Archive of Our Own ^beta

Another night, another party.

Loud music, louder people. Bongs made out of milk cartons, cheap beer and dubious punch served in plastic cups, a ping pong table that has seen better days but somehow still stands. A room for dancing, a room for talking. A checkered sofa that smells of weed, old Cheetos and wasted tuition.

Under normal circumstances, Rey would be repulsed, but midterms kicked her ass four different ways and she has rewarded herself with three cups of stale PBR, which in turn has resulted in her not particularly caring what her seat smells like, as long as it remains a seat. She’s not drunk, per se, but she should also not be trusted to handle heavy machinery. Head tilted back, eyes closed, feet up against the coffee table that sports suspicious stains, she relishes in the pleasant buzz coursing through her body and muddling her overworked brain as her heartbeat thumps to the rhythm of whatever song is playing in the next room.

She’s not alone, not by a mile. There are people around her, chatting, laughing, licking each other’s tonsils. She envies them, for the most part. She came here with her roommate, but was abandoned at the first opportunity when Rose spotted her ginger beau across the room. Now she has no one to talk to, no one to invite her into conversations with strangers, no one to buffer her social awkwardness.

They discovered months ago – at the first frat party Rose was invited to, and Rey followed by default – that she is much more at ease under the influence of alcohol, but still needs some sort of formal introduction to actually talk to people. And now that her impossibly extroverted bestie-slash-facilitator is off somewhere, undoubtedly nailing her tall glass of Emergen-C, Rey sits alone in a room full of people.

Waiting.

For what, she doesn’t know.

But she waits. It’s fine, really. Rose will turn up. She’s never not turned up. And if anything, their shared apartment is only a block away, down a well-lit, CCTV-covered street. Rey could just get up and leave. Go home, drink water, fall into a fourteen-hour coma only broken by the smell of a McDonald’s breakfast being held under her nose, a post-party tradition Rose has never once missed.

But Rey stays. Just in case. Of something. Again, she doesn’t know what.

The beginnings of a headache are blooming at her temples, and her fingers grip her plastic cup a little tighter. She opens her eyes, looks around. No sign of Rose. She takes a sip of her lukewarm beer, grimaces at the taste that really wouldn’t be improved even if it were ice cold, and stares at her shoes. Someone walks by, makes bleary eye contact with her, then turns and finds someone else to talk to. Rey wonders if she has Resting Bitch Face. Or perhaps it’s the aroma of her throne of refuse that’s keeping people away. 

It’s fine.

She takes another sip of beer, regrets it profoundly, then takes another one. She tries to distinguish whether the spot floating around in the piss-adjacent liquid is a pretzel crumb or a fruit fly, but her investigation remains inconclusive. She fishes it out, still unable to tell, and wipes it off on the sofa. She cares for neither the cleanliness of the sofa nor the sanctity of her drink. Both are lost causes.

She stares into the middle distance, trying to gather the will to rise from her warm cushion of stench and go on a quest for fresh-ish water, until a pair of very long legs vault one by one over hers and the butt they are attached to plops into the seat next to hers, making the whole couch shudder.

It is a large person, visibly male, with dark hair and a big nose. That’s what Rey notices first. Then she notices he’s wearing sunglasses. At night. Indoors.

Oh.

A dumbass.

He notches one of his snowshoe-sized feet next to hers against the coffee table, his knee peaking twice as high as hers, taps an incoherent rhythm on his thighs before reaching over and grabbing her cup out of her hands, without so much as glancing at her. He mutters a curt “thanks” and downs the rest of Rey’s beer.

“Oi!” she yelps, a bit late. He turns to her then, as if surprised by her reaction, his eyebrows shoot up above his sunglasses. Douche. “That was mine,” she says, half-heartedly, because really, that beer was disgusting and she will not miss it. Still, it’s the principle of the thing.

The manchild stares for a minute, looks down at the empty cup in his gigantic hand, then looks back at her, and it really seems like he can’t grasp what she could possibly be upset about. Rey crosses her arms over her chest and tries to make herself look intimidating. An exercise in futility, judging from his unchanging expression.

“No it wasn’t,” he finally says, and she realises his mouth is big too. And his ears, from the way they poke out from under his mop of hair. Jesus.

“Yes it was, I was holding it,” she says, aggravated.

He looks at the cup again, as if it would somehow explain the situation to him in clearer English than she can. When he looks back up at her, he still seems unable to fathom why she’s accosting him, let alone upset at him.

“Your name’s not on it,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Rey rolls her eyes. This dimwit is so drunk, he’s reverted back to third grade tactics. Fine. She can play that game.

“Neither is yours,” she replies, mocking.

He stares at her again, and for a hot second she thinks she’s confounded him enough to claim victory, but then his big lips flatten into a lopsided smirk encased in smile lines and dimples, and her stomach drops. That is not the face of defeat.

“Sure it is,” he replies with confidence. She frowns and opens her mouth to retort that no , his name is not on her cup, she’s had it clutched in her hands for two hours now, ever since she plucked it out of a gutted plastic sleeve full of its clones, but he suddenly flips the empty cup over, pointing the butt-end of it towards her.

“Wh–” she mutters, but he interrupts her.

“Solo,” he says, tapping the brand on the bottom of the cup with his finger.

“What of it?” she asks, completely thrown, but at the same moment, someone across the room calls out “Solo, we need you man!” and the gangly moron points a long finger at his own face.

“Solo,” he says again before flashing a toothy grin at Rey and vaulting off the couch, leaving her with her mouth hanging open like a fish.

She watches him leave the room with the frat bro that evidently called out to him, both of them hyping themselves up for whatever they’re off to do – a round of beer pong, a keg stand, crack cocaine, who knows – and she lets herself flop back against the couch, just in time to hear Rose right above her head.

“You okay, Rey?” she asks, making Rey jump clean out of her skin with a squeak. Her friend looks down at her with mild concern, her red-headed conquest standing awkwardly behind her.

“I’m fine,” Rey says, pressing a hand to her chest to calm her panicked heartbeat.

“Was he bothering you?” Rose asks, looking at the doorway where the giant doofus disappeared.

“No, he–” Rey stammers, unsure how to describe her experience. “He stole my beer,” she finishes lamely.

“How very dare,” Rose says, clearly relieved but also vaguely murderous. “You want another one or you wanna head home?”

Rey doesn’t even need to contemplate it. “Home,” she says, suddenly very tired. Rose hauls her out of the sofa, which seemed intent on swallowing her like quicksand, and they head out, stumbling slightly but making it to their front steps without incident.

Rose kisses her ginger shadow – Armie, Rey recalls belatedly – good night, and as he turns to leave, he addresses Rey directly, a first in their relationship.

“Don’t worry about Solo,” he mumbles in a thick Irish accent. Rey is too exhausted to be surprised. “He’s dumb, but he’s harmless.”

“... okay,” Rey replies, although her brain is still processing what he said, and he turns away, heading back to the frat house. Rose pulls on her arm to beckon her inside and she follows her up the stairs in a daze.

Finally home, showered and changed into warm pajamas, Rey falls into bed and rolls herself up into a blanket burrito. 

Man , she thinks before she succumbs to her premeditated coma, that was the dumbest joke ever .

—----------------------

Apparently, any reason is good to hold a frat party. Homecoming? Celebrate. Mid-terms? Celebrate. It’s Tuesday? Celebrate. Peach yogurt was half-off? Fucking celebrate.

Rey would complain, but every single one of those shindigs is one more meal she doesn’t have to pay for. Bless these party-happy frat boys and their trust funds, because Rey never has to provide her own drinks or snacks.

Rose doesn’t abandon her this time. They stand in the kitchen with Rose’s orange crush – Armie, stop forgetting, Rey – sipping cups of dubious punch this time, watching an increasingly close match of beer pong. Tensions are high, people are cheering. Rey is warm and happy.

She’s getting to know Armie, and she can see why Rose likes him. For a guy whose father is former RAF and current CEO of several Fortune 500 companies and whose mother is an ice-cold society wife, he’s surprisingly laid back and funny. He says moving stateside for college was the best decision he ever made, and while he seems to be talking about getting away from his parents, he says it while looking directly at Rose with soft eyes.

Rey, feeling as though she should give them a few minutes of privacy, hands her punch cup to Rose and pretends she has to pee. Armie gives her the itinerary to the downstairs bathroom and Rose promises to tell her who won the match. She says goodbye like she’s leaving for war and stumbles away, slightly unsteady on her feet.

There’s a line for the bathroom, and once in there, she checks her phone for what seems like an appropriate amount of time to keep up her pretense. The cheering in the kitchen booms when someone undoubtedly manages to aim correctly more often than their opponent despite heavy intoxication. Rey takes it as her cue to flush, wash her hands, whisper an apology to the environment and exit the bathroom.

She ambles back to the kitchen, making a beeline for her friends. Rose beams at her as she hands her back her replenished plastic cup with an excited “refill!” Rey accepts it like a chalice, singing in a subpar approximation of an angel choir, and takes a big gulp. The punch tastes like cherries and all-purpose cleaner, but it sure as hell is better than Pabst.

“Who’s going?” She asks, turning back to the beer pong table, a rickety thing that has seen better days and probably only survives through sheer force of will.

“Don’t know,” Armie replies. “They’re picking teams right now.”

As he says it, something appears in the corner of Rey’s vision. A large, pale hand reaches over her shoulder and shamelessly grabs her punch. Too confused and too tipsy to react quickly, Rey sees the cup leave her hand before she can register what’s happening.

Once her brain finally reboots, she spins around, enraged. “That’s m–”

The words die in her throat.

It’s him.

The dumbass.

Solo.

She watches in horror as he knocks back her drink in three heaping gulps, like it’s a fucking competition. He swallows it to the last drop and lowers the cups with a loud, satisfied sigh.

“‘Sup,” he says with a shit-eating grin, all dimples and early onset crows’ feet.

Rey feels heat and anger rise from her chest to her face, all the way to the top of her skull. Rose and Armie are quiet next to her, looking back and forth between her and the grinning buffoon as if they were the ones playing beer pong. Rey feels like she’s slowly turning into a stovetop kettle.

“I’m sorry, were you saying something?” the asshole asks, feigning innocence. Rey opens her mouth to relieve some pressure.

“You fucking c–”

“Solo! You playin’, man?” someone interrupts from across the room, and she deflates.

“Try and stop me,” he replies loud enough to be heard over the crowd, but he keeps his eyes pinned to Rey’s. Hers are shooting daggers. 

He bends close to her face, and Rey is too taken aback to do anything but notice that he’s not wearing his sunglasses today, giving her an unobstructed view of the striking colour of his irises and the length of his dark lashes. His face is covered in moles and freckles. A strand of hair flops down across his forehead, almost gracefully. He breathes a punch-scented “thanks” over her flushed cheeks, stuffs her now empty cup back into her hands – déjà vu – and steps around her.

Her eyes follow him as he takes a spot at one end of the beer pong table, chatting with the other participants. People are milling around, filling and resetting the cups, gathering lost plastic balls, clapping Solo on the back like he’s a hero come home from war. Rey rolls her eyes.

“What the hell?” Rose hisses next to her.

“Solo,” Rey replies, as if that’ll pacify her fiercely protective friend.

“What?”

Rey takes a page out of Solo’s book and shows Rose the bottom of her cup, tapping an index over the embossed logo.

“What?” Rose repeats.

“His name is Solo,” Armie supplies. “Ben Solo.” Rey definitely does not pocket the info.

“So?” Rose still fails to grasp the situation at hand. Probably because it’s so stupid, Rey thinks. Rose is too smart to even entertain the possibility.

“So his name is on the cup,” Rey grinds out.

“ So? ” Yep, that’s what happens when a partially-grown man chooses to act like a five-year-old.

“So it’s his ,” she finishes, defeated. “The drink is his.”

Rose says nothing. She stares blankly at Rey, as if her brain is misfiring, and perhaps it is, because Rey’s own brain sure did the first time she heard it. She mentally berates herself for forgetting he might be there. She watches as Rose looks from her to Armie as if he could offer a better explanation, but he presses his mouth into a straight line and widens his eyes as if to say “fuck if I know”.

Rose looks over at the subject of her bafflement, then back at Rey.

“Are you fucking serious,” she says it like a statement.

“Yup,” Rey replies.

“That–”

“Yup.”

“That’s fucking funny.”

“Y– what?” Rey gapes.

“He saw the opportunity and took it,” Rose says, and she looks… impressed? No, surely not.

“No!” Rey cries. “No, it’s fucking dumb!”

“I didn’t say it was smart,” Rose corrects her, giggling. “I said it was funny.”

Rey frowns, very much offended that her friend seems to be taking the thieving dickhead’s side. She huffs and turns away to avoid seeing Rose roll her eyes at her. 

Her eyes land on the manchild himself, poised mid-throw, laser focused on the other team’s set of cups. He moves smoothly, just a slight flick of his forearm, wrist fluid, and the tiny ball flies in a slow, precise arch and lands squarely in one of the cups with a neat little ‘plop’, to the roaring cheers of the crowd.

She stares at his self-satisfied smirk too long, because he suddenly looks over at her, and when they make eye-contact, he beams. She looks away with a huff.

“I’m getting more punch,” she says angrily to no one in particular , although she tries to tell herself it’s aimed at Rose and Armie, and spins on her heel.

On her quest for the punch bowl, she hears more scoring, more cheering, but she stubbornly refuses to look over. She doesn’t care if he’s winning.

She doesn’t.

Just like she doesn’t care if he looks graceful doing it, too.

Nope.

She scoops a ladle of the pungently alcoholic liquid into her plastic cup, then a second one. She gulps down three long swigs of it, definitely not trying to imitate anyone, and fails miserably at downing the whole thing, so she scoops a third ladle out of frustration, then another half one for good measure.

Cup fully topped up and nearly spilling over, she fumes her way back to Rose and Armie, averting her eyes, trying to look nonchalant. She gulps down more punch, further aggravated by the rogue drops spilling from the corners of her mouth and down on her shirt. 

Great. Perfect time for her mouth to forget how to mouth. Stellar. No notes.

She curses, wipes her chin with her sleeve, looks around to see if anyone noticed.

No, as it turns out, everyone seems mesmerised by Solo – Ben – and his impeccable aim. They gasp, they hold their breaths, they explode into cries of joy. Every single spectator is rooting for him, even the opposing team. They’re not even trying to score anymore, instead making half-assed attempts in a hurry to see him use his superhuman skills again.

How many matches he must have played to be so good at this game, Rey wonders. He can’t be much older than her, a year, two perhaps. Even then, only someone who spends several hours every day practicing can become this skilled at something, and what a waste it is that beer pong is what he decides to dedicate himself to.

She finds herself wondering what his major is. He’s a frat boy, he likely has rich parents breathing down his neck, urging him to make something of himself. How disappointed would they be, seeing him now; shirt discarded, pale chest glistening from the thin sheen of sweat blooming on his skin, dampened hair sticking to his neck and temples, pulled out of his face by the borrowed cap sitting backwards on his head, muscles engaged, face tense, plush lips in an ‘o’ of concentration.

All to aim a ping pong ball into a plastic cup that bears his name and three ounces of terrible beer.

What a waste.

He scores again, and catches her staring, again.

And maybe it’s the heat, or high blood pressure, but the tips of his ears are bright red when he grins at her again.

They poke out of his hair, nearly perpendicular to his head, and they do not make Rey feel any particular kind of way whatsoever. 

She averts her eyes and takes another sip of punch. She’s starting to feel it now. The floor seems less stable.

There’s only one cup left on the opposing team’s side of the table.

“He’s in rare form,” she hears Armie mutter next to her. She turns to look at him, his arms slung over Rose’s shoulders, her bestie snuggling close as she watches the match. “He’s not that good, usually,” Armie continues, shrugging slightly.

Rey looks back at Ben, curious. He appears so self-possessed, so confident in each of his movements. “Really?” she kinda slurs. Armie shrugs again.

“Must be his lucky night,” he suggests flatly.

Ben is handed what is presumed to be the last ball of the match, ceremoniously, with a bow and a flourish. People are clapping, chanting his name. Rey wants to roll her eyes again, but he looks over at her again, and she’s kind of mesmerized for a second.

Before she can really process what’s happening, he points at her with his left hand, then looks at the final cup, chucks the ball with his right, and time stands still.

It’s like people are suspended in midair, mid-scream, everyone staring at the tiny projectile on its smooth trajectory from his fingers to the center of the cup, where it makes a clean entry. It doesn’t even graze the rim, just plops straight in, making a few droplets splash out, but otherwise an undeniably perfect shot.

The kitchen erupts into a roaring ovation, the kind that can probably be heard all the way across campus. People are clapping Ben on the shoulders, he’s making the rounds with high fives, shaking hands with his opponents as if the battle was at all close. He tears the cap from his head and tosses it back to the friend he borrowed it from, letting his glossy hair flop back over his forehead.

When the general excitement dies down a bit and people get to resetting the beer pong table, his astonishing victory already forgotten, he cranes his neck to catch Rey’s eyes again – despite being taller than pretty much everyone in the room – and elbows his way to her.

Rey stands rooted to the spot, unable to take her eyes off of him, like a deer caught in headlights with a cup of punch and a serious case of the what-the-fucks. Her heart hammers in her chest and her cheeks and her hands; her whole body is vibrating, unable to decide between fight and flight.

He reaches her, all hair and ears and goofy grin. Armie says something, probably some form of congratulatory statement that Rey doesn’t really hear through the rushing in her ears. By her calculations, she hasn’t blinked in at least three minutes. Ben nods to Armie, but his eyes are on Rey.

She should say something. Congratulate him. Ask one of the seventy-six questions bouncing around in her skull. Show some sign of life.

Ben doesn’t give her time to do any of those. With a stupid lopsided grin, he grabs the plastic cup straight out of Rey’s hands and once again drains it of its contents in a minimal amount of gulps.

Rey counted two bobs of his Adam’s Apple.

It’s enough to snap her out of her trance and become appropriately pissed, but just as she opens her mouth to tell him off, he hands her back the empty cup – fucking Christ, again .

“Thanks,” he dares, and then the twat has the audacity to wink. He fucking winks.

And then, as if he weren’t pushing his luck far enough, he brings a bear paw of a hand to the top of her head and ruffles her hair, like she’s a kid.

“Dude–” is all she manages to say before he glides past her.

“See you around, kid.” Well, that settles that, then.

Enraged and spurred on by the exaggerated amount of alcohol in her system, Rey crushes the innocent plastic cup in a white-knuckled fist, spins on her heel and hurls it at the back of Solo’s skull.

To her great satisfaction, it makes contact, hitting him square in the head with a pleasant ‘pok’ before tumbling to the floor. Rose slaps a hand over her own mouth to stop a guffaw from escaping. Solo stops in his tracks.

“Fucking keep it, then!” she shrieks at him, and before he can turn around, she storms out of the kitchen, and out of the frat house, Rose hot on her heels, giggling and pulling a mildly amused Armie by the hand.

She makes it home in record time and slams the door to her room. She goes to bed without even showering, too riled up to do anything other than fling her clothes in the general vicinity of her hamper and yank on pajamas like she’s punishing them for Solo’s actions.

She simmers for a good hour before sleep finally claims her.

—----------------------

The next weekend, surprisingly, an invitation is still extended to her for another party. Well, to her and Rose, which makes sense, because Rose is now an Official Frat Girlfriend, but Rey was mentioned by name when the idea of a plus one was explored.

“No one really noticed,” Rose rationalises when Rey shares her worries. “Except, you know, Armie and me.”

“And Solo,” Rey grumbles.

“Right,” Rose replies.

Rey decreed over the week that her tormentor did not deserve to have his first name recognised, for two simple reasons; one, he’s a dick, and two, if he wants his whole schtick to revolve around his last name, so be it. That’s on him.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Rose asks for the seventh time, shuffling through her clothes while Rey munches on kettle chips. “We don’t have to go.”

“Nonsense,” Rey retorts as if the prospect of not attending never even crossed her mind. “ You have to go, anyway.”

“Not actually,” Rose says, extending a hand in a pinching motion. Rey presents her with the open end of her bag of chips and Rose grabs a handful. “Just because Armie and I are official, I don’t have to be there for every event.”

“Still,” Rey waves a hand dismissively. “I know you want to see him. Besides, I have a plan.”

“Oh, a plan, have you?” Rose says, her tone halfway between mocking and intrigued.

“Yep!” she says, full of confidence.

And she does. It’s a bit dumb, but in the interest of fighting fire with fire, she decided to fight stupid with stupid. Thus, she makes sure to stuff a Sharpie marker in the pocket of her coat before they leave.

Her confidence wanes on the way over, and she has a moment of doubt just as they reach the door to the frat house. She grabs Rose’s sleeve to stop her in her tracks, taken with a sudden panic.

“What if it’s a trap?” she asks.

“What?” Rose asks, confused.

“This,” she says, gesturing vaguely towards the house. Rose looks at it, back at her, then back at the house.

“Why would it be a trap?”

“I embarrassed him. Maybe he wants revenge.”

“Rey,” Rose sighs, turning on big sister mode. “No one noticed.”

“ He did,” she whines.

“Ok, let’s think about this,” Rose says, turning to fully face Rey and brace her hands on her shoulders. “No one except you, me, Armie and Ben–”

“ Solo ,” Rey hisses.

“Whatever,” Rose waves her interruption off. “No one except the four of us knows that you attempted to maim him with a plastic cup. Right?”

Rey just huffs through her nose. She’s unconvinced, but Rose seems adamant.

“So if no one else noticed, and he tried to take revenge, no one would know why, right?”

Rey frowns, but stays quiet.

“And how would that make him look? Humiliating you in front of everyone for no apparent reason?”

Rey chews the inside of her cheek, loath to admit that Rose is right.

“And you remember what Armie said. He’s dumb but he’s harmless. You might not trust B– Solo , but I’m sure you trust Armie.”

Rey’s frown deepens, but she gives a small nod of defeat.

“Now, I don’t know what your plan is, but it better not cause any injuries. I’d like to be allowed back, you know.”

“It won’t,” Rey grumbles.

“Good,” Rose gently claps her on the shoulder and boops her nose. “Un-scrunch your face, we’re going in.”

Once inside, coat hung in the mudroom and Sharpie safely tucked in her back pocket, Rey follows Rose to the kitchen. She doesn’t spot Solo, but it’s not like she purposefully looks for him or anything. She doesn’t.

And she’s not disappointed.

Not at all.

She grabs up a cup from the gutted plastic sleeve on the kitchen counter and goes ahead with her plan, just in case. He could appear out of thin air at any time, like he did the first two times she saw him. And when he does, she’ll be ready.

She pulls her Sharpie out of her back pocket, uncaps it with her teeth and scribbles her name in large letters on the cup’s shiny surface, blowing on it when she’s done to make sure it dries. Satisfied with her handiwork, she re-pockets the marker and heads to the punch bowl, where she helps herself to two heaping ladlefuls.

Two hours and six refills later, there’s still no trace of Solo. If asked, Rey will vehemently deny that her many trips back to the kitchen to immediately refill her cup as soon as she empties it have anything to do with scanning the house for any sign of the booze-thieving giant.

However, ingesting that much dubious punch in such a short amount of time on a mostly empty stomach has mollified her somewhat. She even manages to let herself be distracted by a couple of friends of Armie’s who come join them in various chairs around the Couch of Stench, where she and Rose recline like two intoxicated ragdolls.

Her blood alcohol content means she has to pull double-duty to properly focus on the surprisingly intelligent conversation she’s having with Snap, the jovial kinesthesiology major and his girlfriend Tallie, the hyperactive PolSci major, about the downfall of the MCU in recent years. Armie is also participating, with a burning passion that Rey could not have predicted in a million years, and Rose stares at him with stars in her eyes.

Wildly uneducated on the subject, Rey is content to let the three of them do most of the talking. She turns to the side table next to her to retrieve her cup of punch, and it takes her brain a hot second to understand why she can’t grab it.

The cup isn’t there.

Rey looks around, at the coffee table, the floor, the other side table. She even looks at her own hands, on the off chance that she’s already holding the cup and just forgot. No dice. Her cup is gone.

She nudges Rose with her elbow, and her friend flops her head around with a grunt of acknowledgement.

“You seen my cup?” Rey garbles.

Rose makes the same visual assessments as Rey, bleary-eyed, and finally shakes her head no. Rey grunts, throws her head back in defeat, then rises from the couch with great difficulty.

“Want punch?” she asks Rose, who shakes her head again and points a droopy finger at what must be her own cup on the coffee table. Rey nods heavily and sets off on a quest to acquire more punch.

She wobbles her way to the kitchen, occasionally holding onto the walls to keep herself upright, giggling to herself whenever she loses her balance. As she stumbles through the door frame, she narrowly avoids a head-on collision with what she believes at first to be a wall.

Her brain is slow to reach the logical arguments that a) there wouldn’t be a wall immediately in front of a door, and b) walls don’t have arms.

“Whoa there.”

Dang it.

“Careful, kid,” Solo says, definitely mockingly, like the mocking mocker he is.

“M’not a kid,” Rey mumbles, unfocused eyes looking anywhere but at his face.

He chuckles, the asshole.

In her attempt to avoid eye contact, she takes in his shirt, black, with a white cat popping out of the breast pocket, flipping the bird. She purses her lips to keep in the drunken giggle that threatens to come out. It would be an affront to everything she believes in to find something he does funny.

She can’t give him the satisfaction to know he made her laugh.

She realises belatedly that he has one hand propped on her shoulder, perhaps to prevent her from eating it on the kitchen floor when she ran into him. She looks down at his wrist, then follows the line of his arm up to his shoulder, all the way across to his other shoulder, completely bypassing his face. 

Can’t look at his face. She doesn’t really know why, but she repeats it in her head like a mantra.

Don’t look at his face.

Don’t look at his face.

She traces the stitch line on his sleeve down to his bicep, his bent elbow turning into his forearm, a thick branch for this tree of a man–

Keep it together, dipshit.

–his forearm that tapers into his wrist, then a damn bear paw of a hand holding a red plastic cup.

A red plastic cup with the letters R, E, and Y scrawled in blue Sharpie.

The shock snaps her out of her drunken – and maybe a little horny – stupor and she takes a step back, eyes widening to the size of dinner plates.

“Oi!” she roars, suddenly pumped full of adrenaline. “You took my cup!”

She finally looks at his face, seeking an appropriately contrite expression, but what she finds is the same stupid, insufferable grin, and oh, his teeth are a bit crooked–

NO.

Focus.

“I wrote my name on it!” she cries, trying to swipe the cup from his hand, but he holds it out of the way. “You had no right to take it!”

She keeps clawing at the cup, but he keeps avoiding her strikes. She grabs at his shirt, at his shoulder. She’s practically climbing him trying to get to her cup, but he raises it above his head, completely out of her reach.

And he laughs.

He’s outright laughing.

At her.

“You dickhead!” she tries to jump for it, tries to shove him – in vain, he is solid . “Give it back!”

She gives approximately zero fucks how she looks or sounds. She had a plan. She’s supposed to win tonight.

Instead, she gets stuck in a kind of headlock when Solo wraps his free arm around her neck, constricting her to him like a boa to a tree.

“Calm down, kid,” he giggles – giggles – as he leans his full weight over her to immobilise her.

She struggles, slapping and punching his torso, all to no avail. He holds fast and she’s getting winded. She decides to switch strategies and plays possum, letting her arms flop down on either side of her and leaning against him.

It works like a charm. He relaxes his hold on her, which she takes as her cue to shove him as hard as she can. He doesn’t move, but the effort makes her stumble several steps backwards, out of his grasp.

She’s panting, red-faced and disheveled. Her ponytail is definitely hanging lower on the back of her head and she has wisps of hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks. She wipes at her sweaty face with her sleeve and glares at Solo, mouth hanging open as she catches her breath.

“I wrote–” she starts, still panting.

“I know,” Solo replies, still grinning, looking cool and fresh like nothing happened. Only his t-shirt is somewhat rustled.

“Then why,” she hisses. He shrugs.

“My name’s still on it.”

“So is mine, you twat,” she spits.

“That’s true,” he nods nonchalantly, giving a glance to her handiwork, then aiming an even wider grin at her. “I guess we can share, then.”

His words hang in the air between them. Rey stares at him, completely deflated, shaky and tingly from wasted adrenaline, brain struggling to reboot. It’s not that she doesn’t understand what he said, only that she refuses to believe what she heard. Solo, bless his heart, seems to think her silence means capitulation, and extends his arm to offer her the cup.

“Please,” he invites, a ridiculous attempt at being suave.

Rey looks from his slappable face to the cup and back, her frown deepening with each movement to and fro. She can’t fathom why she hasn’t won. This man – this boy – is dumb as a post, relying on a subpar dad pun to claim superiority. How is it that he has the wherewithal to find a loophole in her solution?

Or is it Rey who failed to come up with a foolproof plan? That must be it, because here stands a right fool, and he saw through her strategy like there wasn’t a strategy at all.

“What’s it going to take for you to stop stealing from me?” she asks, not quite sure whether she means it as a rhetorical question.

“I’m not, though,” Solo replies, with the confidence of a man who truly believes he has never been wrong in his life, and Rey gives up.

Not forever.

Just for tonight.

She’s too tired, too annoyed, and she needs to go back to the drawing board. With a click of her tongue and a roll of her eyes, carefully administered in his line of sight to instill at least a modicum of doubt in him, she spins on her heel and wobbles back to the living room, head held as high as possible in her current condition.

Rose is sleeping against Armie’s shoulder when Rey walks in, and the impromptu pillow looks over at her lazily. Snap and Tallie are still very invested in their conversation, oblivious to Rey’s return.

As she reaches the couch, Armie asks “no luck?” and for a second she thinks he means Solo, and she whips her head to look over her head, fully expecting him to have followed her in. When she clocks the vacant door frame and vacant hallway beyond it, she turns back to Armie, who raises two deeply perplexed eyebrows at her, and she realises too late that he was talking about her quest for more beverage.

“Oh,” she sighs, trying to keep her frown to a minimum, feigning graceful defeat. “No. Can we go home?”

“You okay?” he asks, and he actually looks concerned for her wellbeing. Her heart warms for Rose and her magnificent choice for a boyfriend. Infinitely better than some people .

“Yeah,” she says, flopping a dismissive hand at him. “Just super tired.”

Armie eyes her for a second more, then nods and gently nudges Rose. She grunts awake, disoriented and less than graceful, but as soon as she sees Rey standing over her, she sits up and tries to get her bearings.

“S’up,” she slurs, still half asleep.

“We’re going,” Rey replies, offering her hands to help her friend up. Rose takes them and Rey hauls her to her feet. Armie follows them to the mudroom, hands Rey her coat, helps Rose into hers like a damn gentleman, and grabs his own.

They exit into the crisp October air. Rey closes her eyes as the wind caresses her flushed cheeks. Her brain feels a little less muddled now that she’s not breathing in the Stench Couch’s fumes or being exposed to Solo’s raging idiocy.

Rose slips an arm around her elbow and does the same for Armie, pulling both of them close. They stumble like a six-legged newborn giraffe all the way to the girls’ apartment building, giggling when they veer out of balance.

At their door, Rey thanks Armie verbally and Rose thanks him bodily, and he watches them walk in, still like a damn gentleman, only now with mussed hair and lip gloss all over his face, and a really dumbstruck smile.

As they climb the stairs to their apartment, Rose, still grasping Rey’s arm, perks up as if remembering something important.

“Did your plan work?” she asks with a slight energy boost, then specifies “with Solo?”

Rey snorts, pulling out her keys to unlock their front door.

“Nope,” she replies, a little bitter. The bolt turns with a click, and she pushes the door open. “I’m not admitting defeat, though.”

“Good,” Rose mutters, following her inside. “You’ll get him next time.”

“Yeah,” Rey agrees, and closes the door.

—----------------------

All fourteen days of finals week pass quietly. It seems even fraternities have the sense to scale back on social events when exams are on the line, because not a single party is thrown for the first two weeks of December.

Rey is glad, mostly. Her status as a scholarship student means she can’t let her grades slip, not even a little, and while spending several nights a week drunk on the Stench Couch is undoubtedly intrinsic to The College Experience™, it is not conducive to grade maintenance.

Still, she has moments, in-between exams or study sessions, on snack or bathroom breaks, in the middle of the night when she pads into the kitchen for a glass of water, where her mind wanders to the frat house and to what it contains. Whom it contains. She wonders how Solo is faring with exams – she doesn’t actually know what he’s studying, but her long-standing assumption is that he’s not – and when she’ll see him again.

For revenge purposes, obviously.

The occasion arises on the last day of the semester, when she receives a text from Rose as she walks out of her last exam. The frat house is resuming its activities one last time before everyone leaves for the holidays. With a little thrill in her stomach, Rey accepts the invite and makes a detour to the student store in the main building.

When she walks into the apartment twenty minutes later, cheeks red from both the cold and the absolute giddiness of finally one-upping Solo, Rose makes a face at her from her spot on the couch.

“You look happy,” she remarks while Rey sheds her coat and scarf and toes off her boots.

“I had an idea,” Rey replies excitedly, lugging her heavy backpack over to Rose and plopping down next to her. 

Rose nods her head towards a mug of hot chocolate sitting on the coffee table next to where she rests her feet. “For you,” she says, and Rey presses a hand to her sternum, pretending to be moved to tears by her friend’s attention. “It’s not hot anymore, though,” she adds.

“Unacceptable,” Rey says, and gratefully grabs the mug and takes a long sip of her lukewarm hot chocolate. “Thank you, bestie.”

“So,” Rose starts. “You had an idea?”

“Yes!” Rey unzips her bag and rummages one-handed for a minute before her fingers find what she’s looking for. She pulls it out with a proud “ta-dah!”

Rose stares for a second, clearly confused, her eyes bouncing back and forth between Rey’s hand and her gigantic, almost demented smile.

“Another Sharpie?” Rose asks, incredulous.

“Not just any Sharpie, my friend,” Rey corrects her excitedly, conspiratorially. “The widest, blackest permanent Sharpie known to man.”

“And you’re… gonna attack Solo with it?” Rose is shifting from curious to concerned very quickly.

“Not directly,” Rey says. “Not the human Solo, anyway.”

At Rose’s continuous blank stare, Rey lets out an exasperated sigh and rolls her eyes.

“I’ll strike over his name and write mine instead,” she explains.

“Jesus– okay, Rey?” Rose sits up and sets her mug down, a clear sign that she’s getting ready for serious business. Rose is not one to have important conversations without the free use of both her hands. She faces Rey, looking stern. “Far be it from me to dissuade you from putting that boy in his place–”

“But?”

“But you two have been doing this weird mating dance–”

“Excuse-you–”

“And I can’t help but think that you two should just–”

“Choose your next words carefully.”

“ –give in to your impulses–”

“Stop.”

“ –and just have sex already.”

“ Rose! ” Rey leaps off the couch, deeply offended.

She and Solo? No. Never.

“I am not having sex with him,” she shrieks.

“Right.” Rose snorts. “Well, just know that I support you in whatever endeavour you choose to pursue.”

“Thank you,” Rey replies, taking a satisfied sip of her drink.

“But also you need to tap that,” Rose adds quickly, and Rey nearly chokes on her hot chocolate. Rose rises from the couch and skitters off to her room with a giggle, leaving Rey to sputter inarticulate scandalized noises.

Rey tries to sulk the rest of the afternoon, but Rose eventually persuades her to partake in a few pre-game shots of cheap vodka-like liquid that tastes like what Rey can only presume lighter fluid tastes like, and by the time they depart for the frat house, she is a tipsy, giggly mess.

They stumble along, arm in arm, bursting into fits of laughter every time one of them nearly takes a spill. When they cross the threshold into the house, it becomes abundantly clear that everyone else had the same idea.

The house is 150% louder than usual, both in conversations and in music, and people seem much more animated than in previous parties. In fact, once they’ve taken off their coats and boots and exited the mudroom, the whole living area explodes into inexplicable cheers.

Rey’s surprise is quickly overcome by her drunken delight. People she doesn’t know are applauding them, clapping them on the back and offering high fives, and she accepts all the attention like she truly believes she deserves it. She laughs, she woops, she hugs perfect strangers, and eventually she understands that this is an end-of-term tradition, to greet everyone who makes it to the party like a hero after the trials of finals week.

Another group arrives only a few minutes after she and Rose do, and the cheering starts anew, this time with both of them as part of the congratulatory mob. When the general glee dies down a little, Rose turns to Rey and asks “drinks?” Rey nods excitedly and they make their way to the kitchen.

More cheering welcomes them into the space, but Rey pays it no mind.

Solo is there.

Right next to the cups and the drinks.

And he’s looking straight at her.

Under normal circumstances, she would’ve forced herself to scowl at him. In this instance, however, she’s all too excited to put her new plan to work, and the smile that’s already splitting her face grows to an unprecedented width.

Solo’s expression is odd for half a second before his own mouth stretches into a wide grin, and Rey doesn’t dwell on whatever effect it has on her insides. She approaches, Rose still on her heels, and works to school her expression to one of nonchalant confidence, although she’s not sure she manages it. Her face is already a little numb.

“Solo,” she greets with a curt nod when she arrives at his side.

As he watches her quietly, she slides two plastic cups out of their package and hands one to Rose, who grabs the punch ladle. Rey reaches into her sweater pocket to pull out her marker.

“I don’t know your last name,” Solo says.

“Sucks to be you, I guess,” she replies as she uncaps the Sharpie with a pop.

She flips the cup over, bottom up, and applies a liberal amount of ink over the ‘SOLO’ embossed there, striking over it several times. Then, with a slightly unsteady hand, she scribbles “REY” in thick letters right above it, smudging the lines and getting ink on the side of her hand.

Unbothered, she turns the cup so that the bottom faces Solo, and she gives him a victorious grin before reaching for the punch ladle and filling her cup with the pungent liquid. She takes a long sip, looking directly into Solo’s eyes, then lets out a great exhale of satisfaction in her best imitation of him.

She expects him to look perplexed, or dumbfounded, or even mildly unhappy. But the expression he sports can only be described as awe. His eyebrows are raised, his eyes are wide with wonder and his smile keeps growing, splitting open to reveal his slightly crooked teeth.

Again, Rey chooses not to think about the resulting fluttering in her stomach.

Her smile falters a little at his disappointing reaction, and she turns with a huff and stomps away from him, dragging Rose by the arm. Who cares if he doesn’t outwardly admit defeat? She has won. That much is clear. The fact that the victory is somewhat underwhelming isn’t worth getting hung up on.

The dining room of the frat house has been converted into a space for dancing, with the furniture pushed to the far wall and the sound system hoisted up onto the dining table. The constant booming of the music attracts Rey like a moth to a flame. What better way to celebrate her victory and forget about Solo than by dancing to exhaustion?

Her mind made, she takes another big gulp of her drink, wipes her mouth with her sweater sleeve and hands her cup to Rose.

“Hold my beer,” she says, but Rose doesn’t take the cup.

“Girl, I’m going too,” her friend says with a giggle.

She pushes her into the crowd, hopping to the music. Her own drink spills with the movement, which only makes her giggle more.

“I’ll go give them to Armie,” she says, finally grabbing Rey’s cup. “Be right back!” she says as she saunters towards the living room, where her boyfriend undoubtedly is.

A bit of Rey’s pre-alcohol nerves return at the prospect of being alone in a crowd, but she hears someone call out her name over the music and she turns to find Tallie, the PolSci major, bouncing excitedly and waving her over. Relieved, Rey makes her way over, where Tallie introduces her to two other girls, Jannah and Kaydel, who greet her with wide smiles.

The girls’ hopping and hair-whipping is contagious, and soon Rey is letting loose with them. Rose finds them a few minutes later, and they form a circle of increasingly goofy dance moves.

Rey doesn’t know how long she spends there, every song melding into the next one without stopping, but eventually she grows tired and very thirsty. She mimes tipping a cup to her mouth to Rose, who nods in agreement, and they stumble out to the kitchen, sweaty and full of endorphins.

Rey follows Rose to the living room, but as soon as she spots who is sitting opposite Armie on the Stench Couch, she stops in her tracks. His back is facing her, but there’s no mistaking the mop of dark hair and the wide shoulders.

Solo.

Rose notices her friend is no longer following her and looks back at Rey, puzzled. Rey scowls at the back of Solo’s head, and Rose rolls her eyes. She grabs Rey’s wrist and tries to pull her over, but Rey digs in her heels like a stubborn Golden Retriever.

“Come on, Rey,” Rose coos, very much in keeping with the Golden Retriever reenactment. “You get punch if you come sit down.”

Rey’s frown deepens, but she relents. She avoids making eye contact with Solo while Rose guides her over and as she plops down on the couch, hugging the armrest to sit as far from Solo as possible. Rose settles next to Armie, leaning against him as he circles her shoulders with his free arm. There are several plastic cups on the coffee table, and Armie and Solo are each holding one.

“Hey,” Armie says, while Solo says nothing. Rey is fine with that.

She picks up each cup on the table, careful not to spill whatever they contain, and raises them to look at the bottom, but she can’t find the one that bears her name. She looks around to see if there are any more cups on the side tables, but no dice.

“Looking for something?” comes Solo’s voice, deep and unmistakably amused.

Begrudgingly, she looks over at him, just in time to see him take a sip out of his cup.

Correction.

Her cup.

She clocks the ratified ‘SOLO’, the ‘REY’ that now bears its own ratification in blue Sharpie, and when he brings the cup down, she sees a new ‘SOLO’ on its side, in blue as well. And then she notices the marker, wedged behind one of Solo’s massive ears. Rey’s eyes widen at the same time as Solo’s smirk does.

“Armie!” she shrieks, making the redhead jump in surprise.

“What?” he asks, the picture of confusion.

“My cup!” she cries, pointing at Solo, whose mirth only seems to grow.

“Ah,” Armie says, looking over. “Apologies. Got distracted.” He looks exactly zero percent sorry. Rose snorts, covering her mouth in an attempt to keep her giggles contained.

Rey is fuming. Solo just sits there, smirking, slumped into the couch, one massive foot propped up against the coffee table. The arrogant bastard.

He takes another swig, tipping his head back to empty the cup, and Rey gets an idea. She rises from the couch with an exaggerated sigh, mumbling something about having to get a new cup, and makes her way around the back of the couch. She makes eye-contact with Rose, then Armie, and puts a finger to her lips to incite them to silence.

She waits a few more seconds, visualizing her maneuver a few times in preparation. Then, quick as a drunk cobra, she reaches over Solo’s shoulder and snatches the cup right out of his hand.

Realising her success, she lets out an insane cackle and scurries off before Solo has a chance to retaliate. Once in the safety of the kitchen, she quickly pulls her Sharpie out of her back pocket, strikes through his name and scrawls her own again. She hurries trying to refill the cup, but Solo never comes in after her.

Triumphant, she strides back into the living room and she sits down on the Stench Couch as daintily as her drunk ass can manage, crossing one leg over the other like a proper lady. She can feel Solo’s eyes on her, and she decides to indulge herself.

She straightens her spine, rolls her shoulders back, turns to Solo with the cup just at the right angle for him to see her handiwork, and takes a long swig, never breaking eye-contact. She finishes it with a sigh, like earlier, and smacks her lips for good measure.

Solo seems entranced.

Her performance over, she lets herself slump back against the couch, thoroughly proud of herself. Rose giggles, Armie pinches the bridge of his nose but she can see the smile he tries to suppress.

“Well played,” she hears Solo say, and she is entirely too pleased by his words. 

Cheeks aflame, she can only mutter a small ‘thanks’ amidst the swelling of pride in her chest. She takes another sip in an attempt to calm herself down.

Armie resumes whatever conversation he and Solo were having, and Rey exchanges a look with Rose, who winks at her in congratulations.

—----------------------

“Ok, but Black Mould did it better.”

“ Black Mould ? Solo, Black Mould made no sense.”

“Sure it did.”

“It was a mess.”

“I agree.”

“It was metaphorical only for the sake of being metaphorical, it didn’t say anything.”

“Again, I agree,” Solo nods, tipping his – her – cup towards her, conceding Rey’s point. “But you have to agree that it did the whole ‘subversion of expectations’ thing better.”

“Yes,” Rey replies. “I expected it to be good and it fully subverted that.”

Solo chuckles, a deep, pleasant sound that reverberates through her body. “Fair,” he says with a smile. “More punch?”

Rey looks at the cup he’s holding. It’s as much of a mess as the movie they’re discussing. Both their names have been written and ratified and rewritten all over the red plastic, several times over.

Ben first stole it back in the same way she did, by waiting for her to drink the last of the punch and feigning his departure from the living room, only to dive over her and grab the cup for himself. She chased him to the kitchen and caught him just as he was finishing scrawling his name.

In a repeat of the previous party, she tried to scrabble up his height to get the cup back, but he held it out of reach, giggling like a kid, which Rey was loath to admit was kind of cute. He held her an arm’s distance away by pressing his dinner plate of a hand over her head while she struggled against it. He even managed to keep her away from the cup as they walked back to Rose and Armie.

She sat in furious silence while he sipped contentedly, until Armie mentioned offhandedly that Solo was ticklish in the rib area, and Rey was delighted to see the betrayal on Solo’s face before she lunged at him. She didn’t make contact, but in his evasive leap over the armrest of the couch, Solo dropped the cup, spilling punch all over his shirt.

Laughing and cursing, he rushed up the stairs to his room, leaving the cup blessedly unattended. By the time he returned in a fresh t-shirt, Rey had already barred his name, written her own and refilled the cup, and she gave him a smug grin when he sat back down next to her.

She later set the cup down on the coffee table in order to remove her sweater, growing too warm from the alcohol, the plush couch and the heat emanating from Mr Space Heater, whom she was definitely not sitting closer to.

Solo snatched the cup and ran off with it, but she didn’t follow. She knew how to get the cup back, now. Let him have this. Besides, she knew he was coming back; they’d been deep in conversation with Armie about British rock bands of the 60’s and 70’s, prompted by the Led Zeppelin shirt Solo came back with earlier.

She’d given him shit about not knowing that D’yer Mak’er was meant to sound like ‘Jamaica’ – he pronounced it ‘dire mayker’ – and he’d since been incensed to prove that he actually knew some things about the band.

Later still, as the conversation moved towards the subject of film, Solo forgot himself and set the cup down to go to the bathroom. Rey waited for him to be out of the room, exchanging baffled looks with Rose and Armie, then grabbed the cup for herself.

She struck through his name and wrote her own, took a swig, then set the cup back down on the coffee table, once again angled to make her name perfectly visible.

When Solo came back and saw the cup, he cursed, but he was smiling.

And when he sat down, his knee was touching hers.

Every time she picked up the cup to drink, she maintained eye-contact with him, and when she put it back, she raised her eyebrows in defiance, daring him to reach for it. He eventually did, after what seemed like five minutes of a Mexican standoff, looking at her, then at the cup, then at her again, and she did the same. She tried to grab it before he could, but she had grown sluggish with the late hour and the alcohol.

And now they’re shoulder to shoulder, she sitting cross-legged, he manspreading respectfully, one foot still propped against the coffee table. He’s currently holding the cup, but they’ve been passing it back and forth for the past hour, like a First Nations peace pipe, but full of alcohol.

“Rey?” Solo asks, derailing her train of thoughts.

“Hm?”

“More punch?” he repeats.

“Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

“Sure.”

He rises from the couch, cup in hand, and the sudden lack of heat on Rey’s left side causes goosebumps to bloom on her arm. She slips back into her sweater, shivering from the cold and her waning energy. She shifts in her seat, leaning her left side against the back of the couch and propping her head on her arm.

She picks her phone out of her pocket to look at the time. It’s almost two in the morning. The party has almost completely died down. She knows that these events often go on til sunrise, but clearly, finals and diminished sunlight have taken their toll on even the most seasoned of frat bros.

Rey slips her phone back in her pocket and closes her eyes. Even Rose and Armie called it quits twenty minutes ago and disappeared upstairs. She can still hear a few people in the kitchen and the occasional ‘pok’ of a ping pong ball, and music is still playing in the dining room, but lower, and definitely a more chill playlist.

She’s not really drunk anymore, but her growing exhaustion is making her heavy-headed and slightly dizzy. She can feel a headache coming on, and her stomach is grumbling. She knows she has to walk home, and she tries to motivate herself by thinking about the celebratory sleeve of Oreos and glass of milk she can have when she gets there, as well as her nice fluffy pillows, but outside is cold and walking is hard.

She feels the couch dip next to her and she cracks an eye open. Solo is back, his elbow on the back of the couch, temple leaning against a closed fist. He’s looking at her, and maybe it’s because she’s tired and her vision is a bit blurry, or maybe he’s tired too, but his eyes seem to have grown soft.

“Mhey,” she mumbles. He exhales through his nose, a quiet chuckle.

“Hey,” he replies. “I brought water instead.”

Rey opens both eyes and looks down at his hands. He is indeed holding a brand new plastic cup full of water, and when he hands it to her, she notices that he wrote ‘REY’ on the side. She blushes, unable to keep the corner of her mouth from turning up.

“Thanks,” she says, suddenly very shy, and takes a few blissful gulps of cool water. She offers it back to him, but he shakes his head.

“It’s yours,” he says.

Rey’s heart flutters a bit, and she holds the cup to her chest, like a precious gift. She can’t pry her eyes away from his face. She takes in his oddly-coloured eyes, his dark lashes, the smattering of moles and freckles adorning his cheeks and jaw, the slope of his nose, the curve of his lips. She sees how relaxed his brow is, how his lids are soft and heavy. A strand of his dark hair falls gracefully over his forehead.

He’s so pretty, especially up close. Rey thinks she should probably use words like handsome, or hot, because he’s a man and men are not usually referred to as pretty. But he is. So very pretty. And sweet. And actually funny.

And shockingly smart, in some respects, at least.

And Rey finally admits it to herself. She kinda likes him.

He’s looking at her too, possibly observing her as she does him. She can’t tell if she’s imagining it, but he seems to be closer than he was a minute ago, and she suddenly has the urge to close the gap. She holds off, unsure, but when his nose brushes against hers, she’s certain.

She leans forward, just enough for their lips to make contact, softly, tentatively. Her eyes flutter closed and her chest fills with warmth. He presses a little, not too much, and she feels his breath come out of his nose and fan over her cheek.

Their lips part, only for a second, and then they touch again. She feels his free hand come up to push a few strands of her hair behind her ear, and then his knuckles brush back and forth over her jaw, softly, so softly.

She moves her mouth, pressing a little harder, opening a little, and he responds in kind. Her own free hand comes up to grab at the collar of his shirt, to keep him close, and he stays. He kisses her, and she kisses him, and she’s warm and relaxed and happy.

Who knew the dumbass could kiss so well?

It ends far too soon, but he keeps caressing her cheek and jaw with his knuckles. She opens her eyes and sees that his are still closed. He lets out a long sigh through his nose and his lips curl into a smile. The sight of it makes her heart swell.

When he opens his eyes, it looks to Rey as though they’re sparkling. His knuckles brush down her neck to her arm, raising goosebumps in their wake. He softly rubs up and down her arm.

“I’ll walk you home,” he says finally.

Rey should be bummed. She knows she should. She wants to keep kissing him, and she hopes he wants to keep kissing her. He certainly looks like he does.

But she’s so tired, and her desire to roll up in her comforter and smoosh her head into her pillows is just that much stronger than her desire to stay and continue down this exciting new path with Solo.

Ben.

So, she nods her agreement, and they leave the warmth of the Stench Couch. He helps her into her coat, like a goddamn gentleman, and when they open the door and realise how cold it is, he lends her a soft wool hat and a pair of ski gloves.

They walk slowly, a few inches apart, in comfortable silence. It’s snowing, tiny little flakes fluttering down, barely noticeable in the dark. The only sound around is the crunch of their boots in the snow on the ground. The rest of the world seems muted.

“I’m going home for Christmas,” Ben says out of the blue. Rey looks over at him. “I leave tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she says.

“I’ll be back in two weeks.”

“Okay.”

They keep walking, quietly, all the way to her building. He looks it up and down, as if trying to memorize it. They stop at her door and she pulls her keys out of her coat pocket, but she doesn’t go in. He doesn’t move to leave.

“I’ll see you when I get back?” he asks, and she feels like he sounds hopeful. A far cry from the self-assured frat bro she’s seen him be. She likes it.

“Yeah,” she says with a smile.

She reaches up to remove the hat, but he stops her.

“Keep it,” he says. “That way you have to bring it back.”

She snorts.

“Besides, I wrote my name in it,” he adds, nonchalant. Rey gapes.

“Are you serious?” she asks, ripping the hat off to look inside it.

“Nah,” he chuckles just as she finds the completely unaltered tag. “Made you look, though.”

She groans, but she also laughs. His jokes are so dumb. She stuffs the hat back on her head and pulls it down over her eyes in mock embarrassment. He chuckles. Success.

She readjusts the hat and looks up at him. He smiles at her, soft and warm.

“Goodnight, Rey,” he says.

She closes the distance between them, grabs him by the ears and pulls him down for another kiss. If she caught him off-guard, he recovers quickly. He presses into her, the cold tip of his nose smushed against her cheek. His fingers hook into her coat pockets to pull her closer and she winds her arms around his neck.

His lips are soft and plush, if a bit cold from the weather, and they taste like dubious punch. His breath is warm on her cheek. She savours him for a few more seconds before pulling back.

“I’ll see you around, kid,” she says with a big goofy grin. He gives her one of his own, all dimples and crooked teeth. He bends down for one last peck before letting her go.

She opens her door and walks in, skipping up the stairs to her floor. When she rounds the corner of the staircase, she sees him walking away. Before he drops out of sight, she sees him glance back and pump his fist in victory.

She snorts.

Dumbass.

—----------------------