Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a very dreary afternoon, and Rey sat at her desk in last period staring out the window at the grey sky. She’d been feeling so strange as of late, and at the moment, the most pressing part was her severe hatred of being indoors for any real length of time. Although she was a bit bookish and had always loved to learn, she’d never truly been fond of school itself- judgemental, unreliable authority and bands of snickering, snotty kids weren’t really her style- but it had become all but torturous not only to be inside, but also to sit still, ever. Her sad eyes flicked towards the clock, and she was relieved to find that only six minutes remained until the bell rang. Miss Phasma was a cunt, so she’d probably hold them for a few extra minutes out of nothing but spite and an apparent hatred for her students, but still; Rey would be in the hallway within ten minutes, and she’d be outside within twenty. She forced her eyes to fall down towards the homework they’d been given to start that she’d already torn through; only the essays usually made it home uncompleted.

Mostly because Rey had a really hard time forcing herself to do schoolwork… At home. That meant that essays… Weren’t always finished.

Or ever edited very much.

She meandered over her work, double checking only the math because she was more than confident in her understanding of the physics they were learning right now, but her eyes kept flicking back longingly towards the outside. Still, if she didn’t look at least kind of busy, Phasma was liable to blow a gasket and shriek at her for a few minutes, then keep them back extra to give them all a lecture about nothing.

Rey was really, really hoping they transferred her to a new teacher soon. They were dragging their feet even telling her if they would or not.

Usually, at this time of the year- October 28th!- she’d be thinking almost exclusively about Halloween. And true, even the overwhelming funk she’d found herself in couldn’t kill her love of the holiday… It was all so muddied with the feeling of dread and the overwhelming need to disappear into the trees and never return that she could hardly focus on it. Her mind couldn’t seem to let her forget about how awful she felt.

The bell rang eventually, and thanks to Phasma’s breaking of her students, even the most eager of them only jittered their feet anxiously and refused the urge to begin packing up. The teacher took thirty seconds to finish typing- or to pretend to type in order to further torture them, Rey wouldn’t put it past her- before glancing up at them and surveying with her cold, cold eyes. The faintest smirk twisted a face far too pretty for what lay behind it.

“Have a nice afternoon, children. You’re dismissed.”

Rey was on autopilot as she made her way to her locker. She was on autopilot packing up her bag, as well, when she picked up on a conversation entirely accidentally.

Rey’s locker was beside one Miss Bazine Netal, head cheerleader and resident mean girl at Alderaan Public High School, except for the fact that at least Regina George had a certain flair and some entertainment value. Baz hadn’t said a word directly to Rey since elementary school (when she would do things like chase Rey around the playground with her other friends, calling Rey a sasquatch the second her legs started getting a little fuzzy) but thanks to their proximity about twice a day, every school day, Rey was used to being unable to not pay attention to the loud, shrill gossiping that usually flowed freely from her pouty, vicious mouth. This time, however, the girl that she was talking to was fellow cheerleader Kay Connix, who was her considerably kinder (at least to your face) second-in-command.

“You won’t believe it,” Baz said, smug as ever to be the one delivering the news. Kay might be kind- especially in comparison to her shitbag bestie- but she had the loosest lips known to man, and everyone knew not to let her catch wind of your secret, if it could be at all avoided. Especially if Baz disliked you, because if Kay knew, Baz definitely did, too. Luckily, it was kind of hard to be a new addition to her shitlist, and as long as you avoided her drama-steeped friend group, you were probably fine. Baz didn’t seem to actively like anyone but Kay, two other cheerleaders whose names defied Rey at that moment, and the hot popular guys at APHS.

“What is it?” Kay cooed, leaning in. Rey risked a glance to see her pretty face overcast with curiosity, then quickly looked back down at the folders she was trying to fit into her bag along with the gym clothes she was taking home for a wash.

“There’s a new guy,” Baz started.

“Oh! I know,” Kay interrupted. Rey heard the faint sound of Baz huffing, offended.

“You heard?” she asked in an icy, airy voice.

“Only from staff,” Kay said dismissively. “What do you know?”

Baz was smug again, after that. “Well,” she said. “He’s in two of my classes. Business and aerobics.” Bazine accidentally whacked Rey in the face with her hair as she flipped it with sass; Kay sputtered out a sudden laugh as Rey focused on keeping herself composed in the aftermath. Baz cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she said ingenuously.

“S’fine,” Rey muttered, viscerally annoyed even as she forced herself to shake it off. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Baz stroking at her hair as if wiping the Rey off of it.

“And?” Kay prompted after a moment.

“Well, he’s the hottest school shooter I’ve ever seen,” Baz said.

“Oh- weird. Like, how?”

“He’s, like, over six foot. Long, dark hair, broad shoulders, good build… Ripped up jeans, and a flannel that reeks of, like, homelessness- like, smoke and body order,” Baz paused to snicker. “It’s almost tragic, really, ‘cause he is pretty hot. Still…” Baz made some sort of motion that made Kay laugh again, but Rey couldn’t really see and she was losing interest quickly. She set her backpack down in order to pull on her jacket. But she paused as, much to her surprise, Baz turned to lock eyes with her for the very first time. The smirk on her face said it wasn’t going to be good. “I could ask him if he’s single for you.”

Rey had no idea how to react, but luckily, Bazine did not seem to be hunting for an answer. She slammed her locker door shut as she looked at Kay once more; “You ready to head out?” Rey pulled her backpack on as she wondered if Bazine thought she was pretty under all the frump she doubtlessly saw, as while she had been objectively insulting the new guy, she’d had a tone of her voice that suggested she found it such a shame that he had ‘school shooter’ vibes, whatever the fuck that meant to Bazine, of all people. When she was ready, she turned the opposite direction that Baz and Kay were still disappearing in, and she made her way towards Storm and Tico in the locker banks. It wasn’t within eyeshot, but it wasn’t that far from Niima, luckily.

Rose was still going through her locker, but Finn was already done; Paige was outside and visible through the windows, on the phone. Poe was leaning into his boyfriend as they chatted with Rose, and he was the first to catch sight of Rey and offer a grin and a wave.

Their merry little band of misfits and burnouts. APHS wasn’t the smallest school, and Alderaan wasn’t the smallest town, but they were pretty small and every high schooler at least vaguely knew every other kid their age, though she probably wouldn’t recognize many kids that much younger than herself. And these were the true social rejects of Rey’s generation.

Rey was just happy all the social rejects happened to like each other. It would be a lot harder if she only tolerated her friends. When she joined them, after greeting one another they filled each other in on their respective days; Poe had the new guy, Ben, in history, and Finn had aerobics with him and Baz. Rey filled them in on the little moment she’d just had at their locker, and Rose began apologizing profusely for ‘hogging all the backup at [her own] locker’, but Rey adamantly dismissed this. Paige came in not too long after, and moments later, Rose closed her locker. Finn and Poe had to leave for basketball and soccer practice, respectively, as Paige just started going through her locker. She and Rose carried the conversation, as Rey wasn’t chatty at her best; she followed the conversation closely, however, until a large figure appeared just to the left of Finn’s locker- maybe three or four lockers down. And he was definitely the new guy, which meant he was Ben R. or Ben S. Not that it mattered that much.

He was very tall; Rey estimated him to be six-one, give or take an inch or two. He wore a black and white checkered shirt that was open to reveal some sort of band shirt that Rey didn’t recognize. His jeans were tight and ripped up, revealing not only pale, hairy legs, but also fishnets. There was a chain hanging from his naughties Hot Topic belt that looked so old that she was certain someone had owned and worn it ever since then. He had on high top Converse shoes that were covered in Sharpie ink.

He looked like a dork, and Rey immediately had a crush on him. She couldn’t help but stare at him as he unloaded his things. He had short, stubby fingernails painted matte black. He had a few bracelets on the wrist closest to her, and just a black watch on the other. He wore some sort of simple silver necklace.

“Wow,” came a cruel voice, and Rey jumped with a quiet yelp. Bazine, now in her cheer uniform and walking with a few more teammates, gave a cruel snicker as her friends laughed. “You know, offer stands. Your desperation reeks.”

“Hey, fuck you, Netal,” Paige snapped at once.

“Fuck yourself, freakface,” Baz said, tossing her silky ponytail away.

Rey watched Bazine watch off, all the while resisting the urge to pummel her into the ground in a very angry-five-year-old sort of way.

Or like a slighted puppy who didn’t fully realize that murder was an option yet.

“What was that about?” Rose asked gently.

Rey mumbled gibberish and futzed around with her backpack and her clothing, anxious and embarrassed and more than a little sour.

That was worse than if he had caught her staring. Once Rose and Paige had drifted back to normal conversation- this time, about how Paige couldn’t find a particular class folder and was trying to remember when she last had it- Rey snuck a glance at the new guy. His locker was closed now but he still stood in front of it, his backpack full and seemingly heavy on his back. He had a beanie on now and Rey saw his chiseled face in all its stoic glory; as she did, he tucked his earbuds into his ears before suddenly, his eyes turned towards her.

She froze, waiting for some hint of a reaction from him, and after a surprised blink, he gave the tautest smile and the smallest wave. Rey quickly glanced behind her, but there was no one, then back at him; he had a wider, cock-eyed grin now- awkward, but almost like, that’s relatable, I get it- and he waved a little more solidly again. Rey broke out into a compulsory, awkward grin of her own and waved a little in return.

He pulled out an earbud. “I think your desperation smells nice,” he said softly in a strangely sweet, deep voice,  and Rey gasped aloud. He grinned as his cheeks colored, stuffed his earbud back in, and speed-walked away, like he needed a break before facing the consequences of his actions.

And you know what? That’s relatable, I get it. Rey turned back to her friends, absolutely crimson.

“Oooh, what did he say?” Rose purred with a grin. Paige, too, seemed invested. Rey studied Paige’s locker for a moment before dragging out the Pokémon folder she was looking for.

“Oh, my Gd!” Paige exclaimed, blinking at it for a moment like she couldn’t fathom it had actually been right there the whole time.

“You’re so blind,” Rose accused.

“You were looking, too!”

“Same genes,” Rey said. “You guys ready? I hate this shithole, I’m ready to bounce.”

Chapter Text

It was the next morning, and Rey followed her friends to the S-T lockers right away. And to her supreme excitement, he was already there, his locker open but his attention entirely turned towards his phone. And Rey may or may not have spent five minutes staring at him as he stared at his phone.

“Hey, Ben,” Poe said suddenly, and Rey looked out at the hall as if nothing had happened.

“Hi,” came a disinterested voice.

“Whatchya doin’?” Poe pushed.

There was a pause this time. “YouTube.”

“He’s a man of many words,” Poe said softly to the friend group before picking his voice back up to address Ben again. “You wanna come to our Halloween party, dude? You can sit in the corner and watch YouTube, if you really want. We’re chill like that.”

Rey compulsively looked over at Ben just as Ben looked up. He glanced at Rey for one moment before meeting Poe’s eyes, and Rey flushed despite herself. “Who’s Halloween party?”

“Me and Finn’s,” Poe said. “Attended by the five lovely people you see here, and up to five more- six! Up to six more, because you can come, too.”

Ben looked at Rey again and she felt her eyes widen and her cheeks grow even hotter. He gave her a brief once-over- looking curious rather than creepy, or anything like that- then met her eyes again and tilted his head to the side.

Like he was asking if she wanted him to come. She forced herself to nod even though she felt so stupid.

“Sure,” Ben said, then turned back to his locker and tucked his phone into his pocket. Rey had to leave to have enough time to go to her locker, but she was just happy to see no sign of Bazine as she quickly put her backpack away and then grabbed what she needed for her first two classes.

Rey didn’t have any classes with the new guy, but as it turned out, she had the same lunch period as he did. She didn’t really like anyone in her lunch period, and she usually sat alone at one of the small tables that only seats two at the best of times, but as she wandered back towards her usual spot with her free lunch in hand, she saw him sitting alone at one of the slightly larger tables, and she stopped.

He was, like, actively inviting her to talk to him, right? Not right now- but earlier, at the lockers, he’d clearly… Indicated he only wanted to go if Rey wanted him to. And yesterday- he said… She felt so stupid and crazy, both for thinking that she could talk to him, and for thinking that she couldn’t. She popped a scorching hot french fry into her mouth and shifted in place-

And then he looked up from his phone and gave a small, tired smile. Rey lurched forward suddenly and sat across from him. His lunch was homemade- fried chicken, a ziploc bag of chips, two different small tupperwares that seemed to hold the remnants of fruit and/or vegetables that had already been devoured, save for a few pineapples left forsaken in one of them and what might have been salad dressing coating the inside of the other. She picked up her cheesy cardboard pizza and took a molten bite.

“I’m Ben,” he said, looking back down at his phone.

“I’m Rey,” she said, her voice cracking. She gulped, then cleared her throat. “Rey. Rochelle.”

“Rochelle,” he said, and Rey squirmed. “Rey.”

“I prefer Rey,” she asserted quickly. She didn’t really know why she’d offered her full name, other than… Well, of the reasons she usually hated it; it was long and feminine and it… Had vibes. But she regretted it so much until he brushed past it with ease—

“I’m ‘Benjamin’,” he said after a moment, his voice so soft and kind. “Benjamin Landonis Organa-Solo.”

“That’s… Quite the name,” she said, trying not to giggle, but Ben made a wry face and gave her a little wink that made her heart stop.

“I go by Ben. Ben Solo, when need be.”

“I’m ‘Rochelle Mara Niima’,” Rey said with a shrug. “I did always like ‘Mara’. It was my godmother’s name- part of it, anyway.”

Ben gave her a warm smile, and her breath caught. “Yeah, Mara’s nice. And it all sounds good together. Rolls off the tongue.”

Rey wanted to roll onto his tongue. Her cheeks turned crimson at the thought, but mercifully, his eyes dropped down to his phone and he took a bite of chicken as Rey picked up a small handful of the much more temperate french fries. “What are you watching?”

Ben got a wide, awkward grin, and it looked so good on him. “Don’t laugh,” he said in a low voice.

“Only if it’s an anxious one,” she promised, and he gave an abrupt chuckle.

“It’s, uh, a Minecraft playthrough.”

“Oh, cool! I watch some of those,” Rey said. “Can I see?”

“C’mere,” he beckoned. He gave her an almost sarcastic smirk as he said, “I only bite with enthusiastic consent.”

Rey was red as a beet, but she was moving in an instant, collecting her stuff to go sit next to him. And the second she came within three feet of him, she could pick up on his scent.

It was… Mercurial. Cold and metallic and… Rey shivered and sat down. He moved his phone in between them and Rey watched a video she wouldn’t usually watch, but it kept her attention as they ate. After a while, he gently asked for a fry, and she offered him as many as he’d like. In exchange, he pulled out a tupperware full of banana pudding, and Rey gasped the second the smell of it hit her nose.

“You can have it, if you want,” Ben offered without a pause, and she met his eye and blinked.

“What do you mean, ‘have’?” Rey asked after a moment.

Ben, with a funny little smile, picked up a plastic spoon, set it gently atop the pudding resting against a vanilla wafer, and pushed the tupperware more fully towards her. “Eat it.”

“All of it?”

“I’ve only got the one spoon,” he said, but there was a flirtatious challenge in his voice. “So, unless you wanna share that.”

Rey turned beet red. “Um,” she said.

“That’s okay,” he said softly, urging the bowl even closer to Rey before stealing another fry. “Take it. Eat it. Enjoy.”

Rey wolfed down the rest of her food-food (save for some fries to share, of course), and she didn’t notice until she was pushing the last five fries into her mouth that he was watching her, looking fascinated in an almost scientific way, and she turned beet-red again. “You’re cute,” he said, and her mind factory reset itself in its thirty-second long journey to process that information. She swallowed her food.

“You’re brave,” was all she could muster, awe in her squeaky voice, and he gave a sudden, rich laugh.

“I try,” he said softly. “Are you… Seeing anyone?”

Rey blinked, then shook her head. Ben seemed almost exasperatedly amused. Was she doing something wrong? “You’re cute,” she blurted. He gave her another crooked grin, then put a hand on hers. It was big and cool, so smooth it felt like a statue. Rey couldn’t look away from his eyes; chestnut brown at the heart of them and so mossy around the edges. “Really cute,” she breathed as her eyes wandered over his freckled, birthmark-ridden face. He gave a low chuckle.

“I’m glad I’ll get to see you Thursday night,” he said, and Rey nodded, feeling a little bit faint.

“Yeah. Are you, um, gonna dress up? I-I think everyone else is, Poe didn’t mention earlier.”

He gave a heartier laugh as he turned towards his food, but he ate with his left hand and left his right draped over hers. She picked up a spoonful of banana pudding, one of her favorite foods in the world. “I can probably swing it, but I wasn’t planning on wearing one at all. What’s your costume gonna be, Rey?”

“Um, I was gonna be Laura from Carmilla. From… A novella.”

His face lit up and she turned red. “I know it,” he said. “Do you like vampires?”

Rey broke out in a wide, awkward grin. He had a strange, mild tone to his voice, and Rey figured he had his own feelings on vampires. He seemed just about as weird as she was. “Yeah. I like… Quote-unquote spooky things. Supernatural things. The occult, but mostly the fake stuff.”

He nodded slowly, and Rey could see him sitting with that. He looked deeply amused. He turned towards her and, in an even stranger tone of voice, he said, “What about werewolves?”

She blinked at him. “I mean, yeah. I’m much less into a lot of the conventional mythos surrounding werewolves, though- a lot of my werewolf interests are niche and pretentiously symbolic. The plight of the poor man- how need can drive you mad… And female rage, tied to cycles and the moon and—” (A/N uhhhh yt video essay recommendation based on what inspired this exact line, if you like Bloodborne, this is the video I imagine Rey has in her mind right now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJVXV14Vv3M)

The bell rang and Rey jumped. “I’d love to continue this conversation,” he said, and his voice was so intrigued and so genuine, and Rey flushed and nodded.

“Yeah. I’d love to hear your thoughts, too,” she said as he stuffed a little bit too much food into his mouth to finish his chicken.

He covered his full mouth with a giant hand in order to speak ‘politely’, not that Rey minded unless he were to start blowing chunks or something. “I gotta rush, this is the hardest pilgrimage of the day. Could you give me the bowl back later?”

“Y-yeah,” Rey said as he hurried to stuff his things back into his bag. There was too much pudding for even Rey to chug, but she took another huge bite. After she swallowed, right before he zoomed off, she said. “It’s really fucking amazing. Where did you get it?”

“My mom makes it,” he said with a grin and a wink. “See you after school.”

Ben was almost the only thing that her mind could possibly focus on all afternoon. Him, and his mom’s banana pudding. Maybe if I date him she’ll teach me how to make it. Her teachers were visibly annoyed with her- especially fucking Phasma- but she made it through, hurried to her locker and finished with it as quickly as she could just as Baz came upon her own locker. Rey zipped away, empty bowl and lid in hand, and headed towards the S-T bay with purpose.

She stopped at Ben’s locker, ignoring her friends who reacted with varying levels of subtlety. Ben was indifferent and in fact perhaps unaware as he rifled through his bag. Rey brazenly leaned on the locker beside him and he looked over in surprise, then grinned. Her heart stop as she just… Looked up at him.

“Hey, Rey,” he said.

“Hi,” she said, and she held out the bowl just a little.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll tell my mom to pack two tomorrow.”

“O-okay,” Rey said, lightheaded. Ben took the bowl and put it into his backpack, and he seemed to be ruminating on something. Rey just appreciated his band t-shirt- this one, she did recognize- and grey sweatpants. Also, he had a little bit of a patchy shadow, and Rey was kind of into that, too.

Oh! And his left ear was pierced! He had a little red gem in it, like a ruby or a garnet (or a fake gem) or something, a black stud just above it, and a small black band at the top of his ear.

“How old are you?” Rey thought to ask, out of nowhere, mostly because she was having inappropriate feelings towards him if he were anything younger than sixteen.

“Just turned nineteen,” he said, his voice a little sheepish. “You?”

“Well, I turn eighteen, um, tomorrow,” Rey said, and he blinked.

“You do? Are you doing anything to celebrate?” he asked.

Rey scowled. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Me and my mom are… Doing stuff right after school. I was gonna figure out what next afterwards, depending how I feel. I refuse to plan my birthdays; I want what I want at that moment. My mom just-...” Rey stopped herself. “Well, she insisted.”

“I get it,” Ben said softly, giving her a reassuring glance before turning back to his things. “Could I, ah, maybe get your number?”

“Yes,” Rey said, maybe a little too quickly. Do you wanna make out on my birthday?

“Cool,” he said once he’d saved her number in his phone. He pulled his things out and shouldered his bag as he closed his locker. “How do you get home?”

Rey flushed. “I walk, at least until it gets cold out. Then I carpool with these losers,” Rey nodded back at her friends.

“Do you want a ride? I have a car.”

Rey thought about her answer for a moment. “I like to walk,” she said softly for a moment. “Um, tomorrow, though. We could… I dunno. Dawdle. I-if you don’t mind—”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ben said with a crooked grin. “Birthday dawdling. Oh- are you a senior, or a junior?”

“A senior,” Rey said proudly. “I skipped junior year.”

“Nice,” Ben said softly. “I, ah, failed freshman year.”

“Nice,” Rey said brightly, and he gave a crooked grin.

“Got me here, I guess,” he said thoughtfully. “I should probably get going. If I wear the beanie inside for too long, the vultures descend.”

“School’s over,” Rey bitched on his behalf, and he gave a sage nod. “Um, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll text you later. Make sure you get home safe.”

Rey flushed and nodded as she told him to do so, as well. He’d given her his number, too. She watched him walk away, then fell back dramatically towards her awaiting, spying friends. “Oh, my Gd, my clitoris is throbbing,” Rey said (very hyperbolically).

(Rey is not bold, Ben is bold)

3:49 p.m.- just got home safe n sound ^v^

3:53 p.m.- good to hear!

3:53 p.m.- how was the walk?

3:55 p.m.- it was nice, today is literally perfect weather conditions lol. I didn’t wanna come home

3:56 p.m.- wyd?

3:57 p.m.- I was playing Bloodbourne, now I have to take the cat out for a bit. Wyd?

3:58 p.m.- I have a whack-ass essay to finish writing and hopefully edit so I don’t have to worry about it cuz its due on fri :/

3:59 p.m.- wait lol wym take the cat out

4:01 p.m.-

4:02 p.m.- My mom got her from a friend who used to let her outside. She gets so upset if she doesn’t go out, but it’s not safe to go out alone. Ergo, Jaina gets a pink harness and three thirty-minute adventures a day, usually.

4:02 p.m.- SO CUTE OMG!!1!!!!!!1!!!!1!

4:02 p.m.- lol

4:03 p.m.- That’s actually so sweet!

4:04 p.m.-

4:05 p.m.- These are my dogs, BB and Threepio! BB used to be Poe’s, but his stepmom had an allergy so once she came around, they rehomed him, but they visit all the time! Lol even Amilyn takes meds to come visit, she loves him, just hard to live w someone ur allergic to ig, meds or no. N my mom got Threepio from an old friend when I was a toddler, he’s ancient! Gd willing he stays around for a lot longer too lol

4:06 p.m.- They’re gorgeous, especially for free dogs.

4:07 p.m.- I don’t think Threepio was free lol, but at a discount! But yeah we couldn’t have afforded BB lol, but this way he’s close and they can visit him whenever, and amilyn doesn’t feel like she has the plague if she doesn’t remember to take it

4:07 p.m.- Nice

4:07 p.m.- I’ll let you focus on your homework, I’d hate for you to have to do it tomorrow or thurs. I hope you have a nice day, Rey 🙂

4:09 p.m.- You too! Make sure you tell your mom her banana pudding is to die for

4:10 p.m.- lol she definitely already knew, but I did tell her and she was happy you liked it. You are now the reason my lunches are gonna be twice the size, I’m sure

4:11 p.m.- 🥺 a true honor

Chapter Text

Rey went to bed early in order to get up early in order to be extra precious about her appearance. She took the time to curl her hair, then chose her favorite autumn-appropriate sundress and matching cardigan.

It was the first cardigan she’d made, the one Mom had helped her with. One of the few solely happy memories she had with her mother. Once she was happy with it, she sat down to do a little bit more makeup than usual… Only to get carried away and do a full-on smokey eye with full contour and a red lip.

She looked really good. One of those moments where she almost didn’t recognize herself. She ate breakfast, fixed her lipstick, then set out towards school, listening to everything from Chappell Roan to Halestorm to Childish Gambino, just savoring the music and the crisp fall air.

When she came towards her locker, she saw Ben lingering in the general vicinity, clearly waiting for her. She flushed and floored it towards her locker, heart pounding in her chest.

She didn’t want to deal with Baz today. Just not today or tomorrow- they were her two favorite days, her birthday and Halloween. “Hi,” she offered in a pleasant voice when he leaned against Bazine’s closed locker.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Happy birthday, Rey.”

“Thanks,” she said as she pulled her locker open.

“My mom made chicken parmesan, and I think she sent enough to feed a small village.”

Rey giggled as she did her thing. “Well, that’s handy! I could eat a small village’s worth of food. I could probably eat a small village.”

He got a wide grin. “That’s very handy. Also, she sent both banana pudding, and chocolate pudding. I hope you’re prepared for the amount of food she will have me give you from now on, all since you complimented her a single time.”

“I am so prepared,” Rey said, super red in the face. “People should be like that more. We’d have world peace if we all just kept complimenting and feeding one another.”

He gave a pretty laugh and Rey felt her heart flutter. They were, like, totally gonna date, right? As long as they kept on vibing? But that was totally the train track they were on right now, right?

Her friends thought so, but they were always too nice to her. I could ask Baz.

She’d rather die, actually.

He asked her about food she liked, and media, and music, and she asked it all back. When she was done, as quickly as she could be, they made their way towards his locker, talking all the while. And when he went through his locker, and she was leaning against the one next to his, he was leaning so close to her it felt like they were all that existed. She wanted to lean forward and nuzzle into his porcelain neck. She was lost in thought, imagining all of the things she could do to his throat with her mouth- licking, kissing, biting, all the while tracing all of his pretty little birthmarks with her finger- when he spoke and broke her out of her fantasy.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” he barely whispered, and even Rey, with her phenomenal hearing, could barely parse out the words from how softly he said them. She blinked and flushed, compulsively tucking her hair behind her ear as she flushed red beneath her makeup.

“Thanks, Ben.” She looked at his simple burgundy button-down with the sleeves pushed up, coupled with black-and-grey striped skinny jeans and, today, chunky black boots that were more overtly Punk-Rock than usual. There were spikes. “I love your boots.”

He got a cock-eyed grin. “Me, too. Thanks.”

“Are you single?” Rey blurted, and he grinned.

“Smooth,” Rey could barely hear Poe say; she heard what sounded like a light slap and quiet chastising.

“Yeah,” Ben said, then glanced at Rey with a playfully pensive once-over. “You?”

Rey nodded, as her lips seemed to be glued shut, though she was pretty sure she had answered that one yesterday. Ben closed his locker, smirking, head tilted up towards the bright LED lights on the ceiling as he seemed to consider what to say next.

He was wearing eyeliner today.

Rey wanted to suck the his exposed throat into her mouth and see the pretty colors that would blossom afterwards.

“Maybe, we’ll change that,” he said very softly. Rey blinked, nodded, factory reset, and began to stutter as she definitely flushed red enough that her makeup wasn’t fooling anyone; he chuckled softly and set a hand on the small of her back and started walking, and she shut right up. His hand didn’t linger- they’d probably get yelled at for it if it did- but it had helped. He asked her where her classes were, and they talked about that.

It wouldn’t really be convenient to meet up at any point, save for before homeroom, before lunch, and after school, as he pointed out with a bummed expression. Rey said that that was okay, softly, and that ‘after school’ was a long time. He seemed pleased by that, and in fact, after a moment, his hand lightly twitched against hers. Rey gasped and he pulled back and looked away, but Rey flushed and snatched his hand and guided it back between them, lacing her fingers with his and turning her face away to physically cringe at herself. But he squeezed her hand at once, and his fit so well against hers, and soon enough, she was looking solemnly at her feet with a burning face and butterflies fluttering through her stomach, chest, and head.

It was much more pleasant of an ache now, though.

He walked her to her class and they stopped a few yards away to lean against the painted cinder block wall, still holding hands. She didn’t know where hers ended and his began.

His eyes fell to her lips, and instinctively, hers dropped to his. They were plump, pink. Pouty.

Kissable. Biteable.

“Do you want…?” he said, and she nodded. He leaned down and pressed one sweet, soft, lingering kiss into her mouth. When she could feel him start to pull away, she kissed him again; he shifted and kissed her once more, almost open-mouthed, before pulling back.

“That’s enough,” called Rey’s homeroom teacher in a flat, slightly uncomfortable tone.

“Have a nice day, Rey,” Ben said softly.

“You, too.”

“See you at my locker before lunch?”

“Uh-huh.”

It was, as always, a typical school day. Rey couldn’t stop thinking about Ben and the way he smelled and the feel of his lips and his hand against hers and the sound of his voice and his laughter, but she did participate menially in class.

It was all easy for her, anyway.

At lunch, she was all but running to her locker to make sure Ben didn’t finish early and decide to come by, precisely because Baz was already there not only with Kay, but her usual band of six bitches (six including her and Kay). 

“Happy birthday,” Kay said after Rey had opened her locker, much to Rey’s surprise. She looked over to ensure Kay was looking at her.

“Thanks so much,” Rey said softly, and she was a little annoyed at how genuinely happy she sounded. She was, and she didn’t mind, but she didn’t really want them to know.

“I heard you kissed the new guy,” Baz said in a smarmy tone.

Rey turned crimson. “Yup.” Baz’s friends giggled as Rey closed her locker. “Have a nice day.” Rey also wanted to specify ‘Kay’, and her alone, but she didn’t.

“You, too!” Kay called. Rey hadn’t really needed to specify, anyway.

“Happy birthday,” Baz said in a strange tone, and her nameless cronies echoed very half-heartedly.

“Thanks,” Rey said, matching Bazine’s fake, rosy-but-disinterested tone as she walked away without glancing back; something even possessed her to toss her hair over her shoulder, though she was certain she did it more gracefully than snotty little Bazine could ever achieve.

Rey leaned against her usual locker once she had gotten to Ben’s and he gave her a quick peck on the temple. “How was your morning?”

“Fine,” Rey said. “People are talking about us. They do that a lot here- gossip, in general.”

Ben shrugged, entirely unbothered. “What are they saying?”

“Well, they wouldn’t say that much to my face since it’s about me, but I doubt there’s much substance, anyway. This rumor’s probably true.”

His eyes twinkled and he turned to look at her, and she started to get self-conscious again. “Oh, and what’s the true rumor?”

Red-faced, Rey gave him a little angry pout, but he just kept looking at her with sparkling eyes and a wide grin, and she cracked. She looked to the side, still pouting a little. “All she said was that she heard I kissed the new guy,” she chickened out from his challenge, but she didn’t really have any grand, pretty words coming into her head that she should say instead.

“Ah. That is true,” he said, seemingly taking it easily.

“And I’ll do it again, too,” Rey forced out, hopefully a happy compromise, as she lifted her chin. She knew her façade wasn’t bulletproof from the way he grinned, but she could also tell he liked it, anyway, so she tried not to fret. He came in close and she sucked in a sharp breath.

“Do it, then,” he bid softly. Rey gulped, but showed no more hesitation before leaning in to press a chaste kiss into his lips.

“Not much at school,” she said softly, and he nodded. “Teachers more than…” She trailed off as he finished pulling out his lunch, which did seem much more full than the day before, and then closed his locker before taking her hand in his.

“This okay at school?” he asked after a moment, squeezing her hand. She flushed and nodded, squeezing back.

Well, if she had to wait until senior year for any real amount of high school romance, at least the universe had given her one that seemed to be going really well. At least the meet-cute would be a pleasant memory, even if he started being a weirdo.

That was really all she was asking for, at her age. Though she certainly wouldn’t mind if they kept vibing.

She shivered slightly, fighting the anxiety as they made it to the lunchroom. Rey wondered if she should go wait in line for lunch until he pulled out his food and revealed about as much food as she thought it would be theoretically possible for two people to eat in a thirty-minute period without being trained competitive eaters.

“Wow,” Rey said.

“I told my mom you’re pretty,” Ben muttered humorously, and Rey giggled. “She’s a good winglady. Wingmama.”

“Damn. I was told there would be perks, but this is next-level.”

Ben started opening tupperware with a grin, and after a moment, Rey followed suit. “You haven’t gotten any of the ‘pretty’ perks yet?” he asked, voice jovial but clearly bothered by the thought.

“Nope. Well, one time, a stranger at Sephora bought me concealer because she said I’d be ‘really pretty’ if I started using it. I was wearing concealer at the time. Which is rude, but, you know, makeup’s fucking expensive and I’m still using that damn concealer, so.”

He laughed, but he was shaking his head, a sadness joining the joy in his eyes. “Stupid,” he remarked softly, and it warmed Rey’s heart just a little bit.

“What about you? You get any of the ‘pretty’ perks yet?”

Ben made a face. “None of the ‘pretty’ perks for guys are worth a damn. Besides, I get more ‘tall’ perks than ‘pretty’ perks with girls.”

They started devouring the metric fuckton of Italian food that Ben’s mother had sent for them, and he revealed that they were Italian and it was a modified version of the family recipe that they’d had for centuries. Rey decided not to speculate that that was why the sauce was weirdly sweet, because it was all still really good. Once they’d eaten all of the chicken parmesan and gotten to subjects such as religion and career aspiration, they moved onto the two puddings.

Both were great, but Rey found she liked them best when she marbled them together. Ben agreed, and said he’d tell his mom about ‘this discovery’. Rey was on cloud fucking nine, but she did keep an eye on the clock so she could warn him ahead of the bell so he didn’t just zoom off. They put his tupperware away together as they finished dessert, and Rey felt blissfully stuffed after her final bite. As she looked over at Ben, he had some on his lip, and something just… Came over her. She leaned in and gave him an open-mouthed kiss, taking the pudding as a prize. He hummed in surprise, gave her a kiss, and pulled back. She looked away with a wide grin and red cheeks as she readied her things. “I’ll see you after school?”

He paused as the bell rang. Students began to pour out of the exits, and Ben leaned over to press a kiss into Rey’s cheek. “See you then,” he said before he twisted easily around her and disappeared into the crowd. Rey lingered until it was a little more sparse before making her way to her locker to grab her things for her last two classes.

After class, Rey found Ben at his locker, but she stood between him and her friends and they all talked for a while. When Finn bluntly asked if they were dating, Ben said ‘not yet’ as Rey turned red as a beet.

“That’s a little presumptuous, buddy,” Poe said with a grin that said he approved well enough.

Ben shrugged as he closed his locker, then wrapped himself around Rey from behind like a jacket. Rey couldn’t help but tuck herself back into him and let her hands trail over his exposed forearms. “You’re so cold,” she couldn’t help but assert.

“You’re so hot,” he teased quietly.

“Anyway- Rey?” Paige said pointedly, though her voice wasn’t cruel; they just had somewhere to be soon. “Text me as soon as you know what you wanna get up to, and I’ll pick you up at whatever time you give me on the dot, as long as it’s after five.”

“It has to be, I’ll be busy until, like, six,” Rey reminded her. “Love you, Paigie. Drive safe.”

“Cool, always do,” Paige said. She and Rose both gave everyone but Ben a quick squeeze before hurrying off to make a video call with their grandparents across the world. They were getting sick; their family was making plans, figuring things out, and of course, spending time together. Rey sent good vibes their way as Ben said something about ‘getting to dawdling’ while they still had time, and Rey nodded and said her goodbyes to her other friends, too.

Ben’s car was a deep blue 2022 Ford Explorer, and it was both clean and in good condition. They got in and buckled up; he turned on the radio, and it started playing the alternative station. “What do you wanna hear, birthday girl? I’ve got bluetooth, too, so it can be as personalized as you’d like.”

“This is good,” she said. “We’re gonna be talking, and this is the station that I usually listen to in the car.”

“Do you have one?” Ben wondered.

“Um, not of my own. I use my mom’s when I can, she really only uses it to go to and from work. Otherwise, I could take it to school.”

They chatted for a short time before, rather out of the blue, he asked, “What would you do if someone told you something crazy? But, like, harmless crazy. They were abducted by aliens or they know the government is hiding that the moon is made out of cheese, or something.”

Rey gave a chuckle. “I don’t know. Smile, nod, and move on with my life.”

He laughed quietly, seemingly amused by that, and he didn’t answer. After a while, he asked, “Do you wanna… Stop by my house? I don’t know how long you have to dawdle.”

“If I’m home before 4:15, my mom’s happy. If I’m home after 4:30, she’s mad,” Rey said.

“Gotcha. So… My place until roughly 4:10, depending on how long Google says it takes to drive there?”

“Sounds good,” Rey said.

“Would you rather go snorkeling or hiking?” Ben asked after a moment.

“Hiking,” Rey said without hesitation. “Humans are not aquatic animals and I would not like to help in changing that.”

His house was a half a mile away from hers, but that was as the crow flies and he lived in a fancy, isolated, little cul-de-sac. They could walk between the two in ten minutes flat, so he was just going to walk her home. There was even a trail to walk through it that led to Rey’s house, if you knew the turns to take, and Rey had spent her whole life wandering over those trails; she knew them like the back of her hand.

She recognized his new house, even… But only from the back. She’d watched it get built just a couple years ago from the back, and she could still picture the exposed yellow beams that were now hidden in the walls.

The second they walked in, Rey heard a cat growl, but she was used to most animals needing a while before they liked her. In fact, almost without exception, they hated her at first, and a good half of them never really got over it.

Even her own had taken a week to tolerate her, a month to like her, and almost a year to love her. She didn’t really know why, but she just respected their space and gave them time. It was all she could do, really.

“Dad! Can you take the cat out? I don’t think she likes my friend,” Ben said nonchalantly. He led her to the left into a dining room, away from the cat; he led her beyond that into a kitchen where a beautiful, plump woman with short hair of every color between sepia and silver was seemingly preparing for dinner at a round kitchen table near an open pantry. She looked up from the potatoes she was peeling into the garbage and grinned. “Hey, Mom. This is Rey.”

“Hello, dear,” she said. “And hello, Rey! So nice to meet you! I hear you’ve made coming to a new school a lot easier on Ben than it usually is.”

Ben flushed as Rey straightened, processing that. “W-well, I’m glad. Hello- nice to meet you, um…?”

“You can call me Leia, Miss Solo, Ben’s mom, ‘you, lady’- whatever rolls off the tongue.”

“Miss Solo? It’s Dr. Organa,” Ben corrected, bewildered by her offer.

“No, please,” she said. “I’m only Dr. Organa at work. The ever-permeating anxiety at the thought of work is simply too much to bear in the peace of my own home. Besides— you get to go by just Solo, but I don’t?”

“You bitch at me all the time about it,” Ben countered. Leia gave him a stern, motherly look as Rey looked on with a wide grin.

A man walked in holding a very angry Jaina, who buried herself in his hands and wouldn’t take her eyes off of Rey as he carried the cat towards what looked like a back door.

“That’s my dad,” Ben said.

“Hi,” Ben’s dad grunted.

“Tell her what to call you,” Ben almost-but-not-quite snapped.

“Watch your tone,” Leia said in a solemn voice.

“Han,” Ben’s dad said, giving Rey a glance and a dad-like, tight-lipped smile as he held the squirming cat. “I got my hands full, Ben. I’ll meet your little girlfriend later.”

Rey couldn’t stifle an anxious giggle as Ben rolled his eyes and flushed red. “We’re… Not there yet,” he mumbled in the most angsty voice she’d ever heard. It was almost a comfort to know that he was a little bit uncomfortable, too. Han muttered something or another as he walked off, and Rey could tell exactly where Ben got his mumbling from; Han’s syllables were incomprehensible, even to Rey.

Leia offered snacks, but Ben politely refused; she seemed flabbergasted and maybe offended, but he explained they didn’t have much time right now, she had birthday plans with her mother, and it was then that Leia reluctantly dismissed them. She didn’t seem to care that he led her upstairs into a giant suite that was clearly Ben’s bedroom. It looked like a hotel room that had been possessed by a teenage boy.

She presumed that Leia had chosen the furniture, and the sheets. That being said, all of a sudden, she could see Ben not caring at all about that stuff, not even a little bit. It looked like his bed was barely used, while the sitting area and the desk were clearly well lived-in and Boyified. “If you don’t believe me,” he said suddenly. “What I’m about to tell you…”

Rey turned to look at him, and he looked so serious and more than a little cautious. Rey blinked several times as he took her hands softly in his, and she studied him and… Waited. She felt a little apprehensive.

“It’s important you believe me, ‘cause it’s happening tonight. Do you have any guess as to what I might be talking about?”

She blinked several more times. “... No?”

He sighed. “Well… Okay, let’s start somewhere else, though… With another unreal thing. If you don’t believe me about this thing, I can prove it- my mom can, too. My dad could confirm.”

Rey blinked just one more time, not really following at all. “Uh-huh…”

“I’m a vampire. So is my mother. My father is not, which is why he’d only be able to confirm it.”

Rey just looked at him for a while. It didn’t really process- not truly. “... What does ‘proving it’ consist of?”

Ben seemed reassured that she wasn’t running, or calling him crazy, or gently excusing herself, or something. “Um, well, my mother’s better at it than I am. I could… Bite you. But I guess that’s not great proof. Um- my mom can do more, but-” Ben suddenly cut himself off, and his neck twitched. Rey gasped and recoiled just a little as his face suddenly twisted up Buffy-style, though not quite as dramatic. He looked gaunt and truly carved of stone, his features a bit more villainous, his eyes deep, blood red. His teeth were different- two long fangs that seemed to have sprouted out from the gums above his teeth, rather than a change in his existing ones, and they looked so fascinating. Rey blinked a few more times.

“... What can your mother do?” Rey said, and she started to get goosebumps as the implications of it all just barely began to creep upon her.

Slowly.

“She can turn into a bat, a snake, or a spider, and she could also, um… Enchant you. It’s like hypnotizing, in the… ‘Fake’ way. Well- she could definitely use her magic to help hypnotize someone for real, if she wanted to, I guess. Probably, anyway- I’m not an expert.”

“Ah,” Rey said, but she was staring at his fangs, and she was pretty sure she believed him just like that. Also, that sounded painful. “Um… What’s happening tonight?”

Ben… Did the weird animorph back into Regular Ben before meeting her eye. “You’re a werewolf. You’re going to transform at midnight-”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Rey said suddenly. She was just… Bewildered.

Ben set his lips together and studied her face, appraising her. “I can smell it on you,” he said softly. “You can smell the vampirism on me- I saw it, when you came over to sit by me? … Your sense of smell will get a lot better after you transform for the first time.”

“Transform into what?” she said, which might have seemed like a stupid question, but she was looking for ‘a wolf’ or ‘wolfman’ or ‘freaky wendigo-esque abomination’ or something like that.

“It depends on how your body handles the transformation,” Ben said. “I’m not an expert, but I know on your coming-of-age, you’re supposed to turn into a wolf, but it isn’t always successful or ‘complete’ the first time. I know werewolves can turn into weird, wolfman hybrids, but I don’t think that one’s compulsory, and it’s definitely not the first transformation. But we have family- friends- we can help you figure it out. But, um…”

Rey just stared at him. It was a lot harder to believe him telling her something like that about herself.

She couldn’t stop focusing on his scent now. He didn’t smell like mercury, like she’d associated him with; he smelled like iron. And it was such a clear scent to her now; he smelled like the coins she’d sucked on as a kid for no reason, or the streams of blood from a scraped-up knee that most extremely weird eight-year-olds would never pass the chance to sample, only to curl their nose up at the metallic twang it offered. “Do you drink blood?”

“Yes,” he said. “We usually buy it from blood banks- the ones that… Know about us, actually, and accommodate as much as possible when blood is so in demand. Sometimes, Mom bites Dad. I used to, but… It’s weird now after puberty. Oh- I can drink animal blood, too, but I’d have to be starving to death to… Like, jump and drain an animal. There are also blood banks of animal blood that are much more plentiful for us.”

She took a long time to take that in, her entire world shaken to its core but, strangely, mostly intact. “But you eat food, too,” Rey said after a moment.

He nodded. “It… Works the same as other people, ahem. It would keep me alive longer than nothing at all, but I could happily live off of just blood, if I drank a lot more of it. I think of it more like a… Dietary supplement, though. My vitamin Iron drink in the morning to get me moving.” He sat down, and she did the same, their hands still clasped. He tilted his head to the side, and his voice was delicate when he said. “... Let’s focus on you tonight. How are you, ah… Processing?”

Rey snorted. “Ah, I’m not. What’s supposed to happen tonight?”

Ben shrugged, studying her like he was a little worried. “It’ll feel like cracking your fingers- almost painful, but mostly bearable. The fur and the hair coming in are both gonna itch, or so I hear, but I can’t transform into anything yet, so I can’t say for sure. You’ll still be you, although a lot of emotions are ‘dulled’ and you’ll be more… Instinctive. Impulsive, or something. I think you’re gonna wanna run around in the woods- is it safe? Might someone see you?”

Rey turned to look out the window, where she could see the woods in question. They were longer than they were thick, but their houses were only a half mile apart. “... I don’t know,” she said, and suddenly, she felt like she had no idea what she was going to do.

She had to be a wolf tonight? Her body was gonna crack ‘almost’ painfully?

“It runs in families,” he said. “Is there any chance your mother’s a werewolf? Can I ask about your father, if he’s in the picture?”

Rey met his eyes again. “He’s not. I can’t… I can’t imagine she’s… I don’t know. We’re not-... I guess, we’re not that close,” Rey shifted, then kicked her shoes off and lay a little presumptuously down across his bed. Ben followed suit, unbothered, and laced the fingers of one of each of their hands together. “My parents were, as far as I can tell, friends with benefits- but childhood friends. He was in the army. He died when I was three months old, a few months before he could even meet me. If he was-... I don’t think she’d know. He was her neighbors’ foster kid.”

“Do you know his name?” Ben said eagerly. “If he was in the army, they had to know he was a werewolf; they accommodate that, my Uncle Luke was a marine.”

Rey kind of didn’t like that, even though it was… Good? Why didn’t most people know about this?

Oh, Gd. The implications.

She almost missed the shock that was wearing off. “Yeah, I do. Shawn Palpatine.”

“I can go talk to my mom right now,” Ben said, glancing at the clock. “And then… We should, um, probably go. I figured you should talk to your mom- my mom can help, maybe, if you don’t know what to do, but we’re not… We need different things, I guess. Werewolves and vampires.”

Rey felt like she was going to throw up. “I mean… Okay. Let’s go talk to your mom.”

They went downstairs to find Leia sauteeing some vegetables. It smelled nice. Rey declined the offer to stay for dinner in a very meek tone. Ben asked about looking up Rey’s dad’s name on the ‘soup-reg’, whatever that meant, and Leia waved him off.

“You know where the damn thing is, go for it, if she’s so damn close to being late. It really was a pleasure to meet you, dear!”

“You, too,” Rey said. Ben led her to a different room, where a computer sat on a desk, and he went to it. Nothing seemed weird; he opened up an unfamiliar web browser, went to an unfamiliar website, and it was clearly a registry, though it was very vague, as if they were afraid of people hacking into the super secret supernatural internet. Rey had to sit down.

Ben’s lap was a good (and the only) option. When he spelled it wrong, Rey gently batted away his hands and typed it in properly.

And there he was, even with a picture of him she hadn’t seen before looking bored and exhausted as he stared dead-eyed at the camera in his military garb.

She could relate to the expression. “So, he’s a… Werewolf,” Rey said. Ben put his finger on the screen, pointing at the words SN SS: WW.

“Supernatural subspecies: werewolf,” he said.

They couldn’t dawdle much longer, so instead, they set out down the path in the woods, silent for a couple of minutes.

“What are you gonna do?” he asked gently.

“Talk to my mom, I guess? Jeez. I wonder if she knows.”

“I didn’t wanna ask inside, because Mom would want me to… Well, we’re not supposed to tell humans. Mom would want me to make you promise you wouldn’t tell her, but I’m not your keeper. You know you and your life and your mother better than I do.”

“I don’t think I could hide… Needing to be outside once a month. Not for long.”

There was a pause. “I get that. Do you want to tell her?”

Rey shook her head.

“I mean… You’re eighteen now.”

“She’d kick me out,” Rey said. “I don’t have- anything. I don’t even have a plan-”

Ben seemed so troubled. He looked over. “My mother’s loaded, mostly by inheritance but she’s earned millions of dollars herself. And she would help anyone in your position.”

Rey didn’t know what to say about that. “I could definitely get her to reluctantly agree to me sleeping over at Paige and Rose’s place. She likes their mom; she’s crazy conservative, I think that soothes my paranoid mother. Like there can’t possibly be any corrupting forces there.”

“Your mom sounds-...” But Ben stopped himself.

“She’s a cunt,” Rey said dismissively. “I… I need help finding somewhere tonight. I’ll worry about next month, next month. Right?”

“That sounds good,” he said.

“Thank you,” Rey said after a moment, feeling super uncomfortable.

“Don’t mention it.”

And so Rey stopped mentioning it. The rest of their walk, though riddled with anxiety on Rey’s part, was just quiet and gentle. They held hands the whole time. “Will you be with me when it happens?” Rey asked as they finally approached her mother’s trailer home. Ben eyed it warily, and it did annoy Rey a little.

“Of course,” he said without hesitation. Rey squeezed his hand and softened again.

“Thanks. I’ll, um, text you after I’m done with my mom. I’m gonna do something with Rose and Paige- when should I, like, be done by?”

“I’ll talk to mom about finding more acreage, preferably owned by someone who has agreed to not be hunting on it. I’ll text you as soon as I know.”

Rey nodded. It was a good thing she never planned anything. “Make out with me a bit first.”

She would feel so stupid saying something like that, but he just swooped down on her in an instant, pressing her into the thick pole of the drying rack they seldom used and wrapping his arms around her. They kissed each other breathless, paused for air, and kissed their breath away one more time before pulling away and saying goodbye. Rey walked in to find her mother meditating cross-legged on the floor.

“Happy birthday,” Mom said in an airy, soft voice she used whenever she was meditating, whether on purpose or on accident.

“Thanks,” Rey said. “I’m going to sleep over at the Ticos’ place. Mr. Tico’s on a hunting trip with John, so there won’t be any boys, not even ones I wouldn’t sleep with if both of our lives depended on it.”

“I guess,” Mom said in a voice a bit closer to her usual, just a little muted and clouded with annoyance. “I’d sleep with Mr. Tico,” she added in a softer voice. “Or John.”

“Good for you, Mom,” Rey said, grossed out, as she headed for her room.

John was twenty.

Rey had a surprisingly nice time heading into the nearby city to go window shopping at her mother’s favorite stores. Now that she was older, Mom actually cared what she looked like in anything at all; now that Rey wasn’t a child who needed raising, Mom had started trying to treat her like a friend.

It was better than nothing. Rey just wanted to heal, grow, and move on.

They even stopped at Rey’s favorite restaurant in town for the best seafood Rey had ever had in her life before Mom dropped her off at Paige’s house, as Rey had finally settled on a plan while her mother had gotten all dolled up to be seen by other human beings.

“Mom,” Rey said before she got out of the car. She kept her voice casual as she looked over at her mother’s face.

“Rochelle,” Mom said as she turned to meet her eye.

“Was Dad a werewolf?”

Mom laughed, and Rey knew within two seconds that Mom had no idea. Rey played it off and luckily, her mother brushed it off with ease. Rey got out of the car, wondering if her dad was as much of an idiot as he seemed to have needed to be , but hopefully, he just… Hadn’t considered he wouldn’t come home to be the one to tell Rey himself.

That was really sad. And kind of stupid. But maybe he hadn’t had any family, and couldn’t bear to break the rule and tell his baby mama.

She had a lot of fun doing a spa day with the Tico sisters, as well as Finn, Poe, Jannah, and Jess. They watched movies over mani-pedis and just had a good time.

Rey had a great time, in fact, until she remembered that she had somewhere to be in two hours. The last two hours were increasingly anxious, and her friends were visibly concerned.

There was still a large part of her kind of expecting nothing to happen, though.

Eventually, it was time for Rey to go. Ben picked her up in his car and he drove for about forty minutes, holding hands unless he needed both, music playing softly over the radio. Rey was tired by now and wishing she was in bed, but she just stared out the window at the woods and knew, instinctively, that she needed to be here.

What the hell would she have done were it not for Ben? She didn’t even want to know.

They parked outside of a cabin. “This is my uncle’s hunting cabin,” he explained after a moment. “No one’s here. Mom got it all set up for us to crash at afterwards- two beds, just in case you’re more comfortable that way- and she brought some food. Lots of it. I assume you’ll be extra hungry tomorrow morning. It takes a lot of energy to transform, no matter the end form.”

“I’m so scared,” Rey barely breathed as he opened his car door. He paused and looked over at her, but she opened her door and he hurried out and towards her. He hugged her and she fell into him as she realized just how terrified she was.

She was starting to feel it. Her muscles were aching like she needed to run. Her heart was starting to pound, though how much was fear and how much was the approaching ‘transformation’, she had no idea. She just went limp in his arms and felt him. She could hear his heart pumping, his organs working. She could taste his scent on her tongue.

The longer she stood there, the stranger she felt, and by 11:30, she knew these weird urges and emotions would’ve guided her outside right around now. She also knew it would’ve been a helluva lot scarier, and a lot, lot worse.

A few minutes after that, she was pacing around and seriously considering stripping. She’d have to do it to transform, wouldn’t she? It’d be the better option. But she didn’t really wanna writhe around in pain with her tits and pussy out. She glanced nervously at Ben.

“I think I need to get naked,” she said, wondering why she’d bothered to change out of her sundress at all, as she just couldn’t realistically do it while clothed. Any clothes would probably get ruined and/or ripped, and while Rey was more alright with roughing up her comfy jammies than her $30 dress, she liked them and didn’t want to lose them; afterwards, Ben would have to strip wolf-Rey of whatever clothing she would’ve been wearing.

“Listen to your instinct. It knows what you need to do, and when,” Ben said. Rey huffed and stopped to kick off her shoes. She pulled off the pajamas she’d changed into at Rose’s, handing them gingerly to Ben who was very admirably trying not to be obvious about the fact that he was ogling her. She was surprisingly indifferent to being naked in front of him, not that she was usually squeamish about showing her body. It was just that she was usually squeamish around pretty boys.

“It’s cold,” she said.

“Do you want my hoodie from the car? It’ll be easiest to chuck off while still actually helping you feel warmer.”

“Yes, please.” Rey took the giant black hoodie when he held it out to her, and she pulled it around her and held it closed in a hug. She felt warmer pretty much instantly. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course. Whatever you want, Rey.”

She surged forward into him, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her.

“You’re alright. You’re safe. You’re not vulnerable; I’m right here, and I’ll protect you.”

Something about his words soothed a specific worry she hadn’t quite singled out consciously in her mind. She eyed the woods around them, just as nervous about being alone in the woods as your typical teen girl, and also apparently worried something was going to attack and eat her because it could… Sense her? It felt intuitive to be afraid of hungry bears that could tell she’d be uniquely vulnerable, and therefore a particularly yummy treat.

But Ben was here, and if they could sense her, surely, they could sense him. Rey had, and she hadn’t even realized it.

It wasn’t long before she was sweating, and it felt almost like she had low blood sugar, or a crazy adrenaline rush- something similar rushing through her body, sending a sense of alertness and alarm throughout her body, and she was back to pacing. She wandered around, looking for something.

Somewhere… Good. Whatever that meant. Ben followed after her, and his company was definitely a comfort. Rey situated herself between the cabin, a big bush, and an ivy-covered chain link fence, giving herself exactly as much room as she felt she needed, and then she just… Got down on her hands and knees. She had to be silent. She had to keep her eyes open, scanning the world around her.

She barely felt like herself anymore.

“You’re doing really well, Rey,” Ben told her.

Chapter Text

“You’re doing really well, Rey.”

Rey’s eyes found him. He was sitting not four whole feet away, leaning back against a tree trunk. The world was nearly silent around them, like there was a predator around, but all that Rey could sense by way of predator was Ben.

… It was probably him keeping everything silent and/or hidden away.

“I’m right here. It’s all gonna be fine.”

She moved forward on all fours far more naturally than should’ve been possible, and she crawled forward to set her forehead on his. “Thank you,” she said, and although it felt so strange and unnatural to talk, it sounded fine.

He kissed her cheek, then her temple, and she nuzzled into him. “Of course, baby,” he said softly. She pulled back a few moments later, just as her muscles began to twitch visibly under her skin.

“It’s happening,” she said, watching her skin as it moved of its own volition.

“It’s, ah… It’s been happening,” he said softly, and the soft, curious look on his face said that she wouldn’t fully recognize herself if there was a reflection anywhere around them. “It’s not usually this slow, is all. Your body’s figuring out how to reshape itself into a wolf. It’ll come so much easier next time, when it’s done it once before. Within a year you’ll probably forget how hard it used to be- most people do.”

Rey lingered there, occasionally finding a new position that seemed to need to be comfortable for both humans and wolves, or some part or another of her body began to ache fast. She didn’t know how much time had passed, and it wasn’t long before her lips wouldn’t articulate and her tongue was a stranger in her mouth.

If Ben wasn’t here, she would’ve freaked the fuck out. As it was, she rode the waves as they came, never truly floating at the top of the water, but gasping in just enough air to keep her head on straight.

It was really weird once she started looking down and seeing herself as a wolf.

Eventually, she had done it, and she collapsed onto her side and panted, just trying to acclimatize to… Everything. Colors were strange; time was slow; sounds were… Deeper, and everywhere. Scents were a whole new world. She was pretty sure that that strange… Mist… That she could see was the earth’s magnetic field. Before she could even manage to fully relax, however, she could tell that it was already starting in reverse.

It didn’t take as long. So that was good.

When she was her own, naked self again, she collapsed on her side and then rolled onto her back, looking up at the starry sky probably less than an hour before dawn. She looked over at Ben, who was cooing gentle encouragement at her. She reached out and looked at him with pleading eyes, and he blinked before standing up, walking over, scooping her up so gently, and carrying her into the cabin. By ‘two beds’ he meant ‘the one bed and also the shitty couch with a sheet pulled over the cushions’, so it was a good thing Rey was looking forward to cuddling on the bed or she’d feel bad and feel inclined to invite him to join her, anyway. She sheepishly asked him to help her wash off the dirt and sweat, and he did, and if Rey wasn’t so sore and exhausted and physiologically overwhelmed, she didn’t think she’d be able to let him shower her. But he touched her so gently and looked at her so reverently and he treated her so sweetly, and in the aftermath of her world transforming in tune with her body, it only felt like mild, pleasant relief for him to massage his hands into her most intimate of places, only some of which had ever been explored by anyone other than Rey herself.

But he didn’t linger, sweet boy. He went quickly, and Rey was happy when he finally helped her lower her body onto the stiff bed provided to them. “Do you want me to join you?” he asked.

“Gd, yes, please,” she all but whined, and he stopped to get himself into pajamas before laying beside her. She curled into him, humming fondly as his hands massaged her. She might’ve fallen asleep a microsecond, or a couple of minutes later, but it wasn’t much later than that.

When she awoke, he was wide awake, and in fact it didn’t seem like he’d slept at all. Rey spent several silent minutes cuddling him and waking up as he idly stroked her back.

“Did you sleep?” she asked eventually, her voice groggy.

“Oh. Uh, no. I don’t… Have to do that very often. And I can’t do it in a bed- sleep, that is.”

“Do you…?” Rey trailed off.

“Sleep in a coffin? Kinda. A lot of the old ones did, or do. I just sleep in a… Coffin-sized drawer beneath the mattress, in my bed frame itself. It needs to be dark and… Small. And hard. I don’t like soft surfaces.”

“Is there… Anything weird about werewolves?”

“Um… Kind of. But not that many for girls- AFAB people, really. Contextually, I mean, it’s the more accurate language here.”

Rey wondered if he was implying that penis-ed werewolves had lipstick dicks. She didn’t imagine she could eke information about her own father’s penis out of her mother, and she also didn’t want to, but it would be for strictly scientific purposes. She didn’t want to ask Ben.

… She could ask Leia, maybe, if she remembered to after a few more conversations. Leia seemed chill.

“Okay, but, what are the ones that are there for AFAB people?”

“Um… I… It’s kind of complicated, I think. I think you should ask my mom.”

Rey blinked at him. “She’s cool,” she said in a soft, unsure tone, and he gave a sage nod.

“Yeah. She’s also a scientist who specializes in… Understanding werewolf biology. So, like… Best person to ask.”

“Oh. Oh, wow,” Rey said. That was a crazy coincidence. “Okay. I… Can I talk to her soon? Like… Before or after the party, even?”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “She won’t be home until after the party starts. You’re welcome over anytime. Um- not that I think I need to say this, but just in case-” Ben looked so flustered all of a sudden. “Um, but even if we don’t… Work out… And I think we will, but you should know that if we don’t, you’re still welcome over. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to not have family through all of… This. I mean it, anything you need or even want, my mom’ll help. She’s a wonderful person, and I wanna be her when I grow up. But again- I’m hoping we will. Thinking we will. I mean, as much as-”

Rey kissed him, and at once, he kissed her back. They kissed mindlessly until his alarm went off and he pulled back as she startled. “It’s, ah, six,” he said. School started in two hours, and it was a forty minute drive home. Rey sighed.

“Is there a coffee pot here?”

“No, my uncle hates caffeine,” Ben said apologetically. “But there’s a Starbucks on the way.”

“Um…”

“I’ll pay,” Ben asserted after a moment of Rey not knowing how to say she didn’t have money for Starbucks. Rey tried not to remember the way he’d eyeballed her house, because she could tell he was genuinely being nice. “Whatever you want.”

“I’d appreciate it, thanks,” she said softly. They walked out to his car, he opened her door and helped her in, and then gently closed her door. The drive was nice, and Rey dozed off as Ben spent a lot of the time either humming or singing softly along to Green Day.

School happened. They ate loaded, delicious subs for lunch, and also banana-and-chocolate pudding, pre-swirled, now complete with fruit on top. School ended. Rey decided to walk home, and she listened mostly to very horny love songs, as well as a few Halloween favorites, while having silly little daydreams about herself and Ben. Rey showered, checked in with her mother, told her she’d stay with the Ticos for another night, and then had to talk her down while she ranted and raved at Rey about the woes of harlotry and single motherhood. Rey assured her mother she’d be doing ‘nothing of the sort’, then escaped to her room as soon as she could. She tried to pretend she couldn’t hear her mother go from ranting about her poor decisions on the phone, to fake sobbing, then real sobbing, then onto television that was too loud, rinse and repeat as Rey got dressed, put her hair up in a period-style hairdo before doing her makeup to make herself seem as pretty and precious and doll-like as possible.

And it was then that she realized she was dressing up as… Laura, from a vampire novella. When they existed in real life. To go to a party with a date who just so happened to be a real life vampire. And she paused to blink a few times before sighing and just getting right back to it.

Once she looked as good as she believed she could, she added two little fake fang marks, trailing quite a bit of fake blood- she stopped only when she was nervous she might get it on her clothes at some point through the evening if she went any farther. She took a few selfies, then got up to get dressed, as well. Once she had gotten into the period-typical ensemble she had spent her entire high school career slowly making with nothing more than fabric, scissors, measuring devices, hand needles, and some thread. And the little decorations and hardware and such. She took a few more selfies, sent it to her friends- she considered showing Ben, too, but she wanted him to see her in person- and so instead she just texted him that she was ready for him to come get her, and he texted her pretty much right away saying he was out back.

They were walking through the woods, apparently. It was a good thing that truly authentic 1870’s clothing was generally fairly comfortable, especially since Rey had been sure to break in all of her things before committing to wearing a corset and bustle for hours on end.

Rey got outside and easily walked towards Ben through the fallen leaves and the overgrown grass. She looked up at him, then let out a rich laugh.

He was dressed as the big bad wolf, or something. He had on a giant, fuzzy onesie with a hood and giant ears, thick brown leather boots, and a nose and whiskers drawn on his face with eyeliner. “Nice,” she said.

“Happy Halloween, Laura,” he said with the world’s sexiest, most-lopsided grin. And honestly, despite being a vampire, the Big Bad Wolf suited him fairly well.

“Happy Halloween! And may I say, what pretty eyes you have,” Rey said, flushing but leaning heavily into it. He met her with a tight embrace, both arms wrapped taut around her middle. She savored the hug for a long time, breathing in the slightly changed, much more nuanced scent that he had.

“Are you gonna be okay walking in that?” he asked as he pulled away, letting his hand settle on the small of her back for a moment.

“Yeah,” she said dismissively. She shifted her skirts into one hand, then tucked her other gloved hand against his elbow. He got a toothy grin and crooked his arm to make an easy cradle for her. “Such a gentleman, Mr. Wolf,” she said. “And what big feet you have!” Rey added with enthusiasm as she looked down to really notice how massive they were, at the very least compared to her own.

“Such a treat, Miss Bennet,” he said just before he bent to press a kiss into her neck, just beside her fake vampire bite. “And you should hear about some… Other things I’ve got,” he added, holding out his other hand and examining it.

“I am Lady Laura, no last name given!” Rey exclaimed, and she wished she was holding her fan to whack him with it, but that was in her not-so-authentic messenger bag, which was a little too heavy to playfully hit someone with; it would be distinctly less funny. But then, just as he gave her a glance, she realized what he meant with the hand thing and she turned crimson and looked to the side, grinning from ear to ear as he sputtered a soft, almost apologetic laugh. “And I hope so,” she forced herself to mumble. He tugged her a little bit closer and pressed a sweet kiss into her cheek.

It was a nice walk to his house, where his car was parked. When they got in his car, it became apparent why, as Poe’s house- which always took forever for her to drive to- was really fucking close to Ben’s.

Made sense. Amilyn was loaded, too, and why would the Rich Folk make their streets convenient for or even accessible to the Poors? Their HOA association had probably planted that forest there specifically to not have to see Rey’s neighborhood in the distance.

They went inside and Rey had the honor of introducing Ben to Amilyn. Poe’s dad was apparently indisposed with a migraine- which was tragic, as he was a blast and usually he would hang out with them- so she asked them to stay in the basement, and try to keep it down a little bit. They were welcome outside, but it was too cold and too late for the pool, and they had to be very quiet on their way from the stairs to the door. They could use the hot tub if they promised to have plenty of extra towels on hand to keep everyone dry and warm; it’s cold out, Amilyn told them, as if the tips of both of their noses weren’t still a little pink.

Rey liked her, too. After her cheery sales pitch of a rule-delivery, she grinned at Ben and hugged him one more time before excitedly excusing herself to ‘do some sudoku’, like a crazy person. Oh, and if they could also remember to check the candy bowl outside every once in a while and fill it up, that would be great! Rey led Ben to the door which led to the basement, which was probably the coolest part of the house.

Well, the backyard was sick, but Rey wasn’t sure if that counted as ‘part of the house’ or not. It was outside, but also distinctly apart of it, so…

Poe and Finn lived somewhere in there, as Finn had moved in basically a week after he’d turned eighteen, but Rey hadn’t been there before and she didn’t know what it looked like. There were two guest bedrooms, one of which Rey had once made out with Rose in during what seemed like a fever dream in Rey’s memory- a study with whiskey in it that Kes had allowed them to peruse with varying frequency, completely and strictly unbeknownst to Amilyn, for a couple years now. There was also the billiards room, which had the fancy alcohol they weren’t ever supposed to drink and all sorts of manly man games and paraphernalia. But the party was located in the main room- the ‘den’, as they called it- which had a kitchenette and a full seating area and a tv, as well as enough space to dance in between the two. It was perfect for roughly a dozen people to have a house party.

They were the last to arrive, mostly because of Rey’s little fight with her mother. Finn and Poe were playing Just Dance, and Rose was making out with her shitty boyfriend, Armitage. Paige was in the kitchen with Jannah and Jess, chatting around the chip bowls. Snap and Beau were sitting on the couch having some sort of heated discussion while staring at their phones.

“Meet the misfits of Alderaan,” Rey said. “And Hux.”

“Yes, I fit in quite well, thank you,” Armitage said in his pompous British accent.

“Don’t,” Rose said softly, and he tutted softly.

“Sorry…” he murmured, with way too much rizz for how obviously disingenuous he was being, as he moved in for more.

Rey turned and walked backwards, putting her faith in her ability not to walk on her skirt. Thank Gd she’d forgone the train. She held his hand and guided him towards the middle of the room. “Do you want to dance with me?”

“To Rasputin?” Ben asked with a grin. “Absolutely.”

He swept her away and she erupted into laughter at once; he was confident, though not skilled, and she had fun as he whisked her around and spun her periodically, occasionally leaving her stunned with a passionate kiss.

After a while, the girls in the kitchen began setting out even more snacks as various things finished cooking or heating up, and about a half hour after they’d arrived, Paige said, “Dinner’s finally done.”

They all found a spot around the island, though Rey was in Ben’s lap, Rose was in Hux’s, and Poe was in Finn’s to make it work. They dug in, chatting and laughing and talking about what games they were going to play once they were done. Poe left briefly to check the candy bowl, only to return with some of the loot that he wasn’t supposed to eat until tomorrow, just in case they ran out. They all ate candy as they cleared off the table, then set out their first game of choice: Cards Against Humanity.

It was a typical party but Rey was over the moon, not only to be with her friends, but also to be with Ben, but especially to be with them all at once.

Ben fit in well. He hardly talked unless directly prompted, but he listened and participated. And he talked to Rey. At ten o’clock, they decided to start cleaning up, but they kept the party energy going until the bitter end and it was time to vacate the premises.

“You wanna go home?” Ben asked once they were in his car once again.

She really didn’t. Rey looked up at him and met his eyes, her own wide and innocent. “No,” she said softly.

He got a crooked grin. “Okay, so. You- you wanna spend the night with me?” Ben confirmed, hopeful. He looked like a golden retriever, and he was almost bouncing in his seat. Rey nodded with a grin of her own, and he sighed softly. “Okay,” he barely breathed. “So, we have two real options. I guess- I guess maybe three. We can go to my place, but we can’t have sex or do anything… My mother couldn’t bear to hear, ‘cause… She would hear it, at my place. Or we could get a hotel, which I’ll pay for. Or I guess we might be able to go back to my uncle’s cabin, but that’s not ours and it was a specific arrangement for an emergency, and…”

“A-are you okay with getting a hotel?” Rey barely whispered. She didn’t want him to think she was a whore- whatever that meant- but she didn’t really want his mom hearing them all night long, sex or no sex.

Not that having sex made someone a whore. Rey just had underlying insecurities about it. Thanks, Mom.

“Totally,” Ben said, and it seemed like he meant it. “It’s not a problem at all.”

It was quiet as he drove them to a hotel, but the radio kept them company. Rey was just starting to drift off when he pulled up to a big, fancy hotel close to the city. “You’re not, like, old, right? You’re not, like, Edward Cullen.”

“No,” Ben grumbled with a pout, but the shimmer in his eye revealed he found the question amusing. “I’m nineteen in every sense of the word. My mother is fifty-nine, but she underwent the Rite of- ahem- she killed herself when she was forty-five, and she stopped aging. She’s kinda like ‘Edward Cullen’, specifically in that way. I am nineteen.”

“Oh, that’s rad,” Rey said.

“Yeah,” he said softly, giving her a quick wink. He froze just as his hand went for the door. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“What?”

“Didn’t you, um, wanna talk to my mom, though?”

“Well, yeah,” Rey said, glancing at the clock that said it was not two full minutes away from eleven. “Is sh-?” But Rey stopped herself; of course she wasn’t asleep, he’d told her that vampires rarely do. “Oh. Right. I mean, we’re already here, though.”

Ben sat there and blinked. “I… Kinda told her you wanted to talk to her today. I think she’s expecting us. I’ll just go book the room now, then we’ll go there and come back. It’s not that much gas.”

It kind of was, but Rey reminded herself he was stupid loaded from his weird rich vampire family, so she just nodded. She let herself doze off some more, and she barely noticed when he came back into the car, barely noticed when the car started moving. She woke up fairly easily when he gently shook her, though, and she followed him inside. Leia was on the couch, cuddling both her husband and her cat; Jaina freaked out, however, and Han took a moment to look very, very exasperated before taking hold of the cat. “Hello,” he said in a cheery enough voice as he pushed to his feet with a groan. “Goodbye.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ben said.

“Yeah. Don’t fuck it up,” Han said as he walked off.

“Thanks, Dad,” Ben said again in a drier tone.

“Where’s her harness?” Han called.

Ben rolled his eyes. “On the hook, by the back door, with her leash. You know, where those things belong.”

The only words that Han mumbled that Rey could distinguish was ‘smartass… mother’, and she tried not to giggle.

“Can you understand him?” Leia asked, surprised and delighted at the concept. Rey nodded as the back door closed. “What did he say?”

“Smartass, like his mother, I think,” Rey said with an awkward grin, feeling like a snitch. Luckily, Leia only gave a laugh and sat back.

“Damn straight,” she said proudly. “Are you hungry, dear? Either of you?”

“No,” Rey said apologetically. “We just ate the equivalent of a small CVS at the party. I think I’d burst if I had another bite. A sip of water might do me in.”

Leia gave a sweet, demure laugh. “Well, come in, sit down. Please, don’t just stand in the doorway. Make yourself comfortable.”

Rey and Ben settled onto a loveseat together, and when Ben threw his arm around her right in front of his mother with no weird reaction, she tentatively laid her head on his shoulder. Leia only gave a fond smile.

She liked them. That was good, right?

“You two are cute together,” she said.

“Mom,” Ben said in a soft voice.

“What?” she demanded.

“Just don’t push it,” he muttered. Rey nuzzled into him tentatively. “But, anyway- as fun as it would and hopefully will be to chat, I’m sure she’s tired, and she’s got some questions.”

“Right,” Leia said, sitting back and switching into a more professor sort of mode than a curious mother. “Rey. Do you have any questions for me?”

Rey blinked. “Um,” she said. “Ben said there’s weird… Gender things.”

Ben cleared his throat, but he didn’t say anything. Leia processed that, and it was clear to Rey she was putting the pieces together of how she had described what he had said, and whatever truth only Leia held. “Gender things,” she echoed softly. She seemed amused. “Well, it doesn’t often have much to do with gender, though if someone, and especially a werewolf, is transgender, it often does affect their biology in… Curious ways. Are you transgender?”

“N-no,” Rey said. It was almost weird to hear an older cis woman talk about transgender people, at least without being a hateful weirdo. The bar was in hell.

“Okay. Well, then, that’s probably not particularly pertinent tonight,” Leia studied Rey softly, then gave a sweet smile. “I’m going to ask Ben a question about you. I apologize if it may seem odd that I’m asking him about you, or if the unfamiliar words I may refer to you as make you uncomfortable. You have my deepest sympathies; I have never been in a situation like this to know how to proceed, though,” Leia explained.

“You’re alright,” Rey said slowly, tentatively.

Leia looked at her son. “Do you think she’s an alpha, beta, or an omega?”

Rey tried not to react to those words. She didn’t think real wolves were anything like that, though.

Ben blinked. “I- wh- I mean, how would I know?” he asked, but his voice was strange and his eyes were… Twitchy. She watched his cheeks color slightly beneath his smudged whiskers.

“Ben, did you get any strange presumptions of her the first time you caught wind of her scent?” Leia asked, putting on a voice making fun of his blatant attempt at ignorance.

Ben cleared his throat, not looking at her. “I, uh… Thought she might be an omega.”

Leia nodded slowly as Rey, partially horrified, mostly turned on, and mostly absolutely bewildered as her mind reluctantly conjured up the horrors and gems she had consumed since discovering omegaverse fanfiction. It couldn’t be that. That was ridiculous.

No, they had to be referring to the fake wolf study. Of course they had to be.

“Okay,” Leia said. “That will make it a lot easier to integrate into human society, if you should want that.”

“The- e- ere’s an alternative?” Rey wondered, heart pounding.

“A few,” Leia said with a shrug. “I doubt that needs to be the focus tonight.”

“What’s the focus tonight?” Rey said.

“Are you on birth control, sweetheart, or is there any other related information?” Leia asked.

Rey cleared her throat. “Yeah, I… I have the implant. The arm one.”

“Wonderful. Sweetheart, first and foremost, you should know, as an adult woman, that you are almost certainly hyper fertile and very prone to sets of multiples, twins and more, both identical and fraternal. It wouldn’t be a very smart idea to have sex without using some form of birth control unless you’re ready and prepared to have one or, most likely, multiple children.”

Rey just stared at her and blinked. “Well, that’s good to know,” she said softly, feeling absolutely horrified as she thought about how awful things could have been if someone hadn’t told her that. Leia gave her a kind, amused smile and a soft nod. “... Would they definitely be…?”

Leia took a moment to formulate her reply. “It depends. With another werewolf, for instance- almost certainly, yes, though sometimes they are born as ‘carriers’ who never transform. With your average human? It’s possible- about twenty-seven percent of human/werewolf offspring are also werewolves. With witches, it’s much more likely, but then they’ll certainly also be a witch regardless of whether or not they’re also a werewolf. Or, with a vampire, there’s about equal chance of the offspring to be a werewolf, a vampire, or both- a lycanmia, we call them, though it’s often shortened to ‘lycan’ these days. There’s a less than one percent chance of having a non-supernatural child in that case.”

“Huh,” Rey said slowly, not having to wonder why Leia was putting extra emphasis on that one, especially with the shimmering in Leia’s eyes.

“I don’t think I want kids. As an aside,” Ben muttered. Leia immediately looked alarmed, maybe even horrified, but as if she were trying to keep her face guarded. Rey turned to look at him.

“Me, neither,” she said softly.

Rey stayed for a little while longer, mostly needing to know what the hell being an ‘omega’ meant. Apparently, beyond the fertility thing, she was mostly just prone to ‘nesting’ and other creative endeavors, and luckily she wasn’t going to have any heats or other things that… Rey admittedly masturbated to the thought of on a regular basis. Leia also gave a history lesson of the dynamics of the ‘designations’, as she called them, which kind of fascinated Rey.

There was so much to learn, she realized. She had so many wonderful things to learn now.

But it wasn’t too long before Ben was wanting to leave, and Rey was happy to oblige. She drifted off during the car ride again, blinking out of consciousness as the clock read 11:57.

Chapter Text

When Rey opened her eyes, they were in a swanky elevator and he was carrying her bridal style. Rey curled into him and blinked her sleepiness away as she waited patiently for the door to open, and even still as she watched the carpet with a weird, modern, abstract pattern on it as Ben walked through a hallway. He opened the door with a surprising amount of ease, and Rey figured he must have readied the keycard in his hand first. Opening it was harder than unlocking it, but he still got them in quickly and gently kicked the door closed behind them.

It was a really swanky bedroom. There was a kitchen, and also a seating area. There was a hot tub inside, and another one on the balcony just on the other side of the glass, almost like a too-clear reflection, though the outside tub was clearly out of commission until spring or summer. He set her on the bed, and she got to her feet.

“I’m ready to get out of this corset,” she said as she took off her bag.

He sputtered out a laugh. “You’re wearing a corset?”

Rey lit up, realizing she hadn’t told him all about her pretty, self-made outfit yet, which was a bit uncharacteristic of her now that he’d mostly eased her out of her shell. As she undressed, she did so, and he listened intently and seemed almost eager to help her when she needed it. “I like you a lot,” she blurted once she was left in her pair of combinations, stockings, and nothing else.

“I like you a lot, too,” he said, leaning in close to whisper so intimately into her ear, and Rey shuddered softly as a shiver raced up her spine. “Do you want… Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Yes,” Rey breathed, feeling a rush of electricity throughout her whole body. She gave a soft, surreal, short giggle, then turned to curl into him. He held her tightly and pressed a kiss into her head. She glanced at her watch to make sure it was after midnight as she giggled with a sudden realization.

“What?” he asked.

Rey almost chickened out, but he’d asked so sweetly and he’d been nothing but darling. She tucked herself soundly into him for courage. “I just had the thought, um, that if we make it ‘til next year… I’ll get three special days in a row, ‘cause… Birthday, Halloween, anniversary… But, um-”

Ben clutched her tightly. “No ‘but’,” he said softly. “Here’s to hoping, sweetheart.”

She nodded and nuzzled into him again. “You’re too dressed,” she informed him, and he gave a hearty laugh before pulling back and unzipping his onesie.

“I don’t have much on underneath,” he said in a gentle warning. “Just boxer-briefs.”

“Good,” Rey said softly, and she did her best to be sexy as she clambered out of her underwear. She knew she was red as a beet, but he watched hungrily with ample appreciation in his eyes as he slowly revealed a lithe, skinny body that looked quite good. He was peppered with sparse hair, and he had a couple simple tattoos hidden on his belly and his legs. Rey ran her hands over his torso as her eyes took in the twitching, growing bulge in his charcoal boxers.

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said breathlessly, and Rey shivered some of her self-consciousness away. “It didn’t feel like the right time to say it last night.”

Rey gave a short laugh. “It would’ve been alright,” she said. “But it’s even better now.”

Ben moved in to kiss her deeply on the mouth, and she responded with equal hunger entirely unabashed for the first time. He groaned appreciatively and wrapped his arms around her, one slowly creeping down to cradle her ass. When she leaned back into his touch, he squeezed before letting go to give her a swift slap on the ass, and she gasped softly and nodded gently.

They crashed into each other like waves as they fumbled to get his boxer-briefs off, then tumbled onto the bed together. “How far do you wanna go?” Ben mumbled into her mouth, and he sounded like he was drunk.

Rey felt it, too. “I don’t plan special things,” she murmured before kissing him again. He groaned before muttering something about something, but she didn’t stop kissing him and so she had no idea what he said. “Do you— mwah— have a limit— mwah?” Rey asked in between kisses.

“No,” he said softly, kissing her a few more times before pulling away. Rey pouted and tried to keep herself contained. He settled close to her and cradled her cheek in one hand, running his other fingers through her hair. “I want you, baby. But if we’re gonna have sex, I need you to tell me that with a clear head. I don’t… I don’t want you to regret it.”

Rey calmed down easily, and lifted her hand to trace over his freckles. “I won’t regret it. I appreciate you checking in, but I’ll be okay. I don’t think I’d have been able to get this far if…”

He nodded softly. “Okay,” he said softly, closing back in. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered just before he kissed her again.

“Mm,” he hummed into her mouth just a few minutes later. “I, uhh, I’m not a virgin, but I’ve been tested, and I’m clean,” he said.

Rey blinked. That was probably an important conversation, huh? “I am a virgin,” she said. “I, um, I haven’t been… Tested. For a while- I think they tested me once, for like three things ‘cause of medications, but-”

Ben kissed her. “S’probably fine,” he murmured, then kissed her again. “Do you want me to wear a condom?”

“... Not really,” Rey admitted softly. “Unless we should. But if we’re clean, a-and the implant’s like, 99.8% effective— and it is…”

“S’more like 96.7%, for werewolves,” Ben mumbled, almost unintelligible, and from his eloquent expression Rey knew that he remembered whatever number his mom had mentioned and felt obligated to use the information he knew, but was a little sheepish about ‘um, actually’-ing her.

He was so cute.

“I want you to fuck me full of cum,” Rey forced herself to say, and she delivered it more awkwardly than she’d even have expected herself to.

He kissed her again. “I wanna fuck you full of cum,” he said, much more suave. Rey shivered.

“Gd, please, touch me,” she whispered as her arousal started driving her crazy. His mouth consumed hers once more as one of his hands began pawing at her tiny breasts and the other dragged nail-first down her torso, and she shivered with a pleasant hum as electric shocks zipped through her body. “Oh, yeah…”

“So fucking sexy,” he declared as he kissed her, and his hand reached down to cup her sex. Rey shivered and nodded as her cheeks grew ever hotter. “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” she said too quickly, spreading her legs wider as she found it was much more than okay. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this worked up before. It was kind of weird.

But she could feel it in her blood- she was almost sure she could smell it lingering in her faint body odor. She was pretty sure it was another hormonal thing.

She was never going off of birth control. Never, ever. Not unless she lost her mind and wanted a kid.

Even then, maybe she’d get her eggs harvested and find a surrogate. She wanted to keep all these damn hormones at bay.

… A little lycanmia would be so cute though. Rey staunchly ignored herself.

Ben kissed and nipped at her neck, and Rey moaned out loud, surprised by how nice it felt. It wasn’t gonna make her cum, but it could easily drive her crazy. She squirmed against him, trying to find purchase against his thigh. After a moment, he seemed to recognize what she was doing; he groaned and surged above her, shifting, thrusting his behemoth boner against the chestnut bed of curls at her mons as he pulled his thigh up to meet her sex, and he ground into generously. Rey moaned and shivered at the sensation of friction against her swollen clitoris.

… Maybe the hormones had their benefits. But still, birth control for the win. These were enough, thank you very much.

“I want you,” she asserted as his mouth wandered towards her nipple. She cried out as he kissed her oversensitive peak a little too vigorously.

“I want to fucking devour you,” he snarled into skin, and even just his breath on her moist tit made her shiver with pleasure.

“Gd, yes,” she begged, and he bit her entire breast just hard enough to still be enjoyable. Something ocurred to her as she was still reeling at how intensely focused on him and sex and getting impregnated that she was. “I-is there anything weird about you? Um- sexually.” Vampirically.

Ben laughed before she finished. “I guess that depends on how ‘weird’ you mean,” he murmured charismatically, then took a few moments to kiss and suckle at her. “You mean, like the fact that you want me to bend you over and breed that tight little cunt?”

Rey was almost angry about the surge of desire she felt, the way she clenched down on herself and moaned without a thought. “I-” she started breathlessly as he chuckled into her throat as he kissed it.

“No, vampires don’t have any weird sex things until they die, and usually, that’s what the Rite is to prevent, partially,” he murmured periodically into her skin. “I’m kind of kinky, but I don’t think that’s relevant tonight, and you’ve gotten me pretty reared up and ready to go, babe.”

Rey nodded. “Put it in,” she said.

He laughed as his fingers began to prod at her entrance. “My finger, yeah,” he said gently. Rey was about to protest when his massive cock twitched against her, and she kept her mouth shut until his finger slipped in, stretching her easily, and he gave a proud sigh that made her shiver and moan. “Good girl. You took that for me so well.”

Rey nodded. His dirty talk was driving her insane, even though she couldn’t seem to formulate any words of her own. He pulled his finger in and out, and it was thicker than hers- as thick as two of hers. And she didn’t usually put anything inside when she masturbated. “So good,” she forced out in a meek little squeak.

“Good,” he cooed. “You’re a good little whore, aren’t you?”

Her cheeks turned red and her brow furrowed as she nodded. “Mhm.”

“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said. “I’m not gonna bite you, but fuck, I want to. Carmilla gets it right. From a person- from a vein- it’s so sexual. The second puberty starts-...” he bit her throat with his normal teeth as she shivered. His finger moved and curled with expertise even she hadn’t quite attained. That being said, she had a bum angle, so.

“Why couldn’t you bite me?” Rey managed after a few moments, and he gave a dark laugh into her skin, shivering. Rey could swear he was doing his animorph thing, but she couldn’t see much more than his greater body. He was so pale, especially on his back, that it was kind of hard to tell if he went all… Vampy.

“Don’t tempt me, baby,” he whispered.

“Why not?”

He trailed his tongue over her skin. “It’s messy,” he said after a long pause. His voice was deep, husky, pensive. His whole aura had gone solemn. “We could go to the bathroom, but, uh…” He pulled back a little, but his finger kept moving slowly. He looked into her eyes, and he was all vampy. “It’s kind of a big deal… In the way that some people think virginity is, I guess. But it’s… I don’t know. I guess, I just…” he stared at her for a long while, searching for the words.

“I like you a lot, Ben,” she whispered. “I don’t think… We'll regret it, if that’s what you’re worried about, but I won’t push you. I don’t really get the… Cultural thing. But, um, we can do it. Especially if it’s… Sexual. I-I mean-”

“Okay,” he said softly, and he kissed her softly from behind his long fangs. He pulled his fingers out softly as Rey gave a desperate whine. As he kissed her, he held her soundly in his arms before hoisting her up, carrying her easily to the bathroom without so much as breaking the kiss. Rey shamelessly ground her hips into whatever part of him she could find purchase on. “You’re such a fucking whore,” he mumbled into her mouth.

“I’m your little whore,” she confirmed with a wanton nod. He groaned his appreciation before plopping down on the convenient, and hopefully clean, seat in the shower. He kissed down her cheek, along her jaw, over her throat.

“You’re my little blood doll,” he said in a sinister, sadistic tone, and Rey shivered and nodded. “I wonder what you taste like,” he added in the sexiest whisper

“Where are you gonna bite me?” Rey asked softly as his hand began to probe at her sex again.

“Your neck,” he murmured into her breast. “Hurts less, heals easier. But, fuck… If you like it…” He carefully bit her with his human teeth, really only capable of ghosting his four front teeth over her and sending shivers down her spine. His fangs didn’t seem to penetrate her, but they scratched her like a safety pin getting dragged along the skin of her breast. “I’d love to bite these. You’d feel me for days.”

Rey shuddered. “I want you to bite me,” she said softly, and he groaned and lurched upwards towards her neck, suckling a hickie into her skin. “I wanna know what it feels like. I need you to know what I taste like.”

He shuddered above her and teased her with his teeth. “I’m gonna bite you,” he said. “We’re gonna take a quick shower, then lay down on the bed. I’m gonna make sure you’re wet enough, and then I’m gonna fuck you. Do you understand?”

Rey nodded, lost in taut anticipation. “Please, Ben. Use me.”

“Fuck,” he whispered as if he were struggling to keep himself composed. Rey moaned as he pushed two fingers inside of her sopping cunt. “I’m gonna fucking use you,” he boomed in a low voice into her ear. She shivered, alight with arousal and pleasure, as he began working a third finger into her. It was a tight fit, but Rey kind of liked it. “And I’m gonna make sure you fucking love it.”

Rey really liked it once he started moving them all together. The sounds she made were loud and untamed and full of hedonistic surprise. “Oh, I fucking do,” she whined.

And then, he bit her, slipping his fangs into her skin. She could hardly tell when it happened, but she felt a slight, vague sting as she imagined him finding her vein, and she could feel the vague sensation of his fang entering it, almost like a tiny pop in her neck. He rolled against her body with a decadent groan as he drank and drove her crazy with his three massive fingers probing around deep inside of her. He was kissing her skin beneath where his fangs were embedded, and she imagined him licking up a few wayward drops as if incapable of letting a single drop of her go to waste. She just lay there and took it, lost entirely to bliss.

She had no idea how long it took, but she came on his fingers several times, and his thin fangs didn’t seem to draw blood at a particularly fast pace. “I need you to fuck me,” she begged, only sheepish now rather than ashamed, and he groaned his appreciation and sped up his fingers. She felt like she was going to burst; her cunt felt like a balloon in a way she couldn’t quite describe. “Fuck, Ben- I can’t-”

“You’re about to squirt,” he informed her, a predatory intent clear in his voice even as it was muffled by the fangs still embedded in her throat. Rey hissed through her teeth when he started toying with her oversensitive clit again. “You can have my cock as soon as you squirt on my fingers. Can you handle that well, sweetheart?”

She let out a choking sound, then gave a nod. “Yeah… Yeah. I wa-wanna… Sq-squirt for you,” she forced out. She could hardly think straight; he was driving her crazy. She felt almost like she was gonna piss herself, but… More balloon-y, somehow. “Oh, fuck!”

“You’re so close,” he said. “Just let go. Relax. Don’t think about anything- just feel me fingerfucking you, focus on how fucking good I’m making you feel. Let go for me, sweetheart.”

Rey did as she had been bid, relaxing into the crashing waves of pleasure threatening to tear her in two if she didn’t get out of the water soon. But it did still feel so nice, the electric arousal coursing through her veins and the wet, throbbing need in her cunt. He was doing so good, going so fast and so hard and rubbing against or slamming into all the spots they had charted out in the past however many minutes he had been-

Rey began to twitch, and in fact, all but seize, as perhaps the most dramatic orgasm of her life washed over her. She knew there was so much wet, but she wasn’t surprised to see the clear fountain of squirt his rough hand was still fucking out of her. It looked like she was a fountain. “You’re so fucking sexy,” he snarled. “You’re doing so fucking good, baby. Just cum until you can’t anymore. That’s all you need to do for me.”

Rey was putty in his hand as he kept her explosions coming back again and again. She was crying lightly from the pleasure and still twitching into the bed as he ramped up even more. “I can’t take it,” she cried out, instinctively pulling away.

He slowed down and changed his rhythm, all but massaging her, as he moved his head to keep most of the force off of where his fangs were embedded in her neck. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

“This is good,” she breathed. “I want… You in me… In the bed…”

He pulled away then, pressing his thumbs into the entry points on her neck. “Shower first. I’ll let the water heat up while these little pinpricks finish closing up. It’ll probably look like you have a hickie, since we were talking and we moved a bit, but it was mostly pretty smooth and it wasn’t that rough, so it shouldn’t be anything much.”

Rey didn’t have the energy to mention makeup, she just nodded faintly as he turned the water on. Ten minutes later, he was forcing a granola bar and some water at her, which she begrudgingly consumed before he manhandled her all the way to the bed and kissed her senseless, praising her with filthy dirty talk when he found that she was still wet and ready, albeit a little bit less excessively so.

“You think you can take it?” he asked in a teasing voice, and she groaned.

“I need it. Please. Fuck, I can’t wait for you. I need you inside of me.” Rey quaked and cooed as she felt his hot, heavy cock pushing through her folds.

“Fuck, you feel so fucking good,” he said in a strained voice as he thrust back and forth. “I could do just this, all day long.” Rey whined and shook her head lightly, and he gave a bright chuckle. “No? You need to get fucking filled up, don’t you, baby? You’re so fucking desperate for my cock you can’t even think straight, isn’t that right?”

Rey was nodding vehemently as he spoke. “Yes, oh, fuck. Please, stop teasing me. Please, fuck me. Please, please, please, take me…”

“You’re such a sweet, good girl,” he said breathlessly as his cock notched at her entrance. “Are you ready to get bred, bitch?”

“Yes,” she gushed out. “Oh, fuck. Gd, yes. Fill me up, please.”

He thrust inside. It was a slow but steady progress as he made his way deeper inside of her, and Rey was hyper aware of every inch of flesh he bore into. “Goo-ood girl. Best fucking pussy I’ve ever had. Fuck, yeah.”

“You’re so big,” Rey gushed as he seated himself fully inside her, filling her to what felt like near the point of bursting. “Feels so good.”

He wrapped his arms around her and shifted his knees as he began to rock in and out of her. “You feel fucking glorious,” he said in a light, airy, strained tone.

They didn’t talk for a long time as he began to piston into her, changing positions whenever either of them got uncomfortable. She had no idea how long they stayed like that, but by the end, her pussy felt like mush and her mind wasn’t far off as he grunted and strained to keep thrusting, covered in sweat. She’d come probably a dozen times since they’d started, maybe even a couple more. “I need you to fuck me full of your cum,” she whispered in a voice so high and soft she almost didn’t recognize it. He shuddered and began to snap into her ever faster. It was kind of slow and difficult to form a full sentence, but it was perfectly legible. “Please, give it to me. I’ll do anything you want; I’ve been such a good girl, daddy. I need you to fill me up.”

She felt so… Otherworldly. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she was taken with the sight of him.

He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “You need to get bred, don’t you, little omega? This sloppy fucking cunt is squeezing me, twisting around me, fucking begging for it.”

“I need it! Alpha, please, fuck me full of cum.” It didn’t even occur to her that she’d called him that.

He nuzzled her with a groan. “I’m gonna get you pregnant,” he barely breathed, and Rey could feel the way her body clenched up on him at the unexpected remark. “Fill that pussy up with cum until your belly grows nice and plump. You’re such a fucking cumslut- your cunt’s telling on you. I know what a filthy fucking whore you are. I can feel it.”

Rey came again, so overstimulated it almost just seemed like a sizzling sensation throughout all of her cells. Towards the end of her orgasm, he began pummeling wildly into her, and after just a moment Rey realized he was filling her up. “Thank you, so much,” she gushed, and he let out a tortured groan as he leaned into her and bit down on her fully with his human teeth.

“You’re so fucking delicious,” he snarled as his thrusts slowed to rocking, and then to occasional twitches. “You feel so good, I don’t wanna pull out.”

“Don’t,” she cooed. She could feel him even as he softened inside of her. And, for a while, he stayed there before eventually rolling over and laying on his back. Rey turned to curl into him and he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close to press a kiss into her scalp.

“That was amazing, sweetheart,” he said, so soft and serene.

“It was perfect,” she breathed. He pulled her in more closely and kissed her forehead again.