t respond well to unwarranted positivity. “It’s a question I ask everyone. It’s not specific to anything in your file. We don’t have to talk about that at all if you don’t feel comfortable doing so.”

“I’m fine,” Ben insisted as he laid his head back down on the seat of the couch. The scarlet brush strokes of the painted figures above him now felt sickeningly reminiscent of angry red lines against pale skin. He closed his eyes. “Everything’s fine,” he said again.

“Good,” Din replied, seemingly satisfied with that answer for now.

Din pulled his punches for the duration of their session, allowing Ben to speak as little as possible in response to questions like “Are you satisfied with the meals available to you?” and “How are you feeling about your upcoming horsemanship lesson tomorrow?” The latter query got far more avoidance than the former, with Ben choosing his words extremely carefully with the intention of not mentioning Rey at all.

It wasn’t until the very end of their hour that Ben sat back up again to look Din in the eye, a question of his own springing to mind. “Are we not allowed to walk around outside on our own?” he wondered, thinking back to Luke’s scolding the night before. “I went out to the pond yesterday during dinner, and Luke didn’t seem happy about it.” Ben decided to omit the part where he’d snuck out through the front door and hopped over the fence, as it didn’t seem pertinent to the answer he was looking for.

For a moment, Din appeared almost…annoyed. Then it was gone, and Din’s expression returned to a tranquil state. “It should be fine,” he reassured Ben. “The only restriction we have is that you don’t go past the fence line or into the corral without staff supervision.”

Din opened his mouth to continue, then hesitated. Finally, he said, “Luke is a bit overprotective,” in a slow steady voice, but there was an undercurrent of uncertainty beneath the assuredness he was trying to project. “Your particular circumstance is rather…unique. Hiccups are to be expected.”

Ben tried not to scoff at that. Hiccups. Sure.

Ben chose to spend the rest of his afternoon sitting out by the barn, sketching the various horses in the corral as they moseyed along between the feeders, their hooves occasionally kicking up a cloud of dust whenever a pair would get a bit frisky with one another.

Rey had lessons with the other three girls since it was Tuesday, and through osmosis (and a bit of eavesdropping), Ben had managed to learn each of their names without ever once being properly introduced.

The girl who he’d run into outside of the bathroom was named Rose, and her horse was a black Tobiano paint. (Ben had found a photobook of different horse breeds and color variations under the coffee table in the living room and had squirreled it away in the drawer of his bedside table so that he could use it as further reference for his sketches.)

Kaydel was the shorter of the two blondes and had softer, rounded features, while Tallie was taller and looked a bit more severe—though their personalities appeared to be somewhat contraindicated by their appearances. Ben had also learned that Kaydel and Tallie were known for spending so much time in the bathroom that Rose had opted to walk all the way across the house to use the one in the east wing before Ben’s arrival, even though it had been odd numbers either way. But those bits of gossip were of less interest to Ben than what he could learn through observation out in the yard.

Tallie’s horse was nearly as tall as Whisper, with a rich seal brown coat. And Kaydel’s horse wasn’t actually a horse at all, but instead a stocky cream-colored mule that seemed to absolutely adore her, its mannerisms more akin to those of a golden retriever than that of a stereotypically recalcitrant equine. Ben especially liked drawing the mule, with its peculiar body proportions, long ears, and Roman nose.

But Ben’s favorite horse to sketch was still Bebe. The leopard appaloosa’s orange spots were so intricate that drawing him felt like a puzzle, one Ben was keen to solve again and again and again. He realized he must have looked strange, sitting out there in the sun for hours with a hoodie pulled over his head to shield his face from the intense sun, but Rey was always so focused on her lessons that she didn’t even seem to notice him sitting there, and none of the others seemed to care.

Eventually, Ben got so caught up in the particulars of getting the pattern of Bebe’s coat from the left side exactly right that he didn’t realize Rey had walked over to him from the hitching posts until the shape of her appeared as a dark shadow against the page.

“Can I see?” Rey asked as she approached, sounding unfathomably excited.

Ben nodded, but he handed her the sketchbook reluctantly. The sketches were just that. They weren’t anywhere close to resembling finished pieces—that’s not what they were intended to be. And there was a distant strum of fear in the back of his brain as Rey looked over the full spread of his sketchbook at everything that he’d drawn that afternoon; if she happened to flip just a few pages back, she might recognize herself in the firelit silhouettes that Ben had drawn the night that they’d first met.

“These are really good,” Rey said, somehow managing to sound genuine even though it was the exact sort of thing that Ben heard most often as lip service. Something to move things along. A polite lie.

It didn’t feel like a lie coming from Rey’s mouth.

“Thanks,” Ben replied, trying to hide his embarrassment as he yanked his hoodie down around his neck. He felt weird wearing it standing next to Rey, who was dressed far more appropriately for the weather in a pair of tight-fitting jeans and a threadbare graphic tee. Ben valiantly avoided staring at the way he could see the outline of her gray sports bra through the perilously thin fabric.

“How did you get into drawing?” Rey asked as she examined the rough sketches of Bebe from different angles, her brows drawn together in intense focus.

Ben shrugged, reaching a hand up to push sweat-damp hair out of his eyes. “My parents figured out pretty early on that it was the only way to get me to sit still as a kid without medicating me. They got my teachers to let me draw during lessons to stop me from acting out in class. I didn’t have a lot of other hobbies, really.”

Rey made a sort of vaguely sympathetic face as she continued to peer down at Ben’s drawings. “It’s nice that your parents looked out for you like that when you were little,” she said.

Ben stiffened. “Yeah.” Too bad it had been the last time they’d ever done anything of the sort.

Ben was the first to notice Luke walking towards them from the back of the house, Luke’s eyes locked on the sketchbook cradled in Rey’s hands. Ben took a reflexive step backwards, putting Rey in front of him like a shield, but it was the wrong move—Luke’s gaze followed, narrowed, sharpened.

“You’re supposed to be helping with dinner,” Luke said in a low tone as he approached, hands shoved into the pockets of his khaki cargo pants, eyes roving between Rey and Ben with growing suspicion.

Luke didn’t cut an imposing figure in comparison to Ben’s bulk, his stocky frame only a few inches taller than Rey’s, but Ben felt cowed by him, nonetheless. Ben took another step backwards without thinking and collided hard with the outer wall of the barn, the back of his head hitting the corrugated metal with a loud clang that had Rey glancing up at him in concern.

“I’m fine,” Ben said through gritted teeth before she could ask him if he was okay. “Sorry.”

“Rey,” Luke said to his daughter in a firmer tone, apparently indifferent to Ben’s minor head injury. “Dinner?”

“Okay, okay,” Rey replied. She gave Ben’s sketchbook one last look before handing it back to him with a small smile. “We’re making chili.”

It was clear the statement was meant as an invitation. Ben merely nodded and did not meet her eyes.

Ben slid down the wall and sat back in the dirt as Luke and Rey turned to go. He set the sketchbook back in his lap and turned to a fresh page with his pencil poised above the paper. Ben was aware of Luke’s eyes lingering as he followed Rey to the house, but Ben was careful not to look up, careful not to watch her go.

Rey allowed herself to think, just for a moment, that Luke really did just want her to get dinner started and that there hadn’t been any other ulterior motive for pulling her away from Ben. That hope was short-lived and died horribly. Luke only waited long enough for Rey to start pulling raw ingredients from the fridge before he started in on her.

“You shouldn’t be fraternizing with the residents.”

Luke’s tone immediately had Rey’s hackles raised. “I’m trying to make Ben feel like part of the group,” Rey insisted, knife held aloft, “something that you don’t seem to be helping with. And you’ve never had a problem with me making friends with clients before.”

“He doesn’t look at you like he wants to make friends, Rey.”

Rey’s face went hot. “So what?” Rey swung her knife-arm down with so much force that the onion went flying off the chopping board, only adding to her simmering humiliation. She crouched down to pick up the fallen vegetable, all too aware of Luke staring at her with something in his eyes that she didn’t care to put a name to. “You’ve never gone all ‘dad waving a shotgun’ on any of the other boys at the ranch who had crushes on me.”

“You didn’t flirt with any of them.”

Angry tears sprang to Rey’s eyes. “I wasn’t flirting,” was all she could manage before a thick lump lodged itself in her throat. Why was Luke being like this? He’d always been so level-headed about Rey dating, even when she was a teenager. She remembered Luke calmly offering to buy her condoms when she was sixteen, before he’d realized that the ‘Jessie’ she’d been seeing every weekend was actually another girl from her physics class.

Luke raised his hands in defeat, making it clear he wasn’t looking to continue the argument after she’d said her piece. To Rey, though, it didn’t feel like much of a victory. The tension in the air didn’t dissipate even when Rose and Tallie meandered in a few minutes later to help with prep and clean-up, their loud chattering a welcome distraction from Rey’s racing thoughts, if nothing else.

Luke watched Rey like a hawk for a while before eventually wandering off, only to be replaced with Din, who seemed strangely intent on occupying Rey with small talk as she stirred the chili simmering in the big pot on the stove.

“How did your lessons go?”

“Fine,” Rey replied with a shrug.

She knew she should probably tell Din about what had happened with Ben and Luke—hell, it was probably why he was hanging out with her in the first place, because he always seemed to know when something was wrong—but she knew if she mentioned any of it to Din, the two of them would just fight about it later. And Rey couldn’t stand it when Din and Luke fought.

“Kaydel’s getting really comfortable in the saddle and she seems to trust Dio a lot more now, so I’m thinking about taking them out on some of the steeper trails soon.”

“That would be very beneficial for her, I think,” Din said. His eyes tracked Rey as she moved across the kitchen to grab the remaining ingredients from the counter. “How are you?” he added.

“Tired.” Rey finished dumping everything into the pot and started to stir again. “Ready for things to slow down again once Poe’s back.”

Din gave a soft hum of assent, but Rey could tell he wasn’t satisfied with her answers.

“You know, a crock pot would make this a whole lot easier,” Rey said meaningfully. Especially on days when she was already pulling double duty and didn’t have the mental or emotional bandwidth to deal with Luke’s bizarre accusations of unprofessional behavior. God, she was tired. “Or someone else on chore duty.” Rey had been pushing Luke to hire an additional employee since the beginning of the year, but he wouldn’t budge on it. The ranch operated too close to the margins already.

Din lifted his eyebrows. “Noted.”

Rey half-expected Ben to make an appearance in the kitchen sometime during the full hour and a half that she was chained to the stove making sure the overfull pot of chili didn’t boil over—but he never did. She found herself still holding out hope even when she went out to the dining room with the heavy pot clutched precariously in her mitted hands to find everyone but Ben seated around the table—and when she took a little longer than usual in finishing her dinner that evening, it was with disappointment that she finally got up from the table, alone.

The previous night’s events put Rey in a foul mood on Wednesday, something she ended up unintentionally projecting during her lesson with Finn just after lunch.

“What’s your deal?” Finn asked quizzically after Rey threw her saddle into the dirt in frustration after spending more than a minute trying to yank the latigo out of the D-ring only to have the leather catch on itself again and again as she pulled.

“Nothing, I’m fine,” Rey replied as she bent down to heft the saddle into her arms. When she returned from the tack shed, Finn was still standing there next to his all-black mare, Nine, staring at Rey with undisguised skepticism.

“What do you think of Ben, then?” Finn phrased it as though the two questions were unrelated, but Rey wasn’t remotely convinced.

“What do you think of Ben?” Rey asked. She focused on stroking Bebe’s bushy whiskers and muzzle instead of checking Finn’s reaction to having the question turned around on him.

Finn sighed loudly. “He’s weird, Rey. What do you want me to say?”

“What do you mean, ‘weird’?” Based on what Rey knew about Ben, she didn’t think Finn was off base in his succinct assessment of Ben’s behavior over the last few days, but she was interested in finding out exactly what Finn had seen so far that she hadn’t. Din would have been proud.

Finn sighed again. “He doesn’t talk to anyone except you,” he said, ticking each point on his fingers, “he acts like this place is some kind of torture camp, and I don’t even think he’s gay.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Rey was quick to point out. “He could be bi. You’re bi, and you’ve had like one crush on a guy ever.” She was careful not to mention the fact that Finn’s one crush had been on the chronically unavailable Poe. Dealing with the fallout from Finn’s hopes being dashed in his first few weeks at the ranch had been bad enough the first time. Finn got along just fine with Poe now, of course, but he didn’t need a reminder of the sting of that astonishingly embarrassing rejection.

“Trust me,” Finn replied with a serious expression. “It’s different with him. I can just tell.”

Rey mused on that as they led Bebe and Nine back out into the corral. And then she mused on it some more as she ducked into the kitchen to grab a quick snack before Ben’s upcoming lesson. She was still musing on it when Ben finally trudged out into the sun dressed head to toe in black just as he was during their first lesson: dark jeans cuffed around his boots, the sleeves of his sweater drooping well past his knuckles.

Rey wasn’t foolish enough to think she could ascertain anything meaningful from the way Ben dressed, but he certainly didn’t seem to put much effort into his appearance. His hair was grown out, hanging loosely around his face, and his clothes looked ever-so-slightly too big, like he’d lost weight recently. The shirts and hoodies she’d him in were always devoid of any logos or graphics that might give Rey the slightest clue as to Ben’s interests or personality.

Rey wondered if she should just ask him if he was queer. Then she considered the possible responses and decided no, better not. It did beg the question, though: if Finn was right, and Ben was straight in addition to all the other reasons he didn’t fit the client profile, then why the hell had Luke even agreed to let him come to the ranch? Especially since Luke really didn’t seem to want Ben there in the first place.

Rey was still mulling it all over in the back of her mind as she greeted Ben with a forced smile, only to get a mumbled greeting in return. Ben refused to meet her eyes, and all efforts at engaging in small talk were countered with stilted responses given in as few words as possible. He seemed to have regressed drastically during the course of just a single day, and the only variable Rey could attribute Ben’s exaggerated diffidence to was Luke’s bewildering attempt at fatherly intimidation the afternoon prior.

Rey stuck to her conversational guns as they caught their horses and tacked up at the hitching posts. By the time they were ready to lead the horses to the barn, Ben had finally progressed to full sentences again, and Rey was feeling a lot better about the rest of the lesson than she had at the outset.

“Whisper’s real stubborn,” Rey warned Ben again as she opened the barn gate to let him through. “You’re gonna have to be a little mean when you ride him, or he won’t do anything you want.” At Ben’s semi-alarmed look, Rey quickly added, “He’s not gonna run off on you if you aren’t in control—at least not while we’re in the barn. He might try that when you come back from a trail ride, but he shouldn’t do anything like that today.”

“Does everyone just work with their own horse?” Ben asked, his eyes tracking Rey as she pulled the gate back into place before leading Bebe back over to where Ben and Whisper were standing.

“Mostly. Everyone gets a horse assigned to them when they first get here, but sometimes Poe or I will pull in other horses for a lesson or two if it makes sense, or we’ll switch if a horse gets sick or if the initial assignment is a bad fit for whatever reason.”

Rey looked up at Ben, who nodded slowly in acknowledgement. “Ready to hop on?” she asked.

Ben eyed the saddle and his horse with trepidation. “How do I…?”

Right, Rey thought to herself. Ben had said he was a kid the first and only time he’d ever ridden a horse. She quickly tied Bebe’s reins to the rail and stepped in close to Ben’s left side. “Hold onto the horn while you get your foot into the stirrup,” she advised, but for Ben, it was a lot easier said than done.

Rey had never worked with a client older than twenty-five before this. Most of her lessons had been with actual kids. It was abundantly clear that Ben’s three-plus decades were working against him as he wobbled on one foot, visibly struggling to get his foot high enough to slot it into the stirrup.

“Your flexibility will get better with practice,” Rey told him, hoping it sounded more encouraging than condescending. “I can help you—if you want?” she added, her voice cracking a little at the end. Rey didn’t expect him to accept after how poorly her help had been received on Monday, but the offer had been instinctive.

Ben hesitated. Then he nodded.

Rey smiled widely, relieved she seemed to be getting through Ben’s prickly exterior despite Luke’s meddling. “Here, you can put your left hand on my shoulder to make it a little easier.” The second she felt the pressure of Ben’s fingers through the thin cotton of her t-shirt, she regretted it. His hands were huge. And warm. And Rey was suddenly finding it very difficult to keep her mind focused on the task at hand.

Rey ended up having to rest one hand on Ben’s waist to help him balance while she used the other to get the toe of his boot into the stirrup. She felt a flash of guilt every time he tensed up at the slightest touch, almost like he was about to bolt.

“I’ll make sure I pick up a mounting block in town this weekend,” Rey informed Ben as she helped him hop closer to Whisper’s side, something he accomplished with a somewhat pained look on his face. “Luke doesn’t like us to use them,” Rey explained, “but it’ll be easier on you for now, especially since Whisper’s so tall.” Ben was tall, too, but it wasn’t working in his favor much.

Once Ben was situated in the right position and able to hold onto the saddle horn to keep himself from falling without Rey’s help, she moved to the other side of the horse and stretched up onto her tiptoes to extend a hand toward Ben across the saddle.

“Push up hard in the stirrup,” Rey instructed. “I’m just here to give you a little extra leverage.”

Ben managed to swing his leg over on the first try, his sweat-damp palm vanishing from Rey’s hand as soon as his butt hit the seat. She backed off immediately and went over to Bebe to untie his reins.

This time, Rey didn’t offer Ben a congratulations, remembering his obvious discomfort with her praise during their first lesson. She was going to have to hope that growing confidence and competence in the saddle and on the ground would be reward enough for him, if he wasn’t able to tolerate her verbally acknowledging his accomplishments. Rey would have to remember to make a note of that later, for Din.

Climbing into the saddle was like second nature for Rey, who had been riding practically her whole life. She spun Bebe around to face Ben and opened her mouth to launch into the next bit of her prepared lecture, only to realize that there was just one more problem.

Rey’s mouth hung open for a few seconds as she watched Ben squirm in the saddle, her cheeks warm. “Um,” Rey said in a tight voice, “it’ll probably be easier if you, um, manually adjust yourself a bit. I’ll turn around, sorry.” 

Rey didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her. She wasn’t some blushing virgin. Sure, she might not have interacted directly with a penis before, but she’d seen plenty, and it wasn’t like her to get this flustered over normal, bodily things. Thank God Ben wasn’t the type to gossip, because if Kaydel ever found out about this, Rey would never hear the end of it.

“All good,” Ben called out in a strained tone that echoed Rey’s own nearly a full minute later. His face was tomato-red when she turned Bebe around. He avoided meeting Rey’s eyes, instead staring down at the reins clutched between his bone-white fingers.

“You should relax your grip a little,” Rey told him, deciding to just jump straight into the lesson in hopes that it would move them past the embarrassment of the previous five minutes. “Let the reins out some so Whisper has more room to move his head. You want to keep your posture forward a bit; don’t lean back onto your butt. And make sure you keep your heels down, below your toes. Good, now nudge him a little with your heels and walk him clockwise along the rail.”

Ben did all right despite the fountain of corrections that Rey funneled his way as she watched him ride Whisper at a walk. His biggest weakness was his posture. He tended to fold in on himself again every few minutes after each reminder from Rey to keep his back straight. Whisper cooperated better than Rey expected, however, and Ben only had to pull at the reins a couple times to steer the horse in the opposite direction, which he did with such an endearingly intense expression that Rey had to suppress a laugh every single time.

At the end of the lesson, Rey hopped off Bebe and extended a hand to Ben to help him out of the saddle. He slipped a little, his toe still caught in the stirrup. Rey instinctively slid her hand along the length of Ben’s arm to his elbow, trying to get a better grip to keep him from falling down.

Ben flinched violently, tearing himself out of Rey’s grasp and stumbling backwards in the dirt, his other hand coming up to cradle the arm she had touched.

“Sorry,” Rey said dumbly, still processing what had just happened.

Ben turned away from her and said nothing.

He was quiet still when he untacked Whisper at the hitching posts outside. Rey watched Ben carefully as he worked, taking note of the same stiffness in his fingers that she’d noticed before, which now appeared to be compounded by the soreness in his lower half. He walked bow-legged back to the tack shed with his saddle in hand, and she saw him wince as he jumped down off the step into the dirt on his way back over to Whisper.

Once both horses were safely released in the corral, Rey planted herself in front of the gate to block Ben from slipping out ahead of her. “I think you should do morning yoga with me,” she said without preamble, not giving herself any time to rethink the invitation before it was spilling out of her mouth.

Ben’s eyebrows climbed rapidly to his hairline. He looked almost worried. “I’m not exactly a morning person,” he replied.

“Then we could do it before bed instead,” Rey insisted, letting a swell of unexpected confidence propel her before her brain had a chance to catch up to her mouth. “It’ll help with a lot of the—” She gestured to her own legs. “—from riding, and we can work on the flexibility in your thighs—” Rey stuttered over her words a little, and Ben got incrementally pinker as she continued. “—and it’ll be cooler at night once the sun is down so we can do it out here instead of in the house.”

Ben blinked at her a few times as the color slowly faded from his cheeks. “Okay,” he finally said in a very small voice.

Rey couldn’t seem to keep the grin off her face. “Okay,” she repeated, a bit breathless for some reason. She informed Ben that she would come find him after dinner and then watched him limp back towards the house, an unrestrained grin breaking out across her face.

Ben skipped dinner again that night. He began to wonder if that had been a mistake when hours passed with no sign of Rey at his bedroom door. By the time Finn started to snore again from under his mountain of blankets, well after the sun had set out past the windows in Ben’s corner of the room, Ben was all but ready to squash the tiny seedling of anticipation that had blossomed in his chest earlier when Rey had invited him to join her for evening yoga. Clearly, she wasn’t coming.

Ben’s arm was half-extended towards the little bottle of pills on his nightstand when he was interrupted by a soft knock at the door.

Rey was standing out in the hallway when Ben carefully opened the bedroom door, already conscious of the way the hinges squeaked at exactly the halfway point of its arc. She was dressed in what appeared to be neon-blue bike shorts with the same t-shirt from earlier tucked into the waistband. Her long brown hair was piled up high in a loose bun.

Ben’s mouth went a bit dry at the sight of her. He immediately regretted his own choice of workout clothes: a pair of ratty cotton joggers and his black hoodie. He made sure to discreetly tuck in his own t-shirt into his waistband as he followed Rey wordlessly down the darkened hallway.

They went out into the yard through the sliding glass door in the living room. Rey put her back against the handle after pushing the panel open, forcing Ben to squeeze through past her. Her body was close enough that he could feel her warm breath against his shoulder, even through two layers of fabric.

She still didn’t say a word as she led him away from the porch and toward the opening in the trees where the path around the pond began. They walked in silence over to the gazebo, where Rey pulled out two rolled-up beach towels from under her arm and laid them out over the wooden planks parallel to one another.

“It won’t be super comfortable, sorry,” Rey said in a quiet voice, as though worried someone from the house might overhear. “I usually do this on the rug in my room.”

Ben had surmised already that the bedroom across the hall from the room he and Finn shared belonged to Rey, but the only time he’d peeked inside, it had been too dark to distinguish any details about Rey’s choice in décor. Now that he knew it belonged to her, he wasn’t brave enough to try and catch a better glimpse. He imagined her in downward dog on a rust-orange shag carpet and promptly blushed.

“It’s fine,” Ben reassured her as he seated himself on the towel closes to the shore. It was thicker than he’d anticipated, at least, but he’d probably have bruises on his knees by the end of it. His mother had always teased him for being thin-skinned. Too easy to wound.

“I like to spend a few minutes meditating first,” Rey informed him. Ben watched as she sat down on the towel with her feet crisscrossed under her. She placed her palms against her spread knees and closed her eyes.

Ben did his best to copy the pose but couldn’t get his feet to rest on top of his thighs like Rey’s without the fear of pulling a muscle. He settled for a more basic version in the end. He didn’t bother closing his eyes. Ben had spent time out by the pond in the evening once before, but he hadn’t stayed long enough to take in the way the desert changed at night.

The moon was waning, and it sat low, just above the smooth curve of the foothills where the ranch was nestled, the black void of the horizon capped with the angular shapes of errant Joshua trees in the distance. The large, misshapen orb above still cast plenty of warm light across the open expanse of the water.  Above Ben could see the flittering shapes of bats and large hummingbird moths, each dipping down in a strange, unpredictable dance to sip water from the surface of the pond, or to drink nectar from the conical white flowers that blossomed from the dark green shrubs that bordered the path along the shore. Even with the light of the moon casting a radiant yellow glow across the sky, the stars at the edges of its reach were unimaginably bright.

“Are you ready to start?”

Ben jumped at the sound of Rey’s voice cutting through his reverie. She was looking up at him expectantly, now seated in a sort of kneeling position that made Ben’s stomach twist.

“Sure, um.” Ben moved to copy her stance. “I’ve never actually done this before,” he admitted.

Ben’s exercise habits were incredibly limited. He did as many push-ups as his body would allow each day. He did as many pull-ups as his body would allow each day. He did as many sit-ups as his body would allow each day. And then he’d lift weights until his muscles were screaming for him to stop. That routine had slowed down quite a bit since he’d stopped sleeping a few months back, but he’d kept up with what he could manage in the cramped space between the twin beds in his room since arriving at the ranch. It was pretty much all he did, other than draw and sleep.

All that to say: yoga wasn’t exactly in Ben’s wheelhouse.

“That’s all right,” Rey replied. “We’ll just start with some beginner poses. The first one’s really easy.”

Mountain pose, as Rey referred to it, certainly looked easy, but it didn’t feel as easy to Ben, whose shoulders violently rebelled at being forced open after the years he’d spent curving them in unconsciously to shield himself from—well, everything.

Warrior was even worse. Ben’s thighs burned as soon as he sank into the lunge, and he could barely keep his arms straight above his head, even though Rey made the whole thing look effortless.

Rey had to pause her demonstrations after nearly every new pose so that she could focus on correcting Ben’s form. She was careful not to touch him after the incident during their lesson, her hands hovering inches above his arms and back as she guided him into the correct positions. Even though Ben knew her hesitance was deserved, her insistence on treating him like he was fragile, combined with his frustration over the fact that his brutal decade-long workout regimen had not given him the control over his body that Rey seemed to have with comparatively little effort, was turning the entire evening into an exercise in resentment rather than relaxation.

Ben soon found himself imagining Rey pushing at him with firm hands, the same way she had with Bebe earlier when he’d started to chew the halter rope at the hitching post. Rey’s small hands, coaxing Ben’s body into the shapes she wanted, pushing him past his limits, breaking him open, making him—

“Do you want to try a partner pose?” Rey asked, a distinct note of hopefulness shining through in her voice.

Ben just stared at her, the fog slowly lifting from his brain.

“I used to do them with Rose’s sister back when she was teaching classes at the gym,” Rey added. “They’re fun.”

There was an electric hum under Ben’s skin. He nodded.

The thoughts returned with a vengeance as soon as Rey took Ben’s hand. She had to touch him for this—the pose required them to sit facing each other with their legs pointed up to form a triangle between them. Rey’s feet rested against Ben’s calves; her legs weren’t long enough to meet his at the top.

“You can lean more weight onto me,” Rey encouraged as Ben’s thighs started to shake from the exertion.

Ben relaxed ever so slightly, letting his legs rest against the bottom of her feet. It was a strangely soothing pressure. He couldn’t see her from this position, but her hands were warm and dry, their fingers tangled slightly together as they held their arms taut for balance.

Rey’s grip was strong. Confident. Ben’s mind wandered, thinking again of Rey touching him with absolute impunity, like he belonged to her, of her slim fingers slipping past the waistband of his joggers, the heat and pressure of her palms around his—

Ben jerked his hands out of Rey’s grip and went tumbling backwards onto the floor. A hot flush spread from head to toe as Ben picked himself up, an equal mixture of humiliation and shame.

Rey jumped to her feet immediately. “Are you okay?” she asked, extending a hand toward Ben that he didn’t take.

“Fine,” he muttered. “It’s late. Maybe we should stop for now.”

Rey nodded, her brows drawn together, mouth pulling into a hard line. She wrapped her arms around her torso. “You’re probably right,” she conceded. “It won’t help your riding if you overextend yourself.”

They didn’t say much on the way back to the house. Rey offered Ben a quiet “goodnight” as they paused in the hallway at the entrance to their bedrooms. Ben mumbled an approximation of the same farewell before slipping into the safety of his shared dormitory.

This time, Ben took three pills instead of two. He thought of nothing at all as he closed his eyes, and fervently wished not to dream.

Chapter Text

Ben’s Thursday session with Din went about the same as the first. More questions; more clipped, one-word answers. Through it all, Din never gave the slightest indication of losing patience with Ben’s defensive posturing.

Ben was actually sort of impressed.

Every therapist Ben had seen in the past thirty years always fell into one of two categories.

The Enabler: The therapist that wants to be your friend, that tells you your problems aren’t your fault, the type of therapist that thinks happiness is always just one journaling or self-care session away.

And…

The Hard-Ass: The therapist that assigns you homework, the one that puts you on a hundred different drugs in the hopes that one of them will work, the kind that takes away basic privileges as a motivational tool.

Din seemed to be neither.

“Why did you become a therapist?” Ben wondered aloud toward the end of their session.

“I spent a lot of time in therapy myself as a child,” Din offered in a neutral tone. “My experiences—both positive and negative—were influential when I was deciding on a potential career path in college.”

“And why all…this?”

Din carefully considered the question before answering. “I saw what riding lessons did for Rey when she was younger,” he said, intuiting correctly that Ben was asking about the ranch. “Luke made sure she was well-rounded growing up, but it was being around the horses that really helped her when she was struggling the most during her adolescence. It was my idea to try to give the same experiences to kids who weren’t as lucky as she was in that regard.”

The healing power of horses sounded like a load of…well, horseshit, to Ben, but he didn’t question it. “Kids?” he asked instead.

“We were a summer camp originally,” Din replied without further explanation.

And just like that: the hour was up. Ben was free once more.

Kaydel was just coming out the back door of the house when Ben exited Din’s office. She took one look at him and walked the long way around to the pond. The others had been doing that more often over the last day or two, with the one notable exception of Rey, who always greeted Ben with a smile and sometimes appeared frighteningly close to giving him an actual hug.

Luke continued to glare daggers at Ben on the rare occasion they happened to cross paths, something Ben was keen to minimize by continuing to spend all his time either in his room or out at the far end of the pond.

Ben was drawing more. His pencil strokes seemed to be getting better, a little less unsteady than they had been when he first arrived. From his bed, he would draw the view from the windows in his room, trying to capture a sense of scale that felt alien to him as someone who had never been west of Chicago.

Just the sky itself was massive. There were no skyscrapers, no towering trees to close off the striking blue expanse above and beyond the walls of Skywalker Ranch. Ben had yet to venture far enough to see the sprawling valley below the hills—thinking of Din’s veiled warning that the residents weren’t allowed past the fence without one of the staff—but he could imagine it extending on forever, an endless desert as far as the eye could see.

Out in the gazebo, Ben’s gaze turned toward the earth. He sketched feathery leaves and skittering spiders; the furled petals of the night-blooming white flowers whose names Ben did not know, hiding from the sun; a kingfisher perched on a high branch searching for prey; a fleeting impression of a small spotted frog that vanished beneath the water only seconds after Ben noticed it hidden amongst the shoreline reeds.

Ben still didn’t dream.

Sometimes he drew only in his mind, his sketchbook tucked safely at his side. Imagined lines, lighting up the dark, forming vague approximations of what he didn’t dare put on the page. A figure on horseback. A shadow perched on the top crossbar of a ramshackle fence. A silhouette sitting cross-legged under a gazebo overlooking a long, narrow pond.

Time passed more slowly than it had in years. The day stretched long from beginning to end, wrapping Ben up in sempiternal sunlight.

It wasn’t until the light began to fade and the others started to congregate in the dining room for dinner that Ben felt the hot itch of anticipation creeping under his skin. He didn’t allow himself to fully acknowledge it, instead going through the motions of what was rapidly becoming a regular evening routine: sneaking into the kitchen to grab whatever was left of dinner (someone had set out an actual plate for him this time), eating alone in his room watching the sunset from the window above his bed, and avoiding his roommate for just a little while longer after dinner by holing up in the bathroom as soon as Finn returned to their room.

Ben sat in the tub under the warm spray and let the water go cold before he stood to wash his hair and all the other important bits. It was nearly pitch black with the lights off and the sun well below the horizon. Ben didn’t realize he’d grabbed the wrong bottle of shampoo until the scent of clove and quinine hit him like a brick to the face.

There was a hot flash of sensation between Ben’s legs when he remembered where he’d smelled that very same combination before—his hand on Rey’s shoulder, the top of her head just below his chin, her hair swaying in a braid tucked against her throat. Ben stood there under the lukewarm water for a few seconds, frozen as his dick throbbed with something that he could only ascribe to want.

Ben didn’t want to think about the fact that it had been years since he’d felt the like. Libido had been one of the first things to go shortly after the nightmares started. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ben had always just assumed it would never come back.

Ben ignored the feeling for now. But he didn’t set down the shampoo. He squeezed a bit of it into his palm and then combed it through his wet hair, telling himself it was an easy enough mistake to make. No one else would notice.

When Rey came to get him later that night for yoga out by the pond, Ben allowed himself to bask in the tiny burst of satisfied pleasure that erupted in his chest as he trailed along behind her, close enough to breathe in the sweet and sharp fragrance of the mess of hair atop her head.

Now they smelled the same.

Rey woke on Friday with the memory of Ben’s eager expression when she’d come to fetch him for yoga the night before seared into her brain. He’d seemed different last night; more energetic, more focused. Maybe the change in scenery at the ranch was already doing him some good.

There was a trail ride planned for that afternoon before they gathered for the group therapy session. Rey had made a habit of attending them every week even though she was technically a member of staff. Their clients had always responded well to her inclusion, seeming to find comfort in the fact that both fathers and daughter alike could empathize with whatever it was that had brought them to the ranch.

Rey found benefit for her own sake in the sessions as well. It hadn’t been easy growing up in the boonies as a bisexual orphan with two dads, and although she’d managed well enough considering everything she’d gone through to get this far, Rey still thought that it would have been nice if it had been easier to find other people like her in town. The one and only time she’d ever attempted to attend an LGBT teen support group in Las Vegas, Rey had practically been laughed out of the room once the others found out where she was from. Rey never went back.

Rey assumed that Ben knew by now that he was expected to attend group therapy each week in addition to his individual sessions, but she was almost positive that Din wouldn’t push him yet into participating in the Friday group activity. Rey had no such qualms about gently bullying Ben into joining them on their ride later that afternoon.

It was just like Luke always said: Be as nice as you can be, and as mean as you have to be.

It was with that in mind that Rey resolved to find Ben shortly after breakfast.

He was out by the barn watching the horses, eyes tracking their movements in the corral through the fence as he slowly picked at the plate of bacon and eggs Rey had left out for him that morning. Feeding Ben was now sort of like feeding a stray cat, since he seemed intent on avoiding sitting down at the table with the rest of them for meals. Rey just wanted to make sure he didn’t starve.

“I hope the eggs aren’t too cold,” Rey remarked as she made her way over to him.

Ben shrugged without looking up. “They’re fine.” 

“I could make them a different way if you’d rather,” Rey offered.

Ben was quiet. Then he said, “Scrambled?”

Rey smiled. “Sure. Next time.”

If Ben felt any pressure to continue the thread of the conversation, he didn’t show it. He was quietly diligent in eating the rest of his breakfast despite his apparent dislike for fried eggs as Rey stood there next to him, leant over against the fence, watching the horses just like Ben.

Rey waited to strike until Ben got up to take his empty plate back to the kitchen. “We’re doing a trail ride after lunch,” Rey said casually as she followed him back to the house. “You should come along.”

Once again, Ben was silent for an agonizingly long time before he finally mustered up a response. From her position behind him, Rey couldn’t even hazard a guess whether he’d reject the offer or not.

“After lunch?”

“Yeah,” Rey breathed. She jumped in front of Ben to slide open the back door, since his hands were full, and glanced up into a blank, unassuming face. “We usually ride for a couple hours and then do the group session once we get back.”

“Okay,” Ben said evenly.

Rey was only able to bask in her victory for a brief moment. Ben said nothing else to her as he rinsed his plate in the sink and placed it in the dishwasher with all the rest before disappearing into his bedroom, just like before.

Ben didn’t show up for lunch. After everyone had finished eating, they all headed out to the corral to saddle up. Rey stayed with the group long enough to make sure everyone’s horses were caught and hitched before making an excuse to dart back into the house to find Ben. He’d promised.

Okay, he hadn’t promised, but he did agree to go on the ride, and for Rey that was tantamount to a blood oath. She hated being flaked on.

If Ben had intended on hiding from her, he wasn’t doing a very good job. Rey found him in his bedroom, which is exactly where she’d expected him to be, but it was still a surprise when she turned the handle and pushed open the door to reveal Ben in the middle of the floor between the beds, performing push-ups at a frenzied pace.

Rey just stood there in the doorway for a few seconds, watching him.

Ben’s face was bright red, brows pulled together, the muscles in his neck corded and tense. Every time he lowered himself down, elbows bent and chin nearly pressed to the floor, he let out a sharp hiss from between his gritted teeth. His arms were trembling, and Rey wondered just how long he’d been doing this. He looked like he was about to collapse.

He looked hurt.

“Ben, are you okay?” Rey asked as she took a step inside. Her instinct was to go to his side, help him up, into bed, but she didn’t make it that far.

“Fine,” Ben bit out as he drew his legs up to his chest so he could stand.

Rey half-expected him to fall over as soon as he got to his feet, but Ben just swayed a little and then stood stock-still, his eyes boring into hers.

“The others are outside getting ready to ride,” Rey told him, the words sounding a bit pathetic to her ears now that she was uttering them aloud and not just rehearsing them in her head the way she had all the way from the corral to the east wing. “You said you’d come.”

Ben’s face creased in a strange way. “I’m sorry,” he said, as though speaking the words hurt him. “I can—Give me a second to change.”

Rey waited for him just on the other side of the closed door. He emerged, still red-faced and sweaty, but dressed somewhat more appropriately for the ride, though he was still wearing one of his trademark long-sleeved waffle-knit sweaters despite the fact that it was at least ninety degrees out—it had been a cool summer, but not that cool.

The way Ben worried at the fabric covering his forearms with shaking hands as they walked out together didn’t escape Rey’s notice. Nor did the pinched look on his face, or the slight tremor above his left eye.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked again as she closed the back door behind them.

“I’m fine,” Ben insisted.

There was an edge to his voice this time. Rey decided to drop it.

As soon as they got Whisper and Bebe caught, Rey could tell she was going to have to improvise. Ben’s fingers shook so violently as he buckled the halter around Whisper’s neck that he nearly dropped it in the dirt. It took everything in Rey’s power to keep herself from leaping forward to just do it herself, but she knew any undisguised offer of help would only be received badly.

Rey quickly made her way over to Rose after letting Ben out of the corral. “Hey,” she said, projecting what she hoped was innocent nonchalance despite the mounting stress now threatening to explode out of her at the seams. “Do you mind walking everyone around the ranch while Ben and I get tacked up? I feel bad making everyone just sit here and wait for us.”

Rose readily agreed and led the entire group away toward the big gate on the other side of the casita, where Luke parked his truck. Once they were out of sight and even Kaydel—who was too nosy for her own good—stopped rubbernecking, Rey finished tacking up Bebe and then ducked into the shed for Whisper’s bridle.

She helped Ben wordlessly, hoping he would accept it without his usual displays of defensiveness. He seemed to accept that it was necessary to save time and said nothing when Rey once again offered herself as a source of leverage to help Ben pull himself into the saddle. She really needed to pick up that mounting block.

They were both sitting astride their respective horses when the others trickled back into the yard. Rey only guided Bebe away from Ben long enough to discuss potential routes with the others.

“I think we should pick something easy,” Rey suggested. “Maybe the trail that runs between the hills up to the pass.”

Finn and Tallie both groaned in unison. “I thought we were going to take the horses down into the wash,” Finn argued, his lips pursed in disappointment.

Rey had promised them as much after Poe had vetoed the trail that led down into the bottom of the narrows last week—his horse, Black, was just plain awful at navigating loose rock like the kind that lined the edges of the wash they would have had to climb down into.

Even on a better day, Rey would have thought twice before making Ben tackle a steep grade on difficult terrain, given he’d only ridden Whisper once so far. After seeing the condition Ben was in before they’d even started the ride, Rey really didn’t want to push it.

“It’s hot still,” Rey argued. “I don’t want to overwork the horses.”

The horses were far more equipped to deal with the late summer weather than Ben in his stupidly impractical long-sleeved pullover, but thankfully, none of the others saw fit to challenge Rey’s excuse for taking them on one of the flatter, smoother trails for the day’s ride out.

Rey asked Rose to lead the group after showing her the trail she wanted them to take on a map on her phone. It was one Rose was already familiar with, having lived at the ranch the longest of the entire group, and Rey—who had correctly predicted Ben’s predilection for hanging back at the rear of the formation—wanted to keep a close eye on him as they rode.

Ben seemed a bit steadier now on the back of Whisper than he had when Rey first came to fetch him, but Rey didn’t let her guard down even as they rode side-by-side through the gate. He’d seemed close to collapsing when she walked in on him in his bedroom, and the last thing she wanted was to see Ben topple off his horse. It would be a long fall.

They moved together in silence, following the others past the fence-line where the mesquite trees were overgrown, spilling past the property line and into the high desert beyond. The mesquites didn’t grow wild here the way they did in the valley below, but Rey had planted a few seeds when she was little, right after Din and Luke had bought the ranch. She hadn’t been aware at the time that she was asking nature to do something it wasn’t meant to. For whatever reason, they’d thrived up here in the hills just as they did in the valley. They shed their leaves a little earlier and budded a little later, but every spring they exploded in shades of vivid emerald, heralding the warmer season with life itself.

“I’m guessing you recognize the Joshua trees?” Rey said apropos of nothing to Ben, who looked slightly startled at being so directly addressed.

Ben nodded slowly, glancing up at a particularly tall and bushy specimen whose branches splayed out at sharp angles over the trail a few feet above even Ben’s head. “From pictures,” he clarified.

“They’re not real trees,” Rey explained even though Ben hadn’t asked, “not like the mesquites and cottonwoods at the ranch. Oh—so the cottonwoods are the big, tall ones with the kind of fluttering leaves, and the mesquites are the bushy ones with the thorns.”

Ben nodded again. “I know those,” he said without inflection.

That admission completely derailed Rey’s planned spiel in pursuit of giving Ben a full education on Mojave Desert plants.

“Oh. Really?” If he’d never seen Joshua trees before in person, that ruled out a lot of the Southwest, but maybe Ben was originally from New Mexico, or— “Let me guess. You’re from Texas. Everything’s bigger in Texas, right?” Including Ben. Rey smiled a little at her own joke.

Ben, who evidently wasn’t from Texas after all, didn’t laugh. “I grew up on the East Coast,” he replied in a strangely grave tone.

Rey examined Ben closely, slowing Bebe a little when it seemed like her horse might outpace Whisper. He did look like he was from a sunshineless place. Maybe Maine or something. “Which state?”

“All of them.”

“All of them?”

That wrung a tiny exhalation from Ben that one might have generously called a chuckle. “Well, no, not actually. But we moved around a lot when I was a kid, so about half. I was born in New York.”

“I’ve never been to New York,” Rey volunteered. “I had a phase in high school where I really wanted to go to Broadway, but Luke hates flying and he didn’t want me to go alone, so I never went.” She offers the information without projecting an ounce of resentment. She’d been furious at the time, of course, but it hadn’t taken her long to move on from her Broadway phase to the next thing.

Ben was still wearing something akin to a smile. “I never went to Broadway either,” he told her. “My family’s from upstate New York; we lived in Niskayuna with my maternal grandparents off and on until I was twelve.”

Geography wasn’t Rey’s strong suit, but something about the name of Ben’s hometown struck a chord. Where had she heard it before?

“Where’s Niskayuna?”

“Oh, right. It’s just outside Albany, if you know where that is. On the river.”

Rey nodded. She knew of Albany, even if she couldn’t really place it. Luke didn’t talk much about his family, but Rey knew he was born somewhere near Albany and lived there until he was eighteen, and that he’d learned to ride out there on his family’s estate. Rey didn’t mention this to Ben—she was worried bringing up Luke would ruin the mood, and this was the most she’d ever heard Ben speak.

“Where else did you live?”

Ben was relaxed enough in the saddle now that he casually pulled a hand away from the horn to tick the list off on his fingers. “New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina.” He paused and put his hand back down. “Rhode Island,” he added with a tight set to his features. He looked paler now, if that was even possible. “Georgia.”

“Why did you move around so much?” Rey wondered.

“My mom’s job,” Ben answered vaguely, before clarifying: “She did environmental law, mostly.”

“Oh. That’s really awesome.”

“Yeah.”

The look on Ben’s face didn’t seem to indicate he agreed, and Rey suddenly felt herself worrying that Ben’s politics might be on the opposite end of the spectrum from her own.

“You’re not like, one of those guys who thinks climate change isn’t real, right?” Rey asked suspiciously.

Ben shook his head slowly, a confused expression spreading across his face before he seemed to realize what Rey was driving at. “No, I just—my mom and I don’t really get along, so.”

“Oh.” Rey blushed. “Right. Sorry.”

She scanned the landscape ahead of them for a suitable distraction from the topic at hand. There were recently bloomed desert marigolds dotting the landscape like constellations and some isolated patches of sage and ragwort emerging from cracks in the sand. But then Rey spotted a sprawling groundcover of green and red a few dozen feet from the edge of the trail and she stopped Bebe short immediately.

“Hold on a sec,” she called out to Ben, who had no trouble at all getting his lazy steed to come to an abrupt halt.

“What is it?”

Rey pointed off in the distance. Ben screwed up his face, squinting in the direction of her finger. “What is that—a cactus?”

“Prickly pear,” Rey replied with an excited grin. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.” She considered calling out to Rose to stop the rest of the group, but they were already too far ahead, so she handed her reins to Ben, hopped off Bebe, and made a mad dash through the brush over to the isolated treasure trove of perfectly ripe fruit.

Rey was always ready to eat on the trail. She kept a multi-tool and a lighter in her front pocket for occasions such as these—or for when Poe invariably sat down on some devil’s spineflower and needed the thorns removed from the back of his pants—so it was easy enough to pick out a fruit that looked intact and healthy and bring it back over to Ben with her prize held aloft on the tip of her knife.

Ben watched with his head cocked as Rey pulled out her lighter. She got as close as she dared to him, not wanting to spook Whisper with the flame.

“The fruits have these little spines on them, just like the pads,” Rey explained as she methodically set fire to the glochids on the exterior of the prickly pear. “It’s easier to burn them off before you try to peel the skin.”

She glanced up at Ben, feeling pleased by his wide-eyed expression. He looked like a ten-year-old boy at a science fair watching a baking soda volcano for the first time.

“Then,” she continued, “you can just cut into it like this.”

Rey pulled the denuded fruit off the blade with her fingers and carefully cut into it, slicing it into several large chunks. She popped one into her mouth and bit down, savoring its familiar brightness. To Rey, this tasted like childhood, like the first time Luke had picked a pear for her in the backcountry when she was barely five years old, too young to know she wasn’t supposed to let the red-purple juice run down her chin and stain her clothes.

Rey offered the next chunk to Ben, who delicately plucked it from her hand with his own much larger fingers. He examined it for a few seconds before cautiously placing it in his mouth, whole. He chewed thoughtfully, his expression inscrutable.

“It’s good,” he said finally, squinting a little. “It’s weird.”

Rey handed him a few more pieces before popping the rest into her mouth. She climbed back up into Bebe’s saddle and grinned with a mouth full of cactus fruit at Ben, who wrinkled his nose at the sight of her teeth stained berry-red.

“Come on,” she urged. “Let’s catch up with the others.”

The conversation remained light after their unexpected detour. It didn’t take them too long to catch up with the rest of the group, who had already reached the end of the trail and then turned around to head back to the ranch.

Rey waited until everyone had passed them to ask Ben the question that had gotten away from her earlier. “So how come you recognized the trees at the ranch if you grew up on the East Coast?”

“We have cottonwoods back east,” Ben explained. “They might be a little different than the ones you have here; I don’t know for sure. But they look a lot like the ones we had at the house in New York.”

“What about the mesquites?” Rey asked. She hadn’t thought about the fact that cottonwoods were widespread enough for Ben to be familiar with them, but she knew for a fact that there weren’t mesquite trees in Rhode Island.

Ben’s face turned pensive. Almost sad. “There was a girl from Arizona in one of my classes my second semester of college,” he said, so slowly that Rey couldn’t help but wonder what he was intentionally not saying. “She did a series of botanical prints based on plants from her hometown for our final portfolio. I recognized them from that.”

Rey wondered if Ben had dated this girl—if it had ended badly. Maybe that was why he had come to the ranch. It wasn’t uncommon for them to get clients seeking to recover from catastrophic breakups. It’s just…usually those clients weren’t heterosexual men in their thirties. Not that Rey knew Ben’s sexuality, or even his age, for certain.

“Really,” Rey said, choosing not to address her suspicions about Ben’s past, “you remember it from—how far back even was that?”

“I have a good memory,” was all Ben said in response.

Despite the conversation ending on a slightly melancholy note, Rey was more than pleased with the incremental progress she’d made in chipping away at Ben’s stony exterior by the time they finished the ride.

Ben took a good while longer than the others to untack his horse. Rey lingered at her own hitching post, using the extra time to give Bebe a leisurely grooming. She was curious whether the slowness of Ben’s pace was due to the problems he often experienced with his hands, but not wanting to hover over his shoulder the whole time, she was left wondering.

Once the horses were back in the corral, Rey silently escorted Ben back to the house for the group therapy session. The others had pushed the couches and chairs against the walls into a vague approximation of a circle, and Din was already seated in front of the fireplace, his hands folded over his lap, waiting for them with a patient expression.

Rey had to stuff down the urge to take Ben’s hand and pull him down next to her when she took her usual seat on the smaller of the two couches. Instead of sinking down onto the couch cushion next to her—Rey had left plenty of room—Ben made a beeline for the chair in the corner to her right, putting himself almost as far away as possible from Din.

“Great, now that everyone’s here,” Din said with a soft clap, “let’s get started. Ben, since you’re the newest addition, would you like to introduce yourself to everyone?”

Ben’s face went a bloodless white.

It was clear he was under the mistaken impression that Din wouldn’t force him into the spotlight during group therapy. Rey assumed that was due to Din’s penchant for playing softball with difficult clients during the first few therapy sessions. He’d told her once that he often tailored his personality and communication style to match whatever he thought the patient needed most. Rey wasn’t sure why Din thought Ben needed this.

“I’m Ben?” he mumbled. Ben opened his mouth as if to add something else but then snapped it shut with an audible clack as his teeth came together.

Rey looked around at the others, who seemed equally as puzzled as she was. No one greeted Ben back.

“Why don’t we try an icebreaker activity?” Din suggested. “That way Ben can have a chance to get to know everyone else before we get into our discussion.” He turned to face Tallie on his right. “Tallie, do you want to come up a guessing game for us?”

“Oh, uh, sure! Should I explain it first for—for Ben?”

“Please.”

Tallie gave her topic a few seconds of thought and then her face lit up. “Ooh, okay, so we’ll do sun signs. I think I could guess everyone’s by now, honestly.” She turned ever-so-slightly in her seat to face Ben as she explained, “So, I’ll go first and guess Finn’s sun sign, like, the zodiac?” She didn’t seem confident that Ben had any knowledge whatsoever of astrological jargon. “Then Finn will say what his sun sign actually is, and he’ll guess for Kaydel, and then we just keep going around the circle until it gets back to me.”

Ben nodded to indicate he’d understood, but he didn’t look happy about it. His jaw was clenched tight and when Rey glanced down at where his hands were pressed against his thighs, she discovered that his fingers were curled into tight fists.

Despite Ben’s effort to distance himself from everyone else in the room, he was still the person to Rey’s immediate right. When it came around to her turn, after Kaydel had guessed based on her pre-existing knowledge of Rey’s September birthday that Rey was a Virgo, Rey found herself floundering to give an adequate guess for Ben.

Rey didn’t know the first thing about astrology despite Tallie’s repeated attempts to suck her into it, so she picked one entirely at random, thinking it would be kind of impressive if she was right, and funny, at least, if she was wildly wrong. “Aries, maybe?” She only remembered that one because Tallie had once told her that Din’s April birthday was the reason he was such a natural leader.

Tallie’s slight frown made it clear it was a bad guess on her part.

Rey turned to check Ben’s expression for any evidence that she might’ve somehow guessed right. But Ben wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at anyone, his eyes trained on the rug, his face hard. He remained silent for so long that even Rey, who was normally unflappable during the most awkward of group therapy sessions, started to feel a bit unsettled.

“Ben?” Din prompted.

Ben sucked in a quick, rattling breath. “This is bullshit,” he said finally, his tone so quiet that Rey had to strain to hear him.

“What was that?” Din asked calmly.

Finally, Ben looked up. There was fire in his eyes as he glared across the room at Din, who met Ben’s fiery gaze with perfect impassivity. “I said,” he repeated, forcing out the words through gritted teeth, “that this is bullshit. All this astrology shit—it’s not real.”

“It’s just a game,” Rey replied. “It’s just a way to get to know each other.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could think twice about them—or how Ben, who was defensive even at the best of times, might perceive them as an attack.

Ben whirled on her immediately. “How is some pseudoscientific garbage that assigns immutable traits to someone based on the arbitrary circumstances of their birth a good way to get to know someone?” he demanded.

Rey didn’t have an answer. No one else seemed to have one, either. But it was clear that someone had to say something, because Ben was just getting angrier and angrier as the seconds ticked by, and Rey was pretty sure that if Ben kept looking at her like that for much longer, she would burst into tears.

At last, Din swooped in. “Let’s end the session early,” he suggested, suddenly acting as though Ben’s outburst hadn’t happened. “Tallie, will you help Rey with dinner?”

Rey reluctantly rose from her seat, watching from the corner of her eye as Din got up and walked over to Ben, who was still vibrating in his chair like he was a bomb about to go off. She wanted to know what Din was saying to him and was just about to come up with an excuse to linger a little while longer before leaving the room so that she could eavesdrop. But then Tallie stepped in front of her, blocking Ben from view as she slotted her hand into Rey’s with a serious sort of expression as she pulled Rey toward the kitchen, leaving their conversation just another mystery unsolved.

Rey never came to Ben’s door that night. Ben expected as much after his outburst, but he couldn’t help but feel disappointed by her absence.

Two pills didn’t help him sleep this time.

Ben tossed and turned in his sheets while Finn snored away. Sometime after the insistent chirping of the crickets outside turned to a low murmur, Ben decided to take a walk.

It was cooler than Ben expected when he stepped out onto the front porch. A night breeze cut through the otherwise still air, raising trails of goosebumps on his arms even under with the relative protection of his sweater. Apparently, he was already acclimating to the heat. Ben’s stomach twisted at the realization. This place was already leaving its mark.

Even though it had only been hours since they rode out, Ben had difficulty finding the trailhead they’d taken the horses on now that it was dark. The moon was setting later and later each night, but it was only half-full now, leaving Ben to rely more on his night vision as he picked his way through the sparse allotment of Joshua trees that encircled the ranch.

Finally, Ben found the little dirt trail that curved through the hills. Then he walked. And walked. And walked.

Ben didn’t have a goal in mind as he wandered. He didn’t know where he was going or when he should turn back. His phone was still turned off, still tucked safely in his backpack, where it would be of no use to him if he were to take a wrong step and go tumbling off a canyon cliff. There was something oddly reassuring about that. Ben’s boots crunched loudly against the gravel as he walked, providing the only aural accompaniment to his trek in the silence of the night.

Ben soon came across a tight gap between two hills where the trail turned east and began to ascend. He didn’t remember this place from the ride. Ben stood there for a long while, assessing the path ahead. It was harder to make out the true scope of the mountains from inside the fence-line of Skywalker Ranch, where the foothills still blocked much of the range to the east from view. Ben had never much cared for mountains, but the ones before him loomed large as leviathans—towering behemoths that blocked out the stars.

Ben decided to keep going.

Scrubby trees clung to the steep slopes rising up on either side of the winding path. The air was even colder now despite the hills shielding Ben from the breeze coming in from the valley. As Ben continued onward, the trees and shrubs grew denser and soon began to encroach upon the trail. Ben pushed through, letting the protruding branches catch on the sleeves of his sweater. A sweet, resinous smell stuck to his clothes as he created a wake in the thick vegetation. There was a sharp pang of familiarity as the scent hit Ben’s nostrils.

The desert, the mountains…they smelled like Rey. Or maybe Rey smelled like this, like life in the wasteland.

Ben paused for a moment; his hands outstretched on either side to catch a handful of waxy leaves from the flowering shrubs he didn’t recognize. He turned and bent down low, curious whether the scent emanated from the leaves or the flowers. As soon as Ben moved in to investigate, a loud, insistent buzzing split the night air.

Ben froze, something in the primal part of his brain overriding all higher functions in favor of responding to a sound his body had immediately perceived as a threat. Slowly, Ben leaned forward a little more and peered down between the branches.

There was a rattlesnake poised in a tight coil at the base of the gnarled trunk, its head raised in warning.

Ben took a step back. The rattling continued, louder now, more insistent.

Ben took two more steps. Then another. Finally, he took hold of one of the sturdier branches jutting out from the hillside and slowly lowered himself down onto the ground. He settled himself with his legs crossed, hands on his knees, thinking of Rey in her meditative posture. Then he watched the snake from a distance, waiting patiently as the rattling slowed and then stopped.

Ben didn’t move when the rattlesnake emerged from its hiding spot beneath the bushes. His eyes followed the creature as it slithered out onto the path before it turned and came slowly toward him.

Now that it was exposed to the faint moonlight, Ben could just make out the deep rusty orange of its scales, the broad stripes on its back, its deep black jaw. It wasn’t like any rattlesnake he’d seen in pictures when he was a kid.

Ben watched as the snake slithered serenely through the gravel at his feet, close enough to touch.

When it disappeared back into the brush, Ben finally picked himself up off the ground and headed back to the ranch.

The sky above the mountains was just beginning to lighten by the time he walked up the front porch steps. Ben paused in the hallway outside his bedroom, turning to peer through the gap of Rey’s cracked door instead. She was asleep still, her face turned towards the wall. Ben watched the rise and fall of her shoulders under the thin knitted blanket that was draped over her torso, her bare legs poking out the other end.

Then he turned away. Two more pills from the bottle on his bedside table did the trick this time. Ben was out like a light before he could remember what it even was that had kept him from falling asleep before. It didn’t matter. Nothing did, anymore.

Chapter Text

Ben wasn’t invited along on the Saturday outing into town after his ill-received outburst during Friday’s catastrophic group therapy session. And that suited him just fine.

Ben instead spent most of the day intending to draw the horses, as he had for much of the past week. The only problem was that his hands wouldn’t cooperate. Not in the expected sense either, like when he’d struggled to hold a pencil properly in the hospital because of the stitches, or when he’d forced himself to do drawing exercises during the flight with Holdo only to give up halfway through because his fingers started to go numb. No, this problem was all new.

Ben couldn’t keep himself from drawing Rey.

The sketches weren’t recognizable as such to anyone else, but Ben could easily see her in the lithe female figures that had started to fill each subsequent new page. Ben felt tethered to Rey in a way that paradoxically only made him feel more adrift. And now that he’d gone and ruined things by yelling at her in front of a room full of people, the drawings were really the only thing Ben had left.

Rey and the others chose to eat dinner in town that night, leaving Ben to scrounge around in the fridge for leftovers. The house had been blessedly quiet all day, but Ben still found himself glancing out the kitchen window down the long dirt drive as he prepared himself a plate filled with small portions of any leftovers that seemed remotely appetizing.

It was dark out when Ben finally heard the sound of the front door closing right behind a chorus of voices, his ears instantly picking out Rey’s from the rest of the rabble. Ben rolled over in bed to face the window at his bedside and kept drawing.

The bedroom door opened a few minutes later. Ben didn’t bother to look over at Finn and continued sketching the band of horses as seen from the corral gate.

“Ben?”

Ben almost fell out of bed in his haste to roll over to look at Rey, who was standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, dressed in the same electric-blue bike shorts she’d worn the first time they’d done yoga together.

He gaped at her, saying nothing, which caused Rey to crook an eyebrow in apparent displeasure. “Well?” she prompted. “Aren’t you coming?”

Ben scrambled out of bed to follow her into the hall. He wasn’t dressed exactly how he liked, but asking Rey to wait for him so that he could change his clothes felt too impertinent, given her all-too obvious impatience. He wasn’t even sure why she’d come to get him—they hadn’t exchanged a single word since Ben had blown up at her during the group therapy session the day before.

The walk out to the gazebo was just the same as it had been before, although the typically peaceful aura that Rey emanated during their nights together had now been replaced by an uncomfortable simmering tension. Ben felt sick to his stomach as he walked behind her, his eyes fixed on her back as they traversed the shoreline path past the pond.

It wasn’t until they’d laid out their mats—Rey must have bought them earlier while she was in town—on the floor of the gazebo that she deigned to address Ben again. “I’m still mad about yesterday,” she told him, holding his gaze with her own and refusing to let him look away. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not.”

Ben nodded. He supposed the expected thing would be to apologize, but something told him Rey wasn’t finished with her lecture.

Ben was right. Rey stared at him for a moment longer before settling back on her hands, staring up at the roof of the gazebo with a sigh. “I didn’t disagree with what you said, you know,” she told him, surprising Ben with the admission. “I just don’t think it was worth the trouble it caused. You need to learn to pick your battles.”

“I know.” Ben wasn’t saying it to appease Rey; he was fully aware that the confrontation hadn’t been necessary. His mouth had gotten him into trouble more times than he could count in his teens and twenties. It was embarrassing to realize that at thirty-five, he still hadn’t mastered the art of shutting the fuck up.

Rey didn’t scold him any further after that. She was mostly silent as she instructed Ben in their routine. This time, she didn’t make any attempt to correct him, even when Ben knew his form was completely off. Rey stared straight ahead over the pond and only met his eyes again as they rolled up their mats and set off toward the house.

“I usually take a walk after dinner on Sundays,” Rey informed him. “So I think I’m gonna keep doing yoga in the mornings for the sake of my routine.”

“Oh.”

“Just on Sundays, Ben,” Rey said with a hint of amusement coloring her tone. “I’d rather do my hikes at night. The light’s all wrong for it in the morning, and I like looking at the stars when I’m walking back.”

Ben nodded. Before he could think better of it, he asked, “Could I go with you? On your hike, I mean. Unless it’s, like, an alone time thing.” Ben felt himself going hot all over. He kept his eyes on the ground and clutched the yoga mat under his arms like it was a lifeline.

“No,” Rey started, and for a second Ben thought he was being rejected. “I usually only go alone because everyone else is always sick of being outside by the time Sunday comes around. Finn went with me once pretty soon after he got here, but a bat flew into his face and he vowed never to hike at night again, so.”

Ben noticed she still hadn’t given him her answer. “So?” he prompted, testing his luck.

“So, yeah,” Rey breathed. “Yeah, Ben, let’s go on a hike.”

The worry that Rey would renege on her decision to allow Ben to accompany her on her Sunday evening hike haunted Ben all throughout the next day. He was relieved when she came to retrieve him shortly after dinner dressed in the same workout clothes she always wore when they did yoga, although this time she was wearing hiking boots instead of slides.

All Ben had on hand was a pair of worn sneakers, but he supposed they would probably suffice. He assumed Rey wasn’t intending to climb a mountain right before bed.

Ben pointedly ignored the curious looks the two of them garnered from the others, who had all gathered in the living room for a rousing game of Clue, as they marched into the main house and straight out the front door. They didn’t run into either Luke or Din on the way, for which Ben was immensely grateful. Ben had started to relax his guard a little more in the evenings once he’d realized the two of them often retired to the casita for the night shortly after dinner.

“Where are we going?” Ben asked when Rey led him not toward the network of trails behind the fence at the back of the house but instead straight down the dirt road that led down into the valley.

“The narrows,” Rey answered, skipping a little as she walked so that Ben didn’t have to slow down to match her pace with his longer stride. “I was supposed to take everyone down there with the horses on Friday, but I figured it’s probably better to wait until it cools down a bit more before we make them climb.”

It was sound reasoning, but Ben still thought it was probably a lie. He knew how he must’ve looked when Rey had walked in on him the other day. But he wasn’t ungrateful that she’d chosen to make things easier on him during their ride. Ben was still convinced that one wrong move while riding Whisper would launch him straight out of the saddle and send him soaring into a cactus.

“What are the narrows?”

“You’ll see,” Rey replied cryptically.

It was several long minutes before Rey’s promise was realized, during which Ben busied himself with watching the sun’s slow descent over the hills and the mountains beyond, at the far edge of the valley. Ben could see more of the route he and Holdo had taken the night he’d arrived at the ranch as they continued on, eventually reaching the crest of the hill where Ben got his second glimpse of the twinkling lights of the town below them, like a shimmering constellation of human habitation.

“It looks busier than it really is,” Rey told him when she noticed the source of Ben’s attention. “Everything’s real spread out. It’s three-hundred-square-miles of small-town living.”

Ben’s eyebrows soared at the realization that the town he was looking down at was more than a quarter of the size of the entirety of Rhode Island. “How many people live there?” he wondered.

“About thirty thousand in the winter; less in the summer. Lots of snowbirds,” Rey explained. “It probably seems pretty big compared to the small towns out where you’re from, but it’s…different. You’ll see. Next time we go to town. Din doesn’t like anyone to go out their first weekend.”

Ben’s cheeks warmed a little upon realizing that his assumption that Rey had intentionally chosen not to invite him out with the group was, in fact, false. He did remember Din saying something to that effect now that Rey had reminded him.

“This is the path to the narrows, right here,” Rey said as she jogged ahead of him a ways to indicate a small dirt pull-out just off the road where Ben could see the beginnings of a trail that descended rapidly into the canyon below.

Ben approached Rey at the canyon’s edge and looked down at the steep series of switchbacks that led down. “You were going to take the horses down that?”

“They know their way,” Rey replied nonchalantly. “Well—all of them except Black, anyway. Come on.”

Ben followed her down into the bottom of the canyon. It was wide and deep, with a gravelly floor from which plants Ben was just starting to recognize sprang up directly from the rock. “What is that one?” Ben asked as they passed one of the dark green shrubs that grew in abundance near the gazebo. It was dark enough now that the flowers had already unfurled into silky, white trumpets. Ben could see a hummingbird moth perched inside of one of the large blooms, its wings fluttering so fast they were just a blur.

“Datura,” Rey replied without even bothering to glance back at the plant Ben was asking about. “It’s a hallucinogenic. Not the fun kind.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” Ben wondered.

“Fuck no,” Rey replied with a barking laugh. “That shit’ll kill you. For real.”

“Good to know.” Out of an abundance of caution, Ben gave the clumps of datura a larger berth from then on.

As they continued through the large wash—which didn’t seem to fit the name Rey had given it earlier at all—it got darker and darker, until Ben could barely make out the way ahead, although Rey didn’t seem perturbed one bit by the loss of visibility.

“Here,” she said, turning to hand him her phone with the flashlight turned on after the third rock he’d tripped over. “The narrows are just ahead; look.”

Ben faced the flashlight in the direction of Rey’s finger pointing into the darkness. He hadn’t been able to see it before, but there was a narrowing in the canyon ahead: sheer gravel slopes turning to solid rock, with a jagged path running between. The entrance looked foreboding under the looming twilight, like a yawning black mouth.

Rey skipped merrily ahead again, forcing Ben to follow.

The floor of the chasm was wider than its upper portions. Ben traversed it carefully, shining his light onto the rock above his head in fear that he would brain himself if he wasn’t careful. For the most part, he was able to wend his way through the twisting slot without any issues, but there was one boulder balanced precariously between the cliff walls near the end of the passage that Ben had to bend at the waist to duck underneath.

“Cool, huh?” Rey asked with a breathless smile as Ben emerged from the narrows, the flashlight casting strange, stark shadows onto her face. “Oh, watch out—” She pointed at Ben’s feet, and he glanced down just in time to avoid stepping on something unexpectedly large and hairy.

Ben jumped, the shock of the tarantula at his feet causing his heart to skip a beat for a moment. Then he carefully moved over to Rey’s side and trained the light on the massive arachnid, examining it the same way he used to study bugs in his grandparents’ backyard under a magnifying glass when he was a kid.

“You seem like you would’ve had a pet spider as a kid,” Rey remarked. When Ben turned to look at her, she was watching him with an odd expression on her face, one he couldn’t parse.

“My mom would have freaked,” he told her, feeling a smile spread across his face without permission. “Bugs and snakes and frogs were all outside-only pets.”

“I once tried to catch a rattlesnake as a pet,” Rey said very seriously. “I was seven. I thought Luke was going to die of a heart attack once he realized what I was holding.”

“What did you catch it in?”

“Bike helmet.”

That got a laugh out of Ben that rang loudly throughout the canyon. Rey smiled back at him and beckoned him onward. “Come on,” she urged. “The narrows are cool, but that’s not what I wanted to show you.”

They traversed the same sort of wash for some time, with Ben momentarily finding himself distracted by the hooting of a great horned owl, which had him spinning around in confusion trying to find any kind of suitable tree for it to roost in. There were none within eyeshot of the canyon, and it took Ben several more seconds to locate the dark outline of a large bird perched high above on the cliffside, its shape silhouetted against the faint glow of the fading twilight.

Rey didn’t acknowledge the owl’s presence at all, still forging ahead at a pace that Ben was struggling to keep up with the further they walked. He wasn’t exactly built for cardio.

Ben soon noticed that there were more of those same waxy shrubs with the white and yellow flowers growing along the edges of the canyon walls. Ben drifted over to one and crushed some of the leaves between his fingers, inhaling the sharp aromatics deeply. When Ben turned to ask Rey to identify the plant for him, he discovered that she had already gone ahead without him, and he had to sprint through the gravel to catch up.

When Ben finally made it back to her side, Rey immediately reached out to grab his hand in hers. Ben was so distracted he forgot to ask her about the plant and instead had to concentrate all his willpower on not ripping his fingers out of Rey’s grasp—not as a reflex this time, but instead out of a sense of sickening wrongness. She shouldn’t be touching him—no one should.

Rey pointed aggressively at a series of jutting rocky ridges ahead that extended diagonally across the canyon, cutting through the natural flow of the wash. “This is what I wanted to show you,” she said excitedly, practically dragging him the rest of the way over to the mounds, which were much darker in color than the rest of their surroundings.

It wasn’t until Ben was close enough to reach out and touch the large rock formations that he realized what it was that Rey had intended to show him. “Oh my god,” he muttered to himself as he walked the length of it, slipping his hand out of Rey’s without much fanfare, too distracted by what he was seeing to even remember why it mattered. “Oh my god.”

“I knew you would be such a nerd about this,” Rey teased, practically bursting with glee as she watched Ben pace back and forth with his hands outstretched. “You can touch them,” she told him. “The fossil police aren’t going to arrest you.”

Ben snorted softly under his breath at that, but he was still painstakingly gentle when he reached out to drag his fingers over the rough impressions of coral and seashells millions of years old protruding from the pockmarked, black rock.

“I’m guessing you were also one of those kids who was way too into dinosaurs,” Rey said as she watched Ben examine every nook and cranny of the ancient coral reef.

“Maybe just a tad,” Ben admitted.

He didn’t tell her that he’d asked for dinosaur-themed birthday cakes four years in a row, or that one of his first major drawing phases had involved copying every single dinosaur from one of the children’s science textbooks his parents had bought him onto the base boards of his childhood bedroom. His dad had gotten a laugh out of it and his mom had been furious—but Ben’s grandfather had talked her into letting him keep the collection of juvenile scrawls. The dinosaurs had remained in Ben’s room until they moved away from Niskayuna for the final time. He no longer had any idea whether they were still there.

“What was your favorite?” Rey asked.

“I always liked the water dinosaurs more than T-rexes,” Ben replied. “Like elasmosaurus, or liopleurodon.”

When Ben turned around again to face her, Rey was laughing silently into her hands.

“What?” Ben demanded.

“It’s just kind of funny,” Rey replied, still laughing. “You’re really in the right spot for ‘water dinosaurs’; Nevada’s state fossil is an ichthyosaurus. There’s even a state park a few hours from here that has a bunch of ichthyosaur fossils all layered on top of each other in a big house in the middle of a ghost town.”

Ben’s eyes were already the size of saucers as Rey continued. “It’s not very impressive if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but they have a full fossil hanging up somewhere in Las Vegas. Maybe we could take a field trip out there someday.”

Ben turned his eyes back to the fossil reef, not wanting Rey to see the extent of the blush he could feel spreading across his face. “Thank you,” he finally managed, “for showing me these.”

“You’re welcome,” Rey replied easily. “But we should probably head back soon. It’s already pretty late.”

Ben nodded and followed her back down the canyon, lifting his eyes every so often to glance up as the stars above slowly blinked into existence.

On Monday, Poe finally returned from his weeklong vacation to San Diego with Zorii, Paige, and Shara, and after Rey had been subjected to what felt like the entirety of Poe’s camera roll, they each went about their normal routines, which, for Rey, meant no more one-on-one horsemanship lessons with Ben.

Rey quickly discovered that she missed them more than she thought she would.

It was that thought that propelled her over to the tack shed to corner Poe after Ben had slunk off back to the house.

“Hey,” Rey said, hopping up into the shed as Poe busied himself with sweeping. “How was your first day back?”

Poe glanced up at her sharply, as though she’d said something horribly offensive. “I don’t know how you managed with that on top of everything else,” he said. “Christ.”

Rey stared at him blankly. “What are you talking about?”

Poe stopped short and leaned heavily against the drag broom. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, his thick brows drawn together in confusion.

“I mean, I guess Ben’s been a little more difficult than some of the others, but—”

“That’s an understatement,” Poe said with a loud scoff. He resumed sweeping, moving past Rey to get into the corner. “He’s a goddamn nightmare.”

Rey was too flabbergasted by Poe’s assessment of Ben to dig any deeper into what exactly had gone wrong during their lesson before Poe left the ranch for the day. When she attempted to ask Ben about it during their yoga time that evening, she was met with stony silence as Ben’s face shut down completely right in front of her eyes.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he finally managed.

Rey quickly changed the subject after that.

On Tuesday, it was easier for Rey to avoid meddling in Ben’s affairs; she was too busy with her lessons with the girls to think about much else. During yoga, Rey was careful not to mention Poe at all.

Wednesday was no different—until ten minutes into Ben’s lesson period, when Poe suddenly stormed into the feed shed where Rey was choring to beg Rey to take Ben back.

“What?”

“I can’t fucking stand him,” Poe confessed. “He’s driving me insane. I’ll trade you for Kaydel instead.”

Rey, who had been making slow but steady progress with Kaydel in perfect alignment with Din’s goals for her anxiety, did not want to trade Kay’s lessons for Ben’s. But she didn’t want to leave Ben in Poe’s hands either, not if things were going this badly.

Rey considered her options. “You do extra clean-up in the corral; I’ll take over for Ben.”

“Done.” Poe’s acceptance was instantaneous. Ben must have really gotten under his skin. Poe hated mucking out the corral.

But Rey didn’t have time to wonder just how Ben had done it. She knew firsthand how difficult Ben could be, but they’d had far worse-tempered clients—and Poe had started working there right before they’d first taken in an entire troupe of eighteen-year-old boys who had just aged out of a wilderness therapy program in Utah. That had been a long summer.

Rey sighed and shoved the inventory clipboard into Poe’s waiting hands before heading straight out to meet Ben, who was standing with his forehead pressed against Whisper’s neck over at the hitching posts. He jumped when Rey marched up to Black, her boots crunching loudly through the gravel. Ben stared at her with watery, questioning eyes, looking even more forlorn than usual. Rey forced a smile onto her face and untied Black from the post.

“Come on,” she said simply. “Let’s head to the barn.”

Rey didn’t ask Ben about Poe until they were inside the riding arena, the gate securely closed behind them. It gave the illusion of privacy, if nothing else. Rey pulled out the mounting block she’d purchased over the weekend from its new hiding spot behind the rail and carefully positioned it under Ben’s left stirrup.

“I’ll hold the reins for you,” she offered. It would be one less thing for Ben to worry about; even with the mounting block, she didn’t expect it to be easy for him to climb on. And she was right—Rey pointedly looked away as Ben awkwardly swung himself up into the saddle and then adjusted himself.

“Can I ask why you had such a hard time with Poe?” Rey asked carefully as she put the block back.

Ben didn’t answer until after Rey had climbed into the saddle and pulled Black around to face him and Whisper.

“It’s stressful, sometimes,” Ben finally said without meeting Rey’s eyes, “being around…other men.” His face twisted a bit, and Rey wondered if he’d been more honest with her than he’d meant to be. He glanced up at her with a strangely accusatory look in his narrowed eyes. “Why are the lessons even gendered in the first place?” he asked.

It was an understandable question. They had discussed it at length when they first decided to hire Poe; Luke had been adamantly against it at first, but Din had swayed him after agreeing to implement it on a case-by-case basis. Ben wasn’t the first boy—man—Rey had ever taught in her capacity as an instructor after they’d transitioned from a summer camp for kids into an adult equine therapy program, and both she and Poe had had their fair share of nonbinary students throughout the last few years.

“It’s designed to be more for the boys’ benefit,” Rey explained. “Din thinks that it’s helpful for the young men who come here to have a positive role model who teaches them things like empathy and compassion, especially toward animals. When we were a summer camp, Luke kind of filled that niche for the boys we took in. When we hired Poe, he took over that role after we decided to formalize it a bit more once we switched over to exclusively adult clients.”

Rey leaned heavily onto the saddle horn and sighed again. “It’s not a big deal that you didn’t mesh with Poe,” she reassured Ben, who was still looking at her with a wary, distrustful expression. “We have completely different teaching styles, and if you’re more comfortable working with me from now on, I’d be happy to keep giving you lessons for the rest of your time here.”

Ben nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said in a low voice.

“Okay, good.” Rey replied. “Let’s get started then.”

Everything went smoothly as they went over the basics again. Both Rey and Poe followed a pretty rigid syllabus for the first two weeks of horsemanship, with minor adjustments as needed. The first lesson focused on tack; the second on walking; the third on posting the trot; and the fourth on sitting it. Rey figured Ben must have already gone over posting with Poe on Monday, but she wanted to see his form for herself given his issues with posture during his initial ride, so after she was satisfied that both he and Whisper were sufficiently warmed up, she called out to him to cue Whisper to trot.

As soon as Whisper’s gait shifted, Rey realized exactly what had gone wrong in Poe’s lesson on Monday.

Ben was terrified.

“Okay, slow to a walk!” Rey called out hastily.

Ben was quick to obey, his face sagging in relief as he pulled hard at the reins; harder than was necessary, given that Whisper was far too lazy to sustain a trot without consistent cueing.

“All right, now stop him there.” Rey pulled Black over to where Ben was stopped on the rail, his head bowed low, his cheeks crimson.

Rey could guess exactly why Ben and Poe had clashed. Ben didn’t like pushing himself beyond what he was comfortably capable of; Poe wasn’t the type to let someone give up without a fight. It typically worked well with male clients—a lot of them needed a firmer hand than Rey was comfortable delivering.

It was clear that a firm hand was the last thing Ben needed.

Now that Rey was close enough to speak at her normal volume instead of having to shout across the arena to Ben, she softened her voice as she went over what exactly she wanted him to do.

“Did you do any posting on Monday?” she asked.

Ben nodded tightly.

“I’d like you to try it again, but you can slow him to a walk whenever you feel like you need to—just be careful with the reins, you shouldn’t need to pull too hard with Whisper. You should be able to relax your thighs a little and he’ll start to slow down. Try posting as you go around the arena and then stop here again.”

Ben only managed to post a few times before allowing Whisper to slow to a walk, but he repeated the process again and again as he circled the rail, occasionally posting for just a bit longer before taking the next break. But when he stopped again next to where Rey and Black were parked, his face was just as drawn and bloodless as it had been during his first attempt. It wouldn’t do him much good to have the technical skill in trotting, Rey decided, if he didn’t have any confidence in the end result.

“You’re in control of the horse even if it doesn’t feel like you are,” Rey reminded Ben as he stared down at the reins in his left hand. That wasn’t true of every horse, of course, but with Whisper, Ben did have the upper hand—even if he didn’t know it. “Whisper’s big; he moves a lot faster than some of the other horses. Once you get used to how it feels, it won’t feel as overwhelming. You just have to get the muscle memory down and your confidence will follow.”

Ben nodded again and said nothing.

Rey checked her watch. They had quite a bit of time left, but Rey thought that it would be better to give Ben a break after Poe had literally stormed out on him at the beginning of the lesson, so she decided to have him post around the arena just one more time.

Rey found herself stewing on the answer Ben had initially given about why he didn’t get along with Poe as she watched him work the trot. It felt too much like a slip of the tongue to put in her notes to Din, like she would be betraying Ben’s confidence if she shared his admission with anyone else. But she still wondered—why was Ben so uncomfortable around other men?

First Luke, then Finn, Din to some degree, and now Poe…. Ben acted like a completely different person when he was around Rey than he did around any of the men at Skywalker Ranch. Sure, he avoided everyone in equal measure, Rey excluded, but he certainly didn’t react to any of the girls like they presented some kind of imminent threat—usually, he just ignored them entirely.

Ben had mentioned not having a good relationship with his mother before, but Rey didn’t recall Ben mentioning his father at all. Maybe—

Rey shut down that line of thinking immediately. That wasn’t any of her business. She wasn’t the therapist here—God knows she’d heard that lecture enough times over the past six years for it to stick.

“Okay, good,” Rey called out as Ben approached her once more. “Let’s call it there for today.”

Rey noticed as they untacked at the hitching posts that Ben still looked a little withdrawn, the tension in his neck and shoulders even more defined than usual. She waited until they went out together into the corral before planting herself in front of Ben again right in the middle of the pen, with all the horses milling around them.

“Can I try something that might seem a little weird?” Rey asked.

Ben stared at her with his brows drawn, but after a long moment, he nodded.

Rey sucked in a deep breath and stepped forward to wrap her arms around Ben’s middle. Ben immediately stiffened, his arms coming up to hover over her shoulders, like he wasn’t sure how to react.

“Squeeze me as tight as you can,” Rey instructed, her eyes screwed up tight as she pressed her face into the radiating warmth of Ben’s chest. He was solid against her, and Rey could feel every muscle in his body flexed taut, like a horse ready to run. When he didn’t return the embrace, Rey let out a frustrated little huff against him that caused Ben’s breath to hitch. “Come on, Ben. Squeeze me. Seriously.”

“I’ll crush you,” Ben replied in a small voice.

Rey tilted her head slightly to glance up at him with an unimpressed expression. “I’m sturdier than I look,” she insisted.

Slowly, Ben wrapped his arms around Rey’s back and began to tighten the embrace. She realized almost immediately that she’d underestimated Ben’s strength, but she allowed him to keep squeezing past the point of discomfort and into actual pain before she finally tapped out with a relieved little laugh.

“You weren’t kidding,” Rey said as she stepped back, struggling to catch her breath.

“Sorry,” Ben mumbled, his face flushing.

“It’s fine,” Rey replied with a dismissive wave. “Do you feel any better?”

Ben paused and then shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”

“Luke taught me that trick when I was a kid,” Rey volunteered.

Bebe came over suddenly to interrupt, placing his nose under Ben’s arm with a gentle snort. Rey closed the gap between them again to scratch under Bebe’s jaw while Ben just looked on uncertainly.

“I used to get really anxious every day before I had to go to school,” Rey explained. “So Luke would have me do that right before we got in the truck to help me get out of my head for a minute. I thought it might help.”

Ben nodded. He turned slightly, reaching up with a tentative hand to scratch Bebe’s face on the opposite side. His fingers brushed against Rey’s over Bebe’s throat for just a brief second. “Thank you,” he said softly.

It wasn’t until they began their walk back that Ben asked in a similarly soft tone why Rey had been so anxious about school.

“It was bad enough being a foster kid,” she explained, “but a lot of the parents already suspected Luke was gay even before he met Din—a lot of the seasonal rangers would try to ask Luke out back when he worked for the park, but he always turned them down—so I was easy pickings for the other kids. They bullied me for basically everything you could think of: too tall, too skinny, too freckly—you know.”

Rey had to imagine that with Ben’s big ears and big nose, he did know. They fit him just fine as an adult, but she suspected they would have been ill-suited to a child’s face.

“And then when Din and Luke got together and I was adopted,” she continued, “it got a lot worse, because then I wasn’t just an orphan, I was an orphan with two dads.”

“Oh.”

Rey smiled in a way that she hoped was reassuring. “Things were a little easier in high school,” she told Ben. “We had more money, so the little orphan Annie jokes kind of stopped, and some of my friends were popular enough that most people didn’t feel like they could get away with bullying me anymore. I even got voted homecoming princess my junior year.”

“That’s…nice,” Ben replied, his face screwed up in a quizzical expression, like he couldn’t quite decide whether to be happy for Rey or not. “Did they ever…apologize? For what they did?” He looked strangely pained, and Rey found herself struck by the depth of the sensitivity that lay buried underneath Ben’s prickly exterior.

Rey shook her head. “I did forgive them in the end,” she said. “But I think they all forgave themselves well before I got to that point.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Ben said quietly as they approached the tack shed.

Rey swung herself up onto the front step and braced herself against the doorway, putting herself at eye level at Ben for the first time. “It’s all water under the bridge now, I guess,” Rey said breezily, though it had been a long time since she’d spoken about that aspect of her childhood with anyone. It stung more than she’d expected it to. She paused then, keeping her eyes locked on Ben. “Can I ask a favor?”

Ben nodded. “Yeah,” he replied hesitantly, “okay.”

Rey inhaled deeply and steeled herself before she opened her mouth to ask: “Will you come to dinner tonight?”

If Ben had thought trying to stay in the saddle at a trot was bad, it was nothing compared to being the center of attention at dinner. Everyone—even those, like Rose and Din, who both politely tried not to stare—stole poorly-disguised sideways glances at Ben each time they asked him to pass the salt and pepper. Ben soon decided he would rather eat hay out in the corral than endure another second of being gawked at—especially by Tallie, Kaydel, and Finn, who had all decided after his outburst on Friday to cast venomous looks at Ben whenever their eyes met his across the table.

Luke’s displeasure at Ben’s presence hung over the entire dining room like a roiling thunder cloud.

The only thing keeping Ben glued to his chair was the gentle press of Rey’s knee against his own under the table.

Rey was clearly putting in a concerted effort to involve Ben in the mealtime conversation. With the exception of Din, no one else (including Ben) was playing ball. Still, she positively beamed at every subdued nod or muttered response she got from him in response to her repeated attempts at getting him to chime in. In stark contrast to Rey’s effusive reactions, Luke’s glowering grew even more intense with each passing minute.

Despite dinner’s tense atmosphere, Ben found himself almost floating back to his room afterward, feeling unexpectedly lighter than he had in a long time. When he took up his post in the corner of his bed, his sketchbook propped up against his knees, Ben immediately began to draw. This time, there was no gut-instinct to obscure the subject that swiftly began to reveal itself on the page. Every stroke was bold, purposeful, a careful arrangement of lines coming together in a detailed portrait of Rey’s radiant, smiling face.

Ben resolved to put forth more of an effort after that: gritting his teeth and showing up to dinner every night that week and speaking to the others whenever they happened to address him first. He even almost managed to enjoy himself on the trail ride on Friday, which led them on a more circuitous route up into higher elevations, where the same sorts of trees and shrubs that Ben had first discovered during his midnight hike grew in abundance.

Rey was elated when Ben asked her to name them.

The junipers Ben recognized in the daylight from the clusters of pale indigo berries clinging to their branches; though their diminutive, scrubby trunks looked nothing like the thirty-foot redcedars that Ben had played in the shade of at the park by his grandparents’ house when he was small. The pinyon pines, too, appeared to be an alien species when compared to the loblollies and longleafs that Ben had sought refuge amongst at his high school in Georgia.

The aromatic shrubs whose stubbly leaves and white-and-yellow blooms smelled like Rey fresh from the shower were called cliffrose, and Ben was certain that he had never seen anything like them before coming to Skywalker Ranch.

“I don’t think so,” Rey replied when Ben asked if there were any eastern analogues for cliffrose that he might recognize. “We had a resident once who liked to post pictures on this plant identification app, and I remember him being surprised that cliffrose didn’t grow east of the Rockies at all, not even in Texas, really.”

“It smells nice,” Ben remarked innocently. He blushed a little as he said it, though there was little chance of Rey drawing the connection he had formed between the way she smelled and the plant’s distinctive aromatics.

“Mhmm,” Rey hummed. “When I was little, Luke used to put a little bit of it under my pillow because I liked the smell so much. I still do it sometimes.” She stopped Bebe for just a second to reach down and pluck one of the higher-reaching stems. She extended the sprig to Ben, who accepted it with an unwitting smile.

“Thanks,” he murmured, lifting it to his nose to inhale deeply.

“I like doing this route a few times a year,” Rey explained as they continued on the trail behind the others. “Riding it once or twice a season means you get to see every stage of the landscape—the flowers are always different in the fall than they are in spring.”

“What about winter?” Ben asked curiously.

“Winter is probably my favorite,” Rey replied. “When there’s enough snow on the ground, everything is totally quiet. It feels really peaceful.” She glanced over at Ben with an inquisitive expression. “How long were you planning to stay at the ranch?” she asked.

Ben didn’t tell her that the conditions of his stay had nothing to do with his plans. “Seven weeks,” he replied.

“Oh.” Ben wasn’t sure if he was imagining the slight twinge of disappointment in her voice. “Well, maybe it’ll snow before Halloween this year,” Rey said with a wistful smile. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe.” Ben tried to imagine what the landscape before him would look like all covered in snow, how it would compare to Niskayuna or Burlington or—or Providence.

There were many places Ben would never think of fondly again. The woods outside of Augusta, where they’d made him run until he’d thrown up—where he’d made himself run until he threw up, just to escape whatever was going to happen if the senior boys ever caught him. The office of that Bible-thumping therapist his mom had sent him to in Charleston—even she’d seen the error of that choice. The park near RISD, where Ben sat crying in the snow as his phone filled with text notifications asking him if it was true.

That had been the first time Ben had called his mom in years. She didn’t pick up.

Ben had been at Skywalker Ranch now for less than two weeks, but already he was starting to wonder if this place was destined to become another open wound. He glanced over at Rey, whose face was upturned toward the sun, her smile an echo of the one Ben had memorialized in his sketchbook. It would be all too easy to give her everything she needed to utterly ruin him, he thought.

But Ben had already made that mistake once before. He didn’t plan on making it again.

Chapter Text

Early Saturday morning, Rey practically skipped through the house on her way back to the east wing after making breakfast with the intent of asking Ben if he would like to join her and some of the others on their weekly trip into town. She felt bolstered by their burgeoning friendship and the effort Ben had already made in finally making himself present at dinner, if not for the rest of their meals.

“I’d rather not,” Ben said flatly. His arms were folded over his chest, his expression just as guarded as it ever was when anyone other than Rey was around.

But right now, they were alone. The others were in the kitchen making breakfast, and Rey had come into Ben’s room to find him doing push-ups again in the middle of the floor—though he seemed far less likely to collapse this time around.

Rey frowned. “Why not?” she pressed.

Ben shrugged. “Just don’t feel like being around a bunch of people,” he grumbled without meeting her eyes.

Rey sighed quietly. “Well, here,” she said, shoving the notepad she used for each week’s errand runs into Ben’s chest. “At least put some stuff down for me to get.”

Ben accepted the notepad and pen somewhat reluctantly. “Do you need my card?” he asked.

“Yeah, unless you want me to spend at least half an hour itemizing it for your bill later. Which I would prefer not to do.”

Ben nodded and turned away from her to grab his wallet from his bag. He sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and hunched over the little notepad, his large hands obscuring the list as he jotted a few things down before standing up again and moving back to the doorway to give Rey the notepad and her pen back.

Rey flipped the cover down without looking at what he’d written and waited expectantly as Ben procured a shiny, black credit card from his faded leather wallet. “Here,” he said, extending it towards her. “I don’t really care how much it costs; you can get the brand name stuff.”

“Okay,” Rey replied.

She’d never gotten the impression that Ben was wealthy before, but maybe that was just because he didn’t seem keen to flaunt it the way some of the other rich kids that she’d taught at the ranch had. Rey glanced down at the card for a brief second before she tucked the card into her front pocket, just long enough to confirm that Ben’s first name was apparently just Ben—not Benjamin, or Benedict, or Bennett, or Benson.

Rey smiled brightly as she glanced back up at Ben. “I’ll be back in a few hours, then.”

Ben nodded, his expression unchanged. “Sure.”

Rey gave a little wave as she turned to head back down the hall, but the door to Ben’s bedroom was already swinging shut. She frowned, wondering at the reason for Ben’s unexpectedly frosty attitude. She resolved to confront him about it later if it persisted. The others were likely already eating breakfast without her.

Rey got her fair share of raised eyebrows and smug smirks as she walked into the dining room with her plate. “Fuck off,” she said pre-emptively, throwing herself into the empty chair next to Finn who glanced up at her with a shit-eating grin.

“Someone’s got a crush,” Finn remarked in a sing-song voice.

Rey rolled her eyes. “I’m a good employee,” she argued before summarily wolfing down her breakfast to catch back up with the others, who seemed keen on commandeering the van and leaving without Rey if she wasn’t ready in the next ten minutes.

The teasing was merciless during the drive down into the valley, despite Rey’s insistence that it was part of her job to make sure everyone’s needs were met and that everyone felt included. She took the jokes in stride, for the most part, but it started to grate on her a little by the time the road turned from dirt to pavement nearly half an hour into the drive.

There was a grand total of three grocery stores in town that served an area the size of Delaware. Rey assumed as much, anyway—she’d never been good at geography and didn’t really know how big Delaware was. But each store was located within a stone’s throw of the others, and there was a Home Depot just down the street, which made shopping at multiple locations easy as pie. The only slight wrench in the weekly errand runs was the Tractor Supply located on the westbound highway, but even that was barely five minutes down the road from the main junction at the end of the long road that led east towards the ranch.

Rey started at the Walmart first, because that was where everyone else wanted to go. It wasn’t until the group of them walked through the front doors of the store that Rey remembered to look over Ben’s additions to the grocery list—she liked to plan her route through the store ahead of time.

The first few items were fairly standard: deodorant, razorblades, an unexpectedly specific request for the same brand of shampoo that Rey used. It was only when her eyes roved over the entry at the bottom of the list that Rey stopped dead in the middle of the automatic doors, causing a woman with an overly full shopping cart who was exiting on the wrong side to nearly crash straight into her. Rey got a dirty look for that, but she was too focused on what Ben had written—then crossed out, then written again—to notice.

“Rey?” Rose called back uncertainly. The rest of the group were standing next to the energy drink fridge near the self-checkout, all of them gazing back at Rey with varying levels of bewilderment.

“Um….” Rey glanced back down at her list again and tried to pretend that her face wasn’t beet-red. “Why don’t y’all get what you want from over here,” she proposed quickly. “I’m gonna grab a few things from the other side, and I’ll meet you over by the games.”

Everyone looked even more concerned by her behavior than they did before, but Rey didn’t give anyone a chance to argue with her impromptu plan before shooting off between the front entrance and the checkout stands, making a beeline for the pharmacy section on the other side.

The most pressing problem regarding Ben’s unusual shopping request was that Rey had no idea where to even find it.

Rey figured the health and beauty section was her best bet, but she ended up zigzagging through each aisle twice before finally taking stock of the locked glass cabinet where all the condoms, sex toys, and lube were kept.

Rey felt—with no small measure of annoyance with herself at the realization—like a virgin as she stared haplessly at the locked cabinet. This was so stupid.

There was a brief moment where she allowed herself to entertain the idea that Ben had asked her to buy lube in some sort of fucked-up attempt at humiliation. That was stupid too. Obviously, he just wanted it for normal things. The things everyone wanted lube for.

Rey wasn’t a virgin, and she refused to let herself be embarrassed about the idea of a Walmart employee thinking she was having sex. The barrier in her mind between the concept of ‘Ben’ and ‘sex’ remained firm. Rey wasn’t about to cross that line. Not just because it would be unprofessional, but because it was…Ben.

Rey liked to think she was in charge of her decision-making these days, not her pussy.

After finally pressing the little red button on the outside of the case, Rey settled herself in for a long wait. When she spied a familiar head of frizzy, blonde curls bobbing along in the sea of ambling shoppers a few minutes later accompanied by the flash of a bright blue vest, Rey exhaled sharply through her teeth. She wasn’t sure yet whether to be relieved or mortified.

“I thought you weren’t working weekends anymore,” Rey called out as Zorii approached, her dark eyebrows raised in apparent interest at being summoned to the sex cabinet by Rey of all people.

“I’m covering for someone who’s out sick,” Zorii replied. She rifled through the ring of keys clipped to her belt and jammed one into the lock. “Seemed smart after all the time off.”

“Sure,” Rey said. Her hands were sweating.

“So what’ll it be?” Zorii asked as she slid the panel open. “Hope you’re not fucking someone with a big dick, because we don’t have extra-large. I’d try the pharmacy on 372—you might get lucky there.”

Rey’s skin prickled with the force of her blush. “I’m not buying condoms,” she muttered, shoving Ben’s shopping list into Zorii’s hands.

Zorii stared at Rey quizzically for just a moment before glancing down at the notepad. She examined it for far longer than was strictly necessary before glancing up at Rey again, looking even more confused. “This isn’t for Finn, is it?”

Rey shook her head quickly. “No. We have a new guy up at the ranch. I offered to pick some stuff up for him before we drove down.”

Rey wasn’t expecting Zorii’s instant look of revulsion at hearing about the ‘new guy’. “The guy who was a dick to Poe?”

Rey bristled immediately. “Ben struggles a lot with—”

“He’s gross,” Zorii said, steamrolling over Rey’s excuses for Ben’s perfectly rational reaction to Poe. She grabbed a bottle of lube from the shelf and offered it to Rey, who accepted it somewhat reluctantly. “You should tell Din about this.”

“Why?”

Zorii shook her head with a sigh. “I don’t know how someone who slept with half the girls at our school—including me—can still be so innocent when it comes to sex.”

Rey opened her mouth to defend herself, but Zorii didn’t give her the chance.

“This Ben guy obviously wants you to think about his dick if he’s asking you to buy lube.”

Rey closed her mouth with an audible clack. Her face went hot. She wasn’t so naïve to completely ignore that possibility, but it felt so…un-Ben. He didn’t seem like he wanted anyone to think about him at all.

Zorii cocked her head a little, staring at Rey with an uncomfortably probing look. “Hang on,” she said slowly. “Were you already thinking about his dick?”

“No!” Rey replied, perhaps just a little too quickly.

Zorii threw her head back and laughed. “Look, if Ben tries to put the moves on you, Poe will happily kick his ass.”

Privately, Rey didn’t think Poe’s protection was necessary—if Ben tried to ‘put the moves on her’, as it were, she was pretty sure Luke would literally kill him.

“My hero,” Rey said with an eyeroll. “I should go meet the others; I’ll see you around, Zo.”

As she turned to go, Zorii smacked her hard on the ass. “See ya, babe.” She jingled her keys in a little wave and sauntered off again, leaving Rey standing there at the end of the aisle clutching a bottle of cheap, water-based lube like a lifeline.

Rey glanced down at the little bottle with sigh of resignation. She was already regretting even trying to fulfill Ben’s request. It would have been easier to go back to the ranch empty-handed and just tell Ben that she couldn’t do it.

Her face still showed up bright red in the theft-prevention cameras at the self-checkout after she’d picked up the rest of Ben’s list and went to ring everything up. She securely wrapped the bottle of lube in no less than three plastic bags before tucking it in at the bottom of yet another bag with the rest of his items, hoping it would prevent her friends from getting an accidental eyeful of her embarrassing purchase.

Rey caught up with the others in the back of the store a few minutes later. The group was huddled around one of the display TVs, critiquing the stock footage playing on-screen. Rey took advantage of their distraction to sidle up to Finn without attracting too much attention.

Finn glanced over at Rey sharply when she suddenly appeared at his side. “Are you okay?” he asked, surveying her from head to toe with a dubious expression.

Rey knew how she must have looked—red-faced, out of breath, still flustered from her conversation with Zorii. “Fine,” she replied in an overly chipper tone. “Just ran into Zorii while I was shopping; you know how she is.”

Finn nodded but didn’t look totally convinced.

“Should we grab lunch later before we go back?” Rey suggested as they walked over to the gaming aisles, just as eager to distract the others from her unusual behavior as she was to delay her inevitable return to the ranch. Originally, she hadn’t planned to spend as much time in town as she usually did on a Saturday, hoping—against all evidence to the contrary—that she might be able to coax Ben into playing video games with her and Finn before dinner.

In the end, she was able to detain the group only an hour and no more. Finn was too eager to get back with his brand-new copy of Call of Duty in hand.

Rey didn’t know why he was so excited; she always kicked his ass in shooters. Changing the game wasn’t going to make any difference.

And it didn’t. Rey utilized the time spent on the living room couch with Finn to further procrastinate giving Ben his toiletries—which she’d hidden under the blanket in her room for safekeeping. Finn lost miserably in every single game type they played until the internet mercifully went out, freeing him at last from the yoke of Rey’s digital assault rifle. And pistol. And knife. Finn wasn’t very good at video games in general.

“I’ll get you back next time,” Finn said with a deadly serious expression as he stretched his arms out over the back of the couch.

Rey snorted. “You keep telling yourself that.”

It was even easier to avoid fulfilling her obligation to Ben once Rey’s other duties came to the fore. On weekends, she often had Din helping her cook rather than whichever residents she’d been assigned as assistants for the day, and he hadn’t been there to witness Rey’s mystifying behavior at Walmart that morning, which made it easier to forget that there was anything to be embarrassed about in the first place.

It was harder once Ben showed up for dinner. Rey already knew that she had a tendency to put too much stock in the things other people said, even when it directly contradicted her own experiences, but she still couldn’t help studying Ben out of the corner of her eye as they ate, scrutinizing his every movement for some evidence of previously-overlooked lascivious mannerisms that might have indicated that Zorii had been right about Ben’s intentions in asking Rey to buy him lube.

But of course, he acted the same as ever: a little shy, a lot withdrawn. There was nothing to indicate he’d had any untoward intentions in making the list. Rey was irritated with herself when, while stacking the dishes in the dishwasher, she realized that a part of her had been hoping that he did.

Finally, Rey had no choice but to present Ben with his items when she finally came to his bedroom to fetch him for yoga that night.

“Sorry, I forgot to give you these earlier,” Rey lied as she hastily shoved the bag into Ben’s hands along with his credit card. She watched with a racing heart as he calmly tucked the little package into his duffel bag without saying a word before following her out into the hall.

“Thanks,” Ben eventually said as he closed the door behind him, putting a barrier between Finn’s inquisitive eyes peeking above the top of his book and Rey’s carefully avoidant gaze. She really hoped Finn had the good sense not to fucking snoop.

They walked outside together in silence. The crickets provided a thunderous accompaniment to the plodding of their footsteps through the dirt as they made their way out past the pond.

As they went through their routine, with Ben seeming much more comfortable in each pose than he had the first time they’d done this together, Rey couldn’t get what Zorii had said out of her mind. More than once, she caught her gaze drifting to the front of Ben’s overly baggy joggers, and each time Rey felt instantly guilty. She shouldn’t be objectifying any of their fucking clients. Thanks a lot, Zo.

After a good twenty minutes of agonizing in her mind over what Zorii had insinuated about Ben, Rey couldn’t take any more. “I have to ask,” she blurted out suddenly, rolling out of downward dog and onto her side to face Ben. “About the lube.”

Ben’s face creased into something appropriately chagrined. “Sorry,” he muttered as he carefully lowered himself down onto his stomach. He laid there, propped up on his arms, and stared out into the trees without meeting her eyes. “I know it wasn’t—I probably shouldn’t have asked you to do that. It’s just—” His face went a bit pinched before he slumped down into his arms. “I didn’t want to use your lotion,” he mumbled.

All the moisture in Rey’s mouth evaporated in an instant. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it—

“Why didn’t you ask me to buy you lotion instead?” she wondered, exerting a monumental amount of effort in just keeping her voice sounding measured, unaffected.

“I figured it probably would’ve been pretty obvious what I wanted it for…. I thought just being honest about it seemed less embarrassing.”

“Oh.”

The temperature of the air around them felt like it had risen at least twenty degrees. Rey knew her face must be red, and Ben’s too, but he was still hiding from her in the cradle of his arms, saving them both the additional sting of embarrassment.

“It’s fine that you asked,” Rey reassured him. “I didn’t think you were being inappropriate.” She avoided mentioning the fact that Poe’s girlfriend had. “Obviously, we prefer it if the residents aren’t having sex with each other—” Rey’s throat closed up at the thought. “—but we’re all very, um, sex positive, so.”

Ben didn’t lift his head to look at her, nor did he respond.

Rey cleared her throat and flipped back over onto her stomach. “Let’s finish up,” she said in a graceless effort to shift the conversation away from Ben’s dick and whatever he was or wasn’t doing with it. “It’s getting late.”

They proceeded in near silence, and then said goodnight to each other in the hallway outside their respective bedrooms. There was an almost-moment, where Rey’s eyes met Ben’s unexpectedly in the dark, but neither moved, and neither said anything to the other, and then the moment was gone just as quickly as it had arrived.

Rey didn’t sleep well that night.

Ben was very careful not to think about Rey at all the next day. Even during dinner, he managed to pretend she wasn’t sitting next to him, her knee pressed to his under the table just like it always was. It was a tight squeeze, everyone around the table; Ben had already convinced himself that if he wasn’t on the corner, he would have been sharing leg room with more than just Rey. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.

That same evening, after dinner, everyone congregated in the living room to play board games again—Monopoly this time.

Everyone except Ben, who had decided to utilize the relative privacy afforded by the absence of the other residents of the east wing by spending some much-needed time alone in the bathroom. He brought the bottle of lube—still wrapped up in three layers of gray plastic—with him.

Ben sat down on the toilet and unwrapped the little parcel. There wasn’t anything remarkable about it, but Ben’s heart rate ratcheted up with each second he spent looking at the damn thing. He just needed to get this over with. It wasn’t like there was anything left to be disappointed by. Not anymore.

Ben still couldn’t bring himself to look. He turned off the lights and quickly unzipped his jeans. With one sense dulled, he suddenly realized he could hear the others loudly arguing in the living room. He paused, distracted by the unexpected shift in atmosphere. Rey’s voice stood out from the rest, clearer and more distinct, his ears instinctively attuned to the sound of her breathy giggles as she laughed over the sound of the others fighting about house rules.

With shaking hands, Ben reached down and got himself hard. Suddenly, all he could hear was the sound of his own ragged breathing and Rey’s muffled voice from the other room, carrying through the thin walls, amplified by the bathroom’s silence.

Ben closed his eyes. He allowed his mind to focus solely on Rey’s voice, letting his hand move mindlessly between his legs.

For a moment, it seemed like it might work. Ben’s breath quickened, his hand moving a little faster. It felt good in a way that he barely even remembered. Ben recalled what the last therapist had told him: that it was just depression, or stress, or loneliness—that he could get better. Maybe she’d been right.

Then Finn laughed, loud and long, the sound drowning out Rey’s voice entirely. Just like that, the feeling was gone.

Ben kept moving his hand, vainly searching for an orgasm he knew would never come. He felt sick, all of a sudden, shaky; like all the adrenaline had flooded out of him in a rush and left nothing but emptiness in its wake.

Ben cleaned himself up in the dark.

When he opened the door a few minutes later to let himself out, Ben ran straight into Rey, who was standing in the darkened hallway with her hand extended towards where the doorknob had just been. She looked past Ben, into the pitch-black room beyond.

“Do you always pee in the dark?” she asked, sounding bemused.

Ben opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. He was acutely aware of the fact that his hands were still trembling.

Rey’s expression shifted smoothly from confusion to concern. “Are you okay?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

Ben blinked at her a few times and then shook his head. “I…I need to go lie down,” he mumbled. He pushed past her and hurried across the hall to his room. He was sweating by the time he pulled the covers up to his chin, a hand already outstretched towards the bottle of sedatives.

Ben was still shaking when he fell asleep.

When Ben woke up the next morning, the sun was just barely cresting above the hills, and for some reason, he couldn’t think of a good excuse not to eat breakfast out in the dining room with everyone else.

It would help him get out of his own head at least, he reasoned after the fact, when he was fully dressed and already making his way into the main house. It was early enough that Ben planned to wait out the kerfuffle of breakfast preparation out by the pond before making his way inside to join the others—hopefully with as little fanfare as possible—but he stopped short in the middle of the living room when he locked eyes with Rey, who was standing alone in the kitchen wearing nothing but a thin camisole and a pair of pajama shorts. No bra.

Ben’s heartrate quickened. He felt frozen in place, imagining that he must have resembled some absurd Bigfootesque freeze-frame as he stood there mid-stride, unable to decide whether to continue onward out of Rey’s line of vision as he’d planned, or—

Ben’s feet pivoted left without his permission, and suddenly he was making his way into the kitchen. He was already seated at the island on one of the bar stools before his brain finally caught up with his body.

Rey looked just as shocked to see Ben as he was to see her. He supposed she had more reason for it—Ben had spent most of his residency so far hiding in his own bedroom. But Rey recovered quickly, turning to open the fridge as she asked: “What do you want for breakfast?”

Ben was too focused on the curve of her ass in her tiny sleep shorts peeking out from behind the door to register that she’d even spoken to him.

“Ben?” Rey prompted, straightening up with a carton of milk clutched in one hand. She stared at him, puzzled.

“What?” Ben replied breathlessly. He felt a bit dizzy. He could barely see straight.

“Breakfast. What do you want?”

Ben blinked a few times to clear the fog from his brain. “I’m not picky,” he finally said. It wasn’t strictly true, as Ben was very particular about the things he liked—he just wasn’t that bothered about the things he didn’t. “I’ll have whatever you’re making.”

“French toast it is, then.”

“I could help,” Ben volunteered quickly, stopping Rey in her tracks just as she turned again to get the griddle out from one of the lower cabinets. She, thankfully, hadn’t bent down again yet.

Rey looked surprised by the offer. “You can cook?” she blurted out.

Ben raised his eyebrows.

Rey went a bit pink. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said hastily. “I’m just used to having to teach most of the residents basic life skills when they come here—most of the boys, anyway.”

“I’ve never had much of an affinity for baking,” Ben replied with a wry expression. “You could always teach me that.”

The words came easily, his spirits higher than they’d been in weeks despite the panic attack he’d been rapidly hurtling towards when he ran into Rey in the hallway last night. Ben wondered if Rey had gone on her evening walk alone while he’d huddled under the covers alone in his room, practically sweating through his sheets. He didn’t ask.

Rey laughed a little at Ben’s joke and gestured for him to join her on the other side of the counter. It was easier, then, to avert his eyes whenever Rey leaned down to retrieve the griddle, or the egg carton, or the mixing bowl, or the butter, or the assortment of fresh fruit from the crisper drawer. Ben found himself on mixing duty, carefully cracking eggs into the large metal bowl until Rey decided they’d added enough, and then stirring in the milk and some spices.

They worked in comfortable silence and had created a sizeable stack of French toast on a ceramic platter in the middle of the kitchen island when Ben heard the front door swing open and the sound of heavy boots clomping through the house.

Poe appeared in the entryway to the kitchen a few seconds later, his dark eyes alighting on Ben. His neutral expression was replaced with a scowl in an instant.

Ben stared back warily and continued to whisk the egg mixture as Rey busied herself with taking a few more slices off the griddle.

“Hey,” she said cheerily when she spun around to see Poe standing there.

“Hey,” Poe replied, his face relaxing a little.

He nodded stiffly in Ben’s direction, and Ben returned the gesture in kind before turning his attention back to breakfast.

Poe conversed casually with Rey as though Ben wasn’t there, leaning heavily on the counter as he talked to her about someone named Zorii—girlfriend, Ben thought, from the way he talked about her, but Ben wasn’t interested enough to pay attention to any of the details of the story and instead allowed himself to zone out for a bit until Rey tapped him meaningfully on the shoulder to ask for the mixing bowl back.

“I think we should get Bazine in soon to do the other horses,” Poe was saying. Somehow, the conversation had transitioned to a totally new subject without Ben realizing. “I’m worried about Black throwing a shoe out on trail.”

Rey hummed affirmatively as she tossed a few more slices onto the griddle. “I’ll call her this afternoon,” she promised. “How many slices of French toast do you want?”

The others started to trickle into the kitchen just as Poe was piling his plate high with a truly outrageous portion. Ben understood now why Rey had insisted on using an entire loaf of bread.

Like Poe—Finn, Tallie, and Kaydel all helped themselves to French toast from the platter Rey and Ben had assembled before heaping on their toppings and moving into the dining room to eat. Each of them shot odd looks in Ben’s direction, but he didn’t acknowledge a single one. Only Rose, who gave Ben a tiny smile as she walked into the kitchen, sat down at the island to eat, and she chatted animatedly with Rey as she and Ben finished cooking.

Ben had been expecting breakfast to be another formalized affair with everyone gathering at the table to eat, but it appeared that only dinners required full attendance. Neither Din nor Luke showed up to serve themselves, for which Ben was infinitely grateful. And then Rose departed, expressing a desire to shower before Kaydel and Tallie had a chance to hog the bathroom, which just left Ben and Rey and their empty plates.

Ben glanced over at the dining room, where Finn, Poe, Kaydel, and Tallie were sitting together in a tight clump at the far end, laughing loudly about something Ben couldn’t overhear. The confidence with which he’d woken up seemed to fizzled out of him like air from a popped balloon. There were less people at the dining room table, which should have emboldened him—less people meant less staring—but now Ben felt like his presence would only be an intrusion into a space in which he wasn’t welcome.

“I think I’ll go eat outside,” he remarked to Rey.

She paused with her fork hovering in mid-air, a slice of French toast on the end, and abruptly changed course. The bread landed on Ben’s plate with a dull thunk. “How many do you want?” Rey asked.

“Um. Two, I guess.”

“Syrup?”

“Sure.”

“Fruit?”

“Just the strawberries.” Ben hated melons, but they seemed to be popular with everyone else. The kitchen was always full of them.

Eventually, Ben’s plate was loaded up just like Rey’s, and he gave her a little nod in thanks before turning to go the long way through the living room out to the back door. He wasn’t expecting Rey to follow him, given that all her friends were eating in the dining room, but he said nothing to her about it as he elbowed open the door for Rey to step through.

She trailed him all the way out to the gazebo. “Why do you always eat alone?” she asked in a tone that conveyed no judgment.

Ben shrugged as he delicately lowered himself down, not wanting to spill the mountain of food on his place. “I don’t think the others like me very much.”

“I don’t think you’ve given them a chance to decide if they like you,” Rey argued, “one way or the other.”

“Most people don’t like me,” Ben replied honestly. “Poe doesn’t like me.”

Rey shrugged and shoveled a piece of whipped cream-drenched French toast into her mouth. “Sounds like a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy to me,” she said as she chewed.

There was silence then as they two of them ate, their gazes drifting over the water. When Rey spoke again, nearly a full minute had passed, and Ben had almost forgotten what they were talking about.

“Anyways—I like you.” She declared it simply, her eyes serious as she looked at Ben, who met her gaze for only a second before focusing intently on his dwindling breakfast.

Ben could feel his face growing warmer than was warranted in the early morning shade cast by the gazebo and the surrounding trees. He said nothing.

When he set his plate down, Rey’s was already sitting on the ground next to her. Her arm was outstretched through the gap in the railing between them, her finger tracing abstract patterns in the dirt. Ben felt acutely aware of the fact that they were sitting only a few feet apart, that it would be only too easy to slide closer, to reach out towards her, to take her hand.

Ben watched her, and didn’t move.

Chapter Text

A heat wave unfurled slowly over the course of the day, creeping into even the shaded corners of the ranch. Rey was almost on the verge of collapse when she finished her chores just in time for Ben’s lesson in the afternoon. If it had been anyone else, Rey would have probably called it quits for the day and sought refuge inside.

But Ben wasn’t like anyone else.

Rey already felt conflicted about the way things had gone that morning. Out at the gazebo, there was a moment where it almost felt like—like something had shifted between her and Ben, like if she’d just moved a little closer, or reached for his hand, that he might have….

That was, of course, the exact second that Luke had come storming through the bushes still dressed in his robe and pajama pants to demand that Rey come and look over some expense reports before she started her Monday chores.

The expense reports had been very real, but Rey was positive that they’d pulled double duty as a convenient excuse cooked up by Luke to get her away from Ben. Luke must have seen the two of them heading out to the pond from the window of the casita and found the first thing he could think of to separate them.

And Rey still didn’t understand why Luke’s animosity towards Ben existed in the first place. Maybe it was time to finally ask Din to intervene.

Rey had every intention of following her normal lesson plan despite the heat—which meant more work on the trot in the barn, where they would at least have some shade—but when she spotted Luke lurking near the firepit in the backyard, in clear eyeshot of the hitching posts and the corral, Rey decided to change things up.

She tacked Whisper and Bebe ahead of time and was just finishing up Whisper’s bridle when Ben came walking over, his hands shoved into his pockets. He looked more suspicious than confused, like any slight alteration of their routine should be perceived as an active threat. He didn’t seem to notice Luke, who was huddled in one of the camp chairs with a book in his lap, as he walked by.

“I was thinking we could do a trail ride today,” Rey said in a quieter tone than she would have normally used once Ben had sidled up to Whisper with a questioning look aimed her way. “Just you and me.”

Ben nodded. “Okay,” he said simply. His easy agreement wasn’t a surprise. Rey assumed he knew that riding in the barn meant more trotting.

Rey looked Ben up and down as she unhitched Bebe and buckled his halter to the rail. “You might want to take off your sweater,” she suggested. “It’s pretty hot out today.”

Ben glanced down at his all-black outfit, which covered him from neck to wrist, and shook his head slowly. “I—I get sunburned easily,” he said, his jaw clenching spasmodically as he stared at Rey.

Rey certainly wasn’t going to fight him over it. “All right,” she said, “let’s lead the horses out the back, toward the game trails.” She didn’t have a specific destination in mind. Her only goal was to get out from under Luke’s ever-watchful eye, which was easily accomplished once they exited through the back gate and walked their horses past the grove of mesquite trees.

It was there, at the place where the trailhead split off into half a dozen different meandering paths that Rey finally indicated that they should mount up. The last thing she wanted was for Luke to know that Ben still needed her help getting into the saddle.

“Where are we going?” Ben asked after a few minutes of riding, during which Rey had chosen forks in the trail at random, following whichever looked the least challenging given the current conditions. Today was a really bad day to overwork the horses.

Rey shrugged as she glanced back at Ben. “Nowhere in particular,” she told him. “Just thought it’d be nice to ride out.”

They didn’t exchange much in the way of conversation as they rode. The air was hot and still, the steady beat of their horses’ hooves along the path interrupting the staccato communiques of buzzing insects.

Rey felt like she should say something. But she didn’t.

After cresting one of the gentle hills to the north of the ranch more than half an hour later, Rey was ready to turn back. She glanced back at Ben, taking note of his flushed, sweaty face; the way he sucked in harsh, stuttering breaths as he rocked precariously in the saddle. Rey frowned.

But before she could ask Ben if he was feeling okay, a flash of movement in the gullies below caught her eye.

“Oh, look!” Rey called out, pointing down toward the shapes weaving through the forests of Joshua trees on the hillsides. “Wild horses.”

Ben guided Whisper a little closer to her so he could see what Rey was pointing at. “Did they escape from somewhere?” he wondered.

Rey laughed a little at that. “Like four-hundred years ago,” she replied. “There’s a couple bands that graze around the ranch; they stay up here in the mountains when it’s hot, but they’ll come into town when it’s cooler to eat the grass in some of the parks.”

Rey studied the group for a moment, trying to get a sense of the herd dynamics. “That’s the boss mare,” she said, indicating a black and white paint that appeared to be guiding the rest of the group up onto a steeper ridge. “And the alpha stallion.” She pointed out the liver chestnut. “The stallion is technically at the top of the pecking order, but the boss leads the band.”

“What about the other horses?”

“Mares and yearlings, by the looks of it,” Rey said after another brief assessment of the other horses. It was hard to make out much detail from this far away, but she recognized some of the horses from other encounters with the band.

“There’s only one stallion?”

Rey chuckled at the look on Ben’s face. “Sometimes there’s more than one, but in a group this small, yeah, just the one. It’s a harem,” she added, pre-empting Ben’s inevitable next question. “Horses aren’t monogamous. Young stallions tend to get pushed out of the band when they’re old enough, and the bachelors will band together for a while. And then eventually, they’ll steal a mare and form their own bands. It’s all very barbarous, really,” Rey joked.

Ben didn’t offer up a response, and when Rey turned to look at him again, she found him gazing intently at the horses, his brow furrowed in concentration. Rey turned back to watch them too, her eyes lingering until the last of the yearlings disappeared over the ridge behind its mother.

Bebe snorted and stomped one of his hooves, like he recognized his kin and desired to join them. Rey patted his neck soothingly. “You weren’t cut out for that life, Bebe,” she muttered to him.

“What do you mean?”

When Rey looked up, Ben was staring at her with open curiosity. “Oh—Bebe was wild before we bought him from auction,” she explained. “He was a real menace too; Luke didn’t even want to keep him, but I managed to convince him to stick it out and let me train Bebe myself.” She grinned proudly—and then a strange thought crossed her mind.

“You know, you kind of remind me of Bebe when we first got him,” Rey said with a fond smile. “He was real skittish at first, didn’t want to trust anyone. Took me a couple months before he’d even let me touch him. We had to keep him away from the other horses until he got acclimated to the ranch.”

Bebe had needed her to be a strong handler in the end: a dominant influence that he could trust to ensure his safety. Rey was beginning to wonder if Ben might need the same thing. She’d already decided that a firm hand would do more harm than good, but there was a difference between discipline and control. Maybe she’d been going about this the wrong way. Maybe she needed to take control rather than expecting Ben to do it all on his own.

But if Ben put any stock in Rey’s comparison, his shuttered expression didn’t show it.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Ben said tightly. He was already spinning Whisper around, yanking hard at the reins immediately instead of pushing with them first.

Rey considered reprimanding him for it but decided she’d already done enough damage. Whatever conclusion Ben had drawn from her metaphor, it clearly hadn’t been the one she’d intended. She quickly turned and hastened Bebe ahead to take the lead.

Rey didn’t say a word to Ben as she passed him, nor did she utter a single syllable during the ride back to the ranch. She’d already put her foot in her mouth once. She didn’t want to make things any worse.

The long ride back in full sun didn’t do Ben’s already fraught condition any favors. It was heat exhaustion, undeniably, and it took everything in Rey’s power not to fuss over him like a mother hen when he nearly fell upon dismounting at the hitching posts, his hand shooting up to grab at the stirrup leathers for purchase as he went skittering through the dirt.

Ben glanced up at her warily after regaining his balance. Rey looked away.

She waited a few beats before chancing another sideways glance in Ben’s direction. He was fighting with Whisper’s bridle, his hands shaking so bad he could barely curl them around the crown piece. Rey watched as he jerked it over Whisper’s ears, only to snag the right one as he pulled forward.

Whisper reared back and let out a high-pitched squeal. Rey darted forward to grab the halter around Whisper’s neck. The bridle dropped out of Ben’s hands and landed unceremoniously in the dirt.

One glance at Ben’s face told Rey all she needed to know. He looked devastated.

“It’s okay,” Rey assured him as she calmed Whisper down again so that she could get the halter back on his face. “It was a mistake. You didn’t actually hurt him.”

Ben didn’t respond. He turned away from her and took a seat in the doorway to the tack shed. He was still shaking, and Rey no longer knew if it was from nerves, distress, or simply the heat.

Rey took care of Whisper’s untacking and then grabbed the bag of treats from the shelf. She handed it to Ben on her way out before leading Whisper over to him so he didn’t have to get up. Rey was a little worried that if Ben tried, she might have to carry him back to the house.

“Go on,” Rey encouraged as she led Whisper straight into Ben’s lap. “You can give him two or three. Palm flat, so he doesn’t accidentally bite you.”

Ben’s hand was still shaking as he offered Whisper the treats, but it seemed to get him out of the funk he’d put himself in. He was focused so intently on Whisper, like feeding him a treat was some sort of complicated math problem that Ben needed to figure out, that Rey couldn’t help but smile as she looked on.

After, Rey told Ben to stay put while she led Whisper and Bebe back out to the corral by herself. When she returned, Ben was still sitting there on the lip of the tack shed, but he’d pulled his knees up around his ears and wrapped his arms tightly around his legs.

“You okay?” Rey asked.

Ben took a moment to respond. “Don’t feel good,” he finally mumbled through the tangle of limbs.

“It’s probably heat sickness. I’ll get you a popsicle and some ice water once we get back to the house.” Rey waited several seconds, but Ben didn’t move. “Ben?”

He groaned and made a wobbling attempt at standing up. Rey offered him her hand, but Ben didn’t take it. He swayed a little, his eyes unfocused as he stared past her, towards the house. Then he promptly turned his head to the side and vomited onto the tack shed step.

“Shit,” Rey hissed. She surged forward and grabbed Ben by the bicep. It was a testament to just how dire his condition was that he didn’t put up any sort of fight, just sagged into her front as soon as his dry heaving ceased. “Come on,” Rey urged, shouldering as much of his weight as she could carry. “You’ll feel better once you’re out of the sun.”

They only made it a few steps before Ben remembered himself. He tore his arm out of her grip with a loud grunt. “I’m fine,” he insisted just as his momentum sent him stumbling straight into the closest hitching rail.

“Fuck, Ben.” Rey hurried forward again to help stabilize him. “Either you let me help you walk back to the house, or I’ll find someone else to do it for me.” It was clear that the threat extended to Luke even, which Rey figured would sway Ben into taking the easier route.

Ben’s eyes drifted closed as he leaned into her, nodding. Rey half-carried, half-dragged him all the way to the back door, propping him up against her as she shoved it open bodily, only regretting the move when Ben nearly faceplanted into the rug.

“Sorry,” Rey muttered as she closed the door behind them.

She considered depositing him right there on the couch, getting him an ice pack and some cold water like she’d originally intended, but the vomiting worried her. Rey threw a hand up against Ben’s forehead and immediately recoiled. His skin was cold and clammy. She drew her hand down to his throat and pressed hard against his pulse point, following him with her fingers when he reflexively jerked away from her touch. His pulse was fast and thready.

“Let’s get you in the shower,” Rey decided.

Ben mumbled something as she dragged him through the living room, but Rey didn’t pay him any attention.

They were coming through the door to the east wing together like some sort of two-headed, four-legged mutant when the door to the bathroom flung itself open. Poe emerged, wiping his damp hands on his jeans. He spotted them immediately and froze, his face creasing into an expression that seemed to be equal parts annoyance and concern.

“What the hell happened to him?” Poe demanded as Rey made an attempt to shoulder past him with Ben in tow.

“Not really the time,” Rey remarked. She helped Ben take a seat on top of the toilet and then spun around to turn the shower on.

“Did you ride out?” Poe asked, ignoring her. “It’s a hundred-and-one, Rey. He’s wearing a sweater.”

“I’m aware!” Rey snapped. Water flowed from the showerhead at a steady pace. Rey fiddled with the temperature until it was cool, but not so cold it would shock Ben’s system. “Make yourself useful or get out. He already puked once.”

“Unbelievable,” Poe grumbled under his breath. He stepped into the bathroom. It was a tight fit between the three of them, which meant Rey had to move between the bathtub and the toilet to make room for Poe, who crouched down promptly to grab the hem of Ben’s shirt.

Ben punched Poe square in the mouth.

“Shit,” Poe cried out as he fell backward into the hallway. “Fuck! Christ—I’m gonna get him some Gatorade or something, fuck me— He can be your fucking problem.”

Rey gazed at Poe, horrified, as he lifted his hand to examine the blood smeared against his palm from a split lip. He glared at Rey for a second and then stormed back down the hallway, slamming the door to the main house behind him.

With Poe gone, Rey turned to Ben, who was looking up at her balefully, reminding her more in that moment of an animal that didn’t have the capacity to understand that she was trying to help it than a man who could be reasoned with.

“Ben, please,” Rey pleaded. “The shower will help. Let me—”

Ben ignored her. He grabbed the countertop and pulled himself up onto trembling legs before staggering past her. He didn’t even bother to remove his boots before climbing into the tub and lowering himself down with one hand splayed against the wall. His head lolled back as he settled into place with his knees up, the spray hitting him almost directly in the face.

“You can leave,” Ben mumbled almost incoherently as he laid there, eyes closed, his clothes rapidly soaking up the water.

“I’m not going to leave you here alone so you can have a seizure and die,” Rey insisted. That wasn’t likely to happen, but she’d rarely seen anyone get so close to heatstroke at the ranch. Usually, Rey wasn’t so reckless with the clients. There was a pang of guilt clinging to her belly, preventing her from taking her eyes off of Ben for more than a second. This felt like her fault.

Ben didn’t bother to dignify her catastrophizing with a response, but as Rey watched him sit there under the water, his breathing gradually began to slow; the color flooded back into his face.

Finally, Poe came back with an ice pack pressed to his mouth and a bottle of cold Gatorade clutched in his other hand.

“Thank you,” Rey said profusely as she accepted the bottle.

Poe just glared at both of them in turn before leaving.

Rey waited another minute with the Gatorade in hand before disturbing Ben. “Do you feel any better?” she asked.

“I don’t feel like I’m gonna throw up anymore if I move,” Ben replied without opening his eyes.

“All right, try drinking some of this, then.” Rey helped him take hold of the bottle and watched as Ben slowly sipped some of the frosty purple liquid as the shower continued to drench him.

“Why are you so hostile with everyone?” Rey asked after half the bottle was gone.

Ben’s eyes flew open. He glanced over at her sharply, looking taken aback by her directness. Maybe she’d been right after all, Rey thought to herself. Maybe she did need to take more control.

But Ben didn’t answer, instead giving a little shrug as he continued to drink.

“It isn’t fair to everyone else that you constantly keep us all at arms’ length,” Rey continued. It certainly wasn’t fair to her, not when she was trying so damn hard to get through to him.

Ben shrugged again. “Life isn’t fair,” he said with the air of someone who was told as much too many times as a child.

Rey sighed quietly and waited a little longer for Ben to finish drinking his Gatorade. “Do you feel okay to get out now?” she asked once he’d set the bottle aside, his arms and legs stretched out as much as the tub would allow.

Ben hesitated, then nodded. He wordlessly accepted Rey’s proffered hand and allowed her to help pull him up.

“Give me a second,” Rey told him as she let go of Ben’s wet fingers. “I’ll get you a towel.”

The regular bath towels seemed too small to be of any use in drying Ben’s massive frame even without the compounding factor of his sopping wet clothing. Rey grabbed one of the larger beach towels from the linen closet instead.

“Do you want me to get some dry clothes from your room to change into?” Rey offered upon returning to Ben with the towel in hand.

Ben, who immediately buried his face in the towel to dry his dripping hair, hesitated as he slowly lowered it again to stare at her.

Rey felt like she was being searched, like Ben was trying to sniff out some sort of ulterior motive behind the offer. In truth, she hadn’t asked purely out of the goodness of her heart. She didn’t want to clean up the puddles of water from the floor if she let Ben walk back to his room like this.

Finally, Ben nodded and returned to his vain attempt at drying off.

The first thing Rey noticed as she entered the room Ben shared with Finn was the sketchbook perched haphazardly on the edge of the bed, like he’d set it aside in a hurry. Rey could imagine Ben losing himself in a sketch and only realizing at the last second that he was due outside for their horsemanship lesson. Ben’s sense of time seemed entirely at odds with the objective reality of its passing.

Rey picked up the sketchbook and held it in her hands for a few seconds. She stared at the smooth, matte-black cover intently. No, she chastised herself internally. But Rey’s fingers seemed to have a mind of their own. She pressed them between the pages at random as she tried desperately to convince herself that Ben showing her his sketches of the horses last week meant it wouldn’t hurt to have just one peek.

A loud clatter echoing through the hallway stopped Rey in her tracks.

Rey sprinted back down the hall to the bathroom, her heart in her throat. She flung open the door with a tightness in her chest that could only be attributed to deep-rooted fear. She expected to find Ben passed out on the floor mid-seizure with his head cracked open, or something equally as gruesome and just as much her fault for leaving him alone when he was so clearly unwell, but the sight that greeted Rey was merely Ben holding the unanchored towel rack in one hand and wearing a sheepish expression on his face. Bits of drywall floated lazily through the air.

“I got dizzy,” he explained, gesturing to the holes in the wall where the towel rack had been ripped out. “I’ll pay to fix it.”

Rey blinked a few times as she assessed the damage, her heart rate slowing to something a bit more manageable now that she knew she hadn’t accidentally killed Ben. “You can come to the hardware store with me this weekend to do just that,” she said sternly. “Once you’re feeling better, of course.”

Ben hung his head like a child who had just received a paddling and nodded meekly.

Rey huffed loudly in displeasure at having yet another chore to complete—although a part of her was secretly thrilled at having an excuse to drag Ben along on her errands—and then turned on her heel to go grab his dry clothes. Again.

Ben spent the rest of the day in bed, finally breaking his streak of eating dinner with the rest of the residents of the ranch, something that was far less disappointing than missing out on a yoga session with Rey, who didn’t even attempt to ask him if he was feeling up for it later that evening. He supposed he shouldn’t feel so bitter about that—the AC had been running constantly even after sunset, indicating that it was still far too warm out for any sort of physical activity, even at night.

Ben felt just the tiniest bit better when Finn came in sometime after dinner with a popsicle and an ice-cold water bottle clutched in either hand, proclaiming that Rey had insisted Ben stay hydrated. The other part of Ben wished that she had delivered them herself.

When the sound of birdsong outside his window pulled Ben from his slumber the next morning, he felt almost normal again.

But it was Tuesday. And Tuesdays meant therapy with Din. And by now, Ben could only assume that Din had heard all about his little incident with Poe the day prior.

Dread seeped in over the course of the next few hours as Ben’s session drew ever-nearer. Ben tromped through the yard like a man on his way to the gallows, ignoring Rose completely when she greeted him with a friendly smile as he walked past.

There was no trace of accusation on Din’s face when Ben entered his office, but Ben didn’t let his guard down as he took a seat on the couch, perching precariously on the edge of the cushions with his hands clasped between his thighs instead of adopting his usual position on his back with his feet hanging over the armrest.

Din didn’t remark on Ben’s strange behavior. Nor did he open with the fight with Poe like Ben had expected. Instead, Din simply smiled at him and crossed his legs at the ankle, leaning back in his chair as he said: “Rey mentioned that you discussed the wild horses on your ride out yesterday.”

It wasn’t the attack Ben had anticipated, but he felt his hackles rise anyway. “Does Rey tell you everything we talk about?” he asked stiffly, his fists clenched so tight between his legs that his fingers ached.

“No,” Din replied. “She provides an overview of the one-on-one lessons so that I don’t have to directly observe them and gives an evaluation of each person’s progress with the horses. I ask her to make a note of anything she feels would be beneficial for me to know, but I leave that up to Rey to decide.”

Ben forced himself to relax, just the tiniest bit. He still didn’t like the fact that Rey had seen fit to mention their conversation about the horses yesterday, especially after what she’d said about him being like some…some wild animal that needed taming. Ben already knew too well what was wrong with him. It wasn’t that.

“Part of the reason I got into equine therapy is because horse psychology is so fundamentally dissimilar to human psychology,” Din continued.

“Horses are prey animals—humans are natural predators. On paper, the relationship between horses and humans shouldn’t even work out. But it does, because humans have the capability to learn from and understand their horses, and we’re willing to adapt our own instincts and behaviors in order to make the horses feel safe with us.

“And I find that working with horses is especially effective in resetting problematic behaviors because we have to be so conscious of the way we interact with them. We have to be aware of our bodies, our minds, our energy—because the horse needs to know that they can depend on us. Horses provide a great lesson on trust.”

Ben nodded, unsure of where exactly Din was going with all this.

“I understand Rey spoke to you about herd dynamics in the wild.”

“Yeah,” Ben replied flatly.

“What did you think about that?”

Ben hadn’t thought about it much at all, too distracted by the heat and his discomfort and Rey’s disheartening comparison to Bebe, but he considered it now. “It’s about dominance, right?” he said, unsure if he even remembered exactly what Rey had told him. “There’s a dominant stallion, a dominant mare. And the others follow.”

Din gave a little shrug. “It’s slightly different than the way we typically think of dominance in the animal kingdom,” he explained. “Horses know their place in relation to all other horses, but it isn’t a hierarchal structure in the way that we tend to perceive them. Dominance and submission between horses…it’s more fluid. Herd dynamics change over time; they’re constantly evolving. And even with the boss mare, the other mares in a band have influence on her ultimate decisions for where she leads the band.”

Ben mulled that over for a long moment. “Maybe if people did the same, things would be easier,” he said.

Din seemed surprised by the comment. “Why is that?” he asked.

“Everyone would know their place.”

This time, it was Din who allowed the silence to build. He maintained eye contact with Ben, almost to an uncomfortable degree, but Ben forced himself not to look away. It felt like a test.

“Where would you place yourself in the hierarchy of the ranch?” Din finally asked.

Ben didn’t know what to make of that question. This felt like a test too, one he was unexpectedly terrified of failing.

One parallel felt only too easy to draw: Rey as the boss mare. Ben didn’t dare utter it aloud.

But the others…it was harder to say. Din didn’t seem to be at the top of the pecking order. It was Luke, instead, who appeared to be calling the shots from behind both Rey and Din. And Ben had seen enough of the interactions with the others to know that Poe fancied himself higher in the hierarchy than he actually was, and that while Rose seemed relatively mild-mannered, she had no problem bossing Finn around if the situation called for it. Tallie seemed the most willing to do whatever was asked or expected of her, so Ben would probably put her at the bottom.

But as for himself…. Maybe Ben was like one of the young stallions, pushed out of the herd, left to fend for himself just like he had for the last decade of his life. “I don’t think I have a place in it at all.”

Din’s expression didn’t change. “Do you think the others would agree with that statement?”

Ben shrugged. “Probably.”

“What about Rey?”

Ben flinched. “I don’t know,” he bit out.

“But…?”

Ben shook his head and avoided meeting Din’s eyes. He wasn’t going to say any more. He didn’t need to subject himself to the additional humiliation of acknowledging that Rey’s opinion of him actually mattered.

Din didn’t push him for an answer. When Ben finally looked up again, Din was staring at him with a deadly serious expression, his posture less relaxed than it had been before. Ben’s heart rate ratcheted up before Din even opened his mouth.

“There is something else I wanted to discuss with you, Ben,” Din said. “I heard there was an incident with Poe yesterday.”

Part of Ben was curious who exactly Din had heard it from—whether it was Poe, or Rey, or someone else entirely. He didn’t ask. Another part of Ben wanted to immediately launch a volley of excuses at him, like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar. That part of him didn’t dare to open its mouth either.

Instead, Ben just sat there in silence and waited for judgment to be passed.

“Violence will not be tolerated, Ben. You understand?”

Ben gave a contrite nod. “It was an accident,” he said in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to—he grabbed my shirt, and I just freaked out.” Each word uttered from his mouth felt like a stitch being torn out.

But it wasn’t just an excuse to convince Din not to kick him off the ranch, something Ben might have welcomed his first week—Ben hadn’t even registered that he was throwing a punch until it had connected with Poe’s jaw. His hand still hurt.

“I believe you,” Din replied, the hard edge rapidly leaching out of his voice as he reverted back to his practiced serenity instead. “But I’d like to talk about why violence was your instinctive reaction in that moment.”

Ben shrugged. “I got picked on a lot as a kid,” he said. “I guess fighting was the only way I could get anyone to respect me. Especially in high school.” He exhaled roughly.

“Do you think it was actually respect? Or was it fear?”

Ben shook his head, jaw clenched tight. “It didn’t matter,” he bit out, “as long as they left me alone.”

Din nodded to show he understood. “Were your parents ever violent?” he asked, before just as quickly adding, “Regardless of the reason.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably in his seat and resisted the urge to walk out of Din’s office. He hesitated before answering. “My dad never hit me,” he said in a slow and measured voice. “I think he was always afraid he was capable of it, but his parents were…. I know he was trying to avoid becoming like his dad.”

Ben fell quiet for a moment after that, but Din made no attempt to fill the silence.

“My mom slapped me once, during an argument,” Ben said, speaking up again at last. “When I was fourteen.”

Din waited several seconds for Ben to elaborate, but when he didn’t, Din said, “I’d like you to share your thoughts about that incident if you feel comfortable doing so.”

It was another long minute before Ben finally answered. “It was after my parents found out about—” His throat closed of its own accord, and it was a few seconds before Ben managed to force it open again. “About—”

“I understand, Ben,” Din cut in kindly. “Why do you think your mother reacted the way she did? You said it was while you were arguing? Was she lashing out?”

Ben dredged up the memory against his will. It had been a long time since he’d seen his mom, and the later memories—the ones after Georgia—should have overwritten that image from when he was barely fourteen years old. But he could still see his mother’s face in the very moment after her hand had collided with his cheek: her wide-eyed, frantic horror.

“I think she was terrified,” he said in a small voice.

“What do you think she was scared of?” Din asked.

Ben didn’t answer.

It felt just a little bit pathetic, hanging around the casita waiting for Ben to leave Din’s office. Not that Rey was waiting for Ben—she just needed him to clear out so she could talk to Din in private. Preferably well away from Luke’s prying ears.

When Ben did eventually emerge, looking even more sullen than usual, his shoulders practically touching his ears, Rey shot him a reassuring smile. Ben took note of her standing there, but his eyes never lifted to meet hers. He didn’t return the smile.

Rey’s eyes followed him as he slunk off towards the house, but when he disappeared through the back door, she had no choice but to go through with her original plan. She turned and let herself in through the front door of the casita, her eyes immediately taking in the state of Luke’s houseplants littered throughout the front room.

Rey frowned. They were wilting. Luke must have forgotten to water them. Luke never forgot to water them. What was going on with him?

“Rey, is that you?” Din called from inside his office. Rey could see him standing at his desk through the cracked door, sorting through a sheaf of manila folders.

Rey didn’t answer, but she left the plants to fend for themselves for now and quietly slipped into Din’s office.

Din turned to quirk an eyebrow at her as Rey flopped down on the couch. “What’s up?” he asked.

Rey inhaled sharply. “Why does Luke hate Ben so much?” she asked, the words falling out of her mouth in a breathless rush.

Din spun around slowly and braced himself with his palms flat on the desk as he considered Rey for a moment before responding. “How much time have you been spending with Ben outside of lessons?” he asked in lieu of answering her question. “Luke seems to think that it’s in excess of what could be considered professional.”

Rey bristled. “Luke has never had a problem with me hanging out with Finn, or Rose, or anyone else,” she pointed out, doing her damnedest not to raise her voice. It wouldn’t go over well with Din.

“But you have been hanging out with Ben as well, haven’t you? In more than a professional capacity?”

Rey nodded warily. “We’re friends.” She hoped.

“And what is your impression of him?”

The question caught Rey off-guard. She didn’t see how her personal assessment of Ben had anything to do with Luke’s indecipherable grudge, but there didn’t seem to be any harm in answering, so she did so honestly.

“The others all seem to think he’s this…uncivilized brute, or something,” Rey said, ignoring the scolding look from Din in response to her hearsay. “But he’s really sensitive, and I think he just gets overwhelmed sometimes by his own emotions, if that makes sense. He’s…different when it’s just the two of us.”

“Do you think being at the ranch is helping him?”

Rey frowned. That question meant only one thing: that even Din was considering kicking Ben to the curb, just like Luke wanted.

“Of course it is,” Rey replied automatically, before pivoting to add, “It’s not fair—I don’t see how anyone can expect him to make any progress when no one is putting in the effort to help him do it.”

Rey blushed a little upon realizing how that answer sounded. She didn’t think Din was slacking in the slightest, but she still disagreed with his methods during their first group session—though it hadn’t been a mistake Din had made the second time around, when he’d seemed perfectly content to let Ben fulfill the requirements of his attendance without saying a single word.

But still, the entire foundation of the program was reliant on providing peer support. And that was something Ben was missing in spades. His attitude didn’t help, but the others knew they were expected to put forth an effort even with difficult clients. Rey wasn’t really sure what it was about Ben that made everyone so afraid to even try.

“I agree with you,” Din replied.

Rey stared back at him aghast. With the way the conversation was trending, Rey had been preparing to put up a fight. She opened her mouth, ready to give her reasons for Ben’s place at the ranch despite the fact that Din had already conceded her point, but then Din lifted a finger to stop her, and Rey swallowed back the words.

“But—” Din continued, and Rey’s stomach dropped. “And I’m telling you this in confidence, Rey: Luke has a far better understanding of Ben’s circumstances than you do. I admit that we haven’t come to a consensus on how to handle Ben yet, but Luke has his reasons for feeling the way he does and for acting the way he has.”

Rey shot upright, intending to argue, but another sharp warning look from Din kept her from interrupting.

“Like you, I do not think that Luke’s approach is the best one. I intend to discuss it with him again going forward. But Rey—”

Rey nodded, swallowing thickly. She could sense what was coming next.

“I would advise you not to become overly invested in any patient,” Din warned, “but especially not Ben. Do you understand?” His eyes were soft, serious—a little sad.

Rey suddenly found herself trying not to cry. “I understand,” she lied.

Chapter Text

Despite her displeasure at Din’s verdict, Rey tried her best to distance herself a little more from Ben over the days following. Professionalism, she insisted to herself when she returned to her former morning yoga routine, pretending not to notice the hurt expression on Ben’s face when she kept him at arm’s length during their Wednesday lesson too.

Afterward, Rey had plenty to distract her from the guilt. Luke had gone to the airport that afternoon to fetch their two new arrivals, which meant Rey was busy—from the moment she put Bebe back in the corral until the second she sat down at the dining room table—with making sure their new guests felt at home once they arrived. She pretended not to be disappointed when the chair next to her remained empty during dinner that night.

It was easier to ignore Ben’s glaring absence once Luke wandered in at the tail end of the meal with their new charges in tow: a redheaded boy who looked just as sour as Ben about being there and insisted on being referred to only by his last name, Hux; and an effortlessly friendly Black girl with a gap tooth named Jannah who had managed to endear herself to everyone in the room by the time they were all finished eating.

But distractions were only so much help.

Ben didn’t come to dinner on Thursday either. Rey contemplated going to get him afterward for yoga—and maybe even to apologize for being so distant—but then she remembered what Din had said about Luke knowing more about Ben’s past than she did, and she decided to hold fast.

Ben’s absence during the group trail ride on Friday was no longer a surprise.

So it came as a bit of a relief when Ben showed up—nearly seven minutes late—to the group therapy session afterwards, his presence bringing the lukewarm introductions to an abrupt halt. He dragged one of the empty chairs to the other side of the room as soon as he walked in, putting as much space between himself and Rey as humanly possible. He ended up squeezed in between Hux and Finn, the former of whom looked like the cat who ate the canary at being so close to Ben while Finn just looked vaguely ill.

Rey tried valiantly not to let the hurt show on her face in the wake of his obvious rejection. She deserved it after all. It was better this way. It was what Din and Luke both wanted. Distance.

Introductions continued where they’d left off when Ben entered the room. Tallie rambled a bit incoherently through her hobbies and interests, having lost the thread of what she’d been saying before. Finn was next, and he said his piece with practiced ease. A scowl spread across Ben’s face as Finn spoke, seeming to realize in that moment that he hadn’t arrived quite late enough to avoid having to introduce himself.

And then it was Ben’s turn. He gave only his first name, causing Din to prompt him, gently, for more. Rey watched as his mouth twisted unpleasantly around the words “he” and “him” as he replied with his pronouns, as was standard for a normal round of introductions during group, and it left her a bit cold.

Hux cut in as soon as it seemed that Ben was done. “Armitage Hux,” he offered smoothly in an over-enunciated sort of way, like he’d spent time rehearsing how to speak in as condescending a tone as possible. “But I prefer Hux. Honestly, I’m only here because I think my father mistook this place for a conversion camp,” he added with a soft chuckle.

No one else laughed.

Hux cleared his throat. “Well, anyways. I grew up in San Francisco, and I was never particularly outdoorsy. I’ve never even seen a horse outside of a petting zoo.”

“Now you’ll have seen a lot of them,” Din said with a warm smile, but Rey could tell from the microscopic tension in the lines around his mouth that he was worried Hux might say something else to upset the group if they let him ramble on for much longer. “Jannah? Why don’t you go ahead.”

A flash of Jannah’s wide, gap-toothed grin seemed to bring the entire room back to a level calm. “Hi, I’m Jannah,” she said brightly. “I’m a nonbinary trans woman, and proud of it,” she offered with a little laugh. Rey found herself smiling along with her. It was rare that they got clients who seemed so at ease with themselves from the very start. “She and they are both fine with me. I’m from Texas, so I’ve been riding horses all my life, but this is my first time leaving the state.”

Rey glanced over at Din, curious about his reaction to Jannah’s introduction, but Din didn’t seem to be paying any attention to Jannah at all. His eyes were focused past her, gazing at something—someone—with a troubled expression.

Rey followed the line of Din’s gaze straight to Ben. She anticipated the same expression Ben had worn when he’d been coerced into giving his own pronouns, like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

But Ben seemed more than perturbed. He looked furious.

He didn’t seem to notice the way Din was staring at him, his own attention focused wholly on Jannah as she rattled off a few more fun facts before turning the time over to Rose.

But Rose didn’t get more than a syllable out before Din interrupted. “Ben,” he said pointedly, drawing the other man’s attention away from Jannah. “Do you need to take a break for a moment?”

It was a clear invitation to leave, but Ben didn’t take it. He clenched his fists against his thighs and glared down at the floor as he demanded in a low, seething tone, “How can you be proud of that?”

Rey felt like she’d been slapped in the face. A quick glance around the room confirmed that the others all seemed to be in various stages of shock as well, with the exception of Jannah, who was looking at Ben with an oddly pitying expression. It wasn’t the reaction Rey would have had if she’d been in Jannah’s place. She probably would have punched Ben in the jaw. And then kicked him in the balls for good measure.

“Ben, I don’t think this is a suitable discussion for group,” Din said quietly. “Let’s talk about this privately during our next session, okay?”

Ben stood up, his hands still clenched at his sides, his face twisted into something horrible and hateful and mean, and for a fleeting moment, Rey was afraid of what he might do. But Ben said nothing. Did nothing. He turned after a moment and stormed out of the room, the front door slamming shut behind him.

Din sighed loudly but made no move to go after Ben.

Rey didn’t possess that kind of restraint. She leaped off the couch and dashed after him without taking even a second to reconsider her plan of action.

Not that she had one.

“Rey, don’t—” she heard Din calling after her, but a red haze had descended, clouding her judgment. She wanted answers, and she didn’t care how she got them.

Ben was already halfway down the driveway when Rey burst through the front door.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Rey shouted after him. “Why would you say that to her? What—What’s wrong with you?”

Ben refused to turn around and kept walking.

“Ben!” Rey sprinted after him. “Ben!”

“Fuck off,” he snarled, finally whirling around to level her with an icy glare. “Stop trying so damn hard to fix me.”

Ben turned then to walk away from her, but Rey had no intention of letting him go. She grabbed for his arm and dug her fingers into the soft part of his wrist, fully committed to keeping him from taking another step until he promised to apologize to Jannah.

A cry like a wounded animal erupted from Ben’s mouth, and he went down hard, collapsing face-first into the gravel. Rey let go as if she’d touched a hot stove. She quickly dropped down to her knees beside him.

“Shit, Ben, I didn’t think—are you okay?” Rey asked as Ben writhed in the dirt, his arm clutched tightly to his chest.

Ben blinked rapidly and his breathing came in rapid pants. He looked like he might throw up or pass out—or both.

“I don’t—I don’t know what to do,” Rey confessed. She hovered her hands over him, afraid to touch him anywhere. She didn’t even understand how she’d hurt him. She didn’t know how to make it better.

Ben sucked in a few big gulping breaths of air through his mouth. He opened his eyes finally and stared up at Rey with the same expression she’d seen in him before—a wounded coyote caught in a trap; a lame horse waiting for a bullet between the eyes.

“Why won’t you just leave me alone?” Ben whispered, staring up at Rey with dark, dewy eyes. What she heard instead was: “Why won’t you just give up?”

But Rey wasn’t a quitter.

Ben was grateful when he heard Din’s voice calling out to Rey from the front porch. He rolled onto his other side as she stood up, curling in on himself so tightly every muscle in his body ached. It was a necessary distraction from the nauseating pain radiating out from his arm. She’d broken the skin. He was sure of it.

It was impossible to tell how long he’d lain there on the driveway, covered head to toe in gravel and sand, before Ben felt a firm hand on his shoulder, gently coaxing him onto his back. He stared up into Din’s eyes, seeing only disappointment.

“Do you want me to take a look at your arm?” Din asked.

Ben shook his head. “I just—Can you help me stand up?”

Din nodded and slowly helped Ben sit first before he clasped his hand in Ben’s and pulled him to his feet. “I think you should get some rest tonight,” Din said as they walked back to the house together, and it was clear that it wasn’t merely a suggestion. “I’ll have Finn bring you some dinner, okay?”

Ben nodded and embraced his temporary exile with open arms.

The pain in his wrist plagued him well into the night. Nothing provided an adequate distraction from the hot, radiating ache of it, his nerves sending sharp jolts of electricity up his arm into his elbow, his shoulder, his chest. Not even when Hux showed up just after dinner and parked himself once more in the bed in the corner opposite Finn on the other side of the bedroom door, leaving Ben feeling flanked. Trapped.

It was just after midnight that Ben finally decided he couldn’t ignore it any longer. He’d already spent more than an hour waiting for his prescription sedatives to drag him into unconsciousness with no success, the pain too present to just ignore.

Ben crept past Finn, who was easy to avoid disturbing thanks to his deafening snores, and Hux, who slept flat on his back like Dracula with the covers pulled to his chin and remained eerily silent and still through the night. He made his way down the hall to the bathroom. He leaned heavily against the sink with his good arm—his better arm, anyway—before finally mustering up the courage to peel his sleeve back to get a good look at the damage.

Ben had been careful not to look at the cuts since the moment the stitches had come out. The ugly red line that bisected his forearm from wrist to elbow had scabbed over since then. Rey’s thumb had split that scab in half along the line of his tendon, and the newly opened wound was weeping a clear, pink-tinged serosanguinous fluid from its raw edges.

Ben knew if he attempted to clean the damn thing he would probably faint again. He rifled under the counter, looking for a first aid kit behind a seemingly endless stockpile of tampons. He located some cleaning supplies, what appeared to be a decade-old bar of soap, and a single gold hoop earring, but no bandages. The medicine cabinet, despite its name, was even less helpful.

Ben finally located the medical supplies—of which there was an unimaginable abundance—tucked away in the corner of the massive pantry. There were bandages of all shapes and sizes. Ben measured a few against his arm before picking one he thought was suitable and emerged from the pantry with his prize. It was easier to see in the kitchen by the light of the dim orange glow emanating from the underside of the microwave.  

Ben used his teeth to tear open the packaging and carefully extracted a large gauze pad with adhesive edges. He stuck it to his wrist and pressed it down tight, hissing at the throbbing the pressure of his hand reignited. It was a necessary sacrifice. If his arm got infected, Ben would be back in the hospital. And this time, his mother might actually decide to show up herself instead of sending a social worker to do her parenting for her.

As Ben looked up, his eyes alit on the block of knives next to the stove. He stared at them for a long time, as if in a trance.

Maybe it would just be easier to finish what he’d started.

The soft patter of bare feet against tile dragged Ben’s attention away from the gravitational pull of knife block. Rose was standing in the entrance to the kitchen, her eyes warily looking Ben up and down as she took a trepidatious step inside.

Ben said nothing to her as she moved past him to grab a glass from one of the cabinets. She filled it up at the fridge and took a measured sip as she turned around slowly to face him once again.

“You shouldn’t have said that to Jannah,” Rose said in a quiet voice.

“I know.”

“And you shouldn’t be such an asshole to everyone.”

“I know.”

“And I’m sorry that we haven’t tried harder to be your friends, but it would be nice if you did the same.”

Ben didn’t know what to say to that. “Sorry,” he finally grumbled in response.

Rose stared at him for so long that it began to border on uncomfortable, her brows furrowed in concern. She opened her mouth, like she was about to add another point to her tirade but then shut it again. She took another sip of water. “Goodnight, Ben,” she said.

“Goodnight,” Ben replied automatically, his eyes following her as she walked out of the room. By the time she was gone, he’d forgotten all about the kitchen knives and his half-formed plans of dying. He was asleep less than fifteen minutes later.

In the morning, Ben awoke to a pillow hitting him squarely in the face. Ben sat up and groggily tossed the offending object aside. It had originated from Finn’s perpetually unmade bed, but he wasn’t the one who had thrown it.

Rey was glowering at him from just inside the doorway to Ben’s bedroom, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “You’re coming with me to Home Depot,” she said, her tone brokering no room for argument.

Ben nodded and waited for her to leave the room before grabbing a fresh set of clothes and tiptoeing out to the bathroom to shower.

Ben was surprised Rey still wanted him to come after what had happened yesterday. She said nothing at all as she poured Ben a bowl of cereal at the kitchen island and then waited for him to eat, her gaze glued to her own fingers as she picked at a hangnail on her thumb. It was late enough that they were the only occupants of the main house, everyone else having dispersed already to their various Saturday activities.

Ben ate hastily and followed Rey out to the van. He waited dutifully at the passenger-side door as Rey manually unlocked the other side with her key, sat down behind the wheel, and then pressed the button to unlock the rest.

Almost as soon as Ben settled himself in the unexpectedly cramped front seat, he suddenly found himself with a lapful of Rey as she stretched across him to grab the seatbelt and pull it over his body. He stared at her in stunned silence after she withdrew.

“What?” she asked frostily, jamming her key in the ignition.

“I’m thirty-five,” Ben pointed out drily. “I think I know how to buckle a seatbelt.”

Rey’s face went all pinched. “Old habit,” she bit out. “We used to work with kids during the summers before—” She stopped abruptly, her expression taking on an even stonier look as she slowly pulled out of the driveway.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Ben reassured her.

“It’s fine,” Rey snapped. “It just sucked. It still sucks. We got this fucking asshole guy from LA who moved in a while back and immediately ran for county commissioner because he had the money to do it, and he put out all these attack ads against important people in the community who were ‘different’. Like Din and Luke.” She exhaled hard. “It got people to start all these rumors and suddenly everyone was too afraid to send their kids back to the ranch.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “That sounds hard.” He didn’t know what else to say.

Rey shrugged. The van bounced a little underneath them, jolting over the divots in the road. She was driving a little faster through the dirt than Ben was comfortable with, but he didn’t dare air his critique.

“I’d love to say it’s all water under the bridge now,” Rey replied, “but it isn’t. I still flip some of those motherfuckers off in the grocery store if I see them around, but a lot of them moved back to California or Vegas once things started to go back to normal after the pandemic. We had this big surge in like, suburban conservatives who didn’t want to deal with lockdowns and thought they could make a quick buck by buying cheap land out here. It screwed everything up for a while. Maybe forever. I don’t know.”

Ben didn’t know what to say to that either, so he decided to change the subject. “Why did no one else want to come to town?” he asked. It hadn’t escaped his notice that they were making Rey’s weekly errand run alone when usually she took almost the entire household with her.

Rey gave him a sharp look. “Why do you think?” she asked a bit cruelly.

Ben winced. “Right.”

Rey sighed, her voice taking on an unexpectedly sympathetic tone as she continued. “Look, there’s a lot of things about you that make people uncomfortable, and I don’t think all of them are fair.”

“Like what?” Ben demanded. He felt vaguely nauseous all of a sudden.

“You’re a lot older than the others,” Rey said, ticking each point off on her fingers so she was only driving with her left hand, something else that had Ben’s nerves spiking as they trundled down the hill. “You’re fucking huge. You don’t exactly look approachable. You don’t try to talk to anyone. You’ve got this whole dark and brooding emo thing going on—”

“Emo?” Ben spluttered.

Rey barreled onward as if he hadn’t interrupted. “And no one even thinks you’re gay. Or bi,” she quickly amended with a furtive sideways glance.

Ben frowned. “I’m not. Either.” He could tell from the slight twitch in Rey’s jaw that it wasn’t the answer she’d been hoping for, but he couldn’t decide if it had come as a surprise. “Are you?”

“Yes, I’m bisexual,” she said, her mouth creasing into a slight frown as she looked over at him again. “So you’re just…straight then?”

Ben tensed in his seat. “Is there something wrong with that?” he asked carefully.

Rey paused and then shook her head. “No, it’s just…confusing, I guess. The whole point of the ranch is to provide a space for LGBT adults who need a bit of help. I just don’t really get why Luke would let you stay if you don’t fit the profile. Especially because of…well, you know.”

Ben knew very well what she meant. It wasn’t a secret from anyone at the ranch anymore that Luke harbored an intense animosity towards Ben. But the reason Luke had let him come wasn’t really such a mystery.

But Ben didn’t answer her. Not right away.

Ben watched as the dense forest of Joshua trees gave way to creosote shrubs as they reached the valley floor. The sky was a clear cloudless blue so vibrant it almost hurt to look at. In the distance, on the western horizon, the refraction of light against the mountains painted them in shades of lavender and violet. The closer range to the north bore a distinctive stripe of darker-colored rock straight through its midsection and its triangular form loomed over the scattered patches of human habitation like an oversized party-hat. The town was eclectic, the houses spaced out sporadically, with large parcels of open desert between.

Ben waited until they made the transition from dirt to pavement before enlightening Rey as to the real reason Luke had taken him in. “My mom asked Luke to let me come,” he said quietly, “as a favor.”

“Your mom?” Rey replied with a sharp glance. “How does Luke know your mom?”

Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. She never mentioned him, as far as I can remember anyway.”

Rey spent a moment in contemplation as they drove to the stoplight at the end of the road where it met the highway. The sound of the blinker ticking punctuated the silence.

“You said before that your parents are from upstate New York, right?” she finally said.

“My mom is,” Ben said, nodding, “but yeah.”

“Well, Luke’s from the same area, near Albany somewhere, but he hasn’t been back there in forever. So maybe—”

“You’re not about to suggest that our parents are twins separated at birth or something, are you?” Ben asked.

“No,” Rey replied with a laugh. “I just meant, what if they knew each other from when Luke was a kid?”

Ben considered that possibility. It didn’t explain the favor his mom felt Luke owed her, but it made more sense than anything else he could come up with. “Yeah,” he finally decided. “Maybe.”

They coasted into the Home Depot parking lot a few minutes later, barely managing to snag an open spot at the far end of one of the aisles. It was a long, toasty walk across the sunbaked blacktop to the front entrance.

Ben grabbed a cart before Rey could get to them and carefully wheeled it behind her. Rey gave him a loaded look as he waited patiently for her to lead the way, but in the end, she opted not to comment on Ben’s show of chivalry and wordlessly took point as they walked into the store.

Rey navigated Home Depot with the ease of someone who practically lived there. She chose each aisle with precision as she loaded up their cart with a brand-new towel rack, some spackle, and a few other odds and ends that Ben assumed were intended for other DIY projects around the ranch.

“We should probably stop by the grocery store too,” Rey remarked as she transitioned from the frantic fulfillment of her shopping list to more leisurely browsing. “If you need anything, we can go to the Walmart too.”

“Do you do all the shopping for the ranch?” Ben wondered.

Rey leaned down to carefully examine a high-pedestal toilet. “Usually,” she replied. “Luke never really forgave anyone after the whole thing with Canady—the county commissioner guy. So he and Din rarely come into town anymore. If they’re not at the ranch, they’re usually off camping in the backcountry somewhere.”

“What about Poe?”

“His job description begins and ends with the horses,” Rey informed Ben. “It was hard enough to get Luke to even hire him on full time. Plus, since it’s technically a family business, Luke likes me to be involved with all the nitty-gritty bits of operation, so all the miscellaneous shit kind of falls to me.”

Ben nodded. Privately, he wondered how Rey wasn’t burnt out working somewhere between five and seven days a week while managing almost every bit of the ranch’s day-to-day operations, but she seemed strangely comfortable in her role.

Rey grabbed a few more items, including a chainsaw, to which she answered Ben’s questioning glance with a shrug and a nonchalant: “It was in the budget.” No other explanation was given.

They were on their way over to the registers when a small, curly-haired six-year-old barreled straight into Rey’s legs.

“Shara!” Rey exclaimed, crouching down to embrace the girl just as a petite, similarly dark-haired woman—Ben assumed the girl’s mother—came jogging over with a basket in her hand, looking frazzled by her child’s bid for freedom.

“Sorry Rey,” the woman said breathlessly. “I’m seriously considering keeping her on a leash.”

“It’s fine,” Rey reassured her as she straightened up again. “I don’t mind. How was the vacation?”

“Good,” the other woman replied, nodding, her eyes drifting over to Ben as she answered. “I wish we could have stayed out there a little longer honestly, but it was hard enough coordinating an entire week off for all three of us.” She smiled a little before turning her attention back to Rey. Ben wasn’t sure if he was supposed to smile back.

The girl, Shara, was staring up at Ben with open-mouthed awe, like she’d never seen someone as tall as him before and wasn’t quite sure what to think. Ben’s eyes met hers for just a second, and then she darted behind her mother, shielding herself from view.

“Sorry, she’s a bit shy around strangers,” the woman said with another smile, this one tinged with an apologetic grimace.

“Oh right, sorry,” Rey cut in. “Ben, this is Paige; Paige, Ben. And that’s Shara, obviously. Her daughter. Shara, do you want to say hello to Ben?”

Shara peeked her head out to give it a little shake.

“It’s fine,” Ben mumbled, feeling his face starting to warm. “Nice to meet you,” he said to Paige, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

“Likewise,” she replied. She grinned a little at Rey, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Look at you,” she said, “settling down, getting all domestic. And I thought I’d never see the day.”

Ben’s stomach dropped.

But Rey just rolled her eyes, making no attempt to correct Paige’s misguided assumption about the nature of their relationship. “I’m twenty-five, Paige. I’m not an old hag.”

“Not yet,” Paige joked. “Has Luke stopped pestering you about grandkids yet?”

“Never,” Rey replied with a sigh. “You know how he is. Keeps insisting he’s going to drop dead of old age any day now.”

“Right,” Paige said with a laugh. “Well, make sure to kick Poe’s ass for me.”

“I always do.”

Ben watched silently as Rey exchanged goodbyes with both Paige and Shara. He gave a slight wave to the latter when she continued to stare at him as her mother dragged her away by the hand, her eyes wide and serious.

“Paige is Rose’s older sister,” Rey explained unnecessarily as they turned to wheel the shopping cart into the nearest checkout line.

“Why did she mention Poe then?” Ben wondered.

Rey made a face. “Paige is Poe’s ex.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Wife. Shara’s his daughter.”

Something unpleasant roiled in Ben’s belly. “Poe should have stayed with her,” Ben replied thoughtlessly. “For the kid’s sake.”

Rey glanced up at him with something akin to pity. “Did your parents divorce when you were a kid?” she asked, reminding him so acutely of Din in that moment that Ben considered snapping at her again, telling her to fuck off like he had last night.

“No,” Ben replied instead, but he didn’t explain that what Han and Leia had done instead had been so much worse: Han moving out after every big fight, usually triggered by something Ben had said or done and a disagreement over how to handle it, sometimes not coming back for weeks at a time. Ben always had the sense that the reason they’d stayed married had nothing at all to do with him—he’d often wondered if it would have been better for all of them if they had divorced.

“Ben?” Rey said quietly. “It’s our turn to ring up.”

Ben realized he’d completely zoned out, and now the checker ahead of them was staring back at him expectantly, waiting for him to bring the cart up. “Sorry,” Ben muttered as he hurried forward.

Ben paid for his share of the inventory Rey had acquired and then stood off to the side as Rey chatted animatedly with the checker for a few minutes. He helped her load everything into the van, favoring his right hand as his left still protested every time he flexed his wrist.

They drove less than a quarter mile back down the highway to the grocery store on the east side, next to an array of thrift shops, fast-food joints, and kitschy casinos. Rey snatched the shopping cart this time before Ben had a chance. She asked for his opinion on various recipes as she went up and down each aisle methodically, coaxing him into revealing that yes, he loved peaches with the skin on and hated watermelon; no, the only cereals he actually liked were Cinnamon Toast Crunch and rice Chex; and if someone put a gun to his head, he might try a pickle.

Rey loved pickles and was inordinately offended on their behalf until Ben assured her that she could have any and all pickles that arrived with his food in the future.

Ben ignored the tiny pang in his chest as his imagination ran wild with that scenario. He reeled it in quickly. They didn’t have much future left. He’d be gone in a month’s time, back across the country to his lonely one-bedroom apartment in Detroit.

By the time they made it to the pharmacy section, Ben really had to piss. He excused himself, leaving Rey to stand in line alone behind at least six people over the age of seventy-five.

When he emerged from the bathroom with damp hands (the paper towel dispenser had been empty) a few minutes later, Rey was still in line, although she’d managed to move forward a few spaces. Rather than hog the entire aisle the line had formed in while being stared at by a bunch of octogenarians, Ben pretended to browse the adjacent aisle instead.

Ben perused the wound care products studiously. Maybe it would be beneficial to purchase his own first aid supplies to avoid midnight lectures from small Asian women in the kitchen back at the ranch. But Ben didn’t exactly want to explain to Rey why he thought he needed his own stash of bandages and gauze.

He moved on, checking out the ice packs and knee braces at one end of the aisle before moving back over to the other. Tylenol seemed like a reasonable purchase to make, he decided. But the pain-relief shelves were nowhere in sight.

Instead, Ben found himself at a dead stop as he turned to walk past the end cap. It was like tunnel vision, his eyes narrowing in on the familiar logo, unwilling memory washing over him with a sinking feeling.

Ben considered the tube of brand-name scar gel carefully. It was the same kind he’d used before, years ago now, before he realized he was pursuing an ultimately fruitless endeavor. His scars were dark, knotted, showing up far too easily against his pale skin, and in the end, months of careful application had made very little difference. There was no reason to think it would work this time either.

Rey appeared out of nowhere at Ben’s side. “I like that you’re so tall,” she said a bit breathlessly, seemingly oblivious to Ben’s shock at her unexpected apparition. “Makes it easier to track you down.”

“Yeah,” Ben said dumbly.

“Sorry that took so long; the lady in front of me forgot her birthday somehow.” Rey’s gaze drifted to the scar cream and its sales tags. “Oh, are you getting something?”

“No,” Ben replied sharply, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stepped away. “No, I don’t need anything.”

Rey insisted that they revisit the bakery before they checked out, her stomach having started to grumble during her time spent in line at the pharmacy. Ben reiterated that he didn’t want any of the available offerings, but Rey refused to take no for an answer.

They walked out of the store together: Rey already halfway through her chocolate sprinkle donut, the maple bar in Ben’s hand still entirely intact. He took a brave bite once they’d finished loading everything into the large coolers in the back of the van and then climbed into the front seat. Ben didn’t trust grocery store donuts as a rule, but it was surprisingly good.

Ben said nothing as Rey turned onto the highway, but when she pulled into the right turn lane for the main road that led back to the ranch, Ben suddenly panicked. “I don’t want to go back yet,” he blurted out.

Rey glanced over at him in surprise. The light turned green. Rey didn’t move. The car behind them honked.

“Shit,” Rey muttered, waving a hand out her window in apology as she completed the turn. She instantly pulled over onto the dirt. “Okay,” she said. “Do you want to go to the Walmart or something? Or get something to eat somewhere?”

Ben shrugged. He didn’t know what he wanted. He just knew that right now, the ranch was the last place in the world that he wanted to be.

“Okay,” Rey said again. “Why don’t we just…drive around for a while? I can show you the old stomping grounds.”

“Yeah,” Ben agreed. “That sounds good.”

Rey drove them south towards the center of town and then turned right onto the westbound highway before immediately turning off onto a road that was sparsely lined with trailers and duplexes and the occasional stucco stick-built house. Further down, there was a small, rundown apartment complex. Rey didn’t stop as they drove past, but she pointed a finger out her window towards it.

“That’s where Luke and I lived for a little while, before he met Din,” she said. “It was this tiny one-bedroom place and the windows and doors weren’t fitted properly, so bugs were always getting in. I once woke up with a scorpion on my pillow.”

Ben grimaced. “Did it sting you?”

“Not that time,” Rey replied with a laugh.

The next place she took them was her high school, located not too far from the apartment complex. “Not much to say about it,” she said dismissively. “Our mascot sucked—the Trojans—all the other schools we played sports against would put condoms on their signs and shit. And most of them already looked down on us because we weren’t city kids.”

“You didn’t play against other schools out here?”

“There’s a town ninety minutes north that has a small high school, but nowhere else around has a big enough population for that,” Rey informed him. “It was play against schools from Clark or nothing.”

“Clark?”

“Vegas,” Rey amended with a lopsided smile. “Sorry, sometimes I forget you’re not actually from around here.”

Ben wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “Did you play sports in school?”

“No. I did color guard for a year, 4-H, robotics, academic decathlon, ag club….” She turned to Ben with a questioning expression. “What about you? Basketball? Football? Swimming? You look like you’d be built for it.”

Ben shook his head. “No,” he said. “No sports.”

Rey appeared intrigued by that answer, but she didn’t push him for an explanation. They drove all the way down to the very edge of town so Rey could show Ben one of the brothels—she got a real kick out of his bewilderment upon being told what it was. He hadn’t been aware they still existed in any sort of legal capacity.

Then Rey showed him the house she’d moved into after Din and Luke started seriously dating. It was big, on a large sprawling lot, but it looked a lot older than the houses in the subdivision just across the street.

“Din sold the house and the land to pay for the ranch,” Rey explained. “They’ll probably demolish it at some point. Those suburbs weren’t there when we moved.” She relayed all this information with a somber frown and then quickly drove away, like she couldn’t bear the sight of part of her childhood being relentlessly replaced with the slow creep of urbanization.

Their next stop was an odd one. Rey gave no explanation as they turned onto a narrow dirt road, lined with trailers and chain-link fences on one side, and a dense wall of mesquites on the other. She drove out onto the hard-packed sand past the last house on the street and then deftly maneuvered the van through a small gap in the trees, guiding them into a small clearing with bright green vegetation enclosing them on all sides.

Scattered throughout the clearing and blocking some of the dirt trails that led deeper into the thicket were small, isolated dumping sites. Rey drove them towards one of these, pulling the van up alongside a ragged trampoline with a queen-sized mattress sitting on top of it. She parked, rolled down both their windows all the way, and then turned the engine off.

“What is this?” Ben asked when Rey didn’t immediately launch into tour-guide mode.

“Lover’s lane,” Rey replied casually. “Also technically a squatter’s camp, and the place where everyone used to come to do drug deals. There’s this guy named Babu who lives out that way who has a whole weed grow behind his RV,” she added, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.

Ben furrowed his eyebrows. “We’re not going to get in trouble, are we?” he wondered.

Rey shook her head. “You never see anyone out here unless you’re looking for ‘em, and the cops really don’t give a shit what anyone does out here,” she said. Then she pointed to the mattress sitting on top of the trampoline and grinned. “That’s where I lost my virginity,” she announced.

Ben’s frown deepened. “Really?” he said, trying to ignore the pit in his gut that had opened up without warning. Maybe coming here with Rey had been a mistake.

“We put a fresh sheet down,” she replied defensively. “It was nice. Romantic.”

Ben supposed he could see the appeal if he ignored the rest of the dumping ground. Maybe at night, when it would be too dark to see anything but the stars, he would feel differently.

Ben’s brain immediately conjured a vision of Rey splayed out on that mattress, the details of her body still hazy in his mind, a faceless male figure bent over her. Fucking her. Ben recoiled from it, and suddenly it was him in that figure’s place. He imagined Rey’s face, sweat-slick and panting, her eyes staring up into his as he moved between her legs. He felt sick.

Ben screwed his eyes shut and tried to think of anything else. But then it was him with his back against the mattress, Rey perched over him, her eyes darker now, her hands moving slowly down the line of his torso to the waistband of his jeans. A wave of…something washed over Ben, lighting up every nerve from his head to his toes.

“Ben?” He opened his eyes to find Rey staring at him, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Ben didn’t answer. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” he asked instead. “Like the others?” He saw the truth of the way they all acted around him, like he was a bomb ready to go off. He knew he’d made it worse with everything he’d said and done since he first arrived at the ranch, but it was a hard habit to break. Even if Ben had long since realized that instilling fear no longer served him the way it used to.

“Why should I—” Rey started to ask, but then she stopped, her mouth forming a grim, determined line. “Do you wish I was afraid of you?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Have you talked to Din about this?” Rey asked in a more tentative tone.

“Yes.”

“Okay. I won’t pry then.”

Ben was startled when his immediate reaction was that he wished she would. But he didn’t have time to dwell on the feeling. Rey had already changed the subject back to her childhood exploits in the thicket.

“Before we bought the ranch, I would steal Luke’s car sometimes—it was way before I was old enough to drive, but he taught me when I was like, eleven—and I’d come out here to be alone.”

“So you spent your whole childhood here?” Ben asked, gratefully giving himself over to the distraction. “In town, I mean.”

“For the most part,” Rey replied, but she didn’t elaborate. “Where were you living before you came to the ranch?” she asked.

“Detroit.”

“I thought you said you were from the East Coast.”

“I was,” Ben said. He paused for a moment, just long enough to draw attention to it. “I moved out to Michigan after I dropped out of college.” He should have lied, made it easier on himself, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything but tell her the truth.

“Can I ask why you dropped out?” Rey asked, the caution in her tone painfully evident.

Ben recalled the feeling of existential dread that had come over him a week before finals, when he’d realized that—that she had told everyone. He’d raced through the five stages of grief. Acceptance had come quickly. He knew before he left the park bench that afternoon that he couldn’t ever come back. He’d bailed on his lease, forfeited his tuition, and drove himself and all his worldly possessions to a Motel 6 in Detroit before the week was up. He’d blocked her number. And then he’d changed his own, just to be safe.

“I couldn’t handle the stress,” Ben said woodenly.

Rey nodded along. She gave no indication that she hadn’t taken him at his word. “I want to go to school someday,” she volunteered, “but it’s not time yet.”

Ben scoffed, taken aback by her cavalier attitude about delaying college so long. She was already years beyond the age at which most people finished undergrad. “What do you mean it’s not time yet?”

Rey shrugged. “Like, maybe in five to ten years I’ll be in a better place to go,” she said.

“You’ll be at least thirty,” Ben pointed out.

“So? You could go back too,” she added, “if you really wanted to. Maybe it would be easier to manage the stress now that you’re older.”

Ben shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He’d had a hard enough time fitting in with his peers at RISD when they’d all been about the same age. He shuddered to think of how much worse it would be the second time around, more than fifteen years after dropping out.

“Part of the reason I didn’t go right after high school is because I’d miss the ranch too much,” Rey continued. “But I don’t know. Maybe I’ll figure something out once I’m ready.”

A breeze fluttered in through the passenger window, pulling a lock of hair out from behind Rey’s ear. Ben found himself suddenly seized by the urge to reach over and tuck it back in. He turned in his seat to face the trees and the wildflowers swaying in the breeze just past the hood of the van and crossed his arms so tightly over his chest that the unevenly healed wounds on his wrists throbbed sharply in protest.

“I think I’m ready to go back now,” Ben proclaimed. He pretended not to notice the look of hurt on Rey’s face as she slid the keys back into the ignition and reversed out of the clearing.

Rey found herself struggling to keep her distance again once they returned to the ranch. Now that her anger towards Ben had cooled somewhat, it was harder to keep the urge to follow Ben around like a lovesick puppy in check. Not that Rey was feeling anything close to love. She barely knew him. And what she did know—well, it wasn’t all good. The incident with Jannah during group had been proof enough of that.

Rey wanted desperately to confront Ben about just that but figured it was probably best left in Din’s much more capable hands. In the meantime, she hoped that they could reach some sort of stable equilibrium, preferably one that didn’t end in another shouting match.

Rey approached Ben on Sunday hesitantly, not sure how he would respond to an invitation to join their evening activity so soon after he’d made an ass of himself in front of everyone else. “It’s a movie night in the barn,” Rey explained as Ben stared at her emotionlessly from where he was sitting propped up against his neat little stack of pillows. “We’re watching Tombstone.”

“Okay.”

“So you’ll come?”

Ben nodded. “Sure.”

But his presence there felt like less of a success than Rey had anticipated. He didn’t react to the movie at all, sitting silently in the back watching the screen as everyone else commentated over the film and volleyed their conflicting opinions on Val Kilmer’s mustache.

Ben’s expression remained perfectly vacant. The only sign of life he gave was the way he rubbed absently at his left forearm every now and again—the one Rey had inadvertently injured when she’d grabbed him by the wrist the other day. When the film was over, Ben got up and walked straight out of the barn. He didn’t say a word to Rey on the way out.

Something about the look in his eyes made Rey feel deeply, inexplicably sad. To hell with Din’s advice, she decided. She left the cleanup to the others and raced out of the barn after Ben, just barely managing to catch him at the back door to the house.

“It’s Sunday,” Rey said breathlessly as he stopped to turn and look at her. “I always go for a hike on Sundays.”

Ben looked pointedly up at the night sky. The sun had long since set and the moon was barely a sliver. “Isn’t it a little late for that?” he replied.

“You get used to spending time in the dark out here,” Rey replied honestly. “Are you gonna come with me or not?”

Ben nodded easily, flooding Rey with a wave of relief. She’d been half-expecting to have to coerce him into it. “Let me change my clothes,” he said before disappearing into the house.

Rey got ready quickly and then sat in one of the camp chairs to wait for him, drawing a few curious glances from the others as they filed into the house one by one, each of them, with the exception of Hux, wishing her a goodnight as they passed.

Only Jannah paused before she went in, her hand drawing the sliding door shut for a brief moment as she turned back towards Rey. “You’re going out with him?” It was clear she didn’t mean it in the figurative sense, for which Rey was grateful. The last thing she needed was for their new clients to think that she was dating one of the existing ones.

“On a walk,” Rey clarified nonetheless. “I like to go for a short hike on Sunday nights.”

“Hmm,” Jannah responded cryptically. “You should be careful.”

“Always am,” Rey replied.

She forced a chipper smile onto her face, pretending she didn’t know what Jannah was implying about Ben. She wasn’t stupid. She knew how it looked, going out into the middle of the desert at nearly midnight with a guy twice her size who hadn’t exactly made a great impression on anyone else in the few short days that Jannah had been here—or weeks in the case of Rey and others. But Rey trusted Ben. She really did.

“All right,” Jannah said as she pushed the door open again. “Goodnight then, Rey.”

“Night.”

Ben emerged a few minutes later, his eyes scanning the yard as if trying to determine whether the coast was clear.

“They all went to bed already,” Rey informed him. “Come on. Let’s go.”

They headed northeast along the road into the mountain pass. It was too dark to make out much of anything, even with Rey’s flashlight illuminating the way, but just the act of walking felt meditative, the sound of their footsteps hitting in time lulling Rey into a kind of peaceful, dreamlike stupor.

She moved a little nearer to him as the road narrowed, putting herself at Ben’s right side, so close that their arms brushed with every step. He didn’t move away.

Rey angled her flashlight slightly, catching Ben’s face in the light. He wasn’t looking at her, or even at the path ahead. His head was angled upward, towards the sky, and Rey stopped abruptly, putting an arm out to halt Ben’s path.

“What is it?” Ben asked.

Rey didn’t answer. She turned off her flashlight and let the darkness swallow them up.

Ben’s shoes crunched through the gravel uncertainly as he slowly spun in place, but finally, he stilled with the back of his hand lightly grazing Rey’s elbow.

“I’ve never seen this many stars,” Ben said quietly.

“Never?”

“Not before I came out here.”

Rey wondered what that must be like. She remembered being in the city once when she was small and feeling disoriented when she looked up at the night sky to see only blackness above. She couldn’t imagine discovering so late in her life that this was what the world had been hiding from you all along.  

“We went on a few camping trips with my grandparents when I was a kid,” Ben continued. “But we were never far enough from the city to see the Milky Way.”

Rey hummed as she stared up at the smoky band extending across the sky. Luke had been the one to explain to her what she was seeing, that it was comprised of billions of stars and moons and planets, too big and too vast for humans to fully understand. Even at just six years old, Rey had found a strange comfort in that. Even out here, scraping by at the fringes of civilization, Rey had always known she was part of something incomprehensibly magnificent and grand.

“Some people are disappointed when they see it for the first time,” Rey told him. “They expect it to look the way it does in pictures. And it doesn’t.”

Ben uncurled his fingers, letting them drag against the exposed skin of Rey’s arm, leaving a constellation of goosebumps in their wake.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said in a low tone. “I think it’s beautiful.”

Chapter Text

On Monday, Rey made another audacious attempt at getting Ben to learn the trot. He’d managed it for a few seconds at a time during their last session in the arena, but it seemed as though he’d completely forgotten everything he’d learned in the interim. Rey only wasted the first half hour of their lesson trying vainly to coach Ben into posting—after he nearly lost his seat for the second time, Rey called it quits and decided that they would walk their horses around the ranch instead.

Ben looked relieved as she opened the gate for him to ride Whisper out of the barn, but Rey didn’t intend to go easy on him. She latched the gate and quickly hopped back up onto Bebe, pulling him alongside Whisper so they could have a little chat as they rode.

“You need to talk to me about what is making you so uncomfortable,” Rey said. “If it’s something you don’t want me to tell Din about, then I won’t, but I can’t help make riding easier for you if I don’t know what the problem is.”

Ben was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t…” he started to say before falling silent again. “It’s hard to do what you’re asking me to do when we ride,” he finally told her.

“Why?”

“Because I feel like—I don’t feel like I’m in control of my body,” he confessed, and once again Rey felt that Ben was sharing more with her than he’d originally intended. “You’re always telling me to relax and treat my body like it’s a part of the horse, but I don’t even feel like it’s a part of me.” Ben glanced at her with something akin to desperation in his eyes, like he was hoping Rey had some sort of magic remedy, that—despite what he’d said to her after group on Friday—he did want her to fix him.

But Rey wasn’t arrogant enough to think that she had all the answers. “Why don’t we start doing yoga again?” she offered instead. “We can try some new techniques that might help.”

Ben frowned. “Why did you stop in the first place then?”

Rey kept her eyes focused on the path ahead and very pointedly did not look at Ben as she answered. “I was starting to feel like I was spreading myself too thin,” she lied.

“So what changed?”

“Nothing,” Rey answered far too quickly to seem convincing. “I just…. I want to help you.” She turned then to find Ben staring at her, his eyes dark. “Let me help you?” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “Please?”

Ben nodded and rode on.

Anticipation and anxiety filled Ben’s brain to near bursting as he struggled to sit through dinner without fidgeting. Rey didn’t seem to notice, but Finn, who had long since fallen into a practiced routine of completely ignoring Ben’s existence, was uncharacteristically observant, watching Ben like a hawk throughout the entire meal.

“What’s your deal, man?” Finn asked as they walked back to the east wing together.

Usually, Finn stayed out in the main house after dinner. Ben didn’t know why Finn had chosen to follow him instead.

“None of your business,” Ben muttered, feeling his face redden as he realized Finn had keyed into his burgeoning excitement. “I’m fine.”

“I didn’t ask if you were fine. I asked what your deal was.”

Ben whirled around in the doorway to their shared bedroom to snap back at Finn only to stop in his tracks when he spotted Hux creeping along just a few feet behind. Ben could tell from the overeager expression on Hux’s pinched, pointed face that he was hoping to eavesdrop on an inevitable argument. Hux had been around less than a week and already Ben had clued into the fact that Hux was an incorrigible gossip.

Ben shut his mouth and walked straight to his bed, ignoring the both of them. But he was aware of their fleeting glances cast his way as they busied themselves with their evening routines, both seemingly intent on surveilling him for their own purposes.

Ben was up and out of bed as soon as the knock came at the door precisely when he’d expected it. He caught a glimpse of Hux’s blatant rubbernecking and Finn’s disapproving frown as he slipped out into the hallway to join Rey and pretended he saw neither. He smiled dopily at Rey before catching himself in the act and schooling his expression into something less embarrassing as they made their way out to the main house.

They encountered Jannah in the living room. She was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked up under herself, a book spread out on her lap. She glanced up as they passed, returning Rey’s smile with one of her own. Her expression cooled as her eyes moved to Ben.

Ben ducked his head, not able to bear the scrutiny. He still hadn’t apologized to her about what he’d said. He didn’t know if he even could. It wouldn’t mean anything if he couldn’t tell her the truth. And Ben couldn’t tell her the truth. He’d tried before. The words just wouldn’t come out.

“I thought we could go to a new spot,” Rey said once they were outside.

Ben merely nodded. He would follow her anywhere.

The new spot wasn’t that far from the old one. There was a path even harder to discern than the one that led to the gazebo somewhere in the midst of the mesquites and cottonwoods that surrounded the pond. Ben had to bend low to avoid being smacked in the face by the thin thorny branches that curved like a canopy above a trail seldom paved by footprints.

The path spiraled through the dense grove of trees to a small, secluded clearing in the center, from which the ranch was impossible to spy through the greenery. There was already a thick quilt spread out on the ground, which explained the absence of the yoga mats that they had used the last few times they had done this.

Rey plopped down onto her knees at one end of the quilt and beckoned for Ben to accompany her on the ground.

Ben cautiously lowered himself down and folded his legs awkwardly under himself, using one hand to keep him balanced, conscious of the way the tension in his arm pulled at the mending skin. He sat stock-still, waiting, with bated breath.

“Let’s talk first,” Rey said.

Ben released that breath and allowed himself to relax, just the tiniest bit.

“I want to say up front that I’m not here to make any assumptions or judgments about your past,” Rey continued, and just like that Ben tensed up again, his body ready for fight and flight. “But Din had me take an instructor course on trauma-informed yoga years ago just in case we decided to incorporate it into the program—and we haven’t—but I think it might be something that would help you based on what you said earlier.”

“I wasn’t abused,” Ben replied reflexively, his tone harsher than he’d intended it to be. He very carefully doesn’t think about the almosts.

“Okay,” Rey replied impassively. “Trauma isn’t exclusive to abuse.”

“I’m not traumatized,” Ben bit out.

“It’s not a dirty word, Ben,” Rey replied, and this time she couldn’t keep the pity from leaching into her face as she gazed up at him, illuminated only by the moon. “But we don’t have to put labels on things if you’re not comfortable with it.”

Ben bristled at the unintentional condescension, but this time he kept his mouth shut. Not so deep down, he knew he was lying to her. But admitting what his mother had done, what his friends had done, what Tava had done, felt like slitting his own belly and offering up the entrails to a hungry predator. He couldn’t make himself vulnerable like that again. Not even for Rey.

“Okay,” he said flatly. “So how is it different from before?”

“We move slower,” Rey answered easily. “We focus on your breathing, on mindfulness, on being present in your body. It’s not about the athleticism of it. It’s about untangling the pathways between your brain and your body. Sometimes trauma or stress or mental illness scramble things up, and it’s hard to remember what normal felt like.”

Ben had never felt normal. “Okay,” he said again, calmer this time. “How do we start?”

“Are you comfortable closing your eyes?”

Ben nodded.

“Are you comfortable with me touching you?”

Ben hesitated for a moment. “It depends where,” he finally replied, noticing the way Rey’s eyes flicked down towards his reinjured arm for a second before rising to meet his gaze again.

“Okay,” Rey said without skipping a beat. “I can ask you first, if that’s okay?”

Ben nodded again.

“Let’s start with you lying on your back, knees up, hands palms up at your sides. Is it okay if I touch your hands?”

Ben nodded as he slowly maneuvered himself into the position Rey had asked for. He closed his eyes and waited. He could feel Rey shuffling closer to him, the quilt bunching up a little around his hips as she scooted into place at his feet. A few seconds later, she pressed a finger of each hand against the center of his palms.

“I want you to focus on the feeling of my fingers,” she said in a soft voice. “Take deep breaths, in and out through your nose, and concentrate only on that point of contact, okay?”

Ben nodded and tried his best to do as she’d asked. He’d never been good at clearing his mind, and he certainly wasn’t the best at maintaining an appropriate level of focus, but Rey’s touch was like an anchor, drawing his thoughts toward the gentle pressure against his skin. After a few breaths, Rey moved both fingers to the tip of his thumb, and Ben’s mind followed.

Rey repeated the process on each finger before returning to the palms of his hands. Suddenly, Ben was reminded of the sensory and motor exams they’d had him complete in the hospital when he first woke up and again before he was discharged. He flinched, and Rey drew her hands back quickly.

The ghost of her touch remained, an echoing warmth against Ben’s skin.

“You can sit up and open your eyes,” Rey said.

The cacophony of night descended unexpectedly as Ben returned to the present moment. He sat up slowly, his muscles unexpectedly reluctant to obey. The sounds of the nocturnal insects and birds in the trees surrounding them momentarily deafened Ben as Rey said something else to him.

“What?” he asked dazedly.

“Do you want to try some different poses?” Rey repeated patiently.

“Sure. Uh, yeah.”

Ben expected things to proceed more or less the way they had before all this mindfulness stuff that Rey was so keen on trying, but this time, after demonstrating each pose for him, Rey simply hovered, instructing him all the while on his breathing as he sweated and panted his way through each stretch.

It was working, he thought, and that was the strangest thing. Ben was so focused on his breathing and the strain in his muscles that he barely even reacted to the feel of Rey’s fingers brushing against the smallest patch of exposed skin on his lower back where his shirt had ridden up as he bent down to touch his toes like she’d asked. It was only when she applied a bit of pressure, trying to encourage him to go deeper into the stretch, that Ben’s instincts won out. He pulled away sharply from the touch with an abortive gasp.

“Sorry,” Rey uttered in a breathless voice as he slowly straightened up again. “I shouldn’t have touched you without asking.”

“It’s okay, I…” Ben started to say, turning around to face her with a wide-eyed expression. Something in him regretting reacting. “I’m just not used to being touched,” he confessed. “It feels…wrong, I guess.” There was more to it than that, of course, but…Ben had already been honest enough for one night.

Rey stared at him with a strange, inscrutable expression. Ben turned away from her just as she opened her mouth, so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes when she asked, “Do you want to be touched?”

“I don’t know,” Ben eventually said, and that was the truth too.

When he turned to look at her again, Rey was smiling. “We’ll keep working on it,” she said, as if it was just as easy as that. As if Ben hadn’t spent years in therapy trying to trick himself into accepting what he couldn’t change.

It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t do it. He and Rey would always be on opposite ends of this yawning gulf, this void that Ben had been cursed with since his birth, and it didn’t matter how hard they tried, neither one of them could bridge it. Ben would always be alone.

The fleeting memory of Ben’s less than successful time in therapy brought a more immediate threat to the forefront of his mind. He reached out without thinking, grabbing Rey’s hand tight to pull her back towards him. She looked startled by the unexpected gesture, but she didn’t otherwise react to his touch.

“Please don’t tell Din about any of this,” Ben begged.

“I won’t,” Rey replied, staring wide-eyed back at Ben.

Her cheeks were pink. Ben was still holding her hand. They were so close that he could feel her breath gently caressing his face like warm breeze.

Ben let go. They walked in silence out of the clearing and back to the house, but there was something different about this silence. Ben wasn’t sure how to react when Rey reached for his hand out there in the hallway between the doors to their respective bedrooms. She gave his fingers a quick squeeze and smiled up at him before turning to go inside her room.

“Goodnight, Ben,” she called softly over her shoulder.

“Goodnight, Rey.”

Rey brought Ben breakfast in bed the next morning on a sudden whim. He blinked up at her sleepily and accepted the plate of chocolate chip waffles with a faint smile. Neither said a word to the other.

Rey felt as if she was moving through a dream as she helped Rose to clean up after breakfast before going out to get ready for her first horsemanship lesson—or rather, mulemanship lesson—of the day with Kaydel and Dio.

Her lack of focus did not go unnoticed by the shrewd-eyed Kaydel, who immediately cornered Rey in the tack shed at the beginning of their lesson and launched into an interrogation about how much time Rey was spending with Ben.

Rey evaded her questions as best she could, only to face the same scrutiny from Tallie, who was even more insistent in her pursuit of answers.

When even Rose tried to sneak in a few subtle requests for information about the nature of Rey’s relationship with Ben, she had just about had enough.

“Are you all gossiping about us behind my back?” Rey demanded.

Rose made a face as she strolled past Rey and Bebe on her tiny mustang. “Maybe?” she squeaked out, though she had the decency to look appropriately chagrined. “Jannah was asking Kaydel about you two since she’s new…. I think she thought you guys were already dating or something. Or like, you started dating before she got here. Something like that.”

Rey liked Jannah just fine, but she really wished Jannah would have just asked her instead.

“I guess I should be grateful that Poe is handling Jannah’s lessons then,” she snapped back. “So I don’t have to hear any more of this shit from y’all.” Rey regretted the lapse in professionalism as soon as the words left her mouth.

Rose’s face went all scrunched up, like she couldn’t decide whether she should sympathize with Rey or scold her. Rey knew that Rose didn’t respond well to conflict. And it wasn’t like it was Rose’s fault that other people were making assumptions. Rey knew she wasn’t being fair.

“Sorry,” Rey said, taking care to even out her tone.

“Apology accepted,” Rose said placidly, and then she quickly cued Canto into an easy, effortless lope around the arena.

Rey had settled herself mentally and emotionally by the time she’d finished up in the tack shed after Rose’s lesson. She was just about to head out to the gazebo to finish the last of her notes for the day when Hux unexpectedly intersected her path from the left. He was whistling something under his breath, but he stopped as soon as he saw Rey, and a wicked grin slowly spread across his face as he glanced over his shoulder at her as they walked together in the direction of the pond.

“So how’s the sex?” Hux asked, as casually as if he were remarking upon the weather.

Rey’s eyes narrowed. She thought she must have misheard him. “What?”

Hux didn’t repeat himself. He shoved his hands into his pockets, continuing on just as casually as before on his way to the casita with Rey at his heels. “He looks like he’s packing,” Hux said instead. “But guys who have that whole broody, needs-anger-management thing going on—they never know how to use it.”

Rey’s mind went blank. “Excuse me?” she nearly screeched as she skidded to a halt in the dirt.

Hux slowly turned to face her. He gave her a long, lingering once-over that made Rey’s skin crawl. “I bet he’s into some fucked up shit,” he drawled. “He’s got too many issues not to be hiding some weird kinks—”

Rey saw red. She took a jolting step forward, her fist already raised before her brain kicked in and helpfully reminded her that, under no circumstances, could she punch a client in the face.

“Fuck off,” Rey snarled instead.

It was in that exact instant that Din emerged from the trees at the entrance to the path that led around the pond. “Rey,” he barked sharply, a disapproving frown pulling at the corners of his mouth.

Rey went scarlet. “Sorry,” she mumbled automatically, her eyes lowered so she wouldn’t have to witness the infuriatingly smug look on Hux’s face.

“No hard feelings,” Hux replied in an obnoxiously gleeful tone. “It was my fault really—didn’t realize I’d touched a nerve.”

Rey chanced a sideways glance at Din, who was staring at the back of Hux’s head with a contemplative frown. She suppressed the grin threatening to break out on her face. Din might not have heard Hux’s comments as they walked up to the casita, but Din was far from stupid. He must have figured out by now that Hux had provoked Rey into reacting—even if she should have been smart enough not to fall for the bait.

“Are you ready to go in?” Din asked Hux. He held the door open without breaking eye contact with his daughter. “Rey, we’ll talk later,” he said meaningfully.

Rey caught another quick flash of Hux’s pinched little smirk before the door shut behind them. She let out a quiet laugh and continued on her way out to the pond.

Rey was far more careful that evening not to give anyone else a reason to think there was anything untoward going on between her and Ben. She caught him out by the tack shed just before dinner and pulled him behind the little wooden building, using it as a barrier to shield them from any prying eyes from the main house.

“Come meet me outside after Finn and Hux are asleep,” Rey told him. Finn, she knew, would be in bed before nine-thirty. Hux was an unknown variable, but if Rey had to hang around in the yard until after midnight, then that’s what she would do. Better that than to subject Ben to one of Hux’s mean-spirited jabs when she came into their room to get him.

Ben glanced down uncertainly at Rey’s fingers looped loosely around his own and then cast a furtive glance out toward the yard. “Okay,” he said slowly. His eyes followed her as she dropped his hand before making a quick dash back into the house.

Rey decided she should have been a little more transparent about the need for secrecy when Ben stared at her through most of dinner. The attention should have served as reassurance after, but Rey found herself sitting next to the firepit after dark, worrying her fingernails down to raw, angry nubs, unable to keep herself from concocting scenarios in her mind that all ended with Ben deciding he wasn’t interested after all, or that she wasn’t worth the hassle, or—or something.

Rey had pulled her sweatshirt up over her head like a cocoon and was slumped down with her ass almost hanging off the edge of the deck chair when she heard the slide of the glass door opening and the soft crunch of footsteps in the dirt. She scrambled to her feet, getting momentarily tangled up in the collar of her sweater. When she finally tugged it back down around her neck, she was standing face to face with a vaguely bemused-looking Ben.

“Why all the…?” Ben waved his hand in an encompassing gesture. “Subterfuge,” he finished when Rey didn’t immediately respond.

Rey’s embarrassment turned to mortification. “Hux and the girls were—” She stopped, not wanting to lump any of the girls in with what Hux had said to her, no matter how annoying their interrogations had been. “People started gossiping,” she said instead. “About what we’ve been getting up to.”

Ben’s face pulled into an uncomfortable grimace.

Rey reflexively took a step back. “I’m not embarrassed by it,” she said, and what she meant is that she wasn’t embarrassed by Ben, but it was impossible to tell from the look on his face whether he’d correctly gleaned her intent. “I just wouldn’t want the others to think that I’m being inappropriate. With a client,” she added.

“Right,” Ben replied stonily. “Yeah.”

Rey let the momentary awkwardness roll off her and led Ben out to the spot where they’d done their mindfulness exercise the night before. Rey decided to have Ben do the yoga poses first this time, to work out some of the tension radiating off of him in waves before they moved back into mindfulness.

Rey was a little bolder when she dragged her fingers down the lines of Ben’s palms, and then ventured a little further, pressing their hands together firmly, having Ben squeeze her fingers in time with his breathing. His features showed little emotion as they worked, but he looked rather serene lying there with his eyes closed, face upturned towards the moonlight coming in through the gap in the trees.

Before too long, Rey ran out of excuses to keep touching him and reluctantly pulled away. She settled herself down on her back next to him instead, scooting in close enough so that she could feel the warmth of his body along her right side. She wasn’t breaking the rules. Neither his nor hers. But it was a near thing.

They laid there in silence for a long while. The crickets started up again, apparently having decided that the intruders into their domain posed no threat after all. They chirped rapidly, a staccato confirming the heat of the evening. Rey counted the seconds on one hand and the number of chirps on the other; eighty-two degrees, she estimated.

Ben let out a quiet sigh beside her.

Rey opened her eyes and rolled over onto her side to face him. His eyes were still closed. He didn’t open them in response to her shifting movements. Rey watched him for just a moment before flopping down onto her back again to stare up at the stars.

“I used to come out here to sleep when we first moved to the ranch,” Rey told Ben. “It took months to get the central air installed, and it was always cooler out here than sleeping inside, even with all the windows open. Sometimes I still feel tempted, you know. Like…if I came out here it would feel just like it did before.” She’d never given in to that urge, too afraid of the disappointment that would surely follow.

Ben didn’t respond. His breathing slowed as Rey turned her head to watch him, his face going perfectly lax. Just like that, he was asleep, and Rey decided there was no point in waking him up just to go back to the house.

Rey moved infinitesimally closer, enough that the heat of Ben’s body began to warm her instead of the ambient energy of the summer night. She fell asleep easily, just like when she was a child.

Rey was the first to wake up. It was just before dawn, a hazy blue light filtering through the trees and casting the planes of Ben’s sleeping face into soft shadow. Carpenter bees fluttered gently above her head, seeking out the datura blossoms that grew in scattered patches all around the pond. Through the trees, Rey could hear the rattling call of a belted kingfisher, and the gentle warbles of songbirds nestled within the thorny branches of the mesquites.

Ben’s chest rose and fell in concert with the morning breeze fluttering through the clearing. Rey agonized over the inevitable disruption of the rare peace that graced his face. But morning always came quickly in the desert, and it wouldn’t be long before the sun came in through the windows, big and bright, and woke the others.

Rey didn’t want to get caught sneaking back into the house with Ben in tow. For her own sake, and for his. It was time for the dream to end.

“Ben,” Rey whispered, remembering the first morning after Ben had arrived when Finn had told her that Ben had hit him when he’d tried to wake Ben up. She understood now what had happened, what Finn had done wrong in his well-intentioned ignorance. “Ben,” she said again, a little louder. She wouldn’t touch him. Not while he was asleep.

Finally, Ben stirred, and his eyes opened. He didn’t startle awake, like Rey expected. One second he was asleep; the next, he was sitting upright, blinking the last vestiges of unconsciousness away as he turned to take her in.

“It’s morning?” he said, brows scrunched together as he swiveled his head around, confused by the light. “I don’t remember falling asleep.”

Rey nodded. “We need to go back to the house,” she said slowly as she got to her feet. She extended a hand towards Ben, still not entirely sure he would take it. “Come on. We can make pancakes before the others wake up.”

Ben took her hand and held it even after he’d stood up on shaky legs, like a newborn foal taking its first steps. Rey led him out of the spiraling maze and back out into the open. It wasn’t until they reached the fire pit, still hand in hand, that she realized they weren’t the only ones awake after all.

Rey dropped Ben’s hand abruptly and skidded to a stop feet from Din, who stepped through the sliding glass door with a mug of coffee in one hand and a severe expression pulling at his typically docile features.

Rey could tell that she was in for a lecture. There was no point in trying to avoid it. “Why don’t you get a few more hours of sleep,” she suggested to Ben, who looked strangely helpless and frightened despite his hulking frame. She watched him pass by Din with his head hung low, but Din didn’t say a word.

After the door closed behind Ben, Din leveled Rey with an expectant stare. “Let’s have a seat,” he said.

Rey dropped down into one of the camp chairs with a miserable sigh and drew her knees up to her chin.

Din wasn’t the first to break the silence, which stretched on so long that the sun had already begun to peek over the mountain by the time Rey decided she couldn’t take the waiting any longer.

“Don’t do that,” Rey muttered. “I’m not one of your patients.”

“Sorry,” Din replied. Rey knew he meant it. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing. Let me think for a minute.”

Rey watched as he sipped slowly from his coffee, his gaze soft and contemplative as he stared off in the direction of the pond, his feet crossed casually at the ankle. She wondered if he was going to tell Luke what he’d seen.

“You’re an adult,” Din finally said as he turned his gaze with intentionality, making sure to meet Rey’s eyes as he said it. “I know that you’re capable of making adult decisions. I don’t want to infantilize you or give you the impression that I don’t trust your ability to exercise good judgment.” He sucked in a deep breath before continuing. “But there are consequences that come from being involved with someone who has the kind of baggage that Ben has, even without the complexity of entering into a relationship with a client.”

“I have baggage too,” Rey pointed out stubbornly.

Din gave a slight smile. “You know it’s not the same,” he replied. “I wish I could say more, Rey, but that would be betraying Ben’s trust, and I don’t want to do that, even if it would save you both a mountain of heartbreak.”

Rey swallowed hard around the lump she could feel forming in her throat. “We didn’t even—I’m just trying to be his friend. Why can’t I just be his friend?” She glanced down between her feet and tried to blink back the tears. Din had acknowledged that she was an adult, but Rey wasn’t sure she’d ever felt more like a child.

Din remained quiet for a while longer. Rey didn’t push him for a response, nor was she naïve enough to think that his silence was her cue to leave. The longer the pause extended, the more she dreaded Din’s inevitable reply.

“I’m afraid I have to make a hypocrite of myself,” Din said, breaking the spell at last, and Rey reluctantly dragged her gaze upwards to meet his once more. He wore a resigned smile, a touch of bitterness turning him into someone she barely recognized. “I shouldn’t say what I’m about to say, but I’m worried that not saying it would be an even greater error.”

Rey started to cry. It had taken her by surprise, too quickly to suppress the outburst. “I’m sorry, I’m just—sorry.” She wiped the tears away quickly, letting out an embarrassed half-chuckle as she struggled to pull herself together.

Din waited for her to calm down before he continued. “I don’t have all the facts, Rey. I can’t tell you what’s best for you—I wish I could. I wish I knew what was best for Ben, but I’m not infallible. I don’t pretend to be. But Rey—” His mouth twisted into a taut, gnarled grimace. “I don’t think Ben has had a true friend in a very long time. Maybe ever. I don’t know if he is even capable of trusting another human being, let alone loving them—I know you said it’s not like that, Rey, but friendship is a form of love just like any other. And I don’t believe that Ben has the capacity for it right now. Or that he ever will.

“You’ve seen your fair share of broken horses, Rey. Sometimes…sometimes, you just can’t fix them.”

The desert surroundings were strangely silent as Rey drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “You’re wrong,” she insisted. “You and Luke—you’re wrong about him.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Din stared at her with that same pitying expression as Rey jumped to her feet and stormed back towards the house, no longer able to staunch the flood of tears. She only hesitated for a moment outside Ben’s door, and then she kept going, locking her bedroom door behind her, throwing herself on the bed, and crying into her pillows until she had nothing more to give.

Chapter Text

Rey pushed hard during Ben’s lesson that afternoon.

He didn’t look like he’d slept much either after he’d gone back to his room, the omnipresent circles under his eyes looking a little darker than usual, his reflexes even slower. He was struggling—but Rey refused to let him quit.

“Keep kicking him,” Rey urged as she trotted alongside Ben and Whisper on Bebe, whose competitive nature kept winning out against Rey’s careful control of the reins as he tried to speed ahead past the other horse. “Don’t let him slow down to a walk. Let gravity keep you in the seat. Just relax into it. Don’t tense up.”

Ben’s jaw was visibly clenched as he bounced awkwardly in the saddle, his left hand pulling hard at the reins and his right wrapped tightly around the horn. Sweat dripped down his face, streaming into his eyes, but it was clear that under no circumstances was Ben planning to let go for even a second to wipe his brow.

Finally, Rey decided to take pity on him, calling an end to the lesson a good fifteen minutes early. It was obvious that both Ben and Whisper had had enough.

Ben didn’t say a word as he untacked, his jaw still tightly clenched—from anger or pain, Rey couldn’t tell.

She was hoping he might cool off a bit once he was out of the saddle, but no luck; he breezed straight past her without sparing a glance once he closed the gate to the corral behind him. Rey’s half-hearted, “Ben—” went unacknowledged.

She’d realized too late she should apologize. Ben was no longer willing to hear it. He yanked the sliding glass door shut with a resounding thud.

For the second time that day, Rey thought she might cry. She wasn’t a crier. Never had been. Didn’t want to be.

Rey stared at the space where Ben had just been for more than a minute before she turned and clomped through the dirt to the corral in search of Poe.

“Is Baz still coming up this week?” he asked as she drew closer to where he was digging out the covered pens, not needing to glance up to figure out whose footsteps were treading through the muck.

Rey said nothing.

Poe straightened up to look at her, and immediately his expression mirrored her own. “What happened?”

Rey shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was thick with unshed tears. “Can I come stay with you and Zorii tonight?”

To Poe’s credit, he didn’t pressure her into any sort of explanation. “Yeah, sure,” he replied. “I was just going to finish this and then head out. Do you want to meet me at the gate?” He reached into his pocket and tossed her his keyring.

“Yeah,” Rey replied dully. “Let me just go tell Luke.”

Rey took a series of deep breaths as she marched over to the casita. Din was in a session with Tallie, she was pretty sure, but Luke was likely sitting out on the porch that overlooked the pond—or would have, if he ever bothered to cut back the trees that continually endeavored to swallow the building whole.

Rey paused just inside the doorway, in the sitting room that doubled as a waiting room—not that it saw much use as either. She touched a finger to the lonely ceramic figurine propped up against a potted cactus in the windowsill: a young boy in patched overalls, angled as if he was intended to be perched on another piece. The figurine had been a feature of every place she and Luke had lived in for as long as she could remember. Rey had never seen the matching piece.

The moment of contemplation was enough to pull herself together—she hoped. When she went out to the porch to meet Luke, he gave no indication that he thought there was something wrong.

“What’s up, kiddo?” he asked casually, pulling her in for a loose hug.

Rey melted into his arms gratefully. The others probably would never have expected it based on Luke’s general demeanor, but between the two of them, Luke had always been the more tactile parent. Maybe it was because Din entered the picture when Rey was older, whereas Luke had always been there, had always known that physical affection was often what she needed.

Luke was sitting on the ratty outdoor sofa. Rey sank down onto the cushions next to him and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder as he squeezed her a little tighter. “I think I’m going to go stay with Poe and Zorii tonight,” she told him. “I just wanted to let you know. Din’s still working right?”

“Yeah. You need a break or something? I feel like you’ve been stretching yourself a little thin around here.”

Rey shrugged. “I’m fine,” she lied as she gazed out into the impenetrable wall of green. “Just felt like a change of scenery.”

“Well, don’t drink too much, okay?”

Rey pulled away so she could look down at him and smiled thinly. “I think we’re just going to play some board games, maybe watch a movie.”

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t need to lie to me about what you get up to when you hang out with Poe. Have fun, kiddo, all right? I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pressed his lips to her temple and then let her go, quickly turning his attention back to the trees.

It was stupid to consider telling Ben too, but Rey found herself contemplating just that when she walked down the hallway to her bedroom. She paused outside his closed door for only a second before ridding herself of the thought.

By the time Rey sidled into Poe’s truck with a change of clothes, her phone charger, and her water bottle tucked into a small rucksack at her feet, it was nearly time to start dinner, and she experienced a brief flash of panic before remembering that everyone was an adult with the capability of heating up their own leftovers. Or pouring a bowl of cereal. Something.

She didn’t have to be everything to everyone. Maybe she didn’t even want to be.

It wasn’t the first time that she’d questioned her decision to work at the ranch after graduating high school instead of doing literally anything else. She hadn’t lied to Ben about her reasoning. She liked it here. The work she did felt like it mattered. She knew if she went off someplace for college that she’d likely spend four years counting the days until she could come back home. But…it wasn’t easy. And these days, it felt like it was only getting harder.

“Ready to go?” Poe asked as he bounded over to the truck with his own bag slung over his shoulder.

Rey hadn’t started the truck, just rolled the windows down to get some air, so she dropped the keys into his waiting hands and buckled up while Poe climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or should we stock up on some distraction juice?”

Despite what she’d told Luke, the idea of drinking her problems away sounded extremely tempting. “We probably shouldn’t,” Rey said, thinking of how miserable tomorrow would be if she came back to work in the morning with a hangover on top of everything else.

“I’m not saying we should play Edward Fortyhands,” Poe replied with a snort. “But you do look like you could use a glass of wine. Or two.”

Rey’s head flopped back against the headrest, and she closed her eyes with a sigh. “Fine,” she conceded. “But we’re not doing a rosé.”

“Yes, your highness.”

Poe picked out a bottle of red at the grocery store in town while Rey remained in the car, toying with her phone. She couldn’t shake the urge to say something to Ben, even if she had to use Rose as a proxy to do it. But there was nothing for her to say. She couldn’t tell Ben what Din had told her without hurting him even more, and a simple Sorry for the way I acted earlier didn’t feel big enough.

Poe and Zorii lived on the northwest side of town, in a bright yellow house with green trim that had a sprawling cactus lawn. Rey carefully followed Poe down the narrow path between the side of the house and the cactus that was slowly starting to encroach on the space between and somehow made it inside unscathed, where she was greeted with a shriek of delight and a bone-crushing hug from Zorii.

“You finally accept my invitation to stay over without even telling me first?” Zorii demanded with an expression of mock outrage. “You know I hate surprises.” Rey could only muster up a weak smile in response. “What’s wrong?” Zorii asked, switching gears almost instantaneously.

“Why does something have to be wrong?” Rey responded.

Poe gave her a disapproving look as he set the bottle of wine down on the kitchen island but kept his mouth shut.

“Please don’t insult my emotional intelligence,” Zorii said flatly. She took a step back from Rey and looked her up and down, as if the answer to what was troubling Rey could be elucidated that way. “Seriously—what happened?”

Rey paused for a second while Zorii stared at her, intending to answer but not sure of how to explain without implicating Din, Luke, Ben, or herself.

That was, of course, the exact moment Poe chose to open his big, fat mouth. “Did Ben do something?” To his credit, there was nothing but pure concern on his face as he poured three half-glasses of wine before stashing the rest of the bottle in the fridge.

Rey didn’t answer. She drank her glass in one long swig and then set it down on the countertop again. She didn’t feel any better after—and Zorii was still staring at her, this time with a pensive, calculating expression.

“The guy who made you buy him lube?” she asked with a touch of disgust, and behind her, Poe visibly choked on his wine.

“He didn’t make me—” Rey started to argue, but Poe recovered just enough to steamroll over her with an indignant, “He did what?”

“It wasn’t anything inappropriate!” Rey shouted as she shoved past the two of them. She flopped down onto the threadbare thrift-store couch with a sigh and tried to think of a way to explain what had actually happened between her and Ben.

The wine came straight out of the fridge. Rey’s empty glass was placed in front of her on the coffee table and summarily refilled past the high-water mark. Rey drank from it gratefully and found herself with another full glass just as quickly.

“Babe,” Zorii started to say as she took a seat in the lone armchair, her feet tucked up under her as she leaned toward Rey with her own glass cupped delicately in one hand.

“I’m not a child,” Rey insisted. “I don’t need everyone rallying around to protect me from Ben—who so far, has done absolutely nothing to me, by the way.” Not even the sort of something she wanted, Rey thought desperately as she took a slower sip of her third glass of wine. “No one else likes him; I get it. But I do like him, and I want to be his friend, and I’m fully entitled to make my own mistakes without constantly having to justify them to all of y’all.”

“Like him, or…like him?” Zorii asked. Poe was still hovering between them with a stony expression, the bottle of wine in one hand, his own glass in the other. Zorii glared up at him until he finally sat down on the smaller sofa. Meanwhile, Rey contemplated the question.

“The second one, maybe,” she said, too quickly. “I don’t know. He’s…a lot. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“No,” Poe said emphatically, “it wouldn’t, because he’s a patient.”

Rey shot him an icy look. “I know that,” she retorted. She already felt guilty about the nature of her relationship with Ben, or something like guilt, anyway. She didn’t need Poe to remind her of how fucked up this whole situation was. “Can we just watch a fucking movie already?”

Choosing a movie was nearly as tumultuous as the preceding discussion, but they eventually all agreed on a horror film set in space that was so gory Poe kept covering his eyes, peeking through the slits in his fingers like it would somehow lessen the impact of what he was seeing onscreen. They were all pretty fucking drunk by the time credits rolled, and Poe appeared to be more or less asleep already with his face buried in the cushions, his right shoulder rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

Rey sighed as Zorii turned off the TV and poured the last dregs of the wine bottle into Rey’s glass. Rey didn’t think it would take much for her to fall asleep either, but she would much rather do it in a bed, even if it was just the tiny twin in the guest bedroom that doubled as Shara’s room whenever Poe had her for a weekend.

“So,” Zorii said in a muted tone, apparently not content to let Rey wander off to bed without getting a few more answers out of her first. “Ben.”

“What about him?” Rey asked sleepily.

“You tell me. Why is he at the ranch? Poe heard from Finn that he’s not even queer.”

“He told me he’s straight,” Rey offered.

“You don’t believe him?”

Rey shrugged helplessly. “I believe that he believes it. I don’t know. He doesn’t seem interested in anyone at all, honestly.”

“Except you,” Zorii countered.

“I don’t know about that either.” Whatever Ben’s feelings were for Rey, they weren’t as straightforward as Zorii was making them out to be. Rey took another deep draw from her glass. There wasn’t much left.

“I think…” she started to say. “I think Ben tried to kill himself.” She regretted the proclamation immediately, but there was nothing else to do but address Zorii’s questioning look with an explanation now that she’d said it. “He wears these long-sleeved shirts all the time, even when it’s a hundred degrees out. He wouldn’t let Poe take off his shirt when he had heat stroke and we were trying to cool him down in the shower. And he doesn’t like to be touched—he….” Rey thought back to the day when she’d grabbed him by the arm and he’d fallen to the ground like she’d shot him. The lack of mobility in his fingers. If he’d cut himself deep enough, straight down the line of his tendon, nerve damage would be practically a given.

“Why the ranch?” Zorii wondered. “Why not a psych hospital or somewhere else?”

Rey shook her head. “Ben’s mom wanted him to come here,” she mumbled. “She asked Luke to let him come as a favor. I don’t know why.” She was aware, distantly, that she probably shouldn’t be telling Zorii any of this, but the alcohol made it hard to remember why exactly it was such a bad idea.

Rey sniffled a little, then felt the hot pressure of unshed tears welling behind her eyes. Zorii stumbled to her feet immediately and helped Rey up from the couch. “Come on, babe, let’s get you to bed.”

“Thanks,” Rey said as Zorii practically dragged her down the hallway to Shara’s room. “Do you think I—should I just give up?” The question barely made sense to her own muddled mind. There was no telling if Zorii actually understood what she was asking.

Zorii tucked her into bed, wordlessly, as though Rey hadn’t spoken at all. It wasn’t until Rey’s eyes had already drifted closed that she felt her friend’s breath against her cheek, a soft whisper emanating from the darkness. “I think you should be careful.”

In the morning, Rey hardly remembered any of it at all.

Ben slept fitfully that night, swimming through half-dreams of Rey castigating him while he rode Whisper down the aisles of Home Depot, or getting lost in an endless maze of trees as the summer sun blistered down on him from above, or of Luke finding them together in Rey’s bed and making Ben sit out on the front stoop to wait for Leia like an unruly child being picked up from school after a detention.

The next day, Ben woke with a certainty that he had been the reason Rey had left the ranch after their lesson together, although he didn’t dare ask a single person on the premises where she’d gone or why.

Ben didn’t eat breakfast. He trudged across the yard late in the morning to Din’s office with his eyes downcast. It was the second time he’d gone to the casita feeling as though there was no way that he would get through the session without finally incurring Din’s deeply buried wrath.

Din didn’t look up when Ben entered the room, but it didn’t take him long to finish jotting down something in his notebook before he finally glanced up with an unexpectedly warm expression. “So,” he said as Ben settled himself on the couch. “I wanted to broach a somewhat sensitive subject today. Is that okay?”

Ben swallowed hard and nodded. There was no point in avoiding it. The dread was already eating him alive.

“All right,” Din said peaceably. “I’d like to talk about sex.”

Ben blanched. “I didn’t—” he said, stumbling over the words. “We didn’t—”

Din quickly held up a hand to stop him. “That’s not what I’m referring to, Ben. Our sessions are about you. I’d like to discuss your sexual history, if you feel comfortable with it, and maybe get into some of your feelings.”

That didn’t sound much better than what Ben had thought Din wanted to talk about, but he let himself relax just the tiniest bit now that Rey was firmly off the table. “Is this something you go over with everyone, or just me?” Ben asked warily.

“I can’t discuss specifics with you, but no, it’s not just you,” Din said. “LGBT adolescents and adults often have a more complicated relationship with sex. It can be difficult to navigate feelings and desires even if they aren’t being acted upon.”

“I’m not gay,” Ben blurted out. A reflex. He found himself wondering what Din would think of the fact that every girl he’d been interested in was tall, angular, boyish—assertive. It was something Ben’s college friends had constantly mocked him for, something he’d tried to school himself out of wanting, something that made him feel like somehow he was faking it—all of it.

“You know that isn’t what I mean,” Din replied gently. “But it’s a good enough starting point. Have you ever identified as anything other than straight?”

“I don’t think so,” Ben replied automatically. “I didn’t have crushes on classmates or anything as a kid. I wasn’t interested in any of that stuff until—after, I guess.”

“What were you interested in?”

“Drawing, I guess.” Ben glanced down at his hands and forced himself to uncurl his fists. He rubbed his palms against his pants. They were damp with sweat. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up.”

“When did you first start to notice girls? Either romantically or sexually?”

Ben shrugged. “When I was fourteen or fifteen. That was around the same that I—” He suddenly found himself unable to speak. It was a long moment before his voice emerged again. “I didn’t actually date until college.”

“Did you have any serious relationships?”

“Not really,” Ben said with effort. “There was one girl in some of my art classes—we went out a couple times, but when I told her, she—” His mouth clamped shut again of its own accord; this time, his tongue was in the way. He tasted blood.

“Was she the reason you dropped out of school?”

Ben gave a tight nod.

“Have you been interested in anyone since?”

Ben nodded again. “But I don’t—try—anymore.”

“Are you afraid of being hurt by a partner?”

A flash of fury crashed through Ben. “She didn’t hurt me,” he spat out. “She ruined my life.” He sat there, breathing heavily for a few minutes as Din waited quietly for him to continue. But there was nothing else to say.

“We can move on to a different subject if you don’t want to talk about what happened,” Din offered.

But suddenly, unexpectedly, Ben did want to talk about it. He wanted to be angry about it, instead of wallowing in self-pity like he’d done for the past fifteen years. He wanted to blame Tava instead of himself. “She told them,” he said shakily. “Everyone we were friends with at school. She was—I think she felt like I lied to her, and she wanted to get revenge on me the only way she knew how.”

“How did you deal with that at the time?”

“I dropped out. I left Rhode Island. I lived in a motel in Detroit until my dad found out and helped me get a job and an apartment there instead.”

“Did you ever try to harm yourself?”

Ben shrugged. It depended on what Din meant by ‘harm’. “I drank a lot for a few years, if that counts. Smoked a little, but I didn’t like it much.”

“But you didn’t self-injure or make any attempts to end your life?”

Ben shook his head.

“Why was this time different?” Din asked. “Did something else happen?”

Ben shrugged again. They’d asked him this too, in the hospital, when he woke up. Holdo had her own set of questions, and he’d been just as unable to answer them to her satisfaction. He didn’t expect Din wouldn’t be any different. “I just…I wasn’t getting any sleep.”

It was the one thread in Ben’s life that had finally snapped. They’d all been frayed for so long that Ben couldn’t remember what normal was supposed to feel like. He wasn’t sure he’d ever really experienced it. The nightmares had gone on for a long time. He used to wake up tense, curled up in a tight ball in his bed, muscles aching like he’d been running through the city all night. When he stopped sleeping altogether, it didn’t feel so much like a cause for alarm as a natural progression.

“How are you sleeping now?”

“Okay,” Ben replied. Last night had been an awful blip in a sea of mediocre, but since they’d put him on sedatives upon being discharged from the hospital, he hadn’t dreamt much at all.

“Are you still taking the medication they gave you?” Din asked, as though reading his mind.

“Most nights.” Sometimes he forgot. Sometimes it didn’t work.

“I’d like you to try weaning yourself off, if you can,” Din said. Seeing the burgeoning panic in Ben’s face, he added, “We can try to find something else that works for you if you find you’re still having trouble sleeping, but I worry about how much rest you’re actually getting with this medication.”

Some was better than none, in Ben’s opinion, but whatever. If Din wanted him to have another psychotic break that ended with him drowning himself in the pond this time, then fine. Ben didn’t have many pills left in the bottle, anyway.

After the end of their session, Ben headed back to the house with every intention of using at least one of those precious pills to try to take a nap. He didn’t know if Rey was even back, but if she was, he didn’t feel like running into her.

Running into Hux, however, was considerably lower on his list.

“Trouble in paradise?” Hux asked with a smug grin as the two of them passed each other in the middle of the yard.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ben grumbled.

“Oh, I’m sure. Your girlfriend’s back by the way,” he called out as Ben sped away from him. “Looks like she spent the night partying with Dameron, if you know what I mean.”

Ben ignored him, but Hux’s words took root in his chest with a deep, radiating ache. He was pretty sure that Rey and Poe hadn’t actually done anything, and if they did, it wasn’t his business anyhow.

But Ben’s heart didn’t get the memo.

When Ben woke after his nap, it was already dark. The other beds were empty, so he knew it wasn’t so late that the others had gone to bed, and sure enough, when Ben slunk out of the east wing with his sketchbook tucked under his arm, he found most of the other residents all gathered in the living room, watching what appeared to be some kind of gay romcom.

Ben ignored the movie and the loud cheering as the onscreen couple kissed and took advantage of the commotion to slip past them out into the yard, which was warm, still, and quiet. Even the insects seemed to be taking a night off. The crunch of his footsteps against the gravel echoed loudly into the night. It wasn’t until Ben drew close enough to the pond to hear faint splashing from the water that he realized he might not be alone after all.

Ben slowly made his way through the trees to the water’s edge. The last thing he wanted was to burst out of the undergrowth and find himself face to face with Luke. Especially if Luke was out there skinny-dipping. Ben shuddered at the thought.

But the figure Ben saw cutting through the water as he peeked from between the thorny branches of a mesquite was too slight to be Luke, with long dark hair slicked down their back. It was Rey, Ben realized with a jolt as she swam just close enough to the edge for her face to become visible in the moonlight before she turned around and started another lap down the pond’s length.

She hadn’t seemed to notice him standing there, so Ben disentangled himself from the vegetation caught in his long-sleeved shirt and sat down in the dirt, his sketchbook propped up in his lap. It was too dark to see what he was doing, so Ben drew blindly, crafting a loose sketch of Rey’s form in the water using only his spatial memory to map out the page.

She looked…relaxed, Ben thought. At home in the water in a way he wouldn’t have expected from a girl who’d grown up in a desert. A strange feeling washed over him as he watched her. It took Rey another two laps until Ben finally realized what it was: envy.

Before he could examine the feeling any further, Rey started to climb out.

“Shit!” Rey exclaimed as she looked up to find Ben sitting just a few feet away, her hands braced against the embankment that sloped steeply down into the water. It wasn’t like she was naked, but she slid back down under the surface anyway as she gawped at Ben. “I thought you were a mountain lion,” she said breathlessly.

“One-hundred percent human, sorry,” Ben replied. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“I don’t know,” Ben answered honestly. “Not very long, I think. You were already swimming when I came outside.”

Rey said nothing for a moment, but Ben couldn’t make out her expression, shrouded in shadow now that the moon was at her back. “Do you want to get in?” she asked.

For a brief moment, Ben almost considered it. It was dark. She probably wouldn’t see his scars even if she watched him undress right there on the shore. “No, I’m—” He couldn’t think of an excuse that made any sense. “No.”

“Not your thing?” Rey asked as she heaved herself out of the water. There was a towel draped over the branch of a cottonwood; she tugged it down in one fluid motion and wrapped herself up in it before kneeling down in the dirt close to Ben.

“I used to love to swim when I was a kid,” Ben found himself admitting without really meaning to. “But I haven’t done it in years.” He was relieved when Rey didn’t ask why.

Instead, she nodded towards the sketchbook in his lap. “Were you drawing me?” she asked in a voice that belied no judgement.

Once again, without thinking, Ben offered her his sketchbook. She angled it into the light to get a better look at the sketch Ben still hadn’t seen. He was grateful that she didn’t turn the page to look at any of the others. She didn’t need to know just how much he’d been drawing her.

“It’s good,” Rey pronounced. “Artsy. How could you even see what you were sketching?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Well, it’s even more impressive then. Do you ever do art professionally?”

“No,” Ben said, his insides twisting unpleasantly. “I wanted to, but I never had the follow-through to make a career out of it.” He carefully omitted the part where he’d dropped out of art school without even finishing out his first year.

“It’s never too late to try,” Rey said placidly.

But Ben’s brain had already moved on to more pressing matters. Namely, Monday’s lesson, and the circumstances that had led to Rey’s absence at the ranch. “Why were you…so angry?” he asked. “During our lesson?”

Rey dropped her head and handed Ben his sketchbook. She sucked in a deep breath and sighed before answering. “Din said something to me that morning after—well, you were there. It upset me a lot.”

“Something about me,” Ben assumed.

Rey didn’t answer. Her silence was confirmation enough. He wanted to ask if he was the reason she’d run away too, but he already knew the answer. Instead, he asked, “What did you mean before? About me reminding you of the horses you get? The ones that used to be wild, like Bebe.”

Rey shifted her legs under herself. Suddenly she was closer, their knees almost touching. “You react more than you reason,” she said quietly. It was the only explanation she gave.

Her hand lifted, just a few inches, then froze and drifted back down to her lap. “Sometimes I think you might respond better to a traditional horse greeting than a human one,” she said with a tinge of levity that hadn’t been present before.

Ben found himself smiling without realizing when it had happened. “What does a traditional horse greeting entail?”

“Well,” Rey began, straightening up so that her towel dropped around her waist, leaving her bare but for the top that Ben was beginning to suspect was the same gray sports bra he had caught glimpses of under her threadbare white tees.

“First, we’d smell each other.” Rey didn’t ask permission before she leaned in. She dragged the tip of her nose slowly over Ben’s throat. His breathing quickened, but he didn’t pull away.

“Then,” she said, without drawing back, “after we got to know each other’s scents, I’d groom you, and you’d groom me.” Rey reached between them and lifted Ben’s hand, careful not to touch him above the wrist. She guided his fingers into her damp hair and then let go. He could feel her gaze as he pulled his hand through her hair, the tips of his fingers just skimming the side of her neck, the crest of her shoulder.

“And every time we greeted each other after, we’d do a version of the same greeting, like a ritual.”

This time, she wound her fingers in Ben’s hair and tugged, pulling them free. The first pass was delicate, a barely-there touch. The second was more aggressive. The third almost rough. Then again, hard enough that a gasp of something between pain and pleasure burst from Ben’s mouth, breaking the spell.

Ben lurched back, away from Rey, away from—whatever she’d momentarily awakened in him. His face was on fire. He needed to go back to the house. He needed to—he didn’t know what he needed anymore.

“We should go back,” he said all the same.

It wasn’t until Rey gathered her towel around her once more as she stood that he caught a flash of the disappointment marring her face. Ben pretended not to see it.

The house was quiet when they entered. The others had all gone to their respective corners of the ranch. Ben and Rey walked in complete silence to their bedrooms. Ben didn’t look back at Rey before he entered his room to find Finn already asleep and Hux sitting on top of the covers, typing furiously on his phone.

Ben ignored the curious look Hux cast his way and climbed into his own bed, turning his face towards the windows. He ignored the hot flush low in his abdomen, the damp spot he could feel in his boxers. Despite the fact that he’d only just awoken, Ben was asleep in what felt like seconds.

Once again, he dreamed. In this dream, Ben was a horse, standing tall on the ridge overlooking the shallow gully where he and Rey had found the wild band. He caught the scent of cliffrose on the air and turned his head to find Rey standing there, just as human as she always was. She reached towards him with open palms, cradling his face, bringing him close as she dragged her fingers through his wind-blown mane.

In the morning, Ben woke at dawn, feeling rested for the first time in years.