Finishing my KBB rough draft means going back to other, 100% indulgence projects. Sorry to have kept you waiting!

The Falcon smells bad. Ben had forgotten about that.

He had also forgotten how you could hear the engines if you were lying on the floor, or feel the hot air coming from the cooling systems. Or just how many people could fit in small spaces. The Room had been smaller, but it had been just him, and Hux, sometimes Phasma.

Here there is his father, Chewie, two people he only ever saw from the corner of his eyes, and the entire world calling him behind the fog, which has been growing so very, very thin.

Ben whimpers.

His father’s arms tighten around him. “Don’t worry, kid, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

“I already was,” Ben protests.

It was a different kind of safe than now: curled up in his father’s arms, he feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with the air coming out from the cooling system. He had never noticed just how cold the Room could be.

When he was alone, that is. When Hux was there, it was still cold, but it was Hux’s cold. Ben had grown to like it.

His father growls at his words, so low Ben doesn’t hear it but can feel the rumble in his chest. From above him, Chewie growls in turn. It is a soothing growl though, the way only Chewie can make. “We don’t know what happened to the cub, we -”

“Nothing happened,” Ben cuts him off. “I was in the Room, it was boring at times.” He buries himself into his father’s arms, trying to block out the world. “I was lucky there was Hux.”

“Ben…”

“And Phasma, but not as often,” he continues, because the more he talks, the less he thinks, and the less of what if beyond the fog comes back. (But Hux isn’t here, and neither is Phasma, and without the syringe the fog will disappear eventually, and when it does, oh, when it does...) “And I liked Hux better anyway.”

His father makes a noise that is both sad and angry. “How could you li… He kidnapped you. He locked you away.”

“Kept me hidden. Safe,” Ben corrects.

His father buries his head in Ben’s hair. Ben feel thick drops falling onto his scalp.

He doesn’t mind.

“He was supposed to kill me,” he murmurs almost thoughtfully. “He loved me instead.”

His father laughs and sobs at the same time. “That wasn’t love, kiddo.”

“Felt like it.”

Different from any he had experienced before, because Uncle Luka had all sorts of rules during training that Hux felt more than happy to ignore. When Ben didn’t hate him anymore, when Hux knew Ben would let him, Hux touched, and kissed, and stroked.

And Hux was cold, cold hands Ben could feel always and a cold soul he only felt once, before. But cold hands and cold soul created warmth in the pit of his stomach, whispered sweet promises in his ears.

And in those moments, Ben not only knew he was safe, but he felt it too.

And Hux never spoke of love, but Ben didn’t know what else it could be.

“It was all I had anyway,” he adds in a whisper.

His father’s embrace tightens for a moment, and then Han Solo lifts his head again, breathing loudly. “I didn’t…” he grunts when Chewie growls again. “Yes, I know, Chewie, I just…” Another growl. “Fine, we’ll talk about it later.”

Ben can’t help but smile at the familiarity of it. Even though it has been so long.

His father smiles shakily in return, his hand coming to stroke Ben’s cheek. “Your mother will know better that me anyway.” He jolts. “Oh kriff, Ben, your mother, she’ll…”

“She’ll be angry?”

“What? No, why would she…” His father’s eyes darken. “Did Hux tell you that?”

Ben shook his head. “He told me I had to stay with him, and not with you. But I thought she would be angry because I didn’t think about her. Or you.” His fists bunch into his father’s jacket. He shouldn’t have said that, because his father might be angry even if his mother isn’t, and... “I do now, because you’re here, but thinking about you meant thinking about before, and… and…” He is trembling now, tears sting the corner of his eyes. “Dad, I…”

The large hand comes to rest on his back, stroking it gently like he did when Ben was ten. Ben leans into the touch.

Oh, but the fog is so thin now, and if he isn’t

“You’re okay, son, you’re okay,” his father speaks in a low voice. A constant stream of words more soothing than any lullaby. “You’re mother won’t be angry. She’ll be so happy to see you, we are so, so happy. We should probably warn her tough. She’ll be so surprised, a happy surprise of course, but she might faint for the first time in her life, and then where will we be? Chewie, could you..” A growl. “Yeah, well, I’m not letting go of him one second so…”

“I can do it.”

That last voice belonged to someone else, and when Ben looks up to see who, he freezes.

“Rey,” he hears his father say. It sounds so far away in that moment. “I don’t…”

And Ben doesn’t catch anything else, because the more he looks at the girl, the thinner the fog gets, and then out come all it has kept at bay. Only what comes isn’t his father or his mother or anything else he kept outside to stay safe and hidden and happy with Hux.

What comes out are the flames, and the sea of white. The burning buildings, the burning… the.. Force...the burning flesh. All of them, and their screams.

His screams.

He thinks he’s trashing. Probably.

All that he knows is that he wants to get away, but he can’t because someone is holding him down, and no, no, nononononono….!

“What happened? What -”

What’s happening? Please, Ben, what’s h-

“- know! He started screaming when he -”

Please! Please! What do we do?

“Krif!! Where is -”

- Master Luke? We need to find him, he’ll

“Rey!”

Rey!

“Give me that needle!”

Yes good, a needle. Bring back the fog, bring it back, he doesn’t want this, any of this, he wants to go back, be hidden, be safe!

He wants Hux.

He feels a tinge in his neck, and no, no, not the neck, the arm, the arm is where it goes, syringes in the neck bring..!

The dark.

But perhaps it’s better than this, Ben thinks as the world fades around him.