Chapter Text
It starts on the first day of school, with a little girl in bright orange t-shirt whose shoes come untied way too often.
The first day of school, in his 6 years of teaching at Resistance Elementary School, is always chaotic. It occasionally ends in disaster, but over the years he’s learned to prevent it as much as possible. He has an emergency kit in the biggest drawer of his desk with spare sets of gender-neutral clothes, his own first-aid kit, crackers for the kids who feel ill or still hungry after snack, and plenty of other small things. For the past few years, he thankfully hasn’t had to use it on the first day.
Of course, Bella Dameron would be the one to change that.
He’s tied her shoes four times in the past hour. He inwardly questions her parents’ decision, and double knots them – sometimes triple knots them. But for some reason, they still come untied, and he’s watching her on the playground when she trips and falls spectacularly in a way that simultaneously has him cringing and wishing he’d somehow filmed it because bravo, little lady.
Much to his surprise, she doesn’t cry out, or call for anyone, but gets back up and keeps running. It’s not until she runs by him half a moment later with blood dripping down her leg that he catches her gently by the wrist. “Bella?” he questions, pulling her back from the game that she and a few other kids are playing. “Does your knee hurt?”
“Yes,” she says sweetly, staring up at him. It isn't until he spots the Ariel band-aid on her other knee and the Belle one on her elbow that he suddenly realizes that this is such a normal occurrence that she’s entirely unfazed by the fact that she’s bleeding, and instead just sees it as an easily-run-over traffic cone rather than an entire roadblock.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he tells her, offering her his hand, and then she grins at him, all bright smiles and holy hell she has dimples, isn’t that adorable?
“Okay!” she says, and insists on hopping over every line in the sidewalk on the way to the nurses, and she hops on the blue tiles in the hallway, refuses to step on the purple ones and downright stomps on the orange ones. He doesn’t hide his smile particularly well, and as soon as her knee’s cleaned up and bandaged he takes her hand and leads her back to the playground. As soon as they reach the jungle gym she’s off, tearing her little hand from his significantly larger one and laughing as she chases after a little boy who has a good head on her in height but is losing speed quickly. Ben watches, leaning against the fence with his arms crossed over his chest. He keeps eyes on her for the rest of playtime, almost waiting for her to have another total wipeout.
-
Over the course of the first week, he learns quite a few things about Bella. The first is that she prefers Star Wars band-aids, but they’d run out of them over the weekend (shocker, Ben thinks sarcastically), and they’d had to use Disney ones. But if she had to pick a princess, she liked Ariel or Anna because they had red hair.
He also learns quickly that she goes by BB at home, and he makes the note next to her name in his attendance list and switches her name in the classroom; he makes a new nametag for her desk, changes her card on the jobs list, and makes a new folder for her to put her work into. When she comes back the next morning to ‘BB’ on her desk instead of ‘Bella’, he swears she lights up like a lightbulb with a smile brighter than the sun. It makes it entirely worth the taping and untaping he’d had to go through to change it.
-
She’s a sweet little thing, emphasis on ‘little’. She’s perhaps one of his smallest students, but boy, is she a fighter. He learns that she can hold her own with the boys in block building, and can out-sass most anyone in the room with a few words. He has to reign her in a few times when she gets a little too rowdy, but most of the time she’s just fine herself – aside from the several scrapes on her palms, knees and elbows. And besides, she’s a little kindergartener; a kid of this age being rowdy is nowhere near unheard of, and he doesn’t mind it.
It’s in the first two weeks of school when he hears it. It’s this small little chirp sound, and he frowns, looking up from where he’s helping Cedric with opening his sandwich bag. He glances around the room for the source of the noise when he sees it; BB. She’s staring at her lunchbox in some sort of awe, peering into the tin box before her face splits into a wide grin and she starts bouncing in her seat. “Daddy gave me two gummies!” she exclaims, and the little blond boy he’s currently helping perks up at the mention of gummies. He watches the exchange unfold, the extra pack of gummies for two vanilla Oreos, and smiles as he makes his way back to his desk.
And that’s how he learns that if Bella Dameron is happy, she chirps.
-
The first parent-teacher conference, he gets a man named Finn.
The father arrives fifteen minutes early and waits patiently, leaning against the wall of cubbies just outside the classroom as Ben finishes up with a mother who asks too many questions and wears too much perfume. She leaves the room with a smile that borders on flirtatious, and Ben tries very very hard not to rip her child’s lime green folder in half as he puts it back with the rest of the students.
He doesn’t even realize the next parent is there until there’s a soft knock on his door and a quiet, “Mr. Solo?”
Ben looks up, eyes wide as he sees the man in the doorway. “Oh, sorry, didn’t see you.” He stands from where he’s crouched over the file cabinet, straightening his glasses and brushing off his pants before walking over and offering one large, pale hand to the other man. “Ben Solo. Pleasure to meet you, Mr.-?”
“Dameron,” the man supplies. “Mr. Dameron. Well, one of them. I’m Finn.”
The words don’t even faze him, really. It’s a modern world, times are changing. Of course there are going to be more openly gay parents, with the new laws and adjustments to benefits. He himself isn’t opposed to the idea of being with another man, either, so he just nods and gestures to the small desks where he’s conducted the conferences so far.
Finn sits with the stiffness of someone who’s used to orders and rigidity, and Ben hunches slightly due to his own tall stature. “Military?” he asks, pulling an orange folder from the pile he has in the middle of the desks.
“I-uh, yeah, how’d you know?” Finn asks, immediately rubbing a hand along the back of his neck.
“I was in the Marines,” Ben explains as he opens the folder and shows Finn some of the things they’ve been doing, putting colorful worksheets on the table and a progress report at the top. “You sit like you’re waiting for an order.”
“Oh, sorry,” Finn blurts. Ben just smiles kindly. Finn’s young, very young. Probably too young for a daughter in elementary school, but Ben’s not one to judge. “Honorable discharge. Injured myself pretty badly.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Ben offers, before gesturing to Bella’s folder. “She’s a bright little thing,” he explains, pointing to some of the work. “Math’s her strong suit, but she also likes reading. However, she seems to like being told stories more than reading them.”
“Figured you’d say that,” Finn replies. “We’re working on it at home.”
“Glad to hear it. It’s not really an issue, but I thought you should know anyway.” Ben pulls a piece of artwork from the folder and offers it to the father. “She likes drawing robots.”
Finn snorts. “You have no idea how much LEGO we have. Kid’s going to be an inventor one day, I swear.”
Ben just smiles and nods. “I don’t doubt it.” He glances back down at the folder and pulls out some more of the worksheets. He walks Finn through some of what they’ve been doing, and fills him in on how BB’s been taking the information. “Overall, she’s doing very well and it’s a pleasure to have her in my class,” Ben says, closing her orange folder and slipping it back with the rest of them.
The man across from him breathes a sigh of relief and shifts slightly, the small blue chair creaking beneath his weight. “That’s good. That’s really good.”
“Were you worried about her?” Ben asks, frowning.
“Oh, no, not at all,” he insists, shaking his head. “I’ve just…” He laughs, fingers laced together and feet fidgeting slightly. “I’ve never been to a parent teacher conference. I didn’t know what to expect.”
“This,” Ben says with a grin. “And I get to do this all day. Oh joy.” It’s a deadpan kind of humor, and he watches as Finn’s face splits into a sorry smile.
“I’m so sorry.” The man sounds genuinely apologetic. “Can I bring you a coffee or anything?”
Ben stands and waves his offer away. “No, no, I’m fine, I have coffee.” He extends his hand to the other man. Finn takes it gratefully, and lets himself be hauled up. Ben allows himself a one-over of the father. He’s an attractive man, slightly shorter than Ben with full lips and kind eyes. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dameron.” He allows himself a smirk. “Well, one of them.”
Finn’s smile is blinding. “Finn. Just call me Finn. Mr. Dameron will get confusing if you have more than one of us in the room at one time.”
“Finn.” It’s short and sweet, like the man himself. “Ben.”
“Nice to meet you too, Ben.”
-
Poe Dameron is an everyone’s man. Ben says this because he can fully imagine anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, throwing themselves full-throttle at this man. Poe looks like he should be on a magazine cover instead of a tiny first grade class room, tucked into a little blue plastic chair that fits maybe half his ass and makes his knees fold up into his chest.
“Mr. Dameron,” he says when he introduces himself with a wink and a firm handshake. “The other one.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Ben replies as he tries to keep his heart from jumping out of his throat and spilling out of his mouth. He hopes to hell and back that his hand isn’t too sweaty as he stares at the extraordinarily attractive man smiling at him.
“How’s my little princess doing?” Poe asks, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair.
Ben takes a bit longer to get comfortable, trying to settle himself into the chair without dislocating or cracking anything. It’s always difficult, no matter how many times he finds himself sitting in one to help a kid. Poe watches, amused, as the 6’3 man folds himself into the chair a foot from the floor.
“Well,” Ben finally responds once he gets comfortable. “Does she know Star Wars?”
“Yeah, why?”
“She likes to connect the markers together and pretend she’s Luke Skywalker,” he deadpans.
Poe’s laugh is bright and warm, and the man’s face lights up as he laughs. Ben decides he likes it. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not,” Ben assures him.
The rest of the meeting goes well. He does the same thing he did with Finn, showing off papers and a piece of artwork and some worksheets. He takes the time to explain a few of the subjects they’ve covered, and what’s expected of BB in the next few months of school. Poe nods understandingly through all of it, leaning close to Ben to see the pages of worksheets that smell of crayon and printer ink. BB’s not fantastic at the reading comprehension, but she excels in math, and Poe mutters, “Wonder where the hell she got that,” when Ben shows him the smiley face stickers and 100 stamps at the top of the worksheet.
The meeting’s over mercifully quickly. Poe grips his hand with a smile. Ben notices he’s about the same height as his husband, a good few inches shorter than Ben himself. “Thanks for taking care of our girl, Ben.”
He wants to tell the man that it’s no problem, that BB’s a precious little girl and one of his favorite students, but his voice catches in his throat and he just manages a borderline violent head nod before Poe’s walking out the door.
-
Over the past four months, he’s counted at least 18 knee scrapes. He’s started mentally calling her Disaster Dameron, and the nurse knows her by name now.
One day she comes back from the weekend with nearly six bandaids in a long row on her little left leg, one on her chin, two on her forehead, and a grin that’s so bright it could probably power the entire school.
“We went ice skating over the weekend!” she declares proudly.
He’d be concerned for her wellbeing, assume abuse and call someone if she wasn’t so excited to tell him about how she tried to spin like Elsa and Anna and promptly wiped out on the ice of the park lake. He smiles through the entire story, laughing at what he assumes is the right moments, and she’s practically beaming by the time she’s done.
“It sounds like you had a very fun weekend,” he tells her, and she nods enthusiastically. “Maybe tell your dads to make you wear a helmet and knee pads next time?”
“I was wearing them!”
He resists the urge to crack up and just shakes his head, watching as the little girl runs off to go start playing with the small sand and water table in the corner of the room.
-
“Ben?”
In his surprise, he nearly squeezes the beer glass hard enough for it to shatter. He turns, eyes blown wide as his head whips around to find the owner of the voice.
He doesn’t have to look too far. Finn slides in next to him, grinning brightly. “Didn’t think you were the bar type,” the man says, and Ben offers him what he can of a small, awkward smile.
“I’m usually not,” he admits, looking towards the beer. It’s his second, pathetically.
“You okay? You look a little down.” Finn’s looking at him with an expression that belongs more to puppies than human beings. Ben’s starting to realize where BB gets it.
“I’m fine,” he tells the young father. “Just … life.” His shitty love life, specifically, with his redheaded bastard of an ex calling him drunkenly and slurring into the phone how much of a shit boyfriend Ben was. Ben should’ve hung up, shouldn’t have even picked up to begin with, but now he’s sitting at a bar and drinking beer when he really wants to be shooting whiskey to get drunk enough to black out. But he has worksheets to grade tomorrow, and a project to plan involving dinosaurs, and he really doesn’t want to be handling names like ‘parasaurolophus’ with a hangover.
Finn stares for another moment before clapping him on the shoulder. Ben can feel the heat of the other man’s hand through his dark t-shirt.
“I’m sorry, whatever it was,” Finn tells him before smiling sweetly, turning, and walking away.
Ben watches him go. He shouldn’t have continued watching, not when Poe’s watching curiously from a high top table. Not when Finn leans in and kisses his husband, soft and sweet and out of place in such a dive. Not when Ben finds himself wondering how hell they can be so happy, so completely and utterly perfect when he’s sitting at a bar, alone and maybe just a bit depressed.
He waves the bartender down. “I’m done.”
-
“Are you okay, Mr. Solo?”
It’s recess, but it’s raining outside and so the kids are indoors. He has puzzles and toys and coloring pages for them, and the kids are divided into their own little friend groups. He watches, amused as some of the children move between groups like water, from one lake to another. BB is one of those kids, fitting in everywhere she’d like without issues. He’s zoned out, watching the water on the window when she approaches him.
“Hm?” he asks, looking down at the little girl who’s looking up at him expectantly. He leans down. “I’m sorry, BB, I didn’t have my ears open. What did you ask me?”
“You look sad,” she replies, rocking a bit on her feet. He counts only two band-aids this time. “Papa and Daddy said you looked sad the other night, too.”
He stares at her, heart hurting slightly. “They did?” he asks, more to himself than her.
“Uh huh. Well, I don’t think I was supposed to hear them talking,” she admits. “But they said you looked sad and deprissed.”
He allows himself a small smile at her mispronunciation. “Dee-pressed,” he says. “It’s an adult word. I’m not sad, BB, but thank you for asking.”
“Okay!” It’s as simple as that, it seems. She splits into a smile, and he notices absentmindedly that she lost a tooth over the weekend, one of the ones down in the front. “Bye, Mr. Solo!” And then she’s off, heading towards the coloring table with a spring in her step.
Ben bites back a sigh, teeth worrying his lower lip as he watches her out of the corner of his eye for a few moments before asking the class if they’d like to hear a story.
-
He’s out of school when she falls from the monkey bars, a case of too-small-too-slippery hands and rain-slicked metal.
Sundays have started with a run around the park since he moved here, his apartment still in boxes when he took his first jog along the perimeter of the lake. It’s a mindless activity that gets his blood moving and his lungs pumping, and keeps him in shape when the idea of getting to a gym is a bit intimidating. It also reminds him of drills, admittedly, and his life before the classroom. So he grabs his shoes, his keys and his phone and just runs out into the late March air. It’s cool enough that he needs a hoodie, but warm enough that he can pull out his shorts, and for that he’s grateful.
He’s jogging by the playground when he hears the bloodcurdling shriek from the side, and stops dead in his tracks. A few others stop as well, glancing towards the play area before going on their way. He scans the playground, looking across the woodchips and watching for any sign of distress. His eyes widen when he sees Finn Dameron booking it across the ground, reaching towards BB who’s collapsed at the bottom of the monkey bars.
He sprints over, stepping up beside the little girl and her father. “Hey, what’s going on?” Ben asks as he kneels beside them. BB’s lying on the ground, her arm pinned beneath her, and letting out heart-breaking wails followed by hiccupping sobs.
“She fell,” Finn explains, voice frantic. “Poe and Rey are off getting ice cream for us, I don’t have my phone, I can’t-“
Ben pulls his phone from the pocket on his hoodie, handing it to the stressed father. “Here,” he says. “Use mine.”
Finn takes the phone gratefully. “Thank you, thank you so much,” he mutters as he starts to call them.
Ben looks down at BB, who’s now crying openly. Her wails haven’t ceased, and they make his heart hurt, so he reaches down and puts his hand on her shoulder, warm and comforting. “Hey, hey, you’re going to be okay, all right?” he murmurs, trying to be soothing. “Your dad’s got it handled.”
She stops mid-wail, looking up at him in surprise. Tears are flowing freely down her cheeks, her eyes wide. “Mr. Solo?”
“Hi, BB,” he says, a little amused at her shock.
“What’re you here for?” she asks between little hiccups.
“I was running,” he explains. “Like you do on the playground. You’re a good runner, you know that?”
She sniffles. The wailing’s stopped now, thankfully, but then the sobs come, and if possible they’re even more pitiful and heart-breaking than the wails.
Finn’s looking agitated and stressed, fingers repeatedly punching Ben’s phone screen. “Neither of them are picking up,” he explains, running a hand over his hair. “I know where they went, I just-“
“Then go,” Ben says simply. He jerks his chin towards his phone. “Take the phone with you, keep calling them on your way.”
“Are you sure?” the father asks, kneeling beside BB with the teacher. “I don’t want to leave her.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Ben explains. “I’ve dealt with worse myself. I’ve broken my left arm 4 times. I can get her sitting up and protecting it.”
“Are you sure?” Finn asks again.
“Positive. Go.”
Finn kneels beside his daughter, stroking her hair lovingly. “BB, baby girl, Daddy’s going to be right back, all right? Are you okay with staying with Mr. Solo? Is that okay, baby? I’ll be right back, I promise.”
She sniffles, and Ben can see her entire body jump as she sob-hiccups. And then there’s a nod, and Finn’s leaning down to press kisses over her entire face. “I’ll be right back with Papa and Mama, okay?” he asks, and she nods again. With that he’s off, running with Ben’s phone to his ear.
Ben reaches down to guide her up. “I’m going to have you sit up for me, all right, sweetheart?” he asks. “That way we can see your arm.”
She’s shivering, he realizes, and he’s not sure whether it’s from the still-cool-March air or from fear. It’s probably a little bit of both. “C’mon, sweetheart,” he soothes, guiding her shoulders up and helping her into a sitting position. He sees her arm and sighs softly in relief. It’s a bit grotesque-looking, with her forearm at an angle it really shouldn’t be, but it looks like a clean break.
However, once she sees it, her eyes widen and she lets out another wail. Shit.
“Hang on,” he says softly, pulling the zipper of his hoodie down and tugging it from his shoulders. He wraps it around her, tucking her arm beneath the navy fabric and hiding it from her view. He knows probably shouldn’t in fear of what Finn might think once he gets back, but he parts his legs and adjusts her so that she’s sitting between them and can lean back against his chest. She happily takes the support, her little weight back against him as she stares at the lump beneath her hoodie that’s her broken arm. He sits behind her, letting her lean back against him as much as she wants to.
“It’s not bad,” he assures her, rubbing at her non-broken arm in an attempt to warm her up. “Guess what? I’ve done it 4 times!” He’s using his teaching voice now, all saccharine sweet and overly enthusiastic.
“4?” she asks, trying to look back at him. He nods and shows her the amount on his fingers.
“4,” he repeats. “And you’ll get a really cool cast the kids at school can sign. Maybe you can get one of your parents to make it look like a robot arm.”
She sniffles, and he can tell she’s on the verge of wailing again when she stiffens against him. He wraps his arm around her, keeping her close and shushing her softly. “You can even get a colored cast,” he whispers, like it’s some big secret. “I bet you can get orange.”
“Orange?” she parrots.
“I know that’s your favorite color,” he tells her.
“Yeah,” she agrees, soft and quiet and not at all like the bouncy, bright little girl in his classroom. He sighs, holding her to him as he watches the distant crowds for Finn.
It doesn’t take too long to find Poe and the other person Finn had mentioned, apparently. Ben can see three figures running towards the playground, Finn in the lead. By the time they reach the bottom of the hill, a girl’s in front and taking long strides to get to them. She practically skids across the woodchips to get to the little girl, small hands cupping BB’s face and leaning in close. “Oh, sweetheart!”
“Mama!” BB latches her good arm around the young woman’s neck. Ben watches as the brunette holds her daughter, shifting himself backwards slightly to give them more room. He shuffles back across the woodchips and moves to stand. Poe offers his hand to him, and Ben takes it gratefully, letting himself be pulled up. He smiles sadly at the other man before brushing his shorts free of woodchips. “Broken arm,” he explains. “It looks like a clean break.”
“Thank you,” Finn wheezes, completely and utterly out of breath. “Thank you so so much for watching her, I have no idea what I would’ve done without you.”
“It’s no problem, really,” Ben insists, waving him off. “I’m sorry it happened, but I’m glad I was here.”
“Thank you,” Poe adds, just as breathless as his husband. Ben practically balks as he’s tackled in a hug by the other man. It’s a quick, short thing, but warm and solid before Poe lets him go to drop beside BB. “Hey, baby girl, we’re going to take care of you, okay?”
She sniffles and nods, and Ben watches as Poe scoops her up into his arms, her small body still wrapped in his hoodie. As soon as she’s tucked into her father’s chest, Ben looks towards the young woman who’s standing beside Finn with her thumb to her mouth, her white teeth worrying at the nail as she watches Poe adjust the little girl so that her arm isn’t in danger of being hurt even more.
“Oh, right, real quick,” Finn says, eyes widening in realization. He gestures between Ben and the young woman quickly. “Ben, Rey. Rey, Ben. Ben’s BB’s teacher. Rey’s ... Rey's our girlfriend, actually.”
The entire world seems to come to a standstill. He stares at this pretty - no, not pretty, she’s striking, actually - woman, with her dark brown hair and warm brown eyes and slight form. It makes sense, he realizes, why she’s called ‘Mama’ and why there’s a ‘Rey Jakksun’ under BB’s parental contact forms, with its own line drawn freehand.
Said young woman extends a hand to him. “Sorry it had to be like this,” she explains with a smile that’s borderline embarrassed. Her accent’s vaguely British, and Ben’s instantly charmed by her. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Rey, we have to go,” Poe says, nodding down towards BB. “We have to get back to the apartment, and get the car, and-“
“Right, right,” Rey mutters, dropping her hand and walking to Poe’s side. “Sorry! Thank you for taking care of her!”
“You’re welcome,” Ben says softly. He points at BB, raising a dark eyebrow at her and giving her the best grin he can given the circumstances. “Orange cast?”
The soft smile he gets is enough to sate him before she’s whisked away by all three of her parents, Finn and Rey waving back to him with Finn yelling another, “Thank you!” before they’re gone.
-
BB returns to school the next day with a whole selection of metallic and black Sharpies and a bright orange cast. She’s immediately surrounded by kids who are dying to know what happened, and Ben decides to make a small lesson out of it. He takes some of their story time and lets BB sit in the story chair. He lets her tell them how it happened, how she fell from the monkey bars and how her Daddy and Mr. Solo came to her. The kids stare at him like a hero when she says that he helped her, and his cheeks turn pink slightly when the kids accuse him of being an actual superhero. “No, I’m really-“
“Yes, he is!” BB insists. “Super Mr. Solo!”
Now he’s sure even the tips of his ears are red as the kids dub him ‘Super Mr. Solo’. He guides them quickly into signing her cast, and by the end of it her cast is covered in sloppy initials and first-grader handwriting.
“Can you sign it too, Mr. Solo?” she asks, holding up a silver Sharpie to him.
He signs it ‘Super Mr. Solo’ just for fun, and then watches as she goes off to play, the broken arm thankfully being her non-dominant hand so that she can still color pictures of robots.
-
She’s a bit more careful now, with her cast. He’s sure her parents – all three of them – are watching her like overprotective, extremely attractive hawks. He hasn’t seen a bandaid on her knee in weeks, though there is one on her good arm on Thursday.
“Luke accidentally scratched me,” she says, by way of explanation. He can suddenly recall her drawings of a yellow lab in her folder, and just nods understandingly. So it wasn’t her fault. Perhaps he’d get a little bit of a break from Disaster Dameron, at least until she gets her cast off.
He kind of misses the mismatched Disney Priness and Stormtrooper bandaids littering her skin.
-
It’s late, and he’s working on water-coloring coffee filters for spring classroom decorations when the phone call comes. He doesn’t recognize the number, but answers anyway, putting it on speaker before setting it down on the dining room table. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Super Mr. Solo?” She’s obviously trying not to laugh, giggles poorly hidden.
He freezes, the brush dripping a mark onto the filter below his hands as his eyes widen in realization. “She told you about that, huh?” he asks, trying to keep his voice from faltering as he goes back to his painting.
“Are you kidding? She won’t shut up about it,” Rey tells him. “She made Poe draw on her cast to make it look like a robot arm. Covered up everyone’s, insert air quotes here, ‘signature’ except for yours. You’re her hero.”
“I didn’t really do much,” he insists. “I did what any decent human being would do.”
“You did more than that,” she replies. “We just wanted to thank you.”
“It’s fine, really.” He puts the coffee filter to the side, and dips the brush in yellow for the new ‘flower’.
“Yeah, well, we got a babysitter and we’re taking you out for drinks on Saturday.”
He freezes again, and this time nearly tips the water cup over. “What?”
“Unless you’re not free on Saturday. In that case maybe we can get you Sunday brunch or something like that. Either way, we’re buying you food and or drink to thank you.”
Her tone’s a scary mix between amused and ‘don’t mess with me’, and he swallows around the lump in his throat. “I-I mean, I don’t really think it’s appropriate…”
"Oh, shit. Is it against school rules?” she asks, voice suddenly fearful. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that, is there a policy for this kind of thing?”
He frowns, trying to think through the rulebook, before replying with an, “I don’t think so?”
“Great,” she sighs, relieved. “Are you free on Saturday?”
He gulps, looking towards the unknown number and resisting the urge to smile. “Not anymore…?”
“How’s seven?”
-
He really should not be doing this. He’d checked the rulebook, and the slim spiral-bound book didn’t say anything about going out to drinks with parents, but he’s fairly sure that there’s some sort of stigma against it.
He plays with the cuffs of his blazer, rolling them up before unrolling them and pushing the sleeves up to his elbows before tugging them back down to his wrist, killing time and gathering his nerves before he has to step inside the small, stylish bar that the three had chosen. He’s almost entirely sure it was Poe’s doing; Finn comes off as more humble, and he doesn’t know Rey enough to judge her choice, but the entire establishment oozes class like the elder of BB’s parents.
“Ben!”
He nearly jumps out of his skin as he hears the voice behind him, and turns so quickly he almost trips over his ratty black Converse.
He’s almost entirely sure that Finn’s made of part sunshine and part puppy, because the man’s rushing towards him so quickly he’s sure he’s about to be barreled over. But the young father stops and just grins at him, clapping him on the shoulder and steering him towards the door. “C’mon, we got a table inside. I’m so glad you said yes, I was going to call but I was scared you’d say no so Rey had to do it.”
“Thank you for inviting me.” It sounds mechanical, even to him, but Finn apparently doesn’t notice as they enter the loud bar. It’s busy, as expected for a Saturday night, and he’s kind of glad that Finn had walked out to get him because he would’ve missed their table entirely. It’s tucked into some back corner, a U-shaped booth with black leather seats and drink menus printed on thick paper. Ben’s back straightens when he sees Rey and Poe, who immediately stop their conversation as soon as he and Finn come into view.
“Ben, hey!” The older father says, moving to get up from his seat, and Ben flushes bright red.
“No, no, don’t get up,” he insists, but it’s too late and he’s being pulled into another hug. This one’s a bit longer than the one in the park, now that he doesn’t have an injured daughter to carry away to the emergency room. Ben awkwardly claps the father on the shoulder, trying to gauge what’s appropriate between a teacher and a parent. He has no clue, honestly, but he can’t bring himself to care as Rey slides out of the boot and makes her way to hug him as well. She’s wearing some drapey, gauzy, cream colored thing that’s a stark contrast to the skinny jeans and white t-shirt she’d had on in the park. She hugs him next, arms wrapping around his neck. She’s small against him, impossibly warm, and she pulls away with a bright grin that rivals Finn’s. “Sorry, I should’ve thought about the rules and parents and teachers and-“
“No, no, it’s fine, I don’t think there’s anything against it,” he replies. “I mean, I checked the school policy and Googled to see if our district has anything against it, and didn’t come up with anything. There were only things about teachers and students, obviously.”
“Well, that’s good,” she says, and he’s hyper-aware of the fact that despite her pulling back, her hands are still on his shoulders. Then they slide off, and Poe’s helping her back into the booth, and Finn’s already slipped inside and is patting the seat next to him while looking at Ben expectantly.
The teacher manages to fold himself into the booth without too much trouble, though his knees do hit the top of the table and he has to cross his ankles to keep from running into Poe’s or Rey’s feet, but it’s not too bad.
“Flowers just didn’t seem right,” Poe tells him. “And muffin baskets are just bad.”
“I disagree,” Rey pipes up. “I was in full support of the muffin basket. Muffins are fantastic, don’t diss muffins.”
Finn just laughs, reaching for his glass of water.
Ben suddenly wonders how on earth he’d managed to get swept into the company of this strange little three-way relationship, watching as Poe and Rey talk about what would’ve been an appropriate gift to give him as thanks for helping their daughter.
Oh, that’s right. Disaster Dameron. That’s how this happened.
“It’s fine, really,” he insists quietly, all six eyes turning to him. “I was just doing what anyone would’ve done. She’s my student, after all. I couldn’t just leave her.”
“You could’ve,” Finn says. “But you didn’t.”
Ben reaches for his own glass of water, shrugging a bit. His shoulders are broad enough that his blazer stretches uncomfortably with the movement, not fitting quite right on his broad frame. “Taking care of her has become a bit of a normal thing.”
“She’s not exactly the most lucky of kids,” Poe offers with a sheepish smile. “We’ve tried knee pads, helmets, elbow pads. Pretty much everything short of-“
“Wrapping her in bubble wrap,” Rey finishes.
Ben snorts, grateful he’d finished swallowing his water. “Disaster Dameron,” he mutters, and it’s only a split second after he says it that he realizes that what was supposed to be a thought comes out as actual words, and he flushes all the way to the tips of his ears.
“Disaster Dameron?” Poe echoes, a dark brow raised at the elementary teacher, and Ben decides he very much wants to become the first case of Purposeful Spontaneous Combustion.
But then Rey’s giggling, and Finn’s chuckling, and then Poe downright loses it as Ben stares at them in complete and utter shock, ears and cheeks still entirely too red as he wants to sink into the seat.
“Why didn’t we think of that?!” Poe demands, and Ben lets himself ease up slightly, shoulders falling from where they’d been hunched up to his ears.
“It could apply to you, too,” Finn pipes up, and Ben reaches for his water glass. He hides a smile behind the lip of it as Rey lets out peals of laughter at Poe’s faux-offended look.
They’re bright, all of them, just like their daughter. And perhaps just as chaotic, he thinks as they get all different drinks and split amongst themselves as he sips on his simple, easy highball. He watches as Rey grimaces at Poe’s drink, making Finn and Poe laugh. He even chuckles a bit himself as she slides the glass as far away from her as possible with a “Gah, what the hell is in that?!” before reaching back for her own mint julep.
“Rey does not like vodka,” Poe explains, grinning at Ben. The teacher tries to ignore the kind of flip-flop-cha-cha that his heart does when he sees that the smile’s for him, and glances back towards Rey who seems much more content with her own drink.
“Whiskey, yes. Bourbon, yes. Rum, yes. Vodka, hell to the no,” the young woman mumbles around a mouthful of ice. Finn seems happy with his own fruity slush thing, while Poe just shrugs and drinks whatever he’d gotten – Ben didn’t care to remember.
The rest of the night goes a lot smoother than he’d expected it to. He learns that Finn is a photographer, Rey’s in school for engineering and Poe’s the stay-at-home dad who, according to Poe, “spends most of his time cleaning up the other threes’ messes.”
Ben smiles softly when both Finn and Rey immediately put on the most innocent faces possible as Poe turns to glare at them. The act doesn’t last for long, though, and then they’re laughing at each other and Poe presses a kiss to Rey’s cheek that’s so sweet that Ben wants to avert his eyes, feeling like he’s intruding on some kind of private moment.
He feels like he’s intruding on a lot of private moments, actually. There are little jokes between them that he’s lost on, looks that he can’t quite decipher, but they’re pretty good at pulling him back into the conversation once he starts to feel even more awkward. Still, the feeling of not belonging doesn’t quite leave, and as the check comes, he has to remind himself that he’s not supposed to feel like he belongs. This is a … triple, he guesses; it’s an intimate, well-oiled three-person relationship that seems to work extraordinarily well if the gestures of affection across the table are anything to go by.
He reaches for the check when they’re all distracted by Finn pecking Rey’s temple, but then there’s a small hand reaching for his. He blinks in surprise as Rey takes his hand, her small thumb stroking across the back of his. He realizes a bit too late that it’s a diversion tactic, because as soon as Poe snatches the check out from under his fingers she’s letting his hand go with a sweet smile.
“No, our treat, I thought we’d established this!” Poe insists, sliding his card into the slot and putting the book on the edge of the table. “It’s a thank you, remember?”
Ben’s sure the tips of his ears are red, and by the looks of Rey’s knowing smile, she’s noticed. “I’m not sure it warrants a thank you,” he says softly.
“Don’t be stupid,” Poe insists. “Of course it does. You really helped us. We got her to the hospital a lot faster with your help. If Finn had stayed with her, it would’ve taken longer.”
The younger man nods, and Rey’s still smiling at him.
“Well, thank you,” Ben mutters awkwardly, and then the waiter comes back with Poe’s card and the drinks are done. He moves out of the booth as gracefully as he can, and waits patiently as Poe stands and helps Rey out of the booth, offering his hand to her. Finn comes out on Ben’s side, much to his surprise, and then Rey’s putting her hand on his arm and smiling up at him. She’s at least a head shorter than him, and he finds himself staring down at her, wide-eyed.
“We need to do this again,” she says, guiding him towards the exit with Poe and Finn bringing up the rear. “We talked a lot about ourselves, but we didn’t really find out much about you?”
“There isn’t much to find out,” he tells her. “I was in the Marines when I was younger, just out of college, honorably discharged like Finn, and then began schooling for my teaching degree. I found this job after, and have been teaching ever since.”
“I don’t care about your job history,” she insists, snorting. “I don’t want a resume.”
“Oh,” he says simply, surprised.
They walk outside, and she immediately shivers. The end of March might be a tad warmer, but when night falls it’s still cold. Poe’s immediately there, stripping his jacket and draping it across her shoulders. She shoves her arms into it, and she looks incredibly small in the large jacket. Ben can’t help but wonder how she’d look in his – she’d drown in it, probably.
“Thanks, Poe,” she says, grinning at her boyfriend before turning back to Ben. “Next time, we do personal questions.”
“Next time?” he asks, looking to the other two for confirmation. Poe nods eagerly while Finn just smiles and shrugs.
“Just let us know when you’re free,” Poe says. “I’d love to do it again.”
Ben just nods dumbly, and from then it’s a series of goodbyes and farewells and ‘see you soon’s. There aren’t any hugs on the way out, just a lot of waving between the three of them, but Ben smiles on the way to the parking garage, his hands shoved into his jean pockets and head fuzzy with something that definitely isn’t alcohol.
-
BB’s orange cast comes off the end of April. She’s apparently spent more time outside, because when she walks into the classroom the arm that was broken is a good few shades paler than her good arm. She’s hesitant in using it for a bit, still relying on her good arm to help her through most things, but Ben notices she starts to use it more the third day after the cast comes off.
He asked her how it was, getting it taken off, and she rambles for a good ten minutes on how they used a saw and how she got to keep it and how her Mama went to a special store and got her scrub that smelled like cupcakes to wash her arm with afterwards. It’s no surprise that she’d somehow managed to get a small LEGO up in the cast, probably while she was playing. She goes over into reading time, and he has to speed it up a little bit, hurrying through the illustrations so that they can get to lunch on time.
-
He realizes with sudden, horrifying clarity about a month after their first drink meetup that he’s pining. Every single time BB smiles, he’s reminded of her parents, and he finds himself thinking off on a tangent for a good fifteen minutes before he can bring himself back down to reality and tell himself that it will never, ever happen. Ever.
Two’s company, so the saying goes. Three’s a crowd. Four’s downright impossible. He’s not even sure how it would work, intimacy wise, and he really doesn’t want to think about it. Except he does, and his showers have been a lot colder in the past month.
It gets to the point where he looks at their daughter and nearly cringes, and he’s not as smiley or cheerful with her as he used to be, trying to put just a tiny, teensy bit of distance. He’s a professional, of course, so he thinks he hides it somewhat well, but then she doesn’t want to hold his hand as he walks her to the nurse after a wipeout playing tag and his heart hurts more than it probably should. Of course, it could just be because it’s harder to jump on the tiles in the hallway when he’s holding her hand, but she’s never had a problem before and he watches sadly as she jumps in front of him, favoring the orange tiles above all others.
-
The next time they call, he doesn’t answer, letting it just go to voicemail. It’s apparently Finn who’d called, and his message is cheery and open and asking if Ben’s maybe free on this coming Saturday again?
Friday comes, Saturday comes, Sunday comes. He hasn’t replied, hoping he can pass it off as being busy.
Rey calls next, on Tuesday and this time he answers, her number recognizable now. “Hello?” he asks, holding it between his cheek and his shoulder as he grades the stack of addition worksheets he’d given the kids.
“You didn’t call us back,” she accuses, and he immediately feels awful.
“I’m sorry, I was really caught up in things,” he lies, wincing at how fake it sounds.
“It’s okay,” she replies immediately, and oh God these three are too good, too pure for him to even be thinking about them let alone lusting after them. He feels sick to his stomach as she continues to say, “We were wondering if you were good for this Saturday, same place?”
“I can’t,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry.”
There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and he knows he said it too fast. He closes his eyes, waiting for her response.
“All right, no problem,” she finally says. “But we really want to do it again, sometime, so just … let us know when you’re free? It doesn’t have to be for drinks. We could meet in the park sometime, or something like that.”
“All right,” he replies, and it sounds hollow even to him.
“Great.” He winces at her resigned, somewhat sad tone. “Well, see you soon?”
“See you soon.”
“Bye, Super Mr. Solo.”
The other line clicks, and he tosses his phone down on the dining room table hard enough to chip his case and dent the wood.