Save Me a Spark | Reader x Ben Solo / Kylo Ren

Ch. 1 | Strike a Match

I wanna see you light up the dark
While everyone is sleeping
We'll be wide awake
Would you save me a spark?
We'll start a fire that shines a light in the dark
Strike a match
Make it last
We are all we need
Would you save me a spark?
We'll light up the dark

Sleeping with Sirens - Save Me a Spark

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It all started with an old man and a book. Reading has always been somewhat of an escape for you. While growing up you really didn't have anyone in your life, at least not until you were older. Your parents died when you were young, too young to remember anything about them. There was a car accident and you were the only one that survived, or so you were told. Your parents had didn't have any friends or extended family so you ended up in the foster care system.

Being tossed from one foster home to another took its toll on you. You were self sufficient and did your best to avoid attachments. That changed when you were thirteen and stumbled upon a unique little bookstore within walking distance of the foster home you were staying at. At the time, your foster parents really didn't care enough about you to track your comings and goings as long as you were alive and they could benefit from it. You'd think wandering around Brooklyn on your own as a kid would be something a responsible adult would frown upon, but not your foster parents. Out of sight out of mind.

The small bookstore was fittingly called the World Between Worlds. It was the only place you could go for peace and quiet. While you were there you didn't think about the shitty foster family you were staying with, the shitty school you were going to, the lack of friends and family, none of it.

It really was like you were in your little own world and in that world, you didn't have to be alone, not if you didn't want to be. The bookstore's owner was an older man named Ben Kenobi or Obi-Wan Kenobi, depending on who you asked. He mostly kept to himself and was a little strange but in a good way. He frequently had full conversations with no one but himself. He seemed to be wise beyond his years and you always had the feeling he knew more about you than even you knew about yourself. None of that bothered you though. If anything, it made you more fond of him.

Somehow he found out about your less than stellar home life. It wasn't really hard to guess how bad you had it based on your clothes and general condition. He'd ask questions every now and then but respected you enough not to pry when he sensed he was approaching a sensitive subject. You didn't know much about him but you respected him enough not to pry as well. Unexpectedly, he became the closest thing you had to a father. That feeling only intensified when he adopted you a few months after you started spending literally every moment you could at his bookstore. After years without a parental figure, you had one, at least for a while.

Obi was a great father, albeit, a strange one. You had everything a kid your age could want and then some. Every night, even when you hit your teens, Obi would tell you a story before you went to bed. The stories were always set in space but the characters differed and so did the settings. He told you about strange hairy aliens called Wookies. He named off different planets and what he knew about them. He even taught you how to read and write in your own secret language. To go with the space theme the two of you enjoyed so much he called it 'galactic standard.' It sounds silly but learning a language only the two of you could read and write is one of your fondest memories of him.

Right before you turned nineteen, Obi got extremely sick, seemingly out of nowhere, and the doctors had no idea what was wrong with him. Towards the end, he started to make less and less sense. He spoke quite a bit about a man named Anakin and the 'chosen one'. When you asked about Anakin he'd only say that he was his brother and he failed him. It was confusing and depressing to watch as the only father you've ever had lost his grip on reality.