Chapter Text
An enormous chunk of white marble had been sitting smack dab in the middle of Rey’s studio apartment for weeks now, and she had no idea what to do with it.
Until, that is, the afternoon she finally saw her next-door neighbor.
He was a recluse, by all accounts, and utterly silent. It would have been natural to arrive at the conclusion that nobody actually lived next door, but the hand-written name on the mailbox in the apartment building’s entrance stubbornly continued to read,
Ben Solo
#302
…and she was #304.
Rey had been stolidly battling a month-long creative block, broken only by half-hearted charcoal scribbles and a few lazy hours of watercolor. The hunk of untouched stone taking up the majority of her living room stood as a testament to her frustrations, a bitter metaphor for the unrelenting hard stop of creativity that sat heavy on her mind.
She was a success—finally, finally able to make a living from her art, a wild dream come true for a nobody who had guts enough to go to art school. Her passion lay in sculpting but, early on, Rey had the foresight to maintain a larger repertoire, and liked to flatter herself as a bit of a Renaissance woman.
It was Thursday morning when Rey decided that what she needed to revive her muse was a generous dose of retail therapy - that delicious satisfaction only provided by purchasing brand-new art supplies. She returned much later, arms laden with multiple plastic bags and a fresh coffee from her favorite café down the street and, as she juggled her baggage to finagle her keys out of her purse, she saw him. And promptly dropped the keys.
That’s the one.
It was as if all the free-floating pieces of her creative consciousness suddenly settled into place with a solid thunk, and her mind had already started whirring with possibilities: the broad slope of his shoulders, the musculature of his forearms, that incredible profile!
This was the man she was going to sculpt.
And then he was gone, vanished. Across the threshold and hidden away.
Fumbling through the grating rustle of her shopping bags to get her key into the lock, Rey finally burst in through her own door, throwing the already forgotten art supplies to the floor. She bee-lined to a halt in front of the nefarious white rock that now sparkled softly, delicately reflecting the mid-morning sunlight.
It was never about what she wanted from the marble, being less about hacking away at a stone and more about allowing what had always lain dormant inside to breathe. A gentle coaxing, a loving conduit to guide it out into the light.
Rey had saved up for this stone for ages. It was a huge piece of superior quality marble and, now that she had her own place with the right amount of natural light, she had found it especially disheartening when she couldn’t figure out what to do with the thing.
Now, she knew.
All she had to do was convince one social hermit of a man to pose naked for her.
How hard could that be?
It was significantly harder than she had initially thought.
Her first plan went disappointingly awry. Desserts, she had decided, were a sure-fire way to initiate a conversation. What man in his right mind would refuse free freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies?
While Ben Solo had not declined the neighborly gift, and had in fact eyed the cookies rather eagerly, he had refused to participate in any subsequent pleasantries. He’d promptly shut his door with a muttered “thanks” before Rey could get another word in edgewise.
And so, it was back to the drawing board. Rey wracked her brain for ideas. How does one ‘meet’ one’s next-door neighbor?
Laundry room reconnaissance was summarily scratched due to impracticality. Who knew when the guy did his laundry? Fire escape espionage was absolutely out of the question because it was simply...well, creepy. She was sure to get caught ‘hanging out’ by the mailboxes, and initiating a building-wide ‘Meet Your Neighbors!’ event would take far too much time and effort; anyway, she doubted whether such a quiet, reserved person as Ben Solo would even deign to attend such a thing.
The evening shadows cast by adjacent buildings began to creep across the hardwood floor like a torpid stain, and Rey was nowhere closer to befriending Ben than yesterday. She sighed heavily as she uncorked a new bottle of red wine, resigning herself to drinking alone on a Friday evening. Again.
It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Without realizing what she’d decided to do, and not taking the time to think it through, she abruptly backed her stool away from the breakfast bar, wine bottle still in hand, grabbed two crystal stemmed glasses and marched out of her apartment. Right up to his.
Rey had never considered herself a particularly bold person, but she didn’t let her resolve falter as she carefully transferred the stemware into the same hand that held the bottle before rapping on his door. The man never seemed to leave his apartment, but she found herself hoping against hope that he was home. And that no one would enter the hallway and witness her desperate state.
There was no answer.
She tried again, smarting her knuckles by knocking a little louder this time. But, once again, there was nothing. She splayed her palm against the cool door and bent to rest her forehead on it. She should have expected this.
Why was it so hard to talk to even one person in this city?
She had always battled with loneliness, which seemed to continually lurk in the darkest parts of her psyche. Most days she could ignore it, stoically distracting herself with this or that activity, but it never left.
Rey had made the conscious decision to leave London to attend art school in the Americas, but it hadn’t been easy. She had left behind dear friends and, while her career had begun to blossom beautifully, she missed them dearly. The friends she’d made in school had moved away, back home or to bigger cities, and Rey had found herself very much alone.
As she stood, fighting valiantly against the onset of self-pity, the door suddenly opened inward, causing her to stumble forward ungracefully and she barely stopped herself from slamming into all six-feet-plus of Ben Solo.
“Oi!” she shrieked, scrambling back with as much elegance as she could muster, which was to say none at all. “I’m so sorry!”
Ben looked every bit as startled as she was, but merely stared at her in complete silence.
“Um, hi,” she started lamely, feeling a fresh blush warm her cheeks. “I was wondering if you’d like to come over for a glass of wine. With a friend.” She held up the evidence in her hand.
“We’re not friends,” he rumbled, not unkindly; his deep voice sent a little chill scattering up her spine.
Giving him a weak smile and a shrug, she said, “Not yet.”
He considered her with furrowed brows and her heart fluttered wildly under his scrutiny. What a compelling face, such a strong nose, his expressive mouth—how was she going to live with herself if he said no?
“Sure.”
“Really?” Her heart soared, and she found herself babbling. “Yes, er, come on over! I didn’t actually expect you to say yes, not that I think you’re antisocial or anything, but…” She chuckled nervously, clearing her throat. “Anyway, I’m just… right here,” she said, pointing to her half-open door.
Ben was swirling the dark red wine in his glass silently, wearing a tense grimace on his face and dwarfing Rey’s tiny kitchen in comparison. She’d guessed he’d be a reticent conversationalist and, while she’d hoped she had assumed incorrectly, she’d actually been completely right.
It was awkward, and Rey sensibly decided to break the tension by starting first.
“My name is Rey.”
“Ben,” he replied to the glass in his hand. The stemware looked flimsy in his chunky grip, and Rey couldn’t help but ogle at the corded blue veins there. His fingers, his thick wrists! How was it that even his hands could be so eye-catchingly masculine?
“It’s nice to officially meet you. But, I have a bit of a confession to make— I have an ulterior motive for inviting you over.” This earned her a fleeting glance, but his gaze returned almost immediately back to the burgundy liquid in his glass. “I’m an artist,” she pushed through, doing her best to keep a friendly smile on her face, “and I wanted to know if you’d be willing to model for me.”
Something shut down inside him, and it was like a switch had suddenly been flipped. The awkwardness bracing his frame seemed to shift into a tense defensiveness, and she felt her heart speed up at the suspicious look he now gave her.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No! No, of course not, I really am an artist! Here,” she blurted, scrambling for a piece of her artwork to prove herself. Her hand landed on one of her pitiful charcoal drawings from the day before, and she rigorously berated herself for not having the forethought to have her professional portfolio at the ready. “This is just an example, but I’m a sculptor at heart, and I want to use you as a model for my next marble piece.”
His eyes flicked over to the out-of-place white slab sitting rather obviously in the living room, but he remained totally silent. She had to convince him somehow, and it was now or never.
“This is a weird thing to say to basically a perfect stranger, but,” she set her glass down on the countertop, “you have a great body. I think it’ll look spectacular in marble.”
“You want to… sculpt me.”
There was no missing the stunned incredulity in his tone. “Yes. I can compensate you for your time, too. Not much, but still.”
Clearing his throat, he managed with some degree of difficulty to get out, “Would it be…nude?”
Ah, the sticking point.
“Er, yes. But it wouldn’t be about that. There’s a difference between just a naked guy with his junk out and artwork that explores the beauty of the masculine form.” She knew she was floundering and felt the blush creeping back into her face. Wringing her hands and biting her lip, she pushed on. “So, my vision for this piece is a true-to-life rendering. No embellishments, nothing really changed—just you. The sculpture itself would be scaled down a bit, just because you’re… well, you’re quite large.” She swallowed and tried to refocus. “And, the size of the stone, of course. Your hair would be a little... stylized,” she let her eyes rove over his soft-looking raven locks, which hung almost shoulder-length, “but only because of the constraints of the medium.”
She was met with more silence.
“Are you familiar with ‘The Creation of Adam?’”
When she received no reply, she grabbed her phone and searched for the image, turning the screen around for him to see. He nodded. “Look—you see his… his penis, but that’s not what the piece is about. It would be more like that.” She locked the screen and set the phone back down, afraid she was losing him. “Please say yes. You really don’t have to do anything, just sit there.”
His disbelief and shock hung heavy in the space between them for what felt like an age. When Ben finally cleared his throat as if to speak, Rey clumsily interrupted him in her panic, thinking he was about to refuse her.
“This is something special. I think you’re special, I think you’re perfect for this.” Her heart squeezed painfully in anticipation.
Ben studied the charcoal piece in his hand, and Rey felt a fresh wave of regret that she hadn’t thought to show him her portfolio first. But she was now too afraid of scaring him away to retrieve it.
“Do you paint?” he asked.
The question surprised her. “Yes…?”
“Could you paint something for me if I do this?”
“Like, instead of being paid?” She struggled to keep up with the turn the conversation had taken.
He nodded, still studying the paper in his hand.
Rey considered the possibility, and found nothing to disagree with. “What would you want me to paint?”
“Me. As the Winter Soldier.”
“The what?”
“It’s… it’s a character from comic books. A couple movies.”
She vaguely recalled seeing a trailer for a comic book story that had been made into a live action movie, and repeated in utter astonishment, “And you would model for me if I paint that for you?”
Without meeting her gaze, he nodded his consent.
“I—yes! Yes, I’ll do it!” Rey struggled to get her words out. “Wow.” She breathed, hardly believing what she was hearing. “Er, it’ll take a couple sessions. I’ll want to do a few studies of you, sketches of your face and hands, that sort of thing. How soon can you start?”
“How soon do you need me?” Now it was his turn to blush.
“Tomorrow?”
Another silent nod.
“Can we say, ten tomorrow morning?” Rey suggested, trying to tamp down the excitement bubbling up inside her.
This elicited another nod.
Without too much more back and forth, Ben left, without having had a single sip of his wine.
Rey, for her part, was ecstatic, and a gave a small, gleeful scream after he exited – once she heard his door close, of course. She hadn’t been this happy in a long time.