[AO3 Crosspost] Flash ficlets: Star Wars Edition

[terresdebrume]

[Star Wars, Multiple genres, Multiple pairings]

Occasionally I do flash-fic nights on Tumblr, in which people send me prompts and I write a five-sentences fic in response. These are the results. Series marked as complete because there's no continuity to the ficlets, but I'll keep updating it with new works nonetheless.

Feel free to send me a prompt anytime, either here, on my writing blog, Terresdebrumestories or during flashfic nights on terresdebrume @tumblr :)

****

✗ BALANCE TO THE FORCE

RATING: General Audiences
WORDCOUNT: 138
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa
GENRE: Comforting twists of fate
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Some prophecies happen to have very delayed payoffs.
NOTE(S): Five-sentences ficlet prompted by @kavkakat! :D


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“'The glory of the Jedi’,” Anakin snorts as Luke opens the file on his datapad, “that was supposed to be me you know?”

Leia glances at Luke’s look of deep sympathy before she turns to look at the force ghost seated on Han’s desk. He looks better now than he did when he died—or so Luke says—but the sores and burns are still easy to spot on his head, and the lack of a respirator makes the tiredness around his eyes and mouth all the more visible.

“Look how well that turned out.”

“I don’t know,” Luke says with an easy shrug, “You did end up bringing balance to the Force in the end.”

Leia looks at Anakin and, for once, she doesn’t feel queasy when she sees her own surprised realization on her father’s face.

****

✗ STRONGHOLD

RATING: Teen & Up
WORDCOUNT: 326
PAIRING(S): Rey/Finn/Poe Dameron
CHARACTER(S): Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron
GENRE: Angst and Fluff
TRIGGER WARNING(S): Mentions of blood/gore and self-amputation.
SUMMARY: If there’s a stone pillar in this triad, it’s Rey.



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“Please don’t leave us,” Poe sobs, and Rey’s jaw clenches hard enough her teeth groan under the effort. “Come on, Finn, don’t leave us, stay with us, come on–”

He’s got first aid training like the rest of the pilots but it’s Rey who once helped a scavenger cut her own toe off after a bad fall–it’s Rey who’s gritted her teeth and pulled a shard the size of her hand out of an old man’s lung and held him through the gasping and gurgling afterwards, and now it’s Rey who has her hands full of Finn’s flesh and blood and pushes it back inside with dry eyes and a sore jaw.

It’s Rey who stands in the corner, motionless as they get Finn into his bactas tank–in the nick of time, the droids said–and it’s Rey who stops talking for the four weeks it takes before Finn wakes up, sparking several sets of unflattering rumors from the more unforgiving members of the Rebellion.

When Finn wakes up–when he finally gets discharged from the medical bay–it’s Rey who holds his hand through hours and hours of physical therapy, who grunts when Finn needs grunting and puts on her Stern Voice whenever one of her boys decides he’s too tired to bother with a meal.

But when Rey gets sick three months later–her very first cold doubled with a severe case of emotional fatigue–it’s Poe who cooks nerf broth and threatens her until she agrees to stay in bed, and it’s Finn who cuddles with her all day long and tickles her with his brand new, extremely cold metal toes, and it’s the both of them who kiss her cheeks and give her hell for being so terrible at taking care of herself.

Rey smiles, tells them they pick up the slack wonderfully well, and spends a whole afternoon doing nothing but lying in bed and kissing them in turn.

****

✗ HAN SOLO, ANAKIN SKYWALKER, AND THE WEEKLY FALCON MALFUNCTION

RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 92
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Han Solo, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Chewbacca
GENRE: Humor
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Maybe this will come to bite Obi Wan in the ass but hey, he’s a force gost now. He can handle it.



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“Nobody asked you!” Han shouts from the depth of his ship’s innards, legs and butt wriggling to maintain a precarious equilibrium, “Go away!”

“I’m just saying,” Anakin insists while Chewbacca tries not to laugh too hard in the background, “If you’d just be reasonable and use more recent parts your fuel pressure–”

“This is a vintage ship!” Han retorts, indignation bursting in his tone–Anakin hears Obi-Wan, invisible but still there–snicker at Han before he says:

“I’m glad you’re getting a taste of your own medicine, Anakin.”

“Hey, nobody asked you!”

****

✗ 'TA!

RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 143
PAIRING(S): Jessika Pava/Rey
CHARACTER(S): Rey, Jessika Pava
GENRE: Fluff
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: You ever noticed Rey’s shoes don’t have laces?



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“I never–I mean…” Rey pauses mid sentence, unsure how to finish.

She can tie a dozen different knots, repair droids so well it’s like bringing them back from the dead, and even pilot a spaceship…but she’s never had shoelaces before.

“That’s alright,” Jessika smiles and gets to her feet, cheeks flushed as she runs a hand through her hair, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while now.”

“Oh,” Rey says, face heating up in turn, “Well I–I’m–uh. Thanks.”

“So uh. Do you want to go get a drink? Celebrate the newfound knowledge and all that?”

The next day, Jessika finds herself teaching Finn how to tie shoelaces–apparently the first order is more into straps–but given that she’s repaid by at least an hour of Rey being a complete angel at her, she doesn’t complain.

****

✗ I NEED

RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 193
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Leia Organa, Rey
GENRE: Emotional Hurt
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: After a loss like that, coping is bound to be difficult.


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“Someone’s gotta look out for him,” Leia says, and Rey shuffles from one foot to the other, Artoo’s lukewarm casing a comforting contact against her right leg.

“I don’t know,” she says, cheeks burning, eyes firmly on the ground, “I’ve never—”

“You did it with Finn,” Leia points out, “And Chewie’s just as sweet—I’d do it myself if I could, but someone needs to go with you and I—”

For just a second, if sounds like Leia is about to start crying and Rey stares, alarmed, as the old woman's shoulders droop, her fists clenched tight as she takes a deep, wet breath—it all ends in the blink of an eye. Leia’s spine snaps back in a perfect parade rest, her eyes clear and her jaw set.

“I need to be here. I can’t leave—but you’re going to be with him, anyway. Just try to help him keep going, will you?”

Rey nods. She’s only known Chewbacca for a few days and she doesn’t even understand shyyriiwook, but she doesn’t point that out. Leia said ‘I need to be here’ and Rey knows exactly how much those words can mean.

****

✗ A DASHING WOMAN

RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 375
PAIRING(S): Leia Organa/Han Solo
CHARACTER(S): Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca
GENRE: Flirting
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Han is not a man, but it’s really only a surprise for Luke.



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“So Ben took us to this seedy bar, and we meet this sketchy man who says he’s the captain of the Millenium Falcon—”

“Oh, the Wookie is the Captain?” Leia asks, and Luke blinks.

“No, Han is. Why?”

“Cause I’m not a ‘he’,” Han says as she strides into the main hob, pulling her pilot’s gloves off her fingers. “Not that I blame you for the mistake—Tattooine isn’t exactly an educated planet when it comes to gender things.”

To Luke’s credit, he manages to swallow his look of surprise fast enough, and no disparaging comment crosses his lips. In fact, once he’s mumbled a confused apology, he switches to feminines pronouns immediately and doesn’t stumble once.

“It’s the Tatooine effect,” Han says later, when she and Leia are alone in the cockpit. “They know even less about transgender people than Corellia does, but they’re used not to ask question. It has its perks.”

“And it doesn’t bother you to be mistaken for a man?”

Han shrugs, scratching at the beginning of a beard on her chin, and says:

“It’s useful in these parts of the galaxy. It’s bothersome sometimes, but it’s still better than Corellia.”

Leia nods. She’s never been to Corellia, but she’s met their representative in the Senate several times, and further discussion with him left Leia with the distinct impression of a world where divergence from the accepted norm wasn’t very well met.

“And besides,” Han says, flashing Leia a brilliant grin, “Sometimes I meet people who guess correctly and it brightens my day. What clued you in?”

This time it’s Leia’s turn to shrug.

“You felt like a woman,” she says. “I could just...tell.”

Han’s grin turns into a smirk, and she turns back to the commands of her ship without a word. Leia waits for a response for far longer than is appropriate and, when it becomes evident Han isn’t about to start talking again, she gets up an makes her way back toward the main hob.

“You’re not hard on the eyes yourself, princess,” Han says behind her.

Leia’s cheeks burn with embarrassment at her obviousness all the way to the crew’s quarters, but that’s far from enough to wipe the pleased grin from her lips.

****

✗ NO LOVE TRIANGLE FOR US

RATING: General
WORDCOUNT: 354
PAIRING(S): Han Solo/Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker & Han Solo
CHARACTER(S): Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo
GENRE: Fluff
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Leia knows something the Alliance doesn’t. And she likes it.



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There’s a betting pool in the Alliance on whether Leia will end up dating Luke Skywalker or Han Solo.

The soldiers think she has no idea but, really, she’s known from the beginning, and since it hasn’t evolved into anything gross or uncomfortable, she might as well keep an eye on the betting rates and amuse herself with it.

Luke’s score reaches its peak after an unsuccessful mission on some desert-filled planet, when he spends almost a month nursing Leia back to her full health. He stays by her bedside the whole time, brings her water and soup and gives her a hundred little tricks to combat dehydration should she ever end up in that kind of setting again.

(Han trails behind him with his hands in his pockets and calls him an insufferable farm boy whenever he gets too overbearing. He has to drag Luke away from Leia’s bedroom more than once.)

Han stays behind for quite a while, until they reach Hoth and Leia is just about ready to explode from the inaction—would explode, in fact, if not for Han’s constant prodding and ribbing which allows her to blow off some steam and not frighten the rest of Command to death. Han teases her when she’s so frustrated she could deliver a verbal take down to the first soldier to cross her path, Leia calls him a scruffy-looking nerf-herder and carries on her day with much less weight on her shoulders.

(Luke somehow materializes between them whenever things are about to turn sour for real, displaying an uncanny ability to find the exact words needed to calm both Han and Leia down).

They each have their talents and, between the two of them, Leia considers herself pretty lucky and, frankly, as happy as she can be after losing her entire planet to a homicidal maniac.

Although her favorite part of their friendship are, by far, the evenings when they sit down in her personnal quarters and take bets on how long the Alliance will take to realize Luke and Han are too busy dating one another to think about courting her.

****

✗ NOT EVERY WOMAN IS A MOTHER

SERIES: -
RATING: General Audiences
WORDCOUNT: 236
PAIRING(S): -
CHARACTER(S): Rey, mentions of Leia Organa
GENRE: Self-building
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Not every woman is a daughter, either.
NOTE(S): Written for kawuli ‘s prompt Star Wars: Rey and Leia, I will be happy with literally anything but in the interest of a more useful prompt how about “Not mothers and daughters”. I took the liberty to reference Anita from You do it better because ladies having ladies for mentors is awesome <3

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It’s like people don’t remember there are more women in a girl’s life than their mother.

As if, unless you’d come out of a woman’s body one way or another, she shouldn’t matter to you…but Rey grew up surrounded by weathered women and survived with them and thanks to them—she’s loved and admired and resented and hated them in turn and sometimes all at once, and she didn’t share blood with any of them but they still shaped her like the wind shapes a desert.

She trails after the General now, same as she trailed behind Anita all those years ago, same as she trails behind Luke Skywalker for her training. She pays attention and her back straightens, her words slow down, her eyebrows raise higher.

She didn’t come from Leia Organa—doesn’t dare imagine they’ll be family at any point in time—but she can still track her voice and her strength in the renewed confidence with which she takes in the worlds outside of Jakku. She can feel Leia’s influence in her interactions with the Resistance pilots, with the air in a room, even in the way she holds her sword.

Rey didn’t get any blood from Leia Organa, but there are pieces of the General that she made hers anyway, and sometimes she wonders what the world would be like if Kylo Ren had valued these gifts as they should have been.

****

✗ REPUTATIONS

FANDOM: Star Wars Movies
SERIES: -
RATING: General audiences
WORDCOUNT: 438
PAIRING(S): Can be read as Han/Leia or Pre-Han/Leia as prefered.
CHARACTER(S): Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa
GENRE: Shit giving betwen friends.
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: In all honesty, they’re not being very nice to Han. Then again, Leia doesn’t think they can really be blamed for it either.
NOTE(S): Written on a prompt from lorataprose


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Leia’s on her way to command with the latest statistics on fuel consumption—because some of their X-Wing pilots will never fully grasp that said fuel doesn’t magically replace itself—when a muffled snort brings her short in one of the smaller corridors. Looking up from her datapad, she’s surprised to find Luke crouching behind a stack of crates, hands pressed to his mouth while Han glares at him with fiery dejectedness.

“What’s going—”

Luke shushes her with wild gestures and mimes listening to what’s going on on the other side of the crate, where two kids of undefined gender are apparently so deep in conversation they haven’t noticed the two generals acting like toddlers a few feet from them.

“—telling you, he’s gotta be the smoothest talker in the galaxy, I mean the things he must have seen!”

Leia smiles at the worshipful tone of their voice, memories of her younger, more naïve days brushing up at the edge of her mind as she watches Luke go crimson with painfully-repressed laughter, and Han cross his arms over his chest.

“Who’re they talking about?”

Leia’s first answer comes in the form of Han’s patented ‘how could you do this to me’ face, followed by silent—but intense—indignation when Luke points at him with a shaky hand and all but rolls to the floor in his laughter.

“I wish I’d been a fly on the wall when he rescued general Organa from the Death Star,” the second kid says over their head, “Must have been quite the sight!”

Leia covers her mouth before she can laugh out loud, but it’s really out of sympathy for Han’s bruised pride more than anything else—she crouches down next to Luke in an attempt t stifle the sound, and finds herself soundly rejected when she tries to brace herself against Han’s knee.

“You’re just jealous they aren’t talking about you,” Han mouths while Leia wipes at her eyes with her free hand, “That’s all.”

Above them, the kids have moved on from Han’s fighting skills to how amazing a mechanic he must be and Leia finds herself actually laughing this time, choking on air until she’s coughing it out and Luke has to try and pat her on the back through his own hysteria.

Han glares at them both, gets up too fast, and ends up sprawling face-first in a conveniently-located pile of discarded plastic tubing just as one of the young rebels starts praising his agility.

Han, wisely, doesn’t say anything as he strides away and leaves Luke and Leia to laugh themselves silly.

****

✗ ORPHAN LOVE

RATING: General audiences
WORDCOUNT: 419
PAIRING(S): Past Han/Luke, past Han/Leia
CHARACTER(S): Luke Skywalker, Han Solo
GENRE: Awkward meetings
TRIGGER WARNING(S): -
SUMMARY: Some things change. Others just stay the same.


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Luke, Han finds, hasn’t changed a bit. He’s blonder, maybe, than he was when they met—the suns of Tatooine have laid their hands there—and the way he’s grown into his cheekbones make him look even more like Leia’s twin, but there’s not mistaking the pose, the quiet but unyielding strength, the world of determination engraved around his eyes.

“You look—”

“Like a wraith,” Luke cuts off, smile stretched too far over a tired face, swallowed whole by the dark brown of Obi-Wan’s too-big robes. “You look good, though.”

Han resists the urge to look down at his pot belly—a source of pride for the street orphan he once was, although enough people in Coruscant failed to understand the sentiment for Han to grow self-conscious about it—and shrugs instead, hands shoved deep inside his belt to prevent their fluttering.

“I try to,” he says, failing to muster a smirk. “I—you had a point about needing more sleep.”

“Well,” Luke admits, “You weren’t entirely wrong about eating more, either.”

“Adaptation is a pain, uh?”

Luke buries his hands in the sleeves of Obi-Wan’s robes and ducks his head down—a lifetime ago, he did the same thing as Han yelled at him. He can’t even remember why now, but he supposes that’s normal after a story like theirs. At least, that’s what Leia told him afterward, Chewie nodding approvingly behind her.

Stories like theirs sometimes suck.

“Leia told me you were staying on Naboo for a while?”

“We’ve got some business to conclude with the Gungans,” Han says with a nod, “For some reason they like me. What about you?”

“Our mother was from Naboo.”

Han nods, throat tightening. Leia never quite understood that part—it used to be one of the biggest gaps between them, back before the technicalities of rebuilding the galaxy drove them apart. Then again, Leia was never an orphan the way Luke and Han were. She can’t be blamed for not quite getting it.

“Maybe—”

Han hesitates, shifts his weight from one foot to the other as he gets the heat of his neck under control, chases the ants out of his palms as quietly as he can.

“Maybe you can tell me what you find out. Someday. Before I leave.”

“Yes,” Luke says, something fragile and familiar hovering at the corner of his lips, “I’ll com you.”

They part ways in awkward half-mumbles and too-tight silences, and the tingle of Luke’s new com ID scrawled across Han’s palm.