Work Text:
It was becoming increasingly clear why Yor-Hee's establishment was the only place left with rooms to let. An accident of poor timing had caused them to land right as the whole city was celebrating the equinox, and so far every tavern, cantina and inn had turned them away for lack of space, despite the credits in Rey's hand.
Until Yor-Hee.
The cantina itself was immaculate, which in retrospect, might have been their first clue. Yor-Hee himself was dressed in a spotless white coat, two of his four arms methodically cleaning a glass as he stared hard over the bar at them.
"This is a reputable establishment," he rumbled. The cloth squeaked against the glass. "I don't tolerate," Yor-Hee's eyes narrowed, "...improper conduct."
"There's nothing improper-” Rey started,
"Men and women sleep seperately.” Yor-Hee said, setting the glass down, "Two rooms. 50 credits"
"One room. 25 credits" Rey countered. Yor-Hee's mouth opened - "we're married,"
For a moment, Yor-Hee stared dubiously into her face. A face which Rey willed with all her might to be serene. She was a scavenger she reminded herself, and if she could occasionally tell the odd little lie about the state of repair of old imperial parts, well then, she could lie about the state of other things.
.....sort of.
***
"You didn't do the wiggle," Ben said, after the door closed on Yor-Hee's still not quite believing face and they were alone in their quarters for the night.
"The what?" Rey asked, pausing in her investigation. Thankfully, the room is just as immaculate as the rest of Yor-Hee's establishment, and Rey couldn't help but grin at the sight of crisp smooth linen on the well made bed. After weeks of folding themselves into the cramped berth on the falcon, she intended to stretch out across as much of that bed as she could-
"Whenever you lie," Ben continued, "your insides...wiggle." He wiggled the fingers of one hand in demonstration.
If he were anyone else, Rey thought, and if she were anyone else, that statement would shoot straight past ridiculous and on to borderline insane. But because he is himself, and she is herself, and they are themselves (two that are one) of course he knew what her insides did when she was lying. She suddenly realised that she knew exactly what his insides did when he was too. Which was less like a wiggle and more like an elegant slither, she thought, because Ben had always been more gifted with words than she was and he was probably being nice calling it a "wiggle" when Rey suspected it was rather more like the flailing of some suddenly beached marine animal-
Ben's voice broke the train of thought - "When you lied about us being married,” he looked at her, "no wiggle." One elegant brow, black as night, rose.
Rey could feel the heat creeping up her neck, rising in tandem with that brow. There was, she knew, no point in lying. No doubt if she even tried, there would be much....wiggling, and they'd be right back where they started-
"Do you remember when we stopped over on Naboo on our way to Yavin Four, a couple of months ago?"
Theed had been unlike any city Rey had ever seen, so lush and beautiful, with fountains and spiralling architecture with no purpose other than beauty. She'd fallen in love and had let Ben convince her that one night in a hotel in the nicest quarter of the city wasn't going to bankrupt them, not after months of ship living-
"Yes."
"We had dinner, on the terrace of the hotel-"
"You ate half my bread roll," he remembered with a smile.
She had, because he'd insisted on using it as a pointer while happily expounding on the blending of human and Gungan architecture and while Rey loved loved loved this part of him, the part that so dearly loved to learn, the part that could always find the one seller of old handwritten texts no matter what market on what planet they were on, the one who habitually walked around with ink stained cuffs and often fingers and once or twice a cheek or nose or forehead....that was a perfectly delicious piece of bread that deserved to be eaten.
So she snatched his wrist the next time it came near, and took as big a mouthful of bread as she could without taking his fingers with it. He snorted in amusement and popped the rest in his own mouth before she could strike again.
"You drank my wine" Rey said softly.
In retaliation for the bread, he'd said with a smile, making to drain the cup, and Rey, laughing, had wrestled it back in time to rescue the last swallow, lifting the cup still warm from his lips to her own.
"And after-" The heat had reached her cheeks now.
It was perhaps the softest bed Rey had ever known, made even more soft when contrasted with the body above her, in her, all around her- they moved together, the bond open, the force around them buzzing, humming, practically singing...
"Rey?"
Rey walked towards him, meeting those dark eyes. "On Jakku, nothing is done with excess." She stopped in front of him, and took his hands with her own. "We don't have weddings, not really. When a couple wants to....commit to each other, it's simple. They share bread, and wine and-"
"and bed," he finished for her.
Rey nodded. "I didn't realise until days later."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
Rey shrugged, "I wasn't sure it counted, not really. I mean we didn't intend to- and besides," she dropped her gaze to their laced fingers, her cheeks growing redder, "Rose told me about weddings on the core worlds, with proposals, and engagements, and pretty churches and special food, and I - I want that. Not some dried up stripped bare ceremony from a wasteland like Jakku."
Ben squeezed her hands, lowering his head to tip their foreheads together. For a moment, they stayed that way. As it always did in moments like these, their breathing fell into step with each other, and Rey knew were she to reach out and press her hand to his chest, she'd find a heart beating in time with hers. The bond was a warm thread between them.
"Be honest," Ben murmured after a moment, his voice low and warm and threaded with amusement, "did you mostly want a core wedding for the food?"
"What!?” Rey looked up in indignation, "No!"
Ben laughed, one of those oh-so-rare true laughs that Rey has been secretly keeping count of, and kissed her.
"Your insides," he said when they finally parted, "just wiggled."
She made to hit him in the arm, but he ducked away, sweeping her up into his arms the way he had the first time they'd met, what seemed like lifetimes ago, (and oh, how far they'd come), and kissed her again.
"Marry me, Rey," he said, voice soft but serious too, "Marry me again and we will go back to Naboo and get married in the prettiest church we can find and have a feast with a wedding cake the size of you."
Rey laughed. "The size of you."