[She asks a question that he doesn't quite see the end of. He searches her eyes, and feels her hand shift under the blanket. There is only a moment's hesitation before he finds himself reaching for it, clasping it and pulling it closer to his chest. Beneath it, a muscle spasms, and his heart beats slightly faster as he becomes conscience of it.
The intimacy of it clearly has made him uncomfortable, but the act of having someone to share the discomfort of it all opens him up to exposing himself to it. The sort of promise of mutually assured destruction -- that is something he can trust.
And yes, maybe some part of him fears that he is going to fuck this up -- or that she's going to leave him once there is a better path. He's just discovered...whatever this is, and he doesn't want to lose it. He doesn't want to endanger it, and he doesn't want to show it to anyone else.
He just wants to keep it, in this dark space where only they can see it. An extension of the bond, in the physical.]
[ She exhales sharply when her palm flattens against his chest, the hastening thump of his heart reverberating into her, synchronizing with hers. It occurs to her over and over again, every step of the way, that this is a closeness like she'd never had, never imagined having.
And despite his discomfort, despite his unease, he drinks it in with her.
Each breath that follows comes out shuddered and loud, heaving in her chest. Her eyes flicker across his face, searching him. She's keenly aware of every inch of her body, in that moment. and the current that runs between them from that point of contact. It's exhilarating in a way that she knows means sleep will evade her. But it's the thrill of something new, something she doesn't quite understand, that keeps her from minding much.
The whole thing feels surreal. Like any minute, Rey will wake up, or the Force bond will snap and they will be separated, or — Stars, she hardly knows. But it definitely feels like some distant, parallel universe to be cuddled up in bed with Ben. Already she was warm enough under the covers to miss her wet hair and wish it could cool her down.
She wants to kiss him again, but not without knowing if he wants it. So she stays quiet, breathing this in until she's sure she can let go of that. Then, finally, ]
Can you feel that?
[ She's almost scared to ask. She doesn't know what to name it, though. This tension humming between them, this gravity. Is it the bond or something else? ]
[He would have to be numb not to feel it. It tugs at him, and he thinks that if he were any weaker of will, he might be trembling from it. He can feel how deeply it runs through Rey, and him in turn. Not to say there wasn’t some origin of this...feeling within him as well — there was. She is simply better at letting the feeing happen where part of him fears where it might be taking him.
His grip on her hand shifts some, forcing it open against his bare skin rather than leaving it trapped in his hand, He covers it with his own, but that makes it worse. He swallows down the rising anxiety he feels — but its not just anxiety anymore. There is adrenaline that comes with it — he recognizes it. The same sort of hunger he feels at the center of battle, the sort of initiative that drives him to act.
It doesn’t have a place here, he thinks — but its there, hovering.]
Yes.
[He sympathizes with that feeling — that they are existing outside of the reality they’ve mapped out for themselves. But there is a certain peril they’ve both suddenly shared that demands acknowledgement. They certainly aren’t under threat of death yet — but sometimes it feels like it. That this fragile peace they’ve eatablished could so easily be broken by someone else.
Maybe that’s what drives him so recklessly forward; the danger that anything could change in the next 24 hours.]
[ It's there, mirrored back at her from his expression. A hunger. The kind she's only seen in him when he's fighting. Maybe she had summoned it there; maybe the bond had just transferred it, and it didn't belong to him at all. This connection has proven a slippery thing, has made it hard for her to sift them apart from each other.
Her hand slides down across his chest, feeling the slope of muscle. His skin scorches her hand as she searches over the scar she'd given him — a crescent, puckered burn. Then down around the side of his ribs where he'd taken the blow from Chewbacca's bowcaster. That arm wraps solidly around him as she shifts closer to him, eliminating the last of the distance.
This is a lot all at once. But she's been knocking so long on this door that now that he's opened it, she doesn't know how to stop herself. She tries to use the embrace as a way to stamp down some of the desire clawing its way up her dry throat, to settle for the insinuation of his body against hers.
They need to stop. She lets out a single huff of breath, trying to steady herself. To make this something decisive, to settle into, not to move on from.
But in that effort, it feels like she's ten years old again, her fingers trying to grab for a metal ledge she'd thought she could reach for before they finally gave out and she plummeted. She'd broken her arm then. What would this break? ]
[She is holding something back, even as she moves in to claim the rest of the space between them. He can’t quite follow that train of thought to its completion —and he doesnt want to. This, the part where she settles against the warmth of his embrace — that’s what he had wanted, without realizing it.
As if she were the pillow he had abandoned, he wraps his arms back around her securely, so that she may absorb his presence as he believes she desires to. Both arms cross at the center of her back. His eyes drift closed slowly, chin resting at the top of her head. He can feel the way her heart stutters now, the adrenaline still running thick in his veins and the way her heart scrambles for — something else.
She is in some kind of peril, but he can’t place its origin. It stokes at some of that anxiety that is always at the root of his emotions, but then he feels her breathe against him and it slowly evaporates away in a manner he didn’t know was possible. There is still that presence of mind that keeps them both from sleep — but at least his own thoughts aren’t quite so loud.
Instead, he has her’s. He’s tuned in now, searching through the Force without asking verbally. He gets the sense that might be a little too much to deal with, right now.]
Edited (edits eight million times) 2018-04-10 05:38 (UTC)
[ When he encircles her in his arms, surrounds her, she feels a kind of peace. But it's not the kind of peace that suppresses the electrical crackling that leaves her whole body feeling like one raw nerve. Rather, it's like an exhale. Like dust settling. Like coming home. She lets her fingertips trace the column of his spine, up and town, breaking the plane of the other scar she'd left him with, in Perdition's Rest.
She tries to force her breathing to settle, an easier rhythm, something that can calm down and sleep, but it's still hitched with the desire to map his skin.
The acute probing sense of him trying to coax her mind and feelings open to him across the bond startles her, sharpens her next inhale. At first she clams up, an instinctual response, and it lasts long enough to be conscious too — she's afraid to let him see. She tries to hold him out.
But she turns her head and tilts it up to try and get out from under his chin, to look him in the face. His eyes are closed, but hers are dark, pupils wide. The way their focus darts between his eyes and his mouth reveals both her fear and something else.
He's not searching for a weapon. He's not trying to hurt her. And she wants him to understand.
She opens to him.
Like her mind is sprawling out, stretching, beckoning him in. It's a flood. The tail end of that memory, fingers slipping and bone snapping. And in the darkness where she fell, something yawning and superheated and ready to swallow her. Like plasma, humming in her veins.
It's been there all along, lurking under the surface of her mind. This moment has just woken it up, brought her hunger for him to the forefront of her mind and made it impossible to ignore. It sticks in her throat, silences her. Her hand curls against his back, nails scraping briefly as she makes a fist to restrain it. ]
[The flood of her memories coaxes his eyes open as he digests them. They are without context, but he recognizes the anxiety that comes with them. He feels her nails drag across his lower back, and it stirs something deep in his stomach that he instinctively forces down without even stopping to think what emotion it might be. She is running from something — her desire to touch him, he thinks after a moment of analysis.
This is a fear he actually finds relief in. The sort of contact he was engaging in was — already quite a lot. Anything else feels...excessive, and maybe something he didn’t deserve or...
The ideas don’t totally make sense, but he has them.
He feels her head shift upward, and he glances down, leaving their foreheads pressed to one another from how close they already were. Now that discomfort rises again, the recogition of intimacy. He wants to ask her what is wrong but...he also doesn’t really want to know.]
[ A spark flares and dies in him. She can't quite place what caused it, but it's probably for the best for them both that it was short-lived. One of them needs self control here. She shifts, barely, not enough to move out of his embrace or even really disrupt the contact between their foreheads. But she can't quite get comfortable at this point. It's a restlessness, of sorts.
Her breaths start to slow and deepen as she directs more energy into composing herself, finding some kind of meditative calm. There is no respite or comfort for her in the island anymore. Nor Jakku. She reaches instead for the waters of Chandrila that he had shown her, synching her breathing with the lap of the ocean on the shore.
But his discomfort nags at the edge of her awareness. He's keenly attuned to her hesitation, to the way she wrestles with holding herself back. ]
This is enough.
[ Don't worry, she tells him this softly, but it's also for her to hear aloud. It's more than enough, so much more than she'd have ever asked for. No matter what she wants right now, what she can't ignore, she's learned not to push him. He'll come to her. Given time, given assurance, he'll come to her.
Her voice rasps a little when she voices the fear that drives that thinking, that conclusion — if she asks for too much, she'll lose what she does have. ]
[He takes in her initial response, analyzes it, and spits a reply back out:]
You're lying.
[Its not enough. He can sense that she wants more -- but he can also see that she is trying to resist the need that presses on her. The one that he can't quite peel apart to comprehend -- whether that's a result of his upbringing or fear of intimacy is hard to say.
But he notices. Not so long ago, she would not have resisted such things, for his sake. She would have charged forward as he often did, believing that her needs nullified his own...that he should alter his position based on what she wanted, when in the very same sentence, she refused to do the same.
He calls her out to show that he recognizes the effort she is making on his behalf (and because he doesn't understand that she's pep talking herself). In response, he tightens his grip on her slightly.]
[ The keen edge of his reply prickles up her spine. It's one thing to know he's aware of her desire and another thing to have him acknowledge it in the open. If nothing else, this night has marked a stark awareness of how different physical space is from what can be felt and heard in the Force.
But it's a form of gratitude, too. Not all the way there, but awareness of what she's doing, and something akin to appreciation for it. It reaffirms her, and with that, resolve overpowers want, and she relaxes in his embrace, finally able to let it wash over her. It's a sinking of her shoulders, a flutter of her eyelids, like a burden has been lifted.
Now, the echo of his breath lulls her instead of heightening her awareness. Her eyes drift shut, and her hand relaxes, releasing her grip so she can spread her palm across his middle back again. Feel more of him, but not with a wandering, frantic need for contact and exploration. Instead, to seek a sense of peace in him.
Her breath evens out then, too. They're both here. Neither of them running or fighting. She rests her forehead against his sternum, curling into him for a kind of animal warmth. ]
[He holds tightly, allowing her to adjust herself. The calm he's flooded with almost feels as if it doesn't belong to him, but it allows him to drift into slumber far faster than he's ever managed before. The pillow had been a poor substitute for human contact, as it turns out. Like this, even the Force feels still and quiet.
Maybe he'll marvel at that once he wakes up. He'll probably marvel at his arm having fallen asleep underneath Rey as well. Life is just full of surprises.]
[ When they'd first spoken on Starkiller Base, he had been the one to acknowledge Rey's loneliness, and how empty she felt when she laid down alone to wait for sleep to come. It always took too long, then. Like the dark corners of the room would swallow her whole.
She's not lonely, now. And sleep comes readily.
There's no light to wake her up, and though she's not exhausted like she has been many days of her life, she's in a deep, comfortable sleep. She hasn't had a night this warm since Perdition's Rest, and even then it was an ambient dry air. This is humid — sticky with another's body. The kind of warmth that makes her want to linger, even subconsciously.
So she's not gonna budge for a long while even after the space standard for 'morning' arrives. But the faint phantom twitches of her limbs and the soft occasional snoring marks her presence beside him beyond just the weight of her body in his arms and the heat. ]
[Kylo Ren, unfortunately, has the internal body clock of a rooster. As a result, he wakes up first -- without the aid of sunlight.
She's still there. For a moment, he relaxes and basks in that knowledge.
He goes to shift some of his weight (in half an attempt to doze again), but abruptly freezes and grunts in pain as his left arm seizes up. The numbness trickles all the way down to his fingers, even as he forces them free from the cradle he's made for Rey. Ouch.
He doesn't bother to consider that he'll be waking her from a deep slumber. His sleeping arm is far more important. Carefully, he rolls himself sideways in an attempt to free himself from beneath her. Its a process -- but he's taking his time, because he also doesn't want to test her patience this early in the morning.]
[ The first of his stirring makes her grip tighten on him, trying to hold him back from rolling away as if she's afraid to lose him. But as she slowly comes conscious, that grip loosens up because she's able to reason. And because she can feel immediately upon waking that it's him. Once, waking up to another person hovering this close would have put her to attack. Luckily she has the Force now.
But she still doesn't greatly appreciate being disturbed. She lets him go, shifting significantly to help him free his arm, then settling back down and curling her arms up in the space where he'd been beside her. ]
What are you doing? [ This grousing accompanied by an effort to pull the sheet up a little higher. ]
[He doesn't answer her verbally. Instead, he huffs out some relief when he has control of his arm again, flexing and clenching his fingers in an effort to get feeling back in them. He rubs along the muscle of his arm to generate some heat for a similar purpose.
And then, he untangles himself from the covers and deposits them on Rey when he sees her attempt to further burrow.]
Its morning.
[He's getting up, obviously. He rolls himself to the bed's edge, and rubs at his neck. As soundless and easy that sleep was, it turns out that his body is very unhappy with him for it.]
[ She doesn't budge when he first dumps the pile of extra bedding on top of her, but once he's actually at the edge of the bed and rubbing his neck, she realizes that … well, he's getting up. Most of what made the prospect of further sleep compelling was the climate they had created together.
Bleary-eyed, she sits up in place, pulling her legs in towards herself under the covers and crossing her heels. The covers pile in her lap, a big mound that she clutches at with one hand while her other rubs sleep out of the corners of her eyes. ]
What are you, a droid? [ But she looks for the clock in the room and, sure enough, he's right. Unlike Ben, she doesn't feel any particular discomforts from the night. Surprise she didn't have like a hundred pounds on her arm all night or something.
The presumption that they'd just groggily cuddle was probably foolish in the first place. She's usually quick to rise when she actually wakes up, too. Hard to begrudge him that except that she wasn't ready to wake up. ]
[He turns to look at her over his shoulder, frowning at her chosen dig. He doesn't quite understand her reaction -- as far back as he could remember, he was always up at the crack of dawn. He starts to think about it: about his mother, about Luke and the Jedi temple, and then the Finalizer.
But he shakes himself out of that train of thought to instead grunt with some displeasure in conclusion. Just because he's an early riser doesn't make him odd. That's his story and he's sticking to it.
He crosses the room, continuously rotating his numb arm. When he reaches the counter, he moves to fill a kettle with water with the intention of making tea.]
[ She rubs at her shoulder in absent sympathy; on her part, it's more of a way to wake herself up, to anchor herself back in the real world instead of the languorous pull of sleep. She throws the blankets out of her lap, stretches bare legs, and eventually climbs out of the bed.
When she does, she glances around the room and at him, clearly at some kind of loss for how to occupy this space now. Ben doesn't seem interested in entertaining. He's up early, going about his routine. She reaches up to push back matted hair that gets in her eyes. Right. That's why she usually combs it back and ties it up while it's still wet.
But it's soft and the smell of his soap lingers on her.
Right.
Rey heads into the refresher, picking up the pile of her clothes and bringing it back out with her in her arms. If he wants to use it, she doesn't want to occupy it getting dressed. By this point, she has figured out what's really peeving her about his promptness, sifted through the morning grouchiness about being jostled awake instead of waking up on her own. ]
When you said just for the night, I didn't think you had a timer set.
[Sleep clings to his voice, causing it to scratch and making it sound deeper than usual.
He either hasn't picked up on her annoyance, or he just simply Doesn't Get It and is electing instead to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind. While the water heats up, he turns to glance at her and notices the bundle of clothes in her arms.
To him, it seems like she is the one with a timer set.]
[ In the silence that follows, she's finally awake enough to take a moment to consider the strangeness of seeing Ben half-dressed and watching the kettle. It's so pedestrian. Obviously he's had to sustain himself somehow. He has to do things like shower and sleep and eat and drink tea. But actually being here for it is like living in some alternate universe.
What would Finn say? What would Poe?
She buries those questions quickly. It's better if she doesn't consider that now. And anyway, Ben seems to be arguing that he's not up and at 'em just to rush her out the door, so she drops her pile of clothes onto one of the chairs. One of her boots tumbles to the floor under the table, but she doesn't bother attending it or putting any slow deliberate effort into organizing the items nicely. Not just now, anyway.
With both of them just hanging out here half-dressed in the kitchen in the metaphorical light of day, she feels a little more exposed than the night before. Being caught up in the intensity of the moment, too, may have buffered that sense. She forces herself to let her hands hang at her sides instead of some obvious (and futile, given that her tunic already pulls down respectably far over her underwear) effort to cover herself. ]
No? [ She glances between him and the kettle. It'll heat up on its own. ] Come back to bed then.
[She earns a vulptex in the headlights stare for that remark. He wants to ask why — but the why is obvious, even to him. He had left her before she was ready to relinquish contact. He doesn’t quite know what to do with that...having his routine messed with.
He looks at the kettle and then back to the pile of clothes and then back to Rey. Surely they couldn’t just...lay around all morning.]
Come back?
[They were both awake. Bed was for sleeping. Sleep time is over, tea time is now.]
[ The fact that he just stands there gaping and clarifying makes her nerve waver. Rey shifts her weight, and creases line her forehead as she adopts a more determined (and defensive) expression. ]
Yeah.
[ Her fists tighten briefly at her sides. ]
You're just watching water boil otherwise.
[ She raises one hand to gesture behind him at the kettle. Just. ?? ? Obviously it will take a few minutes. He's wasting them, currently. ]
[Here we go again, back to overthinking. The wheels turn in his head but — she’s right. He is definitely just watching water boil. He could go back to bed for a moment. But only a moment they would have.]
It won’t take long.
[He points that out as he crosses back toward her, waiting for her to retreat back to the bed as well. Because this was her idea, so obviously she has some expectations in mind???]
[ Punk'd. Her plan literally ended right here. This is the most Poe Dameron she has ever felt. Some part of her was still settled on the fact that he was trying to shove her out the door, it seemed, because she'd never expected to get this far in her plan.
And now they're heading back to the bed together. The blankets are piled at the foot where she left them.
Rey's now committed to this like three total minutes of no longer half-drowsy cuddling, though. It's happening. It definitely sounded better before either of them had gotten out of bed. Doesn't mean it won't still be great. She crawls onto the bed, hands and knees to get to the other side and leave room for him as she turns to lay on her side facing him.
Man it's just.
It's so much more awkward now ? ? ? Because they're not actually here to sleep. They're here for three minutes of cuddling until the kettle starts screaming and they both know it. Why did she commit. ]
[He stops at the edge of the bed because — yeah, that’s really it. She just wants to keep doing that thing they were doing. At least this time, he will be using his other arm. It takes him a second, but sure enough he follows her and...
Yeah, this is awkward. This is nothing like the night before, a genuine reaction born of need. This is not that — this is a poor attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle. His arms wrap back around her, secure ... but unclear. Some sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop.]
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no subject
The intimacy of it clearly has made him uncomfortable, but the act of having someone to share the discomfort of it all opens him up to exposing himself to it. The sort of promise of mutually assured destruction -- that is something he can trust.
And yes, maybe some part of him fears that he is going to fuck this up -- or that she's going to leave him once there is a better path. He's just discovered...whatever this is, and he doesn't want to lose it. He doesn't want to endanger it, and he doesn't want to show it to anyone else.
He just wants to keep it, in this dark space where only they can see it. An extension of the bond, in the physical.]
no subject
And despite his discomfort, despite his unease, he drinks it in with her.
Each breath that follows comes out shuddered and loud, heaving in her chest. Her eyes flicker across his face, searching him. She's keenly aware of every inch of her body, in that moment. and the current that runs between them from that point of contact. It's exhilarating in a way that she knows means sleep will evade her. But it's the thrill of something new, something she doesn't quite understand, that keeps her from minding much.
The whole thing feels surreal. Like any minute, Rey will wake up, or the Force bond will snap and they will be separated, or — Stars, she hardly knows. But it definitely feels like some distant, parallel universe to be cuddled up in bed with Ben. Already she was warm enough under the covers to miss her wet hair and wish it could cool her down.
She wants to kiss him again, but not without knowing if he wants it. So she stays quiet, breathing this in until she's sure she can let go of that. Then, finally, ]
Can you feel that?
[ She's almost scared to ask. She doesn't know what to name it, though. This tension humming between them, this gravity. Is it the bond or something else? ]
no subject
His grip on her hand shifts some, forcing it open against his bare skin rather than leaving it trapped in his hand, He covers it with his own, but that makes it worse. He swallows down the rising anxiety he feels — but its not just anxiety anymore. There is adrenaline that comes with it — he recognizes it. The same sort of hunger he feels at the center of battle, the sort of initiative that drives him to act.
It doesn’t have a place here, he thinks — but its there, hovering.]
Yes.
[He sympathizes with that feeling — that they are existing outside of the reality they’ve mapped out for themselves. But there is a certain peril they’ve both suddenly shared that demands acknowledgement. They certainly aren’t under threat of death yet — but sometimes it feels like it. That this fragile peace they’ve eatablished could so easily be broken by someone else.
Maybe that’s what drives him so recklessly forward; the danger that anything could change in the next 24 hours.]
no subject
Her hand slides down across his chest, feeling the slope of muscle. His skin scorches her hand as she searches over the scar she'd given him — a crescent, puckered burn. Then down around the side of his ribs where he'd taken the blow from Chewbacca's bowcaster. That arm wraps solidly around him as she shifts closer to him, eliminating the last of the distance.
This is a lot all at once. But she's been knocking so long on this door that now that he's opened it, she doesn't know how to stop herself. She tries to use the embrace as a way to stamp down some of the desire clawing its way up her dry throat, to settle for the insinuation of his body against hers.
They need to stop. She lets out a single huff of breath, trying to steady herself. To make this something decisive, to settle into, not to move on from.
But in that effort, it feels like she's ten years old again, her fingers trying to grab for a metal ledge she'd thought she could reach for before they finally gave out and she plummeted. She'd broken her arm then. What would this break? ]
no subject
As if she were the pillow he had abandoned, he wraps his arms back around her securely, so that she may absorb his presence as he believes she desires to. Both arms cross at the center of her back. His eyes drift closed slowly, chin resting at the top of her head. He can feel the way her heart stutters now, the adrenaline still running thick in his veins and the way her heart scrambles for — something else.
She is in some kind of peril, but he can’t place its origin. It stokes at some of that anxiety that is always at the root of his emotions, but then he feels her breathe against him and it slowly evaporates away in a manner he didn’t know was possible. There is still that presence of mind that keeps them both from sleep — but at least his own thoughts aren’t quite so loud.
Instead, he has her’s. He’s tuned in now, searching through the Force without asking verbally. He gets the sense that might be a little too much to deal with, right now.]
no subject
She tries to force her breathing to settle, an easier rhythm, something that can calm down and sleep, but it's still hitched with the desire to map his skin.
The acute probing sense of him trying to coax her mind and feelings open to him across the bond startles her, sharpens her next inhale. At first she clams up, an instinctual response, and it lasts long enough to be conscious too — she's afraid to let him see. She tries to hold him out.
But she turns her head and tilts it up to try and get out from under his chin, to look him in the face. His eyes are closed, but hers are dark, pupils wide. The way their focus darts between his eyes and his mouth reveals both her fear and something else.
He's not searching for a weapon. He's not trying to hurt her. And she wants him to understand.
She opens to him.
Like her mind is sprawling out, stretching, beckoning him in. It's a flood. The tail end of that memory, fingers slipping and bone snapping. And in the darkness where she fell, something yawning and superheated and ready to swallow her. Like plasma, humming in her veins.
It's been there all along, lurking under the surface of her mind. This moment has just woken it up, brought her hunger for him to the forefront of her mind and made it impossible to ignore. It sticks in her throat, silences her. Her hand curls against his back, nails scraping briefly as she makes a fist to restrain it. ]
no subject
This is a fear he actually finds relief in. The sort of contact he was engaging in was — already quite a lot. Anything else feels...excessive, and maybe something he didn’t deserve or...
The ideas don’t totally make sense, but he has them.
He feels her head shift upward, and he glances down, leaving their foreheads pressed to one another from how close they already were. Now that discomfort rises again, the recogition of intimacy. He wants to ask her what is wrong but...he also doesn’t really want to know.]
no subject
Her breaths start to slow and deepen as she directs more energy into composing herself, finding some kind of meditative calm. There is no respite or comfort for her in the island anymore. Nor Jakku. She reaches instead for the waters of Chandrila that he had shown her, synching her breathing with the lap of the ocean on the shore.
But his discomfort nags at the edge of her awareness. He's keenly attuned to her hesitation, to the way she wrestles with holding herself back. ]
This is enough.
[ Don't worry, she tells him this softly, but it's also for her to hear aloud. It's more than enough, so much more than she'd have ever asked for. No matter what she wants right now, what she can't ignore, she's learned not to push him. He'll come to her. Given time, given assurance, he'll come to her.
Her voice rasps a little when she voices the fear that drives that thinking, that conclusion — if she asks for too much, she'll lose what she does have. ]
Please. Don't let go.
no subject
You're lying.
[Its not enough. He can sense that she wants more -- but he can also see that she is trying to resist the need that presses on her. The one that he can't quite peel apart to comprehend -- whether that's a result of his upbringing or fear of intimacy is hard to say.
But he notices. Not so long ago, she would not have resisted such things, for his sake. She would have charged forward as he often did, believing that her needs nullified his own...that he should alter his position based on what she wanted, when in the very same sentence, she refused to do the same.
He calls her out to show that he recognizes the effort she is making on his behalf (and because he doesn't understand that she's pep talking herself). In response, he tightens his grip on her slightly.]
I won't.
no subject
But it's a form of gratitude, too. Not all the way there, but awareness of what she's doing, and something akin to appreciation for it. It reaffirms her, and with that, resolve overpowers want, and she relaxes in his embrace, finally able to let it wash over her. It's a sinking of her shoulders, a flutter of her eyelids, like a burden has been lifted.
Now, the echo of his breath lulls her instead of heightening her awareness. Her eyes drift shut, and her hand relaxes, releasing her grip so she can spread her palm across his middle back again. Feel more of him, but not with a wandering, frantic need for contact and exploration. Instead, to seek a sense of peace in him.
Her breath evens out then, too. They're both here. Neither of them running or fighting. She rests her forehead against his sternum, curling into him for a kind of animal warmth. ]
no subject
Maybe he'll marvel at that once he wakes up. He'll probably marvel at his arm having fallen asleep underneath Rey as well. Life is just full of surprises.]
i got you this lame tag you're welcome
She's not lonely, now. And sleep comes readily.
There's no light to wake her up, and though she's not exhausted like she has been many days of her life, she's in a deep, comfortable sleep. She hasn't had a night this warm since Perdition's Rest, and even then it was an ambient dry air. This is humid — sticky with another's body. The kind of warmth that makes her want to linger, even subconsciously.
So she's not gonna budge for a long while even after the space standard for 'morning' arrives. But the faint phantom twitches of her limbs and the soft occasional snoring marks her presence beside him beyond just the weight of her body in his arms and the heat. ]
thanks
She's still there. For a moment, he relaxes and basks in that knowledge.
He goes to shift some of his weight (in half an attempt to doze again), but abruptly freezes and grunts in pain as his left arm seizes up. The numbness trickles all the way down to his fingers, even as he forces them free from the cradle he's made for Rey. Ouch.
He doesn't bother to consider that he'll be waking her from a deep slumber. His sleeping arm is far more important. Carefully, he rolls himself sideways in an attempt to free himself from beneath her. Its a process -- but he's taking his time, because he also doesn't want to test her patience this early in the morning.]
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But she still doesn't greatly appreciate being disturbed. She lets him go, shifting significantly to help him free his arm, then settling back down and curling her arms up in the space where he'd been beside her. ]
What are you doing? [ This grousing accompanied by an effort to pull the sheet up a little higher. ]
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And then, he untangles himself from the covers and deposits them on Rey when he sees her attempt to further burrow.]
Its morning.
[He's getting up, obviously. He rolls himself to the bed's edge, and rubs at his neck. As soundless and easy that sleep was, it turns out that his body is very unhappy with him for it.]
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Bleary-eyed, she sits up in place, pulling her legs in towards herself under the covers and crossing her heels. The covers pile in her lap, a big mound that she clutches at with one hand while her other rubs sleep out of the corners of her eyes. ]
What are you, a droid? [ But she looks for the clock in the room and, sure enough, he's right. Unlike Ben, she doesn't feel any particular discomforts from the night. Surprise she didn't have like a hundred pounds on her arm all night or something.
The presumption that they'd just groggily cuddle was probably foolish in the first place. She's usually quick to rise when she actually wakes up, too. Hard to begrudge him that except that she wasn't ready to wake up. ]
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But he shakes himself out of that train of thought to instead grunt with some displeasure in conclusion. Just because he's an early riser doesn't make him odd. That's his story and he's sticking to it.
He crosses the room, continuously rotating his numb arm. When he reaches the counter, he moves to fill a kettle with water with the intention of making tea.]
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When she does, she glances around the room and at him, clearly at some kind of loss for how to occupy this space now. Ben doesn't seem interested in entertaining. He's up early, going about his routine. She reaches up to push back matted hair that gets in her eyes. Right. That's why she usually combs it back and ties it up while it's still wet.
But it's soft and the smell of his soap lingers on her.
Right.
Rey heads into the refresher, picking up the pile of her clothes and bringing it back out with her in her arms. If he wants to use it, she doesn't want to occupy it getting dressed. By this point, she has figured out what's really peeving her about his promptness, sifted through the morning grouchiness about being jostled awake instead of waking up on her own. ]
When you said just for the night, I didn't think you had a timer set.
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I didn't.
[Sleep clings to his voice, causing it to scratch and making it sound deeper than usual.
He either hasn't picked up on her annoyance, or he just simply Doesn't Get It and is electing instead to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind. While the water heats up, he turns to glance at her and notices the bundle of clothes in her arms.
To him, it seems like she is the one with a timer set.]
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What would Finn say? What would Poe?
She buries those questions quickly. It's better if she doesn't consider that now. And anyway, Ben seems to be arguing that he's not up and at 'em just to rush her out the door, so she drops her pile of clothes onto one of the chairs. One of her boots tumbles to the floor under the table, but she doesn't bother attending it or putting any slow deliberate effort into organizing the items nicely. Not just now, anyway.
With both of them just hanging out here half-dressed in the kitchen in the metaphorical light of day, she feels a little more exposed than the night before. Being caught up in the intensity of the moment, too, may have buffered that sense. She forces herself to let her hands hang at her sides instead of some obvious (and futile, given that her tunic already pulls down respectably far over her underwear) effort to cover herself. ]
No? [ She glances between him and the kettle. It'll heat up on its own. ] Come back to bed then.
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He looks at the kettle and then back to the pile of clothes and then back to Rey. Surely they couldn’t just...lay around all morning.]
Come back?
[They were both awake. Bed was for sleeping. Sleep time is over, tea time is now.]
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Yeah.
[ Her fists tighten briefly at her sides. ]
You're just watching water boil otherwise.
[ She raises one hand to gesture behind him at the kettle. Just. ?? ? Obviously it will take a few minutes. He's wasting them, currently. ]
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It won’t take long.
[He points that out as he crosses back toward her, waiting for her to retreat back to the bed as well. Because this was her idea, so obviously she has some expectations in mind???]
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And now they're heading back to the bed together. The blankets are piled at the foot where she left them.
Rey's now committed to this like three total minutes of no longer half-drowsy cuddling, though. It's happening. It definitely sounded better before either of them had gotten out of bed. Doesn't mean it won't still be great. She crawls onto the bed, hands and knees to get to the other side and leave room for him as she turns to lay on her side facing him.
Man it's just.
It's so much more awkward now ? ? ? Because they're not actually here to sleep. They're here for three minutes of cuddling until the kettle starts screaming and they both know it. Why did she commit. ]
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Yeah, this is awkward. This is nothing like the night before, a genuine reaction born of need. This is not that — this is a poor attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle. His arms wrap back around her, secure ... but unclear. Some sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop.]
...
[He is definitely staring a little.]
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