thefreakout (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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bakerstreet2020-03-27 06:33 am
thefreakout) wrote in bakerstreet2020-03-27 06:33 am
Entry tags:
[ hey, i brought you this soulmate ]
▸ post your character ◂
▸ you're now in a universe where destined soul mates exist! ◂
▸ rng for the type of au and for the ~situation~ ◂
▸ tag around ♥ ◂
type of au;
1. tats, your character has a tattoo of the first words the love of their life will say to them
2. familiars, your character has an animal tattoo representing their soul mate on them
3. glow, the first time your character sees their soul mate, their chests glow!
4. world in color, life is literally black and white, until you see your soul mate for the first time
5. choose your own, i'm definitely missing a milly because i'm lazy, pick your own
situation;
1. first meeting, you've never met this person before.
2. childhood mates, you've always known this person -- but on one particular birthday, everything changes.
3. together, you've been in a relationship for awhile now! happily wed or not, you decide.
4. not together, you've known you're soul mates for a long time, and yet have avoided a relationship.
5. choose your own, self explanatory c:
no subject
That is not a 'no.'
It's not an affirmative yes, but it's not a 'no.' She keeps her eyes fixed on him, the silence filling the space before his answer telling her more than his actual answer. She sorta purses her lips and narrows her eyes at him. It's not like... malicious, but she is clearly not very satisfied with that answer. ]
A couple?
no subject
Like I say, Solo was popular for a while. It was the name of the last ruling house, [ he says with a shrug. Quietly intentionally misunderstanding. Ahem. ]
no subject
She thinks it's the first, but pressing too hard comes with risks and may end up with her revealing more vulnerabilities than she is really ready to at this point. ]
Right. It wasn't that important anyway.
[ She sort of waves it off, like she could convince herself of that fact somehow. ]
no subject
If I did, [ he says carefully ] What would you want to know?
no subject
So, truthfully, this is not a question she had really considered specifically. She sort of just assumed that if he did know a Ben Solo that he would launch into some stories about him and she'd be able to start to form some mental image of him. ]
If you did, [ she asks, equally carefully ] What would you want someone to know?
no subject
[ he complains, falling silent again, looking out into the wavering expanse of hyperspace before them. It's hard, talking about his son. Harder still because it always involves a lie-- because there's some small part of him that can't believe Ben is really gone, no matter how sure he is that he isn't coming back.
But there's a little hope building in her that she might get answers to big questions, and he's going to have to crush that quick. Maybe she won't dig too deep if she believes Ben is dead.
The words are too bitter to force out. He's dead. He's not dead. He's just... Gone. ]
He was always very serious, [ he says finally, thinking of his son's dark eyes focused on some small matter, the little furrow in his brow, his quiet, sensitive demeanor. His mother's son, in so many ways. ]
no subject
This conversation-- it's heavy. It's uneasy. There's something unsaid in the air, and Rey doesn't know how but she can just tell. She shifts in the seat, her glance downcast for a long moment before it's back up meeting his. ]
I have something to show you.
[ She starts unwrapping the cloth around her forearm, pulling it aside before it reveals the looping signature 'Ben Solo' on her wrist. ]
no subject
Generally Han doesn't dwell in sentimentality, but surely every parent wonders, now and then, if there's someone out there waiting for their kid. Not that it's a necessity-- Leia and Han weren't destined, and he doesn't for a second believe their love was any less real; tumultuous sometimes, not always easy, but even now it's so much a part of him he can't imagine a world where he met her and didn't marry her. But there's always that hope, the belief that maybe things will be smoother. Better. All the best parts of love and none of the worst.
But if Ben ever found a name inscribed on himself, he never shared that with his family.
It's strange, being on the other side of this. Strange to see it, to know with certainty that it's not a coincidence, not someone else with the same name, not a mistake. It's a little part of his son on her skin. A world of promise blotted out, like a burning starship, a fire snuffed out in the black as it swallows all its own air. Stricken, he looks up at her. ]
I'm sorry, [ he says softly. It's not something Han Solo says often, and genuine grief rings in his voice despite his best efforts to swallow it. ]
no subject
She doesn't hold her arm up for him for very long, letting it fall back in her lap while she traces over it with the index finger of her other hand. It's strange-- before today she had given the name as little thought as she possible could, literally hiding it as often as she could. She didn't feel the need to chase it, chase him. She was waiting for something far more important on Jakku, her family, and Ben Solo whoever he was, would have been a distraction. A liability. Not someone she would have left Jakku for before she was ready, certainly.
Or those are the lies Rey told herself at least. Self-protection delusions. She's better at those than she really realizes at this point, because if that were really true, she wouldn't feel a sadness boring into her chest. She wouldn't be biting her lip to stop it from trembling minutely. She wouldn't feel a cold, but familiar loneliness blanketing her as she wraps her arms around herself and tries to make herself small in the co-pilot's seat.
How is it possible to feel abandoned by someone you've never met?
All she can do is offer a fractional nod, silent hanging heavily between them for a long moment. ]
What happened to him?
[ Nothing good can come of this question, but she still needs to know. ]
no subject
If things were different, he thinks-- he shouldn't think about it, he knows. But he thinks Ben would have liked her. He would have liked having her as part of the family, he thinks.
Or maybe it's just wistful thinking.
He can't look at her, not right now. For a long moment he's quiet, looking out at nothing, trying to find some way to answer. ]
We lost him, [ he says slowly, carefully, ] after he went to train with Luke. One of his apprentices turned against him...
[ It's not untrue.
It's a lie.
He shakes his head. ]
i'm sorry these are so slow i'm just over here being emotionally devastated
The nod she offers is small, like a forced jerk of her head. Just once. She's got it. Her hands are in tight fists and the meat of her palm digs into her thighs. The friction of the rough fabric and the way her fingernails cut into her palms at least giving her some feeling to focus on other than the fact that she learned who Ben Solo is and also the fact that he is apparently dead in the approximate span of two minutes. ]
He was a Jedi.
[ A legend is the coded meaning behind that. A whole family of legends, really. She's not quite sure how to reconcile that with being a totally nobody from nowhere.
Well. She supposes it's not something she has to really grapple with anymore.
She swallows hard, literally trying to shake herself from this self-pity. She was no stranger to death, only narrowly avoiding it herself on Jakku more than once while other scavengers lay as bleached bones in the desert sun. She had never met Ben Solo, and she could not reasonably mourn him. She could not let herself. It was selfish to make this about herself. ]
I'm sorry. About what happened.
[ She can't help but feel like this comes off as a pale attempt at sympathy, no matter how genuinely she means it. ]
ngl, i'm pleased to be the instrument of such destruction
[ he says softly, barely managing to hold back a sigh. For once he sounds... unenthusiastic, about the Jedi. It's unfair, and the truth is it's not that he blames Luke or the new Jedi order for any of it-- it's just... There was too much of his grandfather in Ben.
They pushed him, to turn his talents and his strength to the Light, and maybe they pushed him too hard.
Or maybe-- probably-- Han just doesn't understand a damn thing about it. He's always been a man of action, but to run across a situation where he couldn't do a damn thing, couldn't begin to imagine what he could have done?
He failed his son. Whether through his obstinate practicality, the fact that he's about as Force-aligned as the damn conservator, or through inattention, or... Or something. He doesn't know. Can't begin to know. And that's the worst part. ]
no subject
Thank you for telling me.
[ Even if she had to push him. Even if the conversation hurt them both. It's kinder, she thinks, to know even if it hurts. Maybe.
What are the chances a Jedi would have ever ended up on a backwater planet like Jakku anyway? ]
no subject
Ben Solo is gone, he reminds himself. By choice, by destiny. Does it matter if he's still breathing?
It's a relief to be done with the conversation. That's it. It's finished. ]
You would have been good for him,
[ he says, after a few minutes of dead silence, like a man possessed.
He suppresses the urge to swear at himself. What the hell, Han? You were done. ]
no subject
And then he just hits her with that, and her throat sort of feels like it's closing up. ]
You don't-- [ She makes a pained expression because part of her wants to hear it, to keep imagining what Ben Solo would have been like.
Serious, Han had told her that. Studious too if he was going to be a Jedi, right? She looks back over to Han, picking out his most notable features and unwittingly mentally constructing him. Rey had seen a few holos of the old rebellion heroes, so it's not hard to start with an aged down version and just adjust. ]
You don't have to do this.
[ It's quiet, barely squeaked out. But maybe he needs this. Maybe he's doing the same thing she's doing, dipping down into an impossible what-if. Just for a moment, and maybe she should let him if it can bring him some peace about his son. ]
no subject
[ he says, sounding just a little cross. He doesn't have to do this, so why the hell is he doing this?
But apparently they're doing this. ]
You wouldn't have let him brood.
no subject
But she guesses they're doing this. ]
No. I wouldn't have. Brooding isn't worth the time.
[ It hardly seems practical, and it doesn't get you far when anything but survival can't help but be top of mind. They'd be quite the pair, she thinks. Scholarly, serious, and brooding juxtaposed with her scrappy resilience and the optimism that she knows is a bit unearned and might have exasperated him given what she knows from Han now.
She can't quite tell if this is helping more than it's hurting for either of them. ]
He didn't ever say anything..?
[ She taps her wrist, even if that's not necessarily where her name was inscribed. ]
no subject
Not to me. Or Leia, I don't think.
[ She would have said something. Maybe not early on, she might not have betrayed it if Ben shared it in confidence-- and maybe to spare Han's ego, because isn't that the sort of thing a boy should tell his father? But after everything-- if she'd had any hint, any lead, any scrap of information that might have meant something it would have spilled out. They shared everything so fully, at first, in that flood of grief; and then they followed different trails until they lost sight of one another, more or less, and it just seemed simpler to stay that way.
He misses her as much as he ever has. But he knows what she sees when she looks at him. So apart they stay. ]
I think-- well, I don't know, [ he admits. Isn't that the problem? They never knew him well enough, in the end. ] But like I said, he was serious. Maybe he didn't want to say anything until he knew more about you.
[ Not that it would have mattered. They would have tried to find her. In those happier days they would have welcomed her with open arms, and under the circumstances Han obviously knows he'd have gotten along well with his presumptive daughter-in-law. But it's easy to imagine the Ben he remembers being cautious- wanting to understand before he took a step. Ben, who did so well at so many things and struggled to contain his frustration when he didn't.
Maybe he just wanted to be less of an awkward screwup than his old man, whose first encounter with his wife ended up being chased down a trash chute.There's all that bantha fodder about avoiding attachment the old Jedi used to prattle about, and sometimes Han wonders if maybe Ben took that to heart. He's not sure how; not when Luke radiated love for his family like a blue star. But he doesn't know. Can't know. ]