First time writing AU... hopefully, this is alright. Been a bit stuck on my multi-chapter (Far Too Young to Die, if you're curious) so I took a break and wrote this. Hope you enjoy!
"She isn't answering." Finn frowned as Poe ended his fifth attempted call to Rey's cellphone. They were standing in her apartment complex's apartment, cat carrier between them, confused. "It isn't like her not to answer her phone... or her door." Worry was etched in their brows. While they knew that Rey was capable of handling herself, that she was a grown woman (senior in college, like Finn) they couldn't help but panic that their friend seemed to have stepped off the face of the earth. Finn glanced down at the cat carrier again, looking at the orange and white cat inside. "BB, do you know where Rey is?'
Poe stared at him, trying not to laugh at his fiance's use of baby talk as the cat mewed back earnestly. The young Hispanic man shrugged, deciding the next course of action.
"I'm knocking on Kylo's door." He announced, turning to walk a few doors down to where his fellow graduate assistant lived before he felt Finn's hand on his shoulder.
"Are you sure? What would he know?" Finn couldn't help but be wary of Kylo- he had gone out with the group before, after classes, and while Poe seemed to like him just fine, he and Rey had agreed that the pale giant was cold and practically mute. If Finn remembered correctly, Rey didn't much care for her neighbor, citing that his subject (literature) had no place in her field of engineering. "Besides," she had concluded, shrugging, "He doesn't seem to like me. Every time I see him, he stares me down like I'm a sinner." Poe had insisted otherwise, saying that Kylo probably looked at her like she was a sin that tempted him too much. Rey had laughed, and the conversation had ended
Of course, whether or not Kylo liked her, he was the only neighbor of Rey's that the pair knew, so Finn sighed and gave in, trotting after his lover. Seeing that it was eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning, the two were expecting a somewhat rumpled, grumpy man to answer the door. Not their petite friend dressed in said man's clothes.
"You can't be serious."
Poe facepalmed at Finn's comment, wondering how long it'd take for his partner to pick his jaw up off the floor. Rey was staring at them, a bit stunned, a bit embarrassed, holding the door open. It was very obvious that she was not prepared to see them. Not like this.
Poe could have sworn that she looked five seconds from slamming the door and running, but then Kylo appeared behind her. Poe had to do a double take at the sight of Kylo Ren, scariest GA on campus, holding a mixing bowl of pancake batter.
Kylo cleared his throat awkwardly, smiling as a blushing Rey stepped back into the apartment, taking the batter as she went. He waved his dumbfounded guests in, trying to hold back his laughter as he took BB's carrier away from the stunned men, the cat quite forgotten in this revelation. The silence persisted even as Rey and her friends sat down to eat, Kylo being the only one immune to the awkwardness, a smug little smirk playing on his lips as he doused his pancakes with syrup.
It wasn't until about halfway through breakfast did Poe venture a comment. "So when you said you lent Kylo some sugar a while back... this is what you meant, right?" He wasn't sure who had the more withering glare- Finn or Rey- but he did know that Kylo's smirk turned into a full on grin, the tips of his ears tinging a bit red. Finn cleared his throat, looking hard at his friend who sat next to their host, quietly feeding pieces of bacon to BB as he mewed.
"What I think he means is...when the hell did this happen?!" Rey threw her arms up in exasperation.
"This, if you must know, Finn, has been happening since October last year." She ignored how he sputtered "That was more than a year ago!", how Poe nearly choked on his fork from laughter. Rey looked at her boyfriend, glaring at him as if to say You try to explain it.
The grad student turned to the couple across the table, a bit bashful as he avoided their looks, focusing on holding Rey's hand instead. "She asked me what my problem was one day. I asked her on a date, and well... last week I asked her to move in with me." He could practically hear the two's jaws hit the table.
"That's why I needed you to watch BB. I didn't want him getting hurt while I was moving everything." Rey brushed her long hair out of her face, wishing Finn would stop looking at her as if he had brought her little puffball back into a den of sinners. Poe kicked his fiance under the table, smiling at the newly discovered pair as they began clearing the table.
He turned to look at Finn's dark pout as he mumbled, "You know, this is probably why she didn't tell us. She knew that you'd react badly."
"I am not reacting badly!" Poe sighed, giving him a level look that made Finn reconsider his statement. "Okay, maybe I am. I'm just... I'm not sure, Poe. You've said in the past that he's hurt girls before."
"They've been together for more than a year- obviously he isn't back to his old habits. Besides, I haven't seen him like this before. It explains a lot of things at school, though." He mused thoughtfully, turning his gaze back to his boyfriend. "Rey can take care of herself. And him. And BB, so don't you dare think about stealing him back, I don't care how much you disapprove."
Finn pouted for a moment, taking a deep breath as he acquiesced, "They look good together. If she's happy, I'm happy."
"Yeah. Me too, babe."