She's in the kitchen when it happens.

A gradual chaos. It starts as little more than muffled voices, barely noticeable as she works her way through the dishes — her night. Thursdays. Then a thud or two, which she can ignore. A shout, which she can at least pretend to ignore.

But then the upstairs bedroom door gets thrown open and suddenly there's no barrier from any of it. From the shouting or the stomping as Ben Solo's third attempt at a girlfriend (this year) makes her graceless exit.

It's nothing Rey hasn't seen — or heard — before.

They've sort of inherited the house, the two of them. An old two-story on the outskirts of town. Old, but good — and the only home she's ever known.

It'd been Leia's, after the divorce.

Rey had come along somewhere right in the middle of the mess. Just as everything was falling apart. Leia told her she and Han had always wanted to foster — that she was something they'd planned and hoped for for a long time.

Rey secretly believed she was a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. A band-aid on a mortal wound.

And Ben, who'd been in his late teens at the time — well, he was always very clear about his stance on the subject.

"You're the fucking consolation prize," he'd hissed at her once on their way down to dinner. "You're her project. Her distraction. You're nothing."

She was salt in the wound. That's what he thought.

He came in and out for the next few years. Rey watched it take a toll on Leia, like a slow-acting poison — resented him for it. For the smell of booze that clung to him like a second skin whenever he bothered to crash for the weekend. For those late night bail-outs that left Leia swollen-eyed and exhausted.

For that god-awful street gang he paraded around with.

When Han died, it only got worse. Once a month — maybe — he'd stop by, more pierced and tattooed than the time before. He'd fall face first onto his bed, sleeping off something more than alcohol. And then he'd always be gone by the next time Rey bothered to check.

She used to wonder if he slept on the streets.

Leia probably wondered, too.

So Rey did everything in her power to become a non-issue. An easy element of Leia's life. Someone she never had to worry about or fuss over. Someone who kept her grades up and her head down. Someone she could depend on. Someone she could trust.

But none of it would matter in the end.

When Uncle Luke passed, Leia must've truly felt she had nothing left. No husband, no brother. No son.

And Rey — this borrowed piece. This extra. This placeholder.

There's no way she could've filled that emptiness.

On a quiet Sunday evening, Leia said goodnight to Rey as she always did. And by Monday morning she was gone.

Her will left the house to both of them.

Rey had nothing in her to fight it. She felt like she'd been torn into thirty pieces. Felt like half a person, if that.

They buried her. And Ben moved back in the next day.

Rey let it happen without a word of protest. Without any words at all, really. She didn't have it in her. And Ben seemed perfectly fine with that. God, sometimes it seemed like he was just waiting for his mother to die so he could have the house. The thought of it made Rey nauseous.

But if that were the case, he probably would've tried to kick her out, too — and last she checked, she still has a bed to sleep in.

No, instead they're roommates. By unhappy accident.

Silent and unchanging, they move and exist around one another like ghosts. Compatible in their perfect incompatibility.

Rey doesn't hate him, she doesn't think.

No, it's more like she's given up. Like Leia did. Like Luke did. Like all his girlfriends seem to.

When she'd first arrived, barely eleven years old, she'd gotten swept away by thoughts of him. This tsunami of a boy. Older and darker and full of some kind of ache she could never put her finger on.

They were childish daydreams with no real substance. Just him and those soft, dark lashes and that ink-stain mop of hair. Just those eyes and that nose and those lips. Just the fact that it would've taken two of her, stacked up, to touch the top of his head.

But it's hard to love a boy who'd rather you didn't exist.

So Rey promised herself she'd squash these thoughts to bits and lock away the remains somewhere deep and unfindable.

From there, she'd followed Leia's lead. Hoped for Ben the way she did. Waited for Ben. Expected more from Ben. Got disappointed by Ben. Let down by Ben. Over and over and over.

And now, yes. Yes. She's given up.

Which is why this — right now — shouldn't matter at all. It makes no logical sense.

She catches the tail-end of whatever his latest girlfriend is throwing back over her shoulder, just before she stomps out the front door and closes it behind her. For good, seems like.

" — honestly don't know what I was thinking. I mean, Christ, just look at you."

The slam of the door seems to echo with her last words.

And Rey's left blinking by the sink.

She can see the very edge of him, on the lowest step of the staircase. He's staring at the door, expression unreadable as ever.
Secretly, she's always liked him in profile. That long nose. That strong jaw —

But now obviously isn't the time to start revisiting these thoughts.

Christ, Rey.

His gaze slides sideways, suddenly, as though magnetized by her gawking.

And now he's staring at her.

It's been a long time since they've locked eyes like this. Usually, it's just the flash of a gaze. The slightest graze of a glance, in passing on the stairs or on the porch.

Now, it's a direct hit.

Rey has to stop herself from actually taking a step back, but she can feel the flush creeping across her face regardless.

"Sorry," she mumbles. It might be the first word she's spoken to him in a week. "Didn't mean to eavesdrop. Was just doing the washing u—"

He's gone before she can even finish the sentence. Trudging back up the stairs without a word.

Rey blinks. Blinks again.

She doesn't finish the dishes.

It's late the next night when everything changes.

The catalyst that sets off a chain reaction — like a fuse blowing the lock off whatever box she stuffed those memories into.

When Ben Solo ceases to be her ghost of a roommate and instead becomes a problem.

She's home early from work, and she's got motor oil in the creases of her fingers that she's never been more eager to wash off. She wants a bath and a beer and some late-night, brainless television, but instead she gets this.

Yes, it's a nice house. But there's only one bathroom to share between the whole of the upstairs. One shower. One tub.

Even then, though, it's not as if she barges in on him.

No, she stops dead a good five feet away because the door is open.

The rational side of her brain starts functioning first, telling her there are certainly worse things to catch someone doing in the bathroom. It starts to list them off in order behind her eyelids.

But the other side — the side that will always contain that forbidden, hidden, forgotten itch she felt for him as a girl — it washes away all rationality in an instant.

And she wants to cry.

Ben Solo is looking at himself in the mirror.

He's — he's glaring at his reflection like he's never seen something so disgusting in his whole life.

Rey watches, frozen — rooted to the spot — as he takes one hand from its white-knuckled grip on the counter and reaches up to touch his nose. Dabs at the bridge of it, then down along the sides, pushing at the bone and cartilage and warping it into odd shapes. Her eyes catch momentarily on his bitten-down fingernails — on a new tattoo near his thumb — but she can't really focus on anything but the whole of it. Of what she's seeing.

She's never known a Ben like this.

A Ben whose thoughts are so clearly laid out across his face. A Ben who'd linger on the words of a girl he'd known for — what — less than a month?

A vulnerable Ben.

That same hand moves along to do more irreparable damage. Not to himself.

To Rey and her resolve to feel nothing for him.

It scrapes down his cheek, leaving raw red lines, and curves around to one of his ears. He tugs. Yanks at it until it looks like it hurts, then shoves that hand back into the inky darkness of his hair and tangles it in.

Rey watches, speechless, as those gashes of eyebrows bunch together and his eyes squeeze shut, and then he buckles at the waist. Bends over, elbows crashing down on the counter, face falling into his hands.

And Rey —

Rey wants to scream.

Because Ben Solo is not allowed to hate himself. No, not for this.

There are number of other things she might gladly let him beat himself up for. The way he used to torment her. The damage and pain he helped cause with that bloody gang, and the nerve he had to laugh with them about it.

Everything he ever put Leia through.

But this? No. Ben Solo is not allowed to hate himself for this.

And, "What the fuck are you doing?" comes flying out of her mouth like a rogue, ballistic missile.

All at once, Ben is back to his absurd height, jackknifing up from the counter and whipping to face her. His eyes are wide and wet and furious, and he's —

The door slams in her face.

Fuck.

Fuck.

This? This ends well for no one.

It's only a few hours later.

She's been staring up at the ceiling for god-knows-how-long, blinking into the darkness and listening to the fan whir. And there is nothing — literally nothing — she can do to shut her mind off.

To keep her thoughts from this fucking drag race they've started.

There's still motor oil on her hands. She never washed it off.

She didn't do anything after that moment in the hall except retreat into her room and bury herself under her covers. So she could think.

And now she can't do anything else.

Because honestly, how dare he? How dare he touch that nose as though it's some kind of deformity? How dare he desecrate a thing she loved so much? She was so comforted by it as a child. The way it filled up his face and softened him somehow. Softened what would otherwise be too intense. Too sharp.

God, even at fifteen, she remembers sneaking glances at him. Tracing the slope of it with her eyes and wondering what it might feel like nestled into the crook of her neck —

Oh, Christ…

She's gotten really good at not needing anything. Men, especially.

Yes, there's been the odd boyfriend here and there. And she's no stranger to sex.

But she's gotten good at seeing it like a side dish. An option. Nothing she needs. Nothing she craves.

But Ben fucking Solo…

Fuck, he's like a Pandora's box. Simply by allowing her mind to linger on the shape of his face — the depth of those brown eyes —

Her thighs clench together.

This is ridiculous.

He shouldn't matter to her. How he feels shouldn't matter — what he's thinking shouldn't—

God, what if he's thinking about it right now? What if he's lying there in that overlarge, black hole of a bed of his, listening to the words of that ignorant dimbo play on repeat in his head?

What if he's considering doing something stupid, like breaking his own nose? Ben Solo would absolutely do something like that.

What if — what if he doesn't think anyone finds him—

No. That's it.

Rey is many things, but a coward is not one of them.

Fuck this. Fuck that stupid girl. And fuck Ben Solo.

She rips off the covers and marches the short distance between her bedroom and his in about ten seconds.

Really, she should be thinking about a lot of things right now. Second-guessing herself.

For one, what if he has absolutely no interest? He's given her no reason to think otherwise. He — for Christ's sake, she's the consolation prize. What the fuck is she thinking?

And all that aside, she's got motor oil on her hands. She smells like the shop. Her hair is probably knotted beyond saving. And she hasn't shaved in three days.

This is an absolutely awful idea.

That's what she should be thinking.

But she's not. She's thinking about his bloody nose again. The delicious curve of it. The way it casts a shadow over that plump, constantly bruised-looking mouth.

She's wondering what Ben Solo tastes like.

And with that thought at the forefront, she turns the knob and steps in.

It's not a room she's seen much of. Not since he's redone it — or undone it, rather. What was once his childhood bedroom has been stripped of almost everything, leaving nothing on the walls or shelves. She can tell, even in the dark, that everything left is in one shade of gray or another.

But none of that matters right now.

What matters is that he's awake, and staring at her, tangled up shirtless in his black sheets. And she — god, that's distracting — she…

Well, there are a lot of ways she can play this.

"What the hell are you—"

She goes with option one, because he's already talking and she doesn't have time to think.

Striding swiftly from the door, she moves straight to his bedside. Props up one knee on the bed, dangerously close to the heat of his side, and plants two brave hands on either end of his shoulders, which — it's a wider stance than she expected.

Undaunted — it's too fucking late to turn back now — she leans over his bewildered face and demands in a low tone, "You're thinking about what she said, aren't you?"

"Rey, what the fuck are you—"

"That girl, from the other day. I don't know if she was your girlfriend, or what, but — you are, aren't you?"

He's breathing kind of heavily. His broad chest — built up from brawling or resisting arrest, or something — expands up towards her, dangerously close to her own chest with each inhale. He's in fight or flight mode, she can tell. Ready to bolt at any second.

But those dark, piercing eyes staring up at her — shifting between each of hers almost desperately…fuck, if they don't spur her on.

"Let's get one thing straight, yeah? Straight off." She nods definitively. Doesn't think she's ever been this brave in her life. "I don't like you, Ben Solo. The things you've done, the people you've hurt…it's fucking despicable, alright? I hope you know that."

Ben seems to know instinctively that he shouldn't speak right now. Doesn't dare.

"You've been this horrible black cloud hanging over me since the moment I came here, and don't you for one second think this means I'm going to forget it. But…" Another glance between his eyes, and her bravado softens. Melts. Her words come out an agonized sigh. "What she said…" She takes a hand — shaking, she's just realized — and lets it brush just featherlight across the bridge of his nose.

Ben flinches like she's struck him.

Rey stiffens in response, but doesn't pull back. Forces herself to hold steady and let the calluses on her fingers dust across the smooth, taut skin, just above the bone.

"What are you doing?" he breathes out. Almost a hiss, but not quite. There's an accusation in it — a suspicion — but also a great deal of uncertainty and fear.

But she's having a lot of trouble organizing her thoughts. She's never been this close to him. Never.

Except for that one time he pinned her up against the wall, but that was a closeness full of hatred. Full of hostility.

This is…notably different. Even with one of his hands hovering just inches from her wrist, like a precaution. Like he's waiting for her to hurt him, or something equally ridiculous.

And it occurs to her that the last thing she wants to do is hurt him.

"I've always liked it," she says, and her voice comes out more dazed than she'd hoped as she traces one finger down from between his brows all the way to the tip of his nose.

She's rather amazed he hasn't stopped her yet.

But he does say, "Are you drunk?"

"Do I look drunk?" She lets her hand fall away, and now there's nothing between their faces. Just a few meager inches of space. She quirks an eyebrow at him, begging her confidence to hold up just a little longer.

"You're acting drunk. Rey, do you even know who I a—"

She scoffs. Leans back slightly so she's not hovering over him. "You're Ben Solo. Yes, I know. The Ben Solo who hates me. The one I share a house with. I know."

Something too quick to catch flickers across his gaze.

Rey spreads her arms out. "And I'm Rey. The one you hate. The consolation prize. I know."

His nostrils flare, and she realizes that maybe it's not the best idea to remind him how much he despises her right now.

"But let's just put all that away for the time being so I can make my point." She juts up her brows again. A question, and not a question all the same.

"And what is your point?" he drones. The low baritone of his voice vibrates against the skin of her knee.

"That that stupid girl was wrong." She swallows a sudden surge of panic and forces out. "That, on the outside — physically — there couldn't be anything less wrong with you."

He stares at her, the brown of his eyes seeming to deepen to black. She watches his lips part, just the slightest bit.

This is the part that takes guts.

She swallows again, throat closing up. Shuts her eyes for the briefest moment so she can at least make herself start the sentence. The one he might laugh at. The one he might never let her forget. The one he might throw her off his bed — fuck, maybe even out of the house — for.

"That sometimes I think about you when I…"

Fuck. She can't finish it. The words die on her tongue, and she can feel the blood scorching its way into her cheeks, flooding her crimson. Betraying how truly afraid she is.

"When you what?" Ben asks, so quiet it's practically a whisper.

Rey forces her eyes open, fully aware that the proud expression she'd been holding in place has sunken into a grimace. Her voice cracks, now. She has to clear her throat, glancing down at her knee and fumbling with a stray thread on her jeans. "I think you know what I was going to say."

"When you what?" he repeats, harder this time, and her eyes jut up to him.

Fuck him. Of course he's going to make her say it.

Here she is, trying to help — Christ, is that even what she's trying to do?

She blurts it out quick, the way she rips off those do-it-yourself waxing strips she gets when she has a chance to actually practice some self-love.

"When I'm alone at night and I feel like I…feel like I need something."

He shifts then. Pulls his elbows back so he can push himself up halfway, closing a little bit of that precious distance between them.

Rey looks pointedly back to her knee.

"You came in here," he says, low. Dark. "I didn't ask you to. So you're going to have to do better than tha—"

"When I come," she grits out. "I think about you when I come."

The silence bleeds.

She can feel it spreading over her, sticky and poignant and painful. She doesn't dare rip her gaze from that stray thread — the one she's now pulling out and twisting around her finger until the circulation cuts off.

At the corner of her vision, she can see his slow, heavy breaths. See his chest moving. God, that fucking chest —

"Every time?" he asks suddenly.

She jerks a little. Doesn't look up. "What?"

"Do you think about me every time?"

Now, she does look up — because it's so much easier to look at him when she's pissed off.

"Don't be a prick," she hisses, easing her knee off the bed to stand. Screw this. She tried. She did. But he's Ben fucking Solo, what was she expecting—

"You're going to leave?" he demands flatly.

She freezes, back halfway turned.

"After everything you just said — just did…" he trails off with a cut laugh. Dark and unfriendly. "You're going to leave and you're not going to let me fuck you?"

Rey's glad she's facing away so he doesn't get to see her eyes pop wide. Doesn't get to see the fresh blush fan out across her face.

But there's no way to hide the little jolt that runs through her. The one that starts a throbbing, deep and low in her stomach.

A stupid part of her brain is thinking about how lovely the word 'fuck' sounds when he says it — which is ludicrous. Meanwhile, all the other parts are trying to frantically piece together some sort of response.

And what they come up with is apparently: "Who said anything about—"

"Fucking you?"

Her eyes squeeze shut instinctively. She can hear the sheets rustling. Knows he's getting up, but doesn't dare turn around. Not for the life of her.

"I did," he says, voice closer now. Close enough that she can feel his hot breath on the nape of her neck. Rey digs her fingernails into her palms so she can focus on anything but that, even as a traitorous shiver runs its way down her spine.

Ben must see it.

He leans in close — even in the semi-dark, she can see his shadow falling over her. Can feel him looming. So aggressively tall. Taking up space so violently.

But he's very, very careful not to touch her. Not even a little bit. Not even with his lips only centimeters from her ear, his voice a toe-curling, pulse-racing shock.

Low and quiet and infinitely predatory.

Vulnerable Ben is gone, and she's reminded exactly who her foster brother is.

"But you're thinking about it, aren't you?" His words ghost across the shell of her ear, and it takes everything in her not to lean away. But also not to lean closer. "Charging in here, thinking you're so brave. So triumphant. Thinking you're going to comfort me. Pretty stupid of you to put yourself in a situation you're nowhere near prepared for."

Rey's grateful for the little spark of indignation she feels. It gives her something to cling to. Desperately. "I'm no virgin," she seethes.

"Could've fooled me." Ben's voice is a hum. He's got all of his power back now, and Rey — stupid, stupid Rey — she's done exactly what he said she did, though she'll never fucking admit it. She's put herself at his mercy.

"I'm not," she blurts out, more desperately this time. God, she feels like they're teenagers again. Like he's backing her into the corner for the millionth time to pull her hair or poke at her freckles or to ask her why her parents abandoned—

"You're so fucking defensive," he says, but there's almost a delight in his voice. "Don't blame me. Look at you, Rey. You're shaking. Only virgins shake."

She is not sha—

Oh fuck, she really is shaking. Christ.

"And you know what?"

Finally, finally the damp flesh of his lips whispers against her earlobe — and fuck, if she didn't realize how desperately she's been waiting for it until now.

"I kind of like it."

He's slow. Meticulous.

And if she was expecting anything, it certainly wasn't the eye contact.

He doesn't stop looking at her. Not for one second. Not as he peels her jeans down her legs, tossing them off into the corner. Not as he walks her back until she's pressed against the door and there's nowhere else to go, ignoring the perfectly good bed only a few feet away. Not as his nose — that fucking nose, the bloody cause of all this — brushes against hers the way she's been imagining for years. Even then, he keeps his gaze fixed on her, dark eyes even darker beneath his lowered lashes.

She expects a kiss — throbs for it. Aches for it. Even goes so far as to try to initiate it.

But instead his fingers dip below the waistband of her underwear, and she gets to watch his eyes light up at the sound of her gasp. Has to watch the corner of his lip slide upward, boyishly sadistic. The same kind of grin he used to wear when the name of the game was torment.

But this isn't torment — or, well it is. But of an entirely different sort.

And his fingers — fuck, there's talent in those fingers. Even doing very little, they do so fucking much. Even with only one, rocking between her folds, gathering up the slickness and using it to glide, he has her knees ready to give out.

"Do you know how wet you are?" he asks against the corner of her mouth, and he still hasn't fucking kissed her yet.

She knows. She can feel the heat in her cheeks, that's how much she knows. But she lies and blurts out, "No," and gets surprised by all the panic in her voice.

"Want to see?"

Excuse me?

"Yes."

Her brain and her mouth aren't connected anymore.

Ben smiles fully now, sharp canines visible as he slips his hand free — and god, she wants to feel those teeth sinking into her—

"Open your mouth."

"Wha—"

He slips his fingers inside without warning, relishing in her sort of shocked squeak and the way her eyes go wide.

"Taste it?"

It takes her a second to nod, eyes locked on his — heart racing as she lets her tongue glide across the slick digits. She does. She tastes herself, and she's all at once mortified and aching for more.

Ben puts weight on her tongue. Drags her jaw down and her mouth open with his fingers, so she's left sort of helplessly gawking at him.

"What do you taste like?"

Rey blinks at him, defenseless. Completely and utterly at his mercy.

"I want to know."

Ben doesn't kiss her. No — no this doesn't qualify. This is something else entirely. This needs its own definition. Its own meaning.

Because he closes that tiny distance while her mouth's still open wide, fingers still hooked against the edges of her bottom teeth, and he licks her fucking tongue.

Rey gasps sharply — and he just groans into her mouth. He's still somehow aware enough of the rest of her to latch his free hand onto the back of her thigh when her knees buckle. Which — she didn't even know she was falling. She can't think. Can't breathe.

His fingers release her jaw, and she almost clamps her teeth down on his tongue once she's free. One hand hitching its way up from the back of her thigh to the bare skin of her ass, he squeezes and digs his nails in, other hand closing over her throat.

If there were ever a time to panic, it's now.

But Rey — somehow she can't. She doesn't. She won't.

Because even as he presses down on her jugular, his kiss transforms into something sweet and delicate, and the contrast throws her for a loop. Has her sighing against his tongue and collapsing back against the door frame.

He nibbles and sucks at her lips, nose brushing against either cheek as he chooses his angles — and that throb he so carelessly awakened between her thighs starts to fucking burn.

"Ben…" she gasps.

"What?" He doesn't stop kissing her.

"Please."

"Please what?" he asks against her tongue.

She whimpers. She actually fucking whimpers. "Please."

His grip tightens on her throat and he pulls away just a fraction. "Please. What."

God, she never dreamed he'd be like this. So demanding. So — fuck, almost hostile. She'd thought those insecurities she'd glimpsed (and yet always suspected) would come through in the bedroom and he'd be…a cautious lover. A careful one.

She's so, so wrong.

"Rey." It's sharp. Expectant. Not a question.

She swallows thickly and shakes her head. "No." She has to hold onto herself, here. Has to remember who he is and who she is and what they're—

"If you don't say it," he murmurs — and it's a purr, that's what it is. "I won't do it."

The noise she makes is involuntary. Humiliating. A desperate and sad little cry that betrays exactly how intense that throb is between her legs.

He lets his nose graze the line of her jaw, and she hates herself, because now he knows how much that means to her.

"Don't you want it, Rey?" He mouthes the words against the exposed column of her throat, right above the pressure of his hand. His lips trace their way upward to find her ear again, and this time his tongue laves along the curve of it, making her buck against him.

She can feel it. How hard he is.

She can feel something large and impending growing against the thin material of her shirt. It wrenches a fresh gasp from her throat.

"Don't you want to know what it feels like? Your tight, little cunt spreading around me?" That gasp morphs into a moan. God, she knew he had a mouth on him, but —

Jesus.

"You want me to fuck you don't you?" His grip tightens on her throat with the emphasis, and he suckles at her earlobe. Lets a low groan rumble out against her skin. "God, Rey, I can fuck you so good. I've thought about it too, you know."

Her breath hitches.

The hand on her ass kneads harder, gathering up the flesh into his palm like he's trying to tear it free. "I would've done it when we were younger, if you'd ever taken a breath from being such a stubborn, little bitch."

It wakes up just a piece of her. She knees him — hard — in the thigh.

And he grunts, but he doesn't pull back so much as an itch.

"Yeah." He huffs a laugh, pushing her head back harder against the door. "There she is."

"Just do it," Rey grits out. Because it's fucking destroying her, this teasing. She'll deny it to the ends of the Earth, but she doesn't think she's ever wanted something more in her life than she wants him right now.

Which is insanity. Pure insanity.

"Oh, I want to," he says, pausing to bite into her neck. A retaliation — but a welcome one. "I want to fuck you until you forget your own name. But you've got to ask." He pulls back. Considers her with narrowed, glimmering eyes. "Actually, no. Fuck it. You've got to beg."

"Fuck you," she spits, even as every fiber of her being screams at her to do it. Do it.

He lets her go completely. Takes two massive steps back and spreads out his arms, smile dark and devious.

"Beg for it."

She does.

She begs.

She says things she doesn't even want to believe so he'll keep doing that thing with his tongue. She pants out please and oh god and right there, right fucking there as he eats her against the doorframe. She whispers yes and more and just like that as his fingers replace his tongue, filling only partially what needs to be filled by so much more. She pleads with him fuck me and oh god, please and now, now, now — Ben, I can't wait.

She does it until he's satisfied. Until he has mercy on her, and he throws her down hard onto sheets that reek of him. And as she squirms and grasps and tangles her fingers into hair she'd always known would be soft, he lines himself up and says it.

Without humor. Without a teasing lilt or a dark promise behind it.

He says it like he's never been so furious that the words exist, just before he thrusts in so deep she swears she sees God.

"You're not a fucking consolation prize."