Chapter Text
She's pratically falling asleep against his mouth.
They're both under the blanket now, his eyes barely opened, hers completely closed.
His eyelids are heavy but he doesn't stop kissing her, his lips pressing gently everywhere from her nose to her chin, almost kissing blindly, kissing the faint taste of sugar off her.
He doesn't even know for how long he's been at it. At some point, she most definitely melts in his arms, not even kissing back anymore, but slowly going limp, her neck soft and her head rolling to rest on his shoulder.
Her fingers lightly grip at his wrist, the one resting on her neck as he holds her chin up to him.
He's succesfully kissing her to sleep.
He never wants to leave this bed, and he wants to fight the urge to fall asleep. The time he spends here flushed against her can't be wasted sleeping. His eyes flutter shut, but he opens them back, fight to stay awake.
What will he wake up to, if he closes his eyes?
Will life be like before?
Such a demanding, laborious thing for him, to trust that that peaceful feeling won't stop, that what happened tonight will happen again.
All he's left to understand now, now that they stopped talking, now that everything is silent again apart from her quiet breathing, is that he's a poor fuck who's really not used to good things.
Something murmurs to him not to get used to it. He knows he ought to shut it down, but it seems to have a life, will and voice of its own. That it will follow him around, and force fears down his throat.
When she's the one to wake him up after he fell asleep despite his best effort, he doesn't have it in his heart to smile back.
She turns the light from the ceiling on.
She doesn't have to tell him anything for him to understand that he should actually go now, if he doesn't want her parents to find him.
She still uses her words. Impressive, because his throat, meanwhile, is really tight, and he doesn't say anything back right away, just stares at the pillow.
"Most nights they come back around four. They might be gone until tomorrow night, but I can't know for sure. I'm not supposed to leave the house..."
He doesn't want to meet her parents.
He's said it before, he hates them. Doesn't really matter if it's deserved or not, it's just how he feels.
He sits up on the edge of the bed without a word. He picks up his shorts and his t-shirt and puts them on.
"Sweatshirt, Jones."
He says it without looking at her, busying himself with the task of tying his sneakers.
Sorry, she murmurs.
He doesn't reassure her, doesn't tell her she's got nothing to apologize for, doesn't smile at her, just waits for her to take it off.
She pulls it over her head and she's naked again.
She hands it to him, shoulders a bit up. Shame, uncertainty -or the cold. He can't tell.
He puts it on. He hates that it's so warm.
She reappears in front of him with his jacket on.
It crosses his mind that what's going on right now is normal.
Staying in bed forever is a poetic idea, but it's not happening -ever. He's okay about it, he's okay with things coming to an end. He is, he really is.
The sight of the frontdoor as he steps down the stairs makes his chest tight. Once downstairs he picks up his backpack, still not looking at her.
Naturally, he doesn't run out the door, even if he'd like to, given how heavy the silence is again between them now.
She's shifting from one foot to the other, and he's just staring at the ground.
Eventually, he opens the door. It's dark out. A night without a single star.
She stammers.
"I'll see you at school, on Monday?"
Turning a fact into a question.
He ignores why, but it irritates him.
"Where else would I be," he mutters.
She looks down, or rather anywhere but at him.
"No I... I know," she breathes, sheepish.
He goes to leave, but she speaks again, stopping him.
"Is, is... your mother waiting for you? At home?"
He frowns.
"Of course not."
He gives his answer a bit like a reproach -like that's a stupid question, because she knows the answer already.
But it's also the sudden mention of his mother.
His reaction isn't volontary, it's physical.
She squirms. "Okay," she breathes again.
He waits a few seconds to see if she'll elaborate.
She just shrugs and looks down at her feet.
His tone is kinder when he speaks again. What he says, though, is still meant to cut the goodbyes short. Why draw out what is clear unpleasant for everyone?
"See you, Jones."
He waits a short moment, then, for her to say something back.
He doesn't admit it to himself or doesn't realize it right away, but it unsettles him to see her tuck her chin in instead.
Stubbornly looking down, not showing any sign of acknowledging his Goodbye.
She doesn't say anything.
It does a bit more than unsettling him, in fact.
But is he the kind to be honest with himself?
He'd much rather pretend like it doesn't affect him. If he believes it enough, it might eventually be the case.
When Han ignored him, yelled at him, disappeared several days in a row, Ben would do it a lot, pretending like he didn't care.
And Ben doesn't care to know where his father is today, or what Han thinks of his son, does he? No he doesn't.
When Mrs Miller left, he didn't care either.
People who don't care have a much easier life. They really do.
That's what he's thinking when he passes the door. His throat tighter than ever. His jaw set.
Leaving Jones behind without a word.
People who don't care have a much easier life. They really do.
"Mom?"
Leia has her head turned to him when he turns the light of the living-room on.
She's sitting on the couch. He almost jumps finding her there.
"What the--uh, hell are you doing in the dark?"
He squints his eyes looking down at his wrist watch.
It's 3.10 A.M.
"I was watching T.V."
"...okay."
"I couldn't sleep."
"Okay."
He stands there for a moment. She doesn't say anything else, just rubs her eyes.
When he's going for the stairs, she stops him.
"Benjamin?"
"Yeah?"
Leia's looking down at her robe, pulling on a loose thread.
She looks like she wants to talk, but is tired of talking. Like she's had the same conversation over and over in her head.
"You know I trust you. I trust that you take good decisions, and I know you're not helpless."
He blinks.
"Um, thank you?"
"You're welcome," she replies very seriously. He frowns, more disconcerted by the second.
"Tonight I called Sofia," she informs him. "When you didn't come home."
A beat of silence that should speak volumes. Yet in that moment, he's still oblivious. Doesn't find anything to say other than Okay again.
Shrugging.
"I asked if you were with Finley," Leia continues calmly, "she told me that her son was supposed to find you at Utopia tonight."
She looks at him.
"Just like you said over the phone two days ago," she adds, as if for herself only. "And. I said well, that sounds about right. Even though I couldn't be sure."
There's another pregnant pause, a longer one, that Ben doesn't know how to take once more.
Is he supposed to speak?
That's a strange atmosphere to go home to. He never has any sort of conversations with Leia, let alone at 3 A.M.
"When you weren't here, past midnight, I called her again," she says finally. She looks at him.
"Past midnight Benjamin. I asked her, is your son home? Yes, he is. Is my son with him? No, he's not."
He huffs quietly.
"So?... I was just somewhere else."
She nods.
But then goes on with her story.
"Then she tells me, that... Finley told her that you didn't show up, tonight. When you were supposed to."
She looks back down at her robe.
"...And that he had no idea where you were."
"Am I supposed to keep Finn informed of my whereabouts at all times?" He asks, irritated.
A bitter smile tugs at her lips.
"No. Nobody would expect that from you..."
She pulls on the loose thread.
"...Finn isn't your mother."
He presses his lips in a tight line.
Keeping in an exasperated sigh, and many other things.
"I called Kes, then. He told me Poe was home." She swallows.
"And that you weren't there either. He woke Poe up to ask him too." She sighs.
"When I called everyone I knew, I sat down, and watched T.V. Do you know why?"
She can't see him, but he rolls his eyes.
"Why?"
She purses her lips, speaking very quietly in the silence of the house.
"...because there's no use in calling the police on an eighteen year-old when he's been missing for a few hours only."
Another very long pause.
This time, he's actively trying to find something to say.
He's only able to swallow thickly. Again, and again.
"So I had to wait," she finally says. "And here you are."
Her voice remains perfectly even. The way a voice does, when the person speaking has been emotionally drained. She's detached, because she's exhausted.
Distant from her own feelings.
The question comes very simply, feels very genuine as if she truly didn't know the answer:
"...Did I ask you to let me know where you'd be tonight?"
He doesn't answer.
She offers some help:
"...when you called your friends, two days ago."
"I forgot."
"You forgot, or you don't care?"
He clenches his jaw, and shakes his head lightly, as if in disbelief.
Only when she stands up does he notice how swollen her eyes are.
She looks straight at him.
It's not a confronting glare.
All he sees are two, red, tired eyes looking back at him.
"When I called Sophia Lopez and Kes Dameron tonight, they knew where theirs sons had been. What they were doing. Who they were with."
She waits for him to react maybe. He doesn't.
She passes him eventually.
"I'm going to sleep, now."
He doesn't know how long he stands there before moving to finally go up to his room.
After that, Sunday goes by way too fast and too slowly at the same time.
Hours are spent anxiously playing in his head what will possibly happen with Jones on Monday. What she expects him to do or not to do.
He wants to be at school now, find out how life will be from now on -and also, he really doesn't.
Nothing has been solved at all, has it? Eveything was supposed to be simpler now.
He wasn't supposed to be doubting anything, he was supposed to be certain.
Yet here he is, still, unable to tell what's supposed to happen next -regardless of what he desperately wants to happen.
Clueless still.
At a loss. Fumbling.
But she can be the strong one, he thinks.
Trying to reassure himself.
She can be the one who's certain, between the both of them, can't she?
When Monday comes, and he has to go, he tries to remember how to walk, essentially.
His heart slams against his chest when he sees her from afar in the schoolyard.
She's leaning alone against a wall, seemingly just waiting for the bell to ring.
Then he sees that she sees him.
And she freezes.
The way she looks at him could be perceived as expectant, hopeful, indifferent, resentful -he can't assess the nuances, because he doesn't let himself the time to properly do so, or better yet, to check his impressions by actually walking up to her and talk to her.
All he can clearly see during those very few short seconds, is that she doesn't move.
She doesn't make a move toward him.
It frightens him effectively.
And rather than letting more seconds go by and confirm further more that she's not seeking his presence the way he craves hers, or that there's the slightest chance, at least, that she doesn't want him anywhere near her, rather than find out the truth about that, he lowers his head, turns and walks in the nearest building.
---because who wants to be hurt all the way so soon, when you can be hurt later?
He can wait until his English class this afternoon to have his heart broken.
Uncertainty has turned into a safe haven in the blink of an eye.
And if the rest of his morning in class is a complete blur, his mind a confusing mash of self-hatred and regrets, he survives it.
He sees her again before English class, though.
Jones doesn't eat often at the canteen -at least, he hasn't seen her there often, whether because they don't eat at the same time, or the crowd keeps him from noticing her.
The reason why he easily spots her this time, aside from the fact that his eyes are it seems efficiently trained to recognize her form, is because he sits at a table facing hers. Quite far away, out of ear shot, but still close enough for him to see her.
Students are loud around them, louder than usual.
He's alone, for once. She's not.
Next to her, Julie, and a boy Ben doesn't know, who's sitting facing the other way, are having what looks like a boring conversation -a conversation Jones is not participating in.
She's facing him but Ben can't see her face: she's hiding her eyes with a hand, elbow on the table next to her tray.
She's not eating.
Meanwhile, he's not eating either, because he's staring at her instead.
An because his stomach hurts like fuck.
It takes her to meet his eyes for him to realize he's been at it for a few minutes, like a true psychopath.
And when she does, it's shocking to him that, despite liquefying under her gaze, he doesn't lower his eyes.
Yet nothing has changed since this morning in him.
The only reason why he's not lowering his gaze now, or walking out of the canteen, is that he can't have much doubt about what he finds on her face this time.
Students are laughing, yelling, chatting around them, walking by them.
They just silently look at each other.
His heart is pounding.
Before he can give himself a chance to think better of it, before he can make it about himself, actually worried about what he sees, he mouths something to her.
Are you okay?
His lips have barely moved.
With everything going on around them, he can't possibly imagine that she's understood what he's tried to ask her.
But apparently, she doesn't need to know.
Seeing him try to talk to her in that small way unlocks something he doesn't even comprehend in that moment.
She gets up, her mouth downturned, chin a bit in.
Then, she's walking toward him.
She's not meeting his eyes directly but doesn't slow down, dodging the other students on her way.
The boy who was eating with her turns briefly to look at her leave.
He stands up too, but his legs are too weak, so he's not moving from where he is.
At the way she looks up at him, the way she strains herself toward him, he knows immediately what she comes for. What she needs.
She walks right into his arms.
He holds her against him, right against him, where she needs to be.
Then bends to help her reach his mouth.
There's no hesitation, no question about it. It just feels necessary, urgent to the both of them.
The first few times they part, they do it as if to check if that's enough, and it's not.
It's clear to them both, at the way they barely move the rest of their bodies, that they will take as much time as they need to feel right again.
When they do part more than a single second, her eyes are a bit wet but overall, she's melting against him just like she did the last time he kissed her, the last time he had her in his arms.
"Please," she breathes. "Don't--"
It looks like her troat is too tight to go on. When she says it, no matter how fragile she looks, and no matter how polite she is, it doesn't sound like a request -it doesn't sound like she's pleading.
"Don't leave me alone."
He says it the only way she'll hear it -without the faintest trace of uncertainty.
"I won't."
There's nothing to add to that.
So he repeats it until she nods in his hold.
It finally feels like a proper beginning.
EPILOGUE
"Jaimie. Jaimie. Jaimie."
"Don't---fuck, Poe, don't!! ...shake my arm while I'm holding my tray ---what???"
"Are you a figment of my imagination?"
"Unfortunately no, I have to endure your presence for real."
"Yeah that's what I thought, this is the real world, right?"
"Where do we sit?"
"So you see them, right?? There. The tall asshole and the smaller asshole tucked in his arms? You see them? I'm not imagining them??"
"Poe."
"Yes?"
"Remember a minute ago, when I told you I was reminded of something Klimt did?"
"Uh--"
"And you asked quote unquote Klimt who's Klimt is he new in the Rap game?"
"...uuuuh---"
"And I told you no he's a painter, those two remind me of a painting he did ? and you asked, when you say those two do you mean your balls? and I said I don't fucking know why I'm friend with you? "
"..."
"So yeah I was talking about them. Not my balls. So to answer your question yes I can see them."
"...fucking nerd."