One night only — this is the only way they meet, with her bruises on his body, with his old name at the back of her throat, choked. He's broken away from what he used to be, but what he is now, there's no name for — just a warm shape in the dark.

No one else has lived on this base for a dozen years. It's held up to the elements well enough, before the two of them went tearing through it, lightsabers blazing — Ben trained here once, under Luke, and carving her way inside Rey could have sworn she'd recognized the scenery. From Skywalker's stories, maybe, or from visions. Fleeting glimpses: ransacked records, splintered control panels, the hem of a gray robe disappearing around the corner in a corridor. Always just out of reach and a little too late. Suites of rooms like this one, a former medical suite painted in shades of what-else-have-you-got Resistance beige. People lived here once, other people.

He's here to spill the location of a fist-sized kyber crystal with an especially interesting provenance, and she's here to hold him away from the base until she can salvage the onsite archives. But they're taking a detour. Rey lets her cloak drop, baring her shoulders and neck to the processed air. She could take him back to the place where she sleeps. But they aren't lovers, and they aren't friends. This could just as easily be a high-stakes negotiation, and not a private rendezvous. But here they both are. No reinforcements.

She goes to unwrap his wrists, slipping back the cuff of his coat and rolling back the fitted black sleeve. The tips of her fingers brush the back of his broad bony wrist, and even the most innocuous touch is electric.

A flare of unconcealed feeling passes across his face. Kylo Ren still wears black, but he no longer wears a mask.

A ceasefire, setting aside their arms to negotiate. But even unarmed, she could kill him here — he could kill her, they could join forces and rule together with this wrecked command center for their royal seat. But she's not thinking far enough for that. This is how they meet now. He smells like ash and plasma discharge, she's still bathed in sweat with her hair a tangle and the imprint of her lightsaber handle burned into her palm.

She kisses him, a hand cupping the back of his neck and a knee pressing him back into the wall console, and he stiffens. His hair is long and heavy now, soft beneath her hand, and when she knots her hand into a fist around it he breathes a satisfied sound against her mouth. No one ever taught her how to kiss; it's difficult to keep her eyes closed, not to study his face. But she can feel the soft shape of his lips parting under hers, his cautious responses to her tongue between his teeth —

She didn't expect it to be like this, and doesn't want it this way — Rey shoves him back with a jostle and wipes her mouth against the back of her wrist, chagrined.

What are they even doing here? What are they going to do?

He sits quietly against the steel countertop while she unties her knotted hair, his hands folded in his lap like white spiders, not touching — and when she lets him press his face against her shoulder she can feel him shudder, darkly amused and reverential at the same time.

A thrum of sympathy in the Force, two differing elements vibrating on the same frequency, even if it's only for a moment. His broad body is beneath her, her hands tracing the hard full muscles of his chest, his scar-pocked shoulders — some of these things were her doing, and some of them have been here long before she ever left Jakku, long before she ever heard that name. It's too easy to imagine taking that exposed bulk and using it against him, tossing him against the bulkheads like a rag doll and hearing him thank her for it, and she can feel it in her mind's eye, the Force tightening around his neck like a band — the long white line of his throat is vulnerable and it excites her, she could hurt him now, she could end all of this. But he hasn't moved to harm her either. These are the terms of their truce.

She can draw him up in her hand, and hear him groan — like he's never been touched before, like he's never been touched by her, but his hands grip her thighs and press dents with their broad span as he tugs her closer, flush against his hips.

On some planets they call it lovemaking, something lovers do in small snug places — on Jakku they only ever call it barter, screwing for credits and vacuum-sealed portions and a place to stay for the night. Here it's just a ceasefire — all the bitter grudges and the sorrow ebbing for a moment, like meeting again as strangers. His eyes are languid black slits and his breath comes shallowly now, little puffs of exertion.

Rey strips him with her hands, and isn't gentle — yanking and pulling, snagging at closures, all she can think is how grateful she is that he's changed his uniform and she isn't tangling with a cloak just now. At least it'd be something to lie down on. His big hand hooks in the bandages around her ribcage that hold her breasts in place — there are other ways of dressing, less constrictive ones, but beneath her robes she's still a Jakku orphan dressing herself with whatever she can find, and her back goes pleasantly stiff at the feeling of his cold fingers between her shoulder blades. He doesn't know how to touch her, but he wants to.

Not hovering over her, now, but beneath her and touching — concrete and solid, hips clipping against bone, mouths catching at mouths. She's already aggravatingly wet — when she thrusts his broad hand between her legs his fingertips are too slick for friction and Rey's aggravated sound is cut off by the press of his lips.

His other hand marks out the shape of one breast, measuring almost instead of groping and grabbing — the brush of hot skin against her exposed nipple, there in the cold air, sends a twinge so powerful that it's almost painful right to the core of her. He's seen her once like this in a dream, bare-breasted and unbothered by it with her hair in tangles, but only because he'd stripped her bare — and only for a moment before her own mind rebelled and snapped the connection, taking the image with it. In the dream her clothes had all been in smoking shreds, with the body underneath unmarked. But here—

She grinds against his leg and he thrusts into her with his long hard fingers, working at her with almost painful dexterity and an equally aching readiness to please — he can't hide it from her.

She calls him by his old name, and for a moment there's a look on his face like pain — but he buries himself against her to hide it, sucking a jagged path of bites across the hard range of her shoulder — the blood is hammering in her throat. It would be one thing to pretend they're strangers, screwing for credits, and not two people who are already entangled. But she can feel the pull of him, her actual desire muddled with recognition. She can feel him in the Force, like an electrical crackle skating over her skin.

"Go on. Lie back," she says. Kylo Ren exhales, nostrils flaring and lips parting, but he doesn't object. Without a mask he's as vulnerable as one of those skittering multilegged things without a shell — everything shows in his face and it's terrible and endearing. He must hate it. Rey traces the scar across his cheek with her thumb, and he shivers, pressing against her hand.

He's hers, here and now, completely. No more talking. He presses back against the examination platform, crossing his long legs almost guiltily. Rey climbs atop and kisses him again, clicking teeth. It's not a violent capture but the staking of an uneasy claim — nipping against his mouth and enjoying the scalded, scandalized sound he makes when her hand presses into his lap. But the way his hips jerk and his legs tighten against hers make it clear without words that it's not displeasure, really. It's something else. Kneeling over him on the hard tabletop, her heartbeat pounding in her throat — like he's a piece of slightly dented heavy machinery and she can pass her hands over him and find out how he works, how all the pieces fit together.

"Does this surprise you?" His voice is sweetened with amusement, but there's a catch in it, like breathlessness. His cock is heavy in her hand, pressing through the last layer she hasn't yet stripped away.

"Why would it?" Rey's a little breathless, feeling out the length of him with prickling fingertips. "I haven't always been a Jedi. All the things I could show you—"

All the advantages of not being slotted into a more-or-less celibate order since puberty. All the advantages of self-sufficiency. She twists her grip, leaving him blinking and gasping, until she's riding his lap — slow at first, hips angling into it and core muscles tight, until the friction is unbearable — he goes to fumble himself out with one big hand until Rey flashes with mild disapproval, and his arms go behind his back. He can look, and be touched, but not handle.

Rey presses her face to the side of Kylo Ren's big neck, overwhelmed by the sharp clean smell of his dark hair, raking her teeth over his skin in a red path that makes him snarl and breathe hard. His cock is hard and heavy between her legs, sliding against the hard jut of her pubis — Rey lifts her hips and straightens her back, feeling him move with her, even as his arms brace against the hard countertop.

Rubbing at herself with her free hand, holding him to her, guiding him inside. It's an obstacle at first, taking him in at all — his muscles are trembling and hot with need, his eyes are wary on her face. She can feel him watching her, as concrete and hot as the press of his body — it brings her skin up in pleasant gooseflesh.

The two of them aren't lovers — they aren't even strangers. He's holding back — achingly lonely and angry and afraid of himself. Rey's afraid of what she wants.

"You can touch me now," she says, voice a little broken — not knowing exactly what it is she means. No names.

He grips her arms as she rides his lap, finding the hard muscle there for a handhold just as she braces against his shoulders — keeping her there as she grinds out a climax, pressed flush against the very edge of joy. She can feel him trembling beneath her, his punishing grip on her shoulder, her breast — wound up in their hard kinetic joining, two bodies in shivering motion keeping the pace with one another. Sentimental enemies.

Rey twists in his grip and both his hands press a path down her back, to the backs of her thighs — she could throw him down against the table and finish him off hard but this angle is just right, taking him in deep despite his size and doing it at her leisure. Rey's hands are on his shoulder, his naked throat. Sustained in a single eerie climax, bound up in one another, mouths and legs and hands — they're lost together, cast off and wrapped up in each other, trembling together on the edge of oblivion. Until the spell breaks, ringing out out like a starburst.

A gasp bitten off into a snarl. Kylo Ren sinks back, and Rey comes away from him, only to collapse on his chest — feeling him heave and settle beneath her, his big hands cautiously lacing across her back.

She's panting for breath, and it takes a few moments for the rise and fall of her ribcage to regulate again and for her blood to quit pounding in her ears. Kylo too, looking faintly stunned and slightly silly and very, very lovely when disarmed.

There's a long quiet between them, a lull. Rey almost wants to sit up and strap on her lightsaber belt again just to fill the void — there aren't a lot of quiet moments where she comes from, moments of rest and repose without some kind of jittery activity, even if it's mental. But exhaustion settles over her like a blanket.

"I never wanted this base. It would have been sentimental of me." He's nothing if not sentimental, on some dark sticky level — the dark-haired boy who'd venerated his grandfather. His voice is a dark rumble, nakedly pleased. Rey can feel his heartbeat in her fingertips.

She rubs the side of her head against his side, mussing herself even further in the process. Their long legs make a tangle together. "And I never wanted the kyber crystal."

She doubts he even has it in his possession — another old Jedi relic he'd lead her on a merry chase to take back by force if he did.

"Convenient."

But this seems to take him authentically off guard. It hasn't even occurred to him. He's spent his life scavenging relics; why shouldn't she?

"Of course, I'm only telling you this now." Rey presses her mouth lazily to his shoulder, marking out a scar. Beneath her, he's only a handsome stranger who came in for shelter and never left. An Outer Rim vagabond and not a Knight of Ren any longer. And he won't leave her. If she doesn't pull away, they could lie here forever.