I started writing this on (American) Thanksgiving, which is honestly pretty poor timing for a Thanksgiving fic. And yeah, it's January. But this is really very little about the holiday, and I felt like writing some kind of cute garbage (featuring awkward!Ben) so I thought I'd throw it at y'all as soon as I finished. Thanks for the faves and follows on my other stories—!
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He can see her face in the side mirror, the way she's absently wiggling her shoulders to the song blaring out of the speakers—her hair is down with just the front pulled back, an oversized longsleeve shirt in school maroon nicely complimenting her skin. The sun has nearly set, so she's discarded her sunglasses; he watches the way her eyes crinkle at the edges when she grins in the direction of the driver.
Somehow things like this are easy for Rey—meeting people, making friends. Ben hadn't spent more than ten minutes total in the company of his roommates until Rey took a class with Finn and started hanging out at their place. Within a couple of weeks she'd already been close with showoff Poe and high-strung Finn—coming over to do homework, watch terrible movies and football, hand out Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters. And whenever Ben would have to leave his room—or walk through the kitchen, or arrive home, or even get in his car to leave as she happened to be pulling up—Rey would beam at him and say hello.
Beside him, Finn lets out another loud snore. Rey's eyes widen and she snorts quietly. She glances at the side mirror and catches Ben looking; he looks away quickly, feeling a blush rise in his cheeks. Ben is bad with people; Finn and Poe can attest to that. Ben had transferred in during the spring semester, renting their spare bedroom at the last minute in late January. He didn't know the first thing about either of them until early October.
And it's not just that—Ben knows he's intense. Serious. Too much for most people. Recovering. The word hovers at the back of his mind, tinged more-than-slightly with guilt. (That's part of the process.) So far, most of the people in his life he's trusted have let him down, and it's led to the series of bad decisions he's still running from, still trying to reconcile. His father had lived, after all, and Snoke isn't controlling his choices anymore.
Still. It's a messy story, one that he'd stuttered out—a highly condensed version, for minimum time to process the moving pieces—a few nights ago when Poe invited them to Thanksgiving. Neither Finn (who is Canadian) nor Rey (whose grandfather lives in Great Britain) could justify international travel for just a few days, so they'd agreed easily to crossing a state border, even if that meant several hours in an enclosed space listening to Poe's choice of music.
In the front seat, Rey grabs for Poe's phone, flicking her finger up and down the playlist.
"No changing," Poe warns.
"Not even within the same playlist?"
"O-kay," he sighs.
"Ooh, ooh! Ben. I've found it. Poe's anthem." Rey glances over her shoulder toward the backseat, shooting Ben one of her easy smiles. "Are you ready?"
Ben lifts an eyebrow in response, and the song changes—a dirty guitar riff, something that sounds vaguely dated. As the song revs up, Poe bobs his head and sings along. Rey glances over her shoulder again, nodding her head in a way that indicates Ben should watch Poe. At the chorus, Poe mimes singing into a mic. He points a finger up and down in that classic disco move. He smooths at his eyebrows with his fingers. Meanwhile, Rey shimmies back and forth in her seat, wiggling finger-guns left and right. She does the cat-eye move with her fingers. She throws in the Macarena, not quite in time to the music, singing along to the ridiculous swagger of the chorus: "I got gas in the tank / I got money in the bank / I got news for you baby, you're lookin' at the man…" In the sideview mirror she catches Ben's eye again, and he can't help it—he laughs, loudly and fully, surprised by the energy of the song.
Rey points two fingers at her eyes, then turns them toward his reflection's—the universal signal for I'm watching you. Ben feels a flush rise up in his cheeks and looks away.
He knows this is her natural state, the self she is with everyone. Rey is just being nice—she's the kind of person "nice" comes easy to, even when "nice" means extending pleasantries to Finn and Poe's gaunt, old, un-hip roommate. He remembers the look on her face the other night, when he'd told them that, no, he wasn't celebrating Thanksgiving with his parents—they were flying cross-country to see his uncle and besides he just wasn't ready to pretend life was normal. He called it "the internship from Hell," alluded vaguely to Snoke as "bad," ducked his head when he admitted to the car wreck that nearly killed his father.
Finn and Poe had had the grace to look embarrassed after asking their questions; but Rey had frowned delicately at him, placing her small, soft hand over his much larger one, right there on the kitchen counter in front of God and everybody. He'd skimmed through the details, but the hardness that came into Rey's expression told him she'd read enough between the lines. He knows she was abused, too, during her eight years of foster care—she takes pills, had to have Poe drive her to the next town once to get the prescription refilled. Ben does everything he can not to be medicated—because he likes to imagine he's in control. His mother says the medication would ease his burden. Maybe he thinks—he's not worthy of that, not yet.
When the song ends, something mellower comes on, and Rey doesn't try to change it. Ben doesn't dare glance back at the side mirror—instead he fixates on the curve of her ear where it shows through her hair. Of course Rey is the one who drew him out over the last few months. After his first glimpse of her, he'd bringing his homework to the kitchen table when she came over, but a few weeks more and he'd moved from the table to the beanbag near the couch. Lately he'd even kept his laptop closed unless he was working.
It's turned out his roommates are pretty good roommates. Finn likes to cook, and if Ben and Poe chip in he'll make meals for the three of them once a week. (Rey, on the other hand, is a terrible cook—she gets impatient, which leads to her attempting to cut corners, which usually leads to something burning.) Poe loves music: usually he plugs headphones into his electronic keyboard so as not to disturb anyone else, but lately Rey's been in the habit of asking him to play for them, whether it's something they can sing to or something classical. (Ben doesn't mention his twelve years of piano lessons, the shallow box of old scores he has stashed in the closet in the event he ever transforms back into a better version of himself.) And even though he's several years older than all of them, they're more mature than most of his classmates and not bad company.
Still.
Ben feels out of place in this car. Poe and Finn and Rey are like—they're like family, the kind of tight-knit friend group he never had. They're relaxed—Rey drumming her fingers on the door handle, Poe singing along with every song, Finn so comfortable he's managed to fall asleep. And Ben—well, Rey had offered him the front seat, almost insisted. "Since you're a tree," she'd teased, "More leg room and all." But he'd balked at Poe's rule—"Passenger keeps the driver awake!"—afraid of being trapped in a conversation. Afraid of saying something stupid in front of Rey. Afraid of making them all regret that they'd asked Awkward Ben Solo to Thanksgiving. So he'd sat in the back—where they could forget him, where they wouldn't have to feel frustrated with how much he lived in his head and how little in the world.
Something moves in his peripheral vision, and Ben glances down—Rey has snaked her arm through the space between the seat and the door and is wiggling her fingers gently at him. Ben casts about for something on the floor mats or backseat that she might be reaching for, but there's nothing there that she'd want—an empty soda bottle on Finn's side, a compact umbrella, a Frisbee sticking out from under Poe's seat.
"Is there, uh—something you're trying to reach?" Ben has to lean forward to ask the question, inclining his head toward her right ear and lowering his voice so as to contrast with Poe's high-pitched keening. This isn't the first Taylor Swift song on Poe's playlist—and Ben knows it won't be the last.
Rey's thumb brushes against Ben's dangling arm, and he almost pulls back—
"Just this," she grins as she finds him in the side mirror, making deliberate eye contact. Her eyes sparkle as she traces her thumb down his arm until she's found his hand, threading her fingers with his.
Ben doesn't dare breathe.
He glances furtively at Finn—still passed out, his head lolling against the window. Poe, eyes on the road, is still bleating the lyrics to "Trouble." Ben looks back to Rey, who smiles serenely into the mirror and squeezes his fingers gently, turning her eyes to the road.
Cautiously, Ben settles back into his own seat, looking again to see if Finn is still asleep. He doesn't dislodge his fingers from Rey's, resting his arm so as not to pull her hand back further. Rey's thumb rubs against his, and he swallows against the fluttering in his chest.
For someone his age, Ben is woefully inexperienced. He's never had sex. He's never had a girlfriend. He's never even been on a date, unless Prom counts; and since that was a group thing he had no part in planning, he's pretty sure it doesn't. He'd been an intense child, so focused on piano so as to lose sight of what it was to form normal friendships. He'd spent summers learning from his uncle (once-professional, he now plays a circuit of churches just outside of Chicago, but back then he'd lived elsewhere in Illinois, the middle of nowhere) until Ben was old enough to see that his uncle was poor and that piano was not a career. That set him on a crash course for business school and Snoke. Romantic relationships were a luxury he didn't think he had time to indulge in, he was so busy trying to replace all the useless piano ephemera that occupied space in his mind with strategy and profits.
Since he met Rey, he's found himself ill-prepared for the effect she has on him. It's not just magnetic; it's wistful and pitiful and he's ashamed, really, of the hope he's built around her when he can barely look at her and speak to her at the same time. It's like staring into the sun—she's too bright, too brilliant.
TSwift changes over to Drake, and Poe enthusiastically sings along, getting progressively louder and more off-key. At Ben's left, Finn groans; and Ben jumps, extricating his fingers from Rey's in a hurry and glancing back at Finn. "Please," Finn mumbles, dragging a hand down his face as if to wipe the sleep away, "Make it stop."
As Ben's roommates continue to pick on each other (honestly, he thinks they might be flirting), he glances back into the side mirror at Rey. Her smile is small and tentative, not quite reaching her eyes, and he drops his eyes as Poe announces their arrival at the rest area on the state line.
There's a giant metal cutout of Texas at the center of the parking lot, and as soon as everyone's left the car Poe is rushing post a Snapchat of himself in his home state. Ben takes his time unfolding himself from the car, but after a quick glance in his direction Rey hurries over to Poe, who's insisting on a group picture. Heart sinking, Ben just continues toward the restrooms, pretending not to hear.
When he finishes in the restroom, Ben stretches his legs in the welcome center, wandering aisles of promotional brochures for the different towns in Texas. He misread something, he concludes. He must have. Things like this don't happen to Ben Solo.
And then Rey drifts down the aisle and bumps into him as she passes, clearly on purpose; when his attention snaps to her, she inclines her head toward the door. Ben re-folds the brochure about the Texas Panhandle, replacing it on the rack, and follows her out the sliding doors of the lobby and back to the parking lot.
"This isn't terrible, is it?" Rey asks when she turns to him, looking worried.
It's not an expression he's seen her wear often. Rey is perhaps the exact embodiment of the concept of Thanksgiving: having known what it was to have so little, everything for her is a joy, everything is abundance.
Before he can even ask what she's talking about she keeps going: "I mean, I know Poe and Finn are your roommates, but it's—we've been in the car a while, and like—your legs must hurt from being all scrunched up…"
"No, I… I'm glad you—uh, I'm glad Poe asked me." Jesus Christ, Ben, how many times are you going to start that sentence over? He winces, glancing out into the parking lot, too nervous for even simple eye contact.
They're standing just outside the sliding doors; people keep moving around them. That must be why Rey grabs for his hand suddenly, tugging him toward the giant metal cutout of Texas. He lets himself be pulled, following her until they're on the opposite side just where Poe was moments ago.
"You missed our picture," Rey says, squeezing his hand quickly before reaching for her phone.
"Er—okay," Ben stammers as she positions herself to his right and presses her left shoulder into his chest, proffering the phone in front of them with her right arm. But it's an awkward angle—he's too tall, her arm is too short, and you can't even tell Texas is in the picture. Rey waves the phone around experimentally, testing every angle, before she reaches up for Ben's shoulder.
"Hey. You should bend down," she instructs, tapping one finger on his t-shirt.
Ben obliges, glad that in the dusk and fluorescent parking lot lights, his blush can't be seen on camera. Rey slings an arm around one shoulder and across the back of his neck, trying to look more natural, and Ben breathes the scent of her shampoo, relishing in the soft jostle of her body into his as she works to take the perfect selfie. "Smile!" she reminds him, and he mostly fails; they retake the picture three times before he finally manages to look natural.
Rey studies the picture, releasing her arm from around his neck. "Cute!" she concludes, smiling as she captions the image "TEXAS!" and turning the phone to Ben for his approval. Ben nods, swallowing nervously.
Rey ducks her head, intent on her phone. Ben stands there like an idiot, trying to come up with something to say. When Rey looks back up, she's smiling again—but it's that smile from the rearview mirror, the one that doesn't extend all the way to her eyes. "Look, Ben," she says, her voice light, "if you're not interested in me, I'm gonna need you to tell me. You're kind of hard to read, and—"
Ben can't help it. Once his brain catches up to what he's hearing, he blurts, "What do you mean, 'not interested?'"
It's possibly the loudest thing he's said in the presence of Rey or his roommates, and they both pause, a little shocked by the volume of his outburst.
After a moment, Rey takes a step in closer, her voice low, "So you are?"
She's tilting her face up to him and there's this light in her eyes—just like in the car, when she held his hand—and Ben's heart is just about beating out of his chest, his hands are twitching at his sides from the effort of not reaching out to touch her because it looks like she wants him to—
Rey nudges a sneaker against his. "This is the part where you kiss me."
Ben swallows but thinks to hell with it and that's it: he catches her lips and then she's up on her toes to reach, carding her fingers through his hair and oh, right, that—he puts one hand in her hair and the other on her waist and her tongue is slipping between his lips, and oh, that is nice—and he has to cant his hips backward as she presses into him because this is all very, very nice and maybe that's a little uncouth for a first kiss and then her hands are gripping his shoulders, steadying him and holding him there and then pulling back just enough for him to see the huge grin on her face.
"I—don't know how to do any of this," Ben says, catching his breath. "I mean I want to, God. But I don't have any idea what I'm doing. I—I mean, look at me. I can barely talk to you." His brain is saying shut up shut up shut up and finally he complies when Rey bites her lip to keep from laughing. Which is fair, he thinks—if he gets to keep doing this she can laugh at him all she wants, every day.
"I like you, Ben Solo," Rey almost whispers, her hands squeezing at his shoulders, a bright, hopeful look in her eyes. "Why don't we figure it out?"
When they meet Finn and Poe back at the car, everyone climbs back into their same seats. It's full dark, and Ben can't see Rey's face without the streetlights. But as they pull out of the rest stop, she catches his eye in the side mirror and smiles again, something open and honest there that makes him breathless all over again. Rey sits forward, just so, snaking her hand back through the gap to grab for his. When Ben twines his fingers with hers, he feels his face stretch with a matching smile. He beams into the Texas dark. There's a lot to be thankful for.