Title: Tales From Jakku
Category: Movies ยป Star Wars
Author: Ziggurat Rolsovitch
Language: English
Rating: M
Day 4,900
Ripped apart and scavenged.
Ben stood there silently staring at what was left of the Vaporator that he had spent so much time on. It had been ripped open, gutted and stripped for parts. Seeing the remains left him completely devastated that everything he had worked so hard for had been ripped apart ruthlessly and without a thought for those that relied on it.
From her spot in the doorway she watched as he slowly clenched his fists and the way that he started shaking as the rage started to build up inside of him. Rey knew better than to get in the way of his fits and so when he let out a snarl to rival a Corellian sand panther and kicked a panel of metal across the sand she kept her distance from him.
In fact keeping her distance from Ben seemed to be all that she had been doing lately. His temperment had flared to an all time high. He was so unstable and Rey wanted to help. She really did, but she wasn't sure how to go about it.
She wasn't afraid of him hurting her of course. That was one thing she was absolutely certain that Ben would never do. What she was afraid of was not allowing him to get some of his inner turmoil out. It was the reason she let him have his fits.
"Ben-"
"What?!" He snapped, but he realized almost immediately that he had gone too far and felt guilty. "I... Rey... I'm sorry..."
"I know."
"I have to go... trade for some replacement parts or we're going to run out of water." He set his hands on his hips and looked down at the ground because he couldn't look at her when he knew how wrong he had been to snap at the only person he had in this world.
"Can I come with?"
"Uhm..." He rubbed a hand along his beard and then lifted his gaze up to her. "Yeah. Okay. We'll take your speeder then?"
"Only if I drive."
"Mmm." He dropped his hand back down to his side, but he didn't argue with her. Rey was old enough that she didn't need him to protect her anymore and she knew how to defend herself well enough.
Her hidden speeder was something that Rey was quite proud of. She built it all by herself and even gathered all the parts on her own. Sometimes she was amazed that Ben allowed her to go down into the destroyer on her own, but occasionally he would. He was allowing her to have some space to grow and become independent from him. She appreciated that Ben gave her space.
Rey pulled her speeder out from the overhang of the large engine of the destroyer where they kept it hidden under a tarp and waited for Ben to do his best to climb on behind her. The second she knew he was on she pushed the throttle down and felt Ben nearly fall off and grumble something under his breath about her being reckless.
It took awhile to travel Pilgrim's Road, past The Sitter to get to Niima Outpost, but much quicker than it would be on foot.
Upon arriving Ben jumped down from the back and made his way over with some goods that he could trade for and a list of the things he needed to repair and replace what had been stolen from them.
As Ben expected the prices were ridiculously unfair, but there was no other choice. He had to get these working parts for them to be able to survive. A small price to pay really... for drinking water.
As he expected Plutt gave him a terrible deal. Took too much for too little. For a moment he feared that he may not have brought enough to trade with such unfair prices, but somehow he had just enough. Or more like... Plutt knew this was all he had and was taking every last thing he could get from him.
"Hand it over girly." A man shouted and Ben glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the man take the business end of Rey's staff to the gut.
"Not bloody likely!" She responded as she brought it down over his head next.
He couldn't help the slight smile that came over his face. That was his girl. He knew that she could handle herself and that was why he took his time gathering up the rest of the supplies, but... even if he knew this it seemed some young scavenger didn't quite get that.
"I was going to help, but it looks like you have it under control." The boy stated in amazement and then smiled. "So it's true when they say the most beautiful things are also the most deadly."
"Beautiful...?" Rey's face heated up at the complement and she nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she straightened up.
"He's out cold." The boy nudged the thief with his boot. "You may not need help defending yourself, but... do you maybe need help with anything else? Or we could have... lunch together? My treat? Maybe watch the stars later?"
For some reason Ben felt a twinge in his chest and then the heat of rage. He immediately grabbed the bag Plutt gave him and slung it over his shoulder as he made his way over to Rey and grabbed her by the wrist.
"We're going." He told her.
"What? Why?" Rey asked completely confused as to why he was suddenly demanding they leave. She had taken care of the danger. "Let go, Ben... it hurts."
"She asked you to let her go." The boy tried to valiantly stand up, but Ben tensed up, squared his shoulders and turned on the much shorter boy. The kid looked to be nineteen... Rey's age and in his youth was much smaller than he was. The boy whimpered audibly when he realized the size difference between them, but despite fear still tried to be some sort of white knight. "You should... let her go... like she asked..."
Ben knew he shouldn't be so mad... he should... let her go and make her own choices, but he couldn't. He knew he should, but he just couldn't let her go with this kid for lunch. He knew what would happen between them if he did.
"The girl... she belongs to me..." Ben had no idea what had possessed him to say what he did, but it had earned a disgusted look from the boy and anger from Rey.
"Ben!" Rey tried to twist free from his brusing grip, but her physical strength was no match for his. "What is wrong with you?"
"There's nothing wrong with me! You were left in my charge and I'm not letting you run off with some kid you don't know. End of discussion." He was snapping again and he couldn't help it, but this time she would get no apology from him because he didn't believe he was wrong.
He wasn't wrong. He tugged her along with him back to the speeder despite her struggles and despite the stares and glares he was receiving from some of the people there. He was sure it looked bad on his end because Constable Zuvio looked about ready to step in.
This time he didn't let her drive. Just pulled her onto the speeder and left the outpost with the supplies as quickly as he could. The last thing he needed was trouble with the constable on top of everything else that he had to worry about.
It was an understatement to day that Rey was angry with him. She didn't speak to him the entire ride back nor did she speak with him when they arrived back at their home.
By the time they got back it was dark. Too late to begin repairs and so that left them both sitting in silence together. He wished that it wasn't late. He would love to get to work and put some distance between them, but it was late and too cold.
"Is it going to be like this all night? I had hoped to get a little help fixing the vaporator." He thought it was worth a try to talk to her. Even if he doubted that she would have an answer for him.
She didn't of course. She was good at this game. Not speaking to him. Ignoring him. It almost drove him insane, but on the outside he forced himself to remain calm. Pretend that it wasn't affecting him as deeply as it was.
"I wouldn't be mad if you weren't so shirty!"
"He wanted to sleep with you! I saw it inside of his head! Of course I wasn't about to let you run off with him and be taken advantage of." He raised his voice, because she started it and he was right about this whole thing.
"So? You and I used to sleep together all the time!"
"No!" He pressed a hand over his eyes and let out a groan of exasperation. This was the one thing that he had failed to teach her. "Not... not like that..."
"Well what then?"
"You know there are differences between us... right?"
"Obviously."
"I mean... physicals differences."
There was a long pause.
"Sort of." Rey answered apprenhensively.
While he had explained what growing into womanhood was he had never had the heart to explain to her all the gritty details of what happened between men and women or how they were different. He'd always wanted to protect her from all of that. To preserve her innocence perhaps, but now... she needed to know. If not boys like that would take advantage of her.
Letting out a low sigh he stood up and dug around for the datapad so that he could turn off the childproof lock on it and search up the information that she needed to learn. Best to let her read than trying to explain it himself.
"Come here and I'll show you." He said with reluctance.
There was an awkward silence between them and he shifted restlessly until Rey finally got up and came to sit next to him, but he moved so that he was sitting behind her because really he couldn't look at her face to face while he showed her something like this.
From where he sat behind her so that he could watch over her shoulder he handed over the datapad with the education video he had pulled up and silently let her learn. It was perhaps the most uncomfortable moment to have ever passed between the two of them.
Even Rey with her extensive vocabulary was rendered speechless.
"Oh... that's... what you meant by... a man helping with..." Seemed to be the only surprised sound that she could manage. "So then he... wanted to have a baby?"
"No." He shook his head slowly even if she couldn't see it. "Sometimes people do it for fun."
"Fun?" Rey didn't quite understand how that could be.
"It feels good." The answer hadn't come out quite as calmly as he would have liked. Much as he tried to keep his breathing under control he knew that it had increased considerably. The price of sitting so close to Rey and watching a video like that. Even if it was only meant for educational purposes and wasn't particularly graphic it still had his mind wandering.
"How would you know?"
"I had to listen to my parents enjoying it often enough." He answered with a sniff. He hated thinking about them and their disgusting habits, but he'd heard enough to know it wasn't unpleasant.
Rey turned off the datapad and leaned back against his chest with a sigh. If he wasn't mistaken he distinctly detected some disappointment from her. Though in regards to what he wasn't entirely sure. It wasn't exactly easy to try and focus in on what was bothering her... especially when she was leaned up against his chest like that.
There was a reason he didn't touch her or allow her to touch him at all. He couldn't stand it when she touched him... brushed up against him by mistake or he happened to mistakenly touch her. It nearly drove him out of his mind.
She turned to the side to look up at him and he froze because he realized just how close they were. He wasn't sure what to do. How to escape this situation he found himself in. Or more... he wasn't sure he wanted to. He dared to risk leaning in closer to her... even closer still until his lips just barely grazed the corner of her mouth and-...
Rey burst into a fit of giggling and shoved his face away from hers, rubbing at her cheek and leaving him completely confused.
"Your beard tickles."
In all her innocence Rey really had no idea of his intentions. That the last thing he was trying to do was tickle her. He let out a breath and then quickly stood up. Now she was the one left in confusion.
"Go to bed. We have to be up early. That vaporator isn't going to fix itself."
With those words he dropped down into his own bed as she returned to hers and from there they went their separate ways for the night. All the while he scolded himself for almost having made such a foolish mistake.
End Day 4,900
