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There’s no better time of the year to get away from your parents than the holidays.
That’s the philosophy Ben lives by and the reason he knows staying with his uncle Luke isn’t the worst way this could go. He’s eighteen now, he can be trusted with more freedom to do what he wants than the last time he was here, which admittedly doesn’t mean much.
No words are sent his parents’s way as he leaves their car to go straight into his uncle’s house, unsurprised to find the door unlocked and the older man on the couch. “Ben! You’re late,” his uncle greets, eyebrow raised as he looks away from what’s probably a boring documentary to Ben, who shrugs.
“I’m taking the bed tonight?” He guesses, looking at the blankets pooled around Luke’s waist. The man’s place is not one inch bigger than he needs it to be, though also not at all minimalistic where décor is concerned what with the trinkets from many different places all over the furniture and walls.
“I’m taking off early tomorrow,” he answers with a nod. “You eat yet?”
“Yeah, I’ll just go to bed.” Ben waves him a vague goodnight as he takes his bags with him, leaving them on the bedroom floor with no regard for organization or thought of unpacking. Instead he throws himself on the bed and slips his shoes off, taking his phone from his jeans’s pocket.
Even though Rey only lives a few streets away, it’s late enough that he doubts he’ll get Luke’s permission to go and previous experience tells him he can’t sneak past the man no matter the hour. He sends her a text asking when Finn and Poe will be around tomorrow and doesn’t expect an answer. Rey does what she wants, which includes looking at her phone at a certain time and replying to messages hours later, no matter how much that pisses him off - actually, he suspects she makes him wait longer because of it.
Fact is he doesn’t have to deal with Han and Leia, Luke is still working at the dojo, and he’s actually in the same neighborhood as his friends, all of which make him rather hopeful that his break will be just mostly awful.
There are few options for him now: join his uncle and do some of the family bonding Han and Leia suggested, text Finn or Poe until he gets them to stop making out long enough to give him some attention, go to bed, or do something even less useful.
He browses through instagram instead.
It’s every bit as vain as he expects: classmates showing off early gifts and trips, a lot of people he doesn’t know but Leia told him to follow with drinks and formal outfits, Leia herself making an announcement about her absence over the holidays, and, of course, Poe posting from Finn’s account. They do that often, forgetting their possessions at each other’s places, something Ben constantly complains about but they pay him no mind.
If forced into it, Ben might admit that it’s because he’s jealous.
They’re not awful people or unbearable about their relationship, not at all, though if compared to his uncle’s relationship with Wedge Antilles one might be inclined to disagree. But there is a closeness to them the like of which he’s never seen before and he wants it.
Unfortunately, the reason it’s so appealing is because it’s a rare thing.
He sees nothing that helps his mood, so he leaves his phone on the nightstand and shuts his eyes until sleep takes away all his angry thoughts.
-
“Luke! Is your cute, lazy ass still in bed?”
The yelled words rouse Ben and he wills himself to forget all about them, making a face at the closed door. “Ben’s ass is in bed,” he replies, grouchy, and sits up to unlock his phone. Nine in the morning. Rey replied to his message at four, telling him to come over for lunch.
Skipping breakfast might be the way to go, a thought that is reinforced when he finds his uncle’s significant other, Wedge Antilles, anxiously buttoning up his shirt at the living room. “Ben, you’re here! And so soon. I thought you weren’t coming until next week.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not here to ruin your dates or whatever you do with my uncle,” he brushes off with a raised eyebrow. “He’s working. You know where to find him.”
He doesn’t know much about the man aside from the fact that he worked with his parents and uncle when they were younger, but he’s always nice enough to him when he’s visiting Luke. It’s not enough to make him want to start up a conversation when all they have in common are people he’s not overly fond of.
“Great. I’ll see you around.” Wedge waves without looking him in the eye before running off and while Ben’s amused, he figures showing up early at Rey’s can’t hurt and showing Wedge out is unnecessary.
Despite what his mother might say, his bags aren’t a mess and he can find everything he needs, from hair product to the sweater, shirt, and jeans he wants. It takes him half an hour to make himself presentable and he figures that’s long enough to call it lunch time. He tells Rey as much through a text before he leaves and ignores what’s bound to be a complaint when his phone buzzes in his back pocket as he crosses the street to her block.
She’s waiting for him by the door with a scowl. “No one has lunch at ten, Ben.”
“That’s a pretty big generalization,” he replies with a shrug, walking past her to let himself in. He knows her parents won’t mind his presence, at least, something that is confirmed when Rey’s mother sees him and immediately holds out her arms to hug him.
“Ben! You look so healthy!” She gushes and he smiles widely at her, happy to look like the perfect son when neither of his parents is around.
“Mrs. Palpatine, you look lovelier every time I see you.” The woman is suitably charmed but pushes him out of the living room, presumably so he can socialize with Rey.
Rey, who no longer is pretending to be pissed off at him, makes her way up the stairs to her room and he follows her, getting rid of his sweater once he’s there and the heater starts to get to him. “You have to stop making my mom think you’re not a complete asshole,” she says, an unspoken promise of getting revenge in her eyes as she sits on her bed and throws a controller at him. He supposes getting his ass kicked in whatever videogame she has in mind is still a better way to spend his morning than moping around at Luke’s.
It’s a fighting game, of course. Rey is as good at them as she is at physical fights, though she learned from videogames and listening to Ben complain about his uncle talking about stances and feet and posture. While Ben can hold his own, that doesn’t apply to games - Rey kills him over and over again, impaling him, making him run out of stamina, through any possible means.
Perfect timing is what he calls it when he starts getting bored and hears and unfamiliar voice from downstairs. “Ben? What a ridiculous name,” it says and gets chided over it. Ben has half a mind to go down and lecture his character about why Ben is a decent name when he hears the sound of feet going up the stairs. Even better, he’ll have a chance to do what he wants without leaving Rey and avoid the sermon that would come from that.
Ben is deciding the best angry tone to use when a man stops outside the door to her room.
No, not a man. It’s offensive to this godlike creature to be compared to simple, mortal men. This is Adonis himself, someone who must have been carved out of marble to reach this level of perfection, and Ben can see almost every inch of beauty in him thanks to the fact he’s wearing only a towel. His red hair is wet and some water drops fall over his skin - Ben follows them wistfully, wishing he could be one of them as they slide over his tender neck, running through his collar down to his lovely pecs, momentarily losing speed before they swiftly go to his stomach, waist, and out of Ben’s view, possibly absorbed by the towel. It can’t have taken more than a few seconds, but Ben feels out of breath by the end of it, sighing at how tired he is from that long, pleasant path.
“Why would I hide your bag? I don’t want to see your skinny twink ass,” Rey says almost right into his ear, knocking him out of his reverie and into the floor.
“Is your friend well, Rey?” The most gorgeous male Ben has ever seen asks, referring to him. Ben. This person has acknowledged his existence and he feels like he can burst with happiness from it.
Remembering previous words, however, Ben hurriedly tries to regain his composure, kneeling and briefly debating if he should kiss the other’s feet. Fuck, even his feet are cute. “I’m, uh, Kylo. Yes. Rey’s friend,” he introduces himself, mentioning the first name that comes to his head and isn’t Ben.
Rey makes a choking noise behind him, which he ignores in favor of continuing to stare. He won’t waste one second glancing at her when he can have this view instead, especially when the angle is so favorable. He has half a mind to propose right then and there, but unfortunately he doesn’t have a ring.
“Kylo. Right. Pleasure to meet you, I’m Rey’s cousin. Hux.” Ben nearly chokes on his saliva at that, watching the handsome stranger, Hux, who thinks meeting him is a pleasure. “Now, Rey, my bag or you’ll have to see my bare twink ass all week.”
Ben is torn between supporting the request because Hux is making it and going against it because his bare twink ass sounds absolutely enrapturing, alas Rey doesn’t ask for his opinion. She leaves the bed to take the bag from under it, he gathers from the sounds behind him, and comes into his field of vision when she gives it to Hux. “Now get out of my room, cous,” she tells him cheerfully. Ben has never been more tempted to end their friendship as he is now, seeing her treat Hux like this, even though Hux himself doesn’t seem to mind.
“Don’t make me come back. See you later, Kylo,” Hux says as he leaves and while Ben wants to go after him to at least watch him go down the stairs, he refrains.
“Why am I not surprised that you have a crush on the biggest dickhead of the family?” Rey says as she sits on her bed again and Ben almost gets whiplash from turning his head to look at her.
“I, he, who, what,” he stammers, cheeks growing red. He can’t even deny it. “He’s hot!” He whispers loudly at her, glancing at the door to make sure no one has materialized outside of it in the last two seconds before he crawls in its direction to slam it shut. “Where the fuck have you been hiding that all these years?”
Rey doesn’t look intimidated but amused, picking up her controller and starting a new, single player game. That should offend him, but right now all he wants is to know more about Hux. “He usually spends the holidays with his mom, but she passed away this year so my parents invited him to stay with us. How was I supposed to know you’d drool just from looking at him?”
Called out, Ben wipes the drool around his mouth before speaking again. “You didn’t even mention that someone would be staying here!” He complains, finally gathering enough strength to stand up even though he flops down at Rey’s bed as soon as he’s near it. “So, why’s he a dickhead?”
Rey huffs out a laugh, pushing him closer to the edge so he doesn’t take up all the bed. “Because he is. Posh, proper, condescending - I wouldn’t have taken him for your kind of asshole.”
“He’s just…” Ben can’t quite find the words. The language he knows makes him think about saying ’the one’, but the expression is old-fashioned and he takes his power of choice very seriously. “I don’t know, Rey. Maybe I’m hallucinating, but I want him.”
To his surprise, Rey pauses the game, puts the controller down, and turns to look at him. “If you want him, he’s yours. You’re not completely awful when you don’t want to be,” she tells him. It’s the nicest words about himself he’s ever gotten from her. “He’s single,” she adds with a smirk and he groans as he hides his face behind his hands.
On the inside, though, he’s thrilled.
-
“He just fell on the floor?” Poe asks, making Finn laugh even harder around his mouthful of fries.
“Yeah, right on his ass! Notice me, senpai!” Rey pleads in a poor imitation of Ben’s voice, as far as he’s concerned.
Ben pretends he can’t hear them but his red face betrays him. “Like you two don’t do a lot worse,” he complains once the three have been laughing for too long.
“Like you didn’t give us crap about it before we started dating,” Finn points out, feeding Poe a fry. Ben pokes his tongue out at them.
“You should’ve seen him, whipped right on sight. I never thought I’d see our Ben like that,” Rey teases, ruffling Ben’s hair. He flips her off. “What, are you pissed off that I’m calling you Ben? That’s right, we should call you Kylo from now on!”
Finn and Poe look interested when Ben groans, lowering his head onto the food court’s table and hiding behind his arms. “He said Ben’s an awful name,” he mutters as an explanation, hoping Rey doesn’t hear it.
Which obviously means she does. “So because he doesn’t like your name, you chose a new one, Kylo?”
He hears Finn laughing, undoubtedly leaning on Poe as he always does, but Poe himself is oddly silent. Ben fears that. Rightfully, as when Poe opens his mouth, what comes out is, “wasn’t that your superhero name when we were kids?”
There’s a moment of blissful silence that is soon ruined by all three of them dissolving into laughter. Ben tries to hold back a smile and fails, chuckling into his arms at his own behavior. Hux probably came into Rey’s room already knowing that he’s Ben, but there he’d gone, trying to impress a guy he’d never met before because he’s hot.
If hot is even enough to express what Hux looks like, Ben thinks, ceasing his laughter to sigh as he rests his cheek on his hands and stares into nothing, which just happens to be where a McDonald’s is.
“I can’t tell if he’s in love or if he really wants a burger,” Finn fake whispers. Ben flips him off.
“Alright, alright.” Poe looks at Ben, serious enough that Ben sits up properly to look back at him. “So, what now? What are you going to do to win him over?” Ben thinks Poe is well intentioned until he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, then he scowls.
“He’s right, Ben. I told you, Hux is single, I know for a fact that he’s gay, what else do you need?” Rey asks, bumping their shoulders against each other’s with as much friendliness as someone as strong as her can manage.
It’s a good point. He wants someone and why can’t that someone be Hux? It might be a good thing for the two of them, in the end. “You’re right,” he admits, to the surprise of the trio.
He can and will get a date with Hux if it’s the last thing he does.
-
Ben can see that Luke is suspicious when he sits at the table to eat with his uncle and Wedge.
It might be an obvious move on his part, do something his mother would approve of before asking for something she wouldn’t, but he doesn’t care as long as it works. He even compliments Wedge. Well. “You didn’t burn anything this time,” is what he says and that’s as good as a compliment coming from him.
And it’s not unpleasant. If he’d chosen to eat later and spent his time talking to his friends instead they would undoubtedly tease him about Hux, but the meal is silent aside from Luke occasionally talking to the plants in the kitchen. When Ben stands up from the small table to pick up all their dishes without being asked to, he knows his time is running out.
“What do you want, Ben?” Wedge asks, sounding amused, and Ben’s cheeks grow red at how transparent he’s being. As far as his family goes, Wedge, Luke’s boyfriend of decades, isn’t the person he has the most contact with and to be read so easily by him… Suffice to say that he doesn’t like it, but it suits his purpose now.
“You two have been dating for a long time, right? Like, ages. A lot even for people as old as you two.” Okay, maybe not the smartest words to use. “And that’s awesome! Admirable. I wish I had that. Well, not that, exactly, I’m still eighteen so-”
“Ben. My dear nephew, please make your point before I whack your head.”
“Right, of course.” Ben chuckles nervously, rinsing the dishes and making sure his eyes don’t leave them for the two men watching him. “I may have met someone. Who interests me. Maybe. And he’s… Cute. Out of my league. I just want to, you know.” He shrugs, wincing in embarrassment at his own words as he turns off the tap water.
“So you want-” Wedge starts, but Ben heard the sound of someone being slapped and saying ‘ow!’.
“And what can we do for you?” Luke asks, no doubt looking to make him suffer. It works.
“I want.” He pauses, breathes in and out. This is fine. It’s worth it. It feels like it’s been too long since he saw Hux, what with going out with Rey, Finn and Poe and spending the entire afternoon getting kicked out of stores in the mall, but he conjures up the image of him in the towel again, easy enough as that is engraved on the forefront of his mind. He can do this. “I want your help. Dating advice,” he says, the words coming out almost easily, and it’s as if a huge weight has left his chest once he’s done.
“Anything you need!” Luke answers, sounding absolutely overjoyed but even that doesn’t bother Ben, not when his chances with Hux just went up. “Come sit with us in the living room, Ben.”
Without hesitation, he dries his hands and goes after the couple, leaving the two at the loveseat and leaning against the only shelf that doesn’t have a plant on it. “So, how do I do it? Flowers? Chocolate?” He asks, hoping that there will be a formula for this.
“You could do that,” Wedge tells him, making him perk up. “You could also get turned down. It’s not simple. If you want to improve your chances, there’s only one way: you have to know him. Learn about him, from what he likes and doesn’t to what he does every day, big and small things.”
“I know his mother passed away recently,” he points out, hopeful. The face Luke makes changes his mind.
“And do you know how he feels about that?” Wedge raises his eyebrows. Ben lowers his head in silent admission. “It’s not about you, it’s about him. The lovely man you’re interested in.” The way Wedge looks at Luke as he says it makes Ben roll his eyes and decide that this is all he can get for today.
“Yeah, thanks a lot for being disgusting,” Ben grumbles as he walks into the bedroom and shuts the door. Luke should take the bedroom today, but after that display, Ben feels like he’s earned it.
-
Waking up before Luke isn’t easy, but Ben is determined. He sneaks out of the house without disturbing his uncle or Wedge’s sleep and before he knows it he’s waiting outside the Palpatines’s.
Hux opens the door.
“Hello, Kylo,” the man greets to Ben’s shame.
If he wants to march into the Palpatine’s breakfast, he needs to make sure no one else is going to know about his slip up. “Good morning, Hux. My name’s actually Ben,” he admits with a slight chuckle, cheeks going red out of embarrassment, but he’ll blame the cold.
“Ben. I’ll keep that in mind. Come inside, will you?” Hux opens the door wider and raises his eyebrows, smiling at him.
That smile. That damned smile.
So maybe this isn’t where the trouble begins for him, but he feels enamoured, light hearted in a way he’s just learning now is possible. “Thanks,” he says to Hux once he feels the heater begin to warm him, returning his smile. “Are you enjoying your time here?”
Hux pauses with his hand on the door he’d just closed, now frowning. “It’s better than the alternative,” he says and with no other word, starts making his way to the kitchen.
Ben stares after him, smile slowly weakening until it’s completely gone. Learning more about Hux might not be easy, but he owes it to himself to try. Before he can follow Hux into the kitchen, though, Rey comes downstairs, spots him, and, with a huff, drags him to the dining room. “You’re an awful stalker,” she tells him, pulling a chair and shoving him on it before she takes up her own. “Are you seriously awake at this hour for a guy?”
“Are you seriously awake at this hour for no reason?”
She concedes his point with a roll of her eyes. “He’s not an awful cousin, you know. If you two break up, I’m gonna have to kill you.”
“You called him the biggest dickhead in the family yesterday.”
“Yeah. Family. And being a dickhead isn’t being a criminal, which is the kind of family I usually ignore.”
“Fair.” A thought comes to him. “So, what can you tell me about him?”
Rey is unimpressed. “Seriously?”
Ben shrugs.
She rolls her eyes again and pushes her chair closer to Ben’s. “He’s in college, engineering or something like that, about to graduate. Mom says we have to go to his graduation even if he doesn’t go to mine, which is dumb. He’s always at family stuff, though. He’s got a huge fucking tree up his ass and is the most arrogant person I’ve ever met - that includes you - but he’s kind of weird about that. He’s never mean to kids. Might be why he’s putting up with your dumb ass.”
It feels like a lot and nothing and Ben doesn’t know what to think. “Huh,” is all he can say, ignoring the taunt.
She takes pity on him and stops teasing, but shrugs. “You’re taking this too seriously. He’s just a guy, hot as you might think he is. There’s no need to wake up at this hour just to stare at him or whatever, you know.”
So maybe the teasing hadn’t completely stopped. “I’m fine, Rey. This isn’t out of control or whatever - I just think it might be worth it, you know?” He sighs, resting his chin on his hand. “I mean, he seems interesting enough. Besides, have you seen his neck?”
At that, Rey laughs. “I’ve heard of tit guys, ass guys, but neck guys? Thought I wouldn’t see that until some crazy scientist created a vampire, but here you are. You’re a crackhead, you know that?”
“So are you,” he replies with a grin. Rey’s parents and Hux show up with breakfast not long after that and other than Rey’s mother expressing her pleasure at having Ben around, it’s silent and nice. While it doesn’t match his expectations of finding out more about Hux, Ben can’t say he regrets it.
Rey drags him to help her with the dishes once everyone is done eating, probably so he doesn’t run after Hux. It’s fun, spending time with a friend without talking about other people, just insulting each other lightheartedly.
Which isn’t to say that when he’s making his way down the corridor toward the stairs and sees Hux alone in the living room, he doesn’t pause. Rey notices, of course, and waves him off, something he’s slightly thankful for as he walks in, making sure he’s quiet enough not to disturb Hux but loud enough that it doesn’t look like he’s trying to take him aback. He sees Hux on the couch and takes the armchair, observing the man who looks just as good in a dark red button up and black trousers as he does in a towel. He’s reading and hasn’t looked up from his book, something Ben is completely fine with.
He can’t say exactly how serious or not this is when the only viable information he has about it is the lack of information about Hux he has. Viable, that is, because the way he feels isn’t something that can be measured or put into words and he doesn’t know how much trust he can put into it, but it’s overwhelming. He’s never felt anything like it before, a pull towards a person so strong that the idea of fighting it is unbearable. And somehow, despite whatever reason might have to say about it, he’s not scared. He wants to fall into whatever this is without thinking about it, take a leap of faith and reap whatever comes out of it, good or bad.
“Is something wrong?” Hux’s voice pulls him away from his thoughts, though the man’s eyes are still glued to his book.
“No. Yes. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, earlier.”
Hux looks up, then, marking his page with a finger as he closes the book. “You didn’t. You made a question I wasn’t prepared to answer through no fault of your own.”
A far more mature view on things than Ben expected, but he remembers that Hux is in college, almost graduating, and according to Rey he just suffered a loss. They might be at different moments of their lives, but Ben feels his admiration increase upon realizing that Hux takes responsibility instead of making excuses.
“I can leave you alone,” he says after what feels like a long time of silence, but he’s not uncomfortable or bored. It’s nice, really, having Hux’s eyes on him and his own sight set on the other.
“You can,” Hux agrees to his dislike, which quickly changes when he adds, “you can also stay. It’s your choice.”
Obviously, staying is the best option for him and it’s what he does, trying to hold back a smile and failing. “Thanks. You’re not bad company,” he tells him in his usual way of complimenting people and, upon realizing that, immediately looks away with a blush. “I mean, you’re good company. I like you. Not in a weird way, Rey likes you well enough and she’s not a bad judge of character, so, by default, that makes you a nice asshole, according to her, which is something I can get behind.” Hearing his own words, he nearly chokes on his saliva and feels like his face is hot enough that they can just put him outside and temperature will go up by a hundred degrees, at least. “Fuck. Not like that.”
“Ben. I know what you mean,” Hux tells him, sounding amused. That’s not very encouraging: no doubt Hux sees him as his younger cousin’s creepy friend, now. He probably only isn’t telling him off because Rey says he’s nice to kids so he must see Ben as a kid.
“Right, of course.” He vows to keep his mouth shut until he has something better to say, but that doesn’t last long. “Rey told me you’re in college.”
It’s not a question. Hux answers anyway. “Civil engineering. It suits my skills very well.”
Ben nods, filing that piece of information away for later. Engineering people are nerds, aren’t they? “And you’re studying around here?”
“About a hundred kilometers away.” To his merit, when Ben looks back at him Hux doesn’t look impatient or like this is a pointless conversation, something Ben is glad for. “I live on campus and I would have stayed there, but they wouldn’t let me.” He gestures vaguely behind himself and toward where the Palpatines are. “They’re good people and it’s nice to see that Rey appreciates her luck.”
Luck. Of having alive parents or good ones? From what Rey told him he’s inclined to say it’s the first, yet the way Hux described the Palpatines makes him wonder. He has enough tact not to ask. “She does. She’s not sheltered or anything like that, she’s nice,” he agrees. He can’t force Hux to talk about himself if he doesn’t want to.
“What about you? Shouldn’t you be with your family at this hour?”
Ben feels his face grow red again. I’m here because of you is the real answer and the one he can’t give under any circumstances. “I’m hiding from the police,” he jokes instead, pleased with his thinking when it makes Hux chuckle, and what a sweet sound that is. “My parents are away and I’m staying with my uncle, but he’s...weird. He means well, I just don’t see my friends as often as I see him these days and I know he’s used to having no one but his boyfriend around.”
Hux tilts his head in understanding. “Valuing your friends is always important,” he agrees.
“You could, I don’t know. Hang out. With us. Sometime, whenever, wherever. We’re not always doing dumb shit,” Ben offers, trying to look like he wants that but not like he wants it as much as he does. “You don’t have to, but you should know that you can. Anytime.”
“I’m afraid I might be too old for that.”
“No way! You’re still young. It’s just, what, four, five years? Or do people stop bowling when they reach their twenties?” Ben raises an eyebrow. “Is your back pain too bad or are you just afraid to lose?”
“Are you challenging me?” Hux asks. He sounds either horribly annoyed or amazed, probably both.
“Yeah. What are you gonna do about it?” Ben teases, letting more of his personality show than he means to.
It works. “I’m going to kick your ass,” Hux tells him, opening his book again. “If I were you, I would be on my way to practice now. Although that might not do much for your chances, slim as they are.”
“Just wait until I kick your ass!” Ben exclaims, standing up despite himself. He can take a cue when it’s convenient to him and this is one of those cases. He doesn’t plan to practice, he just has to tell Rey that he has plans for the afternoon.
-
Bowling isn’t one of Ben Solo’s favorite or best activities and it shows.
Upon arriving at the bowling alley under Finn, Poe and Rey’s suggestive looks and Hux’s clueless conversation, he can’t pretend that he has any hope of winning this. Upon taking the first ball he can get his hands on and throwing it right into the gutter, there’s no denying it.
His friends know how awful he is at this, unwilling to concentrate long enough to pull it off, but Hux looks surprised and amused, even more so the second time it happens.
“You know, in order to win, you have to participate,” Hux tells him, leaning in so Ben can hear him over the loud sound of conversation around them and he feels the hair on his neck stand at having Hux so close, loses his breath over it.
“The only thing I want to win is the most fries,” he admits with a grin as one of the place’s employees arrives with their food and he promptly picks up as many of them as he can fit into his mouth.
He’s competitive enough to complain about it, steal Finn and Hux’s shoes, try to change the names so he can get the higher score, but winning is hopeless.
And it’s Finn who gets the first round.
Hux doesn’t take it as a loss, laughing along with the rest of them as they take a short break before round two, mostly because Finn and Poe miss each other despite having been sitting beside one another the whole time.
Round two, of course, is when Ben’s luck changes.
Not where his skills are concerned, there is very little that can make him be good at something he doesn’t want to be good at. His luck with Hux is another matter entirely.
Hux has just gotten a strike and he’s getting rid of his shoes while Ben picks up the ball. His fingers are greasy, though, he forgot to use a napkin, and they slide around the ball, past the holes they’re supposed to fit into, out of his hand and, of course, land right on Hux’s bare foot.
Hux doesn’t make any sounds, only a pained face that will live in Ben’s memory forever, as he is the cause of it, and all thoughts of bowling immediately flee his mind as he tries to run to Hux’s side, slips and falls on his ass, and crawls to him instead. “Fuck, shit, god, Hux! I’m so, so sorry- did you break something, are you okay, do you need a hospital? Someone call him a helicopter!”
“I’m not dying, Ben,” Hux says, the exact opposite of Ben’s overly concerned reaction. “It’s just a scratch.” He looks down at his foot expectantly and Ben follows his gaze, but nothing happens. “Well, maybe it’s broken,” he admits with a shrug, sighing as if this is a minor inconvenience, like a bug buzzing around in a room with loud music.
“Doesn’t matter, we’re going to a hospital.” Ben makes up his mind, standing up to go take back his and Hux’s shoes. The others follow him and he wants to tell them it’s unnecessary, but he’s a bucket of nerves right now and the company is appreciated.
Against Hux’s protests, Ben and Rey each wrap their arms around him from each side and pretty much carry him out of the bowling alley and into the car. Poe drives, as usual, and Ben is completely silent the whole time, unsettled enough that he doesn’t even notice Rey and Hux’s quiet conversation.
The ER isn’t out of control or empty when they arrive - Hux assures them he’s well enough to wait, ‘his feet aren’t going anywhere’. Ben is more anxious than him, doing his best not to fret like a mother hen over the incident he’d caused, and keeps his eyes on Hux’s bruised foot, in case it tries anything.
“I can hear you worrying, Ben.”
He glances up at that, finding that Hux has his eyes closed and his head tilted to lean against the back of the chair. “Of course I’m worried. I did this,” he murmurs, looking away. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was lack of attention on your part and mine. There’s no need to beat yourself up. I’ll be fine, it’s hardly my first broken bone.”
Going by his reaction, Ben had gathered as much. It’s not that the pain gets any better the second or third time, it’s that it doesn’t come with as much of a shock as the first. “What other bones did you break?” He asks, a failed attempt to change the subject.
“Too many. Nothing interesting.” The flat way he says it intrigues Ben, and yet he knows if there will ever be a time to push, this isn’t it.
“I broke my right pinky last year playing dodgeball. I don’t mean to point any fingers, but it’s definitely Rey’s fault,” he tells him, loud enough that Rey can hear it and flip him off.
“You two could benefit from learning how to behave,” Hux muses, slowly opening his eyes to glance between the two of them, Rey sitting at his right and Ben at his left. “I’m surprised it took this long for something to happen.”
“Hey!” Ben complains while Rey just laughs.
“He’s right, we’re a disaster,” she points out. “And we haven’t even tried pranking Finn and Poe yet. I wonder why that is.” She looks pointedly at Ben with a smirk.
His face goes whiter than usual. “No and let’s not talk about it.”
“I’m intrigued,” Hux says. He guesses that’s why Rey said he’s a dickhead. “What is there to not talk about?”
“Nothing!” Ben butts in before Rey can reply. “It’s stuff. School stuff.”
Rey giggles. “I guess you are learning a lot.”
“Rey!” He yells, mortified. The looks he gets make him want to curl into a ball but instead he hides his face behind his hands.
“Don’t worry about it, you’ll find out,” Rey tells Hux to his embarrassment.
“Then we should make it fair.” Ben feels Hux move away after that and looks between his fingers to find that he’s whispering something into Rey’s ear. Rey covers her mouth with her hand to stifle her laughter. “Now both of us have a secret with Rey,” he tells Ben, raising an eyebrow.
“I guess that works,” Ben murmurs as he drops his hands, sighing. He wonders if Rey is going to keep that secret, but knowing her, she definitely will use it to torture him and mention nothing until she is allowed to, and who knows when that will be. “What can we talk about now?” He asks, eager to fill the silence with something that won’t make him want to dig a hole on the ground to hide in.
“About what mom is going to think of you assaulting her nephew? About what your mom is going to say when she finds out? Or even better, what Armie’s father would do if he knew Leia Organa’s son let a bowling ball fall on his son’s foot?” Rey teases, quickly stopping when she sees the somber look on Hux’s face.
“This is a need to know topic and father doesn’t need to know,” Hux mutters, tense and angry. It’s not a look Ben expected to see on him, and he wonders what is behind it. And what does it matter to Hux’s father that he’s Leia Organa’s son?
“I was just teasing Ben. I’m not going to tell anyone,” she assures him with a sincere smile. Aware of that, Hux relaxes.
“Wait, why did you call him Armie?” Ben asks after a few moments of silence. Rey laughs and Hux glares at her, standing up abruptly to leave when his name is called by a nurse.
Armitage Hux.
-
Ben storms into the small house without looking at the other occupants, making a beeline for the bedroom and locking himself inside.
Before they can ask, he yells through the door, “I broke his foot, you assholes!”
-
It’s something of a surprise when the morning brings with it a better mood for Ben, though he wonders if that’s about to change when he steps out of the bedroom to find Luke and Wedge waiting for him outside, matching mugs in hand as they stare at him.
“Did you know that Wedge ran away from an alleyway fight the day we met?” Luke says. Wedge doesn’t protest, making it clear to Ben that this had been rehearsed.
“Now I know. What’s your point?” Ben asks, crossing his arms.
“We all have bad moments. Sometimes it takes a while, sometimes it doesn’t,” his uncle shares, undoubtedly one of his pearls of wisdom that Leia wants him to pay more attention to.
“You broke his foot? That’s too bad, own up to it and be better. You have to show him that you’re better than that, that you can overcome your mistakes. You broke your foot once, you know what he needs,” Wedge tells him, managing to encourage him in a way Luke hasn’t. Can’t, maybe, as Ben’s bias against him prevents it.
“I can do that,” he agrees, sounding almost excited now.
“You can. You’re a wonderful young man and he will be happy to see that you care for him.”
“Yeah!” Ben nods again, beginning to make his way out.
“Ben,” Luke stops him with a hand on his arm. “Maybe change out of your Darth Vader pajamas first.”
For once, Ben is unable to disagree.
-
Meaning to intrude, Ben doesn’t knock on the door, grabbing the spare key they keep on a lamp to let himself in. He slips into the kitchen and freezes when Rey’s father immediately notices him. “Good morning!” He greets, growing more confident as he remembers that this is the right thing to do. “I know Hux has been helping you and he’s indisposed now, so I figured I could step in.”
“You are always welcome here, young Solo,” the man tells him, almost as fond of him as his wife. Ben feels slightly bad that he’s not doing this for pure reasons, but he does help as much as he can - he doesn’t even notice Hux walking by the kitchen and spotting him there.
Only when he goes to the dining room to set the table does he see Hux, already sitting there with Rey. “Good morning,” he greets with a grin.
“Good morning,” Hux returns. Rey flips him off without looking away from her phone - stalking Rose’s instagram again, probably. “Don’t mind Rey. She bet you wouldn’t be back until late afternoon and now she owes me ten dollars.” Now she flips Hux off. “See?”
“Yeah, that’s just Rey,” Ben notes with a chuckle. “Really, I just thought I should do something. You’ve been helping Mr. and Mrs. Palpatine around the house and that shouldn’t stop because I broke your foot. I figured I can do it in your stead, since I don’t have much to do at Luke’s.”
“Because you spend more time here than at Luke’s,” Rey points out. He pinches the back of her neck on his way past her.
“I appreciate it,” Hux says. Finished, Ben beams at him and the grin doesn’t leave his face even when he goes back to the kitchen.
-
That day, he comes back before Luke or Wedge.
Hux is resting, had been for a while, and Ben got kicked out after Rey accused him of cheating during a round of Monopoly (rightfully so), but it had been a fun day. While he hadn’t questioned Hux the way he had before, he was beginning to feel like he knew him, having shared laughter and opinions and some of Ben’s less admirable moments.
Ben learns that Hux is stubborn as he insists on washing the dishes even after he’d finished them, that Hux is smart as he makes connections in conversation and the game of Ludo no one else sees, that Hux is caring as he inquires after the Palpatines and himself, that he doesn’t want to be perceived as caring as he makes his ill intentions too obvious to be real. He likes all of that.
Strange, that he thought he couldn’t possibly feel more enamoured and now here he is, pretending to watch some animal show that came on when he switched the television on when he actually wants to be by the other’s side more than he wishes he had met his grandfather. Alright. Maybe not that much just yet.
Still. It’s a good feeling. He doesn’t remember the last time he found himself smiling at nothing, let alone the last time he didn’t try to stop it. He is happy. He feels good about himself and warm on the inside and he really likes Hux.
The narrator rambles on about mating calls and tails and stomachs and there are overly happy advertisements trying to sell things that probably shouldn’t exist but Ben hears none of it. He’s in a daze. The daze of love.
Wedge walks inside, spots him on the couch, goes straight to the kitchen to make dinner. Ben doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice when the food is ready. He probably wouldn’t notice if the house caught fire. That’s not safe. Lucky for him, there’s no fire and when Luke joins them, the house is intact and his nephew is still staring fondly at the TV as two monkeys go at it.
“Ben?” He calls, eyebrows raised.
“It’s no use,” Wedge calls from the kitchen, tilting his head until he’s at an angle that allows him to look at Luke. “He’s been like that since I got here. Since before then, actually. How was your day?”
Ben doesn’t hear Luke talk about how he misses seeing Rey at the dojo and about this kid who is very likely to break a bone next week and how admirable it is that he persists, or Wedge share his excitement at newer flight simulators that are almost as good as flying. He does, however, feel his body complain that he hasn’t eaten for a long time and forces himself to stand up and follow the smell of food. Luke and Wedge, who started eating without him, share a look.
“Nice of you to join us.”
Luke gets an answer in the form of a blink and a “huh?”. He laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I’m guessing things with mystery lover guy are going well?”
Ben blushes. He tries to make a face, but it feels like his muscles have a will of their own and they sure as hell don’t want to do that right now. He ends up smiling down at his empty plate instead, using his shoulders to answer with a shrug. “Guess so.” He sighs as he reached out to serve himself some spinach. Green. Just like Hux’s eyes. Unfortunately, he can’t eat only green food. That would be disgusting.
There’s no teasing aside from the exchanged glances he doesn’t notice, which Ben is grateful for. He goes to sleep on the couch and he doesn’t even feel the uneven wood inside digging into his back.
-
He feels the wood keenly in the morning.
Back pains aren’t something he usually complains about but you’d think that someone with Luke’s inheritance would own at least one decent piece of furniture. No, his money is spent on plants, books he’ll never touch and dates with Wedge. Knowing him, Ben’s willing to bet he spends more money in than he makes from the dojo, too.
And despite all of that, his mood is too good to complain. It helps that there’s no one he can complain to, having slept until eleven, and he’s glad his dreams had not been abruptly interrupted by his alarm.
When he’s ready to leave, he finally notices that his phone is dead. He shrugs it off and throws it on the couch. It’s just a distraction from what really matters.
He should feel silly, putting so much importance on a guy. He’s doing exactly what he’s been teasing Finn and Poe for since always, but it doesn’t matter. Finn and Poe are stupidly happy together and maybe it’s his time to have that.
Waddling through the snow, Ben eventually reaches Rey’s house, cold enough that he doesn’t feel guilty about using their spare key again. Aside from the television, there are no signs of life, which doesn’t deter him. His feet feel light as they take him in the direction of Hux’s room and when he finds the door half open, he doesn’t knock, just lets himself inside with a grin and a greeting in the tip of his tongue.
It never comes out, as he finds Hux deep in conversation on the phone and, before he can be spotted, moves the door back into its prior place. That’s when he hears it. Ben. He takes in a deep breath and tries to overhear more, but adrenaline has him too agitated and he feels like his heart is beating right into his ears. Useless, stupid heart that won’t let him hear what Hux is saying about him.
What if Hux ends the call, he thinks? He won’t be able to hear it and he’ll be found right outside his bedroom, looking like a man who wants to glue his ears to the door, which is exactly who he is right now. Panicked, he steps away, slowly, until he feels like he’s far enough to get away with running up to Rey’s room.
He really closes the door this time. “Rey,” he says, sounding even more manic than usual. “Rey. He said my name. My name! He said my real name!”
Rey, who had been taking a nap and was roused by Ben's excitement, isn’t quite as enthusiastic. “Ben, what the fuck.”
Even less so when Ben throws himself on her bed and she gets pushed into the wall in the process. “He said my name!” He repeats. She’s surprised that he can be understood by humans in his current pitch. “He was talking on the phone and he said my name, Rey, my name!”
Rey inhales. Exhales. Inhales. When that doesn’t do anything for her annoyance, she throws Ben off the bed. “You were listening to him while he talked on the phone? That’s so creepy, even for you.”
“No, that’s all I heard,” Ben protests, barely feeling his body’s collision against the floor. “Ben. He said that. I was coming in to say hi and he said ‘Ben’. Can you believe that? He was talking about me!”
“About what an idiot you are,” Rey replies, getting settled under her covers again. “And how you won’t let your friends get some rest when your latest obsession is a dude. Are you done yet?”
“Yeah.” Ben pauses. “But you know he was talking about me and that doesn’t make me obsessed with him, don’t you? It just means he likes me. Me. Ben. Silly named Ben. You got that right.”
Rey sighs, scoots over until her back is against the wall and pats her bed. Ben happily accepts the spot.
“It’s not my fault that he’s so cute. He’s not nearly as bad as you made him out to be, either. I like him. I really like him. This means he likes me, doesn’t it? I’m not reading too much into it, right? Oh, no. You think he was saying something bad? Crap, what if you’re right? You’re his cousin, you know him better than I do, so if you think he doesn’t like me and he thinks I’m just a creepy asshole lusting after him, you must be right.”
Before Ben loses his shit over absolutely nothing, Rey lets out a sigh loud enough to shut him up. “You do realize I didn’t say anything and you’ve been having a not actually two sided conversation with yourself this whole time? Well, of course you do, because otherwise you’d be a creepy asshole lusting after my cousin.”
He shuts his mouth, possibly for the first time since walking into the house. He doesn’t want to be a creepy asshole lusting after Rey’s cousin. So he nods in hesitant agreement and looks expectantly at her for advice. “If he’s not a bad guy, why would he be talking about you behind your back?” He nods again. That’s sound logic. “He’s not an idiot, so if he thought you were creepy, he wouldn’t indulge you. He doesn’t really put up with anyone’s crap, definitely not yours. He probably likes you.”
It’s exactly what he wants to hear and he tries being suspicious of it, but it doesn’t work. He’s beaming at Rey, his joy obvious and out of control. “You really think so?”
She rolls her eyes and pushes him off the bed again.
He’s over the moon about it.
-
Instead of joining Rey in her (second) nap, Ben goes back downstairs to once again help with lunch. It’s through conversation with Mr. Palpatine that he learns it’s Christmas Eve.
Because of course he’d forgotten he’s only here because of the holidays and that he has no gifts for anyone.
Well. He can always claim his parents’s gifts for everyone are actually from him, but they’re too thoughtful to even pass as Ben’s. And his parents don’t have a gift for Hux, which would mean giving great gifts for everyone and nothing for him. He’s not a specialist in dating, but he doesn’t think that’s one way to let Hux knows he likes him.
How is he even supposed to do that? Wedge and Luke hadn’t been completely unhelpful but Ben doesn’t want to turn to them for help again. He knows Finn and Poe would be happy to help, though they’d also tease him endlessly for it and he’s not desperate enough to put up with that. Rey is as bad as he is and asking the Palpatines would be horribly awkward, which leaves him with one option: Google.
He knows what he has to do, but reaching that conclusion in the middle of making lunch isn’t a good way to put his plan into action as soon as possible. He tries anyway, sneaking a glance at his phone whenever he can. What he learns is that he should look good, flirt, be himself, wear a nice perfume, tell him. Maybe Google can seduce Bing like this, but to Ben? Unthinkable.
That leaves him with the one option he prefers to ignore while he can.
He’s not quite at his best behavior but it pays off: he’s told to set the table and get the others, both things he’s more than happy to do. Setting the table for the Palpatines is easy as they care as much about types of fork or glass as Han, Ben can place the dishes in front of a chair and that’ll be it. Calling the others is trickier; not because he doesn’t know exactly where everyone is, but because he doesn’t know which order to call them (Hux) in, what to say when he calls them (Hux), what his excuse to be wearing a band shirt is if they (Hux) are religious.
After a few minutes of staring at the Palpatines’s tableware, Ben decides to call Mrs. Palpatine first. He gets a pinch on the cheek for it and she leaves him alone, presumably to pester her husband about the food’s smell. The second person he gets is Rey, throwing a shoe at her stomach instead of sitting there as he would like to see the end of the day from somewhere other than a hospital bed, thank you very much. Also because he wants a witness when he nearly runs down the stairs to call the third and last person, Hux. He needs Rey’s semi neutral eyes and ears to stop him from over analyzing his interactions in a way that will drive him crazy.
His fingers are twitching with anticipation as he stops in front of the door to Hux’s room for the second time that day, now pausing to glance at Rey for confirmation. She rolls her eyes and shoves his shoulder.
The entire time he’d been going over what he should say right now, every second spent constructing the perfect sentence to use in this exact moment and it’s all for nothing because the moment the door is out of the way, he’s stunned. Completely, utterly shocked. Speechless. The last thing he was expecting was to find Hux in one of the horrid Christmas sweaters he’s spent so much time laughing at, and making it look cute. He hates it and he hates how much he likes it.
“Have you never seen a reindeer sweater before?” Hux asks, dragging him out of his reverie as the man stands with some difficulty and leans on the furniture to support his weight. Ben tries not to swoon when Hux reaches the door and places an arm around him, knowing that he doesn’t mind supporting him.
“I’m familiar with them,” Ben answers. He can’t come up with anything clever. He’s surprised he came up with anything at all when Hux is so close and he can smell his aftershave and hear his breathing and his hand is on Ben’s shoulder. This is what people mean when they say they’re walking on clouds.
“Then there’s nothing to be flabbergasted by.”
Ben doesn’t quite agree, but he nods in acceptance. Hux doesn’t need to be told right now that he makes Ben lose his ground just by being nearby. Maybe later. Maybe never.
Everyone gets settled on the table with minimal issues, including Ben trying to sit close but not too close and having trouble figuring out what exactly that means.
“Have any plans for tonight, Ben?” Mrs. Palpatine asks as she serves herself, slapping Rey’s hand off the rice as she eyed it first.
“I’m gonna sleep, probably. I don’t know what Luke’s going to do.”
“You know who he’s going to do if you’re not around.”
“Rey!”
“You were thinking it too, dad!”
“She’s right.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Your left, her right.”
“Mom, stop making dad jokes.”
“I don’t think Luke has anything special planned, really,” Ben jumps in before they spend the entire dinner bickering. It’s not that he minds, it’s just so unfamiliar and alien to him. If his eyes aren’t fooling him, Hux seems relieved, too. “We haven’t talked more than usual.”
“You are so lucky to have him and you don’t even talk to him,” Rey complains, predictably.
“It’s his family. I believe Ben is old enough to understand exactly what that means to him.” Ben’s hand pauses mid air from reaching out to the pot with peas, not having expected Hux to come to his defense. Not that he minds. His cheeks heat up in the best way and he feels warm at having someone who seems to understand that blood isn’t everything.
The conversation seems to die off after that, something he’s grateful for even if the Palpatines seem concerned. He’s used to it. Family gets brought up, he closes off, they worry. With their family history, he’d hoped they’d understand, but nowadays he sees that they’re too close to Leia and Luke to see them as anything beyond the kindness the Palpatines were in the receiving end of.
Something just doesn’t click between them. He thinks that maybe if he could see the Skywalkers in the same way others do, maybe if they only met occasionally and exchanged pleasantries and didn’t have to share a life, he would like them. Problem is, he never met Leia Organa, senator, Han Solo, mechanic and pilot, Luke Skywalker, teacher. They always were and always will be only one thing: family.
Family he didn’t choose, doesn’t like, prefers to stay away from. It’s simple.
He knows better than to expect anyone to understand. But maybe Hux does.
Ben serves himself and begins to eat, only glancing at Hux once and finding the other’s gaze already on him. He smiles briefly and goes back to his food, excitement for the day dampened by the conversation. Maybe someday he’ll make it through this time of the year without it. Maybe. It seems unlikely.
Rey and her parents leave the dining room as soon as they’re done eating. Hux, however, seems to be taking his time, having gotten through about half of what he’d served. He figures out why once they’re alone.
“Are you alright?” Hux asks, shifting in his chair to look at him without making himself uncomfortable. He looks exactly like what Ben needs right now, warm in his stupid sweater, cozy with his slightly out of place hairs, understanding as he sets a hand on top of Ben’s. This. This is everything he wants.
“Yeah,” he answers, without even needing to think about it. “Yeah, I am.”
And he really is.
-
The afternoon is quiet and nice.
The five of them sit together in the living room watching movies and eating popcorn, a number increased to seven when Finn and Poe stop by.
Poe says they’d been planning on it. Ben has known Poe long enough to tell when he’s lying even if Finn hadn’t looked absurdly guilty while Poe spoke.
Surely enough, in between movies he’s asked to join Poe in refilling their drinks and he’s pinned in place by Poe’s curious gaze as soon as they’re in the kitchen.
“So?”
Ben blinks. That should be a vague question, but he knows exactly what Poe means. “I’m fine, thanks,” he quips to annoy him anyway. “It’s fine, really. I’m just…” He takes in a deep breath. It’s time. He’s out of options and he really, really wants this. “I don’t know how to get there,” he mumbles.
Poe hears it, the grin on his face tells Ben as much, but of course it’s not what easy. “Sorry, pal, I didn’t catch that. You what?”
Ben glares at Poe. He even briefly wonders if punching him will help, but he can’t do that. He’ll never get an answer if he does. “I don’t know how to…” He bites his tongue as he looks for a word that would suit Hux. “How to court him.”
“Well,” Poe starts and just by his voice Ben can tell he’s already going to get teased. “You should tell his father how many cows your family has if that’s what you want.”
He does punch Poe’s shoulder then.
“Ow, asshole,” Poe grunts. Ben continues to glare. “Fine. Listen, there’s no secret to it. I mean, maybe for you it’s a little harder than it is to the average, normal person with social skills, but you just have to be nice, be yourself. Treat him well. Give him a compliment, try to be close to him, that sort of thing. You know, small touches.” Then Poe reaches out and cups Ben’s cheek, rubbing it gently with his thumb. “You’re totally turned on right now, aren’t you?”
Ben makes a disgusted sound and shoves him off. Poe laughs, unsurprised, and doesn’t even complain when Ben goes back and leaves him alone to get everyone’s drinks.
Finn and Poe leave not long after that, but Poe’s words stay with him.
-
Opportunities come and go.
Ben sees every and each one of them as he can’t pay attention to anything after talking to Poe, wondering what to say and when to say it and always losing the right moment as he figures out a vague idea of something that could be said minutes after the time where it would have been appropriate.
Maybe he’s just not fit for this, he thinks.
He’s going to adopt seven cats and be the sad gay son of Leia Organa for the rest of his life, he’ll probably get sent off to a private island where he can live and die alone with his shame because he couldn’t bring himself to tell one guy he likes him.
It’s simple, technically. ‘I like you.’ Just three words he has spoken before, in that order and not, it’s hardly unfamiliar.
And the thought of saying it to Hux makes his stomach turn and his breath catch and his eyes dry and his heart stop and he can’t do it.
He leaves the Palpatines’s at ten with a heavy heart and a sinking feeling.
-
The morning brings a better outlook on things.
Mostly because he slept on the bed and he’s awoken when Luke drops a gift on it. He’s still half asleep when he reaches for it and opens the box, pulling out a large photo album. He wakes up as he sifts through it, finding old, really old, and stupidly old pictures of the Skywalkers, mostly of Shmi and Anakin, and Luke is gone when he looks up.
He didn’t know this existed until now. He can’t tell if he’s angry that it’s been kept from him for so long or if it’s a such good feeling to be holding this that he can forget all about that. He hasn’t figured it out by the time he decides to go distribute Leia and Han’s gifts.
He doesn’t stick around long enough to see what Luke and Wedge got, taking the boxes that had been dropped off weeks earlier with him to Rey’s, heavy as they are. He tries not to think about the gift and seeing Mr. Palpatine answer the door in a Santa Claus costume helps.
“Are those Leia’s?” He asks with childlike glee and Ben can’t blame him for it. The man nearly trembles with glee when Ben confirms his suspicion with a nod, walking inside and dropping the gifts by the tree in the living room.
Mr. Palpatine is too enchanted to say anything more and when Mrs. Palpatine joins them and sees the gifts, her reaction is every bit as bad. Ben doesn’t need to be told to get the others so they can all open Leia’s gifts together.
He follows the same order as yesterday, though this time Rey takes off the moment she sees him. He’s not surprised. Thankfully, he’s also not overly anxious as he makes the now familiar path from Rey’s to Hux’s room. The door is open this time and Hux spots him before he can offer a greeting, closing his laptop and leaving the room with only a sigh.
Of course, even Hux has heard of it by now.
Somehow, the trio hasn’t opened the gifts yet by the time they arrived. That doesn’t mean they have enough time to sit down before Rey has torn into her wrapping, finding an old book that Ben has probably seen around his house but never paid attention to, and here Rey is holding it like it’s the most precious thing she has ever seen. Typical of Leia, outdoing everyone and making herself the center of everything even when she’s not around.
Ben got a new, expensive computer he didn’t need and an invitation to a family trip. To him, the only real gift he got was passing on said trip.
He pretends to pay attention as they open the rest of the gifts, packages sent from distant family members, a couple of things being given to Hux the only thing that looks unusual. Even that he avoids looking at until he figures he’s being ridiculous.
Why should he allow his family to ruin his day when they’re not even here?
He shouldn’t. Even knowing that, it’s hard to disperse the negative thoughts that are almost instinctive to him at this point. He tries, though.
Staring at Hux, he learns, is his best chance at it. He’s never met Ben’s family thus doesn’t bring back any memories of them, he’s completely different from all of them and he’s not bad to look at. He can think about something other than them when he continues to wonder how to take things forward.
Does he want to? Obviously, he wants Hux, but he has to acknowledge that it’s not so simple. Hux goes to college, they’re not exactly at the same point of their lives, and Ben doesn’t even know what he wants to do for a living yet. He isn’t sure if Hux sees him that way. Maybe they have nothing in common. He might be putting his friendship with Rey at stake, too, if anything were to happen between them. There’s a multitude of reasons why he should avoid this and every single one of them doesn’t seem to matter as much when faced with how much he wants this.
It might be a stupid idea, but he has to do something.
He waits to make sure the Palpatine trio is entertained before standing up and walking to the armchair Hux is occupying. He gets a puzzled look from the man and pretends he’s not affected by it. He definitely fails at that. “Can we...talk?” He asks, quiet but not too quiet, looking back at the others over his shoulder to make sure they hadn’t heard him. Surely enough, they’re still distracted.
Hux nods and stands up - all on his own - slowly following Ben out into the corridor. “Is something wrong, Ben?” He sounds concerned. Ben likes that.
“No, not at all. I just wanted to talk to you.”
This is the hard part, he realizes. Not the prior overthinking, the idea that this might not go well and the possibility of rejection. It’s right here. If he doesn’t do this now, he never will. He has to. His mouth is dry and his hands are trembling but he’s determined. He’s going to talk to Hux.
“It’s. I’ve liked meeting you.” He almost cringes at the words. Maybe being himself is not his best idea at this moment. He can compliment Hux, he’s certain those words will come to him more easily. "You’re cute," he says, even then hearing Poe’s voice. It’s strange to think that both pieces of advice could contradict themselves so deeply, but where Ben is concerned the words feel weak, almost meaningless. And it’s not that it is a lie, it is not, it’s that Ben and words don’t get along as well as he’d like.
The look on Hux’s face, amused and unimpressed, spurs him into action. He takes the second, unsafe course of action and, as he’s thought of doing since the moment his eyes landed on Hux’s stupid, smug face, he leans in and presses his lips to his cheek, brief and enough to make him blush like a tomato, if tomatoes blushed even redder than they normally are.
A lifetime of being forced to watch romantic comedies with his mom (who’s he kidding, he likes them better than she does) is what makes him expect to pull away and watch Hux be either stunned into amazement or disgust, surprised at Ben’s sudden burst of confidence and desperation that made him act. Expectation that which takes into consideration the average movie character, charming and romantic and sweet.
Hux is none of that.
No, as his lips leave Hux’s skin only to find themselves pressed against Hux’s own lips he’s reminded that Hux is, without a doubt, a predator: confident, unafraid to take what he feels he deserves. Ben isn’t about to complain, though even if he wanted to, he couldn’t, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest and taking away his ability to do anything but press back into the kiss.
It’s him who’s left speechless when Hux pulls away, glancing from his eyes to lips as words begin to leave them. "I was starting to wonder if you had some initiative in you." The man winks, to which Ben sincerely hopes he imagined the whine that leaves him, and turns away to go back into the living room. He should ask for another kiss, for confirmation that he hadn’t hallucinated that kiss, for anything at all, but all he can do is watch him go, losing even the ability to stand as his knees give and make him fall on his ass.
He can’t even be angry that, of all things, it was Poe’s advice that worked.
He lies down on the floor with a sigh and a stupid grin on his face, unaware of exactly how much he looks like an idiot until maybe seconds or hours later he sees Rey’s upside down face looking at him and very clearly trying not to laugh. "Have you finally decided to use your hair as a mop?"
He shrugs and she rolls her eyes but offers him a hand, which he takes and manages to stand up thanks to it. He’s bombarded with questions and when that gets her nothing more than an even wider grin, she tells him Finn and Poe will be happy to help her torture him at the park.
Minutes later, he realizes he should have said he’d mop her dirty mind with it, but he can’t even bring himself to obsess over the missed comeback.
-
"I didn’t actually think he could look less cool than usual, but that does it," Poe declares, making Finn laugh and lean further into the arm around his shoulder.
Ben doesn’t notice any of it. He didn’t miss how Rey dragged him here, obviously, but now that he’s uncomfortably settled on a bench at the park, his mind won’t leave Hux. After all of his attempts, it was a kiss on the cheek that worked - though it seemed that Hux had been every bit as aware of how hard Ben was trying to impress him as Ben himself. It shouldn’t be a good thing, but all Ben can get from it is that Hux doesn’t like the Ben who takes tips from Wedge or Luke or Poe, he likes and kisses the Ben who does whatever comes to his mind and that’s a good thing if Ben’s ever seen one.
Rey is on the swings, going back and forth like a child with very high cold tolerance, and even that won’t make her be nice to him. “I don’t even know what happened. Maybe the real Ben got kidnapped and we got the nice, dopey clone.”
“Come on, guys. He’s happy. It’s sweet,” Finn points out. If Ben had been paying attention, he would appreciate it.
Not that he’s able to keep his mind on track for long. “Why did you drag me here? It’s freezing,” he complains, wrapping his arms around himself. Maybe Hux will do that, in the future.
“Because you’re the only dumbass who isn’t dressed properly and I wanted to get you to talk,” Rey speaks, the volume of her voice wavering as she moves on the swing. “Just tell us what happened.”
Ben sighs, pressing his jaw into his neckline in an attempt to warm himself. He wishes he could say the memory of the kiss was enough to warm him, but it just makes him look stupid for blushing and shivering. “I don’t know. Someone kidnapped me and brought me here before we could talk about it.”
“Talk about what?” Poe asks at the same time as,
“There’s an it?” Finn exclaims, leaning forward in curiosity. It doesn’t make Ben feel much better, though he knows his friends are just excited for him.
“Yeah,” he gives in with a sigh. “There’s an it.”
Their overreaction to his answer is almost endearing, Ben has to admit it. There are screams and hugs and one particularly undignified dance (by Rey). At some point of it, Ben finds himself smiling and realizes he has no reason not to.
He’s doing fine.
-
New Year’s is not at all what Ben had expected it to be when dropped at his uncle’s doorstep.
No, how could he have imagined then that he was going to find something he’d barely dared hope for so soon? He’s not exactly a positive person, always looking forward to the moment something good will happen, and he’s fine with that. He’s learned that Hux is much like him when it comes to that and he’s never been able to communicate his thoughts and feelings as well as he does around Hux.
Not that there’s anything to discuss now. Dragging Hux to Luke’s when his uncle had joined Wedge at a ‘red squadron party’, whatever that is, had been a brilliant idea as it gives them the chance to lie down on the couch together without worrying about Rey walking in and making comments. He can press his cheek against Hux’s and breathe him in and not have to think about anything beyond right now, except maybe for Hux’s broken foot.
Other than that, though, it’s perfect. He likes being with Hux as much as he likes talking to him and he’s glad they both agreed that they can make this work.
They barely move when fireworks go off, announcing the arrival of the new year.
“Aren’t we supposed to kiss now?” Ben asks as the sounds transition from deafening to stupidly loud.
“Oh, no,” Hux complains teasingly, a smile on his face.
Ben kisses him until he takes his words back.