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“I would have thought you and Rey would get along well.” Leia doesn’t bother to look away from the screen where she watching the dailies run past to indulge in her son’s sulking. “She’s a lovely girl, very down to earth.”
“I’m sure she has good qualities,” Kylo grumbles. “It’s just that I haven’t seen any of them. So. That sounds made up, but sure.”
She does glance over at that, throwing him a skeptical look.
“You’re one to talk about not showing any good qualities, Mr. Very Important Actor.” Her son he may be, but Leia has never pulled punches for any man, and if Kylo insists on being a stubborn ass, she’s going to deal with it as she always does. By letting him know it. “What was that I saw about you a couple days ago? Something about a club? Or was it a hooker?”
“Mom ,” he says, scandalized, like Leia hasn’t seen his ass both in diapers and on television. “You know that one was made up!”
One day, Leia’s eyes will probably fall out of her head from rolling them so hard, and she will firmly blame every male she’s related to.
“Oh, that one was made up,” she says. “Of course. Anyway, I’d think you of all people would know not to judge someone on first impressions. She’s probably heard about your darker side since she was first getting into this industry. Don’t tell me she doesn’t have reason to put up a front with you.”
Kylo huffs, crossing his arms and staring at his shoes like he’s seventeen instead of thirty. Sometimes, Leia thinks he’ll be seventeen forever. But she supposes that’s what happens when a boy hits fame as hard as he did so young. She can still remember the first commercial spots he had, at all of fourteen, and how excited he’d been. He’d adopted the stage name Kylo Ren when he landed his first television role, wanting to distance himself from his parents. He’d always gotten horribly offended when the first question asked at an audition was “Any relation to Leia and Luke?”
He’d all but left Ben Solo behind, so that Leia almost always referred to him as Kylo just out of habit.
“Come on,” Leia says. “I know somewhere under there, you’re a grown man, and you can act like one. She’s your costar and you’re going to be working on this one for years, so suck it up and behave.”
Kylo rolls his head back on his shoulders the same way he used to when she nagged him to clean up his room.
“Besides,” she says, faking levity. “If you keep sneering at her, you’re going to make my job very difficult. I know we’re just blocking, but you’d better get your act together when we start shooting for real.”
He grins at that, sly, and Leia can see his father in him, all bravado and male confidence.
“Please,” he says. “When don’t I give a great performance?”
Leia kindly doesn’t remind him of the mid-season finale of his second television role and how disastrously that went. He was only nineteen, after all, and Leia doesn’t make it a habit to be unnecessarily cruel. She will remind him of his faults though, if he keeps fouling up her shots.
-
Poe is a firm believer in the fact that chemistry tests do not lie. As casting director, he’s lived by that philosophy for every romantic film he’s ever made. Sometimes the leads get along off screen as well as they do on, but when he’s auditioning actors, he can always tell who’s going to heat up the room.
In this particular case, Poe might have placed a little too much faith in that, because while the shots are great and every scene with Rey and Kylo has been fraught with sexual tension, the actors might actually kill each other. Poe is trying to make a movie here, not facilitate murder.
So he decides to go to Rey for a pep talk, if only because she seems to be the more reasonable of the two.
Again, that might have been an error in his judgment.
“I can’t believe him,” she snaps, tossing a prop into the heap of pillows that her couch has become. “Who does he think he is? Just because he’s been in films since he was a big-eared baby doesn’t mean I’m an imbecile in comparison to His Greatness!”
“Don’t you still think he’s a big-eared baby?” Poe says because he literally cannot help himself.
“He is ,” she seethes, throwing herself onto her nest of pillows as well and covering her face with her hands. “I just wish you’d picked anyone else for that part.”
Poe makes a face. “But Rey, your scenes are amazing, and I told you, chemistry-”
“-tests don’t lie,” she finishes for him. “But doesn’t my pain mean anything to you? Have you no mercy, Poe Dameron?”
Laughing softly, he takes a seat beside her.
“You don’t have to like him,” Poe says gently, “but you’re a professional, and I know you can do better than name-calling between takes.”
“But he is a baby, and a jerkface,” she says plaintively.
“Most of the time, yeah,” Poe concedes. “Doesn’t mean you can’t take the high road. You’re a class act, Rey, I don’t wanna see this bring you down to his level.”
“He just gets under my skin,” she mutters, picking at the knee of her jeans. “I can’t help it.”
“I mean, we can all see he gets to you,” Poe shrugs. “Your scenes wouldn’t be so electric if there wasn’t that tension. I do know how to do my job, and there’s a reason I picked you both. You’re gonna make a great movie together.”
Rey sighs, slumping against Poe’s shoulder. “Okay, fine, maybe it’ll be a good movie, but what if I kill him? Will you visit me in jail?”
Poe laughs and scrubs a hand over her hair. Rey will never actually kill anyone, Poe knows that, but it says something that she’s even joking about it. So long as they make it through filming, everything will be fine. Until the sequel.
-
Preparing for sex scenes is probably Finn’s least favorite part of his job. He shouldn’t even be involved in them but, for some reason, most of them require his attention with the clothes Rey and Kylo are going to be tearing off of each other in a few minutes anyway. Still, he makes sure their costumes are just right for the brief time they’ll be on.
“Okay, if I say ‘baby’, you need to back off.”
And this is the worst part. Every time, every time , they have to discuss the lines and rules for the scene so that no one gets offended, and Finn has to hear it.
“I know ,” Kylo says, and Finn can’t even blame him, even Finn knows that rule by now. “Don’t forget to actually hit your cue when you orgasm.”
Finn wants to die.
“Couldn’t you guys discuss this...earlier?” he asks a bit sheepishly.
Of course, they both turn simultaneously to glare at him.
“We’re just going over things, Finn,” Rey says. “It’s about establishing boundaries, since somebody likes to improvise.”
Kylo splutters. Finn shakes his head and keeps fiddling with the straps of Rey’s dress. They’re not draping right, for some reason, but Finn’s a bit glad he has the distraction. He’s sat through too many arguments between these two already, and Finn is completely over the drama.
“It’s called method acting ,” Kylo sneers. “It’s a strategy to get the best out of the part. And I think I know the part well enough by now to know if it needs a little something.”
“Whatever.” Finn’s not sure what it is about these two, but they both turn into absolute children around each other. He’s never heard Rey say whatever in that bratty, condescending tone outside of interactions with Kylo.
They keep sniping at each other while Finn finally manages her dress and then Kylo’s shirt buttons. Rey’s meant to rip it open, so they have to be precariously attached. He accidentally pops one off while working with them, and has to go for the needle and thread.
Kylo makes a face at him and then Rey’s immediately on his case about it.
“Oh, don’t make that face,” she almost shouts. “He’s doing his best, this shirt ripping thing is stupid anyway.”
“I don’t need you to defend me, Rey,” Finn finally snaps. “I’m over this immature crap, and you’re not using me to start another fight! Kylo, hold still.”
They’re both quiet while he loosely stitches the button back, and they stay that way as they’re moved to start shooting. The scene they’re working on is one of the less...let's say delicate ones. Finn hasn’t read the script in a while, and he has more of the costume design in his head than the progress of scenes, but he’s pretty sure this is supposed to be angry sex, either break up or make up, thus the shirt ripping.
There’s at least thirty people setting up and shooting, and it should be entirely unsexy without the editing and musical score, but somehow Kylo and Rey manage to make it believable, leaving the less experienced members of the crew shuffling awkwardly. Finn is basically staring at the ceiling, bouncing on his toes while he waits for either a wardrobe malfunction or for the director to call cut. He wonders idly if it’s weird for Mr. Skywalker to be directing his nephew through a sex scene, but the man’s been in this business for decades, so he’s probably very good at compartmentalizing.
Finn is pulled back to paying attention when he hears the sound of strings popping and buttons hitting the floor and walls. He watches Rey shove Kylo backward onto the couch, waiting to see if the scene is progressing well enough that he won’t have to restitch the damn buttons. They have one more copy of that shirt, but Rey and Kylo have pretty much knocked all of their shared scenes out of the park so far, so they’ve stopped preparing more than one duplicate of their costumes for any given scene.
Apparently, and pretty obviously, they’re doing just fine. Rey is straddling Kylo, both of them cheated out for the shot, so Finn stops looking. He’s pretty good at being a professional, but watching his good friend heatedly make out with the man she’s sworn to loathe for all eternity is extremely awkward. If he didn’t know any better, Finn would believe the rumors flying through the gossip mags that Rey and Kylo are secretly sleeping together. No one should be that obviously into someone they genuinely hate.
Luke calls cut about thirty seconds later, shifting the scene. Kylo’s meant to carry her into their bedroom setup, and between the cut and the next action, both actors drop their act so quickly it’s disorienting. One second they’re all over each other, the next, it looks like Rey is trying to set Kylo on fire purely through the power of her hatred.
They make their way to the fake hallway at Luke’s direction, sullen and avoiding each other’s gaze. Finn can’t hear the notes Luke goes over with them. He can only see Kylo, then Rey listening and nodding along, Luke patting Rey gently on the shoulder with a smile before retreating behind the cameras. Kylo and Rey turn to face each other, and, while Luke’s back is turned, Rey sticks her tongue out at Kylo who scrunches up his nose at her, pulling an extremely unattractive face, but they’re both blank slates by the time Luke calls action.
The switch is instantaneous, their faces changing abruptly as Rey throws her arms around Kylo’s shoulders, his hands on her waist until he pulls while she gives a little jump and she’s in his arms, the cameras following through where one side of the door frame should be so the whole motion is captured on film.
Like the rest of their scenes together, it’s nearly flawless, a few details gone over to get it perfect, and the have to redo one minute and a half twice before Luke’s satisfied with it, but thank god, Finn doesn’t have to do any work on their clothes. He gets that he’s there as a “just in case,” and it’s great that everything went smoothly, but Finn really wishes they would stop asking him to be present for the intimate scenes. He’s pretty sure the sight of Rey and Kylo in the (praise be) fake throes of passion is going to haunt him for way too long.
-
Luke Skywalker has been in this business a long time. A very long time, in fact. He’s worked with all kinds of actors, any number of editors and producers, and he’d like to think he knows a thing or two about the industry and the people in it. Rarely, though, has Luke dealt with actors who dislike each other quite as strongly as Rey and Kylo. Then again, he’s rarely worked with a pair whose performances are so near flawless either.
They play off each other, push each other like it’s a competition, and Luke thinks if they could get along, it would be the most exciting set anyone’s been on in years. It’s always intoxicating when everyone can tell they’re working on a gem of a film, but Rey and Kylo’s attitudes are ruining the atmosphere. Instead of excitement, the entire cast and crew are tense any time the leads are filming together.
Luke hasn’t had to deal with this level of heterosexual nonsense since Leia was editing one of Han’s films, and Kylo is managing to be an even more dramatic pain in Luke’s ass than either of his parents. Luke just wants to direct a quality film. He knows it’s not anything earth-shattering, but the script is good, not too shallow for a romantic story, and he’d like to just get it made without having to corral his nephew’s temper and Rey’s attitude. They’ve even managed to avoid any overly drastic media frenzies, thanks to Kylo’s preoccupation with being better than Rey.
While Luke is definitely proud of his nephew for the accomplishments he’s made as an actor, he’s never looked forward to the inevitable media storm that comes anytime Kylo is left to his own devices. However, it seems any down time the boy has had in the past months is taken up with going over and over lines, bullying different members of the cast into running through blocking with him, all in an effort to outdo the little rising star playing his female lead. If Luke didn’t have a constant low level headache from dealing with them, he’d be compelled to congratulate Rey for keeping his nephew in line, even if she doesn’t mean to at all. It’s nice to see him focused, and though they’re always snapping at each other, something about Kylo is settled that is normally in chaos.
“Cut!” Luke shouts, watching his actors drop the earnest looks they’d been wearing in favor of apathy on Kylo and disdain on Rey. He resists the very strong urge to sigh and rub his temples.
-
“It’s time to talk press.”
Kylo has worked with Phasma before, and he’s perfectly aware she takes no shit from anyone, and that they’ve probably hired her to manage the press junket specifically because he’s involved. Every shitstorm he’s managed to stir up while under her jurisdiction has been neatly taken care of, and he’s begrudgingly grateful. If he wants to spend his money on ridiculous things and sleep with ridiculous women, it’s his life and no one else’s business. But it’s Phasma’s job to scare the living daylights out of the bottom feeders working for the gossip rags that tend to follow him around, and she’s very good at it.
Phasma is never any less intimidating, and in an all-white pantsuit, almost as tall as Kylo Ren himself, she commands the room. She catches Kylo almost laughing at how Rey’s posture has become impeccable at Phasma’s arrival.
“We’ve still got a few months before the release, and you two are fully booked,” she tells them. “Of course there’s the standard appearances here, and then we have a conference for you to attend in London next month. I expect that you’ll both treat this as the important part of your job that it is.”
Rey and Kylo glance at each other, and for once, it looks like they’re in perfect agreement. This is going to be a herculean task. They can barely be civil on set (who is she kidding, they can’t be civil), so Phasma’s expectation of them being reasonable professionals while sharing planes and cars and hotels is out of the question.
She does not agree.
“Now you two listen to me,” she says, both palms on her desk and leaning toward them in a way that telegraphs how badly she’d like to be able to smack them upside the heads like errant children. “You’ve managed to create two marvelous characters for a film that’s already being discussed in connection with awards before we’ve even wrapped, and I will not have you mucking it up by being immature in the press.”
Rey is sitting up even straighter, if possible, while Kylo is slumping further down, hands in his pockets and eyes trained on Phasma’s desk in front of him.
“I’m sure you remember the trainwreck that was the Fifty Shades press tour,” she starts and Rey bursts out laughing, startling both Phasma and Kylo.
“I’m sorry,” she says instantly. “It’s just- That was really bad.”
“Exactly,” Phasma says, eyes narrowing. “And we will not be emulating it. I don’t particularly care whether you actually like each other, but you will behave yourselves.”
She’s looking at both of them, and though Phasma hasn’t worked with Rey before, she’s fully prepared to babysit both actors. According to what she’s been told about their interactions during filming, Rey may be a perfectly lovely girl at most times, but Kylo Ren stirs her up like no one’s business. It’s great for the film, not so great for Phasma.
Rey rolls her eyes and shoots a glare at Kylo across the office.
“If he can behave himself, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she says coldly. “I, for one, haven’t managed to make a fool of myself in the public eye.”
Phasma can see Kylo getting his back up, and shuts that down immediately.
“Did I not just say I expect good behavior, miss?” she snaps at Rey. “That means keeping that tongue of yours under control. You’ll be doing all kinds of interviews, and you, Miss Kenobi, haven’t done anything like this before. Frankly, Ren is the lesser worry in front of a camera.”
Rey looks properly chastised, but there’s no way Phasma can let the smug look on Kylo’s face go either.
“And as for you, Mr. Ren,” she goes on. “While I know you are aware of the proper responses in front of a camera, I hope you will keep in mind that your private life is nowhere near private. Despite your good behavior over the course of this production, I have not forgotten your penchant for misbehavior after hours.”
With both of her clients satisfactorily browbeaten, Phasma stands up straight, shoulders back, and offers them something of a smile.
“Now, if we understand each other, I’d like to discuss any concerns you two might have, as well as restrictions for travel, housing, and food.”
-
The press tour is awful in some ways, and in others, it’s actually pretty amazing. Rey has never been involved in a production of this scale, so she’s never been asked to speak about her roles in great detail, let alone being flown to London to do it. She hasn’t been back to England since she was a little girl, and it’s a pleasure to see the sights that used to be familiar anew. The country welcomes her back with open arms, and she catches sight of more than a few newspapers talking about her visit to the UK like she’s a marvel they’ve missed for years.
It’s a little absurd, to be honest. At the very least, the British reporters are polite to her, excited to have a new star to call their own.
She and Kylo have a couple of structured interviews set up, and it’s all pretty standard. They give hints at what will be happening, tell short bits of behind-the-scenes stories, always careful to not incriminate each other in any way. Phasma is certainly marvelous at her job, keeping her and Kylo firmly in line as well as the various reporters they meet with. There is never a missed appointment or unbooked hotel to contend with. Everything is so well organized that Rey would almost feel like she’s on some cross between a guided tour and a vacation if she didn’t have to keep her faked camaraderie with Kylo up at every turn.
He’s even more of a gigantic asshole when it’s just the pair of them going between hotels and locations. Rey is aware he’s mathematically an adult, but Kylo acts like a teenage boy at almost every turn. He hasn’t resorted to starting a prank war with her, but Rey feels like it’s just the sort of thing he might do any day. As the tour drags on, Rey loses track of the days a bit, and by the time they make it back to America, New York, for one of the bigger press releases, she can feel the tension ratcheting up in Kylo. She has the slightly nasty thought that maybe he’ll combust if he doesn’t do something stupid and borderline illegal during the entire tour, and he’s managed to resist it so far.
Rey grew up knowing she wanted to be an actress, eyes on the prize from a young age. She went to school for it, performed in too many plays to remember, and it feels nice to have reached this level, where she’s a real actress, and not just scraping up any part she can. But she also grew up knowing actors can’t escape the public eye. Kylo Ren was the perfect example of what she never wanted to become.
She’s always promised herself she’d keep a level head if she managed to find fame, unlike him. His face had been plastered over trashy magazines all throughout her climb to the top, half media darling by virtue of his parents, half hot mess. Rey has never been one to read those rags, but she’s still managed to catch on to the fact that Kylo Ren has never had any concept of self control or decorum. Working with him, she’s fairly certain he acts out because he can’t stand himself, and, well, who could? He’s sullen and snappish, a perfectionist with his work and so unforgiving of anyone else’s faults. Rey could maybe forgive some of it if he weren’t such a condescending ass all the time as well. Sure, he’s been legitimately famous as long as Rey has been making her way in the industry, and he’s a fabulous actor, but he’s just such an awful human being. Fame should never make someone forget how to be a person, in Rey’s opinion.
They’re going to be in New York for four days, and Rey finds out Kylo won’t be staying in a hotel because he has a house in the city, of course. Phasma looks about ready to insist he stay with them anyway, probably so she can keep a closer eye on him, but it’s cost-effective and he’s behaved himself this far, so she lets him go. It’s on the second day, the night before they’re supposed to be giving an early interview, when Phasma decides to check in on him on the way back from Rey’s television spot. He doesn’t answer the door when Phasma rings the bell. Rey waits in the car for a moment, but when Phasma comes storming back, Rey sits up and pays attention.
“I need your help,” Phasma tells the driver. “And don’t worry, you’re under my orders here. Come along.”
Rey can’t resist coming along for that .
Phasma directs the driver to help her break down the door, and he only hesitates long enough for her to level him with the iciest glare Rey has seen from her yet. It takes a few tries, but eventually the door bursts open and Phasma leads the charge into Kylo’s home, Rey following after while the driver beats a hasting retreat back to the car. She can hear Phasma’s voice carry down the hall.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
When Rey finds Phasma, she’s standing in Kylo’s living room, hands on her hips and staring down at Kylo Ren where he’s slumped face-down on his couch, evidence of how much he’s been drinking on the floor all around him. Rey is torn between feeling disgust and pity for him. She’s never had a reason to feel anything but contempt, so it sits uncomfortably for her to veer even a little off that pattern, but it’s just so... sad .
Phasma glances behind Rey, realizes the driver has abandoned them at the door, and nudges Rey’s arm.
“Well. Come on,” she says. “Let’s get him up.”
“What?” Rey nearly squawks. She barely wants to look at him, let alone touch him and get him up off his couch. Phasma is much more intimidating than Rey’s hesitance, however, so she moves to help after Phasma give her a look where she’s started to tug at Kylo’s shoulder to roll him over.
Phasma directs Rey to help her roll him off the couch, propping him up long enough that Phasma can lift his upper body to drag him upright. Phasma takes on his weight alone when he’s upright, if not standing, and Rey can see he’s decidedly unconscious and not just sleeping. She follows them out the door, watches Phasma dump him in the backseat of their town car and take the passenger seat herself, directing the driver to their hotel. She’s very businesslike about the whole thing, mouth a firm line the entire way back.
Rey spends the drive alternately trying not to stare at him taking up two thirds of the backseat and giving in to the temptation to do so. He looks like a mess, hair all over his face, and Rey can see that he probably hasn’t shaved in the last two days. She wonders if he’s done anything to take care himself in that time.Sitting across from him, Rey has the ridiculous urge to at least fix his hair or prop him up so his neck won’t hurt when he finally wakes up. All this time hating him, and one moment of weakness doesn’t fail to bring back her instinctive kindness. She pushed it down and lets him sit there, unconscious, until they reach the hotel.
Phasma turns in her seat when they pull up outside the hotel.
“Wake him up,” she demands, and Rey is at a loss. Her face must show it, because Phasma goes on. “I don’t care if he’s talking, but he’s not going to be carried fully unconscious into that hotel. We’re not making it easy on the paparazzi if we can help it.”
Rey starts by pushing his shoulder, and Kylo doesn’t even respond. She says his name in increasing volume, to no avail, and after a few more tries, resorts to slapping him across the face. It’s not very hard, just enough to sting, but it does manage to rouse him a little. He groans, rolling his head on his shoulders and blinks bleary eyes at her.
“Rey?” he mumbles, deeply confused. It’s good enough for Phasma, who exits the car at speed, opening the door he’s leaning on, and Rey watches his eyes go wide when the support at his back disappears to be replaced by Phasma’s firm hand keeping him from toppling out.
“Let’s go, Mr. Ren.”
Phasma half carries, half shoves him to the room, only two because they hadn’t planned on him being present. She dumps him on the couch in Rey’s room, and Rey starts to protest.
“If that man is in the same room as me, I will kill him in his sleep,” Phasma snaps. “Throw a bucket of water on him in the morning and send him over.”
With that, she all but storms out to her own room, the door slamming behind her, and Rey is left with a semi-conscious actor in her room. She stares at him for too long, only moving when he grumbles and rolls over to bury his face in the couch. It makes her start, and Rey only takes a moment to decide there’s really nothing she can do about it, so she may as well go to sleep so the day can be over.
-
Rey wakes up at something like three am, but only manages to make it halfway to actual awareness. She’s only awake enough to register that the mattress has shifted, but everything is still and quiet, and she falls asleep again almost instantly.
She wakes again to the sound of the shower turning on. She sits up this time, joining the waking world and remembering after a second that Kylo was passed out on her couch when she went to bed last night. He isn’t there when she looks over, so she has to assume he’s using her shower. Rey decides to give herself a few more moments of dozing while she can’t actually do anything to prepare for the day. When she hears the water shut off, Rey does have moment of panic that she looks an absolute mess after waking up, and Kylo is definitely going to mock her for it, so she throws her hair into a bun to at least contain that disaster before he can see it.
He comes out of the bathroom in the jeans he’d been wearing the night before, toweling off his hair before pulling his shirt on. He’s shaved while he was in there, Rey thinks distantly when he looks over at her.
“It’s all yours,” he mutters as he’s leaving the room, shoes in his hand.
Rey doesn’t listen for his reception in the room next door, but she can hear raised voices before she goes to take her own shower. By the time she meets up with Phasma and Kylo, he’s dressed in something more appropriate for their press release, and he’s much quieter than usual. It’s a short trip downstairs to the conference room where they’ll be meeting with the press, interrupted by both of them going through makeup before taking their seats in front of the small crowd.
The questions come fast and, generally, easy to answer, and Rey almost forgets she spent last night dragging her drunken co-star from his home and stressing over him sleeping in the room with her. She can compartmentalize, and be an adult about it. Something about the whole scene feels like it would be stepping over a line to mock him for it, and Rey doesn’t think they could come back from it, so she decides to pretend it never happened.
About halfway through their time, Rey gets the kind of question she’s always hated but never really thought about dealing with herself.
“Miss Kenobi,” a pale, red-headed man starts, standing, “We’ve heard rumors that you have some pretty steamy scenes in this film. Did you have to go through any personal training or have work done to prepare for that?”
Rey feels her face go hot, immediately embarrassed, and can’t make herself speak for a moment. She’s fairly certain if she says what instantly comes to mind, that it’s none of his business and of course not, she’s an actress, not a pinup girl, will have Phasma giving her tight-lipped faces for being rude in front of the press, warranted or not.
Oddly enough, Kylo is the one that saves her.
He leans toward his mic and says in a tight voice, “Why don’t you ask me that question?”
The reporter looks taken aback for a second, stuttering out, “I don’t think-”
“You’d never ask me that,” Kylo goes on, talking over him. “And you know why? Because it doesn’t matter.”
Rey looks between him and the reporter, watching the man’s face go nearly as red as his hair before he takes his seat, pencil scribbling furiously on the little notebook in his hand.
“Why don’t we take a question that actually has to do with the film?” Kylo says, ostensibly to the room at large, but still attempting to glare holes in the man.
The room falls into a clamor at that, hands up all around. Phasma points to the next reporter, and she hardly manages to start in on her question before Kylo begins talking again.
“And you know what, sorry,” he says, glancing at Phasma who doesn’t look particularly pleased with his continued outburst. “Neither of us were very bothered about being in great shape, because we’ve been working on an actual film, not porn. I suggest you watch it for the story.”
The reporter who’d been about to speak looks uncertainly to Phasma, who nods her along. The question is about where the story is headed in the long run, and are rumors of a trilogy true?
Rey hardly pays attention to the answer Kylo gives because she’s too busy wondering when he became a decent human being. If she’d been prepared for the kind of question he’d taken for her, as she should have been, Rey is certain she could have given a satisfactorily smart and cutting reply, but as it is, all she can do is be grateful he shut the man up for her.
By that afternoon, there’s all sorts of speculation about whether she and Kylo are a couple, his opinionated response apparently being grounds for pointing to a deeper connection than just coworkers.
“Typical,” Kylo says when Phasma brings it up. “This is why I try not to do nice things. Someone’s always there to kick you in the ass for it.”
Rey stays quiet on the matter, something like both worry and wonder forming in the pit of her stomach.
-
The premiere in Hollywood is highly publicized, the street crawling with photographers and reporters when Rey arrives at the theater. It’s more photographers and media coverage than she’s ever seen in one place, with a healthy dose of paparazzi pressing in as well, and she freezes for a second once she’s out of the limo she arrived in. Thankfully, Luke is there, greeting her with a kiss brush over her cheekbone and a hand between her shoulderblades.
“Smile,” he says quietly, and Rey positively beams.
After she calms down about the sheer number of people here, Rey finds it’s easy to handle the press. After the tour she’s done with Kylo, this is easy. Everyone is in good spirits, too, relaxed from the break in work and excited to see the final cut of the film. She handles herself with as much grace as she can, smiles for the cameras and shows off the dress she’s wearing, but can’t actually remember when someone asks who the designer is.
One of the more bold men with a recorder in hand shouts at her when she’s nearing the doors to the theater.
“Miss Kenobi! Anything to say about the rumors of a relationship between you and Kylo Ren?”
Rey grins indulgently at them, but doesn’t bother answering. It’s probably best to say nothing at all.
He’s waiting for her when she crosses the threshold, or at least it seems that way. Luke is still fielding photographers and reporters outside, and Rey can hear the clamor of it at her back, but Kylo has managed to make it inside before either of them.
He looks nice, she thinks distantly. He’s dressed in the same kind of black suit every man in Hollywood wears to these sort of functions, tailored for him so it looks amazing be default. He’s tense though, not the way he was through their press tour, but more like when they first started filming. Some of it dissipates when he sees her, his shoulders dropping slightly as he walks over.
“You ready?” he asks, and Rey blinks at him in confusion.
“I thought the hard part was over,” she says. “All we have to do now is watch the movie.”
“No, now we have to watch the movie ,” he presses. “Are you ready to see yourself two stories tall? You ready to be in a room full of people watching you?”
Rey actually thinks about it for the first time, and it’s daunting. The indie films and shows she’s done before were nothing like this, and she got to see almost the full product before it was shown to the public. This is entirely different. She has no idea what’s happened to the film between then and now, and she’s abruptly not sure she wants to see it.
“I’m not going to watch,” Kylo says when her silence stretches on.
“No?”
“I never do.” He shrugs. “I tend to wait it out until the show’s over, then I’ll watch it at home when it comes out. Never did like seeing myself in a theater. All I can see are the mistakes.”
Rey does something very foolish then. It’s entirely impulsive and she regrets it almost as soon as the words leave her mouth, but once they have, she determined to follow through.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
She’s never seen Kylo Ren look so perplexed.
“What, do you-? We can’t exactly leave ,” he says. “I was just going to camp out by the bar.”
“We could do that,” Rey offers. “Or we could explore the place a bit. I’ve never been in a theater with this many floors. There are bound to be some places worth checking out.”
She can almost see the penny drop. He takes half a step back from her, looks her over like she might’ve changed in the last few seconds somehow.
“You’re serious?” he asks finally. “I mean, you’re definitely implying you want to go find somewhere to fool around while we’re supposed to be watching the movie? That’s what’s happening right now?”
“That’s what’s happening right now,” she confirms. She can feel a blush starting to crawl up her throat, but she doesn’t care. Maybe it’s the high from being here, premiering her first big film, or maybe it’s that something shifted between them during the second half of that press tour, but Rey wants to give it a shot. The notion that if this goes south, it’s going to make the next two films extremely awkward is distant in the moment.
“And no one under forty calls it ‘fooling around’,” she teases, just to see if he’ll take it for the joke it is. If not, they may as well go back to hissing and spitting at each other for the next three years or so.
“Fine,” he says, stepping more into her space than he had been and leaning down so when he speaks softly, she can hear him. “Then let’s go find someplace and maybe you’ll let me find out what you’re wearing under that pretty dress.”
Rey suppresses the urge to shiver, and swats him on the arm instead. He takes it, chuckling a bit, and he follows when Rey grabs him by the sleeve of his suit jacket, intent on proving to herself whether or not Kylo Ren is actually as smooth as he thinks he is.