Chapter Text
He wants a brother.
Ben Solo is five years old. He follows his nanny around the grocery store, munching on animal crackers and watching the tiled floor solemnly.
He would be much happier, he thinks, and less lonely, if he had a brother.
**
At seven he thinks, hell. He’ll gladly take a sister.
**
At seventeen, he suspects he’s finally gotten what he wants, albeit in the oddest way.
The kid has her eyes pinned on his hand as he draws out his version of a balrog on a spare bit of paper. It’s Friday and he’s bored, mind too jumbled up to focus on any one thing—
“If it’s a fire demon, does it breathe fire?”
Ben feels his mouth quirk a little. Ha. A fire demon. But the kid isn’t ready for words like ‘Valaraukar’ and ‘Melko’, so Ben tucks some of the Tolkien mythology away until she’s old enough to get it.
“But it’s not a dragon.” Her little brow furrows in confusion.
“No.” And then he launches into an explanation of dragons and drakes and dragon riders and all the different fantasy elements surrounding them. He looks up from his moving hand briefly, half expecting her to be falling asleep. Instead she’s watching him raptly, as if she’s hanging off every word.
Ben didn’t know you could be this bored and yet this content with it at the same time. Perhaps this is what companionship is.
He sighs, fiddles with his pencil with one hand under the table. He sips from his coffee mug with the other, not minding that the coffee has long since gone cold. Rey eyes the mug curiously as he sets it back down.
“So,” he leans back in his chair and stretches out his overlong legs. “What are you up to tomorrow?”
She grabs his drawing and slides it across the table so that she can lean over it for proper inspection. “Maz is taking us on a field trip to the mall to visit Santa Claus.”
Ben tips his chair back on its hind legs, closes his eyes. God, he’s hungry. “Yeah? I guess that must be nice for the little kids who still believe in Santa.”
The kid is quiet.
His brain whirls, replays the words he’s just said and freezes.
Rey probably is one of the little kids who still believes in Santa.
Ben’s eyes pop open and go wide with horror. He rocks forward, chair landing harshly on its two front legs. His lips part, and he can feel his face start to grow hot. “Um. Not that there’s anything to, uh, to not believe in. That is.”
Rey shrugs, not looking very upset. Instead, she seems resolved, as if something has just been confirmed to her. “No, I thought so.” She looks back down at his drawing. “Santa didn’t start leaving me presents until after I came to the home.”
It takes a second, but when the meaning of her words sink in the rage is hot and instant.
Whoever Rey’s parents are, he hates them.
Ben swallows thickly, and the pencil he’d been idly twirling in his left hand snaps from underneath the table.
Deep breaths. Important to keep calm. Important to rein it in—
“Ben?”
He opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) and she’s watching him intently. She is either unaware of his sudden flash of temper or is completely undisturbed by it.
“Hmm?”
She turns and rummages around in her backpack. Her shirt is two sizes too big for her and the collar gapes at her neck. It makes him sad.
Rey pulls out a plastic baggy filled to the brim with Goldfish and she opens it and holds it out to him with a toothy grin. “Want some?”
He nods, and like that all the sudden anger is gone. As if it’d never been there. He holds out his hand, grumbles when she pretends to only give him a few crackers, smiles when she giggles and tips the bag, spilling half of the contents out onto the table.
She’s there for another hour and a half before being picked up by her caretaker.
He lets her keep the balrog drawing.