For the number prompt: 16) Teenage Dirtbag Luke / Teenage Dirtbag Luke's Teenage Dirtbag Friends
16. … lazily
It’s a rare treat to have nothing to do. Not to do nothing – ask Owen or Huff how often they manage that – but to have nothing to do, no schoolwork or farmwork that they’re dodging, nowhere they’re supposed to be.
Luke, when he thought it was just him that had the day free, had planned to spend it chasing down a short in the wiring of his landspeeder. He’d almost stuck to it even after Biggs called, too – almost, until Biggs rolled his eyes and said, “Come on, you have all summer to play with your speeder. This is a limited-time offer.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here, hurry up.”
So instead they’re here, lying back in the shade under the creaky deck Fixer built onto the back of the station last year, sharing a cold gizer-ale and listening to the faint music playing from inside.
Luke snags the gizer bottle out of Biggs’ hand as he’s setting it down, takes a long swig. “So,” he says, wiping his mouth and passing the bottle back. “A limited-time offer?”
Biggs grins at him. “Transmitted my application this morning,” he says proudly. “Before you know it I’ll be light-years away from here. Cadet Darklighter.” He takes another sip, hands the bottle back over to Luke.
Luke takes it, but doesn’t drink. “Next year,” he points out.
Biggs nods.
“If you get in on the first try.”
“Well, that’s a sure thing, I’m the best pilot on this rock.”
“Second-best.”
Biggs kicks him in the shin. Luke, unrepentant, holds the gizer out of his reach and goes on, “You know, I heard Dev Sandskimmer applied three seasons in a row and they still didn’t take him.”
“Dev Sandskimmer’s an idiot.” Biggs rolls toward Luke, snags the bottle from his hand, then rolls the rest of the way to land on top of him and says into his ear, “Look, I’m going to get in. You ought to make the most of the time you’ve got.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Luke allows, and turns his head to meet Biggs’ lips with his own, a soft, leisurely kiss. A summer-afternoon nothing-to-do all-the-time-in-the-world kind of kiss.
After a moment he pulls away and says, “Anyway, the next academy class doesn’t start for six months, it’s not a very limited-time offer.”
“Well, if you didn’t show up in half an hour, I was going to call Windy instead,” Biggs says, and then, laughing, “Ow– OW, come on– aw, my beer–”
“I’ll get you another one,” Luke promises. He gets a hand on Biggs’ waist and rolls the pair of them so he comes up on top, then leans in for another kiss as he adds, “In a minute.”
Because I know what fandom you've been writing recently, and I like to mess around with how to interpret these things... 1) Number: 7, Ship: A battle-damaged Y-Wing, and 2) Number: 29, Ship: The empty bridge of a mothballed GR-75 rebel transport.
You are nothing but trouble.
7. … to shut them up
She lands hard and pops her canopy, untangling herself from the harness in a hurry to get up and out. Her astromech took damage from the same hit that cracked her head against the canopy, and he’s responding, but sluggishly; she wants to check him out, and once he’s taken care of there’s the damage to her starboard pylon to deal with, which looks like mostly nothing serious but she’s definitely drawing less power than she should be, and then there’s all the components that ion blast knocked out–
She’s not even fully unstrapped before she hears a ladder clang up against the side of her fighter, and a half-second later Leia appears at the top of it, wide-eyed and out of breath. “Ev?”
“Hey,” she says, grinning.
“Are you hurt?” Leia clambers the rest of the way up the ladder and swings a leg over, perching on the edge of the cockpit and leaning in. “You sounded awful on the comm. Stay still, let me look–”
“I’m fine,” Evaan says – not that she exactly minds Leia’s hands cupped around her face, but she’d rather it wasn’t just to inspect her for injuries.
Leia doesn’t appear to hear her. “Your fighter’s a mess, I don’t know how you got it back in one piece. Can you get out? Look, are you sure you’re not hurt? I think you should–”
“Leia, I’m fine,” she says again, and when that doesn’t seem to break through either, lowers her voice and tries, “Ma’am–”
“–can worry about your fighter after the medics check you out, I know you don’t–”
Evaan rolls her eyes, pulls Leia down into her lap and kisses her.
Leia makes an indignant noise into her mouth, which makes her laugh, which makes Leia laugh; they break apart for a moment, Evaan keeping her arm around Leia’s waist to keep her close, butting her face up against Leia’s and seizing the chance for another quick kiss. “I said I’m fine,” she says, and she’s still laughing a little. “But I’d be better if you’d let me get a word in edgewise.”
“Sass from my pilots, every commander’s dream. You’re lucky you’re my favorite.” Leia swings back onto the ladder.“I still want you checked out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Evaan says, clambering down after her, and then dares, “Maybe someone should walk with me, I did hit my head.”
“Yes, I can see you need someone to lean on,” Leia says solemnly, and tucks herself in against Evaan’s side, letting Evaan drape an arm across her shoulders. “Can’t leave one of my pilots in this condition, my reports will just have to wait.”
fuckyeahilike replied to your post “What kind of pajamas does one wear in the Star Wars, do we think?”
Any guy who wears ponchos (Luke) wears onesies to bed.
fogbreaker replied to your post “What kind of pajamas does one wear in the Star Wars, do we think?”
For some reason, I'm envisioning tank top and, like, pajama pants, but not full length pajama pants. Like, capris or culottes, but specifically with a rope cinch/tie around bottom of the knee or mid-calf.
Strong, intriguingly specific (culottes???), and extremely goofy-looking suggestions here, good work all around
... wait a minute @fuckyeahilike are we talking like a union suit here, or like a kigurumi
Han/Lando - "I... no, no, I swear, it... it was sitting right here, you have to believe me!"
“You lost my ship,” Lando says blankly.
“I didn’t lose her, she’s just–” Han breaks off and shoots him a glare. “Hey. That’s my ship, buddy, I won her fair and square.”
“You lost my ship.”
“Well, look, she was sitting right here, I don’t know what–” Han glances down the length of the hangar and curses under his breath – there’s a heavy speeder with the livery of spaceport security rounding the corner. “Listen, we’re about to have bigger problems if we don’t get moving.”
“Bigger problems than–”
“Just come on,” Han snaps, and takes off down the row of ships, away from the approaching speeder.
Three landing bays down the line, Lando catches up to him. “You know,” he says, “there’s no way out on foot at that end of the hangar. You do know that, right? It’s a thousand meters straight down.”
“I’ll think of something,” Han says, and is saved from having to answer any follow-up questions by his comlink beeping. “See? That’s our backup calling. Chewie, talk to me.”
“You look like a man who needs a friend,” a familiar cool voice says on the other end.
Wonderful. “I got a lot of friends already, Karrde. If you don’t mind, I wanna keep this channel open for them.”
“Let me talk to him,” Lando says urgently into his other ear; Han shushes him in time to catch Karrde saying “–and your droids, of course.”
“What?” he says, and then, “Never mind – Karrde, hold on, there’s someone here who actually wants to talk to you.” He flips the comlink to Lando, glances back at the security speeder, and curses again. “Hey, while you’re chatting, get out of sight.”
“–great to hear your voice, Talon,” Lando is saying, warmly and with every evidence of sincerity, as he steps casually into the shadow of a light freighter’s landing skid. Han moves to follow him, but there’s not really enough shadow to conceal both of them, and anyway Lando waves him off; he ducks behind a stack of crates waiting to be loaded instead, and splits his time between keeping an eye on the security crew and stewing over not being able to eavesdrop.
He can see Lando from where he’s standing, just not hear him – a broad smile on his face as he talks, leaning loosely against the landing skid. If he watches closely, he can almost make out what he’s saying. He leans forward, narrowing his eyes and trying to focus, and manages to catch still think about–
There’s the bang of a speeder door closing, and he jumps, looks up in time to see the spaceport security vehicle take off at top speed back the way it came. While he’s frowning after them, puzzled, Lando strides up beside him and hands him the comlink back. “Little assist from Karrde’s people,” he says, that warm grin flickering across his face again. “He had someone call in an emergency on the other side of town. The Falcon’s in impound, we may have a little trouble springing her, but he’s already got Chewie and the droids on board his ship and he’s willing to put us up for a couple days, too, while we come up with a plan. Free of charge.”
“Free of-- What the hell did you say to him?”
“Oh, just reminded him of some…” Lando hesitates a second, then flashes a wicked grin. “Some old times.”
Han looks scandalized. “You and Talon Karrde–”
“What can I say,” Lando says, and loops his arm through Han’s elbow, tugging him toward the open end of the hanger, “I have a weakness for the disreputable smuggler type.”
Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma get caught making out despite “not being together”.
This is my first venture into a new fandom, and also a prompt that I really really loved, and that combination means I’m super nervous about posting it! I also have no idea how to tag it! I’m just kind of gonna... drop it and run? Sometime in mid-Season 1:
It’s getting crowded in the locker room as the roster grows; especially at times like this, when half of them are trying to work out at once, everyone is on top of each other and in each other’s space. So it’s not really a surprise, the first time Johnny turns around to swap out dumbbells, that he about trips over Puma leaving the squat rack.
It’s a little more surprising, five minutes later, when Puma backs straight into him as he’s looking for an empty space to do some shrugs in. And fifteen minutes after that, the crowd gradually thinning out, when they both go for the same bench at the same time.
By the time the locker room is empty except for the two of them, and Puma is still somehow underfoot at every turn, he’s starting to feel slightly persecuted. Like he’s not distracting enough, he grouses silently to himself, then shakes his head, backs off as far as he can and sits down on the furthest bench to do concentration curls.
And looks up to find Puma on the pull-up bar barely two feet away.
“Okay, what?” he demands, unable to stop himself. “Are we playing a game? Is this a dominance thing?”
No answer. Of course. He doesn’t know what he was expecting.
“It’s my magnetic personality, right?You just want to be near me?”
Still no answer, but this time Puma stops what he’s doing, drops down from the bar and turns to face him.
This is stupid, a warning voice in his head notes, but he ignores it, grins tightly and goes on, “Or are you putting on a show for me?”
Puma takes a step closer, and Johnny finds his gaze drifting down over Puma’s body, lingering on the curve of his triceps, the sheen of sweat on his inked chest. Be Fearless.
Well, what the hell, he thinks, reaches up with his free hand, grabs Puma by the waist and pulls him down into his lap.
It’d be easy enough to play off as a joke, a kind of game of chicken, just the continuation of… whatever weird dominance game this is they’ve been playing. He half expects to get decked for his trouble, and fully expects Puma to shove away from him, jump back up and leave. And he’s not surprised – Puma throws his right hand up as he’s pulled off-balance, plants his palm flat against Johnny’s chest, and he can feel the tension coiled in the arm behind it, ready to push him back.
And then he is surprised, because Puma… doesn’t move.
Johnny looks down at the hand resting on his chest, studies it for a second, then shifts his gaze up to Puma’s face and feels his mouth go dry. Puma is staring down at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, and it’s not always easy to read his face under the mask, but – whatever else he might be thinking, he hasn’t pulled away.
Very carefully, very slowly, Johnny lets the dumbbell roll down his fingers to rest on the floor, straightens up, bringing his right hand up between their entwined legs to rest loosely on his own thigh. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s gone but us,” he says; in the silence of the empty locker room, it comes out louder than he meant it to, and he and Puma both start a little. He wets his lips and tries again, a little lower, “If I’m reading this wrong, tell me. But if I’m not, we’re not gonna get a better chance.”
A long moment passes, and then Puma nods, leans in toward him; Johnny grins, slides his hand around to the small of Puma’s back, and pulls him the rest of the way in until their lips meet.
Puma kisses him softly, even a little cautiously at first; then he shifts his weight in Johnny’s lap, seems to find his angle, and the kiss turns fierce, hungry, so forceful that it’s an effort for Johnny not to tip backward right off the bench. He rallies, though, recovers his balance and returns the kiss with equal ferocity, lifting his right hand to Puma’s hip and gripping him hard. In return Puma shifts his hand, too, slides it up Johnny’s shoulder and around to the nape of his neck to tangle in his hair; his grip is light, but steady, and Johnny goes along willingly as Puma tilts his head back, breaks the kiss and mouths his way down Johnny’s jawline to nip at the pulse point there. Johnny swallows a groan, reluctant to break the near-silence of the room; the only sound is Puma breathing hard against his throat, his own harsh panting–
– the click and squeak of the locker room door opening.
By the time he’s processed the sound, Puma’s already springing to his feet, launching himself full-force off Johnny’s shoulders to do it; Johnny isn’t expecting the shove, and this time he does go over backward, and takes the bench down with him. He glances toward the door as he’s trying to disentangle his legs from it, and barely holds back a curse – it’s Cueto standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised as his gaze flicks from Johnny up to Puma and back again, all three of them frozen in place as the moment stretches on. He can’t have seen much, Puma’s fast reaction saw to that, but…
“Please,” Cueto says at last, raising his hands palms-out toward them, “don’t let me interrupt.”
Johnny throws a quick glance at Puma, gets only an infinitesimal shrug in return. He turns his focus back to Cueto and, as casually as he can manage, starts, “Uh, you’re not–”
“No, no,” the boss cuts him off, “please – finish your, ah, workout. I’m locking up for the night, but security will be here to let you out.” He’s backing out the door as he says it, and for a moment Johnny thinks that maybe he really didn’t see anything, that the suspicious little pause before workout was his imagination.
Then Cueto flashes a sharp grin, just before the door closes on him, and adds, “It’s good to see my fighters becoming such good friends.”
Epilogue: later, in another part of the temple…
“So,” Dario says, looking out the window of his office, his back to the fighter at his desk. “You want a shot at my championship.”
In the reflection, he can see Cage jut his chin forward, all arrogance. “I’ve been saying so since the day I walked in here.”
“And you’ve certainly been working hard for it.” Dario stares out the window a little longer, drums his fingers on the sill, makes him wait for it. Then he turns, flashes a smile, and says, “It’s yours. Next week.”
Cage hasn’t been at the temple long, but clearly he’s learning; Dario has to stifle a laugh at the instant change in his face, from cocky pride to suspicion. “What’s the catch?”
“Please, nothing like that. There is one little condition, but it’s nothing – something I think you’ll be happy to do for me.” Dario reaches for a glass, pours, holds it out to Cage; when the big man shakes his head, he shrugs and takes a sip himself. He lets a slow, predatory smile spread across his face and goes on, “Make it painful.”
Cage looks as if he wants to laugh. “That’s it?”
“You know I am a man who loves violence. But from this match, I want more. I want brutality. I want cruelty.” Dario gives a little shrug, takes another sip of his drink. “Not such a terrible catch, is it?”
Cage grins, and Dario recognizes the light in his eyes, the thirst for blood. “Consider it done.”
Later, after he’s seen Cage out, he stands at the window again, looking out at his temple and imagining the next week’s scene. One hand drifts unconsciously up to his face; he brushes his fingertips across the ghost of a bruise on his cheek, and smiles.
Option 1) Wedge plus (insert other ship character) go on an undercover mission together. Option 2) Bilbo and Bofur take a ballroom (or setting appropriate) dance class together.
“I don’t see what we have to have lessons for,” Nori grouses, not quietly. “I’ve been to plenty of weddings and never had a dancing lesson in my life, and somehow I’ve survived this far.”
“Ah, but have you been to a high-class wedding, that’s the question,” Bofur puts in. “I reckon they want a little finer dancing than a load of old miners stomping about and clapping hands.”
“Fancy my own brother having a wedding that’s too high-class for the likes of me,” Nori says, and then hastily adds “Not that I don’t approve, mind,” as Dori, standing at the other end of the room, turns and glares at him.
“Well, it’s just as well for me either way,” Billa says lightly. “I don’t fancy my chances keeping up with a miner’s dance on my first try, either, and at least this way I’ll have some company in my confusion.”
The dancing class goes smoothly for a quarter-hour or so; Dori may not be a great teacher, but he knows the steps forward and backward, and Balin, helping to deliver the lesson, is something of a softening influence. Then they change from a simple circle dance to a partnered dance that calls for much more complex steps, and everything immediately falls apart.
“Stop! Stop,” Dori cries for what must be the tenth time, the two lines of dancers stumbling to a halt. “Good gracious, what a mess. Once again: leaders come forward with your right foot, followers turn on your left, what are you two doing now?”
That last is directed to Fili and Kili, who’ve somehow ended up as partners and have been squabbling the entire time over which of them should dance the lead, as their ongoing whispered argument escalates to a shoving match. They both quail under Dori’s glare, though, and Kili sheepishly retreats to his place beside Billa in the followers’ line.
Dori gives him one last glower for good measure, then clears his throat. “Right. From the beginning again. One, two, right hands, turn–”
Billa makes the turn seamlessly and smiles up at Bofur, feeling momentarily confident. Them someone stumbles into her from behind, knocking her off-balance; she yelps and turns around to see Fili, apparently in retaliation for being shoved into her, lower his shoulder and tackle Kili into Nori, who swears and aims a kick at both brothers’ shins, and in a matter of moments the neat lines of dancers have dissolved into a melee, even Dori and Balin wading into the fray. She takes several hurried steps backward, out of the way; a moment later Bofur fights his way free, too, and joins her on the sideline.
“Well,” Billa says. “So much for Ori’s lovely traditional wedding, I suppose.”
“Ah, good news on that front,” Bofur says cheerily, surveying the fracas before them. “Strictly speaking, this is very traditional for a dwarvish wedding party.”
@fogbreaker asked: “ Number: 29, Ship: The empty bridge of a mothballed GR-75 rebel transport.”
29. ... as a promise
There’s nowhere private on the base, nowhere to be alone together; even their quarters are crowded at all hours, shared by six pilots running on different shifts. The best they can do is steal a few moments when the duty roster puts them in the same place at the same time. Today it’s the hangar, running maintenance checks on the transport ships, since they’re expecting the evacuation order any day; they’re working in teams of three, but Janson has wisely disappeared to check the landing-gear hydraulics, and once they’re alone on the bridge Wedge wastes no time pinning Luke up against the sensor console and kissing him senseless.
“I’ve been waiting all week for this,” Wedge says, voice low and hoarse, when he comes up for air. “What did we get, ten minutes alone in medical? It’s not enough.”
“I know.” Luke puts a hand on Wedge’s waist and leans into him, buries his face in the curve of Wedge’s neck and breathes in deeply. “Is it ridiculous if I say I’ve missed you? Bunked in the same room and it feels like I haven’t seen you in days.”
“We have seven minutes until that scan finishes.” Wedge twists in Luke’s arms, gives him a grin. “Still not enough, but--”
Luke catches him by the shoulder as he comes in for another kiss, stopping him. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Wedge feels his shoulders tense up -- but he knows Luke better than that, knows that if he meant to end this, he wouldn’t do it cruelly. The expected Imperial invasion making him tense, maybe, or he’s still tearing himself up about having scared everyone with that wampa attack. He forces himself to relax, manages a more-or-less neutral, “What’s up?”
“I think...” Luke hesitates, looking like he’s searching for a word. “I’ve had a strange feeling for a while now. Like there’s something I need to do, something besides--” he gestures vaguely around them, the motion seeming to capture the ship, the hangar beyond it, maybe the whole base-- “this.”
Or, it could be the monthly last-of-the-Jedi am-I-using-this-power-as-I-was-meant-to crisis. Wedge shakes his head. “Luke, we need you here. What you’re doing with the Rogues--”
“Isn’t anything you couldn’t do.” When Wedge starts to protest, he adds, “You know I don’t mean it's not important. But we have a lot of good pilots. We don’t--” He stops and ducks his head, face reddening.
There’s a version of Luke in some alternate world, maybe, that it would be easy to resent -- all grand destiny and uncanny talent, the only one who can do what he can do, wandering into the Rebellion by mistake and becoming its most celebrated hero within a week. Luckily, the Luke he’s got is the one who gets embarrassed and tongue-tied when he’s forced to admit to being something special. Wedge gives him a half-smile and says, “I know. We’ve only got one Jedi.”
“You don’t really even have that.” Luke looks rueful. “There’s so much I don’t know -- the Jedi used to train for years, next to that I’m just doing parlor tricks. I think what I’m feeling is the Force nudging me, that there’s something I need to do, maybe something I need to find, to--”
An alarm blares from outside the ship, and they both jump -- all hands, pilots to fighter bays, which must mean the evacuation they’ve been waiting for. “Oh, shit,” Luke interrupts himself, suddenly wide-eyed. “Half these ships aren’t ready--”
“They’ve all been checked out at least in the past month, it’ll have to do.” Wedge steps around him to read the results of the last scan. “Engines reading fine, hyperdrive reading fine, shields reading eighty-seven percent... sithspit, wish we had time to track that down, we’re really going to want those. Wait--” He catches Luke by the elbow as he’s heading toward the door. “Look, you didn’t get to finish what you wanted to say, just... promise me you won’t go chasing off on some Jedi quest until we’ve had a chance to talk.”
Luke’s only answer is to smile and kiss him again, long and slow and sweet, and it’s not until he fails to show up at the rendezvous point that it occurs to Wedge he never actually said I promise.
Oh, canonverse by a mile. I’ve said this before on similar ask memes, I think, but when I’m into a fandom, the world and the setting are usually a big part of it; I’m more likely to read fic that focuses on background characters and uses them to explore the world than fic that takes the main characters into a different world. And part of the fun of writing fic for me is trying to match the tone, the character voices, and the feel of canon, so writing an AU that’s significantly different from the canonical world spoils the fun a little bit for me. (Although I will say, there’s a lot of stuff I enjoy, and stuff I’ve written, that I don’t even really think of as “an AU” but that, you know, technically is – like, strictly speaking anything I wrote in Hobbit fandom that featured girl!Bilbo was an AU, anything I wrote that involved an everyone-lives ending was an AU, but when you say “Do you read a lot of AUs?” those aren’t what I think of.)
18. Do you have a fic reading/writing routine?
Reading: no, not at all. I... read fic on my laptop on the couch? That’s not much of a “routine.”
Writing: I have a pretty consistent process: I write my first draft of almost everything longhand, in a messy draft with a lot of margin notes and stream-of-consciousness skipping around. Typing it up is effectively my “rewrite” step, as I work in all those notes and edits that I made in the margins. I don’t normally do a lot of editing after that; I might run it past a beta reader, but I don’t always, and I’ll do a readthrough for typos and readability issues as I’m doing the final formatting, but I do so much editing as I go that my initial typed draft is usually pretty clean. In terms of my physical routine: I write everything in 10- or 15-minute bursts, usually lying on my stomach on the bed, with a timer running on my phone to keep me from getting distracted “just looking at Tumblr for a sec” or “researching.” Usually I’ll do two or three bursts and then take a longer break (or quit for the evening).
19. What’s your favorite character headcanon?
I don’t know if I really have one! I’m pretty fickle about headcanons -- to the extent I have ones I’m committed to, they’re generally pretty minor stuff (like personal fave That Was Wedge’s Jacket Luke Wore To The Medal Ceremony On Yavin), and I honestly can’t think of a headcanon I feel so strongly about that I’d avoid a story that conflicted with it. Possibly part of my problem here is that, anything I do feel that strongly about, I have mentally rounded up to “canon”?
