Chapter Text
Rey went to a therapist exactly once, and three minutes in, they were already concernedly lecturing her about her feelings of "deservedness." So, like, whatever. She KNOWS that. But she still feels extremely!! guilty!!!!
Half of Ben's friendship with Hux is convincing him not to be an asshole. He has a ~50% success rate.
Ben really thought he'd be totally fine with quarantine. It's not like he really does anything, or cares about seeing people. And he knows how to cook. (Well.) But it turned out that it still really fucking sucked!
So, after a handful of jesus-Christ-my-early-20s-depression-is-really-back? therapy sessions, he's changed habits. Reaches out to people. And all the "observe your patterns, Ben," bullshit means he notices: he always feels better talking to Rey. (Even when she texts at 4.)
And since her roommate Finn is dating his roommate Poe, they're in the same pod. And probably since she's in quarantine with no one else to talk to, Rey's been texting him more, each misspelled text a happy little flare in the simmering lonelyangrybored monotony of quarantine.
He's not quite at the state where he can admit to himself that honestly, he would be her personal Lyft driver, really all you have to do is ask, Rey. Because that's pathetic. And sometimes he can make her laugh. See? He's not weird about it.
Ben "easy like Sunday morning" Chewbacca Organa Solo
Rey just wants good things for her friend Ben. The vaccine. The knowledge that he's actually funny (because some of his self-deprecation veers into seriously, are you okay, dude? turf.) The love of a good woman. Preferably her. If he's down. If she can decide how to tell him.
Oh. Well, it does make sense to pretend they're siblings, Ben reasons. A few people have already thought that. ("No way," Rey had tipsily explained to a guy at Poe's party, ruffling Ben's hair. "His hair is, like, 200% better than mine." He'd lived on the compliment for days.)
For a brief, hysterical moment Ben considers hurtling his phone at the wall (a TeenBen™ classic.) Because his thoughts are colliding and sparking and he can't even fully grok What This Means but he really wants the vaccine, and he wants Rey more. So he needs to not be weird.
She'd had a crush on Ben for a while. But quarantine had crystallized it. She wanted him. All of it: the intensity of his longform cooking projects. His occasional, targeted ferocity (the way he'd yelled at that guy ignoring the teenage's barista's nervous mask request!)
Also: the way his big mouth curves at her jokes. (Even the bad ones.) But as she types, it doesn't feel like a joke she wants to make. It's too close to the truth. No, I'm not proposing marriage, but like, ten steps before that? We could try that, maybe? So she deletes it.
