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madstronaut · 4 months ago

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let us rewind, to simpler times...comfort fic times🌿💝

yes I will admit - I, too, was swept up by the 🌪️hu-reylo-ricane🌪️ in 2016 - and this was pre-2017, ere the era of ben swolo and force dyad fuckery etc etc - I probably spent hours upon hours reading fic after fic on ff.net and ao3 - some absolutely fan-fucking-tastic, rip-my-soul-to-shreds-and-stitch-it-back-together-with-my-own-veins-stripped-from-my-limbs vibe stories but just two in particular I hold dear to my heart - one of the fics is so deeply significant & personal to me in such an intimate and revealing way I keep bumping it to the bottom of my 30-story-tall faficowrimo list - and the other one being this G-rated, <10k word, two chapter modern student/teacher's asst. college AU. lolwat anyway dive into the deepend of yet another of my faficowrimo rambles with me~

I don't believe @/heyloreylo aka @/on_my_toes is on tumblr anymore after a cursory search to tag, but dear writer if you ever see this, I want to say 🌿thank you🌿 for writing this story (and from an anon prompt!!! wow), I come back to this time and again when I feel homesick for places I haven't been (ugh I know the perfect word for this in my mother tongue but no such english word really captures it succinctly...#multilingualprobs)

Reading: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire by on_my_toes

When I found this fic (or rather when it found me) I, like Rey, was in an exhausting season where I felt I was perpetually living my days as one long night-before-a-big-final and that life kept setting afire any place I attempted to lay my head for a breather - foxes have holes and birds have nests, everyone but me, indeed - and feeling the weariness and loneliness of a season where there are Just Some Things You Must Travail Alone™️, even amidst friends who stick closer than brothers. (Yes I get straight biblical/shakespearean when I wax poetic, pls dont yap in my DMs if you take issue doth bite your thumb at me, good sir)

something I love about my comfort fics is how easy I find it is to leave all mis problemos at the door and slip into the world of the story and the emotions and actions of the characters and I can return again and again and experience all the emotions that swell out of me in a very freeing, cathartic, practiced, and predictably famiilar way anyway yes like 99.5% of people on this hellsite (affectionate) fanfic is also therapy for meeeee

I think like Ben the TA and Rey the chem student in this fic - we all, at times, develop and wear a hard outer shell to protect & distance ourselves and project power - the hardass TA wearing suits/formal/officewear/frowns like armor, the single female orphan student tensed, always ready to let fly a prepared right hook (or a verbal barb, or witty jab, or a cutting look, etc. etc. fill in the blanks)- esp. when cracks in our armor show - but Ben responds to Rey immediately with imho a curiously direct and bold display of care, compassion, and openheartedness - offering Rey the coat off his back, immediately opening his childhood!home to her, calling her by name, encouraging her in his own awkward ass way re: the chem final comment...also I sense from his first words he was watching and waiting to step in only until he was absolutely certain Rey could use his help - and in this sense, adding to and reinforcing to her strength rather than taking it away

there's something about being thrown right into deep end of the pool from the very start of the fic that makes meeting Ben so rewarding - Rey here is clearly tough as nails but caught outside with no shoes on, literally, at a very vulnerable moment - because even the strongest of us can't be strong all the time thank you pete, my IRL moot, for that bit of timely wisdom when I needed it 🌱 - and Ben Swolo meeting her here, not swooping in to save her per se, but shore up and compliment her strength instead and reveal so much more than he probably intended from the start of this afterhours interaction with her - just melts the most frozen parts of my heart every.single.fucking.time 💙🥺

I mentioned how familiar this fic was to me and it's not really the story but the emotions and people it reminds me of...

the way Ben loves Rey - in actions and words - so readily and easily - reminds me of my IRL beloveds who have done same for me

Rey so easily shrugging off help, even when sorely needed, is a heartachingly familiar place personally - and I see shades of my past and sometimes present self in her - but as the story unfolds I am reminded both of her growth and my own and the people who helped, and stayed, and remembered, and walked with and returned to me on my journey, just like with Rey here and I see the best parts of love and humanity in its many forms - familial, in friendship, in a lover - in the twists and turns of this story and anyway am I crying? what the fuck NOT AGAIN anyway moving on-

There is something unmistakably playful in the expression, and she feels her heart do this strange and slightly unwelcome flop at the sight of it.

🥺🥺🥺 I'm not sure if there's like a medical term for this physical sensation but besides looking upon my beloveds, reading fanfic also elicits this sensation in me

He looks down at her, seeming a bit disarmed by her smile. She has pushed him too far. She is about to take a step back and shut the hell up before she digs herself a bigger hole, but just then he smiles back at her, the sight of it so unexpected that he seems like an entirely different person. Handsome, even.

men, take notes - the power of a smile actually is quantifiably a helluva difference maker also stop fucking asking women on the street you don't know to smile its 2024 motherfuckers

It’s strange to think that this fully-grown, slightly intimidating person has parents nearby. 😂😂😂 this definitely reminded me of the shock I had as a madstrokiddo when I ran into a teacher at a supermarket once because I thought she lived at school, you know, the teacher's natural habitat and enclosure-

“I know how scary these tests can be,” he says, setting her at ease a bit by steering the conversation back to academics. “We have a guest room. It’s no trouble at all. I’ll give you a ride back to campus in the morning.”

She stares up at him, and there is something in his uncertainty, in the strange shyness that seems so incongruent with the strict TA she has come to know in class, that she trusts him. Completely.

I FUCKING LOVE SHYBOIS, SHYBOIS FOR PRESIDENT 2024, I WILL BE YOUR SECRET SERVICE/PROTECT YOU WITH MY LIMB AND LIFE FOR FREE please god literally anyfuckingonelse for president other than the two golfing seniors for 2024 anyway i digress

“Hey.” Ben’s voice is soft and careful, close to her ear. oh I fucking love this (whispering, because this moment is tender and sacred)

He eases her out of the car, remembering to grab her socks, and then walks her up the brick stairs to a lovely, quaint little home that she remembers passing on some of her long distance training runs during the cross country season.

She had always envied it for its simplicity, for the little flower pots in the window ledges, for the sweet little porch swing on the front deck. It looked like a place where people were happy. It looked like a home...

A familiar ache rises up in her as she turns, taking it all in — the way the home is so lived in, so worn, so well-loved...

She swipes at her eyes, turning to face him with a strange and misplaced guilt.

Her face burns. She isn’t sure what to say to that. She has lived with Poe and Finn for almost a year, but even now it is strange to her, the idea that someone might worry on her behalf. The idea that someone cares.

Yours. It’s a curious choice of words. There aren’t many things that belong to her in this world, and she knows for a fact that this isn’t one of them. Still, as she melts into the cotton sheets and the seemingly infinite pillows, her eyelids so heavy that they feel like molasses, she lets all of her usual defenses fall to the wayside. Despite everything, she feels comfortable here. Despite everything, she feels … safe.

these few paragraphs detailing Rey's experience in the Solo cottage is one of the main reasons why I come back to this fic - I still remember the first time I read that sentence "it looked like a place where people were happy, it looked like a home" and how Rey reacted - I bawled my eyes out because I was also in the middle of losing a sense of home so to speak when I read this, and I felt so seen in seeing the same feelings through Rey's eyes here - that helpless feelng of the embarassment of missing out on what everyone else take for granted - and it made me feel less alone and helped dry out that really raw, wet sense of grief a leetle bit more to something more manageable every time I went back to read it ❤️‍🩹🥹💙

also Ben readily offering to Rey things like friendship to fall back on in hard times, an open ear and heart and home to take you in, a safe and strong presence through a night(s) of crisis, a nice, soft, warm bed to rest in, someone to say to you “I would have worried about you if you hadn’t," someone to care about you, someone to make you a meal 💛- was very healing to read and be reminded of 🌿🌿🌿

She barrels into him so hard that it almost knock the wind out of her. She would have ended up with her butt on the floor, but Ben’s instincts are quicker than hers, and he reaches out and steadies her before she plummets — which unfortunately, ends with her pressed up against him so close that she nearly bangs into his chin with her forehead.

mmmm chin rest height is optimal couple height diff 🤭

But most of all, she is embarrassed by his tenderness. Embarrassed by the way he has inconvenienced himself for her, and gone to all this trouble, when she is not worth it by any degree. She has nothing to offer him, no way to thank him.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says slowly, his bewilderment incongruous with her panic, with the way she scurries toward the door.

“I do, though,” she says, her eyes stinging with her embarrassment.

this whole exchange ending with the "you don't have any shoes oh and btw I washed ur underwear" first off is fucking excellent nay perfect comedic timing, but also REY!!! I want to give you such a big hug for being so human (when I first went to see Force Awakens with a bff she mentioned how she loved how Rey was able to cry so freely and keep and protect her tenderness while surviving in a harsh desert and that comment has always stuck with me), dear writer (toes? toesy? idk what to call writer) you light these complex emotions in such stark relief and in such a familiar and recognizable way they become a lot less lonelier and scarier to face as a result 💖💖💖

I thought the ch. 1 ending was fucking perfect so of course as I usually do, fucking screeched upon seeing a continuation

first off, LMAO @ Hurricane Kylo

Ahch-To University 😂 so IRL Ahch-To is an Irish island named Skellige Michael that is still on my bucketlist of places to visit (apparently it is very weather-dependent and a bit difficult to reach, via local boats only)

She raises an eyebrow at him. It’s the first time she has directly looked at him, and it is like staring at the sun. 🥺🥰

I love the reversal in fortune with Rey now coming to rescue Ben amidst his own storm and the little mystery woven in the breadcrumbs of Rey-left-after-last-semester and seeing Rey, truly, from Ben's eyes and heart and his crush showing in so many cute little ways 🥰🥰🥰

How he sometimes let himself imagine following her, asking her out for coffee, getting to know her, or even…

even what? EVEN WHAT BEN???? HMMM??? TELL US, THIS IS A SPICY SAFE SPACE-

He crouches beside her as low to the ground as he can get. Too late he realizes that her faces in inches from his. Her eyes are shut, her skin ghostly pale against the smear of blood on her forehead, but she still seems a lot more calm than he feels right now, his heart beating in too many places at once.

The rain impossibly starts to beat down even harder, the roar of it unimaginable. Rey’s mouth opens wide and he realizes even though he can’t hear it that she’s laughing out loud.

Only then does the chaos seem somewhat manageable. Only then does the beat of his heart seem to find some semblance of a normal rhythm. No matter what happens in this upside down world, they’re in this together. 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

I have been on a journey processing and sifting the poison and the balm from my religious upbringing so TW for some church-ish talk but I am reminded of tale of a certain carpenter's son sleeping in the midst of a storm - an image that I have always loved - I used to imagine during storms so to speak that I always had a safe haven of open arms waiting for me and inviting me to rest instead of fight or freak out - and wake up to see the storm abated, and not alone - and for some reason this little tidbit recalls that story, that feeling, and that image of peace in the midst of storms for me

alternately reminded of Lt. Nate Fick's speech from Generation Kill on the humvee wheel he was taking cover in during a firefight being 'the safest place in the world' - often not a matter of what and why but where and who you are with that brings much perspective 💙✨

Rey winces slightly, and Ben immediately regrets asking. In that moment the wind dies down just enough that there is no denying the tension between them. She pulls away, just slightly, enough that their bodies are still touching but nowhere near as intimately as before.

this is so real - many times our body speaks when our words can't

This time the gesture is so thoughtless, so innate, that he doesn’t even realize he’s moved until his fingers are skimming her forehead, pushing the hair back from her face. Her eyes lock on his, wide with surprise and a kind of hunger in them — never taking her gaze off of him, she leans ever-so-slightly into his touch, like someone who is both wary of affection and longing for it all at once.

I love this story's Ben in how easily he loves Rey in thought and words and gesture, I found it very healing to read about such a man but also in my later reads - inspirational, encouraging, and exemplary for me to be the same - and seek and coax it out of those around me ❤️❤️❤️

“She had a good, long life,” she says, in that optimistic way of hers. “I’m just glad I got to be a part of it.” I hope to say this of my IRL and tumblr beloveds and moots as well 🌿✨

She has always seemed so untethered, so separate from everyone else. It is the reason he was so drawn to her — he has always felt out of place himself, despite his best efforts. But now that he has some understanding of Rey’s past, however small it is, he feels some part of his heart cinching for her in some unfamiliar, powerful way. In those moments, he seems to absorb her sadness as if it is his own, and it is a burden he is more than willing to bear. 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

“I’m Rey,” she says, almost merrily. “And this is the second time your son has saved my ass.” 😂😂😂 alexa, play smooth operator by sade (yeah im gonna bring this meme back, watch me)

His father tosses back the phone and Rey catches it deftly, dialing a number she must know by heart. I appreciate this detail of foster rey memorizing phone numbers of close contacts 🫂❤️‍🩹

As terrifying as the ordeal was, there was something so intimate in it, some unknowable shared feeling that passed between them, and now … he can already feel it peeling away, as if it never happened. He can already see the sun spilling out of the clouds, people poking their heads out of their doors, the the world resuming in its ordinary way, and it’s all somehow insulting to the profundity of what just happened to them.

Fucking incredible paragraph, I'm pretty much nearly speechless at this point

well all this to say, I found this fic this fic found me when I was at a low point in my life, shone a light down into my little hole/valley and made me remember I could find the strength within me to climb out - and take the hands of friends and recognize the presence of beloveds ready to meet me where I was and help me climb out together...

...and I am incredibly, incredibly grateful that I started reading beyond the Explicit/Inappropriate Use of the Force Bond tagged reylo fics to find this gem

#madstrothought #FaFiCoWriMo #fanfiction #star wars #rey x ben solo #reylo #can't believe I typed out reylo in the year of our lord 2024 #where there's smoke there's fire #on_my_toes #comfort fics #heyloreylo #Inappropriate Use of the Force is a real tag btw

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