Chapter Text
For the fifth time that afternoon, Ben huffs out a frustrated breath and leans back in his chair. He’s had it with his philosophy homework: nothing makes sense at this point, nor does he see what understanding various fallacies has to do with his English degree. If someone’s wrong, they’re wrong — he’s a jerk, he knows this, but not enough of a jerk to sit there and tell someone exactly which fallacy it is that they’ve used in order to be so goddamned wrong.
“Ben, if you do that one more time I’m kicking you out.”
He’s sitting across from Rose, one of his only friends on campus. She’s not his usual type — she’s far more bubbly and optimistic than most of his friends — but she’s got a brash way about her that endears her to him, and they suffered through freshman physics together and after that, they had forged a friendship. At the very least, they’re study buddies so people can’t kick them out of the library study rooms — groups get priority, and Ben used to study in them alone all the time and complain about getting kicked out.
If Rose kicks him out of the study room, she too risks getting kicked out. He doesn’t think she’ll actually follow through on her threat, but she’s pretty bold, so he also doesn’t particularly want to test this theory.
“Philosophy is stupid,” Ben mutters.
Rose laughs. “I told you to take a math class for your logical reasoning credits. I could have at least helped you, then.”
“Well, we can’t all be engineering geniuses,” he quips.
Smirking, Rose says, “If you need help, why don’t you just go get it? There are tutors downstairs.”
The library was massive, one of several on campus, but this particular one they frequented had a massive amount of study rooms and an entire floor dedicated to tutoring services. Ben shakes his head. “I don’t particularly want to ask a sophomore for help. I’m a senior.”
“You did this to yourself,” Rose reminds him.
Ben doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he leans over, staring down at his textbook with a grumpy scowl on his face. He spins his pen in his hand, reading over the same paragraph for the hundredth time, retaining approximately zero information as he does so.
“Ben, I’m serious. Set aside your pride and talk to a tutor,” Rose repeats. “I know one of them — she’s really nice, I bet she could help you. I think she’s booked up, technically, but she was just telling me how she could use a few extra dollars. I bet she’d take you on.”
“Rose —”
“She’s a junior, but she’s our age. She took a gap year,” Rose explains. “You wouldn’t be taught by someone younger than you. Not drastically, at least.”
He’s quiet. He really, really doesn’t want to do this. However, it’s clear to him that she’s not going to let this go, so he ought to just give in and do as she says. Stubbornly, Rose pulls out her cell phone and begins typing, thumbnails tapping against the screen of her phone. “I’m texting her right now. I’ll get you an appointment, and you guys can use this room to talk about it.”
Ben shakes his head and looks down at his notebook. He’s argued with Rose enough times to know that it’s not worth it to do that now. Now, he needs to just let this go.
Ten minutes later, a petite girl wearing a turtleneck under her denim overalls along with some scuffed up Doc Martens and three buns down the back of her head walks up to the study room door and waves through the glass. Rose grins and waves back. When Ben looks her over and takes a good, hard look, he frowns.
This isn’t going to work.
He can tell already that he’s not going to learn well from this girl. She looks quite eccentric, not to mention it’s been quite a long time since he’s been on a date, never mind a quick hook up, so her appearance is going to be incredibly, horribly distracting for him. “Rose, no —”
“Rose yes,” she grins as she opens the door. “Hey Rey!”
The two smile at each other and share a hug, and then Rose immediately begins packing up her engineering textbooks. “Alright, we have this room booked for another fifteen minutes or so. I’ll let you guys talk it out, work out your schedule,” she says busily, without looking at either of them.
Rey looks over to Ben, who is slumped over in his chair and avoiding her gaze. “Thank you, Rey for doing this so short notice,” Rose continues. She zips up her bag and looks between them. “He’s stubborn, but he needs help, so don’t let him tell you that he doesn’t.”
“Okay,” Rey says, drawing out her word and looking skeptically at Ben.
“He’s all bark and no bite,” Rose reassures her, patting Rey on the shoulder before leaving the study room without a look back.
Ben sighs, avoiding her eyes. Rey shrugs and says, “Alright, well, here I am. When’s the test?”
He says nothing at first; he’s not even sure he wants to accept Rey’s help at this point, so telling her details will only serve to get her hopes up. That isn’t really something he wants to do. But rather than taking that as a hint to leave, she instead takes a seat across from him, where Rose had just been settled in, and waits for him to reply.
“It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving. Next week.”
Rey looks down at the book. “What class?”
“Philosophy.”
She’s quiet for a minute. “So… Rose asked me to help you with your philosophy homework, with two days left before everyone leaves for Thanksgiving break, with your exam in a mere seven days?” she clarifies.
“Sounds about right, yeah.”
Rey sighs. She looks over her shoulder, presumably to see if Rose is still around, but with zero luck. After a beat, Ben says, “You don’t have to take the job.”
“Yes, I do.”
She says it automatically, like there isn’t a doubt in her mind as to whether or not she needs to do this. After another moment, she clarifies, “For me, not for you.”
“Oh, thanks,” Ben says dryly.
Rey narrows her eyes and really studies him. Ben has no idea what her watchful gaze might mean, or whether she’s going to accept the job or not. “I wouldn’t usually care, but I just looked up the GPA I need to get into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and I need an A in his class or I’m fucked,” Ben sighs.
Rey looks him over, her expression neutral, and Ben grapples with the many possibilities of what this gaze means. Hearing nothing further from her, he says, “But if you don’t want to, that’s fine. I know it’s short notice or whatever. Honestly I’ll probably just tell my family I won’t be there for Thanksgiving and that’ll be it.”
“No.”
Ben raises an eyebrow. “No?”
“No, you can’t just not visit your family,” Rey says quickly. “I’ll do it. I’ll help you.”
Ben is quiet, thinking it over. “I’ll probably still need to skip Thanksgiving with my family, though,” he says. “I need to stay here so we can study.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Now he’s really confused, and asks, “What about your family?”
She shakes her head, and the moment she speaks and her accent becomes incredibly clear, he realizes what a stupid question it was. “Hello, I’m English?” she says, pointing to her mouth as she says it.
“So…” Ben begins, trying to work through the scenario they’ve just gotten themselves into, “You want to come with me to my family Thanksgiving, just to tutor me in Philosophy? So I can go to the graduate program I want?”
“Yes,” Rey nods.
“What’s in it for you?”
“I told you,” she replies easily, “I get to experience a real American Thanksgiving. And you get your A.”
Ben eyes her warily. “You’d just have to endure a million questions from my parents. They’ll probably assume we’re dating.”
“So? Let them assume.”
“We just met.”
He doesn’t understand how she can be so cavalier about things like this; implying a relationship isn’t something anyone would take lightly. Yet for Rey it seems like no big deal, and Ben can’t figure out why. “What’s the big deal?” she asks.
“The fact that you’re basically saying you don’t care if my parents think we’re dating.”
“If you say that we are, will it get them off your back?” Rey asks.
“Well, yes, obviously, but —”
Rey shrugs. “So I agree to do that. I’ll help you get them off your back so you can hopefully have a peaceful, normal Thanksgiving, help you get an A, and in return you take me off this damn campus and let me see what a normal American holiday is like.”
Ben looks unsure.
“It seems like I’m getting a hell of a lot more out of this than you are.”
Rey sighs. “And I get paid. Overtime.”
Now it seems a bit more even. Ben nods. It’s probably one of the stupidest things he’s ever done, but when it comes down to it, he’ll do just about anything to get into this writing program. It’s been his dream since he was a teen, he just hadn’t looked into the requirements until recently — nor did he expect philosophy to be so damn confusing.
——
He rolls up outside the engineering building where Rey asked him to pick her up, her class on Wednesday letting out far later than his last class of the day. She stands with a stuffed backpack on her back, an engineering textbook in hand, and a grimace on her face. Ben can only assume it’s because she’s having second thoughts about joining him for the holiday — it’s not exactly going to be a joyous or fun occasion.
Rey walks hesitantly toward the vehicle until she confirms that the mysterious man in all black clothing and dark Ray Ban shades is, indeed, Ben. She climbs into his Ford sedan — also black, unsurprisingly — and stuffs her bag down by her feet. “Hi,” she breathes.
“Hey.”
Ben drives off with alarming speed, the threatening lights of a campus parking enforcement officer in his rearview mirror.
“So, it’s like a forty-five minute drive and all I have is this audiobook,” he says. “It’s American Gods by Neil Gaiman.”
“Cool. I’ll nap,” Rey replies, kicking off her Doc Martens and stuffing her mismatched stocking feet up on the dash. “Wake me up when we get there.”
Ben turns off of campus, towards the freeway, and asks, “Don’t you want to like, quiz me or something?”
Rey groans. “Not particularly,” she says. “You won’t retain much, anyway. You’ll be focused on the road.”
“You don’t drive much, do you?”
Shaking her head, Rey says, “Nope. But it’s true anyway.”
“Well… suit yourself.”
Ben merges onto the freeway and starts up his audiobook again, letting the story distract him from the terrible drivers while simultaneously lulling Rey to sleep.
Unlike the day they’d met, Ben finds it a little easier to look away and not stare; the way she’s snoring with her mouth dropped open does a lot to alleviate the weird feelings of attraction he’d felt towards her upon their first meeting.
Regardless of how pretty he did or did not think she was, they were going to be pretending to be a couple while at Thanksgiving with his family, and that was intimidating, to say the least. On the bright side, he didn’t communicate with his parents very often, so it wouldn’t be completely out of left field that he chose not to tell them about an important life event such as getting into a relationship.
Rey wakes sometime after Ben exits off the freeway, heading in the general direction of the suburbs where he grew up. His house isn’t huge, by any means, but it’ll have enough space for the two of them, his parents, and probably his uncles, and that’s all that really matters.
Oh god. They’re going to be sharing his childhood bedroom.
Rey is quiet as she wakes and adjusts to her new surroundings. They haven’t left the state, but Ben still wonders if she’s been this far away from campus. He’s always assumed the international students live in a bubble, never exploring far outside their collegiate environment..
The sun was beginning to set by the time Ben pulled into the driveway of his childhood home. There was still the basketball hoop, now net-less and rusted, hanging over the double-wide garage door. It had the same pastel colored siding as everything else in the neighborhood, and in the back yard off in the corner there was a wooden playset, a symbol of misplaced hope in Ben that he scowled at every time he arrived at his parents’ place.
There’s no snow on the ground yet, but there’s a noticeable chill in the air that wasn’t present when Rey got out of class and climbed into Ben’s car. She shivers and pulls the sleeves of her oversized sweater over her hands, and then follows Ben out of the car and up the drive.
Ben can see the telltale silhouette of his father in the armchair by the bay window, no doubt lounging back and watching some type of sports game that his mother has no interest in. His mother sits perched in the reclining portion of the sofa next to his father, readers balanced on her nose and a book in hand. On her lap rests the scruffy head of the family dog, Chewie.
To anyone else, it’d be warm and inviting. For Ben, it instills nothing but dread in him.
“Nice place,” Rey comments as they stand at the front door.
Ben only hums in response.
As soon as he opens the front door, barking rings out in the house, followed by the scraping of dog claws on hardwood floors. Rey stands behind Ben, using him as a protective barrier as the scruffy dog launches at them. “Heya, Chewie,” Ben says, smiling lightly as he kneels down to pet the dog.
When he kneels, Rey is in full view of Ben’s parents, who wander slowly into the room. “Ben, you really should –”
Whatever his father was going to say dies right there on his lips as he realizes that there’s also a young woman in their home. Ben focuses on Chewie, giving him scratches behind his ears and letting him lick his face. Rey watches, her bag slung over one shoulder, an uncomfortable smile on her face as his parents stare at her.
“Hi,” she says awkwardly, waving at them as she does so.
“Ben didn’t tell us he was bringing a guest,” his mother says.
“Mom, dad, this is Rey. Rey, these are my parents,” Ben says begrudgingly. “And this good boy right here is Chewie,” he adds with much more fondness in his voice.
Ben’s parents send him odd looks, prompting an even stranger look from Rey, but for a moment nobody says a thing. Finally, his father speaks. “Nice to meet you, Rey. I’m Han, this is my wife Leia. Welcome.”
“We didn’t know Ben had a…” Leia trails off.
Ben stands and asks casually, “Girlfriend?”
“You don’t exactly date often,” Han comments.
Rey puts on her best brave face and says, “He told me that. Sorry if it’s weird. I know it’s early in our relationship, but since my usual plans are to just sit at home… he offered, and I was excited to experience a normal American Thanksgiving.”
“Oh, well, you won’t get normal here,” Han advises. “But you’re welcome all the same.”
“I hope you don’t mind a little mess,” Leia says. “I was planning to recruit Ben’s help before dinner tomorrow evening.”
Smiling, Rey shakes her head. “I don’t mind at all. I can help, if you want.”
“No, we couldn’t ask you to do that,” Leia says. “You can watch some TV with Han. Have you ever seen the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?”
“No,” Rey says.
“Well, that’s what we’ll do tomorrow, then,” Han instructs with finality. “We’ll have Ben make coffee. He’s the best at it. Always has been, even before he drank it.”
“Dad…”
Rey looks up at Ben curiously, and he watches in hopes that she continues to play along with as much ease as she has so far. “I used to only drink Earl Grey in the mornings, but his coffee has definitely converted me,” she says, smiling at him.
Leia raises an eyebrow and asks, “You two spend mornings together a lot?”
“Mom.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Leia says, holding up her hands as though under arrest. “Can’t blame a mom for wanting her kid to be safe.”
Rey chokes on a cough.
“Alright, alright, hang up your coats and come in. Ben can bring your bags upstairs,” Han abruptly changes the topic, much to everyone’s relief.
Leia wanders into the living room first as Rey looks up at Ben with a smirk. She hands off her bag to him and follows his parents into the other room. Ben is hesitant to leave Rey alone with them, but knows that his parents expect him to be a certain level of chivalrous to her, under this guise of being in a relationship.
Her bag weighs a metric ton, but he carries it upstairs with his own backpack just as instructed.
Ben takes that opportunity of having his room to himself to put away any of the embarrassing stuff he doesn’t want her to see, like his trophies from rugby in high school and the stupid picture frame his mom has of him hanging on the wall with all of his photos from kindergarten to senior year.
He also eyes his full sized bed warily, unsure of whether they’ll actually end up sharing it. He doesn’t know if the sheets were changed since he was last there, but if they haven’t, it’s too late now.
Speaking of too late, Ben realizes with a jolt of fear that he’s left Rey unattended with his parents for entirely too long. He takes the stairs back down to the living room two at a time, nearly falling on his ass as he does so. When he gets there, he sees Rey sitting cross legged on the sofa where his mother usually sits, a plate of food in her lap and Chewie begging by her feet. Leia stands in the kitchen, another plate in hand, which she promptly shoves into Ben’s grip as soon as he’s within arm’s reach.
“So, Ben,” Leia says softly, just between the two of them in the secret space of the kitchen. “A girlfriend?”
Ben’s expression darkens and he asks, “Yes? And?”
“You never told us.”
He sighs. “I don’t tell you a lot of things,” he reminds her.
Leia looks into the living room at Rey, who eats contentedly and slips Chewie a piece of food when she thinks nobody’s looking. “She’s very pretty,” Leia adds. “How did you two meet?”
“Mom.”
“Indulge me, Ben.”
“Rose introduced us,” he says. The less detail, the better.
“Ah. And she’s from England, huh?”
Ben shrugs. “Yeah, so?”
Leia watches her son with a serious, worried expression. “What happens when she moves back?”
“It’s like she said… this is very new. We haven’t thought that far ahead. Bringing her with is like, huge. I wouldn’t have done it unless I felt like it was the only option. She wanted to know what the holiday was like, and I didn’t want her to be all alone,” Ben says. “Now can I go eat in peace?”
It’s clear that she has a lot more questions, but instead of asking, Leia nods and lets him walk away. He takes a seat next to Rey on the sofa, and finds himself surprised by the warm smile she gives him in greeting. It makes his heart do a stupid somersault, and he doesn’t want to think about what that could possibly mean.
In a desperate bid to get some sort of revenge, he leans over, arm pressed up against hers, and whispers, “I saw you feeding Chewie.”
She looks over, a surprised, playful smile on her face. Her eyes sparkle, and Ben realizes just how close they are and immediately leans back. He ignores the way his dad is watching them, and takes a breath to try to relax. She only looked at him. It’s not a big deal. “Am I in trouble?” she asks.
“Maybe,” Ben says simply, a threat to loom in her head to be fulfilled at another time.
They spend the rest of the evening eating leftovers and watching one of the Harry Potter movies on TV, after Leia forces Han to switch it off of sports because three outnumbers one.
Han and Leia are ready for bed much earlier than Ben and Rey, but they retreat upstairs anyway. Rey seems pretty tired, even after her nap. Ben knows there’s nothing good on TV at this hour so there’s no point in trying to find something.
Ben totally forgets about the bed situation until they’re up in his room a few minutes after saying goodnight to his parents. They’re standing side by side, staring at the mattress, neither of them speaking. “Um…” Rey begins.
“Yeah,” Ben nods.
The silence is awkward, palpable. After a beat, Rey offers, “I can sleep downstairs on the sofa.”
Ben fixes an odd expression upon her.
“What?” Rey asks.
“If we expect them to believe that we’re dating, we can’t have you sleeping on the sofa,” he argues. “That’d look bad.”
Rey shrugs. “Well, we haven’t exactly established how long we’ve been dating. Would it really be that unheard of for you to tell them that it’s new, and that we’re not in the sharing beds phase of our relationship?”
“You’re the one who told them I converted you to coffee in the mornings, implying overnight stays.”
Rey huffs, “I was playing along.”
“You just want to share a bed with me.”
“I’ve done weirder things,” Rey confesses. “You know, the college experience or whatever. I can sleep next to you. I promise I won’t hit on you.”
Ben hesitates. “I’ll set up on the floor. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
Rey frowns and looks away, appearing rejected by his response. Ben sees the shift in emotions in her face, but does nothing to fix it. It wouldn’t be right for them to share a bed; they’re strangers. Besides, it’s not just her comfort they need to consider — it’s his own, as well. And he doesn’t particularly want to risk an embarrassing morning situations with her right there next to him in his tiny full sized bed.
Rey grabs a small pouch from her backpack, as well as some flannel pajama pants, and leaves the room. Ben sets up a bed on the floor while Rey busies herself with preparing to sleep, ignoring the strangeness that he feels all of a sudden. He’d only been trying to be a gentleman. Besides, they barely knew each other and his bed wasn’t that big.
In the morning, she’d thank him. He was sure of it.