#i’m just a doofus who keeps projecting hyperspecific life experiences onto one character in particular over and over

[luke-shywalker]

home again.

“Rey! Come down! You’re going to be late for school!”

“I’m coming, Mum! Geez!”

“Han, would you wash out the caf pot—no, wait, you broke it last time. Just leave it alone.”

“You could have a little faith in me, Your Highness.”

“Don’t ‘Your Highness’ me. Get that scrappy kid to school. And tell her not to beat up any more boys.”

“Rey, don’t beat up any more boys. Just tell ‘em who your dad is.”

“Right, Dad—and they’ll be all like, ‘Han Solo’ who?”

“For kriff’s sake, why am I getting the rough end from both my ladies today?”

“Han, language. But—sorry. Kiss! Mwah. Go upstairs and check on Ben when you come back, all right? Have a good day at school, Rey! Bye, flyboy.”

“Bye Mum!”

“See ya, sweetheart.”

The sound of the door closing.

“Oi. Mum’s always so stressed.”

“Rey. I know your mother doesn’t want you picking fights. But, as your father, I just wanna tell ya I’m proud of you for sticking up for yourself, and I want you to know that if you ever feel like you gotta—”

The door closed again, leaving the rest of the conversation a mystery.

Ben sighed and rolled over in bed. The house he’d grown up in had always been like that—you could hear everything that went on from any room.

He hadn’t lived here for a long time—seven years, about? And yet, it felt like he’d never left. Or, like he’d gone back in time.

There was evidence that Rey had started using his bedroom as kind of a garage—not that she didn’t have enough space in her own room (which required one to wade through knee-high levels of…just…stuff, and rather resembled the wasteland she had been rescued from). His desk, where he used to draw pictures of his own made-up ships and write himself into fictional stories about the Rebellion, was covered in mechanical pieces and bits of wiring from Rey’s projects. But other than that, his room was largely unchanged. The X-wing posters were still there. And so was the Sy Snootles pinup that Poe had given him as a joke. He was both surprised and amused that his mother had never taken it down.

But, then, it also felt like time had moved on without him. He’d been here for a few days now—consigned here by a freak medical crisis—and watching his mom and dad and sister play out the daily orchestration of their lives kind of made him feel like he had died after high school and his family had just kept on doing their thing.

Being around Rey was the weirdest part. The last time he had lived in the same house as his sister, she’d been seven, eight years old. Obviously, he’d seen her since then, every Life Day, and a few other times each year—but whenever Rey showed up in his dreams or in his mind, she was still seven.

But now she was fifteen, and she was…him. All those memories Ben had of being a teenager, of doing homework at the dinner table, fighting with his parents over nothing, using words that meant things to his peers but that his family didn’t understand, laughing on late night holocalls with friends and getting yelled at to go to bed—that was her, now. And now here he was, twenty-five and boring.

His boringness was evidenced by the fact that he missed buying groceries and making his own food. His parents couldn’t cook. They never could. Rey could eat literally anything, so that didn’t bother her. But Ben missed making his own dinner—maybe it was about the food, but maybe it was also just about the sense of control.

He couldn’t pilot a speeder in his current condition, so he was stuck here. He could go on walks, but he didn’t want to most of the time, because it made him dizzy.

He found himself alternating mostly between sleeping, and wandering the empty house during the day. Trying to spot things that had changed. Looking at the holopicture frames. There were still holos of him, but there were more and more holos of Rey. It was like getting caught up on her life since he’d left home.

Being off work felt like summer vacation. Only…bad. Because doing nothing all day was fun for a kid—but for a grownup, it was kind of like hell. The hours blurred together into sluggish, amorphous days, and he just kind of found himself places, doing things—oh, hey, I’m here now. Now he found himself downstairs in the kitchen, washing out the caf pot that his mom hadn’t trusted his dad not to break.

That was another thing—he didn’t like the caf his mom made. She used really cheap caf grounds that she bought in bulk, which was exactly what she would do, being practical—but ever since leaving home, Ben had discovered good caf, and it was hard to go back.

It was hard to go back to a lot of things.

He set the caf pot on the rack to dry, and for a second he just stood there, looking out the kitchen window. Is this who I thought I’d be as an adult…?

Am I an adult?

And then he noticed that Rey had left the blue milk uncapped and on the counter, and the carton was sweating and becoming lukewarm, and that really pissed him off, so he capped it and put it in the fridge like it was supposed to be—and that told him, yes, he was now just a boring adult.

…Well. Maybe being a boring adult was better than being a teenage psychological mess, which was what he had been before.

He filled a glass of tap water and drank cheers to that.

Ben heard the door open, and turned to see his father coming back in.

He gave a nod. “Hey, Dad.”

“Oh, you’re up,” Han said. “How ya feelin’, kid?”

Ben imagined his dad would probably still be calling him “kid” when he was forty-five.

“I’ve been better,” Ben said, then changed the subject, because he was kind of sick of talking about his health. “So. How’s being house husband?”

“Hey.” Han pointed a defensive finger. “I am not a house husband.”

“Hey, I never said there was anything wrong with it,” Ben chuckled into his glass of water. “You’re doin’ great, Dad. Maybe she’ll even let you wash the caf pot someday.”

“Listen, kid, that was one time.”

“Oh, I’m just givin’ ya a hard time, old man.”

“Uh-huh. And when are you getting married?”

“Never. Women find me intolerable.”

“Funny. I said the exact same thing, at your age.”

“You know, I can’t believe Mom settled for you,” Ben joked, curious to see how the jab would land.

But Han just grinned and inclined his head and spread his arms in humility. “That’s what I’m sayin’, kid. If there’s hope for me, there’s hope for anybody.” He paused mischievously, and then took a shot back. “Even if you never inherited my dashingly good looks.”

“Ha! You mean I was spared from them,” Ben snorted. “Well, thanks, Dad; I’ll keep it in mind.”

Han laughed too. Insults were kind of a love language in their family, as weird as that sounded. He came over to lean against the counter next to Ben, then clapped him on the back and looked him in the eyes, like he was studying the man Ben had grown up into.

“Hey. I know the circumstances aren’t great, but…it’s kinda nice, having you home, Ben. I miss ya.”

“You do?” Ben asked with a self-conscious laugh, feeling more sentimental about his father’s words than he was comfortable admitting. “Kind of seems like your lives all went on without me.”

“Well…yours went on without us, too,” Han said, then shook him by the shoulders a little. “You need to call home more often, little buddy.”

Little buddy—Ben was a couple inches taller.

“I know,” Ben said, patting the top of his father’s graying head. “I’m just bad at it.”

“That’s no excuse.” Han tilted his head conspiratorially. “A house husband gets lonely, ya know.”

“Heh. Well. Can’t have that, I guess.”

They stood there, together. Father and son. The Solo men, Leia called them, when she was feeling playful.

“…Wanna take the Falcon out for a spin?” Han asked suddenly.

Ben turned to look at him, so abruptly it made his head hurt. “What—like, right now? I can’t pilot, Dad. The medcenter told me—”

“You can co-pilot.”

“No, Dad, I so can’t.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Uh, I get us both killed? No, wait—what’s worse is if Mom finds out.”

“C’mon.”

“Dad.”

“C’mon!”

“No!”

“Come on—”

“Okay!”

“Okay?”

“Okay. Geez.”

“All right!” Han tousled his son’s hair as if he was twenty years younger and tossed him his boots, which Ben started putting on amidst a sea of complaints—

“For kriff’s sake, Dad, fine, but I’m tellin’ ya, I can’t see that good right now, and I haven’t even piloted the Falcon in ages even if I was healthy, and this was all your stupid idea in the first place, so don’t you go giving me hell if I happen to put a scratch on your beloved—”

Han only laughed, while Ben was still talking, and the door closed, leaving the Organa-Solo house quiet again.