Chapter Text
Again.
It’s happened again . Somebody beat one of his high scores.
That’s the third time this week.
Okay, so Ben Solo goes to the arcade a lot. A lot for a 30 year old PhD candidate.
Alright, he goes a lot for anyone .
There’s usually other people at Maz’s - it’s popular and right on central campus, next to Starbucks and across the street from Insomnia Cookies, only a couple blocks from the Diag. He’s never had someone beat any of his high scores until this week. And on pinball too, he hardly ever sees anyone else playing pinball.
First, it was The Addams Family. Then South Park. And now? Star Trek: The Next Generation.
His favorite .
“Maz!” he yells loudly as he walks up to the ticket and prize counter.
“Ah, Ben Solo. What is it this time?” She climbs up on a step stool behind the counter to be closer to his height.
“Someone beat my high score, again. Third time this week on three different games.” He slams his fist down on the counter, hard enough to knock over some of the prize candy and chintzy toys below.
“You do understand I have to let other people in? I can’t stay in business on your quarters only.”
He ignores the sassy response he knew he’d receive. He’s been coming to Maz’s since high school, he’s more than used to her personality. “Are there security cameras in here? I’d like to review them to see who’s got the nerve to beat me.” It’s the same goddamn person , he recalls, his suspect with the initials REY, knocking down his scores he always enters as BEN.
“Are you out of your mind, boy? This is an arcade, not a bank. Now go play some games, or better bet, go work on that thesis I know you’re behind on.” She hops off the step stool and makes her way to the office, muttering security cameras and a string of curses in a foreign language he’s unable to pinpoint despite how many he’s learned.
He leaves, in a huff, stops at the Starbucks next door to grab an americano, and walks back to the top floor apartment of the house he rents on South Forest to put in a few hours of grading papers.
He didn’t notice the woman walking down the stairs to the arcade as he stomps upward. Given, she was dressed plainly: brown hair in a messy ponytail, jeans, messenger bag, headphones in, and a maize and blue hoodie that matched the ones worn by 80% of the student body any given day.
“Machine’s out of order,” she says, pulling her headphones out by their cord and sliding a crisp new twenty across the counter.
“No problem, child. I’m Maz. You new in town?”
“Just moved in this week.” She holds her hand out. “I’m Rey.”
XxXxX
About a week has passed since he asked Maz about whoever this REY was who had gotten in the habit of breaking his high scores. Within that week, REY had taken his top spots on the KISS and Indiana Jones pinball machines, and was starting to branch out to other games - stock car racing, some shooters. He was yet to check Mortal Kombat or any of the other fighters. Part of him doesn’t want to.
Today though, it’s less busy than usual, probably on account of the stellar weather. He’s already been out on his run that day, so after a shower and lunch, Maz’s was next on his Sunday to-do list. There’s a couple of kids who look junior high age, playing skee-ball, and one keeps going back to the counter to check the price of the prizes. Aside from that, it’s him, over by the neglected row of pinball machines, and a group of three who look his age at an air hockey table - two men who just finished playing and a woman, perched on a stool.
“I’m not letting you win next game, babe.”
“Wanna bet on that?”
“Loser has to do whatever the winner says, for a day. In bed,” he adds, and Ben can hear the smugness in his voice.
“See, that’s not fair because you know I’ll just lose on purpose.”
“Whoa, boys.” Ben’s ears perk up at the addition of the woman’s voice cutting in. “Let’s keep this a PG game of air hockey.”
Yes, dear Christ, please do.
“She spoils all our fun, doesn’t she, Finn?” It’s the voice of the man who made up the bet.
“We have thin walls, Poe, so I’m well aware I don’t spoil all your fun.”
The one called Finn changes the subject. “Didn’t you say you beat some high scores, Rey?”
Oh, that gets his full attention. Rey? The person beating his scores… is a woman?
Ben had plenty of ideas in his head of what REY looked like - except he usually either had balding hair and a bit of a beer gut or was a 14 year old boy, forced into collared shirts and a haircut that emphasized his too big ears. Okay, so that last example is actually just me. REY was always Ryan, or Robert, or Reggie.
He’s never going to say it aloud, but he feels like a bit of an ass to never have even imagined REY could be a woman.
Ben was just about to drop two more quarters into Austin Powers, but he balls them in his fist instead, and walks closer to the air hockey table.
“Which one?” Poe asks.
“A couple, actually. Mostly pinball, but House of the Dead and one of those old racing games too… Daytona USA, I think. Oh, and Centipede.”
“Geez, who’d have thought we lived with our very own pinball wizard. Med school not keeping you occupied?”
“I have time not spent in the med school, yes. I just choose to spend it here. Come on, I’ll let you two pick out a pinball game for me this time.”
He’d realized a moment ago that there was the chance they would start walking this way and he couldn’t just be hiding behind Tekken - luckily a marginally better hiding place wasn’t far away from him. Now, from his spot inside the Jurassic Park: The Lost World game, he’s been listening to their entire conversation. The air hockey tables are on the other side of Para Para Paradise and the far side of Tekken, and he can’t see them. So, because he’s made peace with the fact that he’s a creep, he sits silently in the stupid game and waits for them to walk by.
He has a split second of lucidity in which he realizes exactly his position - Hi, I’m Ben Solo, a thirty year old linguistics PhD candidate, who is currently hiding in a twenty year old Jurassic Park game. I promise I’m well-adjusted.
As always, the classic rock station plays in the background. Ben recognizes the song - The Pixies, Where is My Mind?, which he usually wouldn’t mind, but it only adds insult to injury at the moment.
The two men pass by, holding hands, and he assumes they’re her noisy housemates. He feels the briefest moment of pity for her before he remembers that it might be her who has stolen his high scores.
Sweet fuck, that’s her? He watches as she walks behind her friends, along the row of pinball machines. Now that he’s hiding, she’s got them all to choose from. He peaks his head out, just slightly, to get a better look. Ankle length black leggings, a white cropped tank top hitting just above her belly button, and a fanny pack with a neon pink checkerboard design. Her brown hair is cut to shoulder length and is wavy, like she’s let it dry braided, and when she turns towards one of her friends, he’s able to read medical school under the block-M on the baseball hat she wears.
“Ghostbusters?” Poe suggests.
“Sure, I don’t think I’ve played that one in a long time.” She shimmies her fanny pack to the side, left hand picking out quarters as she bends down to skim over the game’s rule sheet, nodding every so often as she reads. Satisfied, she moves her fanny pack back to resting over her butt.
Ben watches her take one of the quarters, rolling it across her knuckles as she goes up on her tiptoes and gives the playfield a quick once over. She pushes a quarter in and as the game drops the first ball down to the plunger, she gets into what must be her stance: slightly crouched down, left leg back, right bent at the knee and just barely touching the machine. He realizes then that her friends have no idea exactly how long they’re gonna be watching her play. She pulls the plunger back to precisely how far she wants it, and lets go.
Five minutes could’ve passed, or fifteen, or, shit, maybe even thirty since he’s been watching her play. Ben is no longer paying attention to the score or how long she’s been on the machine.
Eventually, her friends tire of standing, walking away and coming back with two high stools to sit on.
He’s never seen anyone else play that he finds intriguing - usually its just kids trying to button mash the flippers or people who play for two minutes and have already lost all their balls straight down the center. Rey’s in a state of a complete concentration, one he knows well and recognizes on her instantly. He can’t see what’s happening on the playfield, but everything else, from her aggressive stance, her knee nudging the game just enough to not set off the tilt bobber, both hands fluttering over the flipper buttons, to the minute movements of her head as she follows the ball, it tells him that this is definitely the person who beat his scores.
He's lost somewhere in between sounds of the ball bouncing off bumpers and kickers, mechanical and digital bells and whistles, announcements of extra balls and jackpots - all the usual sounds that somehow calm the constant hurricane of information in his mind. So lost, in fact, that he’s taken aback when the machine finally announces game over.
He watches her watch the LED display on the backglass, the numbers increasing faster than their eyes can process it until -
A clamor of noises he’s very familiar with and then, NEW HIGH SCORE flashes across the screen.
Her hands fall back from the flipper buttons and she flicks her wrists to crack them. There’s a moment of pause when she stands stock still before she jumps into her celebration. Her arms fly overhead in celebration, high fiving both her friends, who don’t look nearly as impressed as they should be.
A very specific part of Ben’s mind notes the way her tank top pulls up higher when she raises her hands, exposing tanned skin and side abs, until -- fuck this, she just beat my high score on yet another goddamn machine.
It's like something snaps then, the same old something, and he's thrust violently out of his reverence and into anger at the situation.
He pushes himself out of the Jurassic Park game, and towards the exit. Ten years ago Ben would've berated her in front of her friends, she'd probably cry, and it'd be a scene. Thankfully, he's learned better by now, its not her fault, she has no clue , he repeats. What his therapy hasn't done yet is prevent him from pushing over the three candy machines on his way.
XxXxX
Rey’s tapping through the alphabet with the flipper button to type in her name, when she hears the crash of metal and glass on the floor behind her. She turns, whipping her head around in time to see a tall man angrily walking out. All she’s able to see is black hair, a gray t-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, and long legs in dark jeans, heading quickly towards the staircase.
“That’s coming out of your tab!” Maz yells as she runs out from the office. He’s already halfway up the stairs to street.
“Fine, Maz,” the man calls back down loudly. “What the fuck ever.”
She quickly finishes putting her name in and rushes over to Maz, stopping in her tracks when she sees the mess and walking carefully around the broken pieces of glass.
“Holy crap, Maz, that guy got a problem or what?”
Maz quirks her head to the side, then remembers. “Oh, child, that’s right. You’re new around here. Sometimes he’s got a problem, sometimes it's the ‘or what.’”
By now, Rey’s taken the push broom out of Maz’s hands and is busy helping sweep up broken glass along with the Skittles, gumballs, and Runts that flew across the floor. “You know him?”
“I’ve been dealing with him and his antics since he was fifteen,” she says as she chuckles to herself. “You could say I know him. And you will too, soon enough.”
“What? Who is he and why the heck would I get to know him ?”
“That’s Ben Solo, and you’ve been beating all his high scores.”