Chapter Text
What you want from a devil like me, devil like me?
You see the devil don't mean to be evil
He just regrettably forgets to exceed expectation
Holes riddled in your head, little bit of lead
Shake it out and line a silhouette
Devil Like Me - Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Ben Solo has lived down the street from the Huxley family forever. Armitage, who goes by Hux (Ben would too if his name was Armitage ) has been in Ben’s class every year since kindergarten. His little sister Rey is a year below them, which means she has to do another year at Pinewood Elementary when Hux and Ben go off to middle school in the fall, a fact the boys have been reminding her of every chance they get.
It’s high summer, just a few days after the Fourth of July and the three of them are walking along the creek behind their houses.
It’s almost annoying, how not annoying Rey is. Most of his friend’s little sisters are a huge pain in the ass, but Rey’s not like that. Ben doesn’t have any siblings, and he doesn’t want any, especially now that he’s almost in middle school, but if he did have to have a sibling well— someone like Rey would be about the best hand he could draw.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Rey says, and both boys stop talking to listen to her. Ben isn’t really friends with Rey, he’s friends with Hux. Rey is just usually tagging along and well— here’s the thing about Rey; she has the best ideas. Other little sisters might be thrust upon them by some parental attempt at fairness or interior silence but Rey has never made them slow down. In fact, she’s usually the first one to come up with a dangerous idea like ding dong ditch or dumpster diving or hopping the fence to the skatepark after dark. She’s absolutely fearless.
“We have thirteen dollars and seventeen cents between us,” she continues. “That’s enough for four bags of doritos and three small slurpees, and if we go to the 7/11 on main we can hang out behind the store on the benches.”
“What if we wanna play video games,” Hux says.
“Do you?” Rey asks, rolling her eyes.
Yes , Ben says just as Hux says No, and Rey rolls her eyes harder.
“Then go play video games at home. Better yet, we can take the snacks and then play video games.”
“But I wanna play arcade games,” Ben says, mostly to annoy Rey. He can see her jaw clench, knows she can’t stand the idea of not getting her snacks.
“Fine, then take your five seventy two and go,” she shrugs, and Ben looks at Hux, who laughs a little, knowing Ben is full of shit.
“Whatever, we can go play at your place,” Ben says, because he actually doesn’t care. He just likes making Rey roll her eyes. They get four bags of chips and three slurpees and spend an hour behind the 7/11, jumping off the top of the dumpster into the grass below until Mr. Sullivan comes out and yells at them, forcing them to take off on foot as fast as they can.
Despite the fact that Rey and Ben aren’t even friends, he still does kind of miss her in September when he and Hux start middle school.
***
Ben has always known that Rey is adopted, it’s not a secret or anything. Once, when they are only eight or nine, he tells her that the Huxley’s aren’t her real parents. Rey cries a lot and Hux gets mad at Ben and doesn’t let him come over for almost a week. He still thinks about it, sometimes, late at night, cheeks burning with shame. Rey is adopted, and it’s whatever. She was adopted when she was only three years old, and Ben thinks it’s part of why Hux is so protective of her, why he’s always let her tag along. It’s important to him that Rey feels like she belongs, and she does. She even looks the Huxley’s, all long limbs and pale skin and freckles.
But Ben can’t stop thinking about the luck of the draw, the fact that Rey lives in Hux’s house, right next door, that she gets to be Hux’s family and… and not his.
He’s not sure when exactly this thought really took root.
It could be in third grade when his mom comes over while they’re playing and tells him it’s time to go. and he begs her to let him live at the Huxley’s for good, crying that it isn’t fair they get to stay and play and he doesn’t.
It could be in eighth grade, when they all go to a pool party together and Rey wears a two piece. He has never seen so much of her skin, and certainly not so much skin since her body changed. He tries not to look at the little shapes of her breasts or how her nipples poke out when she gets out of the water and absolutely fails so he fakes a stomach ache to go home and feel guilty.
It could be when he starts ninth grade and actually does miss Rey, this time, is actually kind of jealous of Finn, Rey’s new best friend, which is ridiculous because Rey isn’t even really his friend and he still sees her almost every day.
It might be in tenth grade, when she starts high school with them and starts eating lunch with them, laughing at Ben’s jokes even when he’s an absolute dick to her. He tries to be a dick to her, makes it his goal.
“Do your makeup in the dark today, Rey?” He asks with a little smirk when she starts wearing eyeliner, making her blush. He always jumps out at her from behind corners to make her scream, even though she’s begged him not to do it. His personal favorite is asking her, “Don’t you have real friends to eat with?” every day at lunch.
And Rey well— she can give it just as well as she takes it. Her eyes light up when Ben digs into her, the thrill of a challenge. She refers to his ears as his personal satellites , always asking if he can pick up signals from Australia. She makes a habit of knocking his binder down whenever she passes him in class or the library. Once, when he complains about being tired before first period during junior year, she scolds him for staying up all night watching Hentai right as a group of freshmen pass by, and then when he sprays her with his water bottle she chases him all the way across the quad.
So Rey isn’t really his friend , even if they are friendly , and she very much isn’t his family and she definitely isn’t ever going to be anything else. Ben knows this without any doubt because, well— the older they get, the more one thing becomes crystal clear; not only is Rey brave, and smart, and funny— she’s beautiful. Like, really, really beautiful. She just keeps getting prettier and Ben— well. He knows he’s not handsome and that’s fine, he doesn’t need to be like some hot guy— but he seriously drew the short straw in the looks department. By ninth grade he realizes that he’s not just not hot he’s absolutely ugly.
This fact has been brought to his attention a handful of times and each memory is seared into his mind. Bazine Netal laughing at his ears in fourth grade, Poe Dameron telling him he had a face only a mother could love in seventh, his mother's friend Nina telling his dad he is an odd looking kid, and an aunt whispering shame about the nose so yeah, he gets it. He is doomed to be weird looking for the rest of his life while girls like Rey do whatever it is beautiful girls do. He tries not to let it make him bitter, but — well Ben is too quick to anger anyway, too ready to slice with words or his fists and Rey slowly becomes the source of so much of that contention.
He can’t stop looking at her little wrists, the skin on her thighs when she’s in shorts, the way her ass has filled out into something foreign and ridiculous, the way she laughs with her entire face, shows all her teeth and it isn’t even embarrassing at all. She’s everywhere. In his film class, at his lunch table, stopping by his house with leftovers from her parents, playing videos games with her brother in the basement, rolling joints in the backseat of his Volvo, leaning over him to grab a soda and letting her perfume waft over him. By the time graduation comes around, he’s looking forward to the escape. He needs to get away from Rey, he’s been having so much trouble tearing his thoughts away from her all year, it’s bordering on a form of mania. Is it possible to be addicted to the sound of someone’s laugh? To the shape of their face when they look at you with pure contention? He’s really lost it.
When he first gets to college, gets settled in his down, he feels intense relief at escaping except… well Hux is there too, they’re roommates, and Ben keeps thinking about how he’s living with the wrong Huxley. He thinks it so often he has to make sure he doesn’t say it outloud. Being away from Rey doesn’t make him think about her any less, which is some kind of dark witchcraft if you ask Ben, but it does make the feelings a little bit duller.
State is full of pretty girls, a lot of whom have tinkling laughter or long legs or freckles . It would probably help if these girls, if any girl at all, wanted anything to do with Ben, but he is used to being categorically ignored. Hux fares better, meeting a cute chick named Rose before thanksgiving and promptly getting busy. It’s fucking gross, but whatever.
Ben is used to looking and not touching anyway, so this shouldn’t be any different, and it’s not really different except somehow it is worse.
***
Ben and Hux drive back home together for winter break. It’s a seven hour drive fueled by Red Bulls, fast food, and loud music in a car that smells like body spray and farts. They pull up a little after nine at night, it’s been dark for hours and Ben is dying to just not be sitting anymore.
“You gonna come say hi to Rey?” Hux asks.
Ben shrugs, his mind warring. There is a part of him that desperately wants to see Rey, and a part of him that knows his desperation is pathetic and does everything possible to downplay it out of existence.
“I don’t know man, I’m pretty tired,” Ben says, but the rest of his sentence is choked off by a squeal, and then Rey is charging toward them across the lawn, boots hastily thrown on, not even tied. She launches herself at her brother.
“I’ve been waiting all day,” she whines, letting go of Hux and turning to Ben.
He looks at her and swallows, it’s kind of hard to— his throat is so dry. She’s got her hair pulled up and no makeup on and she’s in a ratty coat and loose boots and she’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. For a split second he has no idea what to do at all, it’s as if he’s never interacted with her— with any human being— but then she launches herself into his arms too.
“I missed you guys so much, it’s been so boring.” She says these words into Ben’s neck, her breath hot and damp against his skin and he gently pushes her off him stepping back. He’s not a hugger.
“Come on, I’ll help carry stuff,” Rey says, opening the back seat and grabbing a bag.
“I have to go see my parents,” Ben says. Rey stops, sighs and puts her hands on her hips, as if this is an inconvenience to her.
“Okay well— come over after, yeah?”
Ben shrugs, and Rey narrows her eyes. He’s being weird, he doesn’t meant to be, it’s just this much Rey after such a long time without her has him reeling.
“Maybe,” he says.
Rey shrugs, not meeting his eyes, and hauls off back toward the house.
Hux looks at Ben and his expression is withering.
“Dude, come hang out,” he says. Then, after a pause, he adds, “She missed you,”.
Ben shrugs again like he doesn’t care and Hux looks at him a little too smug and knowing before shrugging himself. “Well, you know where we’ll be,” the redhead says with a smile and then he takes off across the lawn to his house.
***
For some reason he doesn’t really understand, being home feels immediately oppressive. It’s good to be back, and it’s comforting, and he missed his parents just fine and all but something about having them fuss over him— about excusing himself and closing the door of his former bedroom, it makes his skin crawl. It was always hard for Ben to be stuck in here, and time away has not made that any easier. He thought maybe it would be like a reset, that a few months away at school would clear the slate enough that he could potentially handle another eighteen years of parental meddling and the hot girl next door. Instead it’s like the last few months zapped him if any tolerance he had built up. He thinks of Rey like poison, a little drop every day made him relatively immune but now he has no ability to handle it.
There’s a knock on his door and it pushes open before he can even say who is it or come in or I’m jerking off so enter at your own risk.
“Hi sweetheart,” his mom says, “do you wanna come watch America’s Got Talent with us? It’s gonna be a good one.”
“Oh uh,” Ben doesn’t want to, he wants to go running or maybe drinking or maybe fight someone instead. “I told Hux and Rey I’d come hang out, but if you want me to cancel…”
“Oh no,” she says, like he knew she would. “You should go see Rey, I know she’s been lonely.”
Ben tries not to have any feelings about that statement but it still sparks both sadness and resentment and a sick pleasure.
“I guess,” he says, waiting for his mom to leave.
“Well I’m sure you kids will have fun,” she says, and Ben smiles with his mouth closed as she backs out of his room, leaving the door ajar— she knows he hates that.
He knows he’s in a bad mood when he slams the door without meaning to, and when he trudges out of the house without a word to his parents, and when he feels like his skin is too tight as Brendol Huxley opens the door and offers him a friendly handshake.
He shouldn’t have come here, but he can’t exactly walk out now and even so he told his parents he was leaving and the idea of more driving sounds exhausting in its own right, so he treads the familiar path through the house and to the basement. He can hear the sounds of video games, Hux laughing and Rey cursing as he pads down the carpeted stairs and breaths in l the familiar basement smell.
“Ben!” Rey says, her voice dripping with delight but her eyes not leaving the screen. “Come sit, when I die in a minute you can take over.”
“I’m good,” Ben says, sitting down on the floor closer to Hux. Rey dies and she groans.
“I’m over this,” she tosses the controller down. “Plus I haven’t seen you guys in months, tell me everything. How’s college?”
Rey is looking at him with wide eyes and Jesus Christ— has she gotten prettier since he left or did he just forget? He thinks about her all the time, thought he had her memorized but whatever mental image he managed to scrape together pales in comparison to the woman smiling at him.
“It’s great,” Hux says, reaching for a bowl of chips that’s sitting on the coffee table.
“Schools great or Rose is great?” Rey says to her brother, teasing. Hux rolls his eyes but he’s smiling.
“They’re insufferable,” Ben says, “honestly disgusting.”
“Hey now Benny, you’re just jealous because you have gotten any since we started college— oh wait, or in high school either, huh?” Hux scratches his head in exaggerated contemplation.
“Really?” Rey says. Her tone is incredulous and her eyes are on him. He wants to murder Hux.
“I mean whatever,” he says, but he knows his cheeks are burning. “You’re one to talk, it’s not like you aren’t little miss super virgin.”
Rey blushes and smiles. “ Actually ,” she says, shrugging a little. “I guess I have you beat there.”
“No way,” Hux says, “With who? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s not like, a thing . I met him at Finn’s birthday party but he doesn’t go to Pinewood so—“ she shrugs.
Ben snorts. She’s full of shit, she’s gotta be absolutely full of shit… right? “The ‘he goes to a different school’ line? Really Rey?”
“He does!” she says, and Hux gives her a withering but friendly look.
“You guys are ridiculous,” Rey says, turning her eyes back to Ben. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell you.”
Is she fucking serious? Did she seriously hook up with some— some random kid? Let some loser rub his hands and mouth and cock all over her— he can’t even think about it. A rush of anger threatens to overtake him completely. He’s surprised by the fact that when he does speak, his voice is even and steady. “ Maybe ,” Ben says, and his skin feels like it’s on fire— even his blood feels hot, “I just can’t imagine that anyone would wanna fuck you.”
As soon as the words are out, he wants to swallow them back up. Rey goes pale, blinks a few times and Ben’s anger is gone, the cold rush of shame taking its place.
“Dude,” Hux says, but it sounds like what the fuck .
“Welp. I’m gonna go to bed,” Rey says, and she isn’t like, crying or screaming at him, but somehow this is much worse. Usually she would smack him or tackle him or tease him back but she looks— just fucking sad and he feels like the biggest piece of shit alive.
“Rey,” he says, and he hopes it sounds I’m sorry but he’s pretty sure it sounds like don’t make this a big deal and she smiles tightly, grabs the bowl of chips and leaves the boys alone.
“Smooth,” Hux says, as soon as Rey is gone and the door has closed behind her.
Ben knows if he stays he’ll say something just as bad to Hux, so he waits only long enough that he’s sure he won’t run into her before grabbing his coat and stomping back up the stairs and into the cold night.