Charlie hadn’t been sure whether to come to the Solstice party or not but the others hadn’t taken his pathetic, self-pitying ‘no’ for an answer. The idea of being sober and hanging around a load of drunk people who were high on life, if not anything else, didn’t sound like Charlie’s idea of a good time but he’d been proven wrong. He was, despite himself, having a good time. It surprised him to realise that he’d actually made a few good friends here in Atlantis and they were all here tonight, encouraging him to join in with the party spirit, with his non-alcoholic beer and crab toast.
Spotting a familiar face through the little crowd of people he was standing with, Charlie ducked away from the conversation that had been going on around him and took a gulp of his drink on the way to make sure he didn’t have any residual crab smell on his breath.
“Hey,” he said as he approached Rey, smiling warmly. “Happy Summer Solstice or something.”
If there was one thing Rey had learned since being in Atlantis, it was that the place loved a good party. Or a bad party or really just any party at all. She’d gone to parties that celebrated things she had never heard of and there was always something interesting going on. The Solstice parties especially were usually quite eventful since it seemed that the holiday had something to do with affection and things of that nature.
She’d been standing talking to some people and sipping on a vodka berry sptrizer when she heard someone come up beside her and she turned to see Charlie there. “Hi,” she said with a smile. “The same to you, whatever at summer solstice is!” Rey had been talking to Charlie a good bit since the day she’d found him in Dive and she was enjoying getting to know him. In some ways they had a lot in common even if they came from two entirely different worlds.
Rey’s smile always caught Charlie off guard. It was so bright and, he always felt sure, completely genuine. The afternoon they’d spent at the beach the week before, trying to not make her smile, had been the most fun he’d had since he’d arrived in Atlantis. They’d failed miserably, of course, at not making her smile and, as a result, Charlie’s phone had kept powering up in his pocket, draining the battery in record time. Still, it hadn’t mattered.
“Nice sparkly collar,” he commented, glancing down at her dress. She had clearly made much more of an effort than he had but he was going to blame his casual appearance on the fact that he hadn’t been intending to come until the last minute.
Before he realised what he was doing, he’d reached out to touch the sequin chain links of the collar, letting his fingers trail down to her shoulder across the silver studs on her dress. Catching himself, he cleared his throat in embarrassment and quickly pulled his hand away.
“You look nice,” he said, by way of explanation, although he realised that didn’t cover why he’d momentarily turned into some kind of touchy-feely, human magpie.
Normally Rey would have reacted by grabbing his hand and flipping him onto his ass but she didn’t mind. She thought it was sweet that he had noticed and she said “Thank you. I don’t dress up very often so it’s fun when I get to.” The dress she’d chosen was unique but that’s what had made her notice it. Rey had never given a thought to fashion because after all, it wasn’t like she needed to worry about how she looked on Jakku.
“You look nice too. I’m glad you came, is this your first Atlantis party?” She wasn’t sure how long he had been here, time seemed to work differently but maybe it was her imagination. “There are always interesting things happening at them. You never know what to expect.”
Charlie shuffled his feet, glancing doubtfully down at his jeans, t-shirt and shirt combo. Still, it wasn’t lost on him that she’d given him a compliment and said she was glad he was there. A bashful smile spread across his lips.
“Yeah,” he said in reply to her question, lifting his hand to ruffle his hair in an attempt to fight the strong and very weird urge that had just come over him, to reach out and stroke her face. “I wasn’t really sure about coming but it’s turning out to be not so bad.” He clenched his fist in the hair at the nape of his neck, focusing on the slight pain to distract himself.
“Are you having a good time?” he asked, sounding ever so slightly strained as he let his errant hand fall back to his side.
It was getting rather warm, at least to Rey it was and she took another sip of her drink. “Yes, I am but I’m having a much better one now that you’ve come over here.” She was surprised at herself, the words were rather bold for her, she was usually not so outspoken around men, even ones that she knew. “It’s always easy to have a good time when the company is right.” Without thinking, she took the hand that wasn’t holding the glass and took his hand, giving him another bright smile.
Charlie’s heart started leaping around wildly in his chest. He wasn’t sure whether it was because of what Rey was saying or the fact that he could feel her fingers entwining with his, fulfilling his bizarre urge to touch her, which had been trying to overwhelm him since he’d first come over.
Letting his fingers twist around hers, he automatically stepped closer to her, standing in front of her with his chin lowered so he could look down the eight or so inches to meet her eyes. His mouth suddenly felt incredibly dry and he gulped, trying to find his voice.
“Me too,” was the best he could come up with. Internally he grimaced at himself, took a deep breath and tried to rearticulate. “I mean I’m glad came over. Not that I wouldn’t have… I’m glad I saw you so I could come over.” He stopped. At that point, it seemed like the most sensible option.
“I’m glad too,” she said, looking up at him. He was much taller than she’d remembered but maybe she hadn’t noticed because they hadn’t been so close. They were definitely close now and she wasn’t the least bit sorry about it. She had finished her drink and looked about for some place to put the empty cup and saw a small table next to them. Had that been there before? She put the cup down - Charlie quickly followed suit with his bottle - and took his other hand. No sense in leaving it empty.
“There, that’s better,” she said. “Nothing in the way.” In the way of what she wasn’t exactly sure but it was nice to be touching him with both hands. This was very strange, she had never felt exactly like this before, not with someone who wasn’t Luke but she had attributed that to the Force. This wasn’t the Force, this was something different and she liked it. She liked it a lot.
Although Charlie was sure his brain would be able to think of plenty of things to put in their way, given the chance, the closeness of Rey and the way she was holding both his hands in hers stopped him being able to do much thinking at all. There were a lot of things about him that she didn’t know yet and that she might not like that much when she did but he couldn’t bring himself to ruin the moment. He knew that getting himself into situations like this wasn’t great for his sobriety but, right now, he couldn’t give a fuck.
“Do you...er,” he started, his tongue feverishly flickering out over his dry lower lip as he tried to work out how to not sound like an idiot in front of Rey.
“Would you like to…?” he tried again. Her mouth was close to his - he could smell the wonderful fruity smell of her drink on her breath - and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her.
She didn’t let him finish the sentence. It was almost as if she had no control over it and she lifted her face to his and kissed him. It felt nice, his lips were soft and she could taste lemons on them, probably the crab toast, her mind seemed to say. It had been months since she had kissed anyone, had even wanted to really but she had wanted to kiss Charlie since he had walked up to her tonight. She realized that maybe she’d been thinking about it for a while now but right now wasn’t the time to think about it. It was time to simply enjoy it.
Charlie’s initial feeling, when Rey kissed him, was one of relief - it meant he didn’t have to keep trying to work out how to ask whether she wanted to. However, the relief very quickly gave way to a whole host of other, far more enjoyable feelings, ones that he was very happy to just sit back and enjoy without putting too much thought into it. His eyes closed as he let himself bask in the sensation of Rey’s wonderfully soft lips on his. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been thinking about this ever since their afternoon at the beach and he certainly wasn’t disappointed.
He would have been happy if the kiss had gone on forever but after a while he lifted his head a little and blinked down at her again. His long fingers were still laced through hers and he ran his thumbs back and forth across her skin as he waited to see her reaction.
“That feels nice,” she said, her voice a little breathless. Her experience with kissing might be limited but she knew that this had been a very good one. She also knew that she didn’t want it to be the only one and there were far too many people around. Normally she would never have suggested it but whatever had hold of her emboldened her to say. “Maybe we should go someplace more private. If you want to kiss me again, that is, because I would like for you to if you want.”
A grin spread across Charlie’s face while his stomach turned in happy somersaults and he glanced away for a second while he tried to get a check on himself. It was no use. That kiss was all he could think about and the idea of there being more to come… a tiny shudder of excitement passed through him and his grip tightened involuntarily on her hands.
“I want to,” he assured her as he made eye contact once again, his voice sounding a little more gruff than usual.
“My place will be empty right now. We can go there?” he suggested. He wasn’t sure how ‘private’ she wanted them to be and he wondered whether suggesting taking her to an empty house might be being a bit presumptuous. The tension between them was electric but that didn’t change the fact that this was uncharted territory for them - until then, all they’d done was talk. Something about this party had accelerated their relationship from 0 to 100 in the space of a few minutes.
For a second Rey hesitated, she normally would never had agreed to being alone with someone she hadn’t known that long but something was different tonight. She liked Charlie and it felt good to know that he liked her back. Rey was aware that a lot of people thought she was naive and she wouldn’t deny that but she also had an advantage that most girls didn’t have. She could sense that Charlie wasn’t going to hurt her, and if that changed at any point, she wouldn’t hesitate to defend herself. Instead she smiled and nodded. “Yes, that would be nice. It’s getting too crowded out here.” Which wasn’t an understatement. Rey wasn’t fond of crowds anyway and if she and Charlie were actually going to turn whatever this was into something more than being friends, she’d rather be somewhere where they could at least talk to one another. Although she was in favor of more kissing before the talking.
Charlie glanced around at the crowd. If he was being completely honest, he’d kind of forgotten everyone else was there while he’d been talking to Rey and it was a little weird to see people around them partying on as normal. He felt as though there were literal sparks flying between the pair of them and he found it almost unbelievable that no one else had noticed.
He figured, from her comment, that Rey must like crowds about as much as he did. He smiled. it was certainly no hardship whatsoever for him to let go of one of her hands, keeping the other entwined with his, so he could lead her up the beach, away from the press of people and back towards the quiet city.