comment with your character's name and canon in the subject header. use rng or pick one of the options below for your au scenario.
I. living conditions
01. my roommate’s boyfriend is staying over so can I please sleep on your floor 02. all our friends are drunk 03. we live in halls opposite one another and i keep seeing you change in the window please close your blinds 04. you’re the RA and you’re trying to bust me for having hermit crabs 05. you’re baking cookies in the communal kitchen at 3am and I’m angry but also really hungry 06. clearly we’re both really uncomfortable at this party 07. you peed on my car. you were drunk. I was in the car. there will be hell to pay. 08. my friend dragged me to this party and I just saw my ex quick make out with me 09. sorry my roommate puked on your shoes 10. my roommate borrowed your contraband hotpot and managed to set it on fire
II. chance meeting
01. it’s pouring and my final paper is in my backpack so I guess we’re stuck under this tiny awning together. do you think they’d deliver pizza here 02. waiting outside for pizza to be delivered but both of ours is super late 03. I know I keep coming to this [cookie/coffee/etc.] shop and for some reason it’s always your shift but don’t you dare judge me I need this for my sanity 04. I found your USB drive still in the computer (and potentially regret finding out what's on it) 05. you decked me in the head while you were playing frisbee golf 06. your school mailbox is right next to mine 07. what do you mean we’re under a tornado warning?
III. campus community
01. I’m really passionate about this cause and I will give you this flier if I have to shove it down your throat 02. it’s 3 am and I’m still in the library studying for finals and I’m losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost 03. we’re the only two people in this club. what is this club even for 04. humans vs zombies, all bets are off, friendships mean nothing 05. I thought I was the only one who liked the waffle station in the cafeteria 06. we’re studying in the library and there are two people very obviously fucking in the stacks and we keep sharing embarrassed glances 07. what are you doing at this table at the career fair 08. I saw you sneaking captain crunch and cutlery out of the dining hall 09. my computer crashed and you’re the student worker at the IT center 10. we’re both on athletic teams that aren’t as cool as the football team and they give us shit 11. you’re part of the guerrilla theatre club on campus and crashed my class for a performance
IV. credit hour woes
01. hey I have to [photograph/draw blood/film/insert major here] someone for class, will you be my guinea pig 02. we’re the only people who ever talk in discussions it’s awful 03. group project 04. both of us turned up to the wrong room for this lecture and neither of us know where it's supposed to be 05. we’re both donating blood in the blood donation van in the quad to get out of the same class 06. wait, I actually have a competent lab partner? 07. waiting for office hours 08. we started racing up the three flights of stairs to class for some reason and we can’t stop 09. vicious battle over the only left handed desk in the room
V. limited resources
01. you keep using my preferred shower stall in the floor bathrooms when I’m trying to get ready for class 02. you keep parking in the space outside my student house you absolute asshole 03. you're the only person in the room when i break the printer and i'm panicking (so don't be a dick about it please) 04. neither of us bought the expensive textbook but there is only one copy in the library and it can’t leave the building 05. this awesome professor only has one TA slot and we’re rivals 06. you keep reserving the good study room in the corner of the library with the windows 07. I’ve been sitting in this seat all semester why did you decide to sit in it today 08. you’re REALLY GOOD at using the right search terms for the academic databases and I’m on a deadline 09. we’re always at the fitness center at the same time and end up competing on the treadmill 10. can I borrow a dryer sheet? I ran out and the ones in the vending machine give me a rash
[ That makes ... perfect sense. It doesn't completely erase the concern, should Snoke's people come snooping when she isn't there to easily allow him entry, but she can't argue the logic. And Ben is — Ben. He isn't likely to leave to socialize sporadically.
If anything, she suspects he will be hovering like a paranoid shadow, instead. It's as destructive for her nerves as it is comforting to realize the extent of his devotion, his protection. She clutches the key tighter in her hand and nods. ]
I won't lose it.
[ No, she's much more likely to keep it close — not simply for safety, but for what it represents. Shelter. A home where she is welcome and wanted. Ben. Safety, if only the illusion of it. ]
Could you ... [ Speaking of safety, she grapples for a moment. He shouldn't have to, keyed up and distraught as he has been, and rightfully so. It's difficult to resist the urge to continue on, despite the fatigue in her bones that threatens to knock her out the moment they're inside a car, let alone the apartment. ] Would you drive us back? I don't think I can stay awake for much longer.
[ Better than crashing them both, after the day they've already had. All the same, there's a notable hesitation in it, awkward — as if asking to depend on him is unnatural, painful, after an existence of self-reliance. To say nothing of the guilt that wants to nag at her, that insists she should be able to do this for him, too, no matter her own needs. ]
[ He nods. After a moment's awkward hesitation near the vehicle, he steps over to her and plants one hand to the back of her head so he can lean in and kiss her forehead. It's nurturing in a way that he clearly doesn't know how to be properly, but he understands the motions of.
His mother had done this for him. And his father. Before things had grown too uncomfortable between them. Before he had grown too tall. Always, between them, it had been tense, forced, as it is from him now. He is not soft enough to know how to offer these things well, even when the sentiment is genuine.
Then he takes her car keys.
He is not doing so well himself, but he is better at running under those conditions, he suspects, than Rey is. He has never stopped mistreating himself just because he recognizes it's unhealthy. Rey cares for herself more than he does. He gets into the driver's seat and unlocks the passenger side for her, then starts up the car. ]
[ In motion, it's stilted enough to register as awkward, clumsy. In experience, Rey doesn't have the personal familiarity with parental affection, let alone romantic, to truly know what it's supposed to feel like. All she has are hazy impressions from watching those around her.
It does what it must be intended to do, in the end: invoke a sense of reassurance, security. Rey takes it as one, anyway, when she climbs into the car and settles into the passenger seat.
She's slept in worse places than a rundown compact car. Plutt's room for her had been no better than a lumpy mattress on the floor and threadbare blankets if she was fortunate. Only in recent times has she taken from sleeping in a bed — in that tiny dorm room, and then his own — when the backseat of her car has been there, but the only existence of that past is a stray sweatshirt slung onto the floor of the car.
As such, there's no stopping fatigue from creeping in, urging her to sleep where she can. The engine is barely purring before she's out with the sound of a light snore, head tilted against the window, despite the rare blur of headlights from another vehicle at this hour or the tiny, jolting bumps along the road on the way back to campus. ]
[ When he parks the car at his apartment, he doesn't wake her. Instead, he reaches across gently to unbuckle her, all the while taking the time to avoid stirring her. It's not hard. Rey's exhaustion is there in the heaviness of her limbs, the faint snore. He unbuckles himself and comes around to the other side of the car, taking great care to ease her out of it and into his arms.
This is going to be a feat, getting the door open with her like this, but it seems the preferred option to him now.
To even his surprise, he gets the car doors shut, the apartment door open after fishing the key out of her pocket, and settles her down on the bed. These victories don't come without trouble, but he manages. It seems like the least he can do, after what she has faced for him. He sets the key on her nightstand and moves to start removing her clothes, shoes first. ]
[ She is no light sleeper. The chaos of group homes has taught her well in blocking out the noise, gathering slips of rest whenever and wherever an opportunity presented itself — but neither is she, by any means, a heavier one. Too much has kept her alert, engaged — Plutt's tendency to rifle through her room for what he could pillage, the fear that what little belongings she'd had would be taken and never seen again.
All the same, she jerks only once before her consciousness can reassure itself. The arms beneath her, bracketing her, are too sturdy — too safe — to be anything other than Ben. Before she slips back into dazed sleep, it's with a tilt to her mouth that can't be described as anything other than dopey before it fades, mouth going slack.
It's a pattern, honestly, as he stumbles through the motions. She can't keep herself from stirring, now and then — as he wriggles the key from her pocket, as he deposits her on the bed. It barely pierces through the haze of lethargy, but she can feel it distantly. It's probably why she doesn't speak until he has her shoes off and has to fiddle with the button her shorts, mumbling before she can find energy to use her voice. ]
You could at least wait until I'm awake to get me naked.
[ It is, in fact, a joke — even if her voice is slow and bogged down by sleepiness. The slow spread of her limbs across the bed, unbothered and more akin to a lazy kitten, should be evidence enough of that. ]
[ He mumbles it with such boastful authority as to make it seem like he had anything but her comfort for sleep in mind. As she shifts, sprawls, he eases her shorts down her hips, leaving her underwear on, however reluctantly. He kisses the sharp jut of her hip bone, then casts the shorts aside.
Sliding up her body, he hovers over her, blotting out the faint light of his old analog alarm clock and the glow of his cell phone as he does. He brackets her beneath him, between his arms, considering her face. ]
[ It isn't a considering hum, but one that makes its agreement known. Its acceptance, more so. Accepting it demands that she come to terms with how she has come to rely on him, but the thought is ... considerably less frightening here in the dim lighting, the sparse moonlight from the window washing over the angles and corners of the room until it's become dreamlike, ethereal.
He's nearly all shadows above her, save for where the artificial glow of technology hits his skin to turn it translucent. Softer-looking because of it, the same way she is — blurry-eyed from sleep, glazed over and at her most vulnerable, her most trusting. She reaches up, slow like she's slipping through quicksand, and runs her thumb across his cheek.
When she speaks, it's still rich and thick with sleep. ]
[ He brings his lips to hers, soft and encouraging. More for himself than for her. But he doesn't allow it to last long, doesn't smother her. Instead, he drags his lips to her cheek, then her throat, then draws back away from her. She'll be comfortable in that. He climbs off the bed and pulls the covers over her. ]
I'll just be a moment.
[ The promise is soft and warm. And when he disappears into the bathroom, it appears to be to wash his face and the like. The light switch flips on only when the door is closed, and he sets the water running. Then he opens the cabinet under the sink and pulls out a handgun, taking his time to check that it's loaded, that a round is chambered.
He combs his fingers through his hair, strips down to his boxers, shuts off the water, and returns to the bedroom, shifting the handgun into the space between the mattress and the box spring gently as he climbs back onto the bed. Once it's out of his hands, he reaches back to squeeze her thigh, affirming her with his presence. ]
[ She waits. Or tries to, at any rate. For all that he has promised to take care of her, his own tactics differ — to the degree that she anticipates his refusal to rest, if not the listlessness that comes with the need to be useful, do something.
Try as she might to remain alert so that she might lure him back to bed, lead him to wrap around her in a mutual search for comfort, her eyes flutter back with a sleepy sound. A moment, as a result, feels more like a fraction of a second before his touch skims her thigh.
This time, the jump in her muscles is a small, involuntary twitch that presses her back toward consciousness. Incomprehensibly, she mutters, the groggy, inquisitive hum of a creature stirring from sleep unexpectedly. It's worth those lost minutes of rest, however, to know he has come back to bed. Come back to her.
Her hand is heavy, sloppy in its movement. First, it falls in the small space between them, clutching absently at the middle of the mattress — and then finds his arm, eyes slowly blinking open to find him in the dark spaces. She isn't awake enough to haul her toward him, though she makes a concentrated effort of sliding forward, inching her way toward him to slot her mouth to his in a slide without pressure, exchanging breath and the slight friction of her lips — slow, sluggish, almost careless in its sedated nature. But it feels necessary to reaffirm they are both here rather than in his mother's place. ]
[ At first, he takes what he is given. The soft, messy kiss that is more a desperate grab for contact than it is a proper kiss. His mouth slants and fumbles against hers. Then he slides under the cover with her, tugs her closer so they can press together, shifts her half onto his chest as he settles onto his back, and he cradles her chin to make more of it. His tongue plunges past her lips, surveying the territory.
He does not taste like mint.
He pushes his hand back into her hair, tightens his grip, holds onto her like she's his only anchor on this life at all, and breathes her in. It is too much. He is, as always, too much. He knows this. And he knows that it is greedy and selfish to take it from her in this state, but he needs it.
Drawing back, Ben tilts his forehead to hers briefly, then settles his head back against the pillow, his hand turning softer in her hair, stroking, combing. ]
Go to sleep, Rey. I'm here. [ He says it gently. ] I'm not going anywhere.
[ That must be what she's trying to prevent. It's what she had been trying to prevent from the moment she told him. ]
[ No, she wants to protest, as he slips away. There is something off in it, something she has yet to place in her sleep-addled state; investigating it further falls temporarily to the wayside in the wake of grunting out her dissent, lips shiny and slick with what he had ended too soon. ]
I know.
[ Even as she says it, a hoarse acknowledgment, she knows he has followed the path her mind has taken. Reading into her so easily as he always has. Despite the confirmation, she settles herself more firmly against his chest. If he means to slip away in the night, the morning, she can take comfort in knowing he can't avoid waking her in the process.
More than that, his suggestion is the logical one after the day they've endured. She should rest. He should rest. But for all that exhaustion still tries to claim her, there is something jittery in it, mixed in. Avoiding sleep is its own means of delaying facing what Snoke has wrought, but the prospect is nothing in the face of realizing how near they had come to bleeding out on those same steps. And, with it, their dreams of a future together. ]
I need you.
[ It feels selfish to say it even as it leaves her mouth, demanding more of him than he can perhaps give, running on fumes. Still, it comes with raw honesty staring back at him as her eyes hold his — hooded with fatigue, but unsettled all the same. ]
[ The raspy quality of his voice betrays his interest, but it's not as pronounced as it usually would be. Fatigue prevents that, yes, but the real culprit is his fixation on Snoke. His body and mind alike are on high alert, refusing to quiet, refusing to allow anything so warm and vulnerable as desire in. As tempting as it should be to lose himself in her, to chase his rage and his fear in her cunt, he cannot even muster the interest to do it; he is too far gone to entertain even the unhealthiest of ways to cope.
His hands come up to cup the sides of her face, to hold her there, to kiss her again. She is warm and present and he wants to be able to hold onto that, but she feels so far away. ]
I'm not going to fuck you while you're falling asleep.
[ What sounds like an intimate gesture of caring, of monitoring her own investment, is something quite different. But it imitates all the shapes of trying to cradle her, protect her. ]
[ Instantly, she is reminded of every denial that had led them to this point. The injury of his prior rejections is still fresh, in the process of scabbing over — easier, now, that she has come to terms with his refusal having little to do with a fault in her.
Even then, something twists in her. The belief, ever pervasive, that warns her against selfishness, against wanting too much. ]
You don't want to.
[ She says for him, that truth what he won't admit. Worry sinks like a stone in her stomach despite what she suspects is a consolation, soothing the pang that rejection might offer by lending her what affection he is capable of divvying up, but she swallows it down. ]
If you don't want to, you should tell me that instead of blaming it on me.
[ Because they both know she won't press him, that she can bring herself to understand. But it's the excuse she believes he's made, justifying his refusal with her own exhaustion, that perturbs her. ]
You're right. I don't want to fuck you while you're unconscious.
[ He growls it out with some impatience. The last thing he wants to do is get into this argument--again--about her insecurities around whether or not he really wants her at all now. When they are both tired. When he has proven over and over again the lengths he is willing to go and what he is willing to sacrifice for her. He will not be kind, and he knows it; better to end it abruptly before it gets going. ]
And I don't want to wind up finishing myself off in the bathroom either.
[ Because she thought she wanted this, because she thought they'd finish, because she couldn't wait until the fucking morning. ]
[ Hurt flashes in her eyes, hardens into disappointment that has nothing to do with his lack of interest in her and everything to do with the disproportional anger in his reaction. It's how she's come to know him to be, regardless — lashing out in a concentrated effort to disguise and distract from every other emotion buzzing inside of his head.
She doesn't rise to the fuel or the ridiculousness in those accusations. Not anymore. Engaging him, enabling it, has only ever made him worse. She shouldn't need to defend herself to him anymore, she reminds herself, and pulls back from him.
It doesn't matter that it will be more difficult to sleep alone like this, knowing they are so close but distant. Not in the moment when she doesn't want him touching her now. ]
Go to bed, Ben.
[ Is all she says, clipped, and settles down on her side of the bed. ]
[ For a moment, Ben sits there positively bewildered by the events that have unfolded. He grinds his jaw, as if reducing his molars to powder might somehow enlighten him to what the fuck just happened. For the life of him he could not imagine how he had managed to fuck up when, as far as he could see it, he had only professed that he wouldn't see it through if she were to pass out mid-coitus.
Wasn't that the right thing to do? To stop? Isn't it the right thing to do, to communicate disinterest in that?
Every time he thinks he's closer to what she wants from him, it feels more and more like he's stumbling around blind in the dark. He flops back to the bed, throws one arm over his face and groans into his elbow. Then he turns onto his side, faced away from her, and tries to sleep.
It never comes. He's exhausted, but he's also wired on the possibility that Snoke might come into the apartment at any minute, and Ben might have to be the one to shoot him. His breathing never evens out, and he continues shifting restlessly. ]
[ By some degree of determination, she does manage to ignore his (and her, and their) frustration and slip into sleep.
If it can even be labeled as sleep for how restless it becomes, a pattern of waking for minutes only to drift again. It lasts for only an hour, Rey realizes, when she opens her eyes to glare at the blaring blue of the analog clock shimmering on the night stand. An hour of squeezing her eyes shut and hoping for the best.
It's there she stays, like that, boring a hole into the wall. Beside her, she can soon feel Ben shift as listlessly, keeping her awake with the unbalanced weight of the mattress. She only endures it for another hour before she gives up entirely and throws the covers off of her, slipping out of bed — as unwilling to remain wriggling back and forth, knowing nothing will come of it, as she is stubbornly refusing to make amends.
What would it enforce for him, if she were to simply roll back into his arms as if he hadn't snapped at her? Nothing, she knows; it's currently off the table.
Without the guarantee of safety, a run around the block is out of the question. She feels like a caged animal thinking it, trapped by her own concern over Snoke's reappearance. Assignments, too, fall to the wayside; she hasn't the mind for them if it's continued aggravation she is hoping to avoid.
And so, when she stumbles out of bed in the darkness, she throws off her (his) shirt and exits the bedroom. The backpack of her belongings will have something, and Ben's previous taunting through his window means she knows well enough that he has his own equipment settled near his desk. It will have to do for venting her excess energy when she cannot turn to him for it. ]
[ He's on his feet in an instant, staggering out of the bedroom after her, dopey and hopeless for how he winds up filling the door frame, hands gripping the wood when he notices she is only going for her backpack. There he stays, unmoving, when he realizes he had nothing to fear with regard to her actually leaving. There is nothing to protect her from. She isn't even going to the couch. ]
You can have the bed.
[ After some silence, he offers this like an olive branch. ]
I'll sleep on the couch if I'm keeping you up.
[ It'll be a struggle to get his gun out there with him without scaring her, but that will be less concerning than her trying to push herself into morning without any sleep. They won't be able to run like this for long. Especially concerning, given that they are supposed to be settling into a routine.
God. He doesn't even know what day it is anymore. ]
[ Heat nearly radiates from him where he stands — looms and lurks, more precisely — but she doesn't turn to greet him. If he has something to say to her, he'll say it.
His voice only penetrates the silence when she has slid into her leggings, wrangling with an old, raggedy sports bra in the process of listening. She doesn't swivel her head, but strays concentrated on the task as she wrangles it over her arms. It's difficult to do when she can feel herself softening, minute by minute, at the realization that she seemed to have frightened him into believing the worst of her exit.
He'll have to tackle it eventually, she tells herself. He cannot keep expecting her to walk out at every hint of hardship. But she ultimately moves to look at him, throwing a glance over her shoulder. ]
I'm keeping myself up.
[ Though it is, admittedly, a little bit of both. For lack of something to do with her hands, she zips the backpack back up and sets it aside. ]
Go back to bed, Ben. I'm not going anywhere.
[ If that is his fear. True to his word, the only place she moves into the apartment's main space, sliding his desk out of the way to get to that bench. ]
[ He shifts his weight unpleasantly, then. It feels as though he were the one trying to make amends, though he knows not what for. More than that, he knows he cannot be comfortable in this room while she is out here, cannot take easy solace in the gun in his reach when they could easily mow through Rey before he even knew to draw it.
Ben swallows thickly. His grip tightens on the door frame. ]
I can't sleep without you.
[ It is an easy admission. It comes readily. He had never wanted to sleep without her; he was only hoping to make her more comfortable and stay up himself. Obviously she does not need him. But he needs her, and even if he knows paranoia will prevent him from sleeping, at least he would be better off knowing she was safe and warm and close. Knowing he could protect her.
Something quavers in his voice as he adds, ] Don't stay out here.
[ If she did not know better, she would wonder over his intent. But though he has deceived and manipulated in order to undermine Snoke's enemies, she cannot think of it as an act to draw her back at bed. The wobbling tremor of his voice is too raw, too real, to be anything so manufactured.
More than that, she clings to the promise they had made to be honest with one another. She cannot stomach the possibility that he may be insincere with her now, at their most strained and unsettled.
But it does feel like desperation, relying on what he can to reach her, even if there is the impression there of Ben stalling like a child might — looking for loopholes, angling for one more glass of water or one more episode of television to stall going to bed. Or, in this case, being alone. He more fully has her attention, as a result, as she seats herself on the edge of that bench and delays fiddling with the weights. ]
You weren't sleeping with me there, either.
[ She points out. Her experience has not made her capable of approaching it with a delicate touch, but the patient tone — albeit straightforward, blunt — in that observation speaks for itself. Even with her there, he cannot sleep. The only difference is that he would not suffer in solitude. ]
I can't sleep, and neither can you. [ That, she thinks, will remain true if she returns as she is. ] You can stay out here with me.
[ That won't be any good to his anxiety, either. In the next room with no way to subtly bring his gun out with them, only sharing space with her, but not properly with her. The tension still hangs between them too clearly for that. For a moment he's quiet, observing her, trying to decide how to continue this bargain.
Then he does something impossibly stupid, ]
You're not falling asleep anymore.
[ The implication, of course, being that he could provide her with another workout if neither of them are going to be sleeping anyway. At least then they would be awake together in their bed. Maybe it would push her to sleep finally. He should have just agreed from the start. ]
[ A little. But the point remains, a clear message: if he had only agreed, she would have found the energy to remain awake for him. Now he is trying to lure her to bed under the context of giving her what she needs only when he needs it, as well, and what is more infuriating is how well he knows it must work.
He has her interest, but she has no intentions of making this easy for him when she is still sore from it. ]
You could always go finish yourself off in the bathroom.
[ It's so dry, but there's a bite to its edge that reveals it had hurt. Not the words themselves, but how abrasive he had been, rather than the gentle rejection she would have accepted. ]
[ Better to just ignore any stirring arousal--it feels useless if he isn't going to share it with her. Most things do, though he realizes how pathetic that makes him. Again, he's silent for a moment, shifting his weight. She wants something else from him. Parsing it has always given him trouble, but he has promised her that he'll try, and he will. ]
... I worried about you unnecessarily. [ It's not really an apology. But it's identifying that his choice came from a place of concern, of trying to care for her. Once, she had found that quality endearing. He's sure of it. ] But I see now that you're alert, and I've revised my stance.
[ He could literally not be any worse at this. Rey, understandably, looks at him like "that's it??" But he tried. An effort was made. ]
You sound like you're writing a thesis statement and not an apology, Professor.
[ She can't be too irritable with him if she's relying on old endearments. Even less so, in recognizing that his refusal had been his usual neuroses over her at work again. Overbearing, still, no matter how well-intentioned. Huffing out a breath that loosens her shoulders, she slides her hands over her knees and stares at him, unblinking. ]
I know what you're trying to do. [ She accuses, unable to resist voicing her skepticism. ] You're trying to seduce me to get what you want.
[ Which is her, apparently, back in bed. His own loneliness has mirrored her own so extensively that she doesn't consider the reasons might be deeper than paranoia that she will strand him there. Maybe it's unfair, but she knows how he operates at times. It's so heavy-handed she has to wonder how he had ever managed to be subtle with Snoke's targets. ]
I want you to fuck me because you want me, not because you're trying to get me to do something. Show me that you do.
[ Those are her stipulations. Straightforward, simple. To be wanted is all she has ever needed from him. ]
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bakerstreet2018-07-02 12:23 am
no subject
If anything, she suspects he will be hovering like a paranoid shadow, instead. It's as destructive for her nerves as it is comforting to realize the extent of his devotion, his protection. She clutches the key tighter in her hand and nods. ]
I won't lose it.
[ No, she's much more likely to keep it close — not simply for safety, but for what it represents. Shelter. A home where she is welcome and wanted. Ben. Safety, if only the illusion of it. ]
Could you ... [ Speaking of safety, she grapples for a moment. He shouldn't have to, keyed up and distraught as he has been, and rightfully so. It's difficult to resist the urge to continue on, despite the fatigue in her bones that threatens to knock her out the moment they're inside a car, let alone the apartment. ] Would you drive us back? I don't think I can stay awake for much longer.
[ Better than crashing them both, after the day they've already had. All the same, there's a notable hesitation in it, awkward — as if asking to depend on him is unnatural, painful, after an existence of self-reliance. To say nothing of the guilt that wants to nag at her, that insists she should be able to do this for him, too, no matter her own needs. ]
no subject
His mother had done this for him. And his father. Before things had grown too uncomfortable between them. Before he had grown too tall. Always, between them, it had been tense, forced, as it is from him now. He is not soft enough to know how to offer these things well, even when the sentiment is genuine.
Then he takes her car keys.
He is not doing so well himself, but he is better at running under those conditions, he suspects, than Rey is. He has never stopped mistreating himself just because he recognizes it's unhealthy. Rey cares for herself more than he does. He gets into the driver's seat and unlocks the passenger side for her, then starts up the car. ]
no subject
It does what it must be intended to do, in the end: invoke a sense of reassurance, security. Rey takes it as one, anyway, when she climbs into the car and settles into the passenger seat.
She's slept in worse places than a rundown compact car. Plutt's room for her had been no better than a lumpy mattress on the floor and threadbare blankets if she was fortunate. Only in recent times has she taken from sleeping in a bed — in that tiny dorm room, and then his own — when the backseat of her car has been there, but the only existence of that past is a stray sweatshirt slung onto the floor of the car.
As such, there's no stopping fatigue from creeping in, urging her to sleep where she can. The engine is barely purring before she's out with the sound of a light snore, head tilted against the window, despite the rare blur of headlights from another vehicle at this hour or the tiny, jolting bumps along the road on the way back to campus. ]
no subject
This is going to be a feat, getting the door open with her like this, but it seems the preferred option to him now.
To even his surprise, he gets the car doors shut, the apartment door open after fishing the key out of her pocket, and settles her down on the bed. These victories don't come without trouble, but he manages. It seems like the least he can do, after what she has faced for him. He sets the key on her nightstand and moves to start removing her clothes, shoes first. ]
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All the same, she jerks only once before her consciousness can reassure itself. The arms beneath her, bracketing her, are too sturdy — too safe — to be anything other than Ben. Before she slips back into dazed sleep, it's with a tilt to her mouth that can't be described as anything other than dopey before it fades, mouth going slack.
It's a pattern, honestly, as he stumbles through the motions. She can't keep herself from stirring, now and then — as he wriggles the key from her pocket, as he deposits her on the bed. It barely pierces through the haze of lethargy, but she can feel it distantly. It's probably why she doesn't speak until he has her shoes off and has to fiddle with the button her shorts, mumbling before she can find energy to use her voice. ]
You could at least wait until I'm awake to get me naked.
[ It is, in fact, a joke — even if her voice is slow and bogged down by sleepiness. The slow spread of her limbs across the bed, unbothered and more akin to a lazy kitten, should be evidence enough of that. ]
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[ He mumbles it with such boastful authority as to make it seem like he had anything but her comfort for sleep in mind. As she shifts, sprawls, he eases her shorts down her hips, leaving her underwear on, however reluctantly. He kisses the sharp jut of her hip bone, then casts the shorts aside.
Sliding up her body, he hovers over her, blotting out the faint light of his old analog alarm clock and the glow of his cell phone as he does. He brackets her beneath him, between his arms, considering her face. ]
Go back to sleep, Rey. I'll take care of you.
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[ It isn't a considering hum, but one that makes its agreement known. Its acceptance, more so. Accepting it demands that she come to terms with how she has come to rely on him, but the thought is ... considerably less frightening here in the dim lighting, the sparse moonlight from the window washing over the angles and corners of the room until it's become dreamlike, ethereal.
He's nearly all shadows above her, save for where the artificial glow of technology hits his skin to turn it translucent. Softer-looking because of it, the same way she is — blurry-eyed from sleep, glazed over and at her most vulnerable, her most trusting. She reaches up, slow like she's slipping through quicksand, and runs her thumb across his cheek.
When she speaks, it's still rich and thick with sleep. ]
Then take care of me.
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I'll just be a moment.
[ The promise is soft and warm. And when he disappears into the bathroom, it appears to be to wash his face and the like. The light switch flips on only when the door is closed, and he sets the water running. Then he opens the cabinet under the sink and pulls out a handgun, taking his time to check that it's loaded, that a round is chambered.
He combs his fingers through his hair, strips down to his boxers, shuts off the water, and returns to the bedroom, shifting the handgun into the space between the mattress and the box spring gently as he climbs back onto the bed. Once it's out of his hands, he reaches back to squeeze her thigh, affirming her with his presence. ]
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Try as she might to remain alert so that she might lure him back to bed, lead him to wrap around her in a mutual search for comfort, her eyes flutter back with a sleepy sound. A moment, as a result, feels more like a fraction of a second before his touch skims her thigh.
This time, the jump in her muscles is a small, involuntary twitch that presses her back toward consciousness. Incomprehensibly, she mutters, the groggy, inquisitive hum of a creature stirring from sleep unexpectedly. It's worth those lost minutes of rest, however, to know he has come back to bed. Come back to her.
Her hand is heavy, sloppy in its movement. First, it falls in the small space between them, clutching absently at the middle of the mattress — and then finds his arm, eyes slowly blinking open to find him in the dark spaces. She isn't awake enough to haul her toward him, though she makes a concentrated effort of sliding forward, inching her way toward him to slot her mouth to his in a slide without pressure, exchanging breath and the slight friction of her lips — slow, sluggish, almost careless in its sedated nature. But it feels necessary to reaffirm they are both here rather than in his mother's place. ]
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He does not taste like mint.
He pushes his hand back into her hair, tightens his grip, holds onto her like she's his only anchor on this life at all, and breathes her in. It is too much. He is, as always, too much. He knows this. And he knows that it is greedy and selfish to take it from her in this state, but he needs it.
Drawing back, Ben tilts his forehead to hers briefly, then settles his head back against the pillow, his hand turning softer in her hair, stroking, combing. ]
Go to sleep, Rey. I'm here. [ He says it gently. ] I'm not going anywhere.
[ That must be what she's trying to prevent. It's what she had been trying to prevent from the moment she told him. ]
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I know.
[ Even as she says it, a hoarse acknowledgment, she knows he has followed the path her mind has taken. Reading into her so easily as he always has. Despite the confirmation, she settles herself more firmly against his chest. If he means to slip away in the night, the morning, she can take comfort in knowing he can't avoid waking her in the process.
More than that, his suggestion is the logical one after the day they've endured. She should rest. He should rest. But for all that exhaustion still tries to claim her, there is something jittery in it, mixed in. Avoiding sleep is its own means of delaying facing what Snoke has wrought, but the prospect is nothing in the face of realizing how near they had come to bleeding out on those same steps. And, with it, their dreams of a future together. ]
I need you.
[ It feels selfish to say it even as it leaves her mouth, demanding more of him than he can perhaps give, running on fumes. Still, it comes with raw honesty staring back at him as her eyes hold his — hooded with fatigue, but unsettled all the same. ]
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[ The raspy quality of his voice betrays his interest, but it's not as pronounced as it usually would be. Fatigue prevents that, yes, but the real culprit is his fixation on Snoke. His body and mind alike are on high alert, refusing to quiet, refusing to allow anything so warm and vulnerable as desire in. As tempting as it should be to lose himself in her, to chase his rage and his fear in her cunt, he cannot even muster the interest to do it; he is too far gone to entertain even the unhealthiest of ways to cope.
His hands come up to cup the sides of her face, to hold her there, to kiss her again. She is warm and present and he wants to be able to hold onto that, but she feels so far away. ]
I'm not going to fuck you while you're falling asleep.
[ What sounds like an intimate gesture of caring, of monitoring her own investment, is something quite different. But it imitates all the shapes of trying to cradle her, protect her. ]
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Even then, something twists in her. The belief, ever pervasive, that warns her against selfishness, against wanting too much. ]
You don't want to.
[ She says for him, that truth what he won't admit. Worry sinks like a stone in her stomach despite what she suspects is a consolation, soothing the pang that rejection might offer by lending her what affection he is capable of divvying up, but she swallows it down. ]
If you don't want to, you should tell me that instead of blaming it on me.
[ Because they both know she won't press him, that she can bring herself to understand. But it's the excuse she believes he's made, justifying his refusal with her own exhaustion, that perturbs her. ]
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[ He growls it out with some impatience. The last thing he wants to do is get into this argument--again--about her insecurities around whether or not he really wants her at all now. When they are both tired. When he has proven over and over again the lengths he is willing to go and what he is willing to sacrifice for her. He will not be kind, and he knows it; better to end it abruptly before it gets going. ]
And I don't want to wind up finishing myself off in the bathroom either.
[ Because she thought she wanted this, because she thought they'd finish, because she couldn't wait until the fucking morning. ]
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She doesn't rise to the fuel or the ridiculousness in those accusations. Not anymore. Engaging him, enabling it, has only ever made him worse. She shouldn't need to defend herself to him anymore, she reminds herself, and pulls back from him.
It doesn't matter that it will be more difficult to sleep alone like this, knowing they are so close but distant. Not in the moment when she doesn't want him touching her now. ]
Go to bed, Ben.
[ Is all she says, clipped, and settles down on her side of the bed. ]
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Wasn't that the right thing to do? To stop? Isn't it the right thing to do, to communicate disinterest in that?
Every time he thinks he's closer to what she wants from him, it feels more and more like he's stumbling around blind in the dark. He flops back to the bed, throws one arm over his face and groans into his elbow. Then he turns onto his side, faced away from her, and tries to sleep.
It never comes. He's exhausted, but he's also wired on the possibility that Snoke might come into the apartment at any minute, and Ben might have to be the one to shoot him. His breathing never evens out, and he continues shifting restlessly. ]
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If it can even be labeled as sleep for how restless it becomes, a pattern of waking for minutes only to drift again. It lasts for only an hour, Rey realizes, when she opens her eyes to glare at the blaring blue of the analog clock shimmering on the night stand. An hour of squeezing her eyes shut and hoping for the best.
It's there she stays, like that, boring a hole into the wall. Beside her, she can soon feel Ben shift as listlessly, keeping her awake with the unbalanced weight of the mattress. She only endures it for another hour before she gives up entirely and throws the covers off of her, slipping out of bed — as unwilling to remain wriggling back and forth, knowing nothing will come of it, as she is stubbornly refusing to make amends.
What would it enforce for him, if she were to simply roll back into his arms as if he hadn't snapped at her? Nothing, she knows; it's currently off the table.
Without the guarantee of safety, a run around the block is out of the question. She feels like a caged animal thinking it, trapped by her own concern over Snoke's reappearance. Assignments, too, fall to the wayside; she hasn't the mind for them if it's continued aggravation she is hoping to avoid.
And so, when she stumbles out of bed in the darkness, she throws off her (his) shirt and exits the bedroom. The backpack of her belongings will have something, and Ben's previous taunting through his window means she knows well enough that he has his own equipment settled near his desk. It will have to do for venting her excess energy when she cannot turn to him for it. ]
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You can have the bed.
[ After some silence, he offers this like an olive branch. ]
I'll sleep on the couch if I'm keeping you up.
[ It'll be a struggle to get his gun out there with him without scaring her, but that will be less concerning than her trying to push herself into morning without any sleep. They won't be able to run like this for long. Especially concerning, given that they are supposed to be settling into a routine.
God. He doesn't even know what day it is anymore. ]
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His voice only penetrates the silence when she has slid into her leggings, wrangling with an old, raggedy sports bra in the process of listening. She doesn't swivel her head, but strays concentrated on the task as she wrangles it over her arms. It's difficult to do when she can feel herself softening, minute by minute, at the realization that she seemed to have frightened him into believing the worst of her exit.
He'll have to tackle it eventually, she tells herself. He cannot keep expecting her to walk out at every hint of hardship. But she ultimately moves to look at him, throwing a glance over her shoulder. ]
I'm keeping myself up.
[ Though it is, admittedly, a little bit of both. For lack of something to do with her hands, she zips the backpack back up and sets it aside. ]
Go back to bed, Ben. I'm not going anywhere.
[ If that is his fear. True to his word, the only place she moves into the apartment's main space, sliding his desk out of the way to get to that bench. ]
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[ He shifts his weight unpleasantly, then. It feels as though he were the one trying to make amends, though he knows not what for. More than that, he knows he cannot be comfortable in this room while she is out here, cannot take easy solace in the gun in his reach when they could easily mow through Rey before he even knew to draw it.
Ben swallows thickly. His grip tightens on the door frame. ]
I can't sleep without you.
[ It is an easy admission. It comes readily. He had never wanted to sleep without her; he was only hoping to make her more comfortable and stay up himself. Obviously she does not need him. But he needs her, and even if he knows paranoia will prevent him from sleeping, at least he would be better off knowing she was safe and warm and close. Knowing he could protect her.
Something quavers in his voice as he adds, ] Don't stay out here.
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More than that, she clings to the promise they had made to be honest with one another. She cannot stomach the possibility that he may be insincere with her now, at their most strained and unsettled.
But it does feel like desperation, relying on what he can to reach her, even if there is the impression there of Ben stalling like a child might — looking for loopholes, angling for one more glass of water or one more episode of television to stall going to bed. Or, in this case, being alone. He more fully has her attention, as a result, as she seats herself on the edge of that bench and delays fiddling with the weights. ]
You weren't sleeping with me there, either.
[ She points out. Her experience has not made her capable of approaching it with a delicate touch, but the patient tone — albeit straightforward, blunt — in that observation speaks for itself. Even with her there, he cannot sleep. The only difference is that he would not suffer in solitude. ]
I can't sleep, and neither can you. [ That, she thinks, will remain true if she returns as she is. ] You can stay out here with me.
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Then he does something impossibly stupid, ]
You're not falling asleep anymore.
[ The implication, of course, being that he could provide her with another workout if neither of them are going to be sleeping anyway. At least then they would be awake together in their bed. Maybe it would push her to sleep finally. He should have just agreed from the start. ]
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[ A little. But the point remains, a clear message: if he had only agreed, she would have found the energy to remain awake for him. Now he is trying to lure her to bed under the context of giving her what she needs only when he needs it, as well, and what is more infuriating is how well he knows it must work.
He has her interest, but she has no intentions of making this easy for him when she is still sore from it. ]
You could always go finish yourself off in the bathroom.
[ It's so dry, but there's a bite to its edge that reveals it had hurt. Not the words themselves, but how abrasive he had been, rather than the gentle rejection she would have accepted. ]
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[ Better to just ignore any stirring arousal--it feels useless if he isn't going to share it with her. Most things do, though he realizes how pathetic that makes him. Again, he's silent for a moment, shifting his weight. She wants something else from him. Parsing it has always given him trouble, but he has promised her that he'll try, and he will. ]
... I worried about you unnecessarily. [ It's not really an apology. But it's identifying that his choice came from a place of concern, of trying to care for her. Once, she had found that quality endearing. He's sure of it. ] But I see now that you're alert, and I've revised my stance.
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You sound like you're writing a thesis statement and not an apology, Professor.
[ She can't be too irritable with him if she's relying on old endearments. Even less so, in recognizing that his refusal had been his usual neuroses over her at work again. Overbearing, still, no matter how well-intentioned. Huffing out a breath that loosens her shoulders, she slides her hands over her knees and stares at him, unblinking. ]
I know what you're trying to do. [ She accuses, unable to resist voicing her skepticism. ] You're trying to seduce me to get what you want.
[ Which is her, apparently, back in bed. His own loneliness has mirrored her own so extensively that she doesn't consider the reasons might be deeper than paranoia that she will strand him there. Maybe it's unfair, but she knows how he operates at times. It's so heavy-handed she has to wonder how he had ever managed to be subtle with Snoke's targets. ]
I want you to fuck me because you want me, not because you're trying to get me to do something. Show me that you do.
[ Those are her stipulations. Straightforward, simple. To be wanted is all she has ever needed from him. ]
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hi i've returned to my psl inbox after feeling guilty abt indulging in psl things regularly
i relate, obviously
bc we're the same person
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