Chapter Text
Ben Solo settles into his typical seat on the commuter train; the compartment is empty, for now. Until the next stop, at least.
He feels foolish, younger than his thirty-one years, while he waits for the train to pull up to Niima Outpost, an oddly named neighborhood on the Grey Line towards Coruscant University where he’s worked for the last four years, since receiving his PhD in Art History.
His section of Renaissance Bodies starts today, and he’s looking forward to meeting his collection of second- and third-year students. But, if he’s being honest, Ben’s looking forward to the next eighteen minutes of his commute a little more than his job.
It’s embarrassing, is what it is, and he hides behind his newspaper for the time being, shoving his thick-framed glasses up his nose with one finger. Easy enough to lose himself in a mundane article about an installation at the CorArt so abstract his uncle could have produced it, easy enough to grit his teeth at the very thought of his uncle - whose rejection of Ben’s more linear approach to the art world had been a major reason for his switch from Sculpture to Art History as an undergrad - easy enough to wait three and a half minutes until -
The seat across from him is occupied, and Ben’s fingers tighten imperceptibly around the corners of his newspaper.
Only one person ever sits across from him, and he revels in that for a moment. He knows it’s her. He can smell her, for God’s sake, and isn’t that embarrassing? That he knows what she smells like, even if he doesn’t know her name. Like Jasmine, and earth, and something too personal to name, like a home he never quite learned the name of.
Get it together.
Ben wills himself to flip the corner of his paper down to offer a half-smile to the compartment’s new inhabitant.
The girl with the three buns smiles back at him, full and bright and lacking any of the cynicism he’s comfortable with. He’s taken to calling her the girl on the train, at least, he would call her that if he had friends to talk about her with. His journal knows of her by that name, at least, and the girl on the train does not disappoint today.
She’s wearing a soft yellow sundress with straps so thin it should be illegal; freckles dust her lightly tanned shoulders, and form constellations on her cheek. Ben’s studied art for so long that he hopes she wouldn’t find it creepy if he were to whisper to her the various shapes he’s found among the map of her freckles.
...It might be creepy if he were to offer to map the rest of them, the ones he can’t see, even when she’s wearing a soft yellow sundress, the hem of which is riding up to reveal long, tanned thighs that are taut with muscle.
The girl on the train smiles at him, and Ben remembers to stop staring. He shakes the paper out with a slight clearing of his throat and pretends to read, his eyes flicking up here and there to look at her some more.
She’s staring now, with a bemused expression. His lips twitch up into a smile despite himself - they’ve been sharing this compartment all summer; he gets on first, and gets off before she does. She’s typically carrying something, the girl on the train, a potted plant, or a milk crate full of oddities, or parts of machines, depending on the day. Today, she has a brown, worn leather knapsack, resting at her feet, resting against the pretty braided sandals that match her dress perfectly.
The girl on the train notices him staring again, and tries to catch his eye.
Blushing now, Ben return to his paper in earnest, flipping the page of the Style section to a review of a play that Armitage had been marginally involved in (although if you were to ask him, he had been the star, the director, and the producer, and not just the sound guy).
The reviewer didn’t like it, and Ben is actually amused for a second; he considers clipping it out and hanging it somewhere on his fridge so Armitage can see it when Phasma actually convinces him to show up to their once-weekly dinners.
The girl on the train clears her throat, and Ben loses his train of vindictive thought.
Maybe she needs water, he thinks deliriously. Maybe she has a cold.
The girl on the train clears her throat again, and Ben lifts his eyes from his paper.
Nothing could prepare him for what he sees:
The girl on the train’s smile doesn’t waver, her eyes bright, her dimple endearing and charming, perfect and sweet enough that Ben wants to taste it - a thought that would make him feel creepy, if not for what she’s doing.
The girl on the train drags her sandaled left foot up onto the cushion next to her, planting it firmly, sliding it until her knee is pushed up against the seatback, her thigh turned outward. The hem of her soft yellow sundress, which Ben has already noted as short and almost indecently so, rides up in a way that is certainly indecent.
The girl on the train is not wearing underwear.
His ears, his stupid, large, Dumbo ears, must be on fire. He can feel their heat radiating out, the same heat at his cheeks as he drops his eyes to his paper, reading furiously and not taking a single word in.
The girl on the train clears her throat again, and he looks up, thoroughly convinced that he’s in hell. That he knows what hell feels like, now. This is hell.
This is hell because he doesn’t deserve Heaven, and this must be some cruel trick: the girl on the train runs a slender hand down the front of her dress, her eyes locked on Ben, and pushes the hem of her dress even further up, revealing -
He blushes harder, the paper shaking in his hands now. He might rip through it at this point.
She smirks at him, and her other hand drifts over to spread the lips of what can only be described as a perfect pussy: delicate, pink, and certainly wet. He imagines, for a wild moment, her stroking herself as she waited for the train, ducking into some alcove, touching herself to the thought of him, to the thought of seeing him, driving her to a delirium that only found resolution here in this too-small, empty compartment.
Ben Solo doesn’t move a muscle, just sits with his paper still open, the spread of which is thankfully hiding his erection. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard, and he only gets harder when the hand not spreading her pussy open for inspection goes to stroke the wetness gathered around her sweet little cunt.
He groans in his throat, a small, choked off noise that the girl on the train definitely catches. She smirks, her cheeks hot and pink with it, as her fingers slip inside her cunt, and she begins to fuck herself. The soft, obscene noise fills the compartment, the only other noticeable sound Ben’s own, heavy breathing.
His mouth is watering, something he’s never experienced before in terms of lust. If she asked any price, he would pay it, to sink to his knees and worship her with his mouth. He wants to pin her down with one hand, splayed across her belly, pushing her against the bench of the compartment while he fucks her with his tongue. He wants to push her small fingers out of the way and replace them with his own, testing out one, two, three fingers, fucking her so that she rides his face, her greedy little cunt seeking out more -
As if she could hear him, the girl on the train adds another finger, her legs falling open impossibly wider. She sighs, one hand circling her clit lazily, the slick wet of her cunt staining her fingers as she does so. Ben wets his bottom lip, unsure of what’s happening, only sure that he loves it, that he doesn’t want this train ride to ever end.
Her breath accelerates, and he can’t tear his eyes away, now. They’ve made other stops, but it’s not a busy route, and they’ve chosen a compartment far away from the more populated parts of the train. He’s wondered before if she’s like him, lonely but still a desperate seeker of solitude.
No such eloquent thought passes his mind now, as he sets his paper aside and rests his elbows on his knees, openly staring at the way her fingers disappear into her cunt, the noises growing louder and louder. Her breathing is growing higher and higher pitched, and the announcement overhead tugs at his attention for a moment, if only because it means that he has to get off this fucking train in a few minutes for his fucking job - and does he really want this job? Does he really need to go the first day of class? Fuck it all, he’ll let it burn, for her, for this, and -
Her breathing accelerates more, and she makes a strange, keening noise, needy and sweet, and Ben’s cock throbs in his pants.
“Come for me,” he orders, his deep voice filling the compartment and shattering the silent companionship they’ve built between them for three months. Her eyes widen, and her breath catches, and for half a second he regrets the command more than he’s ever regretted anything (which is saying something) because that’s the first thing he’s ever said to her, the first thing they’ve ever said to each other.
But only for a half a second.
She squeezes her eyes shut with a soft, throaty, “ Fuck ,” drawing the vowel out deliciously, her fingers still tucked into her cunt as her body seizes, and she comes beautifully, sprawled out on the seat, her face twisted up in what most artists of a certain time period would call agony.
[ Arriving at - Coruscant University ] the overhead PA system announces. [ This stop, Coruscant University ]
The girl on the train is obviously trying to catch her breath, and Ben stands shakily, abandoning his paper and any pretense of self-control. She can see the way his cock strains against his pants now, pushing against his zipper cruelly, and he feels his heart pound at the way her pupils dilate, watching his cock, drifting to his face as he walks over to her.
He doesn’t say a word to her, just holds his hand out.
She places her hand in his without another word, large doe eyes - hazel, he notes, not brown like he’d thought, too much green and too lovely to be real - staring up at him.
Without breaking eye contact, Ben bends at the waist and slips her fingers into his mouth, sucking her digits clean. Her breath catches audibly, and at this distance, he really can count her freckles.
It’s cruel, but he does have a class to get to, so he can’t fuck her against the window like he wants, or pull her across campus to his office to ravish her on his deck like he’d prefer. So, with nothing but a smirk, he kisses her fingertips, releases her hand, and heads towards the exit, right as the train comes to a stop at Coruscant University.
Ben walks off the train quickly, and he fights every instinct he has to look back; he’ll wait for tomorrow to see her, and to maybe even get her number.
***
“Segal, Rowan,” Ben says, squinting down at his roster.
“Present.” A boy in the third row of the lecture hall raises his hand, and Ben nods in acknowledgement, marking the name down on his seating chart.
“Smith, Rey.” There’s no response, and Ben looks up from his roster, still squinting. No one seems to recognize the name, and Ben frowns. It’s entirely possible Smith, Rey dropped the class earlier this morning. It wouldn’t even be the first time his roster mysteriously reduced overnight - undergrads tended to balk when they read through his reviews, no matter how many chili peppers he was confusingly awarded - but it's still irritating.
He sighs and tries one more time. “Smith, Rey?” His voice is louder this time, but still no response, and he looks back down, ready to ask for Tico, Rose, when -
The doors bang open, and someone sprints down the steps of the lecture hall. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” a lovely, melodic British voice says. “I got caught up on the-”
He looks up from the roster, and has to snap his teeth together to stop his jaw from dropping.
“-Train.”
The girl on the train is standing at the foot of the stairs, worn leather knapsack dangling from her hand, apparently ready for her first day of Renaissance Bodies, aka the class where Ben Solo is fucking doomed to teach her about naked bodies for fifty-five goddamn minutes, twice a week, for the next fifteen weeks.
Ben clears his throat, praying that the rest of the class didn’t notice his intense reaction to her appearance.
“Nice to meet you. Rey.” He nods and returns to his roster; he can hear her shuffling into a seat in the front row. Great. Not that he has any other visual burned into his mind of Rey Smith sitting in a seat in front of him.
“...Tico, Rose?”
“Present.”