Entanglement

Ben’s hands are shaking; they hesitate on the brink of undoing his belt, before he can unwrap all the layers of concealing gray the Jedi Order has put him in, and Poe tries his best to finish the job. They’re in an alcove off the main hangar that at present holds nothing but old dropcloths and spare blankets, and the dizzy smell of fragrant bark and engine oil is comforting to Poe’s own nerves; he’s slept in this room before when going home wasn’t an option, or in between trips out when if he didn’t sleep somewhere he’d be dead on his feet. But he’s never brought Ben here before, and the low-ceilinged space is even more cramped as a result.

The two of them don’t have much time. They’d better make the most of it.

Poe pulls his hands back from his tunic and leans him back against the dusty folded cloth. Ben is watching him closely, with those liquid dark eyes, and he can feel the banked heat of his attraction running down his body — his long legs, his broad chest where Poe might briefly lay his head, his belly and his groin. The last one is the biggest reassurance — that Ben wants this, that they both want this, that the last thing Poe does, before Ben’s sent off again to wherever delinquent Jedi go, won’t be to ruin their friendship. If friendship is what this is.

His lips ache from kissing, from the cruel press of Ben’s mouth and his catching teeth, and all the blood in his body seems to be taking a detour straight to his dick. They are, at present, a little more than friendly.

“You’re not afraid,” Ben breathes against the crown of Poe’s head, like he can’t believe it. Him, with his shaking hands and his shallow short breaths and his need radiating off him like an engine running hot. Poe shakes his head and brings himself over to straddle his lap, planting a leg on either side. He lets his hands go where they’ve wanted to go for a while — snaking inside the crossed opening of his tunic to skate over the pebbled skin of his chest, goosebumps in the spring warmth, and lower to skirt the edge of his waistband. Unfamiliar territory — new frontier. Poe cannot think of any reason he would ever be afraid of Ben Organa.

“So who gets to go first?”

Ben’s mouth opens and closes a few times like he can’t believe that is what Poe’s asking, but the question contains his own answer as soon as it’s left his lips. Poe is already undoing the smooth wooden buttons of his fly for him, drawing him out and appreciating the weight of his cock in his hand, substantial and warm in a way that makes his own cock give a definite twitch of interest. He thought that was the kind of thing that only happened in dirty stories, the kind Poe used to stash under the seat in the cockpit of whatever he was flying at the moment — definitively not.

Poe pulls away for a moment to lick his hand and Ben jerks back with something like suppressed laughter. The fear hasn’t left him completely yet, but he’s watching him with such naked curiosity that it feels a little dreamlike, like neither of them is sure what comes next. Poe has done this in his dreams, woken up by Ben’s side in their shared bunk humiliated and hard. Poe has done this before, this kind of raw slippery dormitory fuck designed for speed and precision over lasting power, but he’d bet a thousand credits that Ben hasn’t.

The first strokes are long and slick, the way Poe himself would like it — taking it easy on the head until he’s fully hard, with Poe’s hips slotted against him and his own erection an increasingly insistent presence between him. It’s patient work by necessity — if Poe doesn’t pace himself he’s going to embarrass himself by coming in his pants. He adjusts his grip — easy now, long strokes, bending close against him with his friend’s cock in his hand and the slickness of incipient enjoyment making his palm wet.

Poe flicks his thumb across the head of his cock, and a sound escapes him like a little cry.

“Ssh, ssh,” Poe breathes — half as comfort and half out of terror that they will get caught, clinched together unmistakably like this in a space so small he can barely raise his head without knocking down loose plaster. Ben’s big broad hands tighten their grip on the back of Poe’s jacket, pulling out his shirttails. The two of them have never been this close before, twisting and rubbing in the dark for better purchase. Poe hasn’t even taken his boots off.

Ben’s grimace is almost like a smile, showing a slash of white teeth.

One of those big hands snakes around to feel between his legs, to brace the shape of Poe’s own hard-on — Poe lifts his hips into it and tries not to lose his rhythm with his hands. But Ben grinds him harder into it, until the pair of them are flush and touching, body against body where it counts most. His hands no longer tremble. Poe is suddenly aware of the tremendous strength of his body, and it unsettles him even as it drives him crazy — but he’s making him work through double-thick canvas and Poe’s so turned-on he’s seeing spots.

“I don’t want to leave,” Ben pants, breaking from a kiss with his lips still scraping Poe’s jaw. “I don’t want to leave you here. Come with me.”

He can’t do that, and they both know it. The Resistance needs trained pilots too badly, and what’s more Poe can teach new ones. They’ll never let him leave. But this is the kind of conversation they should have had a week ago, before he had had a hand jammed down his pants or his best friend’s tongue in his mouth.

“I know,” Poe says, and his voice is hitching in his throat just like his breath — his fingernails on his free hand are digging into Ben’s hip, and he has to will himself to let go. “I know, I’ll come find you. Give me the coordinates, I’ll come find you. Wherever you go.”

“That won’t be possible.” There in the clinch of bodies, Ben makes it sound final — shaking his head a little, eyes shut, turning his head. His dark curls are sticking to his forehead. “It’ll be too late. I shouldn’t even be here.”

With you goes unspoken. That much is true. Ben is hardly allowed out of his master’s sight, and somewhere in the pit of his stomach Poe knows why, but it isn’t fair — none of it is fair, that Ben can’t just train here like anybody else learning a trade, that he has to go away at all when he’s already stronger than his master, quicker, smarter. It’s not just partiality that makes him say these things — he’s seen what Ben can do. The two of them should be heroes together. Renegades. None of it is fair.

Poe’s heart is lurching even as he’s pressed close, drawn in tight. He wonders if Ben can feel his heartbeat through the palms of his hands.

“Don’t say that. I’m coming to find you, all right?”

Wherever Ben goes he will follow him. He is rutting against him desperately, sharp wristbones digging into bellies and legs tangling. The blood is singing in his ears, and the two of them are close, so close — something keeps him hanging on just at the edge of needing to come, the diamond-sharp edge so near it’s almost painful. Time to shut up and get going.

Ben comes so quietly that Poe’s suddenly worried he’s been hurting him — his face goes dark, his eyes shadowy slits in his long white face, and Poe wants to kiss him badly then, in that precise moment when his thigh-muscles hitch and he spills himself between Poe’s fingers. Poe’s own climax comes quick on its heels, like dissolving into nothing, like — coming undone. He is nowhere at all, for that long moment, nowhere in the galaxy and everywhere. He is seeing stars.

Ben pulls him down against his chest, sticky bodies close again, and the juddering rise and fall of his ribcage feels like something alien to both of them. The experience seems to have shocked them both into silence, which for Poe is a rare thing.

This is how it is. He’ll come get him, wherever he is, and they’ll be together again — before six seasons have passed, like a couple of partners in crime. Maybe Ben will have finally learned some patience and hell, maybe Poe can teach him how to fly without setting the instrumentation panels on fire with his mind. He won’t be getting rid of him this easily.