Chapter Text
“You sure you’ll be okay tonight? I can take you to my place.” Oh how she loved Tage. He didn’t like showing his softie side to people but with her, he was one cuddle-able kindness incarnate.
“I am saying this again and I won't say it again but are you sure you much rather throw up on Solo’s furniture instead of mine?” Well, he was a cuddle-able kindness-incarnate sometimes .
“Geez thanks for the vote of confidence,” she giggled. Did she mention Tage was funny? Because he was one of the most hilarious people she had met in her twenty-two years of living on this planet.
Rey snorted. What a ridiculous think to thing. Thing to think? Whatever, she didn’t need to thing of the right words because she knew what she meant.
“Earth to Rey, are you sure?” And she laughed loudly because he said Earth and wasn’t that what she was thinking of? “Alright, time to get you to bed, gimme your keys,” Tage stated and Rey wiggled her finger at her left foot.
“What? Reeeeey,” he whined pathetically. “Don’t tell me you still hide keys in your stinky shoes.”
“You know me so well!” And the thought made her so happy she had to clap her hands. He grabbed her hands and pulled them away from each other.
“Take your shoes off,” he ordered and she snorted.
“Whatcha gonna do if I don’t huh? Punish me?” she taunted and Tage rolled his eyes.
“No but I’ll do this,” and he rang the bell.
“Noooooooo,” Rey moaned. She was drunk and even drunk Rey knew she was a stupid, talker type of drunk. And she didn’t want to spill her deepest, darkest secrets to her bossy…
Bossy…sounds kinda like Pussy… she laughed out loud again and that’s when the front door opened and her view of the door was blocked by a wall of meat—
Muscle, she scolded herself internally.
—muscle. Her shirtless boss raised an eye at her and then glared at her bestie.
“No stink eye for my best friend!” she yelled and jumped at Ben. No one could be mean to her bestie and walk away unscathed.
“She’s had too much to drink,” came her friend’s apologetic voice.
“She can join the club then,” Ben snorted. “Go away, Hux, I’ll see to it that she gets to bed before passing out.”
“Are you-“ she heard her friend say before Ben pulled her arm over his—very meaty…muscly—shoulder and pulled her inside. The door shut on Tage’s face before another word could come out of his mouth.
She had tried to sleep after Ben—as promised—put her to bed and tucked her in, but she was wide awake and couldn’t sleep a fucking wink. With a body that was itching to do something , Rey climbed out from under the covers and made her way out of her room.
A deliciously divine smell hit her nostrils the minute she walked out of her room and the deliciousness she could feel the food being prepared possessed made her want to fall on her knees and cry for it.
“Can't sleep too?” he asked as he plated whatever food he had plucked straight from heaven.
“No, but I tried and thaz all that matters.” Her voice rose and slurred as she defended herself against his seemingly genuine concern. Ben winced at her volume and handed her a plate of the hot miracle he had cooked.
“This for me?” she asked, dumbfounded because she was drunk, not stupid and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I was bored and couldn’t sleep so… eat up,” he grumbled like the grumpy pants he was but Rey couldn't care less. He made food and was sharing it with her and she had to eat it fast before he changed his pea-sized mind.
“Rey wait, it's—“ but since she hadn’t bothered to listen to him…
“Aaaaahhhhh! Hot hot hot!!!!” Rey stuck her over-heated tongue out and started running to get more air on it. Ben snorted.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” she could practically feel the smugness emanating from him and she hated it.
“Suck my balls,” she panted while blowing hot air from her poor mouth. At least that’s what she tried to say but she was pretty sure the effect was ruined by the fact she was close to breathing fire.
Ben snickered while taking a bite of his not-so-burning food now. She sat back down and ate slowly, blowing at each bite and savouring the rare delicacy that was Ben’s—holy shit it’s the best thing that ever happened to her—cooking.
They ate in silence, thankfully, because she couldn’t stomach listening to him more while she shovelled the orgasmic food in her mouth.
They ate and then as if in agreement, gathered the dishes and started rinsing them. After all the dishes were clean and put in their places, Ben turned to her, looking way out of his element in his sweatpants and -what a shame, she couldn’t admire before but she wanted to know, dammit- hoodie covering his brick wall of a chest.
“So, since we’re unable to sleep, how about we sit and talk for once?”
She opened her mouth to tell him that they did talk but he held his hand up like the infuriating thing he was.
“Without insulting every cell of each other’s existence this time,” he finished and Rey begrudgingly agreed.
“Wait, so you mean to tell me Hux wasn’t always an asshole?” Ben looked at her with wide eyes.
“I never said he wasn’t, he just isn’t that way all the time.” The food had sobered them both a bit and now they were talking like…normal humans…without throwing witty retorts and jabs.
It was…nice but she wouldn’t admit it to him.
“So he decided no one but him could bully you, like what the fuck man, where did equality and justice g—ouch!” he yelped when she punched his arm.
“If you look at it my way, it's kinda sweet. Like this boy wants to be the only one to bully me so he’ll get in fights with others and sneak me off to teach me how to throw a punch and all.” She smiled wistfully.
“Charming, I am sure,” Ben snarked and Rey couldn’t help but snicker.
“What about you? I know you had parents and all…” she trailed off as his smile turned into a frown.
“All I can say is, I was pretty much invisible to them. Mom and dad were soulmates, each other’s everything and so they neglected me. The only people who gave a damn were my grandparents and adopted uncles. But it's in the past, we talked it out, went to therapy and shit so it's better but yeah, you don’t—“
“Forget something like that,” she finished softly and he nodded.
“Is…is that why you hate soulmates?” she asked, recalling how he glowers when the word is spoken or when he sees a soulmark.
“Partly. One of the reasons is because I don’t have a soulmate and I feel that pain of yearning for one but not having one,” he sighed.
“You know the real reason I wanted a job at the First Order?” Ben shook his head and sat up, giving her every ounce of his attention.
“Because I needed to save enough money to take a world trip. I know my soulmate is out there and I want to find them. I can feel them sometimes, their pain, their loneliness. I want to find them, hold them and love them and tell them they’re not alone,” she sighed softly, once again, dreaming of what could be.
And they both drifted into silence but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It didn’t feel like they’d have to fill the air between them with words.
“Ben, I—“ she started, after a few minutes of silence and he raised an eyebrow at her.
“Thank you, I mean, for tucking me in and the food. I know I am a total bitch to you most of the time, but I want you to know I appreciate everything you do for me, even when you pretend you didn’t do it.” She smiled and his face flushed.
She remembered how all the junk food mysteriously stocked itself up when she was running low, all the laundry that was done and pressed because she was too lazy to do them and all the times he would visit her at night if only to wake her up from whatever had her crying in her sleep.
A slow smile spread over his face and he said something she couldn’t imagine him saying even in her wildest dreams.
“You know, you aren’t as bad as you try so hard to be, in fact, I kinda like this,” he gestured between them. “So what do you say we tone down our pettiness and call a truce?”
She gave him an incredulous look, waiting for him to tell her he was joking or something but when he kept staring at her as if waiting for an answer, she finally realized he was serious.
“A truce? You know I wouldn’t be able to survive if we stopped being petty with each other right? It’s the food that sustains my soul.” She sighed dramatically.
“That’s why I said tone down , not stop,” he snickered.
“Fine then, A truce…of sorts.” She extended her hand to him and he took it.
“Truce of sorts.” And then he grinned and Rey’s heart stopped beating.
Her truce-of-sorts-kinda-friend had dimples.
Dimples.