#because ive been doing this so long i tend to have a good readership | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eleanor-writes-stuff · 5 years

Text

chemistry (my heart’s a city you’re out to destroy) - [iii/iv]

Kylo Ren - superhuman, mercenary, and the world’s most dangerous man – has recently resurfaced after a mysterious three-month disappearance.

Rey Niima, listicle writer by day and investigative reporter by night, is way too busy to worry about that. Seriously, she’s got a million things on her plate - she doesn’t have the time to think about anything else.

Especially now that news editor Benjamin Snoke has returned to the office and seems hell-bent on making her life… interesting.

This ended up taking me an embarrassingly long time to write, but here it is: the final(ish) chapter of my superhuman!Kylo and reporter!Rey AU.

Will Rey ever come clean to Ben about her many, many secrets? Will she recover from the setbacks to her investigation into the Guavian Death Gang? And most importantly, will she figure out that thing we’ve all been waiting for her to figure out since the beginning?? All this and more in the seven thousand words that await under the cut!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter and Ko-fi?

. . .

The first time Ben calls her sweetheart, she nearly cries.

Everything about the moment – strong arms holding her close, warm lips brushing against her temple, sheer contentment running through her veins – feels like something out of a dream.

But then his words hit her, and so does a painful reminder.

“Good night, sweetheart,” Ben whispers into the night, and the words are right but the voice isn’t – except it is, he is, they’ve been dating for a month now and she’s never felt so sure about anything in her life–

Only sometimes she isn’t, and the guilt turns her blood to ice and taints everything with paranoia. For one terrible moment Rey is convinced Ben will somehow catch sight of her stricken look despite the absolute darkness in his room, will suspect that she’s still mourning a relationship that never happened with a man she never knew.

She hides her face in his neck before that can happen, presses a kiss to the hollow of his throat and focuses on nothing but the comforting familiarity of his scent, his arms wrapped around her, his chest moving up and down in time with hers. This, this is better than a hundred dreams of a faceless man, better than any hallucination she could’ve come up with or future she could’ve imagined. Ben is real, and here, and hers, and–

That night she dreams of Kylo anyway, the way she has nearly every single night since the last time she saw him, since the last time anyone had seen him.

He’s alive, that much she knows. After all, her gut feeling had been right about that the last time.

But anything beyond that gets added to the growing mountain of mysteries standing in her way. He’s proving to be just as elusive as the Guavian Death Gang, scattered to the winds after the attack on the Outpost. Gang rivalry, the police tell her with a shrug and advise her to let go of it; dead end, Amilyn declares a week after the explosion and gently suggests she move on to something new.

The problem is, Rey’s never been any good at letting go of anything – not her parents, not her target, not her… her friend.

All of it weighs so heavily on her that two days after the sweetheart thing, as she’s taken to calling it in her mind, Rey finds herself coming clean to Ben - about half of the situation, at least.

“So… I’ve got a meeting with Amilyn next Tuesday,” Ben announces halfway through dinner, the both of them seated at his breakfast nook. “We might be doing some spring cleaning.”

“Budget cuts?” Rey hazards a guess through a forkful of beef and broccoli, long past the point of self-consciousness. It’s hard to bring herself to care about her table manners around a man who’d already seen her at her worst on their very first date, eyes swollen and cheeks splotchy after an unexpected walk down memory lane.

Granted, his eyes had been a little red-rimmed as well as they spent the rest of the evening bonding over being adopted, but still.

Ben had decided to accept her that night, runny nose and all, and she’s already warned him there’s no taking it back.

“No, no, we’re good,” Ben assures her instead of chastising her for speaking with her mouth full, and a silly, lovesick part of Rey sighs internally and thinks yeah, we are. “It’s just… I don’t see the point in keeping people who just sit at their desks all day and repackage AP updates. I mean, I know that’s the bulk of what we do,” he concedes wryly, “but… show some initiative, you know? These people are luckier than what, 80% of their fellow journalism majors? You’re working for a news department with a global readership. Some show drive, for fuck’s sake. Some talent.”

She’s happily nodding along, primarily focused on her food, until–

“Like yours.”

It’s the first time he’s actually brought the matter up since that unexpected confrontation in the office all those weeks ago. Sure, there have been teasing comments here and there about her listicles, and he laughs along with the rest of his team when Phasma breezes out of the downstairs breakroom with stolen snacks in hand and coolly announces to the office that she’s going back up because some of them have real work to do around here, but Ben hasn’t actually brought up her qualifications since that first time.

“Babe…” she sighs, hoping to dissuade him from the topic. Lately it feels like all Rey does is lie – lie to the cops about why she was looking into the Outpost, lie to Amilyn about working on a new story, lie to Ben and her friends and everyone about Kylo Ren – and she’s so, so tired of it, especially where Ben is involved.

But he presses on. “Rey, I don’t get it. I’ve read your work, sweetheart. I know how brilliant you were even when you were just an undergrad writing for the student paper, and every single investigative piece you’ve written since then has only gotten better.”

She pushes one last piece of broccoli around her plate while Ben reaches across the table for her free hand.

“Look, your life is yours to live and I respect your choices, but I just don’t understand…”

And that’s just… that feels wrong, somehow. Ben always understands, has understood since the very first moment she opened up to him more than she’s ever done with anyone else, and for this of all things to stand between them is more than Rey can take.

“I’m investigating the Guavian Death Gang,” she blurts out before she’s even aware of her decision to come clean.

At Ben’s wide eyed look and complete silence, she feels compelled to add, “Well, at least I was. But then the Outpost blew up and I haven’t gotten any good leads since so I’m not really sure–”

He snatches his hand back.

“Do you have a death wish?” Ben demands, hissing the last two words at her as he lunges forward in his seat and curves over half the table. “Jesus Christ, Rey, I figured you were going after that lowlife Plutt and his henchmen or something, but the fucking Gang itself? Do you know what they do to people who ask questions? Do you know what they do to people who so much as look at them the wrong–?”

“Hey, hey!” She leans in to meet Ben halfway and take his face in her hands. “Hey. Calm down. Breathe, Ben. Okay? Just breathe, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Everything won’t change the fact that you’re going to get yourself killed,” he huffs at her, but sits back in his chair and quiets down anyway.

Rey crosses her arms. “Stop that, okay? I know it’s risky, I know what I’m getting myself into, but this is my job, Ben. And it’s not like I’m recklessly rushing in, guns blazing–”

“No, you’re just casually hanging around their secret headquarters,” Ben mutters.

He’d only ever seen her there once, Rey wants to remind him, and who’s to say that wasn’t the only time? Besides, she still doesn’t know why he was in the area too that night. But given the ridiculous lie Ben had come up with the first time she’d asked, Rey doubts she’ll be getting an answer out of him anytime soon.

“Eight months ago, a girl I knew from one of my old foster homes contacted me,” Rey begins carefully, gathering her thoughts as she goes. “You know the stats – older kids don’t tend to get adopted. I got incredibly lucky when Maz picked me; Namenthe wasn’t as fortunate.”

It still sends chills down her spine sometimes, when she thinks of how unbelievably lucky she got, how easily her life could have been something else entirely.

Ben has softened now, one hand on the table twitching as if instinctively reaching for her. Rey reaches for it and gives him a small smile before she continues.

“When she aged out of the system, she started dancing at the Outpost. It’s not great, but apparently Plutt’s more of a greedy asshole than a sleaze, so she stayed put – until some of the other girls started disappearing. They were the ones dating the gang members, the ones who knew too much from one too many drunken rambles. Namenthe packed up and ran away as soon as she could, but before she disappeared for good she left me all this information. And I… Ben, I couldn’t just do nothing,” Rey tells him beseechingly, willing him to understand.

He sighs and squeezes her hand. “Of course you couldn’t.”

Rey nods. “I was freelancing at first, but then Amilyn called me in for an interview and convinced me to tell her what I was working on. She offered me a spot on your team immediately, but I told her I wanted to get to the bottom of this first – and that would be difficult if I were to join Raddus’ very recognizable news team.”

“Undercover,” Ben murmurs to himself, voice stunned into a whisper. “All this time, the listicles and sponsored posts and all that bullshit… You were undercover.” He looks at her with something akin to awe.

“Sure,” Rey agrees easily, slightly amused by the idea. “Let’s call it that. So now do you understand?”

Ben stares at her for the longest time before his free hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he shakes his head. “This is so ridiculously reckless and dangerous but… yeah,” he says heavily, dragging a hand down his face before he looks back at her. “Yeah, I get it.”

Rey gives his hand one last squeeze before she gets up and starts gathering plates and boxes. “In any case, it hardly matters anymore. They went underground after the blast, and Amilyn’s been telling me it’s high time to drop it and move on, so–” She shrugs as she crosses the kitchen to stash their leftovers in the fridge.

When she turns around, Ben is right there, close enough for her to stumble into. He grabs her by her waist and steadies her with two warm hands curled around her hip, eyes dim even as his lips quirk into a small smile.

“As if you would ever give up on something that easily,” Ben says with a quiet little laugh. He really does know her better than he has any right to, and she smiles at the reminder. “Just… please,” he murmurs as the smile slips off his face, replaced by a look so earnest and soul-searching it hurts, to be looked at like something important, something loved.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if something were to happen to you, Rey.”

The warmth in her chest turns to ice. This is… this is a hundred times worse than the sweetheart thing, words so close to the ones that still haunt her dreams in a mechanical rasp–

Rey opts for her go-to strategy of hiding her face in Ben’s neck before her shiny eyes or trembling lips can give her away, wraps her arms around his waist and melts into him as she wills herself to focus on this moment and this moment only.

Ben mistakes her cowardice for reluctance, holds her tighter as his pleas grow desperate. “Please, Rey. Promise me, just promise me you’ll be careful–”

She doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve him – not when her own traitorous heart is still being torn in two directions.

“I promise,” she whispers into his neck, lips brushing against the frantic beat of his pulse, proof of his care and concern tangible in a way it never was with…

Rey closes her eyes and banishes the thought, holds Ben so close there’s no space for ghosts between them.

“I promise, baby.”

. . .

Two weeks later, Maz comes through as she always does.

“I don’t like this, child,” she warns even as she slips a scrap of paper across the sticky bar top. “I don’t like this one bit.”

“I know, Maz,” Rey says quietly as she pockets the lead.

Her former foster mother pins her with a warning glare for all of two seconds before she sighs and allows the tension to drain away. “But I know that won’t stop you. Nothing ever could.”

Rey smiles and leans across the bar to pull the older woman into a hug. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“That’s all I ask for,” Maz whispers as she pulls back. She gives Rey a small smile and gently pats her cheek. “Off you go now, my curious cat.”

The old nickname threatens to choke her up, but Maz stops her tears before they even make it to the surface.

“And make sure you’ve got that tree of a boyfriend with you the next time I see you! Reminds me a little bit of a tree I used to climb when I was your age,” Maz tells her with a wink, and sends her on her way with a good laugh.

Ben probably wouldn’t have let her go as easily, but he just so happens to have another after-hours meeting with Amilyn today as they continue to restructure the news team. There’s not much he can do through text other than remind her of her promise, and Rey assures him that she hasn’t forgotten and that tonight will be completely safe, just some quick and harmless reconnaissance. With any luck, she might even beat him back to his place.

After all, this shouldn’t take too long. Maz had used the underground connections she pretends not to have in order to figure out a date and location for the gang’s first meeting since the attack, and it’s widely expected that some key players will be in attendance tonight.

As impatient as the six-week pause in her investigation has left her, Rey knows better than to run headfirst into a dangerous situation in an unfamiliar setting. So for tonight she’s back to her stakeout ways, hiding across the street as she keeps an eye on the Cantina and takes note of familiar faces illuminated by the neon signboard for all of five seconds before they disappear down the stairs leading to an underground jazz club.

Something feels off for the first thirty minutes, and Rey tells herself it’s just her sense of self-preservation belatedly kicking in, links her unease to putting herself back into a dangerous situation. It isn’t until the third time she throws a look over her shoulder that she realizes she’s waiting on a ghost, so used to another body crouched next to hers in the dark, another voice whispering exasperated warnings–

Don’t know how I’d live with myself if–

Now is not the time.

Who knows what kind of security the gang has in this new haunt of theirs, especially in the wake of the attack on the Outpost? Rey casts pointless memories out of her mind with a violent shake of her head, replaces them instead with images of Ben pacing his living room, Ben pinching the bridge of his nose, Ben clutching his phone close and waiting for her, worrying for her.

Don’t know what I’d do if–

Something stirs in the back of her mind – a half-formed thought weaving between reality and dreams, a tenuous connection waiting to be made with two pins and red string. But it’s ripped away from her, a forgotten thought that won’t come back to her no matter how hard she tries, when yet another sleek black car pulls up to the club. Rey picks up her binoculars just in time to catch the faintest glimpse of yet another man disappearing into the ground, and tries her best to match what little she’d seen to one of the many faces on the print-out crumpled in her fist.

It takes her a while to connect a jagged sliver of skin to a much angrier-looking scar from last year, but with that she’s crossed off the last name on her list. All twelve known members of the gang’s inner circle are present tonight, probably gathered right under her feet.

The night is still young, and there’s a restless, impatient part of Rey that itches to sneak down the stairs, find a dark corner to nurse a drink in and cast inconspicuous glances– but her promise to Ben weighs heavy on her heart, and again the image of him worrying about her flits through her mind. Besides, she’s achieved what she came here to do, and now that she knows for sure the gang meets here, there’ll be other opportunities, other days, maybe even with Ben as back-up…

Nothing out of place with a young couple checking out a cozy little jazz club, right?

With that plan in mind, Rey sets to packing her things up and slowly retracing her steps, electing to crawl along the row of hedges that’ll cover her until she makes it to the other end of the street. All in all, it’s been a good night, productive and safe and not at all concerning–

Until her ears pick up the distinctive whoosh of a heavy cape fluttering down from the sky, until her eyes catch a flash of black and steel and–

Kylo.

Kylo, who’s just disappeared down the very stairs at least a dozen dangerous, heavily-armed men treaded before him. Kylo, who hasn’t been flanked by his knights in months. Kylo, who might be more than human but is still alone, one man against a dozen who’ve done things that keep even Rey up at night–

Rey gets to her feet and crosses the street before she can even talk herself out of it, before she even knows she’s come to a decision. The flashing, buzzing neon sign gives her pause, blinds her for a moment as it advertises The Cantina and Live Music Downstairs. As Rey tries to blink neon pink out of her eyes, a face sears itself onto the back of her eyelids.

Ben.

Ben pacing, Ben worrying, Ben with tears in his eyes and a hitch in his voice and his broad shoulders curled in on himself–

“I’m sorry, baby,” Rey whispers to herself, and swallows the rest of her words down with the lump in her throat as she begins her descent into the underground. In the space between the stairs and the entrance, hidden from the outside world by heavy velvet curtains, she bends down and retrieves a switchblade from her right boot. It’s warm from being strapped to her leg, and the weight is comforting in her palm until Rey slips both the blade and her hand into her jacket pocket.

Fingers still curled around the weapon – a gift from Kylo so many moons ago, ironically enough, because you never know when to quit, Ms. Niima – and shoulders filled with tension, Rey draws in one last fortifying breath and forcefully pushes her way past the curtains into a room barely visible thanks to dim lighting and thick smoke.

It takes longer than it should for her eyes to adjust, for her to realize there’s no jazz in the jazz club, no lively music or low murmurs or faked laughter, for her to see patrons and staff alike huddled in a corner and shaking like leaves in a storm.

“What…” Rey can’t hear herself over the blood roaring in her ears, the heart thumping in her chest. She steadies herself, tightens her grip around the hidden blade, and tries again. “What’s going on here?”

It’s an elderly woman who finds the courage to speak while everyone else seems to curl in on themselves even more than before, making themselves as small and quiet as possible in the darkened room. “It’s the Rens,” she whispers, voice faint and shaky but made audible through sheer resolve. “One of them, at least. He said to stay down, stay quiet, and stay out of the way, and then he disappeared behind the stage.” A trembling hand slowly pulls itself away from her lap to direct Rey’s attention to even more curtains behind the raised platform full of abandoned instruments, and even all the velvet in the world can’t muffle the gunshot that rings out from behind those curtains at that exact moment.

It rips through the air and cuts through the silence like butter, lodges itself in Rey’s heart just as it leaps into her throat.

Kylo always, always uses silencers.

“Stay here,” she warns the crowd, now even paler than before as they all try to recover from the sound; one man has blood on his lips, from where he’d bitten down to keep in a startled cry. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” Rey adds, unconvincing even to her own ears, but the others don’t contradict her as she rushes across the floor and carefully parts the heavy curtains.

The stage is set up mere feet away from the wall, curtains and cinderblock creating a narrow hallway behind the velvet. A neon EXIT sign draws her eyes down one end, while a sliver of light beckons from the other. The trail of bodies – knocked out or worse; Rey doesn’t want to consider that right now – seem to lead towards the light, and so that’s the direction she slowly heads towards until she’s close enough to press her ear against a closed door.

She can barely make out the words from beyond the heavy oak door, but the terrible gurgling sound that punctuates every other word comes through loud and clear.

“You… traitor…” the gurgling man spits, his words so slurred they’re nearly indecipherable.

Another voice reaches her ears, and Rey nearly sags against the door in relief. “You disobeyed my direct orders,” Kylo replies in a voice as cold and sharp as the winter air, and all it does is fill her up with warmth. “I’m in charge now. And when I say shut it down, I mean it.”

A sickeningly wet sound follows – laughter, Rey realizes; the laughter of a man choking on his own blood and breathing his last breath. “Your father… was right,” the man wheezes in his last moments. “You are weak–”

He’s cut off by a sharp snap, and his final words haunt the abrupt silence that follows. Moments pass as Rey desperately gulps down one deep breath after another, her throat growing tighter with every fallen body she counts in the hallway as that undeniable snap echoes in her ears.

A pained groan finally snaps her out of it.

“Kylo!” she calls out as she knocks on the door, alerting him to her presence as one hand curls around the doorknob, the other still lodged deep in her pocket. “Kylo, don’t shoot, it’s me–” Rey announces as she flings the door open only to find him leaning against a wall, his breathing ragged as one hand clutches at his side.

“Oh god,” Rey whimpers, picking her way across a sea of bodies to reach him. “What happened? Are you okay? God, Kylo, why are you even here all alone, this was so ridiculously stupid of you–”

His laugh turns into a sharp gasp as Rey bats his hand away from his side and replaces it with both of hers. “That’s rich, coming from you–” he retorts, only to fall silent when she sobs at the sight of her blood-stained hands.

He’s dressed in all black as usual, the big dumb overgrown goth villain, and she can’t… she couldn’t even see it, before this, can’t tell now how much blood he’s losing or how bad it is.

“We need to get you to a hospital–”

Black gloved hands curl around hers. “No. No hospitals,” Kylo implores her with a weak squeeze.

She can barely see that stupid mask of his through the tears swimming in her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re going to bleed out–”

He shakes his head at the panicked stream of words tumbling past her lips, squeezes her hands again. “Rey. Rey. I’ll be okay, I promise. I just need to get the bullets out, and everything will be okay.”

“But–”

There are so many bodies on the ground. So many, and for each of them at least one gun by their side. Superhuman or not, even Kylo can’t–

“Sweetheart,” he whispers, and she blinks away her tears to look into the empty, cold depths where his eyes should be. “I’m going to be fine, I swear. I just… I need you to not be here for this part, okay?”

Sweetheart, he calls her, in a voice so low and familiar that her mind itches for those two pins and a length of red string again, for the two dots she can’t even identify, let alone connect. But she’s reminded of more pressing matters at hand when her bloody fingers slip from his grasp.

“What part?”

A sigh crackles through his modulator. “The part where I dig bullets out of myself.”

Her stomach, already weak from the past twenty minutes, threatens to turn against her at the thought.

It must be obvious – or maybe she’s turning green – because Kylo seizes on this opportunity to push her away. “It’s not going to be pretty, Rey. Just… I need you to go and get those people out, okay? Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Get them all upstairs and call the cops. And then go home, Rey.”

That chases the nausea off quite effectively. “No,” Rey says fiercely, steps closer to erase the distance he’s trying to put between them. “I’m not leaving you.”

“Rey, please–”

“No,” she insists, staring down the soulless steel hiding his eyes from her. “I’m going to get those people out, and then I’m coming back for you. And one of them can call the cops while you and I get the hell out of here.”

Kylo remains silent, and she remains stubborn, unwavering as she continues to glare at his dumb mask and will him into submission just this once.

It would be easy, to do as he says. To turn her back on him now and go help all those people instead, to climb into her car and go home to Ben, Ben who’s probably worried sick by now, Ben whose eyes and voice and heart she actually knows, Ben who actually deserves this kind of care and concern from her.

But Rey never does the easy thing, and they both know it.

“You really don’t know when to quit,” Kylo finally relents with another crackly sigh.

Rey- Rey laughs. It surprises them both, the shaky, wet sound that rips past her lips as she reaches for his hands. “You know me. Now, what’s the plan?”

He takes one of her hands and points out a large bookcase on the other side of the room. “There’s a tunnel, right behind that. Not the most original, I know,” Kylo says wryly, beating her to it, “but it’ll work.”

Their joined hands fall down somewhere between them, and when Rey turns back to him she knows he’s looking at her. “I’ll wait for you here.”

She nods and lets go of him. “I’ll be back soon. And I swear to god, Kylo, if you’re not here when I come back–”

It’s like something out of a dream, watching him peel off a glove to curve a pale, warm palm over her cheek. “I would never do that to you,” Kylo whispers, vows, and–

Even if Rey’s never seen his eyes, even if she’s never heard his voice… in that moment Rey remembers that she does know his heart just as she knows Ben’s, knew it long before she ever met Ben.

With guilt wrapped around her like a noose, she takes Kylo’s hand in her own and presses a kiss to his palm.

“Be back in a minute,” Rey promises, and rushes out of the room without looking back.

. . .

It takes closer to ten minutes than one to herd all the terrified people upstairs and pass on instructions, but Rey rushes back down as soon as the first 911 call is made. The hidden tunnel won’t stay hidden for long once first responders swarm the place, but all they need is a head-start.

Kylo is waiting for her by the secret entrance when she comes back, the bookcase pushed aside just enough to allow the both of them through.

“Ready to make a run for it?” he asks, holding out a hand. His gloves are nowhere to be found.

Rey laces their fingers together, smiles as she feels his warmth seep into her skin. “With you? Always.”

She thinks he smiles back at her, wishes she could see it, but– baby steps. He lets go of her hand to pull the bookcase back into place, and Rey has the foresight to reach for her phone and turn on her flashlight just as the bookcase blocks out all light and leaves them in total darkness.

He doesn’t reach for her again as they begin walking, but Rey… Rey shakes away the phantom weight of Ben’s hand to seek the comforting warmth of Kylo’s. She laces their fingers together just as the tunnel widens and a faint light comes into view, welcoming them to the old subway tracks the city abandoned decades ago.

Funny, how his hand in hers feels just right, how his palm curves around her cheek just like–

Two pins fall into her waiting arms, with the elusive red string just out of reach.

“Kylo… how did you know I was going to be here tonight?”

“I didn’t,” he says easily, quickly, and Rey might even believe him if not for the little voice in her head that’s growing louder and louder, echoing words and promises and weird dreams she’s always dismissed as wishful thinking.

Rey stops and lets go of his hand, crosses her arms over her chest and waits until he stops as well. “The timing is too coincidental,” she argues, heart hammering in her chest even as her mind reaches and reaches for that goddamn string, for some way, any way, to make sense of it all, to make it possible. “And there are never any coincidences with you.”

He keeps his back turned, shoulders tense even as he drops his head. “What are you suggesting, Rey? That I walked into that jazz club and singlehandedly took down the most dangerous syndicate in this country because I was sick and tired of watching you put yourself in danger around them?”

She doesn’t bother to acknowledge the obvious truth. “Only two people knew,” Rey says instead, backing him into a corner. “Only two people in the world knew I’d be here tonight.”

Maz could’ve told him. She’s never mentioned Kylo Ren, never even hinted at possibly knowing him, but Rey honestly wouldn’t be surprised to find out that her foster mother has a direct line to the city’s protector.

And of course there’s always the extremely unlikely possibility that Ben’s the one who knows Kylo, that he called in a favor or begged for help or maybe just collaborated with Kylo to keep her safe.

But if Ben had even the slightest inkling of what had happened tonight, he’d be here. He’d be here with her, holding her hand, making sure she gets home safe and sound–

And finally, finally Rey accepts the connection there, reaches for the red string and binds the two men in her life into one.

Kylo still hasn’t said anything.

“Take off your mask,” she whispers to his back as her shaking hand reaches for his shoulder.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t turn, doesn’t show even the slightest reaction to her request or her fingers digging into his skin. He won’t even look at her.

“Goddamn it, Kylo!” Rey snaps, reaching out with both hands to turn him around and force him to face her. “Take off that stupid mask!”

Even now, he’s not looking at her. She can tell, she can always tell. “It’s not stupid,” he says weakly, what little humor he must’ve infused his words with lost to the mechanism of his modulator.

All this time wondering what that godawful piece of machinery was hiding from her, only to find out it’s the same voice that whispers sweet nothings into her ear on lazy mornings and breathes devoted promises into the hollow of her neck late at night, when he thinks she can’t hear him promising her a future together, a lifetime with each other.

“It is,” she growls. “It’s stupid, all of it, and I’ve always hated it – the mask, the modulator, everything. I hate that I can never tell if you’re smiling. I hate that I spent two years not knowing what your eyes look like. I hate that I can never tell if you mean any of the things you tell me–”

He reaches for her then, with the same hands that hold her close at night.

“I do, I always do. Rey, everything I’ve ever told you–”

She shakes her head, pulls her hands out of his when she thinks of all the things he didn’t tell her.

Rey closes her eyes, holds herself tight the way she wishes she could let him hold her now. And with the very last bit of energy she has left in her, she takes a leap.

“Take off the mask… Ben.”

For one terrible, quiet moment, she thinks he’s not going to do it, thinks he’s going to lie to her face. But then his shaking hands reach for the mask, and it feels like something out of a dream when there’s a hiss as he reaches behind his neck and undoes the complex mechanism, breaching the seal connecting his helmet to the collar of his stealth suit.

But then he falters, trembling fingers curling around the helmet so tightly his knuckles go white.

“Rey, I…”

The modulator must’ve been deactivated along with everything else, because the voice that pierces her heart is undeniably Ben’s. Ben’s, and small, and scared.

So Rey takes that final step for the both of them, closes the distance and replaces his hands with hers. She traces her eyes over every familiar, beloved feature as it’s revealed, full lips and tall nose and whiskey eyes that she knows better than her own.

The mask drops to the ground with a clang that echoes throughout the tunnel, but neither of them react, still lost in each other’s eyes, in their own little world.

“Why?” Rey asks when her tears obscure her vision for the second time that night.

Ben tries to speak once, twice, and then like an avalanche it all comes crashing down. “I… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I fucked up, I know I did, but everything I did, everything I’ve ever done, Rey, I did it because I love–”

“Don’t,” she warns him sharply, steps back and points a shaking finger at him. “Don’t you dare. Two years, Kylo,” she snarls at him even as she finally gives in to her tears. “Two years of waiting, of wondering, of thinking it was all in my head and you could never, would never– and now, now when I’ve finally moved on, this? Now when I’m finally happy again, you tell me it was a lie all along? You tell me I’ve been drowning in guilt for nothing? You tell me you love me?”

It seems wrong, for a man like Ben – like Kylo – to hang his head and look so utterly defeated. “It was never meant to be a lie.”

She waits. She’s been waiting two years for this story, after all.

“I knew…” He stares at his hands, curls his fingers into fists and sets his jaw before he looks up at her and softens all over again. “I knew I was doomed the second I met you. You were the most infuriatingly reckless, persistent, stubborn, brave, beautiful, brilliant person I’d ever met, and I wanted to kiss you until my lungs ran out of air, until I couldn’t remember a time before you.”

Two years, Rey has to remind herself to refrain from throwing herself at him right then and there. Two years of them both feeling the same way and torturing themselves over it because of him.

Ben blows out a shuddering exhale, runs a hand through his hair in a manner so familiar to her it makes her heart ache.

“But… things were different, back then. Dangerous, for both of us.”

Rey throws him a bone. “Your boss?” she guesses.

He shakes his head, hesitates for a second before he looks at her. “My father.”

After everything Ben’s whispered to her late at night, after everything Amilyn’s said about his relationship with his father, Rey can’t even bring herself to feel shocked.

“It was bad enough that we were starting to strike out on our own, getting less and less obedient with every mission he sent us on,” Ben explains. “If he knew– if he so much as suspected that you were the cause for that, if he thought you were a weakness he could turn against me…”

There’s something haunted in his eyes, something that scares a man she’s never known to fear anything.

“I couldn’t let that happen, Rey. I couldn’t let you get close enough for him to find out.”

She wants to accept it, wants that to be enough, but–

“He’s been dead for months, Ben.”

Months and months, most of which she’s spent fearing he’d abandoned her or worse.

“It took a while to settle his affairs,” he says vaguely, and there’s enough discomfort there to keep her from prodding. “And I was going to look for you right after, I was going to tell you everything as soon as I came back, but–”

Suddenly it all falls into place. “But then you saw me at work.”

Ben sighs and drops his gaze to the ground. “There you were, and I was not prepared. Part of me thought it had to be a dream, seeing you in broad daylight and holding you in my arms without those stupid gloves in the way… I freaked out. Next thing I knew I’d fucked it all up as usual.”

“You were a total asshole,” Rey agrees, softening the blow with a tentative smile as Ben looks up.

“From there it just… spiraled. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t do anything until you knew my true identity, until you had all the facts and could make an informed decision. But after that first day I was so sure you hated me, Ben-me, and I knew I’d never be able to live with myself if I tricked you into something. So that day in the breakroom, when I saw a chance…”

“You took it.”

“I did,” Ben nods as he hesitantly holds out a hand, and the smile he gives her when she takes it is so fragile, so small, but it’s also everything, the way he looks at her in that moment, eyes soft with fondness. “And you surprised me, like you always do.”

She keeps her hand in his, but Rey can’t find it in her to smile back at him. Not when there’s still so much to go over, not when she still has to know– “But why didn’t you tell me then? Why didn’t you tell me all this time we’ve been together?”

“Things were going so well, I was scared to fuck it up,” he murmurs, and she knows exactly what he means, knows exactly how it feels to have something so good and perfect, too good and perfect, drop into your lap and live with the constant fear that it’ll disappear just as easily and suddenly as it appeared. “Besides,” Ben goes on, “you’d said it yourself: Kylo Ren was a fantasy. A nice dream, and nothing more. So I thought… I thought maybe that’s all it ever was to you, maybe you were happy with just me after all. And the next time we met, when you told me you were seeing someone… it felt like you’d made a choice, and it was a choice I was happy to live with. So I let Kylo Ren die.”

There’s so much they’ll have to go back and hash out, so much for her to pick at in just that one sentence about Kylo being nothing but a fantasy for her, but not now. Not today.

“Until tonight,” Rey says instead, leaving the rest for some other day.

“Until tonight,” Ben echoes, free hand tugging at his hair in agitation. “I just… I know how dangerous these guys are, Rey. They reported back to Snoke. I know everything they’ve done, and the thought of you getting anywhere near that…” His fingers twitch in her hand, and he pauses for a moment to collect himself. “I gave the order for them to shut down months ago, when I was handling the rest of Snoke’s affairs, but they refused.”

He meant well, she knows. Just like he meant well by keeping her in the dark, just like he meant well by putting Kylo Ren to rest, but– Rey can still see that trail of dead bodies, can still hear the snap of the gurgling man’s neck.

“So you killed them all,” she says quietly, looking at their joined hands rather than him.

Ben rests his other hand over hers, engulfing her between hands that have more blood on them than she might ever know. “And I’d do it all over again,” he tells her without hesitation, voice low and scratchy, “if it means you’re safe.”

It’s too much, it’s all just too much, and she can’t help but say so.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmurs again and again as he draws her close and holds her tight. “I’m so sorry, I know I fucked up, I’m sorry–”

Rey wraps her arms around him in return and sighs as she allows herself to feel the full brunt of tonight’s events. “You said everything you’ve done, you’ve done for me. For… love.”

A strange thing, love. Life-ruining, even, if not handled correctly.

“I did,” Ben says. “Everything, Rey, it’s all for you, one way or another. Because I love–”

She shakes her head, snakes one hand up to silence him with a finger pressed against his lips. “Not yet,” Rey whispers against his heart. “I don’t want to hear you say it yet. Not after all of this, not before we’ve worked through it.”

This time, they’re going to handle it correctly.

Ben takes the hand hovering close to his lips, presses a kiss to it. “Not yet,” he concedes quietly, with all the contrition of a boy begging for forgiveness and all the hope of a man willing to make amends, “but someday?”

Someday sounds acceptable.

Someday sounds like a promise.

“Someday,” Rey agrees, and lets him walk her home that night.

. . .

This is about two months late, but it's also nearly twice the length it should've been so... yay for extra content?

In all seriousness, I'm so sorry for the delay. I love this fic dearly, but writing it has been oddly challenging. And my mind did this neat thing where the longer I put it off, the more intimidating it became to tackle. Fun! I think it's pretty obvious that I struggled with this chapter, but I hope it turned out decent at the very least. And as for that weak ending - I rewrote it at least fifteen times and am still not pleased with it, but at least we'll have an epilogue this weekend to (hopefully) make up for it!

Thank you to those still reading after that unforeseen hiatus from hell, and as always please don't hesitate to like/reblog/comment!

#reylo #rey x ben #kylo ren/rey #rey/kylo ren #rey/ben solo #star wars #rey #ben solo #kylo ren #fic: chemistry #my fics

20 notes · View notes

braindamageforbeginners · 6 years

Text

A New Doctor

Cycle 9, Day 10

So, I now have at least a half-dozen physicians on my case. If you believe the BMJ stat that “medical misadvenure” (which is a broad category that includes, but is not limited to, doctor error, nursing error, pharmacy screw-ups, misdiagnosis, accidental overdose/drug interactions, opportunistic infections - the list goes on) is the third-leading cause of death in America (according to the same study, heart disease is #1 and cancer is #2). So, for those for those of you setting odds on my life expectancy (and, frankly, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t), it’s been an odd, extended game of “Clue,” except I’m Mr. Body, to see if disease, side-effects, or my possibly-insane physicians will get to me first. I hate to say it, but I think I’ve finally figured the odds-on favorite in this one: my GP.

This isn’t a plea for help, or even a serious medical development on my part, it’s a warning for you, the readership, as insurance enrollment comes around. First of all, if you can’t pay, hospitals or physicians can throw you out on the street (this is something able-bodied people are so disbelieving of that took a poor black woman freezing to death on-camera in Baltimore). They are only required to treat you if you in an emergency situation, thanks to some federal laws called “EMTALA.”If you have a disease that drives you to the emergency room, the prognosis gets worse. People tend believe that just because it’s the healthcare industry, the health insurance industry isn’t a corrosive force that has a vested interest in denying care and killing you. Which is odd to me; you don’t get this anywhere else (or I haven’t experienced this sort of self-delusional attitude); you don’t see people defending McDonald’s or Nabisco or RJ Reynolds or Exxon as having their best interests at heart (and, to my friends who think they’re bullet-proof because of their health insurance, read the fine print, very, very carefully; you don’t want to get a nasty shock as you’re being rolled into the OR). So, thanks to my parent’s generosity/desire not to see me die, I rolled in last year with a very expensive PPO (there are a lot of acronyms to keep track of, but PPOs allow the patient to see anyone in a preferred provider network, which tend to be large and give the patient lots of choices, so you can directly get a referral to a neurologist if you hit your head). Unfortunately, because I have pre-existing conditions (and to my bullet-proof friends, read through the list of pre-existing conditions that’ll disqualify you, your jaw will drop)(also, it’s telling that Congressmen and Senators have the option to buy into a separate, federal employee health insurance option that’s not available to us serfs)(it’s also telling that the ACA required Congresscritters, for the first time ever, to tough it out and find health insurance like their constituents)(which is why I assume all the GOP higher-ups had melt-downs over the ACA - a slight removal of privilege to help sick constituents isn’t a part of Congressional ethos, let alone job description), my premiums went from “expensive” to “leasing a sports car” within a few months. I’m extraordinarily grateful to them for providing that financial backing, because it allowed me to continue getting treatment during the crucial 6-10 week GBM post-diagnosis period that might turn this from “Guaranteed doom” to “far too close for comfort.” So, this did give me some time to do my homework (in writing about this, I’m realizing I really should consider applying to law school, because I’ll know more about medical and insurance law and ethics than some lawyers before this is up)(Hell, I probably know more than some of them right now). Anyway, I found that all the specialists I see for cancer, do take medicaid (even the specialized pharmacy I use at the cancer center). Which is good for me, especially since being on disability in California is an automatic qualification for Medicaid. Now for the bad news; although all the specialists there take medicaid, the GPs don’t. AND the specialists only take medicaid if it’s done through an HMO carrier that the state sub-contracts with.

Great Kraken’s Balls.

There are a number of documentaries and documents (including an “Adam Ruins Everything” segment) on why HMO’s are unnecessary and lethally incompetent (like many other aspects of a for-profit medical system), but here’s the most basic deal: They act as a gate-keeper for the entire medical-industrial system. You can get your care at any of a dozen pre-approved hospitals, and nowhere else. Now, if an HMO or their doctors can’t treat you (or refuse to treat you - which is still the case for a lot of GBM patients), they are required to send you to a specialist who can. The economic incentive is to give less care, and keep all the patients in the system for as long as possible.

I suspect that delaying tactic is why heart disease and cancer are considered so deadly - you can’t sit long on either of those.

So, based on the financial folks at the cancer center, I picked one, and promptly forgot about it; because I’m already in the system there (the receptionists and pharmacy staff recognize me on sight)(which is comforting, until you realize it’s a cancer center, and then the panic briefly cuts in until you remember you’ve gone eight months without regowth or metastastis). I only remembered it when I got a call from the medicaid HMO telling me I should schedule an appointment with one of their physicians. This isn’t a big deal, I just need them to sign-off on any further black magic-based treatments with the Warlocks or Radiation Oncologist.

Now, before I go further, let’s talk about the people who go into medicine. Like anything in healthcare, we tend to give assume that an entire industry is moral, and just; when people go in for a variety reasons (as recently as 20 years ago, the vast majority of medical students said it was for money), and it’s worth noting that cuts across a vast majority of demographics and motives. And, for better or worse, that cuts across vast swathes of competence - for far too many folks, it’s a job - a rewarding job, but just a job. My father recently inquired about board exams and recertification as a way of guaranteeing some basic level of competence from everyone. He’s right, but the key word there is “basic.” Again, “basic” is fine for first aid and most major medical issues; it’s unacceptable if you have a disease with a 90% fiver-year mortality rate.

I bring this up because I think I chronicled my first appointment with my insurance-appointed GP five or six weeks ago and seemed perfectly satisfactory to my ongoing addiction to experimental chemotherapy. I’m certain it was within that time frame, because I had schedule a six-week follow-up. Which, sadly lands on my “week off” chemo. So, yesterday, after infusion #2 for this cycle (for those of you wondering what I’m doing to stay busy during infusions these days, well, rewriting Christmas carols for cancer patients)(”On the first day of chemo, the nurses gave to me, zofran in an IV”). I also convinced dear old Dad to take me out to lunch, because, again, when the Marizomib side effects hit, you do not fee like eating. This was in the neighborhood of the latest addition to my collection of medical people, so I thought I’d reschedule then. And was told by the receptionist to wait for everyone behind me to check in lest they be late for appointments. That would be fine, but it seems a fundamental misunderstanding of how queus work. And, any time post five-ish hours on infusion day, even though zofran might keep me from puking, it does give me an odd, oily, queasy sensation. I think I deserve some sort of gold star for not puking on this woman right away (again, if you have unconventional problems, feel free to start with an unconventional approach)(my next writing project will be titled, “Life Lessons from Necromancers”). I eventually - using the traditional method of looking down the reception counter, noticed someone not otherwise occupied, and manage to get an appointment more amenable to my schedule. For a physical.

Again, I’d love to use some four-letter words here, but even Finnish fails to meet the requirement. Now, it should be noted that, even though I’m well-aware that I’m physically Adonis-like; I am in chemo and recovering from radiation treatment, Radiation Oncologist implied a few months ago that, even though my scan was clean and looked good for someone with brain cancer, anyone unfamiliar with my case would probably freak out about them. Same thing with my abnormal, uh, “lab sample” I wrote about recently - the nurses agreed, a single abnormal test is hardly unexpected toward the end of chemo, especially since I’m now on a diet consisting mostly of protein, fiber, cafeine, and dangerous, experimental substances. However, I’d prefer not to have to point all that out to a new medical person who has the power to yank the plug on me (sadly, my original GP will be on vacation that week. (I’ll also be on Temodar, so there’s a solid chance my brains will be thoroughly scrambled and incapable of comprehension).

ANYWAY… WEIGHT: 198 lb CONCENTRATION: Pretty good, APPETITE: Normal (but this is 24 hours post-infusion. ACTIVITY LEVEL: Not great; the fatigue side effect definitely caught up with me and chewed me up last night. SLEEP QUALITY: Okay. although I’ve noticed that I definitely thrash around on chemo days. COORDINATION/DEXTERITY: Lousy. Thank Gods I don’t need the walker, and I don’t even think I need my magic ankle support, but my left leg is definitely unreliable today. MEMORY: Not bad, although I did forget my sheets were in the wash earlier today (although I recall stripping the bed and tossing them into the washer). PHYSICAL: Tired and kind of wobbly, but still a lot better than this time a year ago.. EMOTIONAL: Okay. It might just be that I spent yesterday next to my zofran-and-CDB salt-lick, but I’m starting to think I might make it through all this somewhat intact. Hang on. Am I really starting to believe my own bullshit? SIDE EFFECTS: Tired, somewhat sore (either chemo or increasing the difficulty of that stupid elliptical), and in the wrong time-zone, but, other than that, not much. CURRENTLY READING (For Donna): Gonzo Girl, and The Explorer’s Guild (A Passage to Tshamballah)

1 note · View note