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Language:
English
Series:
Part 17 of Big Brothers AU
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Published:
2018-02-06
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1,888
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1/1
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43
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185
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Memorable Day

,

Summary:

Ben goes through a dental surgery, and the sedation leaves him with some memorable side effects. That is, memorable to everyone else but him.

Notes:

There is not other excuse for the existence of this fic other than it's February, it's dreary outside, and we were in need of some love.

Work Text:

Techie glanced into the rear mirror and smiled when he saw two figures approaching the car waiting in the clinic parking lot. One of them was leaning heavily on the other and stumbling ocassionaly, like a newborn colt that doesn’t quite know yet how to coordinate its limbs. Techie’s smile faltered a little.

“I thought Ben only came here to get his wisdom teeth pulled out,” he said nervously.

On the seat next to him, Rey turned around, quickly assessed the situation, and then promptly turned back and started rummaging through her purse.

Ben’s mood was sinking gradually with every passing day as his dentist appointment approached. His wisdom teeth, which he was confident weren’t going to make an appearance for the rest of his life, decided to start growing when he was long past thirty, and by pushing their way into his mouth they began to shift all the rest of his already crooked teeth. There was no helping it, if he wanted to keep a healthy occlusion and a nice smile, the troublesome teeth had to go.

Techie jumped out of the car just as Hux reached it, hand lifted to knock at the window. His other arm was wrapped around Ben’s middle, and the rest of Ben was basically wrapped around Hux.

“Hi, Techie,” Ben beamed at him, voice thick and muffled by the cotton balls stuffed in his cheeks. “Have you met my husband yet?”

Oh. So it was like that . Techie remembered the sedation. Dizziness, loopiness, temporary memory lapses and general confusion was listed amongst normal side effects.

“Get in, Ben,” Hux said gently and tried to maneuver his husband onto the backseat of Techie’s car. Ben nodded meekly and relinquished his hold on Hux. Halfway into the car, it seemed as if his arms realised their emptiness and threw themselves around Hux’s waist in a panicked, crushing grip. Hux’s forehead connected rather forcibly with the car door frame.

“Ow.”

“Jesus, Armie, is it bad?” Techie was half moved with concern and half trying not to burst out laughing. On the front seat, Rey had no such qualms. She was laughing so hard that the car shook on its wheels.

“I’m fine,” Hux assured him, rubbing at his forehead and then giving in to the pull and falling, rather that climbing, into the car after Ben.

“Gotcha!” Ben shouted in triumph and nuzzled his face into Hux’s neck. “You smell like my sweetest dreams,” he announced.

Hux tried to reach around him and feel around the seat for… oh yes, of course Ben had to be sitting on it. He tried to nudge his hip a bit to the side, and when it didn’t work, he tugged sharply at his belt.

“Sweetheart, my sunshine,” Ben giggled, “are you trying to ravish me in the car?”

“I am trying to buckle in your seatbelt,” Hux huffed.

Ben fluttered his eyelashes seductively. Or so he probably thought he did. The medication was slowing him down and making him look like an exceptionally sleepy puppy.

Hux gave up. Ben was like a dead weight - and wrapped around him like a squid, unwilling to separate for even one inch.

“Just drive carefully,” he told Techie and silently thanked his providence to ask Techie to drive them. There would be no safe driving with Hux behind the steering wheel and Ben’s clingy hands all over him. Except that where Techie went, Rey usually followed, and his twice-over sister-in-law was currently…

“Rey, put that phone away.”

“No way, my dear Armitage.” She had the phone propped against the headrest to keep a stable recording amidst all the giggling. “This is too good to pass.”

“Solid gold blackmail material,” Techie agreed, giving Rey a little wink.

 

Later that afternoon Hux pulled out another bag of frozen peas out of the freezer and brought it to the living room, where forlornly sat very grumpy and very swollen Ben, clutching a cold pack alternatively to either side of his face and glumly spooning a bucket of ice-cream. After they arrived home, Ben had more-or-less passed out of the sofa, and woke later with a very sore jaw.

“Painkillers?” Ben perked up upon the sight of his husband.

“Not for another two hours,” Hux shook his head.

“Urgh. Not sure this was worth it.”

Hux carefully cradled his husband’s aching face in his palms and planted a soft kiss on his cold and vanilla-sweet lips.

“Your smile is worth it,” he said confidently. “Or would you rather have ended up wearing braces?”

Ben shuddered, winced and clamped the new bag of peas on his cheek. Then his eyes focused somewhere above Hux’s nose.

“Ow, that looks painful. What happened, ‘Tidge?”

Oh. Ben probably didn’t remember a thing from this morning.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s hardly nothing, it’s a bump, and it looks - fuck it is scraped, it must have hurt, where did you– who–” suddenly Ben’s eyes widened, and he let the cold packs fall, gripping Hux’s wrists.

“Was it Brendol? Did that bastard come by when I was at the dentist’s?”

So Ben didn’t even remember that Hux was with him at the clinic. Hux wanted to laugh but Ben’s worry was so earnest, he couldn’t. It was true that Brendol had made some threats in the past but that was before the wedding, and the old man effectively severed every connection with both his sons after Techie married Rey, too. Hux hadn’t seen his father in years.

And to tell Ben that it’s been him who gave him that bump - that sounded needlessly cruel now. So Hux just smiled.

“It’s fine. Was putting away the groceries and a can of beans fell out of the cabinet top shelf right back at me.”

“Stupid can. I’ll avenge you. Chilli for dinner?”

 

*

 

Several months passed from that crispy February morning at the clinic and all too quickly, November rolled around and with it came the time of the all-family gathering at the Organa-Solo house.

Leia spared herself most of the heavy lifting these days but still she commandeered around the kitchen like a tiny general, Rey and Ben her trusted lieutenants. Hux tried not to smile at the way Ben kept sneaking into the punch bowl for a sip every once in a while, and noticed with interest that Rey didn’t, not even once, even though it was her favourite. Maybe there would be announcement at the dinner… He looked over to Techie, whose gaze followed his wife like a compass needle the direction to the north, star-laced awe in his eyes. Yup. Definitely an announcement.

But the evening was long to come, and apparently Rey had means to spare to keep them all entertained and not too observant of her. Hux was sent to bring in the apples, and when he walked back into the living room, he found the entire family spread over the sofa and various chairs, and Rey’s phone plugged into the TV screen.

Oh, that. Hux had nearly forgotten about that. He set the apples down and went over to sit next to Ben, nonchalant as you please. Contrary to his red-faced husband, who immediately tried to hide his face in Hux’s sweater, groaning with embarrassment.

“Hey, chin up, darling, it’s not that bad.”

“It’s hilarious,” Rey laughed.  

On the shaky recording, Ben was currently squinting at Hux’s face from the distance of about five centimetres.

“Gosh, even your eyelashes are golden,” everyone could hear. “You’re a literal treasure. There should be a map to you. Golden like sunshine and your eyes are like sea. How did I get so lucky? Did I find a map to you?”

On the sofa, Han snorted. Leia swatted his knee. “He gets that entirely from you.”

“No way.”

“You’re just lucky there weren’t camera phones back in our day.”

On the screen, Ben was trying to kiss each of Hux’s fingers in turn. Except that he kept forgetting his count and starting over and over.

“How come I don’t remember any of this?” Ben whined from between the hands over his face.

“That’s normal for the drug cocktail they gave you,” Hux said, curling a lock of Ben’s hair around his finger and tugging gently. “It was pretty strong, and you were high as a kite. You even didn’t recognise me at first when you walked out of the surgery.”

“Oh my god.” Ben wilted in embarrassment. “You must have been so mad.”

“On the contrary,” Hux smiled and didn’t elaborate. And true enough, while Ben’s family laughed and cheered on his terribly cheesy declarations and Ben himself looked as if willing the earth to open up and swallow him whole, Hux remained perfectly content and smiling in a self-satisfied manner throughout the whole show.

Much later - after the dinner, and the announcement, and after the following excitement and - on Leia’s part - happy crying - finally settled down, Ben closed the door to his childhood bedroom and flopped backwards on the bed.

“Uncles,” he said, still in awed disbelief. “We’re going to be uncles. What are we going to do?”

“Well,” Hux smirked, “we’re going to be the fun uncles and leave the worries to the happy parents, Ben.”

“Right, that sounds just about like Luke, right before he disappeared in Tibet for months,” Ben snorted. He shifted when he felt a weight dipping the mattress behind his head, and then scurried up until his head rested in Hux’s lap. Smiling tiredly, he looked up into his husband’s face.

“You don’t feel like we’re… missing something, do you?” he asked tentatively, voice smaller than with just too much food and exhaustion from socialising.

“No,” Hux smiled down on him, fingers tangling in Ben’s locks and scratching gently along his scalp. They talked about this, several times. They both didn’t feel like raising children, not with their busy lives, Hux’s emotional baggage from his chidhood and Ben’s own insecurities.

“I have everything I want and need, right here,” Hux continued and kissed the tip of Ben’s nose.

“Me too,” Ben grinned. “You’re my everything. I can’t believe my loopy self didn’t tell you that, too, after that wisdom teeth incident,” he added ruefully. “God, I made such an idiot of myself there.”

“Hey now, none of that.”

“Why did you let Rey have it? Couldn’t you, dunno, hack her phone? Steal it? Drop it into a puddle?”

“Simple enough,” Hux said smugly. “She didn’t have the best part.”

“Oh my god,” Ben rolled to his side and pressed his face into Hux’s stomach.

“Right after you came out of the surgery, you looked you were about two seconds from faceplanting onto the floor. I rushed to you to steady you on your feet and you took one look at me, pulled yourself up, brushed my hand off and said,” Hux continued, imitating the mouth-full-off-cotton accent Ben had, “ - ‘Man, you’re really cute, but hands off, I am happily married.’”

“I didn’t.”

Hux was laughing quietly, heart so full of warm fondness he felt it spread through his entire body. Maybe that’s how it felt to be someone’s everything.

“You did. And none of your sweet-nothing cheesy lines, ever, came even close to how perfect this declaration was. When you don’t remember me but you still remember that you’re happy with me? You’ll never outdo that.”

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