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Rey never intended a life of crime for herself.
In fact, when she was younger and still somehow naive to some of the cruelties of the world, she had big dreams for herself. College education, comfy job, a loving husband, kids, two story house with a white picket fence, the works.
She certainly never saw herself as a *criminal*.
And yet here she is, barely nineteen, riding shotgun in a dirty pickup after barely being released on bail.
-------
The journey to this point in her life wasn't necessarily a short one.
She started off more or less as an orphan; abandoned as a newborn on the steps of a local church, she never knew her parents. She spent the first 16 years of her life in and out of foster homes. There was never a
sense of *home*; she had herself, and that was it.
On her sixteenth birthday, Rey decided she'd had enough of being nothing but a statistic and a source of income. She ran away from her foster family at the time and never looked back.
From there she'd become a nomad, of sorts. She hitch hiked and made the most of what she had, taking odd jobs and sleeping along train tracks. (Figuratively -- usually. Rey found out early on that movies had, unsurprisingly, fabricated the truth and that sleeping by train tracks really was not very practical.) Luckily, years of shady living situations had taught her self-defense. Uncomfortable situations with handsy, leering strangers were all too common. These usually ended up with Rey spitting in the face of a creep and leaving them behind with broken bones and blackened eyes.
Shortly after turning eighteen, Rey found steady work in a chop shop on the outskirts of New Orleans. She had to fight tooth and nail for the job; the manager, Unkar Plutt, was a no-good scumbag and, like so many others, doubted Rey's skills at first. A few days and one convenient repair of Plutt's pickup later, Rey had begrudgingly earned a sense of respect from Plutt and a job working at the Millennium Falcon.
It was a shady operation; a glorified chop shop, scavenging illegal parts and stealing cars when necessary. But it paid enough, and was the only place Rey had found that would actually employ a snarky street rat like herself.
Plus, she was pretty sure her actual boss was Han Solo. As in, Han Solo, legendary smuggler turned war hero and racing champion. Rey had always admired him in the brief glimpses of media she'd seen about him throughout her life. Han Solo had come from a rough upbringing on the streets, like her; he'd also managed to make something out of himself. He'd married an esteemed Senator and settled down, had a son and years of success.
There were rumors he'd returned to the smuggling game in recent years out of boredom. Rey wasn't sure; at the same, she understood. An idyllic life would probably get a little boring after years of adrenaline and action.
Han had come into the shop numerous times, usually every few months. Rey never saw him long enough to get an idea of what he was really doing there. However, Unkar Plutt sucked up to him big time and bent to the man's every whim, which was incredibly out of character for him. Han Solo was the only man Plutt seemed to show a semblance of respect towards, and that, coupled with all the rumors, is what made Rey suspect that it was Han Solo himself that she was truly working for.
------
Rey sighed as she heaved the side door to the rusty pickup closed.
The ride home had been silent except for the crackling static of an old country station filtering through the radio. Rey knew better, though. Unkar Plutt was stewing and she had silently been preparing herself for the blow.
Leaving tiny dirt clouds as she went, Rey trudged towards the open doors of the barn slash garage of the shop. It was just nearing dawn; the sky bathed everything in hues of purple and pink. The jagged metal of junker cars and spare parts was made to look deceivingly soft in the lavender light.
"You really fucked up this time, street rat," Plutt's gravelly voice spoke up behind her, laced with the sound of an imminent threat.
Rey spun to face him, her defense already prepared. "Accidents happen -- you say it yourself, Plutt. How the hell was I supposed to know it was a sting operation?"
Unkar wrapped his meaty hand around Rey's upper arm in a vice-like grip. She had to strongly suppress the urge to rip away from him; the last thing she needed to do right now was anger him further.
"By being more aware of the situation, and not being such a stupid girl! We don't have the money to be bailing you out of jail constantly just because you decide it's amateur hour!" Unkar bellowed, flecks of his spit flying onto her face.
Rey blinked, swallowing back all the arguments she wanted to make. She wanted to yell that this was the first time in the almost year she'd been working here that she'd been arrested. She wanted to yell that this was a mistake that could've happened to anyone. She wanted to yell that she didn't even want to be here, didn't even want to be working this job but she didn't have any other choice. But she said nothing because, yes, she was stubborn, but she was also smart and had an overwhelming sense of self-preservation.
"Go get some rest. You have another job this afternoon and I don't need you messing things up because you're sleep-deprived on top of everything else," Unkar ordered, releasing his hold on Rey's arm.
The girl sputtered in disbelief. "You already want me back on the job? I'm on bail, shouldn't we--"
"There is no *we*!" Unkar roared, rage flaring up once more. "There is you -- *you* messed up and made an amateur mistake, and the rest of this business isn't gonna be made to suffer for it. Go!"
------
A few weeks later, Rey was officially a fugitive, and her anxiety was at an all-time high.
Sure, she'd evaded the law before. Such was a part of the life of a vagrant-- she'd had to steal and loiter and trespass in order to survive. However, she'd never had an active warrant before. The sight of a wanted poster with her own face on it plastered on the wall of a local gas station had make her a little sick, to say the least.
It was Unkar's fault. All of it, everything, was Unkar's fault, but especially this. He had made Rey miss her court date, assigning her a particularly grueling job on the day he *knew* she was supposed to appear. Rey didn't know much about the court system, but she knew that wasn't good.
Sure enough, there was a small bounty out on her head. And it was just her luck that rumors were telling her a bounty hunter was already out for her, despite the small reward her capture promised. Just her damn luck.
----------
Kylo fancied himself a vigilante, of sorts. He sought out justice, but he more or less did it within his own means.
Being a bounty hunter seemed like a job made for him. It was the perfect balance between and perfect rebellion against both of his parents' professions: a politician and a smuggler. He trained under some of the best in the field from early on in his teenage years. When he was twenty-three, he changed his legal name to Kylo Ren (he wanted nothing less than for people to form impressions of him based on his parents' legacies) and announced to Leia Organa and Han Solo that their son was leaving to work as a bounty hunter. Sure enough, he packed his bags and hit the road the same day, leaving them to deal with that announcement as they wanted.
Kylo's mother, Leia, had more or less handled it the best. He didn't hear from her for a short time; however, on the third day he was gone, his cell was ringing with the little jingle he'd programmed just for her calls. Kylo picked it up to receive an earful about "the dangers of bounty hunting, and why on Earth didn't he tell her before, and why did he change to such a *ludicrous* name" that shook with the kind of fear-inducing anger that only a mother can produce. Leia's chagrin soon melted into begrudging relief and pride, however. She told Kylo that she was glad he'd chosen work that was more or less for the greater good, instead of choosing to follow in his father's young footsteps. They maintained an amicable relationship and he made sure to visit Leia every few months, if only to please her.
Kylo's relationship with his father, on the other hand, had become incredibly strained after the younger Solo's departure. The two had always had trouble seeing eye to eye, but after Kylo left, his father seemed to give up on understanding him altogether. Kylo figured that if the older man wanted to put no effort into their relationship, he shouldn't have to, either. As such, the men hadn't spoken to each other but maybe once or twice in the almost five years Kylo has been working. Which, Kylo thought, might be for the better; he'd heard rumors that the elder Solo had returned to seedy business handlings and a life of petty crime. The last thing Leia, and her career, needed was her son bringing her estranged husband in on smuggling charges.
-
Kylo had taken his most recent case without much thought. It was slim pickings; this target had a small-time offense and offered little reward. Still, it was work, and that was better than nothing.
The fugitive was a young woman, barely nineteen, and a first-time offender. Motor vehicle theft. Nothing seemingly too dangerous.
Asking around and scraping for basic information about the girl's usual behaviors and hangouts had been unusually difficult. It seemed that Rey Jakk had very few friends, and the ones she did have were tight-lipped and feigned obliviousness.
Only after haggling with some locals was Kylo able to obtain the knowledge that Rey (despite not being of legal drinking age) often frequented a bar called Niima Outpost on the outskirts of New Orleans.
It was this seedy establishment in which Kylo currently sat. The bar was small and run-down, filled with smoky air and too-loud voices and burly bikers that eyed Kylo with unprecedented suspicion. He thought it odd that a nineteen year old girl would enjoy frequently coming here, criminal or not.
Kylo thumbed the side of a half-empty glass of whiskey. He drank enough to avoid raising suspicion but not so much as to become inebriated while he was on the job. He'd been nursing this same glass for a good hour, sitting and watching from the vantage point he'd found along the bar.
The man was beginning to think the tip about this place had been a rip-off when he spotted her.
Wild-looking as she was, Rey's youth made her stand out in this crowd. Her naturally bright demeanor, too, Kylo observed -- something that hadn't been palpable on her printed mugshot but that had an undeniable presence now, in real life, even from a distance. She looked like she belonged in a magazine, not in a dingy biker bar, and Kylo couldn't help but wonder how she'd gotten here.
There wasn't time for wondering, though, Kylo reminded himself briskly. He had a job to do.
-
Kylo made his way across the room, drink in hand, slinking in his approach towards Rey. There were just enough people to make his movements not seem obvious.
He focused on the task on hand. Rey was his target, and no matter how young or carefree or admittedly pretty she was, he was here to detain her. The cool metal of a pair of handcuffs in his jacket's interior pocket reminded him of that. Still, he couldn't help but inhale deeply through his nose and take a large swig of his whiskey. He was human, after all.
Kylo nudged his way next to Rey where she sat at an extended booth in a corner of the bar. As he sidled up next to her, he couldn't help but notice how much his large frame towered over the girl. She was *tiny*. No matter, Kylo chided himself -- that only meant he'd be able to subdue her much more easily if she decided to put up a fit.
The bounty hunter made note that she had two friends nearby. Luckily for him, the two men seemed too interested in each other to notice Kylo's presence, much less possibly recognize his voice from when he'd grilled them over the phone. Still, he made sure to keep his voice quiet as he spoke.
"Come here often?" He asked, his voice a low, rumbling sound. The corniness of the line almost made Kylo cringe. Still, he hoped it'd be cheesy enough to reel her in.
It seemed to take Rey a moment to hear him, and when she did she turned to look at him with a somewhat puzzled expression. But, sure enough, she quickly broke into a fit of giggles at his pickup line and inadvertently curved her body more into his.
It was at this moment that Kylo realized, with some distress, that Rey was drunk. *Incredibly* so. Only now, when he was close to her, was Kylo able to notice the glassiness of her hazel eyes, the attractive flush on her cheeks, and the unmistakable scent of alcohol on her breath.
Now she'd be slapped with a fine for underage drinking on top of everything.
"You look a little young to be drinking," Kylo remarked, unable to help himself. He at least had the wits to make it sound somewhat suave.
Rey giggled again, and Kylo couldn't help but note that it was a pretty damn adorable giggle. Very unprofessional, but, again: he was only human. "What the law doesn't know can't hurt them, pretty boy."
Kylo grinned despite himself, at the irony of the remark given their situation and at the drunken compliment from her.
He really needed to get his shit together.
//
"So you're a mechanic?" Rey asked, fiddling with a button on the arm of Kylo's jacket. He was almost impressed with how unabashed her drunken attempts at flirting were. He also had to admit that if he, too, were a lot more intoxicated, her attempts would probably be working.
"Mhmm," Kylo purred, and he decided to move in for the kill. "I prefer fixing them instead of stealing them for parts. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
Something about Rey's demeanor changed very abruptly, then. When she made eye contact with him her gaze was much more focused and she suddenly seemed significantly more sober.
"What did you say?" she asked carefully.
"We both know you heard me, Rey. And I think you're probably figuring out why I'm here. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard--"
Kylo's usual detainment spiel was cut off very abruptly by Rey suddenly placing her lips on Kylo's.
First his eyes widened in surprise but then, as Rey deepened the kiss, they fluttered shut completely of their own accord. Her tongue was warm as it licked into his mouth. Desperate hands scrabbled into Kylo's hair and short, blunt nails scratched at his scalp. He couldn't help as he groaned into her mouth over his, feeling himself become lost in the moment, the act, against his own better judgement.
And just like that, she was gone.