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Kylo Ren lives by himself in what Rey can only describe as a shack; a small, ancient-looking, pale gray, baby of a house.
Or, Ben Solo, actually, she reminds herself.
From just outside his front door, Rey looks up into the eyes of something not quite dead, not quite alive; a person all the same, with his wide frantic eyes and a toothpaste stain on his t-shirt.
“Ben?”
“Rey,” he says—a statement, not a question, that he breathes out, relieved.
In her head, she imagined him pale and mysterious. An Edward Cullen type. And maybe so in that they’re both a little intense in the eyes. But Ben Solo is more physically intimidating. Darker, longer hair, a more open expression (she imagines, because Edward Cullen is not real).
It’s a lot.
It’s overwhelming how he takes up the whole doorway, his right hand gripping the wood of the frame hard enough that she thinks she hears it creak. She starts to actually sweat and has to wipe her hands on the back of her jeans.
He could literally kill me, she thinks as he invites her inside (ironic). But he has an honest face. Kind of earnest in a way that makes Rey wonder if he’s even a vampire at all. Which is good because she’s about to let him bite her.
“Sorry about the mess,” he says, laughing nervously. He picks up a fallen piece of cardboard and returns it to one of the stacked white bins against the wall. Labeled and everything. If she’s really thinking about it, it does make sense that he cares about the environment. He’s going to live forever, after all.
“That’s fine.” Rey frowns at the shoes kicked off into the middle of the room. A little pile of dirt on the floor he obviously swept up and forgot about.
Ben seems nervous, the way he keeps glancing back at her as he leads them through to the back of the house. Not that there’s much to lead her through. It’s a small space—big enough for one person, she supposes. Although her shoebox apartment is, in fact, smaller and worse in every way.
When they get to his kitchen, Rey blinks.
Papers scattered on a table; curling instruction manuals to old appliances, paper bills sent in the actual mail, a flier for an improv comedy show, receipts from what she thinks is Pottery Barn, and a letter addressed to Kyle Ron asking him to renew his car insurance (he has no car). Rings on the surface of his table tell Rey he doesn’t use a coaster, which is almost enough to make her leave on bad vibes alone.
Like, is it speciesist to assume a vampire can clean up after themselves? Is it speciesist to hate that he doesn’t?
An artist, she’d read when she’d googled him last week. Something existential and a little pretentious. Dark colors and harsh sweeping lines. Red splotches that pool like blood.
Vampire art.
There are some smears of red paint on the back of his arms, just beneath where the cuff of his sweater is pushed to his elbows, like he leaned forward into it. In his crowded little living room, she notices paint of all different colors—small, mostly unnoticeable, streaks on his coffee table and carpet.
Messy.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” he says. He shoves his hands in his pockets, makes himself a little small.
It hadn’t seemed that short to Rey (one whole week) but she nods solemnly anyway, like it’s some hardship and she’s doing him a favor.
“No problem.”
“Usually I’d prefer to get to know each other first but—“
“The timing, right.”
Rey has never been charmed by vampires, in real life or in fiction. But she notices his hands turning to fists inside. How his thumbs rub against the outside seam. And maybe he’s not charming in a traditional sense, but she likes that he seems both bashful and attentive.
“Have you ever? You know…” Ben trails off. If she didn’t know he was a vampire she’d say he was blushing.“Been bitten?”
“No.” Rey pauses. “Problem?”
“No,” he answers, a little too fast. “And you, uh, followed my instructions?”
Well.
(“High-iron diet,” she’d read aloud to Finn, “what’s that mean?” It means the worst clearance meat she’s ever bought, an iron fish in her soups. She stops her multivitamin too. Quits coffee for the week, which just makes her sleepy and pissed off.)
He did order her, technically. She’s his paid meal. He had swiped right on her, scrolled through her profile, picked her out of dozens of prospective women (he only feeds on women, he’d said, that the taste of testosterone is off putting—at the time she thought it was just a line to get a date, but she’s starting to think it’s genuine).
“I absolutely did.”
“Great, great,” he says, nodding enthusiastically.
Ben tries to be subtle in the suspicious way he breathes deeply. Savoring, almost. Like, they say most of taste is actually in smell. Every time his mouth opens she notices his fangs becoming more pronounced. His eyes steadily turning black.
So she knows—
They both know.
He’s hungry.
If she doesn’t move this along now he might pounce before she even gets her phone into her pocket.
“How do you want me?”
“How do I—? Oh, right.”
Ben motions for her to sit down on his (beautiful vintage soft brown leather) couch. It looks like he’s tracing one tooth with the tip of his tongue as he watches her plop down from across the room.
No point in prolonging the inevitable—Rey pulls her unbuttoned flannel shirt down one arm, leaving it pooling at her wrists. It’s worn, soft, and hopefully by the end of the night will still free of suspicious stains.
“Should I—?” She motions to the neck of her tank top. It makes her feel a little funny, a little studied, when his eyes (they look almost red in the ambient yellow light) follow from her eyes to her lips, down her neck to stop at her fingers.
“No. It’s—I’ll do it,” he says with a little bit of a toothy lisp. Then he flits over to her, faster than she can blink. This is as close as she’s ever been to a vampire and it trips her up to see the red of his eyes. Skin that’s so depressingly sunless it makes her want to lie out under the sun for a lazy afternoon.
Holding her shirt down with her neck open and bared to Ben Solo feels like sticking her head into the mouth of a shark and asking it not to bite. But she’s doing it. Waiting for him.
Ben is careful, restrained like she might break. He could break her, actually. Unlike most people she’s allowed this close to her. People who shared this same chemistry as she does with him now. He could drink her dry if he wanted to. Maul her with the teeth that slip past his bottom lip. That thought flashes in the pan of her mind.
All those movie vampires are suddenly at the forefront of her mind (screaming through gushing blood, hissing, chasing, stalking). She’s overcome with a mild sense of fear. Maybe a little bit of excitement.
“Will it hurt?”
“At first,” he admits and as he leans closer, then sweeps some loose hair over her shoulder. “But I can make it good for you.”
Then he slips a finger under the strap of Rey’s tank top and waits for her. Until she nods. He slides it down her shoulder.
She’d always thought vampires would be cold to the touch. Freezing like ice. And he isn’t warm necessarily but he is cool. Like when she sits weird for too long and she loses the circulation to her foot. It gets all tingly and cold. Tingling like the feeling his fingers leave in their wake when he touches her.
He grips her shoulder fully now and his thumb rubs against the dip between her shoulder and collarbone.
“Is this okay?”
Rey nods.
“I want to make sure you’re comfortable.” The sincerity in his voice, the furrow of his brow as he speaks.
“I’m comfortable.”
When his fingers slide up her neck to her jaw, around the front like he might choke her then up to cup her chin, Rey swallows. He feels it. His lips part and she sees full fang, white and new.
“You can tell me if you’re not.”
“I will,” she says, already a little breathless.
First, it’s a light brush of lips, careful and hesitant. Then, a chaste kiss. A flick of his tongue.
Rey makes a singular soft sound.
“S’okay,” Ben whispers against Rey’s skin—she shivers where his lips brush against her. His thumb strokes against her pulse point as he tilts her head back and to the side. “Relax.”
Rey nods and braces herself.
She anticipates the sting, the break of skin, but instead she gets gentle nudges of his nose under her ear, his head resting beside hers. Then he breathes deep. Rey almost laughs because she’s reminded of Finn’s dog who used to wake her up by stuffing his nose in her ear while she slept. This is less wet, less loud, and unexpectedly gives her a little thrill.
His hold on her tightens, his mouth opens against her neck, and he bites.
Rey’d thought it would hurt, that she’d flinch under his mouth. It does hurt but only in the way that, like, a spank might. It’s there and gone quickly—along the line of his teeth as they pierce her skin, but then it dulls and the sensations change. Something bubbly now.
Oh.
Ben lets out a pleased hum and his fingers tighten on her jaw. It’s a weird feeling, the rhythmic pulling from her neck. But her hand slides up his arm and she grabs his bicep. There’s no tugging or the stinging split from torn skin. Just warmth and, strangely, hazy bliss. She lets the weight of her head rest against his hand and mindlessly drifts.
Behind Ben’s head, there’s a painting on the wall. Not one of his, but a landscape—the ocean. White-tipped waves crashing over black rock. Gray sky. And as she stares at it, at the depth of the water and the cloud of spraying salt water, Rey wonders how many people have done this same thing, stared at this same painting, those same brushstrokes.
Something about it rubs her the wrong way. These same teeth in those other necks.
And right—his lips on her neck. The warmth there travels through every vein, every limb, to her fingers and toes. Until she feels light and maybe, unexpectedly, a little horny. She presses her thighs together and hopes he doesn’t notice. All subtlety goes out the window when she subsequently moans quietly.
A quick squeeze to her jaw leaves her mouth dry and head empty. She feels like—no, she knows, he’s a great kisser. Can just tell from the way he handles her and the press of his lips. How his tongue traces along her skin.
And his hair smells like vanilla. His sweater feels soft, one of those expensive cottons. She doesn’t want to hurt herself or him but she arches her back a little and he presses closer and she’s not wearing a bra so when their chests touch it’s—
Ben retracts his fangs but she doesn’t feel it at all. Maybe even groans a little (maybe he does too). Immediately he comes back in for a lick. Another one and another one. Cleaning the blood off her. Every last drop. His tongue is the only thing hot about him. He lingers there like he doesn’t want to leave. Kisses the spot quickly before he leans back and pulls her strap back up. The flannel too.
God, he looks good. Flushed and pink with her blood in his cheeks. It reddens his lips like a bitten strawberry. Rey thinks she might be flushing too.
Both of them are lost in this feeling.
“Don’t move,” he orders with a comforting brush of his hand. And just where does he think she’ll go now that her body is slumping back against his couch?
Ben zips out and back; so fast he’s just a blur.
Then he’s holding a mug up to his lips, swishing the water around before discreetly spitting it back into the cup.
“Don’t you want to, I don’t know, savor it. You did just pay me for it.”
But he shakes his head and scrunches up his nose. “Weird aftertaste.”
On his mug, one of those Sanrio characters. Pompompurin. And the imagery of that is so funny that she laughs (he did win the popularity contest this year, after all, though she isn’t sure Ben knows that). His hand fits perfectly inside the larger handle—size and shape very befitting for the large, round, yellow, dog.
There’s a package of peanut butter crackers in his hand, like the ones she used to keep in her backpack in middle school. Ben opens the pack and holds one up to her mouth, watching her curiously. She can definitely eat her own crackers (with a bit of effort because she’s still a little floppy feeling) but she lets him do it anyway.
“There’s a sedating effect. It’ll pass in a few minutes,” he explains. The ‘because you’re my prey’ is left unsaid. “I should’ve mentioned that first.”
“Probably,” she says, just a little slow, “You were distracted. Does this happen every time?”
“Yes, but I took a little too much. Sorry.”
He offers her juice with a straw and everything—her own little mug (a giant jumping bass; “Big Kahuna” it says).
Rey pretends not to shiver when he wipes her neck down with a warm, wet cloth. Whatever marks had been there, whatever wound, was long gone. A benefit of vampire saliva. She sips her juice, keeping him in her sight the entire time. The intensity and seriousness with which he cleans her up.
“You can put that down anywhere.”
The warped stains on the wood of his coffee table are screaming—his own cup (she’s gasping) coaster-less. To Rey, who cares deeply about her things, keeping them nice and for a long time, this crime is unforgivable. No, she absolutely can’t just put her juice down anywhere, so she just holds it.
“I’d like you to come back.”
“Oh.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“You need the money, right? That’s why you’re doing this.”
It’s blunt but he’s right. Next week on the 28th of October, her power will get cut if she doesn’t come home with this money. have to sit in the dark, alone with her thoughts (which is her idea of a nightmare).
“You can think about it. You must have other things to do.”
She doesn’t. But saying that makes her look lame.
“Yeah, I should probably get going.”
Rey stretches her legs (pulls one of those fliers from the pile to put under her bass mug) and he leads her back through the mess of papers, the paintings on the walls (none of his own, all vaguely recognizable from one of her high school art classes), past the recycling bins. His hand rests gently on her back the whole time until he opens the front door for her.
They’re so close together now, him and her.
“Bye, Rey.”
When he smiles, it’s normal, human. It looks good.
As she walks back to her car, she can feel the force of his stare.
About three things she was absolutely positive. First, Ben is a vampire (of course). Second, there was a part of him that thirsted for her blood. And third, she was totally, definitely coming back.
With coasters.