albinomilksnake | STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

Believe what you want. But I've never been afraid of my son.

[ his eyes scour the mask greedily, finding the dings and scratches of previous battles, finding his own reflection in the polished metal — but no sign of his boy.

with his heart in his mouth ( and on his sleeves and living in his face ), han's fingers twitch. as if he would pull the wretched mask off himself. as if he would reach for ben. his hands remain, useless, at his sides. ]

Are you going to take that off?

[An issue that's mutual, it seems. Too long the air hangs thick between them, Kylo's breath rasping heavy through electronic sensors where he feels his jaw flex tight. The words don't come-- any of them: all the things he regretted, all the pain he caused (for all his excuses he knew it, he's always known how much a hand he had in driving them away) seeping in through his own pores until it's drowning, stifling.

I'm not your son.

And his own gloved fingertips find the latches of his mask, prying it loose with ease once automatic switches peel back. It's so heavy. More than metal, dragging down across his palm as if straining for the artificial beating heart of a star housed in generators and byways beneath their feet. His eyes burn red at the corners, and he realizes then the tears he's already wearing. Remorse the only white flag some long-forgotten part of him has left to wave.

He grits his teeth; he hates-- and he pleads-- wordless in that dying light.]

[ air exits his lungs in a soft exhale wanting to be a sigh. his boy had left home so young. then, in a few short years, they lost contact, lost sight. lost him.

that had been the last straw. the shadow of his son lingering in the house, in the empty spaces, in his own visage…it became unbearable. without planning it, he packed the falcon, took with him only chewie and his loss, and somewhere along the way decided I'm not coming back. it'll be better for leia, he convinced himself. their son was gone. he was gone.

or so han had told himself over and over as hope, that dangerous thing, retreated into a space smaller and smaller. hope was always there. how else could he agree so readily with leia. why else would he have made this trip, that phrase rumbling in his head: there is still light in him. how else does he look upon kylo ren and find the corner of his mouth lifting in a ghost of a smile.

gone is the childish roundness to his face, the eternally curious glint in his eyes. the hair once kept short has grown longer. somewhere along the way, his boy became a man. and then han cannot help himself any longer. he lifts a hand to ben's face. on instinct, as he used to so many years ago, his thumb brushes a soft arc over ben's cheek. ]

[He doesn't dare blink, face hot from tears clinging to agitated eyelids - stare flickering as it darts from the pull of Solo's mouth to the set of his eyes. It's been more years than he can count since they last stood with so little space between them, and the scratch of worn skin across his cheek tightens the grip he's boring down into that metal held fast in his own hand.

He could kill him. Without a second thought he could snap bone or burn clean through flesh, more a potent threat than the boy they'd sent away from their side. So why, then-- why risk it, why care now when it's already too far spread to be stopped? Poison in his veins, his guarded, barely beating heart, and no matter how he hedges on reaching into the thoughts of the man he's staring down, he can't understand it.

The mask falls, hitting the catwalk beneath their feet hard enough to shake it like plasteel fibers, clamping down on Han's wrist with the opposite arm if only to leave his own weapon hand free.] It's too late.

[Kylo Ren, the man that effectively erased Ben Solo, doubted his father would ever find the courage to turn and face his own mistakes but Snoke knew all along, and something about it all has the acrid taste of bile settled across the back of his tongue. The idea he was only ever destined to fall so predictably short. Too much like Vader to serve as a Jedi, too weak to the Light to act as a Sith.

He can't let that be true.] Ben Solo is dead.

I don't believe that. [ spoken with the brusqueness of his youth — there's no mystical energy field controlling my destiny — and certainty born of something else.

were it anyone else, he being grabbed, his blaster would already be pressed into the other's temple, finger on the trigger. if han really didn't care, he wouldn't have granted even those few seconds of reprieve. but he wasn't sent there to eliminate a key figure to the first order. hell, he wouldn't be here at all if big deal over there hadn't needed a pilot as good as he was reckless. in his youth, there were few he wouldn't have shot for breathing too loudly.

with a hand clamped over his wrist and stormtrooper crosshairs centered on him, the fastest draw in the galaxy leaves his blaster in his holster. he takes aim with a different weapon. ]

Your mother doesn't believe it, either.

[She tried. She tried so hard to understand the whispers that had haunted him since birth. In the barest seconds where clarity hits his senses rather than resolute, hardened vitriol (memories twisted by his own perceptions, mantras meant to make loyalty the only option) he remembers all those times that her thoughts settled heavy over his own. How she thought she could block out the darkness-- Snoke's hungry, searching reach-- and how wrong she'd been, how much it terrified her, the Dark Side and the Light pooling so fervently underneath his skin.

If he had no faith in Solo's fatherly devotion, his mother, on the other hand...

The grip he's keeping doesn't loosen. Not physically.] I can't.

[There's no part of this scenario that would go beautifully: the stormtroopers could be dealt with, but Starkiller itself would persist, obliterating their supposedly sequestered base where it lies. Even then, he can't count himself amongst their ranks, nor promise than once the warmth of this moment recedes, he'll keep from lashing out again.] And you've no hope of success. Surrender.

[ another day, someone else, he would have laughed. han solo does not surrender. he picks a fight, runs away. but surrender has never been an option. even when there was no hope of success. that was when they did the impossible. they — he and chewbacca, the princess, the two droids…and luke.

once upon a time, a son saved his father, and brought balance to the force. there is hope. his son is not lost. his son is alive, and as long as he is… ]

Yes, you can.

[ he does not try to pull away. nor does he acknowledge the choice of surrender. there is no surrender possible. he will walk out of here with his son or —

well, he has never been one for an exit plan. too late to start now. ]

Come home, [ he beseeches. ] We can go home. Now.

[And in that moment there's a certain cold decisiveness to it, how quick Ben is to wrench his father's hand down and back, turning him to let it brace where it's been pinned against his spine. He's there stooped in just over Han Solo's shoulder, eyes dark and hawkish as they scan the scaffolding ahead, noting every available detail, every possible strategy: the number of troopers, the wookie-- the girl and her turncoat companion, a tangle of distress ringing clear across the distance.]

Set off the charges.

[Solo still has a free hand, after all; if he took the opportunity to prey upon Kylo Ren's sentimental weakness, the First Order would see nothing extraordinary in it.]

[ for half a second — okay, maybe more of a second — he was sure he hadn't been able to. the most important task in his mostly inglorious life, and he failed to reach ben.

then he hears the words, set off the charges, and something a lot like joy flutters weakly in his chest. even with his arm trapped behind him, it only beats stronger. han disregards the stormtroopers, the two watching above, to find chewie, one large hand gripping the railing, and staring down at them with an intensity han recognizes and has only seen a handful of times before, each time when han was two minutes from dying. mouth pressed into a thin line, han gives a slight downward jerk to his chin.

decades together allows chewie to translate han's meaning even at a distance. though chewbacca visibly hesitates, they have been working too long now for him not to trust han. the wookiee palms the detonator. ( they both knew. they never discussed it. maybe neither really thought about it. but they both knew.

there was only one way han would walk out of here. )

the explosion sends tongues of fire outwards and up. he has to close his eyes against the intensity of the fireball. the shouts and screams of those caught in the blast are lost to the tortuous screech of metal breaking and scraping the walls on its way into the pit. the shock extends to them on the walkway in vibrations that seep through the soles of his shoes and through his bones. han is grateful for the arm at his back. it keeps him steady.

when he opens his eyes, he sees chewbacca trading blaster fire with the stormtroopers. rey and finn fire on them from above. his hand twitches for his own blaster. instead, he finds ben's arm, tugs him along. ]

We have to go! Come on!

Edited 2016-01-02 21:46 (UTC)

[He keeps his hold a second too long after Solo urges him on, tense to the point of near inaction from the strain broiling beneath his skin. Snoke's earlier promise echoes in his ears, bears down over his shoulders so that even once his grip goes slack, he isn't moving: stock-still over the rattling platform. It isn't regret for the choice made, but there's a limit to his capacity to play into this fantasy. The ability to shrug off his tether to the past.

Han Solo could escape certain death yet again, a living legend to the last.] Go.

[Better that Ben stays dead. Better to face Snoke's wrath than his mother's misery after so many years.

He leans in for a beat, stare hardened despite flush cheeks and raw, red eyes.] You're running out of time.

[ he understands a second before ben speaks. and in that second his brow knits, and his jaw tightens. a light of defiance that burned low in the decades since he first made a name for himself as general solo, hero of the rebellion comes into his eyes.

once upon a time, he helped rescue a princess and blow up a death star. he saved his friend, led his own troop, faced darth vader himself. and for a time, he allowed himself to believe it was over. they won. luke aspired to return the jedi to their former glory; han settled into the first family he could remember having. they both had such hope… ]

I'm not leaving without you. [ his mistake was sending ben away. their mistake, but it was his for agreeing, for thinking ben was better off without him. in a life full of regrets, that will always be the one that stands out. he had one thing to do. one task, more important than anything before it or after. and he sent his son from his side.

chewbacca roars for him to hurry. han remains planted on the bridge. he has no smartass observation, no strict order. nor is he begging anymore. this was the man who was lowered into a carbonite freezing chamber with no thought in his head for himself, and only for the person he loved made to watch.

this won't make up for his failure before. sad truth of his life is he has always been slow to do the right thing. but late as he is, it is not late for ben. not yet. ]

We go or we stay, [ he says with uncharacteristic dignity, ] but we do it together.

[Aside from the stolen memories of someone else (Rey - how bitter he'd been the moment he peeled back her thoughts and found Han Solo standing there, looking at her with pride and unworthy affection) he's never seen the man so committed. Moored and anchored and grounded in a way that grips what little light is left in him, kindling it like a dying flame. The pain of his own conflict is there-- always there, always wounding his resolve-- but lessened. Abated and subdued, and, for once, manageable.

His hand goes for the saber at his hip, unclasping it, but leaving it inactive under the weight of his palm.]

Go. [He says it again, urgency apparent in the way his voice catches.] I'll be right behind you.

[ not a second too soon. the heat of the fires reach them where they stand. han is more shocked the violent vibrations haven't yet knocked him off the narrow walkway. but with ben's assurance, in a moment there and gone, the corner of his mouth lifts in a rare, old smile.

the closer he gets to the chaos, the sharper the ozone smell of blaster bolts. of the stormtroopers that had followed ben, less than a handful remain. they more than have their hands full shooting at the kids above. as he hurries, chewbacca blasts a trooper that would have intersected them. han has his own blaster in hand. time may have slowed him somewhat, but his aim remains as deadly as ever. ]

Get moving! [ han hollers at chewie over the din. ] This place is going to fall around our ears!

[Which predictably, it does: grates crash, catwalks collapse, but for someone so proficient with the Force, Ben manages to shield both Han and himself from any significant damage. No shrapnel blocks their path for long, and within minutes they've cleared the area enough to be well out of any immediate danger, huddled up in the snow outside.

The conversation that follows-- predictably-- is less pleasant. It ends only because the Resistance eventually secures their world-shattering attack and leaves all five of them needing a viable escape route: again Ben tries to leave, and again, he's urged on.

He doesn't watch the resulting collapse. Nor does he cheer at the helm alongside Rey and Finn and Chewbacca, or share glances with the man that was once his father. Instead he keeps to the hull of the ship, in some small, forgotten cargo room, dread rising like bile in his throat. Uneasy. Fearful.

Snoke would know soon, if he didn't already.]

[ they've pulled the impossible and stolen victory at the last second. it might be thirty years ago. everyone aboard has some bone to pick with him. the sense of déjà vu threatens to knock him back.

if he could distance himself from the situation, he would understand. they've dealt a blow that the first order will be feeling for years. but the resistance is still struggling, crippled further by the loss of the republic. on board, they carry one of the key members of the first order, a powerful once-jedi who cannot be easily restrained and with whom half the passengers have a personal vendetta.

it had been an even half split, except han has never held to democratic ideals aboard his ship. he is captain of the falcon. what he says goes. anyone who has a problem with that can float home. finn and rey remained vehemently against the idea, finn more so. rey had looked between him and ben with sharp, seeing eyes in a way that made han certain she knew. han ignored them while he made the preparations for lightspeed, ignored chewbacca's soft grumbled questions. for once, he focused entirely on the controls wanting to get home.

he had lost everything: his son, his wife, his ship. then two crazy kids flew the falcon back into his hands. he reunited with his wife ( still as beautiful as she ever was and he still as big of a fool in love. ) and his son has returned.

the moment the ship makes the jump, he vacates his seat at the cockpit. he passes a hand along the walls while he walks. the falcon hums contentedly. the girl did a good job with her. with a little effort and a lot of love, the falcon will be flying as well as she ever did. it'll be something to keep them all occupied while they figure out their next move.

but he's getting ahead of himself. when he steps into the small space, han takes in ben's form. he had known his boy happy, smug, frustrated, angry. it was that last one that he could not handle, as quick to anger as he is and as impotent as he had felt to cut through that mounting rage. he thought nothing could be worse than to see his boy grow more and more discontent with each passing day. the little boy who was toddling after him as soon as he learned to walk, who would mimic him in all he did, whom he would sit on his lap aboard the falcon and guide his hands over the control panel so ben would love the rush of flying as much as he did.

that was before he came face to face with his son's anguish.

the hand that drops on ben's shoulder is heavily callused and not as strong as it once was. but the warm squeeze is as steady as the ship around them. han chooses to remain standing, silent a long time until, ]

I'm proud of you. [ abrupt. quiet. the words worn from the many times he turned them over, polished them, wished he had spoken them before. ] What you're doing…it takes a lot of guts.

[They're no longer in the moment; whatever hungry weakness sought out Han Solo's hand as a means to escape has passed, and his jaw winds up once contact is back on he table, contempt a bitter, bitter pill. Not for the weight of tired fingers, or for Han Solo, but for himself, and no amount of praise can act as a balm in the face of that fact.]

Don't.

[Snapped out, hands draped across his knees, face still angled downwards, tilting only enough to address the man standing just over his shoulder.] I have existed this long without your praise; I need none of it now.

[The ones that crave it are still keeping to the front of the ship - so eager for attention he hardly needs to lean on the Force to feel it.]

I know. [ sobered; almost an apology. ] It's still true.

[ as much as he wants to clasp ben to him again, han resists. he steps aside, his hand dropping. he finds a spot on a crate and sits heavily on it, head falling back against the wall with a small sigh. the space is limited; ben picked well. all that's missing is the "no soliciting" sign out on the wall. han's been in tighter spaces, however, and with worse company.

he isn't so oblivious as to think he's welcome. as far as han is concerned, ben can go on hating him the rest of his life. he has any anger well-earned. so much can still go wrong. the odds remain stacked against them, all of them. but seeing him on the ship, away from the first order, away from snoke, and seeing how much he's grown…

all he feels is content.

he had almost forgotten what that felt like. ]

[He can see it in Solo's eyes, hear it in his voice how brimming he is with contentment. A world of possibilities lying at an old man's fingertips-- few could truly say the same when life so often narrows the path once time has run its course.

His own lip curls, frown deepening. Rey has no reason to trust his intentions after everything she's seen (how competent she proved herself without so much as an ounce of training still sparks envy somewhere low in his chest) and FN-2187--

No. He rejects this happy fantasy, and he rejects the idea of what he's become - whatever his would-be father sees when he looks at him: overwhelming and insufficient all at once. He'll never be more than what he is, in that Snoke was correct.

But he protected the only thing that had ever truly mattered to Ben Solo. That's enough.]

He would have been relieved to hear you speak those words.

[Draw a line in the sand. Keep the man at bay; let him make no mistake that this is not his son.]

[ han recognizes the attempt for what it is. it isn't as upsetting as it might have been. what ben — kylo ren, whatever — views as a way to distance himself from the situation, han sees as further proof. and the emotion that flourished with reckless abandon in his chest isn't dented by the implied rejection.

elbows on his knees, he looks to the side. a hint of an ironic smile flashes across his face. leia may have been right about him being able to reach ben, but she's the good speaker. he usually just talks long enough to buy himself some time. leia is the vibroblade whereas he has always prided himself on being a hammer. it's served him this long. ]

You helped us escape. [ his eyes find ben's. ] Chewie and me will attest to that. When we get there, you can walk in and walk out same as us. Leia's going to want you close; she's dreamt of you.

[ he lacks the finesse for a subtle barb. instead, he says things as they are. call him the biggest fool in the galaxy, but he's not going to suffer anyone clapping binders on ben. ( whether anyone could get close enough is the better question, but he doesn't bother asking. ) if he knows anything about the general — there's plenty he doesn't know, but he prides himself on knowing her — she won't tolerate it either. he has the freedom to go wherever and do whatever…with only one obvious exception.

he splays his fingers, palms up. ]

It's up to you.

[She's dreamt of you - his eyes snap up, all pretense lost in some brief show of unguarded sincerity where his expression is too open, too--

He doesn't know. Cynicism and bitterness were his only truths for what feels like ages. Long enough for his father to grow old, for the whole world to turn upside down and leave him here in some too small space with emotion welling like a knot inside his chest.

If he sees her, he'll never want to leave; it's a dangerous gambit.

He swallows, dry and audible.] You've stayed by her side.

[It's a compliment. The only one he can manage to put to words, even if it doesn't sound like it - he never imagined Han Solo could well and truly function without false freedom. He was wrong.]

[ old losses shutter his expression. he studies some point in the air. the ghosts of years linger at the edges of his vision. ]

Not as long as I should have. [ those first few years had been awful. not like the ones that followed were any better. but those ones right after… luke, vanished. ben, responsible. they, made to look at themselves and wonder what went wrong. if only they hadn't sent him away. if only they had understood him better. if only.

if he had a credit for every what if he nursed, he could buy his own system. han shakes his head as if trying to disperse the memories. ]

It would have been longer if it hadn't been for that droid. [ "that droid" that needs no name. only half the galaxy was looking for it. ]

--what? [Snapped out, every bit as demanding as he'd ever been wearing the mask of Kylo Ren, though it's all blatant confusion painted out across his expression. He doesn't know what some BB-8 unit could have possibly done to bring them both together (or was it the other way around?) outside of its immediate relation to Skywalker or how it's meant to be relevant to him. And, predictably, his only consistent response is to angrily hunt down a more appropriate answer.

At least he's not choking anyone.]

Edited (It's 3am ) 2016-01-15 12:28 (UTC)

[ #growth

han greets the reaction with as much bewilderment. ]

The BB unit. It was aboard the Falcon when I took her back.

I know what droid you meant-- [His jaw is unnaturally tight, stare entirely narrowed. He remembers Snoke having told him the unit was in the hands of Han Solo-- remembers the twisted, searching expression he wore as he hunted for a reaction. His own face feels hot; he's folding his arms and it's a more viable option than letting his fingers curl or reach for what they instinctively want to do.]

You left her, didn't you.

[For once in your life Han, speak plainly.]

[ oh. ]

Yeah. I left. [ he leans back, visibly chagrined. this is not a conversation he thought of having with his son. ever. ] I was stupid. I thought she'd be better off somehow.

[ he claps his hands over his knees, elbows jutting out. it had felt necessary. he couldn't stand the eyes with which leia looked at him: grieving and wanting and full of something he didn't peer at too closely because that meant taking a longer look at himself. running was always easier. ]

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