#and fuck anyone for making lando feel worse than he probably already did with will being the one to say those things to him

[f1-birb]

if I see one more fucking comment about how Lando lost Hungary in T1

or how Lando shouldn't have been pitted first at the second round of stops and that's why Oscar deserved the place back as if Lando wasn't following the team's call to bring him in and cover off a driver who wasn't a threat

or that he should've swapped straight away and raced for it when we've literally had a McLaren employee (pretty much straight after the race) say they wouldn't have been allowed to because of the pre-agreed strategy

sorry that after over a decade of watching that I didn't realise a 70 lap race ended at T1 or lap 45 or when a team decides that "that's enough racing for the day"

fuck McLaren for scapegoating Lando the way they are, for not allowing him to race properly, and for not a single apology or ounce of gratitude and just letting him further take the fall for their incompetency

2010 they became my team and in one race they ruined it

[softtdaisy]

hellu lando with it's okay, just breathe.

I LOVE your writing, you deserve all the celebration love!

Pairing: Lando Norris x female!reader

Words: 1020

A/n: the fact i went over 1k words for a story i don’t feel confident about is crazy. I really hope you will like it, i’ve never write about Lando before so it’s a first try  

Dating Lando was like living in a new sitcom episode every single day. Even when he was away for the championship and you couldn’t travel with him, he found a way to make your day better. A call, a message, the stupidest joke ever or the cutest proof of love. 

There were some bad days, of course. But somehow, the sun always seemed to shine even in the darkest sky. 

You could write a whole book about your boyfriend. 

You really considered doing it these past days. Being away from him for too long was getting harder for you. It was really like missing a half of yourself when he was in another country or, worse, in another continent. No amount of calls was making for the lack of waking up with him by your side.

“You realize that one day you’re going to deal with me every day for the rest of your life? Shouldn’t you enjoy your free time while you can?” he told you on the phone after you admitted being sad about him leaving early for Canada. He hasn’t even been home since Spain and he was already leaving.

“Well right now, I miss you, idiot.”

“Well I miss you too, dummy.” 

It was probably one of the quickest decisions you’ve ever made. After waking up again feeling alone and sad without the man you loved, you booked a flight for Montréal during the afternoon to see him. You didn’t even tell anyone, except for Max, Lando’s best friend, to make sure at least one person would be aware of your trip. You wanted to surprise your boyfriend.

You had no idea that this would become one of the most stressful days for him.

When Lando woke up on the other side of the world, you were already up in the air. He didn’t question why you weren’t answering his texts. He knew that when you were working, you tended to be so focused that you forget about the world around you. He also knew that he could call you if he was worried because that was the only thing that would make you pick up your phone. 

Somehow, Lando felt like something was off. He could put his finger on what.

If he was a fan of media duties, he couldn’t focus on anything today. His laugh sounded fake, he wasn’t smiling as much. “If something is wrong, you can tell me.” Oscar reassured him after he had to handle every interview that morning.

But he didn’t say anything. Lando wasn’t the kind to cry on anyone’s shoulder for nothing. He didn’t want to bother his teammate for just a feeling. 

Then it became more than a feeling when he still couldn’t reach you. 

You were supposed to be home. Or heading home. Anyway, you would have answered Lando’s texts already. But you didn’t.

He tried to call you. But you didn’t answer.

He asked Carlos to call you too, knowing he was one of the few drivers to have your number. But you didn’t answer either.

“Something wrong?” Carlos asked him but he refused to say anything. If he kept it to himself, it wouldn’t be real, right?

So Lando did the worst thing he could have done, he knew that. He went to the practices with fear and stress. He couldn’t think about the race or the cars or his whole career. Fuck that. All he cared about was you. He did so many mistakes he couldn’t even imagine the number of comments on social media about him being done or whatever these stupid opinions were saying. The team was already giving him a hard time on the radio.

When Lando got out of the car, he felt like he saw a ghost. Expect it wasn’t one.

It was you. Standing in the middle of the garage.

It took him a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t dreaming, that it wasn’t his mind giving him what he wanted to see. You were here. For real. Not home. But here with him.

Lando then ran to you and took you in his arms. “Oh wow I didn’t expect that to be so welcoming.” you laughed in his ears. Knowing him, you were convinced he would make a joke about you being here at the same time as his mistress. Or that you should take a shower, when he was the one dirty after racing. 

Not that he would hug you that tight. You felt him bringing him to his room and you followed him, quite perplexed on why he was reacting like that. 

It wasn’t until you were alone that you noticed he was shivering against you. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” you asked him, moving your head to see his sad face. You barely ever saw him being that miserable around you.

“You’re here…” he replied, breathless. You took his face between your hands.

“it's okay, just breathe,” you put your forehead against his and felt him relaxed slowly. 

“You didn’t answer me and I thought something had happened. I couldn’t call you, I couldn’t reach you and I thought you were… I can’t imagine my life without you!” 

“I’m not planning on leaving you.” you replied with a sweet smile, giving him a soft kiss on his lips. Lando always said that your lips had some calming power. And he wasn’t wrong. You could feel relaxed after that, like it was the proof he needed to be sure you were really here.

You spent some long minutes together in the silence. Now that he was accepting that nothing had happened to you and that you were here, for real, he was enjoying your presence. You gave him small kisses in the hair, the one he loved when he had a terrible weekend. It felt quite the same for once.

“I’m taking notes that you don’t like surprises.” you whispered in his hair.

“Not the one where I think I’m losing the love of my life, dummy.”

“Love of my life and dummy in the same sentence? What a pretty love language, Norris.” 

[vivwritesfics]

Keep On Rolling

Chapter Eleven

Summary: Lando's best friend having feelings for anyone on the grid? Impossible, right? She worked with them, sharing her friendship with the grid with the world via the FormulaY/N youtube channel.

After film a video including... spicy water (alcohol), everything changes between her and a certain world champion. Good thing she hasn't had a crush on him since his F1 debut, right?

Right?

1.5K words

Series Masterlist

So, once again, Y/N was pissed with Lando. But not the ignoring him kind of pissed. No, after Y/N went to Charles, she went straight to Lando.

Charles tried to talk her down, of course, but he wasn’t very successful.

“How fucking dare he,” spat Y/N as she paced around in Charles hotel room. “I mean, it’s like he thinks he’s got some sort of ownership over me! And I’m sick of it!”

Charles knew this wasn’t the case. Y/N knew this wasn’t the case, too. But she was angry, ready to burst into Lando’s room with all gun’s blazing. Charles shook his head. “You’ll only make things worse if you go in ready to kill him,” he said.

Still pacing, Y/N glared at him. “Not helping,” she said. “Okay, I’m going to go in there, I’m going to lose my shit at him and then I’m going to come back in here and cry on your shoulder, okay?”

Somewhat reluctantly, Charles nodded. He couldn’t stop her as she marched out of his room and made her way to Lando’s.

And that was where Y/N currently was, waiting outside of Lando’s room. She had knocked, foot tapping against the carpeted hallway floor as she waited for him to open the door.

When Lando did pull open the door, he wasn’t ready for what was coming.

“Who the fuck do you think you are,” Y/N almost shouted as she stormed into the room, pushing her finger against his chest.

For a full second, Lando stared at her. And then he held out his hand, what was meant to be a charming smile on his face. “Lando Norris, formula one driver.”

Y/N wanted to hit him. She really wanted to hit him. But she held back. “I spoke to Max,” she began as Lando sat on his bed. “And he told me everything, including how you told him to back off or to leave me alone or whatever. Lan, why the fuck did you do that? You knew I liked Max, yet you went and did this! What if he liked me too?”

Lando scoffed. “Did you ever consider that I was doing what I did for you?”

“What do you mean, doing it for me?”

“He’s not good enough for you, Y/N! You’re my best friend and I just want what’s best for you!”

They were shouting now, Lando on his feet.

“You can’t make that decision for me, Lando!”

“I know him a lot better than you do!”

“Don’t I deserve the chance to get to know him?”

“No!”

Y/N stopped. She so desperately wanted to tell him to fuck off, to leave her alone, but this was his room. So, she did the one thing she could think of, and stormed out of the room.

No, she didn’t go back to Charles’ hotel room to cry on her shoulder. She marched past his room and into the elevator, heading down to the lobby. Her breath was shaky as she leaned against the mirror in the elevator. The moment it opened, Y/N ran out. She ran past the front desk and out through the front doors.

It was raining. Within seconds Y/N was drenched. She had no jacket or coat, not even a jumper on as she walked through the streets. This was what she needed, though. This was good. In her mind she was letting the rain water wash away her anger but, really, it just hid her tears.

***

Charles gave it a good half an hour before he went to call Y/N. She was probably still in Lando’s room, having already shouted at him and now trying to work through things with him. But Y/N’s phone vibrated on the table in Charles room. He let out a sigh and went to call Lando instead.

“Is Y/N in your room?” Lando asked the moment he picked up the phone.

That wasn’t right. “No, she’s with you, isn’t she?” Charles asked, somewhat sceptically.

“She ran out of here twenty minutes ago.” Lando cursed under his breath. “I thought she ran straight to your room!” He cried.

“Calm down, she’ll only be in the hotel,” Charles said quickly, being the voice of reason. “You go and knock on her door and I’ll call Max.”

“Why are you calling Max?”

“Lando!”

No, Charles was right. Lando muttered something else and hung up the phone. The Monégasque had to just assume that Lando was going to check Y/N’s room as he called Max.

Max picked up rather quickly. “Charlie,” he said in a somewhat singsong voice. “How can I help you.”

“Have you seen Y/N?” Charles asked.

Max stopped with the singsong voice. “She left mine maybe an hour ago,” he answered. “Why?”

Charles sucked in a deep breath. “She went to go and confront Lando and now nobody can find her,” he said. “Lando’s gone to check her room, but I don’t know what to do if she’s not there.”

As you, dear reader, can probably work out, Y/N was not in her room. Several messages were sent to the driver groupchat, asking if anybody had seen her. There was an almost unanimous no, but then Esteban said he had seen her from his bedroom window as she walked down the street.

That was how Max, Charles and Lando found themselves running about the streets of the Netherlands, shouting Y/N’s name. They’d split up, trying their absolute best to find her.

It was dark, it was cold and the three of them were worried. “Y/N!” Lando shouted at the top of his lungs, cupping his hands around his mouth. But he got no response, nothing. Those lining up outside of the nightclub he was by stared at him. So, Lando pulled up a picture of Y/N on his phone and asked if anybody had seen her.

“Y/N! Where are you!” Charles yelled as he ran down the street. This area was not very well lit, which was filling him with dread. There were a couple of neon lights from bars, making the area feel a little bit dodgy. “Please don’t be here,” he muttered under his breath as he kept going.

Max wasn’t running about and shouting. He was desperately trying to find her, but he wasn’t shouting her name or calling attention to her disappearance. Max was terrified. She’d run off in an unfamiliar city. Anything could have happened to her.

Sitting against an empty building, with her knees pulled up to her chest, was a girl. A girl with no coat, no jacket, who was soaking wet.

Max approached somewhat cautiously. “Y/N?” He asked and the girl looked up.

Yep, that was his Y/N. He crouched down in front of her and took in her appearance, the hair she had stuck to her face, the goose pimples all over her skin. She must have been frozen. Max himself was only in a cardigan, which was already soaked through. If he offered it to Y/N, it only would have made her colder.

Y/N wiped at her face, wiping away tears. She watched as Max held out his hand, offering it to her. “I’m an idiot,” she said over the sound of the rain.

“So am I,” Max answered.

Finally, Y/N placed her hands in his and allowed Max to pull her to her feet. They stood close, incredibly close, practically chest to chest. “I don’t want to be friends,” Y/N shouted over the sound of the rain. “I was stupid to even suggest it.”

“Yeah, you were,” Max answered, his fingers running through her wet hair.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. Max placed hers on his waist. “You’re really cold,” he said, his fingers grazing the skin beneath her shirt.

“I know,” Y/N replied, still leaning closer.

This kiss wasn’t like the one in the hotel room. Max was ready for it this time, his hands gripping her hips as she pressed her lips to her. Things were moving slowly, sweetly, her lips soft against his own. But part of Max wanted to push her up against the wall behind her, show her what he could really do. But he didn’t. She was already having a fragile night, and he didn’t want to make things worse.

When Max’s phone buzzed in his pocket, Y/N pulled away, giving him the opportunity to check it. It was the drivers groupchat, everybody worried about Y/N. “What is it?” She asked, leaning against Max with his arm around her shoulders.

“Everybody panicked when you disappeared,” Max answered as he quickly typed out a response, telling the groupchat that he had her.

The response he got wasn’t what he was expecting. It should have been, he shouldn’t have been surprised by it. Fernando Alonso, the oldest man on the grid, sent a fucking gif of Taylor Swift winking. Well, whatever he was trying to say, he wasn’t wrong.

Taglist (Open): @sticksdoesart @eviethetheatrefreak @eugene-emt-roe @glai1023-blog @mqcherie @itsjustkhaos @chonkybonky @arian-directioner @lazybot @lpab @princessria127 @fangirl125reader @honethatty12 @larastark3107 @urfavouritef1girly @cassiopeiia24 @callsign-scully @lexiecamposv @dl-yum @savagecelery @laneyspaulding19 @formulas-bitch @teenwolf01 @gayfrog29 @fictionalcomforts @avg-golden-retriever @pxppeypianotme @ruleroftheuniverse @ferrarisbitch @ashy-kit @dark-night-sky-99 @sadg3 @asmoothoperator @formula1mount @perfektpasta @redwolfxx @illicitverstappen @ttzamara

[stripedstarsblueflags]

If you could do 9 and 17 from the dialogue game for loscar it would be amazing (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠❤

I read your another one with sargebon and it's dknfkskdnsjks *explodes from emotions*, please write more🙏🙏🙏

i swear i didn’t mean to write 4.7k, but what did i wake up to this morning? no beta we die like williams public image

here you go loscar nation 💙🧡

“You can’t keep it bottled up forever.”/“Feel better now?”

Pain is temporary.

Pain is irrelevant.

Pain is invalid.

He shouldn’t have been gritting his teeth. The ache in his jaw throngs all the way down his neck, and at some point he’d bitten the side of his tongue. Oscar doesn’t remember that; he just remembers driving, the scream of the engines crowding into one meaningless cacophony, staring down the beam wing in front of him and willing the pain to end.

It didn’t. It hasn’t.

He’d known the first race was going to be bad, but he’d been confident in the adrenaline, the 5.8 kilometers of pure endorphins to keep him above it lap after lap. And it had… sort of.

The pain had spread, though. As the race went on Oscar could imagine the single fracture widening like unraveled thread, jagged edges deepening and shooting outwards until his whole body was cracked porcelain. The pain was sharp, hot, razor-wire wrapped around his chest. It was almost a reprieve to be overtaken, because then the frustration and determination to make up the place would block out everything else for just a moment.

He didn’t finish on the podium, but that was alright. It was Lewis’s moment, and anyway he could barely lift himself out of the car, let alone a crown-shaped trophy.

It was easy to smile and nod his way through the debrief, easy to let Lando do the talking. Lando didn’t know about the break. A lot of the team didn’t know, because it was supposed to be minor, it was supposed to be temporary irrelevant invalid just a little setback. And it would be. He just had to have a little breather first, ice it, give it some time.

It’s almost sunset when he leaves for the car park. He’d spent too long in his driver’s room, slumped against the wall with his shirt off, eyes firmly closed because looking at the bruising made him nauseas. He’d told Kim a little about the situation, told him he’d call if it got worse, and asked to please not let anyone disturb him. Nobody had.

He’s fumbling one-handed with his keys when a voice says, “Leaving so soon?”

Oscar nearly jumps out of his skin, his keys clatter to the ground. “Jesus christ, Logan, don’t fucking do that.”

Logan puts up his hands innocently, but the gesture is incompatible with the smirk on his face. “Not my fault you don’t look up,” he says. “I was trying to get your attention.” He’s leaning back against a telephone pole, dark blue hoodie blending in with the evening shadows. Still, Oscar can’t help but feel snuck up on.

Oscar shakes his head. “You walk too quiet.”

“That’s a weird insult.”

“You’re weird.” Oscar starts to bend over to pick up his keys, but a stabbing pain shoots all the way through to his shoulder blades and he bites back a sudden shout. He has to abandon the motion midway.

Logan walks around the car and picks up the keys. He’s pulled his sleeves up over his palms, fingertips barely visible. Oscar doesn’t really feel the cold, but there’s already a slight flush over Logan’s cheeks and nose. His lips look redder than normal.

Logan’s voice softens. “It was really bad today, huh?”

Oscar looks away, breathing around the aftershocks. His first instinct is to lie, to offer a curt and stoic denial. To snatch back his keys.

But Logan would see through any of that in an instant.

“Not great,” he admits. He can hear the grimace in his own voice. “I just need to give it some time…”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m driving.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “I just drove a Formula 1 car, I think I can handle a little traffic.”

“I’m not saying you can’t.” Logan’s smiling again, but it’s a gentle smile, knowing and fond. His eyes are bright, crinkled at the corners. He doesn’t give back the keys. “I’m saying you don’t have to. You’re staying at the Platt Hotel, right?”

”Yeah,” Oscar answers. He has half a mind to just make a grab for his keys, but the other half is thinking about left turns, how he has to move his arms so much more with a normal steering wheel. How long the drive gets at night.

“Cool, me too.” Logan looks down at the keys and unlocks the car, then steps forward and pulls open the driver’s side door. He has to get right into Oscar’s space to do it, arm practically reaching around his waist. There’s a rush of warmth as he moves closer, a fluid and unhurried step as if they’re not just millimeters apart.

Logan starts to turn back to him, and Oscar realizes that if he doesn’t step back their faces are going to get closer– a lot closer. The wind ruffles Logan’s hair, and they’re close enough that Oscar catches the scent– something fresh and summery, seawater and citrus…

He steps back in a hurry, uncharacteristically clumsy as he’s set off balance by a fresh cascade of memories. What being this close in the dark would’ve meant years ago. How they don’t touch anymore but his body recognizes the warmth, the chest-to-chest contact like a second skin. How the urge to stay in place, to reach his hands up isn’t conscious but muscle memory.

He nearly falls over at the suddenness of it all, the nostalgia that’s hit him like a truck within a single moment. Logan puts a hand on his shoulder, no more than a pat, but it’s stabilizing. “Sit in the back,” he says. “That way you can put the seatbelt on your right.”

Oscar lets Logan drive his car, and it shouldn’t remind him of anything.

Logan’s never even driven his car, this or any others. The city is unfamiliar and indifferent. They’re going to the same place, but not because it’s anybody’s home.

And then Logan connects his phone to the bluetooth, and Oscar remembers the playlist.

Seasons change and our love went cold…

From the backseat, Oscar says, “Remember the time you had to drive me back from that club?”

Logan laughs over the music. “How could I forget,” he answers, smiling at Oscar in the mirror. “You’re the worst lightweight I’ve ever seen.”

Oscar laughs even though it hurts. “It– it wasn’t that bad, I…”

“You had one drink, dude. One. And then I had to carry you off the charaoke stage.”

Oscar groans. “I was only 18. I shouldn’t have started with tequila.”

“You think?” Logan turns up the music. “Wow. What a throwback.”

I dare you to do something, I’m waiting on you again…

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Oscar points out.

“Guess not.” Logan tries to shrug and turn the wheel at the same time and ends up with something like an interpretive dance. “I just haven’t thought about it in forever.”

“Really?”

Oscar doesn’t know why his voice comes out so small, so hurt. He doesn’t know why he is hurt.

Maybe because of how the night ended.

How Logan had driven them both back to his own flat because he didn’t want to leave Oscar alone. How he’d tucked his arm around Oscar’s waist and lowered them both onto the bed because Oscar’s didn’t have the coordination. How they’d fallen asleep, and woken up, wrapped around each other.

And I still hear the echoes, the echoes…

“Just feels like a while ago,” Logan says nonchalantly, and Oscar decides to let it go. He has to let it go.

They arrive at the hotel sooner than Oscar expects.

They’d talked the whole drive home, not about anything important. Airport stories, golf, which one of them has the weirder teammate (every time Oscar thinks there’s no one wilder than Lando, Logan tells him Alex’s latest hot take in blatant defiance of all human logic, and Oscar has to concede). Even with the music, it felt somehow quiet in the car, and Oscar realized he couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had spoken alone.

They take the same lift, and Logan leans against the opposite wall. Leaning against every vertical surface in sight doesn’t come naturally to Oscar, but it suddenly looks like a good idea; his whole body aches. Sitting down in the car, his arm propped against the door, had been a reprieve. Now he’s all too aware of his own weight, his hand heavy and limp at his side like a stone. The pain in his chest is different now, less sharp and more pressure. Like the deformed seat is still around him, constrictive and unyielding. His body has been overcompensating without him even noticing, but he’s paying the price in his spine, the back of his neck.

He closes his eyes and the weight increases, a white-noise waterfall filling his head. The voice trying to catch his attention comes out muffled, incomprehensible.

“Oscar.”

Oscar flinches back into the present, which is a bad idea. He grimaces and tries to cover it up by talking too fast. “Um, sorry, what was that?”

Logan furrows his brow at him, his eyes darkening with concern. “I said ‘What floor.’”

Oscar looks at the unlit panel of buttons and realizing he’s been standing in an unmoving lift for almost a minute. “Eleven,” he says, after taking a moment to think about it.

Logan steps forward and presses the single button.

“What floor are you on?” Oscar asks, trying to sound casual.

Logan looks him up and down slowly, chewing his lower lip. He puts his hands back in his pockets and some sort of decision happens behind his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells Oscar.

On the eleventh floor, they step out together.

Oscar doesn’t even think about it. The only thing on his mind is his hotel bed, and how much he can’t wait to get in it.

It takes Logan following him into his room and closing the door behind him for his alertness to return. “Wait, why– why are you in my room?”

“What will you do after I leave?” Logan asks.

The question sounds loaded, almost like a trap. Oscar looks back at Logan, trying to search his face for any sort of answer, but his steely eyes are unreadable.

“Probably just… go to bed?” he says warily.

Logan reaches out and touches his lips.

It’s so shocking, so unexpected and jarring that Oscar completely freezes. Logan’s touch is feather-light, fingertips warm and gentle on his lower lip, drifting to the corner of his mouth.

And now the memories are back for real. How Logan’s fingers had once felt dragging through his hair, splayed over his shoulder blades, laced between his own. How his bitten-down nails had still managed to leave scratches, long red streaks, on his back. The pressure on his lips when he tucked his face into the side of Logan’s neck, pressed a kiss to the top of his head on long and empty nights, accidentally bit Logan’s lip behind the fence of a karting track because he was sixteen and stupid and had never kissed a boy before.

Logan’s voice is low, solemn, and Oscar tries to listen over the pounding of his own heartbeat.

“You have dried blood on your mouth,” Logan tells him. “You’re dehydrated. You haven’t eaten in hours. Your hair is tangled. You’re still wearing your watch. You haven’t taken your meds. You can’t keep this bottled up forever, Oss. You’re in pain.”

Oscar tries to form words, opening and closing his mouth around air before he can stutter out a sentence. Logan’s eyes are near burning with intensity. How much he sees is burning.

“I… I was gonna take care of all that.”

Logan shakes his head. “No, you weren’t,” he says.

Oscar shouldn’t let this happen.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they’d said it was over. They’d promised. It was a consensus, a mutual understanding. They both knew everything they had to lose. They’d ended it nearly three years ago and it had stayed ended.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they can’t mean anything to each other. They can’t be anything other than friends.

But that’s not what this is feeling like.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan runs a flannel under the sink and dabs the blood off Oscar’s lips, warm and wet pressure a relief against the teeth marks. When dips his fingers in the water and pushes Oscar’s hair away from his forehead, easing apart the tangles and sending tingles down his spine that are too familiar.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan takes his shirt off for him. When he lifts the fabric with careful hands, slow, steady. When Oscar whimpers as he has to lift his arm and Logan stops to let him catch his breath, free hand firm on his lower back. “Ssshhhh,” he whispers.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan sits next to him on the bed talks him into taking the painkillers, gentle and persistent. “You’ll sleep better if you take them, and you need the water.” Oscar mumbles his protests even as Logan twists the cap off a water bottle and puts it in Oscar’s hand. “It’s not weak to need help. I’m not here because you’re depending on me, I’m here because I care.”

Oscar swallows the meds and looks over at Logan. He can feel the wide-eyed, dumb shock on his own expression, because he’s not quite sure he heard right. Maybe in his exhaustion his mind was just telling him what he wanted to hear.

But Logan’s eye contact is steady, unwavering. His jaw is set. The silence that stretches between them is taught, electric.

Oscar leans closer.

”Careful,” Logan whispers, but he doesn’t pull away.

Oscar takes Logan’s face in one hand and kisses him, and it’s like they’ve never been apart.

Their lips move together and it’s like they’re eighteen, tasting alcohol on each others’ mouths and not caring, needing the contact anyway.

Oscar’s eyes slide shut and it’s like they’re seventeen, too-long phone calls over too much distance, whispering about the things they would do if they were together.

Logan cradles his jaw and it’s like they’re sixteen, but also not like that. Because then they were clumsy and unsure and heavy-handed with desire. But now Logan holds him like he knows where Oscar will break, and where he can push back.

They kiss and it’s like they never ended.

Logan pulls away too soon and Oscar chases his mouth, embarrassing and needy and not caring about it. Logan puts a hand in his hair and tugs his head back, not painfully but keeping the distance. “Breathe,” he commands.

Oscar does, not realizing how long he’d gone breathing in only Logan and abandoning oxygen. He pants, breath hot and ragged, lips wet. It hurts, but not as much.

”Feel better?” Logan whispers.

Oscar nods and closes the distance once again.

“You can’t keep it bottled up forever.”/“Feel better now?”

Pain is temporary.

Pain is irrelevant.

Pain is invalid.

He shouldn’t have been gritting his teeth. The ache in his jaw throngs all the way down his neck, and at some point he’d bitten the side of his tongue. Oscar doesn’t remember that; he just remembers driving, the scream of the engines crowding into one meaningless cacophony, staring down the beam wing in front of him and willing the pain to end.

It didn’t. It hasn’t.

He’d known the first race was going to be bad, but he’d been confident in the adrenaline, the 5.8 kilometers of pure endorphins to keep him above it lap after lap. And it had… sort of.

The pain had spread, though. As the race went on Oscar could imagine the single fracture widening like unraveled thread, jagged edges deepening and shooting outwards until his whole body was cracked porcelain. The pain was sharp, hot, razor-wire wrapped around his chest. It was almost a reprieve to be overtaken, because then the frustration and determination to make up the place would block out everything else for just a moment.

He didn’t finish on the podium, but that was alright. It was Lewis’s moment, and anyway he could barely lift himself out of the car, let alone a crown-shaped trophy.

It was easy to smile and nod his way through the debrief, easy to let Lando do the talking. Lando didn’t know about the break. A lot of the team didn’t know, because it was supposed to be minor, it was supposed to be temporary irrelevant invalid just a little setback. And it would be. He just had to have a little breather first, ice it, give it some time.

It’s almost sunset when he leaves for the car park. He’d spent too long in his driver’s room, slumped against the wall with his shirt off, eyes firmly closed because looking at the bruising made him nauseas. He’d told Kim a little about the situation, told him he’d call if it got worse, and asked to please not let anyone disturb him. Nobody had.

He’s fumbling one-handed with his keys when a voice says, “Leaving so soon?”

Oscar nearly jumps out of his skin, his keys clatter to the ground. “Jesus christ, Logan, don’t fucking do that.”

Logan puts up his hands innocently, but the gesture is incompatible with the smirk on his face. “Not my fault you don’t look up,” he says. “I was trying to get your attention.” He’s leaning back against a telephone pole, dark blue hoodie blending in with the evening shadows. Still, Oscar can’t help but feel snuck up on.

Oscar shakes his head. “You walk too quiet.”

“That’s a weird insult.”

“You’re weird.” Oscar starts to bend over to pick up his keys, but a stabbing pain shoots all the way through to his shoulder blades and he bites back a sudden shout. He has to abandon the motion midway.

Logan walks around the car and picks up the keys. He’s pulled his sleeves up over his palms, fingertips barely visible. Oscar doesn’t really feel the cold, but there’s already a slight flush over Logan’s cheeks and nose. His lips look redder than normal.

Logan’s voice softens. “It was really bad today, huh?”

Oscar looks away, breathing around the aftershocks. His first instinct is to lie, to offer a curt and stoic denial. To snatch back his keys.

But Logan would see through any of that in an instant.

“Not great,” he admits. He can hear the grimace in his own voice. “I just need to give it some time…”

“Exactly. Which is why I’m driving.”

Oscar rolls his eyes. “I just drove a Formula 1 car, I think I can handle a little traffic.”

“I’m not saying you can’t.” Logan’s smiling again, but it’s a gentle smile, knowing and fond. His eyes are bright, crinkled at the corners. He doesn’t give back the keys. “I’m saying you don’t have to. You’re staying at the Platt Hotel, right?”

”Yeah,” Oscar answers. He has half a mind to just make a grab for his keys, but the other half is thinking about left turns, how he has to move his arms so much more with a normal steering wheel. How long the drive gets at night.

“Cool, me too.” Logan looks down at the keys and unlocks the car, then steps forward and pulls open the driver’s side door. He has to get right into Oscar’s space to do it, arm practically reaching around his waist. There’s a rush of warmth as he moves closer, a fluid and unhurried step as if they’re not just millimeters apart.

Logan starts to turn back to him, and Oscar realizes that if he doesn’t step back their faces are going to get closer– a lot closer. The wind ruffles Logan’s hair, and they’re close enough that Oscar catches the scent– something fresh and summery, seawater and citrus…

He steps back in a hurry, uncharacteristically clumsy as he’s set off balance by a fresh cascade of memories. What being this close in the dark would’ve meant years ago. How they don’t touch anymore but his body recognizes the warmth, the chest-to-chest contact like a second skin. How the urge to stay in place, to reach his hands up isn’t conscious but muscle memory.

He nearly falls over at the suddenness of it all, the nostalgia that’s hit him like a truck within a single moment. Logan puts a hand on his shoulder, no more than a pat, but it’s stabilizing. “Sit in the back,” he says. “That way you can put the seatbelt on your right.”

Oscar lets Logan drive his car, and it shouldn’t remind him of anything.

Logan’s never even driven his car, this or any others. The city is unfamiliar and indifferent. They’re going to the same place, but not because it’s anybody’s home.

And then Logan connects his phone to the bluetooth, and Oscar remembers the playlist.

Seasons change and our love went cold…

From the backseat, Oscar says, “Remember the time you had to drive me back from that club?”

Logan laughs over the music. “How could I forget,” he answers, smiling at Oscar in the mirror. “You’re the worst lightweight I’ve ever seen.”

Oscar laughs even though it hurts. “It– it wasn’t that bad, I…”

“You had one drink, dude. One. And then I had to carry you off the charaoke stage.”

Oscar groans. “I was only 18. I shouldn’t have started with tequila.”

“You think?” Logan turns up the music. “Wow. What a throwback.”

I dare you to do something, I’m waiting on you again…

“It wasn’t that long ago,” Oscar points out.

“Guess not.” Logan tries to shrug and turn the wheel at the same time and ends up with something like an interpretive dance. “I just haven’t thought about it in forever.”

“Really?”

Oscar doesn’t know why his voice comes out so small, so hurt. He doesn’t know why he is hurt.

Maybe because of how the night ended.

How Logan had driven them both back to his own flat because he didn’t want to leave Oscar alone. How he’d tucked his arm around Oscar’s waist and lowered them both onto the bed because Oscar’s didn’t have the coordination. How they’d fallen asleep, and woken up, wrapped around each other.

And I still hear the echoes, the echoes…

“Just feels like a while ago,” Logan says nonchalantly, and Oscar decides to let it go. He has to let it go.

They arrive at the hotel sooner than Oscar expects.

They’d talked the whole drive home, not about anything important. Airport stories, golf, which one of them has the weirder teammate (every time Oscar thinks there’s no one wilder than Lando, Logan tells him Alex’s latest hot take in blatant defiance of all human logic, and Oscar has to concede). Even with the music, it felt somehow quiet in the car, and Oscar realized he couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had spoken alone.

They take the same lift, and Logan leans against the opposite wall. Leaning against every vertical surface in sight doesn’t come naturally to Oscar, but it suddenly looks like a good idea; his whole body aches. Sitting down in the car, his arm propped against the door, had been a reprieve. Now he’s all too aware of his own weight, his hand heavy and limp at his side like a stone. The pain in his chest is different now, less sharp and more pressure. Like the deformed seat is still around him, constrictive and unyielding. His body has been overcompensating without him even noticing, but he’s paying the price in his spine, the back of his neck.

He closes his eyes and the weight increases, a white-noise waterfall filling his head. The voice trying to catch his attention comes out muffled, incomprehensible.

“Oscar.”

Oscar flinches back into the present, which is a bad idea. He grimaces and tries to cover it up by talking too fast. “Um, sorry, what was that?”

Logan furrows his brow at him, his eyes darkening with concern. “I said ‘What floor.’”

Oscar looks at the unlit panel of buttons and realizing he’s been standing in an unmoving lift for almost a minute. “Eleven,” he says, after taking a moment to think about it.

Logan steps forward and presses the single button.

“What floor are you on?” Oscar asks, trying to sound casual.

Logan looks him up and down slowly, chewing his lower lip. He puts his hands back in his pockets and some sort of decision happens behind his eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” he tells Oscar.

On the eleventh floor, they step out together.

Oscar doesn’t even think about it. The only thing on his mind is his hotel bed, and how much he can’t wait to get in it.

It takes Logan following him into his room and closing the door behind him for his alertness to return. “Wait, why– why are you in my room?”

“What will you do after I leave?” Logan asks.

The question sounds loaded, almost like a trap. Oscar looks back at Logan, trying to search his face for any sort of answer, but his steely eyes are unreadable.

“Probably just… go to bed?” he says warily.

Logan reaches out and touches his lips.

It’s so shocking, so unexpected and jarring that Oscar completely freezes. Logan’s touch is feather-light, fingertips warm and gentle on his lower lip, drifting to the corner of his mouth.

And now the memories are back for real. How Logan’s fingers had once felt dragging through his hair, splayed over his shoulder blades, laced between his own. How his bitten-down nails had still managed to leave scratches, long red streaks, on his back. The pressure on his lips when he tucked his face into the side of Logan’s neck, pressed a kiss to the top of his head on long and empty nights, accidentally bit Logan’s lip behind the fence of a karting track because he was sixteen and stupid and had never kissed a boy before.

Logan’s voice is low, solemn, and Oscar tries to listen over the pounding of his own heartbeat.

“You have dried blood on your mouth,” Logan tells him. “You’re dehydrated. You haven’t eaten in hours. Your hair is tangled. You’re still wearing your watch. You haven’t taken your meds. You can’t keep this bottled up forever, Oss. You’re in pain.”

Oscar tries to form words, opening and closing his mouth around air before he can stutter out a sentence. Logan’s eyes are near burning with intensity. How much he sees is burning.

“I… I was gonna take care of all that.”

Logan shakes his head. “No, you weren’t,” he says.

Oscar shouldn’t let this happen.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they’d said it was over. They’d promised. It was a consensus, a mutual understanding. They both knew everything they had to lose. They’d ended it nearly three years ago and it had stayed ended.

He shouldn’t let this happen because they can’t mean anything to each other. They can’t be anything other than friends.

But that’s not what this is feeling like.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan runs a flannel under the sink and dabs the blood off Oscar’s lips, warm and wet pressure a relief against the teeth marks. When dips his fingers in the water and pushes Oscar’s hair away from his forehead, easing apart the tangles and sending tingles down his spine that are too familiar.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan takes his shirt off for him. When he lifts the fabric with careful hands, slow, steady. When Oscar whimpers as he has to lift his arm and Logan stops to let him catch his breath, free hand firm on his lower back. “Ssshhhh,” he whispers.

It doesn’t feel like friends when Logan sits next to him on the bed talks him into taking the painkillers, gentle and persistent. “You’ll sleep better if you take them, and you need the water.” Oscar mumbles his protests even as Logan twists the cap off a water bottle and puts it in Oscar’s hand. “It’s not weak to need help. I’m not here because you’re depending on me, I’m here because I care.”

Oscar swallows the meds and looks over at Logan. He can feel the wide-eyed, dumb shock on his own expression, because he’s not quite sure he heard right. Maybe in his exhaustion his mind was just telling him what he wanted to hear.

But Logan’s eye contact is steady, unwavering. His jaw is set. The silence that stretches between them is taught, electric.

Oscar leans closer.

”Careful,” Logan whispers, but he doesn’t pull away.

Oscar takes Logan’s face in one hand and kisses him, and it’s like they’ve never been apart.

Their lips move together and it’s like they’re eighteen, tasting alcohol on each others’ mouths and not caring, needing the contact anyway.

Oscar’s eyes slide shut and it’s like they’re seventeen, too-long phone calls over too much distance, whispering about the things they would do if they were together.

Logan cradles his jaw and it’s like they’re sixteen, but also not like that. Because then they were clumsy and unsure and heavy-handed with desire. But now Logan holds him like he knows where Oscar will break, and where he can push back.

They kiss and it’s like they never ended.

Logan pulls away too soon and Oscar chases his mouth, embarrassing and needy and not caring about it. Logan puts a hand in his hair and tugs his head back, not painfully but keeping the distance. “Breathe,” he commands.

Oscar does, not realizing how long he’d gone breathing in only Logan and abandoning oxygen. He pants, breath hot and ragged, lips wet. It hurts, but not as much.

”Feel better?” Logan whispers.

Oscar nods and closes the distance once again.

[b-else-writes]

the tiger shark and the sun

New chapter posted for my Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender-RebelCaptain fusion AU! Feat: prison break hijinks, unlikely team-ups, and Jyn and Han trying not to kill each other. And a bonus Enfys chapter!

Read on AO3 | read from start

Pairings: Jyn/Cassian, minor Han/Leia and Baze/Chirrut, random minor background pairings

Rating: T

Summary: Star Wars/Avatar the Last Airbender fusion AU. The Fire Nation, under  Fire Lord Palpatine and Lord Vader, has been at War with the world for  the last twenty years. When Jyn Erso lands on his doorstep the day  Cassian, last southern waterbender, is assigned to protect the Avatar,  she seems just another obstacle in ending the War. An obstacle he would  willingly remove. For exiled firebender Jyn, the Avatar is her last way  home - and to her hostaged father, never mind her own conscience. But as  their paths keep crossing, and the Avatar needs all help in saving the  world, Jyn and Cassian find they are more alike than they ever thought  possible.

Snippet under the cut!

Han was listening with half an ear as Erso poured out tea. It was a quiet night at the Western Air City. Both Luke and Leia looked sweaty from another day of Erso yelling at them to punch harder and produce more fire, worse than his old sergeant as a cadet. After that, Chirrut had put them through the paces of more earthbending training. Han absently moved a strand of hair stuck to Leia’s sweaty neck. She grunted in response and continued to lie on her stomach, face on Artoo’s belly. Han grinned to himself. He would admit he loved watching her when she was bending four elements like some kind of wrathful Spirit, but grouchy Leia was funny to bother.

“It’s nothing on Bodhi’s tea,” Erso was saying, smiling – wonders would never cease! – “But I tried my best. He also had a really bad tea joke.”

“Let’s hear it,” Chirrut, Baze, and Luke said at the same, then laughed. Han rolled his eyes behind his cup. It was some kind of black tea boiled in water and milk. Not bad. Nothing on Bodhi’s though. Han sighed to himself, hoping their resident soft-hearted anxious wreck was alright. The only people less inoffensively adorable than Bodhi Rook are probably babies. Erso refused to speak on the subject.

“*Well… I can’t remember the start,” Erso continued to her audience, “But the punchline was ‘leaf me alone, I’m bushed.’*”

“I don’t think that’d be funny even with the punchline,” Han said, as the three stooges cackled to themselves. Enfys looked up from the dusty papers she was reading, documents she’d rescued from Hynestia’s ruins, to roll her eyes at him. Pleasant enough – for a traitor. Erso’s face fell as she saw Cassian was distracted by maps and papers in front of him. Taking pity, Han spoke up, “Whatcha got there, Cassian?”

“A lot,” he said absently.

“Do tell me more,” Han said. When Cassian didn’t respond, Han reached over and poured the tea onto Cassian’s lap. Cassian nearly yelped. Kay leant over, trying to lick it. Cursing, Cassian waterbent the tea off and flung it at Han’s face, who ducked it with grace. Well, graceful for him.

“Remind me again why we’re friends,” Cassian muttered.

“I’ve got charm,” Han shrugged. Chewie snickered to himself behind him.

Feigning deafness, Cassian turned to the group. “Bunch of things. There are other battles going on and we’re trying to pull troops for the battle directly against Palpatine. Plenty of people didn’t come for the Day of Black Sun. For them -”

“The most important battles are for their homes,” Enfys finished. Cassian nodded, pointing towards marked out locations across the Earth Kingdom.

"Sullust, Troithe, Mindor, Naboo, Cato Nemoidia - there's guerilla warfare going on over the Earth Kingdom. It’s good for us in some ways. Once the Fire Lord falls, those who don’t surrender to Mon Mothma are going to dig in and become warlords if we don’t get rid of them first.”

“Joy,” Baze said under his breath. Cassian continued, “Then we’re decoding breakdowns on the Death Star from Jyn’s scroll. And we’ve started ascertaining who survived the Invasion. And if those missing were imprisoned instead of dead.”

“Anyone we know?”

Cassian’s face grew haggard, exposing the premature wrinkles. He looked less like the technically decorated war hero after the Siege of the North, and more mortal. “The death toll is…not good. But we have confirmation Lando was imprisoned.”

“No!” Luke and Leia cried, at the same time Han said, “Lando…Lando made it out?”

Suddenly Erso’s tea tasted of bile. Han set the cup down shakily. His sword lay in his lap. Its presence felt foolish. Who was he trying to kid, playing General? Lando had done most of the leading. Lando had stayed behind and paid the price for having real responsibilities. Had risked his neck to save him from Jabba. Lando and him went way back – there was a corner of the Falcon he still couldn’t quite look at after some activities back during the coaxium heist when Enfys was twelve – and now.

Leia squeezed his hand, kissing him gently. “We’ll get him out, Han,” she said fiercely. Han kissed her back, drinking in her big bright eyes, wishing he had all the power in the world like she did, and he could bust Lando straight out –

 Now, hang on a second there.

Chewie gave a nervous warble at his expression. Han told him shut up, I always have great ideas.

“Hey, Erso,” he said, as the morose group finished dinner and began to head off to bed, “Can I talk to you?”

She frowned at him suspiciously. Han raised his hands, walking off towards the edge of the atrium. She and Chewie followed after. Han stopped near the edge, staring down at the thick layer of clouds. He envied Enfys, being able to fly. Erso folded her arms expectantly. “Where would they have been imprisoned?”

“It’s better that you don’t know,” Erso said, “Knowing will make it worse.”

She turned to go. Han scowled. “Listen, Erso. He’s my friend. I owe my life to him.”

“It’s not good, Solo.”

Gritting his teeth, “Please.”

Erso paused. Her shoulders tightened. Then, “If I tell you, you’d better not do anything stupid.”

“Me? Stupid?” Erso turned and glared at him. Sobering, Han nodded, the lie easy. Erso studied him, glancing over at Chewie, who only growled.

Edging away, she continued, “There’s a story. I’ve only heard rumours. It’s called Fortress Inquisitorius. Highest security prison in the Fire Nation. They say it’s a tower in a boiling lake, on the volcano of Nur. Its run by elite benders, the Inquisitors, and Imperial Intelligence.”

“Volcano of Nur?”

“Volcano coming out of the sea. It’s only stories. People taken by the Inquisitors don’t come back. But that’s my guess for a high-level war prisoner.”

Han nodded. Erso gave him another sharp look before stalking away. “You are so paranoid!” Han called after her. She made a rude hand gesture.

Sneaking out was easier said than done. He, Luke, and Cassian all shared a large room, with Chewie sleeping on the floor. Luke had passed out immediately, but Cassian, stupid magic waterbender, had stayed up reading his papers and writing messages past midnight. Once he was certain Cassian was asleep, Han packed lightly. His sword, some picks, a dagger, food, and his personal map. He tiptoed past Cassian’s mattress. He’d explained to Chewie that there was no way he could smuggle a bear along. The bear had been instructed to warn the group if Han didn’t return in five days. Chewie had given him a big hug before that.

Han regretted leaving him behind already. Being on his own was weird. Carefully, carefully…

“Going somewhere?”

Erso dropped out of the shadows of the atrium. There was no point pretending. “It’s none of your business, Erso. I have to make this right,” Han snapped. What would Erso understand –

Okay, stupid. Erso probably understood perfectly. But this was Lando. Erso had never met him in her life. She wouldn’t get the history. Han didn’t particularly want to hurt her, but he rested his hand on his sword-hilt. She raised her hands, pausing.

He started towards the war balloon. Erso followed. “What are you doing?”

She raised a challenging brow. “I’m going with you.”

“I have to -”

“Die alone?” Erso’s eyes were hard. Was Erso, his former friend, worried about him? Han swallowed uncomfortably. “You’re going to a prison of elite benders. What exactly is your plan? Wave your sword around like a big boy?”

“Erso,” Han said warningly. She gripped the war balloon’s basket.

“Keep at this and I’ll scream my fucking head off and wake everyone up.”

Han swore. “Fine. Get in the damn balloon.”

Erso leapt fluidly over the side, landing in a crouch. With a few quick punches of her odd, rainbow flame, the balloon rose. Soon, they had left Hynestia far behind.

Han had a bad feeling about this.

keep reading

[nonasuch]

“ben solo vs. the darkest timeline” is not a real title but it’s what I’ve got for now. continued from here.

4. coming in for a landing

Most of the Resistance -- the survivors of Crait, their allies, the new recruits who’d flocked to them in the days since -- had gathered in a handful of bases and camps, scattered through territory that was far enough from the First Order’s reach to be safe. But someone needed to be the public face of the fight, still, again, and so the General was working her way through the Core, meeting with planetary leaders, negotiating, giving interviews: all her least favorite parts of the job.

When she sent Poe on the Falcon with Finn and Chewbacca and the others, he protested. She only had a handful of trusted staff with her. She only had a handful of trusted staff left.

But she held firm, like she always did. “You’ve been overclocking your engines as much as any of us -- more, even,” she said. “Go fly the Falcon for me for a few days. It might be nothing, but if the Force is telling Rey she needs to go back to Ach-To, I’m not going to argue with it. And maybe we’ll have some X-wings for you, by the time you get back.”

What she didn’t say, but Poe heard clearly anyway, was: they weren’t fighting for their lives every minute, any more, but Poe was having a hard time acting like it. He’d already gotten people killed. If he didn’t get his head together, he’d be the kind of liability that the General couldn’t afford.

So Poe went. And when they got to Ach-To, they found someone impossible.

Poe knew Ben Solo, was the thing. He’d known him as a spotty, scowling kid with a whipcrack sense of humor. It was a lot easier to imagine that kid growing up into the guy they found than into the monster that still dogged Poe’s nightmares.

But the monster was what had really happened, and so it was hard for Poe to look at Ben Solo and see anyone else.

Ben seemed to sense this, or maybe he’d just grown into someone who could read a room better than he ever did as a kid. If Poe came into the main cabin when Ben was there, he found some polite excuse and left by the time Poe’s palms got clammy. If Ben came in while Poe was there, he didn’t stay long.

Their third day in transit, Poe found Ben sitting on the floor by the dejarik table with his eyes closed. The handful of times Poe had been to the Jedi temple or the school, before they were destroyed, he’d seen people meditating: sitting tailor-fashion, breathing slow, faces peaceful. But Ben had his knees drawn up in front of him and a frown on his face, though his eyes were closed, and he didn’t seem to notice that he wasn’t alone.

Poe was supposed to relieve Chewbacca at the helm, but he found himself caught, stuck there standing in the middle of the cabin and staring at Ben like an idiot. Poe wasn’t Force-touched, but he had the dim sense of something filling the room, some presence bigger than a person could possibly be.

He’d felt it around Kylo Ren, too, only then it had seethed with menace, a thick fog of fear and rage that made it hard to think straight. This was nothing like that. It wasn’t all joy and light, but it thinned out at the edges, bleeding off the turmoil at the center: the kind of cloud his X-wing could skim over and through in an instant, where Kylo Ren had been the center of a cyclone.

After a while, the cloud dissipated entirely, and Ben opened his eyes. He blinked up at Poe, surprised and a little bleary. Poe knew that expression. He’d found the General drooping over reports, half-asleep at her desk, and seen it there.

“Sorry,” Ben said. “I can go.”

“It’s all right,” said Poe. “I have to go take over for Chewie in a minute. What was that? I could feel it, and I’m not even Force-sensitive.”

“I mean, you probably are a little,” said Ben. “Most good pilots are. But I didn’t mean to be that loud, I’ve just -- got a lot on my mind.”

“No shit,” said Poe. Ben smiled, and Poe knew that expression too: the same grim amusement the General wore, when you were both stuck in the same bad situation.

“Listen,” said Ben, “I don’t know what happened, and to be honest I don’t know that I want to. Finn said he helped you escape from the other version of me. You clearly don’t want me around, and I’m sure it’s for a good reason. But you’ve spent more time with Ma -- with this version of her -- than anyone else here, so if you can stand it I’d like to talk.”

Poe’s palms were clammy again. “Talk to Chewbacca,” he said.

Ben shook his head. “He says they haven’t spent much time together at all, since the other me fucked everything up. She’s your commanding officer. You’ve known her your whole life. Is she -- is she doing okay?”

Poe took a breath, and wiped his hands on his pant legs as discreetly as he could. “It’s complicated,” he said. “C’mon, take the co-pilot’s seat and we can talk.”

Ben followed him in, at enough of a distance that he didn’t loom. Chewbacca made a questioning noise when he saw that Poe wasn’t alone, but Ben said “It’s fine, I won’t be long.” Chewie shrugged, and gave up his seat to Poe.

Ben folded himself into the other seat with familiar ease. He studied the console, reached out as though he was about to start flipping switches, and then drew back. He stayed silent, contained, all that Force-presence under wraps again.

Poe looked out through the viewscreen, at the stars flashing by. Having flight controls under his hands was steadying, like it always was. “She took it hard,” he said. “First General Solo, and now her brother. Most of our people who fought in the Rebellion are gone. She’s doing too much, carrying too much, but there’s no one to hand it off to.”

“Yeah,” said Ben. “That sounds about right.”

It was easier to sit like this, both of them looking out at the path ahead. Easier to separate them: the monster, and the man he could have been.

“He fucked with my head,” said Poe. “Kylo Ren. He wanted information, and he wasn’t careful about getting it.” He didn’t turn to look, but he heard Ben sigh, and the chair creaked like he was slumping into it.

“Yeah,” Ben said again. “That sounds about right.”

“Can you fix it?” said Poe, eyes still fixed on the viewscreen.

“I don’t know,” said Ben. “I don’t know exactly what he did -- I didn’t want to look any closer without permission, under the circumstances.”

“Permission granted,” Poe said. It came out sounding a little strangled, but he meant it.

They arrived a few days later, ship’s evening, mid-afternoon by local time. Poe didn’t feel any better, exactly, but he didn’t break out in a cold sweat every time Ben came near him, and he’d unloaded all his worries about the General to someone who might actually be able to help.

So that was something.

As they came in to land, Ben leaned over the back of the copilot’s chair to look out at the view. Rey frowned up at him for a moment, distracted, but Poe had the helm and the Falcon flew steady and true.

Ben said, “You know, I haven’t been back to Chandrila in months. There’s this little Corellian-style noodle joint by the spaceport that’s just unbelievably good, in my version of the universe.”

“Huh,” said Poe. His hands on the controls didn’t waver. “I think we have that one, too.”

5. chandrila

They put in at the edge of the spaceport, well away from the pomp and circumstance of the diplomatic landing zone. Ma was waiting at the foot of the ramp, no one else in sight but Threepio and Connix a little further back.

Ben tried to do the polite thing and keep his shields up, reining in his Force-sense as far back as he could pull it. He saw Rey notice him doing it, and try to imitate him, as they prepared to go out and meet the General.

“Don’t try to stuff all that power into a box that can’t hold it,” Ben told her. “It’ll pop, or scorch, or worse. You can just let some of it go, for, now; it’ll come back when you need it.” He tried to show her what he meant, easing up his hold on the Force around him long enough for her to see.

“Oh! I get it,” said Rey, with a bright flash like circuits connecting. She closed her eyes for a moment. The perpetual spotlight she walked around in stopped being quite so blinding, with some of the extra wattage safely returned to its source.

Ma saw the whole thing, Ben knew, even before he came down the ramp and they could see each other with just their eyes. But she was better at shielding than him, always had been, and the Force didn’t tell him much about her reaction to it.

She looked tired. Thinner and greyer than the version of her he’d seen last. More lines on her face than his own Ma, the one who reigned calmly over the controlled chaos that was the base on D’Quar.

Ben felt huge and conspicuous under her steady gaze, awkward in a way that he hadn’t since shortly after his last growth spurt. “Hi, Ma,” he said.

“Chewie tells me that you’re from a parallel universe,” she said. “That’s a new one.”

“Yeah, for me too,” he said. “Sounds like your version of me is a real shithead. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she said. “It wasn’t you that did -- any of that. Was it?”

“No, but,” Ben began, and then stopped. It wasn’t, after all. “I’m just sorry, I guess. That it happened. That he couldn’t sort himself out, and he hurt you and Dad.”

“Oh, Ben,” she said, and her shields cracked, enough that Ben could see how much she was hurting. He gave up on propriety.

Ben flung himself across the space between them, and found yet another thing that was the same across universes. He was still so tall that hugging Ma properly meant folding himself up around her in a way that made his back hurt, and was still absolutely worth doing.

Ma was staying in the same neighborhood where she and Dad kept an apartment in Ben’s version of the universe. But this apartment was in a different building and, apparently, on loan from the Calrissians.

“Lando’s okay?” Ben said, with undisguised relief. Ma nodded.

“He didn’t get our distress call from Crait until after it was all over,” she said. “So he’s trying to make up for it with lavish gifts.”

Not the only one, said Chewbacca. The kitchen of the place was crammed with fruit, flowers, baskets of delicacies from Ma’s political contacts and admirers, most of which she hadn’t even cracked the wrappers on. I’m appointing myself your poison-taster again, yeah?

“Sure,” said Ma. “Knock yourself out.”

You three, with me. You all need feeding up, Chewie said.

He herded Rey and Rose and Finn into the kitchen. Poe had already gone off with Connix, and the droids chased Threepio after them. So it was just Ben, and his mother. The General. The version of Leia Organa who’d lost nearly everyone and everything she loved.

Ma looked at him like he hurt her eyes, but not looking would hurt more. She looked small, sitting there on the big expensive couch that, in any of the places his parents had ever called home, would have lasted about ten minutes in its current pristine state.

“So,” she said, “How’re you holding up, kid?”

Ben laughed, the kind that was halfway to crying, and sank down onto the seat next to her. “No offense,” he said, “but I don’t know if I like your universe all that much.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

Ben mm-hmmed emphatically and tugged at her elbow, until she unbent a little and let him put his arm around her. He could see it, now, how much she was carrying, how much better off she’d be if she let the Force take some of the weight. But he wasn’t sure he had any right to tell her so. She wasn’t his Ma, not really, and he wasn’t the Ben who had broken her heart.

He asked the Force to lend him some of the peace he couldn’t summon up on his own, and when it answered he felt Ma’s wonder at how easily it came.

“You just have to ask,” he said. “It’ll never turn a Skywalker down, you know that.”

“That’s always been the problem,” Ma said. Which was fair enough, considering.

Ben nodded. “The hard part’s knowing what to ask for. That, and admitting you need the help.”

“Tell me about it,” Ma said, wry as his own Ma, but so much wearier.

“Yeah,” was all Ben could think to say. It was easier to just leave his shields down than try to put any of it into words. He’d been so relieved to be rescued, when he was stranded back on Ach-To. Knowing what he knew now, he might have preferred to stay stranded, but for the way Ma was radiating relief, the solace he seemed to be providing somehow.

After a while, Ma nudged him a little in the ribs. “You can, you know,” she said. “Tell me about it. How things turned out, for you.”

“Would that help?” Ben said. If it were him, it would just make him regret the might-have-beens even more.

Which he didn’t say out loud, but Ma still said “Oh, I’ll regret the might-have-beens anyway. Go on, it’ll be nice to hear some good news for a change.”

Ben could feel Rey’s curiosity leaking in from the kitchen, and Finn’s a little quieter behind that. He asked the Force to shoo them back out, and it obliged. This wasn’t any of their business, just yet.

“Okay,” Ben said. “Well. Before we evacuated to Ach-To, I was at the Temple with Luke. We only had a few people get their Mastery this spring, and the new crop of candidates was bigger than usual.”

“You’re one of the teachers?” Ma asked.

“When I’m not doing your paperwork or putting out Force-sized fires,” Ben said.

“It sounds like you’re good at it,” Ma said.

“I do okay,” said Ben. “Honestly I prefer the Force-sized fires.”

“Mm-hm,” said Ma. “That runs in the family, too.”

[honeylikewords]

Talk to me about tros!!!! I need to know about Poe!!

Okay, I’m finally sitting down to answer this anon, and a few things before I start!

1. Most of what I’m going to say will really only make sense if you go see The Rise of Skywalker yourself. While it’s far from a perfect movie, it’d take way too long for me to try and transcribe everything that happens in the film, and the context and nuance of certain scenes. So, yeah, while it’s not a good movie, if you’re invested in seeing how the movies have played out, you should probably go see it yourself.

2. I have some... mixed feelings about the movie. I also know that what I don’t like, I can choose to ignore; despite the disappointments of the series, I don’t have to take Rian or JJ’s bullshit as MY canon. I get to decide what I do and don’t adhere to as canon. Everyone else has their own varying scales of how they respond to canon-- some are super adherent to canon, some don’t care about anything at all-- and that’s fine. So although I have beef with how all this unfolded, I also know that I can take my love that I have for the characters (and all the potential that The Force Awakens had) and carry that on through my own interpretations, re-writes, et cetera, and I can choose to ignore the poor decisionmaking on the parts of Disney and Rian/JJ/who-the-fuck-ever. 

3. This ask is very open-ended, so I’m going to have to put some parameters down for myself because otherwise I’d get too overwhelmed with the breadth of information I’d need to present about TRoS. A comprehensive review would be really hard to write out, so I’ll just list some initial impressions (I haven’t been able to see it a second time, but likely will in the near future), and some of the relevant Poe-related issues in the films. If you wanna know more, feel free to send in more specific questions (specificity can help, because with my neurotype, I can easily be overwhelmed by large, “general” questions, and getting more granular can help me rein in and focus on a specific idea)!

4. Also, this post isn’t going to be friendly to R*ylo or people who straightwash Poe/are only interested in him as a straight guy. R*ylo is fucking gross, and I’m gonna rip it apart in this post, and Poe isn’t straight. I try not to be too aggressive on here (I’m generally not very aggressive at all!), but the fandom is just so toxic and vile at times that I feel like I need to put my foot down on these topics and say a firm “no” to R*ylos and Poe straightwashers. Oh, and I’ll be talking about the racism in the movie, as well as in the fandom, so buckle up for that, too. So consider this the “bigots begone!” spell as I wave my wand and attempt to shoo them all away!

Anyway...

From here down are spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. If you’re interested in seeing the movie spoiler-free, please scoot waaaaay past this post! Last warning!

And, with that out of the way, here we go!

Alright, here’s a list of stuff as it occurs to me. I’m almost overwhelmed with information, so it’s hard to condense my thoughts, but I’ll try my best!

1. The whole Zorri thing was a fucking nightmare, but not as bad as it could have been. It was really bad, believe me, but, like, it can be ignored easily (though if you’re anything like me, it’ll still leave a sour taste in your mouth). Like I predicted, Zorri was introduced to straightwash Poe and effectively quash any queer interpretations of his character and relationship with Finn. 

But, like, Poe and Zorri had no chemistry. It was almost embarrassing; they were clearly trying to work the “badass woman” angle, but, eh, she was just, basically, a minor blip on the radar; incredibly boring, incredibly useless, and just, like, a “sexy lamp” that could easily have been replaced. She added literally nothing to the film and was blatantly just an insert to try and prevent people from being able to make the case for a queer Poe. But, too bad, Disney! Poe is pansexual, dumbasses!

Oh, and while I’m on the topic of Poe’s queerness, I should add that I’m not really a big FinnPoe, myself; when it got big after the release of The Force Awakens, if felt like just another creepy Tumblr fetishization of male relationships, so that really set the tone for how I’d see it in the coming years. It’s grievously oversexualized on this site, but I also respect that, for many actually queer fans, the ship represents seeing themselves in Star Wars, and I do totally see their bond as canon. I completely acknowledge that Oscar wanted to represent the queer fans who wanted his character to be queer, and in that way, FinnPoe is definitely canon in some form! 

So, I do have a complex relationship with FinnPoe, in that it’s not my personal favorite ship (I vastly prefer FinnRey, since I never really felt that Finn and Poe had a romantic tension, but felt that Finn and Rey did), but I do respect the importance of it for queer fans and for trying to push at the limitations a major series like Star Wars has had for so long. Star Wars has been dominated as a straight, cishet, white man’s fandom; it’s time other people got a chance to love it and see themselves in this vast universe, too.

The cast also seems to be leaning into FinnPoe as a form of protest against censorship and homophobia in the fandoms and film world. They’re using their positions as major film stars to push back and say “hey, queer folks belong here, too”, and that’s so great!

But, anyway, the point is, Zorri sucked, and Poe’s not straight. He’s certainly capable of being attracted to women, but he’s not a straight dude, because he’s equally capable of being attracted to men and nonbinary people as well. 

Thankfully, Zorri and Poe never actually form a relationship in TRoS. He jokes about asking for a kiss, she tells him to go, and then he, at the end, sort of motions his head as if to say “wanna go kiss?” and she, again, tells him no, which he shrugs off. It’s pretty shitty, but easy to ignore.

Anyway, Poe is pan, Finn is pan, Lando is pan, Luke Skywalker is gay and nonbinary, Rey is nonbinary and probably ace, maybe interested in girls, I’m still ironing my hcs for her out, and no one can stop me! Go ahead and try to kill me, Disney (and homophobic Star Wars fans); if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!

2. Poe’s “backstory” is such a fucking trainwreck. They basically tried to nix a bunch of what was already canonically established in order to, get this, make Poe a drug dealer. 

It’s a little more complex-- the idea is that Poe was a pilot for a group of pirates for about six years, from the age of 16 until he was 22-ish, and ran Spice, the drug in Star Wars-- but it’s also not. It’s really bad. 

Way to take a canonically noble, hardworking, Latino character and reduce him to the most shitty, racist stereotype imaginable. I’ve already complained about him not needing a “dark” past, but this? This is somehow worse than him being, like, a bounty hunter, because it carries political implications and is just such a stock, trash stereotype that we don’t need in this world or in our fantasies. It’s ridiculous, and I refuse to acknowledge it.

Worse yet, it’s said that Poe “ran away from home” to join the pirates to “avoid responsibility” at age 16... dude, Poe has been shown in EVERY PRIOR CANONICAL APPEARANCE TO CRAVE NOTHING BUT RESPONSIBILITY. Yes, he’s a hothead, but he’s responsible! He wants to labor and take on caring for others because he’s a hardworking, compassionate, headstrong man! Ugh!

I could go off forever about this, but I’m already feeling myself grinding my teeth, and for the sake of my blood pressure and psychological wellbeing I’m not going to make myself go feral over it right now. Deep breaths, K, deep breaths...

3. In things I did like: Poe got promoted to general, and he made Finn a general alongside him. He really grew into his position, and I’m so proud to see him as General Dameron of the Resistance. He deserves it. 

4. Poe and Finn had SO many good scenes and such great chemistry. I loved seeing them bounce off each other, and their relationship made me laugh and smile and feel warm, even as everything else was falling apart. I love my boys!

5. Poe gets grossed out by bones. Canon. Love a squeamish king.

6. Oh, ugh, I just remembered that they tried to frame Poe and Rey as having an aggressive relationship with each other and I rolled my eyes. How dumb can they be? Ugh. I don’t even have the energy to try and unpack how ridiculous all that is. More deep breaths...

7. In terms of the worst thing to happen in the movie... R*ylo, like, gets shoehorned in. Honestly, looking back at all the predictions I made a few months back, I’m entirely right; everything I predicted came to pass. This included.

It was shitty and bad and nearly all the cast has spoken out against it now that their contracts with Disney aren’t as binding, and seeing it happen on the big screen was just... oh my god, it was horrifying.

It really was.

But thankfully, Kylo died, so the ship can’t really continue! Yeehaw!

8. I actually did like parts of the ending. I’ll talk about that more if anyone asks more specific questions, but right now, I’m kinda burning out because of the wide net this ask casts, so I’ll have to defer for the moment.

At any rate, it all happened exactly the way I thought it would, bleh. Like, so much shit in the movie went down exactly the way my TRoS predictions post said, it’s almost scary. 

Honestly, though, just running through all this is exhausting me; I really can’t make myself go through it all in this particular format. So, I’ll just leave this here as it is, and if anyone has any specific questions-- what I thought of specific moments, characters, scenes, etc-- send an ask! But this is all just really wide and general and burning my brain out to try and process it all again, so more specificity in future asks might help me stay more on track and not get overwhelmed trying to explain every single thing all at once. 

I have tons and tons of thoughts about it, ranging from what I loved to what I’d have done different about the whole series, but I just don’t have the psychological wherewithal to make myself write everything out in one giant, dense, indecipherable post: it’s just all too much, so I’d need to break it down into smaller, more specific questions.

This probably isn’t a super-satisfying answer, but feel free to just send specific asks and I’ll answer them, no matter how many! It just helps to have a specific line of thought to follow, so feel free to ask about each individual thing and I’ll try to answer!

Thanks!