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[gidge]

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

Comments

[velocities]

They've got a room somewhere, or they'll get one. I'm not sure.

[ the details with time travel make things fuzzier, and han doesn't exactly remember this small chapter by rote. not after how hard he tried to forget it. ]

Just came in from Corellia. Her folks called CorSec on me when they found out what I'd done with Shrike.

[organa]

[ leia snorts, holding faster and tighter to his coat beneath the weight of his hands on hers. ]

Of course they did. Of course you fall for girls with difficult parents.

[velocities]

[ he almost smiles at that, his mouth twitches the tiniest percentage of a fraction, and he shakes his head before it takes hold. ]

The slavers that had her before that were worse. [ he shakes his head again. ] This is right after I got away from Shrike, after he killed Dewlanna.

[organa]

[ he says "slavers" and she instantly feels terrible. still angry, but... bad about being angry. she spent a week in slavery and it was, hands down, the worst experience of her life. leia's seen and been through a lot, but she's never been as terrified as she was when she was barely clothed, chained to a hutt, and in a room full of slum lords who didn't give a damn about what happened to her. ]

So you're on the run and we just made running a lot harder.

[velocities]

Would've been hard anyway. [ he sees that look in her face when he mentions slavers and squeezes her hands. ]

My first time around, I didn't know the account had been flagged. Ended up getting the bank manager killed trying to get away, and she took off the next morning before I woke up.

[organa]

And you warned him about the bank manager and not the girl about to leave him — leave you?

[ she has to wonder what the younger han will do with the knowledge that there's a jedi princess who won't leave him. her han didn't wake up to bria having left him knowing that there was something better out there. this one does. ]

[velocities]

[ he shrugs, sighing and unsure. maybe he shouldn't have said anything. maybe he should've pulled bria off him and shoved her away before she got too close. maybe maybe maybe.

he could go into her reasons, explain the t'landa til and the exultation, the addiction, but that's too much for now. ]

She left me enough of her father's money to get into the Academy at Carida. If I don't do that, no one stops them from killing Chewie.

[organa]

[ she couldn't stop it. like word vomit, before she could even comprehend what she was saying— ]

Looks like you've had a taste for rich things from the start.

[ —tumbles out of her mouth. ]

[velocities]

[ his expression goes cold and neutral. that was low. lower than he expected leia to go. and he knows there's stress, the situation and the lack of her father and brother, it's all he can to to not toss her hands off him and walk away.

(it irritates him further that this is probably something anakin would've said.) ]

I paid him back.

[ said low and even and controlled. ]

[organa]

[ it is cold and it's incredibly low, and while leia is very capable of swinging this hard and hitting someone where it hurts, she's never done so with han. but she is under and incredible amount of stress, dealing with a palpable void she doesn't know how to properly fill, and suddenly finding herself in the boots luke had been standing in, but without the support of the alliance.

she's the last jedi. her father is dead. there are (were?) padawans half her age who could out-jedi her, yet she's the one left standing with any semblance of skill. obi-wan might not have survived. yoda probably perished. her mother wouldn't know who she was. winter was the heir to alderaan.

and she was the last of the jedi. a lone force-user who was now on the empire's radar. damn all the kesting hells. ]

Oh, I'm sure you did. [ a harsh snap, a click of her teeth as her jaws snap together at the end of her sentence like some sort of frazzled, wild animal. ]

[velocities]

[ there's no attempt to be neutral now. he's hurt, and angry, and still reeling slightly from being around bria.

he scowls down at her, pulls her hands away from his chest, and lets them go. ]

Come on. We've still got a lot of ground to cover.

[ and he starts walking the opposite direction from where his younger self and that redhead went. ]

[organa]

[ leia has no idea where she's going, but that's not going to stop her from brushing past him, stone-faced and determined to lead. if he's going to act this way, she is not going to follow. (i don't know who you are or where you came from, but from now on, you'll do as i tell you.) ]

[velocities]

[ how he's acting? for once, han isn't the one spitting venom about old flames or just the vague hint of smoke in the general area.

not that their pasts are terribly comparable on this axis, and han would find it funny to see her get this riled if it had been xaverri or even jessa vandergante. anyone but bria, because no matter how far out he thinks he is from this particular wound it's never enough for it to stop hurting.

so fine. he'll follow her lead, but he's the one with the nav, so after a few good minutes of silence he stops and calls ahead of him. ] The lift is over here.

[organa]

[ it's too much. it's finally all too much.

the time travel. the training. the truth. the changes. the knowledge — no, confirmation (for she's always known she wasn't the first) of there having been someone else in han's life who he loved immensely. she could feel it. that kind of love and devotion was far too powerful to ignore, especially from someone who had the same force signature as han.

she's hurt... but why? because he never told her about bria? because bria looked at her like she was some of false idol one moment and a nexu ready to strike the next? because she felt empty? because she wants to scream, but her voice would only attract— ]

Get in the lift.

[ stern. a clear command, emotions pushed aside as she reaches for her lightsaber.

someone's coming. more than one someone. stormtroopers. ]

It's me they want.

[velocities]

[ the anger and the hurt vanish in an instant, replaced by a shining beacon of panic. he knows the implication in her voice, in the way she's moving for her lightsaber.

who cares when they are, he's not going to lose her like this.

han doesn't say a word, he just grabs her and tosses her over his shoulder as he sprints for the lift and slams his hand on the command panel just as he hears the haunting sound of a few dozen footsteps marching in time down the nearest bridge. ]

[organa]

[ she feels his approach, but expects words — not action. leia barely has time to register what's happening before she finds herself staring at the ground past the curve of his ass, blood rushing to her head so quickly it makes her dizzy. ]

[velocities]

[ he sets her down once the lift is moving and he's fairly sure they're out of sight. his heart is racing, and he's fairly sure something in his brain might have seized back there.

once she's down, he immediately moves to hold her face in his hands, tilting it up so he can look right in her eyes. the anger from before is gone entirely, and while what's in him now is still fierce it is something very different. to hells with bria -- bria doesn't matter. leia does. ]

Don't you ever do that to me.

[organa]

[ he sets her on her feet and holds her face, and she simply can't hold it in any more. what she thought would be anger comes bursting forth from the other side of her dam in the form of tears. her face contorts with effort in attempt to keep them at bay, but she can't. ]

[velocities]

[ somehow, this is the least surprising thing to happen today. seeing her cry isn't ideal, but han knew something like this was coming the moment he heard that anakin was dead in this version of the timeline.

gently, he swipes his thumbs across her cheeks. it doesn't help the flow of tears much, though, and it's easy to move from that into holding her against his chest, his cheek on the top of her head. he's not dumb enough to say anything about how things will be okay. instead, han just clings to her as if she'll fade away if he lets his grip go slack even a millimeter more. ]

I've got you.

[organa]

[ sometimes, it's good to cry and let it all out. force knows there's already way too much she holds in, things that she should've shed tears for and instead funneled into something angry, determined, and vengeful.

but now, she's just sad. tired. sad and tired. very tired. she's twenty-three. she shouldn't be this tired, yet her bones feel heavy as she molds herself to him, sobbing brokenly into his shirt. ]

[velocities]

[ han knows it, too. kest, he's been there for most of it. so he stays there, kisses the top of her head and moves a hand up and down her back.

they don't get much time before the lift starts to slow down, and not much longer after this that they'll have to go out again. still, he's not making any moves to leave. not yet, not until she does. he just hopes there aren't troopers waiting for them on whichever level they land on. ]

[organa]

[ they don't have much time, but leia's going to make the most of this quiet moment. secluded behind the walls of this lift, she can allow herself to be as raw as she needs to be, to let out some of what she keeps bottled tightly inside. crying is something she convinced herself those who looked up to her would interpret as weakness, but right now she feels anything but weak — strong, but done.

why can't she just be done? this is never going to end, and it's a nauseating realization, knowing that you'll more than likely spend the rest of your life struggling to survive. To do the right thing. To make the galaxy a better place for future generations. ]

I love you.

[velocities]

[ he almost quips that usual 'i know' at her, but he can't quite make himself do it. instead, he kisses the top of her head again and hopes that at least they can get out of this lift and make it to somewhere they can bunk down for a night before they try to make it to tatooine. ]

I love you, too.