Chapter Text
Rey’s breath hitched in her throat as her body was held, frozen, by an unseen hand.
“What are you?” she whispered, voice shaking, her breathing coming in short gasps.
A deep chuckle nearby made her shiver from head to toe. She felt a presence draw nearer, and her eyes were frantic, seeking the source even as she was held still.
“I have dined with kings,” a low voice murmured. Rey sucked in a breath audibly, desperate and terrified to find the speaker. He laughed again.
“I have commanded nations. I have watched Time chisel lines into the faces of young women.” At this, a gloved hand stroked her cheek. Rey screamed, fighting to turn, panting in fear as she felt the shadow lurking behind her. The dark presence made her white clothing stand out in sharp relief.
“But,” the voice whispered in her ear seductively. “Time shall never scar you with its hand.” At this, the hand she could feel hovering near her neck was met by the fingers of another, as the man tugged the leather away from his skin. His cool fingers brushed against her throat and Rey moaned again in terror.
“You…” he murmured. “You are for the ages.”
“CUT!” Luke yelled, and Rey sagged in relief, breaking character as easily as one might crack an eggshell. She stood up straight, arching her back, delighted to abandon her cowardly, cowering posture.
“Great job, you two,” Luke commended, and Rey nodded her thanks, then turned to the tall man behind her.
“Nicely done, Benjamin,” she said softly. “You terrified me. Mission accomplished.” She smiled softly as she watched Ben drop his carefully-constructed mask as well, his hulking posture withdrawing into his more typical sheepish one, his menacing scowl melting into a shy grin.
“You too, Rey,” he said in his soft baritone, his voice sending shivers of an entirely different sort down her spine. He grinned at her, then grimaced and popped out his false fangs. “Ick,” he said, eloquently.
She giggled and yanked off her wig, shaking her head so her short hair fluffed out around her face, much more sparse than the waist-length locks she wore as Mina.
“I’m parched,” she lamented, and they trailed offstage and into the wings, Ben laughing dryly at her vampiric humor.
“So is my character, but you don’t see me pouncing, do you?”
“Don’t be silly. Everyone knows Ben Solo has far more self control than Dracula,” Rey teased.
Ben grinned and nudged her with his shoulder. “Shut it.”
“It’s true,” she protested, as they rounded the corner into a short corridor leading to the dressing rooms. “You’re not Ben when we’re acting. You’re him. And to be honest, you’re terrifying. But I mean that in a good way.”
Rey was quick to reassure him; for all his talent, Ben was a sensitive man, attuned to the opinions of colleagues, directors, and critics alike. Rey personally thought he was amazing, and still felt lucky to be working with someone as naturally gifted as him.
“See you later, Mina,” Ben said, disappearing into the men’s dressing area with a flourish of his long cape.
“Adieu, Count,” Rey sang back, then strolled into her own backstage space with a small grin on her heavily made-up face.
Rey sank into a canvas chair and stared at herself in the mirror. Her long brunette wig was tossed haphazardly onto the vanity before her, and the loose white nightgown her character wore in her nighttime scenes looked wrinkled and plain. Her skin was as translucent and white as the fabric she wore, hazel eyes shadowed heavily by cosmetics that played up her realistic lack of sleep.
As she creamed off the thick stage makeup, Rey began to look more like herself, and less like the intelligent but still-weak Mina Harker she played onstage. Her hazel eyes shone, her freckles peeked out from beneath the foundation she wore, and her complexion gradually took on the tan of the rest of her skin, the sickly pallor she hid behind as Mina fading away.
This role was the role of her career. The chance to play a female lead in a play as longstanding and intricate as Dracula. The chance to work under a director as seasoned as Luke Skywalker. The chance to work opposite an actor as respected as Benjamin Solo.
If only she could think about Ben in a professional manner, this would be the perfect gig. But, Rey thought, frowning at herself in the brightly-lit mirror, she didn’t think about Ben professionally.
Not at all.
It was quite unprofessional, in fact, to think about how he filled out those black suits of Dracula’s, and how good he looked when he swept that heavy cape around, and how tempted Rey was to let him bite her when they were both in character.
When she worked, she chalked it up to good acting: Mina was seduced, naturally, by the power and magic of the Count. But Rey knew the truth.
Ben Solo was just plain sexy, in character or not, and he was irresistible to her.
She thought back to their first meeting, in an audition of all places, and smiled as she rubbed coconut oil into her freshly-washed skin.
Rey fidgeted nervously as she held her well-worn script in trembling hands. Her notes, in bloodred ink, stained the margins as frequently as her fingers had paged through the binder. She glanced down now at the cover—Dracula, directed by Luke Skywalker—and concentrated on breathing deeply through her nose. She, Rey Johnson, was auditioning to be in a play directed by Luke Skywalker, of all people!
Rey from nowhere, Rey nobody, with no acting training, with very few roles to speak of. And somehow she’d gotten past the first two rounds of auditions and would now get to read opposite the male lead, who’d been cast already.
She had to focus; couldn’t blow this opportunity and miss her shot. She knew her lines, could read the scene in her sleep, but so much depended upon her chemistry with the other actor. Rey just hoped they clicked.
But when the door swept open and a tall, dark, and very familiar man walked into the room, all the oxygen seemed to rush from the room. Rey had been nervous about reading in front of Luke, about possibly going up against more experienced actresses, about all manner of things—but she didn’t know she’d need to be nervous about reading opposite her personal hero and celebrity crush.
Because she had no idea that Ben Solo was who’d been cast into the role of Dracula; how could she, when he was the A-lister of Broadway, and this was supposed to be a bare bones, low-budget retelling of an age-old story?
Rey gulped as she absorbed her idol in the flesh. Now that he was just a few feet away, he seemed much larger than he did when she’d seen him onstage, the sheer breadth of his frame filling the room with his presence. He wore dark clothes now, as he did in every interview in which she’d seen him, but the black tee shirt and jeans did nothing to diminish his size. Ben radiated dark intensity, in everything from his rigid posture to his hooded gaze. Rey could see now why he needed to perform; there had to be somewhere for all that excess energy, that sheer magnetism, to go.
“Hello,” she greeted him shakily, offering a small smile. He maintained the neutral expression on his face and nodded her way; not unfriendly, but clearly absorbed in playing his part.
“Thanks for joining us, Ben,” Luke Skywalker said, and Rey was abruptly reminded of the fact that there were other people in this room, that Ben Solo was only one of her many concerns right now. “Are you ready, Rey?”
Rey nodded and looked down at her script. She glanced at Ben and realized that in her perusal of him, she’d neglected to look for his book. She could see now that he didn’t have one, and she wondered how many times he’d rehearsed this scene with other potential actors for the role of Mina for him to know his lines by heart.
“We’ll begin with your lines, then, Ben,” Luke said, and Ben nodded again. He closed his eyes, and Rey took the opportunity to study him as he stilled. When he opened his eyes again, they blazed with a manic light, and she gasped in awareness as fear skittered down her spine.
Ben took a step toward her, and she found her gaze glued to his, unable to look away. Her body seemed to sway toward him as he neared.
“It is an interesting concept, is it not?” he purred, looking down at her from above his long nose. He arched a dark brow, and Rey blinked rapidly, hanging on his every word. “The idea of never aging, I mean. Would it appeal to you, Miss Mina?” Ben raised his hand at this, holding it just beside her face, his palm so close she could feel the heat of it near her cheek. He spoke his next words in a hushed voice, just above a whisper, his lips swaying ever closer to her ear. “To be rich, beautiful...eternally young?”
Rey shuddered and tilted her head the slightest bit, leaning her cheek into Ben’s palm with the lightest of touches. She spoke her lines reflexively, caught up in the moment.
“I think everyone has a desire for perennial youth,” she said, looking up at Ben from beneath her lashes, a half-smile playing about her lips. “But it is a Faustian ideal. When I really think about it, I would not wish to be young forever.” Rey delivered her lines with the blend of conviction and propriety she imagined Mina would embody; she was an intelligent woman, but one very much aware of the value of playing her part in society.
Ben trailed his palm down her cheek, laying his hand aside her neck for a brief moment before sliding it down her shoulder and off of her body. Rey shuddered out a breath, nonetheless keeping her eyes on his in challenge.
“No?” he intoned, that deep baritone vibrating in his chest. “And why ever not?” His tone was almost mocking, as though her answer was the most pathetic thing he’d heard.
“Because,” she replied quietly. “I would be obliged to watch everyone I loved grow old...and die.” She finished softly, the emotion in her lines borne from a lifetime of never having anyone to love. Mina would treat love and loss with the seriousness it deserved, Rey knew.
“What if that were not the case?” Ben asked smoothly, his voice seductive, persuasive. “What if there was one person whom you loved deeply?” He stepped back, turning away from her to deliver his questions over his shoulder, his face in profile as he spoke in a cultured murmur. “With whom you could live on forever, under the same terms?” Ben kept his eyes cast to the side, but she knew he could see her from his peripheral vision. In her mind’s eye, he wore the high collar that was Dracula’s signature; he would look amazing in costume, she already knew.
Distantly, she heard the flutter of pages as her script fell to the floor, unneeded. “Perhaps,” she murmured, her voice thick. “Perhaps then it would prove agreeable.” She swallowed heavily, then stepped closer to him, lifting a hand to touch his shoulder, imagining it was covered by a heavy cloak and not thin black cotton. She felt him shudder under her touch, and wondered fleetingly if he was in character—if Dracula would pine for Mina’s mercy, for her caress—or if he was just a man who was startled by being touched.
Ben turned slowly to face her once more, and they finished the scene in a similar fashion; alternately advancing and retreating, turning and seeking escape, but being held back by the other.
When it was over, Rey felt as conflicted by this enigmatic man before her as she knew Mina Murray would have been by Dracula himself.
Her thoughts turned to the real world once again only when she heard a slow clap from behind her. Slowly, the applause grew, until it seemed everyone in the room was clapping and smiling. A woman with purple hair stood and sent a grin her way.
“I think we’ve found our Mina, Luke,” she said, and Rey turned to see Luke Skywalker beaming.
“I think you’re right, my friend.” He grinned and nodded at Rey. “Welcome to the team, Johnson.”
Rey felt the lingering melancholy of her scene slip away, and she laughed out loud as she turned to Ben. He, too, had dropped character, and the way he grinned at her now, so crooked and luminous, made Rey fall even more deeply under his spell. Gone was the vampiric seductiveness of his Dracula; here was something even more potent: the sweetness of the real Ben Solo.
“Congratulations,” he rumbled, his deep voice warmer now, his brown gaze made more powerful when it was framed by the smile lines around his eyes.
Rey used every moment of her training as an actor to keep her expression joyful when she felt her heart fall with a thunk somewhere into the vicinity of her shoes.
She’d been in a room with Ben Solo for not even half an hour, and he’d already stolen her heart. This play would either be the greatest or most terrible thing to ever happen to her.
Now, weeks later, Rey stood before her dressing table, smiling dreamily as she tied an elastic around the end of her braid. It seemed unreal to her that less than a month ago, she’d landed the role of a lifetime opposite the man of her dreams. Now, with countless scenes together and one dress rehearsal under their belt, she’d developed a comfortable rapport with Ben Solo, whom she’d once regarded as some sort of unapproachable god.
She knew now that he was still unapproachable to many, but not her. As for being godlike, that really hadn’t changed, Rey thought with a smirk.
She’d just finished loading up her bag when she heard the plodding footsteps of her favorite female co-star coming her way. Rey smiled to greet Rose Tico, who was playing the role of Lucy, as she shuffled into the dressing area.
“Unghhhhh,” Rose groaned, collapsing dramatically onto a battered sofa they kept miraculously clear of debris, for swooning episodes just such as these. Rose threw a beleaguered hand over her eyes, and Rey giggled as she saw the fake blood splattered on Rose’s white nightdress.
“Murdered again?” she asked sympathetically.
“I swear, Amilyn is way too forgiving of the special effects department. How many times do I have to be killed and bloodied? How many nightgowns does she have in reserve?!” Rose glanced at Rey properly and scowled. “You’re already done?!”
“I don’t get bitten until tomorrow,” Rey said, her mind already drifting to how lovely it would be to have Ben’s hands on her throat, to feel his lips against her skin. The dreamy smile stayed on her lips, and not for the first time, Rey felt that she understood how Mina had fallen under Dracula’s spell.
“You’re so lucky. You get to wear a wig, you don’t have to get murdered and then reborn and then murdered again. Very few special effects whatsoever.” Rose lifted her body from the couch with visible effort, untying the reddened ribbon around her throat and shucking the nightgown off of her fake-bloodstained body, kicking it off of her legs once it hit the floor.
Rey helped Rose pick up the yards of white fabric that billowed around them, laughing to herself as her friend grumbled and strode toward the shower. “I swear, this play will be the death of me.”
“Literally!” Rey sang, laughing as Rose flipped her the middle finger before swishing the shower curtain shut. “See you tomorrow!”
“Bye, Mina mine!” Rose replied, employing the nickname Rey’s stage husband used. Rey smiled at that, and mused on how much she was enjoying this production as she walked home. Perhaps Rose would be happy when their run ended, but Rey never wanted it to. They were a few weeks away from opening night here on their home turf, and their six-week program featured two weeks of home performances bracketing two weeks of travel.
Rey had never traveled before, and was thrilled to get to tour with the company, even if it was just to small cities nearby.
The theater had given her a small family, and where they’d begun to bond over shared meals and table reads, soon they’d grow closer through the exhilaration of live performances and the rigors of traveling shows.
Truly, Rey couldn’t wait. She reveled in every moment of every day, living her dreams, never taking them for granted. Even now, as she approached her tiny apartment, just a short walk from the theatre, she was grateful. A quiet place of her own, a little family she could love, and a job she was good at and adored. Rey Johnson, the nobody from nowhere, couldn’t ask for anything more.