Work Text:
Ben Solo might well be the only kid in the world who can say he grew up splitting his free time between a Senator’s office and a smuggler’s illegal fireworks shop.
His father has been running Dishonest Don’s for as long as he can remember. Hell, his very first memory is of the shop, of being shut away in the back office and slowly sinking into the lumpy couch while his parents made annoyed faces and wild gestures at each other just beyond the window. It was all so funny and entertaining to young Ben until his mother stormed into the office, scooped him up, and shouted something about child-appropriate environments at his father while Ben waved goodbye over his mother’s shoulder.
He was back in the shop less than a week later, when his mother couldn’t find anyone else to watch him during her filibuster. Just this once, she told him and his father. This is the last time, she promised him two months later.
It wasn’t.
The last time was when he was thirteen and rumors were spreading about Senator Organa’s shady husband and Ben watched his father pick the stupid shop over his family.
The next time his mother tried to drop him off at Dishonest Don’s, Ben tried to convince her that he was old enough to stay home by himself. His mother agreed almost immediately, in what was probably the shortest argument in her entire life.
So from then on Ben stayed home and watched his father head off to work, and he sulked, and he seethed, and he plotted.
In lieu of a big bash with non-existent friends for his eighteenth birthday, Ben gets a typical Organa-Solo family dinner.
His father is actually home in time for dinner, for once, but he and Chewie talk about work all evening anyway.
Uncle Luke tries to ask him about school, then girls, then his future, until his mother takes mercy on him and drags her brother away under the guise of needing to consult him on a very important, very confidential matter.
There are a few others scattered here and there, familiar faces always in the background of nearly every birthday he’s ever had, but there’s only one Ben is interested in talking to.
“Happy birthday, kid!” Lando grins as he approaches, and Ben knows he’s made the right choice when his uncle toasts him with a beer and immediately proceeds to hand said beer to him. “Probably time to stop calling you that, huh? Eighteen. Eighteen,” he whistles. “Feels like just yesterday you were hiding in my cape to block out the fireworks. And now look at you. There’s no cape in the world big enough for you to hide in, young man!”
Ben drops his eyes to the ground, scuffs his feet for a bit, holds back a satisfied grin at Lando calling attention to his newly filled-out frame.
His uncle knows him well enough to change the subject.
“So, any plans, Benny? Eighteen’s a pretty big deal.”
He looks up, holds eye contact as he knocks back his beer. Is alcohol supposed to be involved when you pitch a business idea to your mysteriously rich uncle?
Either way, Ben figures it can’t hurt.
“Actually, on the subject of fireworks…”
At the ribbon cutting for Honest John’s, Han laughs until he’s doubled over on the sidewalk, tears streaming down his face.
It’s not exactly the reaction Ben was looking for, but he almost doesn’t mind when his father comes up to him later that day and squeezes his shoulder.
“This is… this is really something you’ve put together here, son. Much better than anything I could’ve come up with.”
Much more legal, too, but Ben keeps that thought to himself for once. Because his father is looking up at him, and he’s got a hand on Ben’s back, and for once Han smiles, actually smiles, when he says, “I’m proud of you, Ben.”
So maybe it’s not the confrontation Ben’s been itching for since he was thirteen and he saw tears in his mother’s eyes for the very first time as she tried to make his dad understand the consequences of his actions.
And yeah, it’s probably not going to turn into a fistfight that’ll finally give him the chance to wipe that cocky smirk of his father’s face.
But there’s a telltale shine in his mother’s eyes as she runs her hands over the counter he built, and there’s no sign of a smirk on his father’s face as he admires the rest of the shop, and when his parents meet in the middle they take each other’s hand and turn to him with a look of pride and joy that nearly chokes him up.
That’s good enough, Ben decides, and throws himself into running the best damn business he possibly can.
“Hey, Mitaka. Been a while,” Ben comments as he walks out from behind the counter to assist one of his oldest regulars.
He doesn’t mean anything by it, just a simple observation, but then Mitaka avoids his eye and looks down at the ground and-
“Sorry about that. It’s just, everyone said it’s different now with the new regulations, and of course you’d have to follow them because you’re above the board and all that, which is great, really, it’s great, but no one wants boring fireworks at a 4th of July party, you know? Not- not that I’m saying your stuff is boring-”
Ben frowns as he steps forward, resting a hand on the red-faced man’s shoulder. “Dude. Breathe.”
Mitaka does as instructed, even as he continues to twist his fingers together nervously. “So yeah, sorry it’s been a while. But I’m back now, and I’ll never go to Dishonest Don’s again, I promise-”
“Wait, wait,” Ben interrupts. “Dishonest Don’s? You’ve been going there?”
Mitaka looks like a kicked puppy as he nods.
“Why? You’ve been coming here for years! And you know they’re illegal-”
“But they’ve still got the meteor shower ones, and I know you’re not allowed to sell those anymore.”
This is news to Ben, who just received a box of said fireworks two hours ago. “Says who?” he demands incredulously.
“Um, well, everyone really, but mainly-” Mitaka pulls his phone out and opens up a familiar-looking website before handing it over to Ben.
The design is unmistakable, and the URL at the top can’t be a coincidence.
His father’s latest post is titled The Silent Night Act and what that means for you, which sounds nothing at all like the succinct announcements Ben’s gotten used to. New stuff, the posts usually read, followed by a slew of pictures and prices and nothing else. This… this article about new sound and light pollution regulations warning against hefty fines for those caught red-handed and watered-down versions from licensed sellers trying to toe the line sounds nothing at all like his usual style.
It’s also not like his father to stoop this low and try his hand at sabotage, but here they are anyway.
Ben throws the phone back at Mitaka and stalks towards the front door.
“Hux, watch the shop! I’ve got a fucking bone to pick with Han fucking Solo!”
Dishonest Don’s is both fifteen minutes and worlds away from Honest John’s. While Ben’s shop operates in a perfectly respectable area, it’s just a short walk away from shady repair shops, hole-in-the-wall spots, and, of course, the city’s worst-kept secret.
For fuck’s sake, his father even has the name of the shop spelled out in neon lights. The sign stopped working properly a long time ago, way before Ben hit puberty, but it’s still there, flickering every once in a while like some kind of prolonged death rattle-
Ben stops short right outside the door. For the first time in nearly fifteen years, the lights are working. Dishonest Don’s is spelled out in full, rather than the usual hoe on that’s greeted customers for as long as he can remember.
Inside is even more baffling. There are lights, actual lights bright enough for him to see where he’s going. There’s a bell over the door that announces his arrival. And most unexpected of all, there’s someone other than his father and Chewie standing behind the counter.
“Hi there, looking for something?”
She’s young (probably younger than him) and tall (for a girl) and beautiful (in every sense of the word) and Ben almost, almost blurts out you because when she smiles, it’s brighter than a thousand fireworks lighting up the night sky.
He shakes the thought away, stalks further into the shop and towards her to show her the post. “Where’s Han? We need to talk about this.”
The girl tilts her head. “What about it?”
“It’s- it’s-” Ben splutters, dropping his phone on the counter. “It’s slander! Fake news! Total and complete bullshit meant to sabotage me-”
“Wow, I did not expect this big of a reaction.”
Ben stops, considers her in silence for a beat. “Wait, what? What do you mean- you knew about this?”
“Of course I did,” the girl shrugs as she scrolls past the article on his phone. “I wrote it, after all.”
Everything comes to a screeching halt. The world stops making sense. Up is down and down is left and why in the hell would this random girl use his father’s website to sabotage his business?
“Why the fuck did you do that?” Ben demands, snatching his phone out of her hands. Small hands, rough hands, hands that look like they would fit perfectly into his own- “You lied about me!”
The girl shrugs. “Thought I’d make things interesting.”
“You stole my customers!”
“Mm-hmm,” she hums, shifting her focus to the register. “Gotta meet those sale targets somehow.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
At this, she finally looks up. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she retorts without missing a beat, without losing control. “What kind of asshole sets up shop right across the street just to piss off his father?”
Truth be told, sometimes Ben does look back at his teenage self and feel a slight bit of shame over his actions. But this stranger doesn’t need - or deserve - to know that.
“You wouldn’t get it. It’s a long story,” he says dismissively, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks around the shop and takes in the small changes she must be responsible for. Things are… things are actually organized, for once. And he can stand here without worrying that one of the highly flammable, highly explosive piles his father likes to keep things in is about to roast him to a crisp. It’s… nice, and Ben’s happy just looking around until-
“And I’ve got a long lunch break,” mystery girl replies easily, pinning him down with a challenge in her eyes. “So start talking, Honest John’s.”
There’s a chair on the other end of the counter, a little waiting seat of sorts. Ben remains silent until he’s settled down. “It’s, um… it’s Ben, by the way. Not John. Or Honest John.”
She smiles at him again; just one more and his heart will probably fail him. “Yeah, that sounds better. Fits you.”
And then she holds her hand out and offers him the beginning of everything.
“I’m Rey, in case you were wondering. Rey like sunshine, but with an E.”
Of course the only thing brighter than all the fireworks in the world is the sun herself.