wonderbit - Tumblr blog

[wonderbit]

And I’m running through these walls tonight

Hi, yes, so, with all the Leia’s hair headcanons and phil-the-stone‘s horizontal tango on the way to Bespin ask the other day… I wrote a thing. Han catches Leia with her hair down. (Rated very, very M for adult content.)

Mood music: “Believe” by Mumford & Sons

50 themes set from 50themes1sentence (set Epsilon).

And also, hat tip to Phil for proofing THANKS BUDDY.

[wonderbit]

we were young together chris/darren, pg-13

early glee fic! [read on ao3]

There’s a moment in time where it all feels right to Darren.

This boy, sitting across from him. That smile, so shy. Looking at him like he’s got the answer to some kind of puzzle. Looking proud and stubborn and beautiful. Looking untouchable, except -

He wasn’t. He was so, so touchable. All Darren had to do was just reach out, and-

He did.

Keep reading

[wonderbit]

what do you think the relationship b/w han and ben was like? what made ben say to rey that han would have disappointed her as a father, to say that he (ben) himself was weak and foolish—like his father? i need to KNOW

There is a small (tiny, infinitesimal, you couldn’t find it with a goddamn pinpoint scope) part of Han Solo that is disappointed, when Leia says their son will be strong with the Force. It’s not—he’s fine with all the mumbo-jumbo these days, what with Leia knowing the big news before it ever hits the holonet, and Luke traipsing all over the galaxy with an ever-growing gaggle of students.

(padawans, han, luke says every time, they’re called padawans.

yeah, I don’t know what dusty scroll you dragged that out of, but it should have stayed there, han always says, laughing)

But he thought…it would have been nice, to just have someone else on the side, the shit-human side, where they couldn’t wiggle their hands around and reorder the cosmos.

Still, Ben is just a kid then, hungry and sleepy and stubborn as his mother, with a laugh like Han’s—the Force thing is such a small shard lodged in his cardiac muscle, he lets the pain of it go, ease away. He teaches Ben to cheat at sarlacc and tells every story he’s got fit for a child. It’s probably the only time in his life he actually likes being a war hero, when he’s stopped on the street and Ben beams, holds on a little tighter as though to stay by Han forever.

(but the shard is still there, waiting to slip and impale his heart, and—)

It’s slower than he’d have thought, when he starts coming back from a supply run and Ben isn’t at the door, busy in lessons with Luke or meditating in his room, off alone—always alone. Ben was always a fussy kid, stubborn; now his screaming fights with Leia become a regular event, the same temper in both of them creating an echo chamber that shakes the transparisteel. Things break and twist in on themselves and Han can’t do anything, can’t stop it. When he tries, Ben sets his jaw, turns away.

He only reaches for Han after the worst of the nightmares, now. And when he’s screamed and shaken himself awake, he pulls his hand back like it burns.

(this is absolutely normal, Luke says, and Han exhales, trying not to go boneless from relief. good, he says. good. At least if every Jedi kid has to go through this—

no, han, Luke says gently. It’s normal for an ungrateful, emotional kid raised by people who love him, instead of the back alleys of Corellia. Believe me, my uncle and aunt could have told you. It’s just….normal. Ordinary normal.

Han almost wishes it had been a jedi thing. He has never felt so young and unready, as in that moment.)

They are not going to send their son to the temple, he and Leia agreed. She has too many memories of being ushered away from her mother and father, down a corridor ‘for her safety’—she will not do the same. His memories of his parents are hazy, brief, but he fought a war to keep this little family alive, he will not surrender his son offworld. Not even to Luke.

And then they receive an urgent comm from his school, both of them arriving to find their son with blood slicked down his shirtfront. I didn’t mean to, he babbles, and his eyes are wide, dark. The med droid is saying something about shock, but all Han hears is ‘not his blood’, the words knocking around his skull hollowly. I didn’t—I was just practicing—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I tried to help—I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.

The rest happens so quickly that he has to piece it together in his memory; he and Leia lying in bed, cradling her hand as she cries, silently; Ben saying in a small voice, I’ll be good, please don’t—and then a sudden absence, comms that Ben won’t answer, silence, silence, stilted comms, silence. Silence. 

Luke on their doorstep, hollow-eyed and blood on his robes. When he opens his mouth, the only thing that comes out is the voice of a farmboy Han knew once. He says, I’m so sorry.

There’s a strange symmetry, to be standing, twenty years later before a son Han Solo once had—that shard still aching and festering in his breast, an ever-open wound that has poisoned everything he ever loved. Even this. Especially this.

he’s gotten so tall.

weak and foolish, like his father, Ben snarls, and Han wants to laugh, he does, because isn’t that just the Force-damned truth, and he wishes he could push his way into Ben’s head, show him, yes, yes, I wish I had given you that too, but I didn’t know how good it was, that weakness. I was ashamed, and I gave you that instead.

I was young too. I’m sorry.

he knew that fucking shard would kill him, someday. It burns like a lightsaber, through his heart.

[wonderbit]

I don’t have a real answer that I feel in my bones or anything, so instead here is something I sometimes think about:

Timey-wimey-ness being what it is, and the meta-crisis Doctor being who he is, what if it’s like – he’s already bound for that universe, for Pete’s World, and those events are already in motion, those events have already happened, those events are always happening.

And it’s there, in him, a sloppily-knotted bundle of timelines lurking, waiting to be lived. And maybe he has the faculties to untie them himself, or maybe he doesn’t, but it’s a messy gift he is definitely able to give, to share, a copy-paste he can achieve in a brief moment still on-board the TARDIS, while everyone else is looking away.

And so he shoves them over, a casual thing that’s not casual at all, and the Time Lord tucks them aside, the way you do with something, emotions, maybe, that you don’t have time to deal with right now, because you know if you do, if you stop to dwell at all, it’s going to wreck you, and you’re not going to be able to get anything done, and so you soldier on, until it’s a better time.

From there, the meta-crisis Doctor goes to Pete’s World, and he, the half-human he, never peeks, never even tries to see if he’s able, sure, he’s tempted sometimes, a threat from Jackie Tyler that if he ruins her vow renewal ceremony, she’ll string him up by his pants, and wouldn’t it be nice to know going into that? Maybe skip the pants if he’s at risk? But he doesn’t look, and he doesn’t try, and he peels each scrap of paper from the gift in order, finding out each new thing at the exact same time Rose does. Because really, that was a gift to them, and they should open it together.

But back on the TARDIS, the gift-giver with a gift received, and he circles it for days, weeks, months, light years and miles and a universe of planets, and he’ll poke it at sometimes, looking at it sideways. When he does, there are out-of-order bits, he gets a flash of Rose with a little blonde girl and he doesn’t know who she is. He gets a snapshot of Rose in anger, fizzing rage suddenly materializing in his own veins. There’s a still frame of Rose beneath him, naked and resting on dark sheets, and that one he can guess at, and that one, too, sets something sparking through his blood.

Eventually though, he breaks. He puts the TARDIS into the Vortex, and he sits on the sofa, and he rips the whole thing open, all in one go. A novel consumed in quadruple time, but it’s a work of non-fiction, this book, and he knows the author. There’s everything laid out before him, nervous kisses and sloppy kisses, first times and frantic times, hands held in affection and hands clenched in frustration, all of it, all of it, all of it, and it’s too much and it’s not enough, because he can feel it and he can see it, but he’ll never be able to live it. Those planets where the air is toxic to Time Lords, and flippant and smug, and why would he even want to go there anyway? But he does want to, every single time, and he wants to this time, more than he ever has before.

But he can’t and he won’t and his song is ending soon.

Instead he goes back to his book, illustrated with photos that he’ll never get to take, and he comforts himself that, at least, it has a happy ending.

[wonderbit]

It’s the first time he’s watched Christmas like this. The first time he’s watched it spread slow through the air, unpacking and quiet, bit by bit and so very linear.

The shops, then the banks, the weather, and the neighbors, he watches, and they all fall. Wreaths arrive and jingle bells jingle, lights and cards and now now now.

But he’s felt Christmas, he knows it on the day, and he’ll get there in his own time. Or he’ll get there in Rose’s.

Jackie jumps next, a shopping list and too much tinsel, plus poor, willing Pete, up there on the roof. He helps, of course, because it’s only polite.

Tony almost breaks him, scrambling onto Santa’s lap, wide eyes and a nervous smile. He buys the photo for his wallet, but he doesn’t tell Rose, and she doesn’t ask.

It comes on in small ways though, this holiday cheer. Snowmen in the park, marshmallows on cocoa, a fire in the fireplace, they escape, they take over, and it’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas alone in the shower, where Rose can’t hear.

There’s a few presents he’s got tucked away, but they could be presents for anything, really. And he stole most of them, not bought, from a ship in a different universe.

Jackie tells him that’s called re-gifting – or possibly a crime.

He tells Jackie her tree is crooked – or possibly not straight.

Then there’s a day Rose tastes like peppermint, and he tastes like biscuits, and there’s mistletoe everywhere he looks.

She buys him a box, and they paint it blue, and the star on top looks so lonely. They add one for everything they’ve lost, and everything they’ve gained, pinprick holes and jagged edges, and it lights from the inside. Their home, and Rose, and the way his heart nearly glows.

(It does, it does.)

[wonderbit]

First Bad Things Happen Bingo/Whumptober prompt is here! This one's for @breakfastteatime, who requested "Locked in a Freezer."

“Did it ever get this cold on Bracca?”

Of all the questions Cal is expecting, he couldn’t have predicted this one. It’s not exactly a laugh that puffs out of him, crystallizing instantly, but it’s an approximation. True humor deserted them a while back, probably right around the time they stopped shivering and registered that they might actually be dying.

“No,” he says. “I mean, it felt awful if you got soaked through during a long shift. The wind could be cold. But not like this.”

Keep reading

[wonderbit]

Today's story is for the anon who requested 'Talk to me':

Cere will never say it to Cal, but it is surreal watching him sink into an echo. Maybe plummet would be a better word. It’s not the little ones that consume him; those he can tune into the same way he listens to music while someone else is talking to him. No, it’s the big ones that temporarily erase his grasp on the present, his own existence and perceptions temporarily overwritten.

And it’s Cere’s fault. She didn’t think. He’s still recovering from Nur, unable to join her and Merrin on Dathomir. Merrin thought it would be as good a place as any to lay low for a while, and with Cal laid up and Cere reconnecting to the Force, she’d decided to explore the Zeffo tomb for herself. She’d found an old relic – a tiny depiction of the Zeffo sage Kujet – and taken it back to the ship. She’d handed it to Cal and lost him immediately. Thankfully he’d been sat in the lounge, reading from a datapad.

At least Cere caught the datapad before it hit the ground.

It's been an entire minute now, and Cal shows no signs of emerging. BD-1 looks up at Cere, whimpering with concern. If BD’s worried, maybe Cere should be too. BD’s been at Cal’s side for more of these than anyone else, so he knows best.

And then Cal cries out in a language Cere doesn’t know and returns to the present with an awful howl of pain. The artifact falls from his hand. He falls forward, sweating, shuddering and dry retching. Cere doesn’t risk touching him, not yet. Instead, she projects a sense of peace and calm she doesn’t entirely feel.

He grunts, hand coming up to protect his chest. He’s too distracted, caught between two time periods, to shield, and his pain rings out for Cere to catch and deflect.

“Hold on,” she tells him, getting to her feet. “I’ll get you something for that.”

Cere hurries to the med kit and digs out one of their better painkillers. Cal’s told her before that the stronger the echo, the worse the backlash. He’s in enough pain already; he doesn’t need to endure more.

When she turns back to the lounge, Cal is still hunched over, but he now has one hand resting on BD’s head. He’s breathing slowly and carefully, eyes closed, lips pressed together. He’s deathly pale, a sheen of sweat clinging to him.

“Cal?” Cere calls quietly.

“Mmm, here,” he murmurs.

“I’m going to give you a painkiller.” It is not optional.

He hums in agreement and allows Cere to deliver the hypo. It gets to work quickly, and Cal is soon on his feet, swaying, and determinedly aiming himself at the engine room. His shielding, while not great, is better than before, but Cere knows him well enough now to know he is overwhelmed and upset.

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“It’s fine,” he says in a tone that says it definitely isn’t. Not that he’s angry with her. No, it’s that whatever he saw left him completely horrified. He presses a hand to his head, pushing his hair back. “I’m fine.”

“You’re a fine liar,” Cere says gently. She stands, hovering nearby in case his legs give out. “Talk to me, Cal. What did you see?” She doesn’t want him to linger on something nightmarish.

“No.” His voice cracks. She watches him massage his forehead, hears the tension in his voice. “Not now.”

“Okay,” she says, keeping her voice low. “BD, go on ahead and turn off all the lights.”

BD takes off and Cal slowly ambles after him. Once he’s gone, Cere closes the door to the back half of the ship, then crouches down and plucks the offending object off the ground. She hears footsteps and sees Greez and Merrin boarding the ship. Cere hushes them before they can loudly announce whatever explorations they got up to, even though she’s curious to know how well Greez got over his fear of the entire planet.

“What’s wrong?” Greez asks.

Cere puts the tiny Zeffo statuette on the table.

Greez gets it immediately. “Oh no.”

Merrin takes slightly longer. “He had a vision,” she surmises.

“An echo, yes,” Cere says. “It was not a good one.”

They all resolve to keep quiet. Dathomir is not a loud place, not anymore, and the sun is well on its way to setting when Cere senses Cal awakening. She waits until she’s sure he’s awake and comfortable, then heads to the engine room and knocks gently on the doorframe. Cal looks over at her, as does BD, who’s sat at Cal’s side. He’s not as pale as before, and the tension and pain has faded.

“How are you feeling?” she asks.

“Better,” he says. “Sorry. With a migraine like that I had to be in a dark room, otherwise it would’ve been messy..”

“It’s fine,” Cere says. “I’m sorry for not thinking it through before handing you the statuette.”

“Don’t worry,” Cal says. “It’s not the first or the last time that’s gonna happen.” He takes a deep breath and pulls himself into a seated position. Cere takes it as her cue to join him on his bed, placing her hand between them. He rests his over it, and squeezes back when she closes her fingers around his. “It was a memento carved by a loved one, held by someone desperately trying to resist Kujet’s will. Kujet was mad with power, consumed with paranoia, saw everyone and everything as a threat to his reign. The Zeffonian who carved it held it as they died, smothered and suffocated by Kujet. They… they were assaulted, their mind torn to shreds by nightmarish hallucinations as their lungs filled with ash.” He holds Cere’s hand tighter. “And it all felt like it happened to me.”

He doesn’t need her to tell him it didn’t, he’s safe, Kujet can’t hurt him now. BD beeps softly, planting himself on Cal’s lap. Cal smiles at his friend, then leans over, head resting on Cere’s shoulder. “I’m okay now,” he says.

“It’s alright if you aren’t,” Cere replies.

“I am,” Cal says with a certainty spoiled by a yawn. “Ow.” He presses a hand to his chest. “This is getting old,” he grumbles. “I should meditate,” he mumbles through another yawn.

Cere gives his hair a ruffle. “Alright,” she says. “Take as long as you need. And BD?”

BD beeps eagerly.

“Come and get me if Cal falls asleep again.”

Chuckling in his funny, buzzy way, BD promises to do exactly that.

“Rude.” Cal sits up and releases her hand. “Cere? It wasn’t your fault. I’m always going to sense echoes. That’s just the way I am.”

“I know,” she says, standing. “And you know you can always talk to me about any of them. You don’t need to keep it all in anymore.”

“Thanks, Cere.”

And with that, Cere leaves him to meditate.

[wonderbit]

i know you've written about leia's wife braids, but have you ever written about the significance of padme's hairstyles? or do leia's styles mimic her mother's, maybe on purpose, maybe not?

Oh absolutely Leia’s hairstyles mimic her mother’s—Breha taught her all about traditional Alderaanian braids, the practical art of plaiting them as much as the subtleties of meaning. Leia remembers those lessons, long after the songs and rituals and histories of her planet have faded from her memory. Even when she is older than her mother will ever be, she can shut her eyes and be there again, sitting in front of her mother’s gilt mirror as Breha ran the comb through her hair in long, sure strokes. (Only Breha could do that—Leia has been brought to tears, trying to unknot the long length of her hair, and every stylist she’s ever had struggled with some unspeakable tangle, but Breha never did, never would. Leia’s mother was magic.) 

Breha would tell Leia stories, her voice rising and falling with the stroke of the brush. Stories of Queen Osama, who had once dragged her people into war with a badly-placed curl, and the great Lady of Kinsul, whose braids had been so fine that a gungan queen had fallen in love with her. And Breha would say, I teach you this, as my mother taught me, and as her mother taught her, in an unbroken line stretching back through the blood of Alderaan’s queens, to time before memory. When we plait our braids, we weave and re-weave all the history of our mothers, and our people.

(After the Death Star, Leia used to dream that Alderaan’s dead queens came in the night and ran their pale hands over her braids, making sure she had not forgotten, had not cheated with strings or sprays or any pins not carved from the wood of he kapok tree. Then the dead would kiss her, and tuck their stories in her hair. You must carry them for us now, they would say. 

Leia Organa does not remember a time when her head was not heavy.)

[wonderbit]

I finished Jedi: Survivor about a week ago and it's all I've been able to think/talk about, so here are some wholesome (i think) headcanons I have about Kata and Merrin's relationship.

Kata loves spending time with Merrin not only because she thinks her magic is wonderful, but because she feels warm. The imperial facility she lived in was always cold, and Merrin represents just the opposite of that.

Merrin wanted Kata to have something from Dathomir, so she decided to remove a piece of the neacklace that Ilyana gave her, and turn it into a neacklace for Kata. She loves it and wears it very proudly.

Cal could see that Kata was always trying to mimic Merrin, so during his trips, he's always on the look for black/red child sized clothes.

Kata has nightmares. At first she would just cry herself to sleep, but one night she decided to go to the engine room where Cal and Merrin sleep. She woke Merrin up and asked her if she could sleep with her.

Even if Merrin knew that Kata would say no, she always asked if she wanted to sleep with Cal and her. Kata always preferred to go back to her own bed with Merrin.

That became a tradition for them, and even though Cal felt a little sad that Kata never woke him up, he loved seeing Kata in Merrin's arms in the morning.

One night though, Kata had one nightmare, and instead of asking Merrin if she could go to her bed, she asked if she could sleep with them.

Cal almost cried (maybe he did) when Kata hugged his arm like a plushie and then she fell asleep.

[wonderbit]

Fuck you and your fucking meta tags. It's rude. And by that I mean more please.

sometimes, when leia is alone (she is always alone, these days) she thinks they could have made it without ben.

this is a horrible thought, and ordinarily she keeps it in that black box buried deep in her chest—under her rage, and grief, a thick layer of enduring hatred for the man who was called darth vader. The black box is locked, but sometimes she takes out the key. Even ugliness must be aired out, or it grows stiff, calcifies. 

leia is too heavy already.

so. this is the truth: she and han might have made it without ben.

it had just—it had been so fast. there was a war, and then a republic, and then a child, and then the child was having screaming nightmares, screaming fits, wracked by invisible threats neither of them understood very well. she was distracted, made claustrophobic with han’s closeness and ben’s clinging, still wearing the shackles of obligation (alderaan and the republic, the sainted fucking republic) even though her father’s map showed only blank space past the part marked ‘VICTORY’.

she remembers so many evenings turning to look at han, exhausted and frustrated, only to find him staring at the horizon. that old joke—what’s han solo allergic to? air he’s been breathing too long.

ben had changed everything, colored every interaction. he was the black hole she and han had spent all their time orbiting, trying to avoid the event horizon of his needing. and he had needed so much—ben had demanded everything, all of them, every bit, and they had been too young, too unready, too selfish to cope. they’d torn into one another, torn themselves to shreds trying.

(it is important you understand that she does not hate ben, does not resent him. she loves ben. she loves ben so much that her love might be the only thing that escapes the black hole of him, where Light never did. 

but unlike her brother, leia has never believed that love is enough. she’s sorry for it, you have to understand that too.)

still, if there hadn’t been—if she and han had only been friends, lovers, two soldiers who survived a war and liked the people they were around one another, they could have. she knows they could have.

they could have had those golden afternoons on endor, in the wake of the emperor’s death, and the raucous nights on coruscant, after the concordance was signed. they could have sorted out their traumas—or not, been fucked up and fought, thrown things, made up. broken up. gone to their separate corners of the galaxy, and come together again. rinse, repeat. repeat. repeat.

(she’d always liked him that way—sidling into her life with a sheepish grin, still smelling of the falcon, needling her into that bright-hard irritation that focused her, lifted her gaze, made her blood hum. her very own pirate, come to steal her heart, her kiss, her patience, and then gone again, in a swathe of starlight.)

maybe they would have even gotten married—though when leia imagines this, they are both much older. (he has grey at his temples. she is rounder at the hips.) it is informal, and slow, since there is no seven months-pregnant bride to complain about her feet. han kisses her with practiced ease. their honeymoon is her apartments on coruscant, not a few nights snatched in between constitutional debates.

the imaginary leia makes generous donations to orphanages with the outrageous sums her wild husband wins in ship races. this is as close as she gets to motherhood.

(did you ever—regret—? han asked once, one of the rare moments of unvarnished honesty she got with him.

I don’t know how to answer that, leia answered, shoving the black box deeper into her dark recesses. she had laid her hand on han’s chest, and felt his heart beating under her hand; she remembers how strong it was, how true. I don’t know.)

[wonderbit]

I haven’t been posting any writing, so to combat that, I’m going to post a try at dialogue ;_;

After a few weeks, Rey thinks she’s found the method that will push him toward the future she saw.

“I’m not speaking to you,” she informs him.

The corners of his mouth twitch, and his eyebrow raises as if to ask — you’re not?

She blinks, and scowls. “Well, right this second I’m speaking to you, to tell you. But after this, I’m not speaking to you. I’m giving you the silent treatment.”

“The silent treatment,” he repeats. This time, his lips really do curve up the slightest amount.

Keep reading

[wonderbit]

Out Of My Head

Quick 4x14 reaction fic.

He blames Blaine. He started it. Their conversations had been mostly neutral if just a little tentative after the holidays, then working up to a friendly light banter.

Until Kurt gets a call while he’s walking home one day, coat pulled up high around his neck to stave off the sharp bite of the air. 

“Tina’s being weird.” Blaine. With absolutely no lead in whatsoever. 

“Going through a ska phase weird or sacrificing goats weird?” 

Blaine chuckles, and Kurt can hear rustling in the background, can picture him settling back against his pillows; shoes kicked off and down to his undershirt the way he always is after school, shedding layers and pretense all at once.

Read More

[wonderbit]

*meets u in dark alley wearing a trench coat* got any fic recs

[wonderbit]

Ten(or tentoo) and rose, 39 and/or 61?

Going with 61, and Ten. This is a very loose definition of ‘morning’. 

It’s early, or rather, very late. They’ve just stumbled back to the TARDIS, after a week spent revolutionising a colony against their corrupt leadership and both of them are nearly dead on their feet. 

Rose slumps against the console as the Doctor wearily pilots them into a lazy orbit around the local moon.

“Let’s go to bed,” the Doctor murmurs, reaching for Rose’s hand and tugging her up from where she is resting against the console. 

“Don’t wanna move,” Rose slurs, and the Doctor tugs harder. She lurches forward and falls into his arms. He stumbles back, and jostles her until she’s leaning against him, and he’s got one arm snugged against her waist. They lean on each other as he walks them down the corridor towards a bed. 

He doesn’t pay any mind to where he’s going, just picks the first door the TARDIS puts in their way and draws Rose through it with him, and then gently pushes her towards the bed. She strips as she moves, and he watches her. She’s forgotten he’s here, and she’s careless and graceless and it’s beautiful. 

He catches her up before she tumbles into bed, and runs his hands up the length of her arms, and then up into her hair, to pull her face towards him to kiss. The kiss is sloppy with exhaustion, and she collapses backwards at the barest suggestion of pressure from him and he follows her down. 

The Doctor strips, divesting himself of shirt and tie and trousers and pants, and Rose arches under his questing hands, murmuring something nonsensical just under her breath. He chuckles and leans down, pressing his mouth to the join of her neck and shoulder and Rose shudders - full body and liquid - against him. 

“Doctor,” she moans, “’m tired.” 

“I know,” he says, and his hands still. “We can sleep if you like.” 

“No,” she says, “not too tired for this.” 

He takes her softly - his hips barely move against hers and he tips them over the edge so gently, Rose barely has time to react. Her mouth drops open on an ‘o’ of quiet surprise, and then she goes boneless beneath him. 

She’s asleep before he gets the blankets up over them, and he kisses her forehead, before sinking down behind her, and pressing his nose into the skin of her shoulder. 

[wonderbit]

hold a hand for cover

hold a hand for cover by vashtaneradas

they’ve still got all the money in the world, all the big nights and bigger houses, all the people at their doors with singles and album deals and promises of more, they still have all of that, and they will forever. the only thing they’ve burnt through is each other.

or, two years after the band, harry and louis bump into each other for the first time.

[wonderbit]

has anyone else ever had a fanfic that just... haunts them? like it's been months and maybe even years since you read it, but it just lingers with you and you can never truly leave behind the imprint it made on you? and maybe it's just a single line, one sentence that you can't shake off, that takes up residence in your mind and stays there, feeding into your psyche and subtly influencing your brainspace and maybe even your writing or other works?

[wonderbit]

FIC | another city (better than this one)

[READ ON AO3]

“It’s ‘Solo’ now.”

Ben offers it up before Lando can even open his mouth; abrupt and with a whole mess of badly-hidden nerves. For the moment, the kid is sitting cross-legged on a drum of tibanna gas, picking at a hole in his leggings despite the bulky stun-cuffs binding his wrists together. He keeps darting black looks at the patrolmen flanking him on either side, and scowling. He’s fifteen, Lando guesses; give or take a few years (Lando hasn’t been keeping track) and has mastered the art of scowling with his whole body, every inch of him lending itself to the effort.

He’s grown another foot since Lando saw him last; it adds up to a lot of scowling.

“You really should be more creative with your aliases,” Lando says mildly. “I’ve had every anagram of ‘Skywalker’ flagged since the first time you tried to run away from home.”

“Yeah, well, the droid was recording the manifest,” Ben mutters. “Can’t mind-trick a droid into letting you slip by.” 

He shrugs, though it looks more like an awkward twitch. The kid’s all awkwardness, from the absurd slope of his mouth to the way he hunches his shoulders in, like he’s somehow attempting to make himself smaller. The effect is like a bantha trying to pass for a housecat.

Lando snorts. “My advice is the same, pick smarter aliases. Something random, next time.”

Ben shoots him a look and Lando sighs, gesturing for the patrolmen to remove the stun-cuffs. “Why ‘Solo’ all of a sudden?” Lando asks. “You and Leia fighting again?”

Ben hunches over further, the ragged mop of his hair hiding his eyes. It must have been bad, whatever argument he and Leia got into; Ben only cuts his hair when it’s bad. 

Most of Lando’s memories if Ben feature a kid wearing complicated braids—it was an Alderaanian tradition, and it had been a point of pride for Leia to pass on something to her son, Lando knew. He also knew that before being shipped off to Luke, Ben had screamed and screamed and when that didn’t work, he took a pair of scissors and sheared off every strand of hair long enough to braid. Leia had been devastated, and since then, the length of Ben’s hair has become a reliable indicator of how long it’s been since the last serious fight with his mother. 

Lando wonders if it’ll ever be long enough to braid again.

Ben is silent, even when the patrolmen move take off the cuffs. (He clenches his fists when they move in close, and Lando panics, dizzily thinking, if he tries anything—

Ben abruptly flattens his hands out again, as though he can hear Lando thinking it. No one ends up choking on air, or thrown off the dock by a vast, invisible strength; it’s enough and Lando forces himself to relax, breathe.)

“I can handle things from here, thank you,” Lando says to the patrolmen after the cuffs have been removed. He dismisses them with a weary smile, making a private note to follow up after and ensure the paperwork for this particular incident disappears into the ether. 

It’s not the first time Ben decided stow himself away on a ship headed for Cloud City, but it had been easier when he was younger. Leia could call in favors to keep transport grounded, and Han could follow the trail, catch Ben before he got off-world. Captains were suspicious of a child trying to talk his way onto a freighter. The kid only managed to get off Chandrila once before, and then only because he’d snuck in through the exhaust and wedged himself beneath an empty tibanna tank, unnoticed until the freighter was already in hyperspace.

Now that Ben’s come into his inheritance as a Jedi, Lando doubts anyone but Luke could stop him from going wherever he pleases. And clearly, Luke’s falling down on the job.

Lando studies the sullen line of Ben’s mouth. “Does Luke even know you’re here?” he asks.

Ben has gone back to picking at the hole in his leggings. “No,” he says finally. “He probably hasn’t even noticed I’m gone. The—school keeps him busy.”

Lando’s never heard anyone say ‘school’ with as much venom as Ben manages to fit into that single word.

Briefly Lando shuts his eyes, imagining the evening he had planned—the nice decanter of Kuat sherry, minimal paperwork, the sweet possibility that the mine’s handsome new investor would stop by, as he’d suggested he might. It had been a beautiful dream, Lando had been looking forward to realizing it.

Lando sighs, and scrubs a hand over his face.

“Okay, kid. Okay. Here’s the plan. First, we’re going to comm Luke and let him know that you’re not dead. Then you can fill out the application for a temporary residency permit, so you can actually stay in the City longer than a standard day. After that’s finished, I’m having someone fix your hair, because people are going to think you’re some sort of spice-addled vagrant if you walk around like that.”

Ben doesn’t actually smile, but the hard line of his scowl softens a little. “Okay,” he says.

He signs the temporary residency permit ‘Ben Solo’. Lando decides not to mention how uncertainly he scrawls that name, like it belongs to someone else.

.

.

Keep reading