On various happenings and non-happenings ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Hey you,

Just because you're behind the keyboard doesn't mean anything.  I'm still the captain here.  You need to ground those delusions of grandeur you have.

And another thing, speaking as a man of many good ideas, yours aren't.

Comments

[brother_alone]

That sounds like trouble...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Unending, unyielding trouble, kid." He says with a sigh. "It could drive a man crazy."

[brother_alone]

"She have anything specific in mind?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"There's a wishlist."

He hangs his head for a moment and rubs at his forehead.

"More than anything, action, I guess. More excuses to type about flying and blasting. Which means more being tired for me, although, I suppose a different kind then the usual lately."

[brother_alone]

"Oh god, the lady upstairs just squealed. That doesn't bode well."

A wince.

"She says she can arrange for blasters."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"We have a serious problem you know." He says, looking up again. "Our two handlers enable each other. That's never a good thing."

[brother_alone]

"Shit. Shit fuck shitshitshit. She's thinking about That place. Nononono...."

Fuck everything.

"This is the worst."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han gets that sinking feeling in his stomach. He doesn't know what the kid is talking about, but he doesn't like the look that's come over him.

[brave_heart_verity]

"It's adorable you think you're in charge." Verity has very little sympathy for people who pick futile fights like this.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I ..." He frowns. "... I should be."

[brave_heart_verity]

"Probably." It's as close to reassurance as she can offer right now. "Just be glad she isn't asking mine for ideas."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"You think you're worse off, huh?"

[brave_heart_verity]

"I know they'll get worse when they're conspiring. Two heads are worse than one."

[greyorder]

I can think of precisely one good idea you've ever had. Two if we count you marrying Mother, but what was really just her letting you do so.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

There aren't enough really's in the whole galaxy, kid. Nor is the slant of these italics sarcastic enough.

"You we're adopted."

[greyorder]

"That would still be preferable to the currently prevailing mun theory that Mother was disloyal to your marriage," he shrugged, having heard significantly worse than that under Snoke. Besides, he had been attempting to allude to Han coming back for him, not his own existence.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

And they say Han shoots first in the Solo clan. Damn Ben. First you knock his genius unorthodox way of thinking and then you implicate his soulmate was cheating on him. Different kinds of attacks to his heart, aren't they?

Anyway, at one point in his life, the implication that Leia was disloyal to him would have caused him a bit of heartache. Those first years there were plenty of times that he felt ... inadequate for her. What did a poor kid from Corellia have to offer a princess from Alderaan? It was a question he often pondered.

Anyone who knows Han Solo, the real Han, knows that the cockiness covers up a lot that goes on in his head and his heart.

At this age, he just knows. No way that Leia would have ever done that to him and he, being the far more likely party to commit adultery (let's face it) had never did that to her either. Even at the most fractured state of their relationship, Leia is the rock that anchors him to the universe - the thing that keeps this wanderer from drifting away completely. The two of them, when they're together, make each other better.

"Search your feelings, son. You know all those 'imperfections' in you are from me."

[greyorder]

"I thought it had been agreed by everyone my lengthy list of issues are all due to being like Vader?" Specifically by his father, if he recalls correctly. That had done some damage on him as a kid - damage that lingered into the present, making him forever unsure of himself.

Han Solo wasn't unsure of himself. He was the kind of person firmly rooted in certainty, in confidence and calm in the face of craziness. Ben wishes he took more after his father, but he doesn't. He barely even takes after his mother. He's Vader-spawn in a way Luke and Leia both sidestepped, and ever since returning to the Light, it's been haunting him.

Ben doesn't know the real Han Solo. He hasn't been around him enough to do so.

"In any case, I'm quite capable of having my own unique failings unlike anything in you or Mother's personalities."

He's pretty sure neither of them rip rooms apart in a mixture of panic and fury, for instance.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Actually, it's exactly the emotionality that drives his son to smash apart rooms that Han sees the most of himself in Ben. Especially in passion and anger. It's a kindness that Han Solo was spared from the burden of being force sensitive. Of Leia, Luke and Himself, is he not the one most likely to storm off in anger? Is he not the one most likely to dispose of a man in his way? Is he not the one to embrace a cocky smile when his long shot pays off?

Sure, some of the most rough aspects of his personality got smoothed away over the years, but let's not kid ourselves, Han would be very vulnerable to the dark side of the force.

Is there too much Vader in him? Yes. There are some obvious parallels. The part that's much harder to acknowledge is where he's in there too ...

"You are your own man." He says finally. "And we all live with the choices we've made."

[greyorder]

"I was my own monster for a long time. But as much regret as I have to live with, as many choices as I made that were wrong... while your mun has been putting you through bad ideas, mine has been putting me through some trials and tribulations that have paid off, at long last."

He reaches out with the Force and touches his father's mind. Ben could not help being surprised at the regret her found there, and the broodiness. Perhaps there was more similarities to them than he'd given them credit for. Still, he manages a small smile for a moment, hopeful in the face of it all that there's a way to repair some of the damage he's done to his family and to the galaxy at large.

"I've reconnected with the Force. And this time, I'll be someone you can be proud of. I promise."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He was going to make a remark along the lines of 'oh, at least someone's writer here is useful', but he doesn't get the words out before Ben is reaching into his mind. The elder Solo is still, after all these years, a little uneasy about the force. More so when it's being used on him.

"I'm pretty sure I said search your feelings, not search mine, Ben." It's not said in anger, but discomfort. And he gets why the kid did it, but it feels like an invasion of privacy all the same. Nobody is meant to know his thoughts but him.

His son is doing exactly what he'd hope for, though, when Han realized he was lost to the dark side. Finding his way back. The smuggler has to believe that it's a burden as much as a blessing to be a Jedi and so, yes, he is proud.

"All I ever hope for is that you'll be a great man."

[greyorder]

Ben looked at him, thoughtfully. "When I was a kid, did you not know I was always picking up your feelings? Not on purpose. I just could never turn it off. This used to be my normal. All that noise in my head from other people..." He shook his head, readily withdrawing his mind from his father's, blinking away the memories of being young and overwhelmed.

He bit his lip before admitting, gingerly, "Rey helped me. She - she reconnected me to the Light. I'm not a great man, Father. I'm the student of a great woman." There's no bitterness there, though, just admiration, love and endless fondness. He smiles, a real smile, and shrugs helplessly. "I know Jedi weren't traditionally supposed to fall in love, but you weren't supposed to fall in love with Mother, either. I guess it runs in the family."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Yeah, but he would argue that it's different when you're going looking. The same way it's different to overhear something on accident than it is to be actively trying to spy on someone. That said, if he has been overhearing of his father's thoughts throughout the years it would make him feel that much more ... sad ... over Ben's fall to the dark side.

"I know as much as someone in my position possibly could." Which is to say, to a point. For all that people have explained to him, he's still on the outside looking in. He did, at least, know enough to know that his son was very strong in the force at a very young age. Nobody worried about him more over it, than he.

And speaking of ways that father and son might have more common ground than they realize. When he hears his kid talk about Rey, well, he knows exactly what the things he's feeling are like there. "I wholeheartedly support you being in love with a woman whose too good for you. It made a better person out of me."

[greyorder]

It had started as soon as he got his Force powers. People's emotions, mostly, but later thoughts, and by the time he was six it was just so loud all the time he lashed out to make it quiet, trying to find some kind of peace. He was lost and overwhelmed, but he just assumed his parents knew. Ben messed up, there.

"I probably should have told you. As a kid, I mean, about what I was hearing. Not just from you, from everyone. Again, those are mistakes entirely unique to me." He kept himself isolated, afraid that speaking out would make him more of a freak, make himself look more broken, more of a Force freak.

He snorts, looking away. "Too good is an understatement. She's wonderful and knows how to be sympathetic without letting me excuse all my bad behavior. It's like having a dose of clarity I didn't ask for but don't hate on hand. I'm just not sure how it happened. She could do better."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Well, his father can't really speak on what it's like to read someone's mind either on purpose or on accident. Though, the idea of it makes him wonder how he would have managed it if he had, if only for a brief moment. It certainly would have been useful, but he's noticed the more useful a force related talent seems ... the more dangerous it is.

Fragging hell, when that kid talks about Rey. It's like listening to a thrity year old version of himself talking about the way Leia made him feel back then. It makes him smile, faintly. Gives him hope, too, which he'll take. Sometime their clan doesn't get enough of that.

"She must think you have something to you that makes her want to stay around." He offers with a bemused smile. "It must be the looks and charm you get from the Corellian side of the family."