Rey Skywalker (sandstorm) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-09-02 21:18:00 |
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Augsut 8
Rey ✦ Charlie Mills
Charlie's birthday PG Complete |
Charlie hadn’t had this much of a good time on a birthday sober since he was twelve. Steve and Rey had both gone out of their way to make sure he’d had a great day, from waking up to Steve’s asshole but totally awesome present, figurines of Mac and the Chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, to this, walking home from a night with his friends, hand in hand with Rey, under an Atlantis sky full of stars. Charlie smiled and sighed a happy sigh, glancing across at Rey as they walked, before giving a soft chuckle and looking down at his sneakers. “I’ve had a really good day,” he admitted. After his last, disastrous birthday, which, because of Atlantis’ weird timeline, was only nine months ago and still very fresh in his memory, he hadn’t been looking forward to this one all that much and had kept it rather quiet. Neither Rey nor Steve had been prepared to let him forget it completely, however, and now he was very glad they hadn’t. Now he had some good memories to cancel out the bad ones of the year before. She looked over at him and smiled. “I’m glad. I hoped that you would.” Birthdays were a pretty big day, she had learned since being here. She hadn’t even known when hers was when she’d first arrived in Atlantis and missed it all together and this past year, it had also passed before she’d even thought about. “I’ve never had a birthday party. I didn’t even know when my birthday was until I came here and I found out by accident. It’s in December so it’s not time yet. I’ll be 21 I think, it’s hard to keep up since our calendar is different. I’ve never had a birthday party either but I like going to everyone else’s.” Charlie looked over at Rey as she talked. It wasn’t a surprise that she was a little older than him - somehow he’d had that sense - but he was taken aback by the revelation that she’d never had a birthday party. There was something very sad about that. “If we’re both still here in December,” which he wholeheartedly hoped they would be, “I’ll make sure you have the best birthday party,” he promised. He gave her hand a little squeeze. The route they had taken, meandering through the houses, had brought them out near Charlie’s house. Rey’s was a little way further on, up near the Body housing, and although Charlie had planned to walk her home, he paused, glancing towards Number 4. “There’s still a couple of hours of my birthday left,” he said, a little hesitantly. “Do you want to come and hang out at mine?” He was reluctant to let this day end and he couldn’t deny that he would like to spend a little time alone with Rey. “I will hold you to that,” she laughed. “I expect a party and I know it will be fun.” She didn’t hesitate when he suggested her coming to hang out with him. It was his birthday after all and he should be happy and she wasn’t ready to leave him yet anyway. “Of course, that would be great. I left some extra food for Marty in case i was late coming home and I don’t have anyone else I have to be responsible for.” She also had good roommates who were used to making sure the little dog was taken care of when Rey was gone on a mission or had to stay late at the base. Charlie smiled, feeling a resurgence of the nervous excitement he remembered from the first night he’d invited Rey back to his house. They’d spent a lot of time hanging out since then, in public and private, but it always made his heart beat a little quicker when he had her to himself. He led the way up to the front door of his house and dropped her hand so he could let them both in. The house was quiet and fully in darkness - if any of Charlie’s roommates were in, they were probably asleep - so he reached out for Rey and guided her through the gloomy hallway to the door to his room. He opened it for her then flicked on the light. Inside, it was exactly as he’d left it, not too messy but with a few discarded shirts strewn around the place from where he’d been getting dressed earlier. Charlie darted inside and swept them up, depositing them in his closet, before smoothing the duvet cover over his bed. “Come in. Make yourself comfortable. Do you want a drink or something?” “Some water? That would be really good,” she settled on the bed, leaning against the headboard. She’d been here before but for some reason, she felt a little nervous tonight. Maybe it was because they’d been getting closer ever since the movie night. Things had changed that night but not in a bad way. He had opened up to her and she was glad that he had. Neither of them had had a very typical upbringing and while he had at least had his family, they certainly hadn’t been supportive. Rey thought that in some ways that would be harder to handle than being alone. “Do you like your present?” she asked. “I wasn’t sure what to get you but that seemed like something you’d enjoy and between the two of us we’ve taken enough pictures.” Rey loved being able to take photographs with her phone and tablet. They were much more permanent than holovids in her opinion and they would eventually stop working. Not as far as she knew anyway. Charlie darted out of the room, leaving Rey to get settled, and returned a few moments later with a glass of water for her and a Coke for himself. He placed both down on the nightstand, flicked on the little lamp there then closed the bedroom door behind himself and turned off the overhead light, leaving them in a cozy, artificial twilight. “I love it,” he said emphatically, in reply to Rey’s question. He’d already set the digital photo frame up on his desk, next to the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest figurines Steve had given him, and he walked across to it, smiling at the photo which was currently on the screen. It was one of him, Rey and Marty that they’d taken at the beach the day before. “It’s perfect.” The frame had the function of playing music, as well as displaying images on a loop, and Charlie dug in his pocket for his device so he could connect it up. In the months he’d been working at the record store, he’d amassed quite a collection of songs and he quickly flicked through them until he found the playlist he was looking for: a chilled mix of music by someone called Sufjan Stevens. He set the device down on the desk as the music began to play and turned to walk over to the bed. He ran his hands down the sides of his jeans as he did so. They were clammy. He knew it was the effect that being alone with Rey was having on him. He sank down to sit on the edge of the bed, facing her, and reached one hand out to rest gently on her leg. “Did I actually thank you for distracting me yesterday?” he asked, nodding his head back towards the photo. “Yes, you did and you’re welcome. I promised that I would help you and I meant that,” she smiled at him, glad to see him relaxed and happy. She knew that yesterday had been hard for him but he’d gotten through it and she was glad. “It was really strange though, that whole thing but I don’t suppose anything should surprise me anymore.” She looked over at the figures that Steve had given him. “I don’t understand the figures though. Steve told me they were a movie?” There were so many movies and so much music that she had never heard before and she liked that Charlie and his friends were sharing it with her. It was different from her world but she liked it. A lot of people had promised to help Charlie over his lifetime and few had come good. He knew he didn’t make it easy for people - sometimes his demons proved stronger than even the best influence - but he appreciated Rey trying, without making him feel like she was trying to fix him. “Yeah, it was fucked up,” he agreed. As much as he felt, like Rey, that nothing should surprise him anymore, everyone acting like they were high the day before had caught him off guard. It probably hadn’t helped that it had happened so close to his birthday, when he’d already been feeling rather vulnerable. Rey’s question drew his thoughts away from the events of the day before and the darkness that always threatened to creep in. He turned his head, following her gaze to the figurines. A smile split his face. “They’re from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” he explained with a laugh. “It was one of the only DVDs we had in the last Inpatients I was at before coming here. Steve says I reference it too much. They’re Mac and the Chief,” he said, pointing to each one in turn. “They’re best friends.” It felt symbolic that Steve had bought them for him. Charlie leaned back on his elbows, his hand remaining lightly on Rey’s shin. “Basically, it’s set in an asylum. You’re never quite sure if either or both of them are crazy but they have each other and, in the end, they stick it to their oppressors. It’s the kind of movie students write essays about. Anyway, it felt kind of appropriate in that place. Or any of the places I went, to be honest…” He trailed off, his eyes glazing a little as he remembered. He wasn’t sorry to be away from all that. “We can watch it sometime, if you like,” he added charitably. It sounded sad to Rey but it seemed to have had a big influence on Charlie so she nodded. “Sure, we can do that. There is so much I want to learn about the world you come from. I’ve liked most of the music you’ve played for me, some of the lyrics don’t make sense but I still like it,” she smiled. “I wish there were things I could show you from my world but there really isn’t anything here other than my lightsaber.” She knew there was a movie out there, two she believed, but she hadn’t watched either of them and hadn’t even considered letting Charlie watch it with her. He might have seen it for all she knew and she knew that watching it and seeing Luke the way he had looked when she met him would probably be confusing and upset her so it was best to leave well enough alone. A smile spread across Charlie’s face to mirror Rey’s. He kind of loved how little she knew about Earth. She was so wise in so many ways, it was cute to find something she had to ask him to explain to her. Charlie sat up straighter when Rey mentioned her lightsaber. “I would love to watch you training some time,” he said with wide eyes. He’d grown up pretending to fight with lightsabers. Seeing his girlfriend actually using one would be beyond awesome. “Would that be weird?” “No, it wouldn’t be weird at all!” she smiled brightly. “I’ve been doing a lot of training with Mara lately, she’s expecting a baby so she’s not in the field and has been working with us. Her two daughters from the future are there too. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you came and watched.” Rey was happy that he wanted to see what she did, she wasn’t nearly as accomplished as Shamara or Shania but she could hold her own and they’d grown up knowing how to use a lightsaber while she hadn’t. “I’ll ask her and let you know when is a good time.” “I think I annoyed one of them,” Charlie muttered, feeling a little embarrassed. “I called Atlantis an asshole.” “To be fair,” he continued, with a smile, “I didn’t know there were people who were actually born here. I thought everyone was just brought in, like us.” Charlie shifted around on the bed so he could lay beside her, his shoulder resting against the pillow. He reached out his hand to lightly brush against her arm, wanting to maintain a physical connection between them. “I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here,” he murmured, looking up to meet her gaze. “I don’t think you even know how many times you’ve saved me already. Like that first day…” He trailed off. Rey laughed. “It’s okay. There were a lot of people who showed up around the holidays who were born to the people here in the future. It was kind of confusing to be honest. Some of them stayed but a lot went back home. And there were people here already who had always lived here so it’s understandable.” She shifted a little and laid her hand on his. “I didn’t do anything special, I just talked to you.” Although she had sensed that he needed someone and she hadn’t been sure if it was the right thing to do but now she was very glad that she had gone in to talk to him. “You need to give yourself credit for how far you’ve come, Charlie, because you have.” Charlie turned his hand over so he could thread his fingers through Rey’s. He knew she was right, that staying clean for this long was an achievement he should be proud of. He could also hear Travis’ voice in his head telling him it was stupid to hang his sobriety on his relationship with a girl but he couldn’t help feeling like Rey had been his lifeline these past couple of months. Sure, all she did was talk to him but she always seemed to know exactly what to say to him, what it was he needed to hear. He didn’t know whether the Force had anything to do with that but, if it did, he just found himself feeling all the luckier for finding someone as amazing as her. After all, he’d never had much luck in love before. And he did, he realised, love her. He’d almost said it by accident when they’d been on the porch outside Movie Night. He could only guess that had been his subconscious trying to voice what his conscious mind was only just catching up to. Rey meant the world to him. The mental revelation made him feel rather tongue tied. He could feel his cheeks burning up, even as he looked down into Rey’s beautiful green-brown eyes. He ran his tongue over his dry lips before leaning in to kiss her. It was the only way he could think of to communicate at that moment. She saw the look in his eyes and wondered what he was thinking but then he kissed her and she couldn’t think at all. Rey didn’t have a lot of experience in the kissing department, just a couple of random times on Jakku and then Luke but she’d learned that it didn’t matter how you kissed someone as long as there were real feelings behind it and there were. She knew that she cared deeply about Charlie and that it went far beyond what it had been at the beginning, she had wanted to help him and she still did but there was a lot more now. He had become part of her, part of who she was and they were connected in a way that she couldn’t explain to someone who didn’t understand the Force. It was possible to bond with someone who wasn’t Force sensitive, she’d seen that before and it had happened here but she wasn’t going to try and explain, she was just going to enjoy it. When they broke apart, she rested her hand against his cheek, their foreheads touching. She could sense his feelings and they matched her own but she didn’t want to say the words first because what if she were wrong? Instead, she just smiled at him, content to be in this moment. Charlie’s fingers moved softly up and down Rey’s arm as he looked at her. She was so close that she was almost out of focus but he didn’t want to be even an inch further away from her than he was. A smile playing on his lips, he let his nose touch hers. A question hovered on the tip of his tongue but he was scared to let it out. He didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted without making her feel pressured and he didn’t want to ruin this moment of pure happiness. Adam would have called him a pussy, for sure, but Adam had never understood what it felt like to be shy, especially when it came to girls. Charlie thought, instead, about the advice he himself had given Steve when the latter had been unsure what to do about Violet. She can’t say yes if you don’t ask. It had been true then and it was true now. He knew it was about time he started taking his own advice. “Rey, I thought maybe you could… I mean, I’d like you to…” He stopped, closed his eyes for a moment then took a breath and started again. “Would you like to stay over tonight? With me.” It was a loaded question, he knew. They’d never spent the night together before and it felt like a big step. Charlie was on the verge of reassuring her that this wasn’t him asking for sex but he stopped himself. To say that he didn’t want her would be an outright lie and one that he knew she’d see through in an instant. She didn’t need the Force to be able to read his body. Instead, he trusted that she’d believed him enough, when he’d said he was happy to wait until she was ready, to take his question at face value. He hoped she understood him well enough by now to know that, if she wanted him to, he would simply hold her and kiss her and fall asleep with her in his arms and still feel like the luckiest guy in Atlantis. Anything else, whenever it happened, was just a bonus. “Yes, I would like to stay with you tonight,” she felt her face grow warm. She had been wanting to ask him if she could but she had no idea how to do it but he’d done it instead. “It’s just……..well I don’t think I’m ready for…...everything…..yet. I want to stay here and I love being with you and when I’m ready….” she took a deep breath because what she was about to say was a huge decision and she had not made it lightly. “I want it to be you. It doesn’t matter when it happens but I want it to happen with you because…..” she leaned in and kissed him, lettering her lips linger on his for a moment afraid that he didn’t feel what she felt but life was about chances, wasn’t it? “I love you, Charlie. It isn’t something I could do with someone I didn’t love and I don’t know what our future holds but I love you.” Charlie’s face split into a wide smile when Rey said she would stay and he quickly began to murmur that it was fine, that they didn’t have to do anything, that he hadn’t asked her for that reason. He shut up, though, when he realised that Rey hadn’t finished speaking. Charlie could feel his heartbeat picking up as he listened and, once again, he felt the need to moisten his lips as they became dry from his quick breathing. He thought he had always assumed that it was a matter of ‘when’ between them, rather than ‘if’, ever since that night at the Solstice party, but hearing Rey say it out loud sent shivers of excitement racing through him. She’d clearly thought about this and he wanted to know more, wanted to know what she had in her mind. When she kissed him, he let her, hardly daring to respond in case he broke her train of thought, although the hand that had been caressing her arm had slipped lower so he could wrap his arm around her waist and hold her close. For a moment, as her lips lingered on his, he thought she had given up on trying to tell him why she wanted her first time to be with him, and he was ready to accept that it was going to be a mystery for the time being, when she said it… the words he’d just been thinking minutes earlier. Not for the first time, he wondered whether she was reading his mind, whether that was even possible, or whether she was just that in tune with him. Either way, he didn’t mind. Although his mind could be a dark place sometimes, there wasn’t anything he felt the need to hide from Rey. “I love you too,” Charlie murmured, quickly and earnestly, into the narrow space between their faces. Hearing his own thoughts voiced on her lips had given him the nudge he needed to be able to say it out loud himself. This felt so different to when he’d told Eva he loved her. That had felt desperate; he had flung out his love for her like a life preserver for her to catch, in a last, desperate hope that he’d be able to save her before she drifted away. It had come at the end of their story. This, on the other hand, felt like a beginning. He didn’t know how any of this was going to go with Rey, he didn’t even know what all the options were, but knowing she felt the same way about him as he did about her gave him hope that they’d figure something out. A warm glow had started to burn deep within Charlie, radiating out from his chest until it reached his every extremity. With his eyes closed, he found that he was hyper-aware of every point along the length of his body where she came in contact with him: his knee, his groin, his stomach, his arm, his hand, his chest, his nose, his forehead and then, as he kissed her again, his mouth. His warm fingers found the hem of her top at her lower back and he slipped his hand beneath it to caress her silky smooth skin. Hearing him say the words back to her made Rey catch her breath and then she smiled. She couldn’t read his mind but she could sense his feelings. While it was true that Jedi could read minds, especially with someone that was Force sensitive, it was considered unethical to do it without the other person’s permission unless it was someone that you were close to. Even as close as she’d been to Luke, she never tried to do that but there was also the fact that the stronger you got in the Force the easier it was to block someone. She moved closer to him if that was possible and she loved the way it felt to have their bodies so completely in touch with one another. She looked at him, her smile bright and happy. “I like hearing you say it,” she whispered and kissed him again. Charlie laughed happily into Rey’s kiss and he wore a smile that made his eyes wrinkle when he pulled his chin back to look down at her. “What? I love you?” he asked, examining her face, her smile, the way she had wriggled closer to him. “I love you,” he said again, nodding, his eyes still creased with happiness. “I love you.” He leaned in and nuzzled his face into the side of her neck. “I love you.” His voice was muffled by the skin of her throat as he pressed kisses up and down it, from her ear to her collarbone. “I love you.” He rolled her gently over onto her back so he could let his hand, still beneath her shirt, move around to her flat stomach. “I love you.” His lips moved down over her sternum as his hand slid upwards to meet it, finding the elasticated band of her bra. He lifted his face before he went any further and, taking a different, softer tone, he murmured, “Is this okay? You can tell me to stop whenever.” “It’s fine,” she assured him, her voice filled with contentment as he kissed her neck. “It feels good. Don’t stop.” Rey had no idea at what point it would start to overwhelm her but she knew she could trust Charlie. He would stop when she asked him to and she leaned up to kiss him. “I’ll tell you if I start to feel uncomfortable, I promise.” Charlie couldn’t help but smile and he met her lips readily when she pressed them to his. It felt good to know that she trusted him. He knew his past actions hadn’t inspired much trust in his own world but it mattered a lot to him that Rey felt safe with him here, now. “Okay, good,” he murmured happily, meeting her gaze. “I mean, I’m not gonna try to push my luck or anything…” He forced himself to stop talking and grinned at her instead, holding her gaze for a long moment, before lowering his mouth back to her neck. |