[AO3 Crosspost] Sandstorm

[terresdebrume]

✗ TECHNICAL DETAILS

FANDOM: Star Wars Movies
RATING: Teen & Up
WORDCOUNT: 1 662
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca
GENRE: Turning points
TRIGGER WARNING(S): Slavery is a theme throughout the series. No story-specific warning.
SUMMARY: Luke, at this point, has been a slave for over half of his life, and should know better than to forget it. Usually it works well enough–but then usually, there’s no Ben Kenobi to try and take him to Alderaan.
DEDICATION(S): To @kavkakat, whose fic rec sparked this whole adventure, and of course to @fialleril, whose Tatooine slave culture headcanons are a large influence on my understanding of the Skywalkers in general and Luke in particular. (I hope this won’t make either of them cringe :P)
NOTE(S): Many thanks to @soleriane for betaing the story!

TEETH OF THE DESERT: [LJ Masterpost] [AO3 Series]

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There’s a sandstorm in Luke’s chest when he reaches his alcove above Hangar Nine, fingers shivering with the age-old rage of those who forgot, even for a moment, that their life belonged to another.

Not for long, no—just long enough to hurt.

Chewie says you’re looking for a passage to the Alderaan system?

The cot looks smaller than it did this morning, scavenged material worn thin and sand nestled in all the creases. Bile rises in Luke’s throat as his vision fills with brown, cutting winds howling in his ears as he surveys his meager possessions—all shivering with the rest of the structure.

Myself, the boy, two droids.

Luke always told himself he’d never forget what he was—and yet, here he is.

For the best second of his life, he thought he’d go away! Elation louder than a krayt boomed against his ribs, the hopes and wishes of a lifetime flooded his head with longing and then—Han’s surprise.

A sad tilt to his eyebrows. His mouth, hanging open as he searched for the right words to say, and Kenobi looking from one of them to the other as if looking for the answer to a riddle.

Luke remembers the intense burn of shame, sand-colored fury filling his vision, and the sharp noise of a chair clattering to the ground as he left the Cantina as fast as he could manage.

His master gave him his own alcove when he was twelve.

It’s nothing much—an outdated air vent fallen into disrepair and repurposed with scraps from the docking bays…but it’s Luke’s.

Getting out of the underground dormitories felt like such an accomplishment back then, Luke could have wept from joy. Sure, sleeping in the hangar has its downsides, and the noise took some being used to, but Luke only ever saw his space as the privilege it was—he couldn’t wait to turn it into a home!

Now Luke’s standing here, bent in the middle for lack of height, and it feels like someone just dumped the desert on his shoulder.

“You’re not getting better at hiding,” Han says twenty meters below Luke, “are you?”

A smile flickers at the corner of Luke’s mouth even as one of the other slaves groans a wordless protest at the noise—too low, of course, to be heard from the ground.

Closing his eyes, Luke tightens his hands into fists and takes several deep, sand-filled breaths that rattle around his lungs. He takes it all in—the storm, the sand, the fury—shoves it in his hands and releases it to the safety of his own place.

It doesn’t make the storm disappear, but it’s enough to make it less threatening.

Luke waits until he doesn’t feel his legs trembling with anger anymore before he slides down a thick length of electric wire and lands a few meters to Han’s left, between him and the Falcon.

“You’d be surprised,” he says, and manages a decent enough approximation of a grin.

Luke is actually very good at going unnoticed, when he wants to. He doesn’t hide from Han is all.

Han doesn’t look all that different from the way he usually does—same nonchalant pose, same proud tilt to his chin—but there’s something in the air around him that says ‘sorry’ even before he starts fiddling with his gloves. It makes something tighten inside Luke’s chest–makes him cross his arms, and try to erase anger from his face as best as he can.

Meanwhile, Han shuffles from one foot to the other, squares and relaxes his shoulders as he abandons his gloves and fiddles with his blaster—still fuming with recent use. He goes through at least three different openings before blurting :

“He didn’t know you were a slave.”

The air around the two of them smells like engine oil and welding tools but tastes of ozone, and Luke can’t help but search for the source of it in Han’s expression, as if a person could create that kind of tension in the atmosphere.

“I figured,” he says, voice calmer than he hoped for.

He should have guessed sooner, even. Ben probably would have mentioned the slavery thing if he’d known.

“I think he wants to ask about your price.”

“He doesn’t have that kind of money,” Luke says, because nobody does.

No one who’d want to free him, anyway.

“No,” Han concedes—even his ability for denial has its limits—“But it sure would be nice if he had, uh?”

Luke tries, but he can’t make himself shrug.

“Who cares? He doesn’t have the money.”

Then, because Han’s eyebrows still curl around a question:

“Neither do you.”

“I—you don’t know that!” Han protests, flustering the way he does when he’s called out on a bluff, “I could have savings!”

Luke almost snorts at the thought. What Han doesn’t spend on the Falcon and essentials, he uses for drink and offworld accommodations.

People like him don’t save.

“If you did and you had any sense,” Luke says without missing a beat, “You’d use them to pay what you owe Jabba and leave this system for good.”

“I don't—how do you even—it’s my money! I do what I want to do with it!”

“Hypothetical money,” Luke says, sandstorm picking up again at the bottom of his lungs, “And it’s not that hard to know. Everything here belongs to Jabba, remember? Everything and everyone. You need to do that run, pay him off, and get out of here before he decides he’d like to throw you to his Rancor anyway.”

“I’m pretty sure the Rancor’s just a rumor,” Han says, tension tainting his tone.

Luke slaps his shoulder.

“Ow!” Han says, growing redder than a sunset on the dunes, “What’s wrong with—”

He pauses mid-sentence, mouth working around several aborted responses before his eyes widen with realization and he jabs a triumphant finger at Luke’s chest:

“You’re derailing the conversation!”

He looks so smug right now, Luke would probably laugh if the circumstances were different.

“I’m just pointing out the facts,” he says instead, resisting the urge to make himself smaller, “The spices you lost—”

“Weren’t part of my point at all!” Han cuts, stepping forward to press his advantage—Luke finds himself afraid to move away—“My point was, if he’d had the money—”

“He doesn’t have it!”

The words taste bitter as black melon, and there’s no way Han hasn’t picked up the flavor in Luke’s voice.

Concern flickers over Han’s face, replaced with grim satisfaction in the blink of an eye as he straightens up, chest puffing up in victory—the pose looks familiar and, as always, Luke can’t help but wonder what taught Han to bluff his way through absolutely everything.

He doesn’t have time to muse on that though, because Han is still waiting to hear what Luke would make of his freedom—and maybe that’s why they became friends in the first place. They’re both chasing the same thing. Han just happens to have a bit of a head start, and a trickier map.

“I don’t know,” Luke says, defeated, the winds in his chest falling silent. “I think I’d have gone to Alderaan. Found a job and saved, maybe. Then come back and try to find my aunt.”

Everyone he knows keeps telling him she’s as good as dead by now, and they might be right—but then Beru was skilled at crops care and a healthy woman. No master has any reason to kill her.

And Luke doesn’t believe she’s dead, anyway—he’s sure he can feel her, somewhere at the top of his stomach…faint and brittle, yes, but alive. He’s sure of that.

“That’s it?” Han says, eyebrows raised, “You wouldn’t even look for your imaginary girl?”

Luke doesn’t have any response for that, except a glare.

Han stays silent for a while, longer than Luke expected, and when he talks the taste of ozone grows sharper in Luke’s mouth.

“I thought you only ever wanted to be free?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Han’s face turns sand-white faster than a storm can fall, and Luke doesn’t even have time to catch his friend before he strides past him and into the Falcon, head bent to the ground in anger.

Luke’s not sure how long he’s been standing there, staring at the boarding ramp as if it could bring Han back out, when Chewbacca emerges from the depths of the ship with a questioning tilt to his head.

“Is it that obvious?” Luke asks, arms falling to his side in defeat.

He’s only mysterious as long as you don’t know him, Chewbacca signs in Basic Sign Language, growling along in Shyriiwook for good measure.

That, at least, drags a chuckle out of Luke, and Chewbacca smiles as he walks up to him.

Luke allows Chewbacca to push his hair away from his face with only a slight shiver this time around, and sighs when he finds himself wrapped into a hug, his face buried in thick brown hair.

“I have a bad feeling about this run, Chewbacca.”

At this point, Luke has heard the Shyriiwook for 'don’t worry’ often enough that he could almost say it himself, but it doesn’t ease the knot nestled at the edge of his spine, or the one between his lungs.

Of course, Chewbacca wouldn’t say he agrees with Luke—the wookie has to be the most doggedly optimistic person Luke has ever met. But even he can’t deny there’s something fishy about Kenobi’s offer…no one offers to pay seven thousands of additional credits unless they’re planing to scam their pilot.

Or unless they expect some additional trouble along the way.

Don’t worry, Chewbacca signs with a reassuring smile, He’ll get over it before we’re back.

Luke nods, lips pressed together, and doesn’t let himself wonder if his friends will even be able to come back this time.