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Ben Solo is a loner. It is known.
It’s not like he doesn’t have friends. He does. Hux is definitely his… friend, if that’s what you can call their limited conversations over cube walls and occasional glances during meetings. And Poe insists he’s still his friend, because that’s what you are when you’ve known each other since birth, Benny, even you have to know that, even though Ben takes considerable pains to only meet up with Poe when his nagging becomes too much to bear.
However, he isn’t lonely, per se. You can be a loner without being lonely, or so he tells himself. It’s with a wry sense of humor that he calls out “Honey, I’m home,” every day as he unlocks the door to his apartment, even though there’s no one and nothing to answer the call.
Poe had suggested a cat. Another living creature to take some of the chill out of his apartment, fill it with a sense of companionship, at the very least. Ben knew that cats came with cuddling, and with cuddling came fur, sticking to the carpets and the furniture and all of his clothing, and so Ben was less than inclined to introduce a fur-shedding monster into his home of black couches and black side tables and black jeans and black sweaters.
“Aren’t Alphas supposed to be good at taking care of things?” Poe had wheedled, Rose snickering next to him, and Ben tried hard not to imagine who he could be taking care of instead of a pet.
There’s also the fact that he tries not to stay home too much. He leaves for a run early, and stays at work late, convincing himself to write just one more line of code, or troubleshoot one more help ticket, so that he doesn’t have to return to his cold, barely lived-in apartment. His blockers help with that, too - he doesn’t smell like anything in particular and his nose barely works in return.
He wouldn’t be home enough to take care of a cat, anyway.
His apartment building is quiet - only a few other people live on his floor, and his neighbor is an elderly woman who never seems to go out, so the smell of pizza wafting around his hallway is… unusual, to say the least. Enticing, of course, but strange. He hadn’t had pizza in a few months, Luke’s voice bouncing around in his head every time he opened up his Domino’s app, saying things like preservatives and not home-grown, Ben, and it can’t be good for your longevity, Ben, and let me make you a gluten-free kale and zucchini pizza, Ben, I have a recipe that will absolutely change your life, and he can practically taste the garlic crust and bubbly cheese as he approaches his door.
As is tradition, he deadpans “Honey, I’m home,” as his keys clatter into the bowl near the door, kicking his shoes onto the mat. The smell of pizza seems to have intensified, his mouth watering, and he wonders if maybe Maz has her grandkids over for the night.
“I brought a pizza,” a quiet voice rang out from the dark, and Ben screamed.
***
(four weeks earlier)
It was his fault for dropping his key. That’s what Rey told herself, anyway.
She’d been sleeping on a bench in the park for a solid two months, thankful that the owner of the coffee shop she worked at was kind and utterly Beta and often let her toss her work clothes into the laundry with an assortment of towels and washcloths from around the shop. When a man jogged past her bench (it wasn’t really hers, but she’d slept on it for over a month at that point, so she felt a bit of ownership) and a key fell out of his pocket, right next to where her hand was dangling off the side, it felt like a sign. A cold, silver sign in the early light of morning, glimmering at her dangerously.
She should have called out to him. She should have said anything, done anything, except… she was cold. She was cold, and still tired, and he looked well off, if the pristine, still jet-black state of his clothes told her anything, and Rey was willing to bet that he lived somewhere with excess space, maybe even a bathroom that he rarely used that she could shower in and he wouldn’t even notice, and maybe he worked a nine to five job and she’d be able to sleep somewhere other than this bench. A carpeted floor would be nice, or a lumpy old couch, or even, in her wildest dreams, a spare bedroom where she could steal a nap and none would be the wiser.
So, Rey stalked him.
It wasn’t really stalking, not in the creepy way, at least. She just needed to see where he lived, and ideally when he was home, so that maybe she could sneak up to his apartment and scope it out for that extra bedroom. She knew that normal people didn’t do this, didn’t follow around strangers who dropped a key in the hopes of breaking and entering, but this was far from the worst thing Rey had done to survive and keep her sanity. She would feel so much better after she was clean and dry and maybe even had a decent few hours of sleep.
She stalked him back to his apartment, watching as he stepped into a trendy building downtown and peeking through the glass windows while he waited for the elevator, his back to her. After a deep breath, cheeks flaming at the idea of what she was about to do, she followed him into the building and stepped onto the elevator next to him.
His morning jog had taken him too far away from her too quickly for her to smell him before, but now, as the doors slid closed with a precise, moneyed hum, she took a deep breath spiced with cinnamon and cream, almost exactly like the chai tea lattes she loved to steal from work, and she drank the scent down delightfully, almost dizzy with the feeling of it swirling around in her lungs, filling her from the inside out.
Rey shrunk into a corner, as far from him as she could get in the cramped space. He was tall, taller than she expected when she saw his back jogging away from her horizontal position on the park bench. She watched a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck when he leaned further from her, adjusting himself in the small space, and she had the urge to… lick it.
She wanted to lick it, and then lap at the glands on the side of his neck, wondering if they too tasted of spice and sweetness, and from there she could lap down his chest to his hips, maybe find out if he tasted like it there too…
He stepped out past her with a mumbled “excuse me,” and she had to gulp in the fresh air that the doors had let in with a dumbfounded expression, watching him stroll to the last door on the left in the hallway before he turned back. She must have looked ridiculous, still standing in the elevator with her mouth hanging open, pulling every detail of his appearance into her brain and cataloguing it away while the doors slid shut.
Rey exhaled shakily, tasting the tiniest remnants of him in the air, and cursed.
She was fucked.
It took four more days before she had the courage to go into his apartment.
She knew his routine now - the way he jogged past her bench in the dim morning light, barely past five, and she would curl in on herself so that he wouldn’t see her face or smell her and put two and two together. He’d jog back to his building, and come out an hour later in slacks and a button-down, a leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder. Rey would pace carefully behind him, always at least half a block away, until he disappeared into First Order Industries, from which he didn’t leave before she had to go to her shift at Finn’s Coffee at eleven.
It was enough time. The four hours between when he left and when she needed to be at work was plenty for Rey to shower and nap, and maybe even sneak in some TV. He looked like the type to be able to afford cable, and she could take advantage of that.
It was so innocent, at first. She used one day’s tips to buy shampoo and soap, and then the cheapest towel she could find, nervous about him noticing that she had used one of his if it was still damp. She waited until he left for work around seven, and then waited an extra ten minutes before glancing around surreptitiously and heading into the glass-paned building, tapping her foot impatiently while she waited for the elevator. Her hand sweated around his key, and she swore she could already smell the spice in the air.
She slid into his apartment, looked around just enough to pinpoint a bathroom in a hallway that looked too clean to be used regularly, and cranked the water as hot as it could go before stepping in.
Oh, but it was bliss. She hadn’t had a real shower in… at least six weeks, the last time she was able to convince a stranger at a bar that underneath all the grime there was a fit Omega body, ready to take a knot like a good girl, and don’t you want to fuck a sweet Omega, Alpha? In the end, she had gotten a hot shower and a cold breakfast for her troubles, and it was so worth the soreness in the morning.
He must have money, Rey decided, as the jets in the shower head pounded at her tense shoulders. There was no other way he could have such a nice showerhead, or even such good water pressure, really. He wouldn’t even notice that she was here, wouldn’t notice the blip on his water bill from her short sojourn into heaven, and it would change her entire week.
She stayed under the spray until she was pruny and overheated, curled into a ball in the tub, before turning off the shower and toweling off.
She had three more hours before she needed to be at work. Rey was going to find that spare bedroom.
Now that she was out of the steam and the spray, taking deep, relaxed breaths through her nose, his scent hit her like a freight train. She must have stood still in the doorway of the bathroom for at least ten minutes, gulping down the spicy-sweet smell of him, nutmeg and cream, wishing she could drown herself in it. She was drowning in it.
Rey found herself idly scratching at one of the glands on her neck, feeling it swell underneath her fingernails, imagining that it was his beard scratching at her neck as he kissed her, moving downwards…
No, she told her Omega hindbrain sternly. Absolutely not.
With her lizard brain suitably mollified, she opened doors until she found a pristine office space, complete with a futon, and fell asleep.
She had told herself she wouldn’t take advantage of this precious gift too often. One shower a week, at most, and naps only when completely necessary. Only when she’d fall asleep behind the counter if she didn’t snag a good few hours.
And then she showered again three days after the first, missing the way the water beat the stress out of her back and cleared the grime from her hair more thoroughly than any bucket of water ever could, and Rey knew there was no going back. She needed this, needed it to be sane now, she couldn’t go back to showering once every six weeks and making do with baby wipes in between. She needed the shower, she told herself, and insisted that it had nothing to do with the fact that just a whiff of chai tea lattes at work calmed her down, steadied her keening nerves and kept her focused. It wasn’t his smell, or even him at all. She just needed that showerhead.
Rey didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until it was a weekend, and she realized that no, most people didn’t work weekends like she did, and he would likely be home when she wanted to steal his hot water and his clean sheets and burrow herself into the scent of him so deeply that she thought it was deep in her very pores.
It felt like a withdrawal. It felt like she was burning from the inside out.
She was dizzy at work, her hands shaking so badly that she burned herself while steaming milk for a drink, and it was only when Finn looked at her so sweetly, so sadly while icing her wrist that she realized how wrong he smelled. He was a Beta, and he smelled like crisp autumn leaves and rain, and it was just all wrong.
So when Finn suggested that she take the rest of the day and tend to her burn, shoving the money in the tip jar at her before she went, Rey knew she had to come clean.
*******
(present)
Ben’s hand shot out to the light switch, fumbling with it frantically as he screamed. He didn’t know any self-defense, he was a goddamn software engineer, for fuck’s sake, and he was large enough and smelled Alpha-y enough that no one had ever bothered him before.
When he finally managed to flick the light on with shaking fingers, there was someone sitting at his kitchen table. And not just anyone, but a petite, pretty brunette, hands clasped over a cardboard box and brows furled together in the middle and even though he should be panicking, should be absolutely losing his shit that there is a stranger sitting at his dining room table, he felt calm. In control, at the very least. Like all the panic signals in his brain were just suddenly… gone.
“Sorry to scare you,” she said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest, and Ben tried to slow down his galloping heart.
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my apartment?”
She shifted in her seat a little, and Ben suddenly straightened as he smelled her. He hadn’t smelled anyone, Alpha or Omega, in so long, and she smelled so sweet, like vanilla and caramel, that his brain simply stopped working. All he could do was stare at her face, her hazel eyes boring into him unashamedly, as he tried to regain what he was thinking about before he smelled her. He wanted to scoop her little frame up in his arms and hold her close, safe, lick the glands on her neck and tell her that no one would ever hurt his Omega, she was safe.
“... return this, first,” she was saying, and Ben looked down to the table where the key he had seemingly lost months ago was sparking up at him.
“How did you get this?” he asked stupidly, the key still warm in his hand, and she finally dropped her eyes.
“It, uh… fell out of your pocket.”
“And you just happened to pick it up,” he droned, watching her pick at the side of the cardboard box now.
“Well, I saw you drop it. And, finders keepers, so.” There was the barest hint of a smile tugging at her cheek and Ben couldn’t believe himself. She had essentially stolen his key, broken into his apartment (with pizza, which was also strange), and all he wanted to do was soothe the furrow between her brows and reassure her that no, he wasn’t upset, pretty Omega, and what he’d love to do more than anything is rub her cheek until she beamed at him, and lick the glands on her wrists until she moaned, fuck her soft until she was relaxed and pliant in his arms.
“Finders keepers,” he echoed back, wanting to trace the divot in her top lip where it stretched with her smile, and she chuckled.
They didn’t leave his bed for three full days.
If anyone ever asked Rey how she and Ben met, she’d lie.
“He came into the shop one day,” she told Finn brightly, after he noticed Ben place a possessive kiss on her forehead as he dropped her off for her shift. “He was so sweet to me, and after a few weeks I gave him my number, and it all went from there.”
Finn wisely didn’t mention that she’d had a bright silver mating bite on her neck since the day she burned her wrist on the steamer, and instead patted her hand and told her how happy he was for her. His nose wasn’t perfect, but even he noticed that her soft, milk and cookies scent had been infused with notes of spice and cinnamon, deep and layered, a perfect compliment.
So, he kept his mouth shut, beamed happily at Rey as she transitioned into clothes that didn’t look like they were dug from a dumpster, her hair regularly clean and shiny, and thanked whatever deity was responsible for dropping Ben Solo into her life.