Work Text:
Ben is bored.
It’s a Sunday afternoon in August, and the heat outside is sweltering and insufferable. While the air conditioning in the shop is technically working, it’s barely hanging on by a thread, and thus this morning he’d had to drag out the fan that is now noisily whirring in the corner in an attempt to give both him and the customers some semblance of relief.
The overall temperature leaves the shop feeling sluggish and slow, and even the few people that have dared to enter either leave quickly once they realize being indoors provides no relief from the outdoor elements, or they amble slowly between the shelves with blank expressions on their faces.
Ben's long, dark hair sticks messily to his sweaty forehead, and his shirt clings uncomfortably to his back. No amount of readjusting seems to alleviate these problems.
And Ben is just so, so bored.
But he stays here because he needs the money. He’d just begun his second year at Crait University, and he has tuition and rent to pay.
A niggling thought tugs at the corner of his mind and whispers, you could get help if you just asked them.
He shoves the thought away.
Besides, he generally likes working here. Vulptex Books is a small, quiet bookstore near campus that he had stumbled upon first year, and it had quickly turned into one of his favorite places to spend time. Lounge chairs litter the very back walls, tucked away from the rest of the shop. It’s incredibly easy to slump down into one with an engaging book and forget about the rest of the world for a little while.
The door to the shop creaks open, and the sound draws Ben back to attention.
He regards the newcomer briefly; a girl wearing a backpack with her brown hair tied in three odd buns. He stares at the hairstyle for a moment, bewildered, before he remembers himself and turns away quickly. The girl disappears into the stacks.
Between the heat of the day and two different customers coming up to the counter to make a purchase, Ben forgets about the girl entirely.
As his shift comes to an end, and he moves to begin closing down the store, he notices that someone is still sitting quietly in one of the lounge chairs.
“Um, excuse me,” he says hesitantly.
As he gets closer, he realizes with a jolt that it’s the girl from before, with the three buns. They’ve gotten messier since he saw her walk in a few hours ago, with stray hairs falling to frame her face.
She’s also asleep.
Ben blows out a long breath. He’s had to wake people up and ask them to leave before, but usually those are homeless people with nowhere else to go.
He shuffles closer to her and clears his throat. “Um, miss?”
She doesn’t wake. Her long lashes frame her cheeks, and he can see that her face is littered with freckles. Her nose scrunches slightly.
Honestly, she’s pretty cute.
He tries again, a bit louder this time. “Hello, miss? I’m closing the store now.”
Without warning, her eyes fly open, and she sits up straight. Ben jumps back in surprise at the sudden movement.
She seems a bit disoriented for a moment, before her eyes clear and she’s able to focus on him. “Oh, sorry,” she says, her cheeks turning pink. “I really didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“Oh, I mean, it’s fine,” he reassures her. “I just have to close now, so.”
Her eyes widen, and she gets up clumsily from her seat. Ben takes another step back to ensure she has plenty of space.
“Well, sorry again for making you wait. I’ll be out of your hair, now.” The girl slings her backpack over her shoulder, and moves to walk past him towards the front of the store and the exit.
“What’s your name?” Ben blurts before he can stop himself. He immediately feels stupid for asking, and presses his eyes shut in mortification.
“Oh, um.” She stops in her tracks, and turns to face him. She’s studying him with her pensive brown eyes, a bit wary but not afraid.
“It’s Rey,” she says finally.
“Rey,” he repeats. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Ben.” He awkwardly thrusts his hand out towards her.
The corner of her mouth quirks up into a smile as she extends her hand to meet his. “Ben. Nice to meet you, too.”
Her hand is smaller than his, but it’s much more weathered. He releases her relatively quickly.
“I’ll see you around?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but it does.
Her smile becomes more defined. “Yeah, you might.”
She leaves the store, and Ben goes about his nightly closing duties before returning to his apartment to prepare for his first class of the semester the next day.
📚📖📚
See, Ben has never really tried to date anyone. He’s had crushes here and there, but he’s certainly never been in a relationship. He’s always been too awkward, too weird-looking, too removed from everyone else around him to make any kind of romantic connections.
Needless to say, that means that he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to ask a cute girl out.
He considers asking his roommate, Poe, for advice, but immediately dismisses the idea as a bad one.
Besides, who’s to say he’ll ever even see Rey again? Just because she’d said he would, didn’t mean that it was true.
She probably wouldn’t even be interested, anyways, even if he does see her again.
So there’s no real need to feel the humiliation that asking Poe for advice would most certainly cause.
It’s another two weeks before he’s back to working on a Sunday. The weather has cooled somewhat, thankfully, and he is incredibly grateful he doesn’t have to deal with lugging the fan around anymore. The store still isn’t busy, necessarily, but the fall temperatures do appear to bring out the bookworm in most. Or, at least, the ideals for becoming one. In the last week, he’s sold more mystery novels and classic literature than probably ever before.
The start of the fall semester also means that college students are back on campus, and large numbers of them are popping into the bookstore to search frantically for textbooks, or just to marvel at its existence in a digital age.
So he’s not exactly paying attention when she comes in again.
The minute he notices her athletic frame, he straightens up and feels a rush of excitement.
She’s got her backpack on just like before, and is headed purposefully towards the back. He gives her a tiny smile, and she returns it with one of her own. She even waves slightly. His heart rate quickens.
Stupid crush. Maybe he should’ve talked to Poe after all.
Ben has other customers to attend to, but every chance he gets he glances back towards the stacks of books she’d disappeared behind, wishing he could leave his post and go talk to her.
He basically doesn’t know anything about her. Is she a student? Does she go to his university? What kinds of books does she read?
He really wants to find out.
It reaches closing time, and Ben prays that she’s still here. He hadn’t seen her leave, but it was possible she’d slipped by as he was working.
He moves through the shelves and peers into the back once he reaches the final row.
She’s there again, just as fast asleep as she had been the last time.
This time, he takes a moment to study her before waking her up. Her jeans look old and worn, and her sweatshirt is a bit too big for her.
On her lap rests the third book in the Galaxy’s Edge series.
The sight almost makes him forget his nerves of talking to her again entirely, a spark of delight shooting through him. She likes his absolute favorite book series. It almost seems like a sign.
“Rey,” he says, in an attempt to wake her up.
He doesn’t need to repeat himself this time, as she quickly rouses from her slumber. “Ben?” she asks, groggy.
His pulse skitters at his name coming from her. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Rey pulls herself up, touching her hair self-consciously. “Sorry I fell asleep again.”
“Really, it’s fine.” He returns his gaze to the book in her lap. “Do you, um, like that series?”
She glances down at it, and flushes. “Oh, yeah, I do. I know it’s kind of dorky, but…”
“No, it’s not,” he rushes to say. “I actually love that series, like a lot. I own all the books and everything.”
Rey’s face lights up with a pretty grin, and Ben is helpless to resist his own from forming as a result.
”Who’s your favorite character?” she asks, leaning slightly towards him.
It’s all the encouragement he needs. He explains why the books are his favorites and which characters he loves most (and which ones he hates.) He occasionally catches himself speaking too loud, or gesturing too emphatically, but each time he flushed and quiets down, Rey merely asks him another question, and the cycle continues.
Before he even realizes it, they’ve been talking for an hour, and Ben explains with a pang in his chest that he should probably be getting home.
Rey nods in understanding. “Sorry to have kept you.”
Ben rushes to correct her. “No, don’t apologize. It was totally worth it.”
She smiles.
Rey leaves the store again, and Ben watches her walk down the street with a stupid grin remaining on his face.
That night, he resolutely decides that the next time he sees her, he will ask for her phone number and to see her again, outside of his work. He doesn’t really believe in fate, but if they could meet two separate times, that has to mean something.
✨🔖✨
Snoke is angry.
Ben watches the owner of Vulptex Books stomp around and mutter to himself furiously. He’s afraid to ask what the problem is, but he knows he has to eventually.
When Snoke notices him hovering by the counter, he whirls around and points an accusing finger at him.
”Do you take me for a fool, boy?” he snaps, his beady eyes glaring daggers at him.
Ben shrinks back slightly. “What?”
”Don’t play stupid,” he spits. “A bunch of those fantasy books that you like are gone. It had to be you who took ‘em, I just know it.”
Ben shakes his head. “I promise, sir. It wasn’t me.”
Snoke just sneers. “They better be back here real soon, or else you and I will have real issues. You hear me?”
He knows that nothing else will satisfy Snoke, so he just gives an affirmative, despite knowing that it really wasn’t his fault. Maybe they’d just been misplaced. He’d have to double check the storeroom to make sure.
🛋💫🛋
Ben sees Rey again the next week, and can’t help the dumb grin that stretches across his face when he spots her. He once again has to wait until his shift is finished to talk to her, but the minute he’s off the clock he rushes over to where she is sitting.
“No Galaxy’s Edge books today,” he tells her mournfully. “We’re not sure what’s happened to them, but it’s possible they’ve been stolen.”
Rey’s face shifts minutely when he mentions the books, probably in disappointment at the fact that they were gone, but she quickly wipes it off in favor of a small smile. “That’s okay. I’ve been meaning to check out a few other series. Have you read the Legend of Dragons books?”
He eagerly sits beside her. “Oh, those are great.”
They talk about other books that they like, and while Ben tells her about his classes, she doesn’t seem to want to do the same. He’s not upset about that, though. Maybe she just needed time.
As she’s talking about some of her favorite foods, he decides that he’s going to do it now. He’s going to ask her out. His palms are so sweaty he has to press them against his thighs.
“Do you… want to hang out sometime, maybe?”
She seems completely taken aback by his offer. “What?”
“Oh, I just thought that…” He wants to disappear completely in that moment. “Never mind, forget I said anything.”
She studies him. “Are you sure?”
He tries to laugh it off, but it sounds hollow to his ears. “Yeah, sorry. What were you saying about Crème Brûlée?”
God, he is such an idiot.
🌿🌼🌿
He decides to go for a walk in the park one day after an exam. It’s been awhile since he’s done anything like that, and he figures he could use the exercise.
As he’s strolling along the tree-lined path, he notices someone reading under a nearby oak tree, just a few yards from the children’s playground.
It’s Rey.
He lifts his hand into the air to wave at her, but freezes when he realizes what she’s doing.
Her back is against the tree, and she is reading a worn copy of a Galaxy’s Edge book.
Ben blinks.
Hadn’t she said she didn’t own any of those books?
Slowly, he begins to notice other things about her. How she’s shivering slightly, her thin jacket tucked tightly around herself. The ratty old backpack she’s always carrying sitting next to her, with the top of an umbrella jutting out of it.
He feels his stomach sink as the pieces start to come together.
Was Rey homeless?
Now that he’s had the thought, he realizes how much sense it would make. It would explain her worn clothes, her constant exhaustion, her need to seek out a safe place like the bookstore. How she always seemed to be alone.
He approaches her slowly, doing his best to not alert her to his presence just yet.
He accidentally steps on a branch, and it breaks under his shoe with a loud snap.
She looks up sharply, her eyes narrowed and shoulders tensed for action. But when she sees it’s him, her eyes widen and the book she’s holding falls out of her hands and onto the grass.
“Hey,” he says lamely.
She doesn’t respond, glancing down at the book that she had been holding, She scrambles to pick it up and shove it into her bag, but the resigned set of her jaw tells him that she knows it’s too late to hide.
He stops walking when he’s right in front of her, and without really thinking about it moves to sit across from her. She still seems ready to bolt, but luckily for him hasn’t done so yet. Instead, she remains hovering on the ground, watching him warily.
“How did you find me?” she asks gruffly.
Ben nervously twists a blade of grass. “I just happened to see you as I was walking by. I wasn’t looking for you.”
She seems suspicious. “You weren’t?”
He bites his lip. “I mean, was I supposed to be?”
Her face flushes. “No, I just thought…”
Ben stares past her at the playground as he says, “You thought I would be looking for the book?”
He can’t see her, but he can practically hear her shocked inhale.
“That isn’t... I didn’t-”
“Rey,” He looks at her finally, “I’m not mad at you. I just… want you to talk to me. Explain to me what’s going on.”
She’s silent for a while, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. Finally, she whispers, “I shouldn’t have taken them. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure you get them back.”
He nods.
“The reason I took them,” she continues, “is because they were a nice escape. From reality.”
Ben anxiously shifts his weight as he gets up the courage to ask, “Like being in the bookstore is one?”
Her shoulders shake slightly as she nods feebly. “Yeah, like that.”
“What-” he swallows hard, “-what are you trying to escape from?”
There’s another pause.
Finally, she begins to speak haltingly.
“I was uh, in foster care, since I was about five or so.” She rubs her thumb across the wrist of her opposite hand. “But then my eighteenth birthday was about three months ago, so I left. I could’ve stayed with that foster father and worked, but he was a pretty awful person and…” She trailed off. “I just knew I couldn’t be there anymore.”
Ben furrowed his brow. “So you’ve been living on the streets ever since?”
Rey nods.
He swallows hard. “Wow. That’s… You’re really brave, Rey.”
She seems taken aback by this. Flustered, almost. “I mean, it’s whatever.
“Anyway, that’s why I fell asleep in your store a lot. It was comfy and safe.” Her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink. “Also, I liked the company.”
Ben’s mouth grows dry. “Really?”
The curve of Rey’s lips turn up into a smile. “Definitely.”
Ben straightens, resolute. “I’m going to help you find a place to stay.”
Rey’s mouth drops open. “Ben, are you sure-”
“Yes,” he nods decisively and stands up. “I can’t rest knowing you don’t have a safe place to stay.”
She scrambles to follow him, grabbing her backpack and pulling it on as she trails behind him.
Ben pulls out his phone and calls Poe. He remembers Poe telling him that his friend Finn was looking for a roommate, and resolves to himself that he will do whatever it takes to have Finn agree to take Rey in.
The phone rings about three times before Poe picks up.
“Hey bud, what’s up?”
“I need your help.”
Poe’s voice sobers at the seriousness of his tone. “Is everything okay?”
Ben pinches his lips together. “Sort of. I have a friend who really needs a place to stay. Like, right away. Is Finn still looking?”
“Yeah, he is.” Poe seems cautious. “Who’s your friend?”
Ben ignores the question. “Can you meet us at the diner in an hour? It’ll be easier to explain in person.”
Poe is still wary, but after a moment he agrees and says he will make sure Finn is there with him. Ben thanks him profusely before he hangs up.
“You know someone who is looking for a roommate?” Rey asks, having heard his side of the conversation.
“Yeah, my roommate’s boyfriend has an extra space in his apartment, and I know he’s a good safe person to live with.” He finally looks at her nervously. “We’re going to meet with them first, though, so you can decide if you like them or not.”
Rey nods. “That seems like a good idea.”
She puts her hand on his arm, and his pace falters. “Ben, I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
He flushes. “It’s nothing, really. Anyway, don’t thank me before it’s even happened yet.”
They arrive at the cafe not too much later, and they find a table and sit down.
Rey fidgets nervously in her seat. Ben resists the urge to reach over and grab her hand to comfort her.
“It’ll be okay,” he reassures.
To distract her, he orders them a huge stack of pancakes to share; when it arrives, it’s piled with whipped cream and maple syrup. Rey looks at the plate as though she’d like to marry it.
Finn and Poe arrive just as they’re polishing off the plate. Ben quickly makes the introductions, and when the boys sit down, he explains Rey’s situation. They grimace sympathetically when they hear she has nowhere to stay.
”I’d love to have you move in, Rey,” Finn says. “If you’re down for it.”
Ben can see Rey is gripping the table tightly, but then he sees her nod.
”Yes. I’d like that very much.”
Finn smiles. “I think we’ve got a deal, then.”
Ben feels himself sigh with relief. Rey would be safe. She would be okay.
Rey agrees to head home with Finn, but turns to Ben and asks for his number first. He rushes to scribble it down on a napkin and hand it to her, and she smiles gratefully. She also digs the books out of her bag and hands them to Ben with a sheepish expression.
Feeling dismissed, Ben moves to get up and head out the door, but Rey’s hand flashes out to grab him at the wrist. Ben stills.
“Ben,” she says, “thank you. For everything.”
He nods sincerely. “You’re welcome.”
Rey bites her lip. It’s distracting. “Is it okay if I come by the store again tomorrow?”
He nods a bit too vigorously. “Yeah, that would be great.”
Before he knows what’s happening, she’s leaning in and pressing her soft lips against his cheek. “Good,” she whispers, right by his ear.
He feels completely stunned. Like he can barely think.
“See you tomorrow,” she says shyly.
“Yeah,” he repeats dumbly. “See you tomorrow, Rey.”