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notbecauseofvictories · 6 years

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FIC | another city (better than this one)

[READ ON AO3]

“It’s ‘Solo’ now.”

Ben offers it up before Lando can even open his mouth; abrupt and with a whole mess of badly-hidden nerves. For the moment, the kid is sitting cross-legged on a drum of tibanna gas, picking at a hole in his leggings despite the bulky stun-cuffs binding his wrists together. He keeps darting black looks at the patrolmen flanking him on either side, and scowling. He’s fifteen, Lando guesses; give or take a few years (Lando hasn’t been keeping track) and has mastered the art of scowling with his whole body, every inch of him lending itself to the effort.

He’s grown another foot since Lando saw him last; it adds up to a lot of scowling.

“You really should be more creative with your aliases,” Lando says mildly. “I’ve had every anagram of ‘Skywalker’ flagged since the first time you tried to run away from home.”

“Yeah, well, the droid was recording the manifest,” Ben mutters. “Can’t mind-trick a droid into letting you slip by.”

He shrugs, though it looks more like an awkward twitch. The kid’s all awkwardness, from the absurd slope of his mouth to the way he hunches his shoulders in, like he’s somehow attempting to make himself smaller. The effect is like a bantha trying to pass for a housecat.

Lando snorts. “My advice is the same, pick smarter aliases. Something random, next time.”

Ben shoots him a look and Lando sighs, gesturing for the patrolmen to remove the stun-cuffs. “Why ‘Solo’ all of a sudden?” Lando asks. “You and Leia fighting again?”

Ben hunches over further, the ragged mop of his hair hiding his eyes. It must have been bad, whatever argument he and Leia got into; Ben only cuts his hair when it’s bad.

Most of Lando’s memories if Ben feature a kid wearing complicated braids—it was an Alderaanian tradition, and it had been a point of pride for Leia to pass on something to her son, Lando knew. He also knew that before being shipped off to Luke, Ben had screamed and screamed and when that didn’t work, he took a pair of scissors and sheared off every strand of hair long enough to braid. Leia had been devastated, and since then, the length of Ben’s hair has become a reliable indicator of how long it’s been since the last serious fight with his mother.

Lando wonders if it’ll ever be long enough to braid again.

Ben is silent, even when the patrolmen move take off the cuffs. (He clenches his fists when they move in close, and Lando panics, dizzily thinking, if he tries anything—

Ben abruptly flattens his hands out again, as though he can hear Lando thinking it. No one ends up choking on air, or thrown off the dock by a vast, invisible strength; it’s enough and Lando forces himself to relax, breathe.)

“I can handle things from here, thank you,” Lando says to the patrolmen after the cuffs have been removed. He dismisses them with a weary smile, making a private note to follow up after and ensure the paperwork for this particular incident disappears into the ether.

It’s not the first time Ben decided stow himself away on a ship headed for Cloud City, but it had been easier when he was younger. Leia could call in favors to keep transport grounded, and Han could follow the trail, catch Ben before he got off-world. Captains were suspicious of a child trying to talk his way onto a freighter. The kid only managed to get off Chandrila once before, and then only because he’d snuck in through the exhaust and wedged himself beneath an empty tibanna tank, unnoticed until the freighter was already in hyperspace.

Now that Ben’s come into his inheritance as a Jedi, Lando doubts anyone but Luke could stop him from going wherever he pleases. And clearly, Luke’s falling down on the job.

Lando studies the sullen line of Ben’s mouth. “Does Luke even know you’re here?” he asks.

Ben has gone back to picking at the hole in his leggings. “No,” he says finally. “He probably hasn’t even noticed I’m gone. The---school keeps him busy.”

Lando’s never heard anyone say ‘school’ with as much venom as Ben manages to fit into that single word.

Briefly Lando shuts his eyes, imagining the evening he had planned—the nice decanter of Kuat sherry, minimal paperwork, the sweet possibility that the mine’s handsome new investor would stop by, as he’d suggested he might. It had been a beautiful dream, Lando had been looking forward to realizing it.

Lando sighs, and scrubs a hand over his face.

“Okay, kid. Okay. Here’s the plan. First, we’re going to comm Luke and let him know that you’re not dead. Then you can fill out the application for a temporary residency permit, so you can actually stay in the City longer than a standard day. After that’s finished, I’m having someone fix your hair, because people are going to think you’re some sort of spice-addled vagrant if you walk around like that.”

Ben doesn’t actually smile, but the hard line of his scowl softens a little. “Okay,” he says.

He signs the temporary residency permit ‘Ben Solo’. Lando decides not to mention how uncertainly he scrawls that name, like it belongs to someone else.

Lando comms Leia himself, after making sure that Ben is asleep in the guest room. “Hey, Princess,” he says, propping his chin up on his hand, and he has the distinct pleasure of watching her smile.

It’s a strange sort of friendship, between him and the wife of a man he once thought was his; but a friendship, nonetheless. “Baron,” Leia laughs, revealing new lines on her face. (Not a very close friendship, or a reliable one. But they both have loved Han Solo, and that sort of ruin demands companionship---and worse, understanding.)

“Your son is here,” Lando says, and the laughter vanishes from her face like a fried lamp, electricity shorting out.

“Oh,” she says weakly.

“I thought I’d tell you. I made him comm Luke, but...”

Leia shuts her eyes, shaking her head heavily. “We fought. Again.”

“I figured.”

Leia sighs, and Lando can hear the strain in her voice. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll pass it along to Han, he has a new frequency now. I’m sure...we can arrange for transport back to Endor, or reimburse you, I just---”

“That’s not why I’m comming, Leia, don’t worry about---”

“I know,” she bites out, and Lando is sorry for bring it up, for saying it like that, like his holdson is some sort of shipment he’s expecting reimbursement for. There’s a gods-fucking lake of things they don’t talk about when it comes to the wake of the Civil War---the Rebellion, though no one calls it that any longer. In those early days of peace, Lando had been the only one with money, squirreled away in Hutt vaults and shady Outer Rim banks. He’d funded Leia’s first senatorial campaign, and shelled out for Han’s racing modifications to the Falcon; he’d even underwritten Luke’s school on Endor, and that was just a few years ago.

He’d seen it all as...a gift, to the only family he suspected he’d get in this life. It wasn’t as though his money was doing anything meaningful sitting in a bank.

It wasn’t until Han got spectacularly drunk one evening that he let slip Leia uncomfortably considered it a debt, one she could never repay. (She’s royal, you know, Han had said. He’d been drunk and loose, flushed with love and new fatherhood, and Lando hadn’t envied him, except maybe a little. They’re...funny about credits, they don’t like to think about what life costs. She doesn’t like to think about it.)

“Leia,” Lando says, feeling very old. “That’s....he’s my holdson. I’m happy to have him. He’s always welcome here, you all are. You know that.”

Even through the wavering blue veil of a comm transmission, Leia looks dubious. (Her son is---perhaps it’s cruel to think it, but her son is not welcome in many places. They both know that.) Lando grins, and then tries softening it to a smile. Something gentler, sincere.

“Really. Let him stay for a few weeks, hide out with his other uncle and review contracts and itemized shipping lists until his eyes bleed. He’ll demand to go back to being a Jedi, I swear.”

Once, long ago, Lando had met the previous Senator Organa---by accident, mostly. He and Han had been smuggling tech to Alderaan, and the Late Senator Organa had been on his way off-world. Lando couldn’t remember why. But the Late Senator had stopped and talked with them for a moment, asked what they were transporting, and where they were from. Lando had been twenty-seven and mostly hopelessly infatuated; he remembers a lot of awkward, stuttering pauses as he tried to think of something impressive to say to the beautiful man in grey-and-purple robes.

(Han had noticed, and he’d fucked Lando into the co-pilot’s seat afterwards, hot with jealousy. Lando had been delighted.)

Lando knows Leia is not the Late Senator Organa’s biological child. Nevertheless, there’s something about her eyes, it registers as the same sort of sinuous pressure on his skin.

“All right,” Leia says at last, as though she’s grinding out transparisteel. “I won’t interfere.”

He laughs. “Princess, you were spying on the Imperial Senate when you were his age. Maybe he’s just restless, looking for his purpose.”

She shoots him a sour look. “He has a purpose.”

“I know,” Lando says. It doesn’t surprise him that Leia got a blindspot there, can’t see the difference between a purpose and your purpose. He doubts anyone ever asked her if she wanted to be Princess of the Rebellion. “I know. But let him...I mean, he’s fifteen. Let him have some room to run.”

They talk for a little longer, back and forth---she complains about the glacial pace of the Senate, he throws in some anecdotes about the dysfunctional Cloud City Board of Trustees that have her crying with laughter. By the end, she’s smiling again, and when Lando says, “Let him stay,” she ducks her head and says, “Yes.”

Ben’s door is still open when Lando goes by. The kid is a dark shape in a room of darkened shapes, and Lando looks at that strange and familiar outline for a minute, thinking about Han, and Leia, and Tatooine and Luke wearing black. How oddly contented he is, watching Ben Organa Solo’s chest rise and fall.

Lando falls into to his own bed, after, and doesn’t dream.

Lando will forever treasure the look on Ben Solo’s face when he sets the stack of datapads down in front of him. “What?” Ben says, and Lando grins, his best grin, the kind he typically saves for investors, foremen, and pleasure cruisers who really just get off on watching people grovel.

“You’re a temporary citizen of Cloud City now. Technically, that means you work for Cloud Securities Limited Incorporated, which means you’re not allowed to remain planetside for longer than twenty-four hours without the approval of a Cloud City Securities Limited Incorporated supervisor.” Lando leans in, until he’s close enough that Ben’s eyes have gone wide and panicked, and the kid’s leaning back dangerously in his chair. “I’m you’re supervisor, Ben.”

Lando will give him this: Ben Solo is quieter than Ben Organa ever was.

(They have lunch together afterwards. Lando takes him to the canteen as a kind of test, but Ben Solo accepts the hydrated meal pack with a minimum of fuss, says thank you, and keeps his head down in the mess hall. With his hair cut, Lando can watch his eyes, and Ben’s are wounded, but not hard. It’s enough. Lando decides it’s enough.)

This goes on, pretty much. Ben Solo has a head for numbers---”Your dad was good at math too,” Lando says, and Ben’s ears go an ugly crimson color---and he’s not bad company if you don’t mind pointed, angry silences. Awkward as all hells, yes, absolutely. Every time a pretty girl even just walks past them he goes silent and panicky, then sulks for hours afterwards; but Han was always like that too, Lando remembers. Too much, too soon, showing all your cards. (Leia had had more dignity, refusing to reveal how far she’d fallen until there might not be another chance.)

“Aren’t you going to ask me what we argued about?” Ben asks during the third week. Lando’s genuinely surprised he managed to hold out.

“You can tell me, if you want,” Lando says, keeping his expression something bored, blank. “But I figure it’s not really my business.”

Ben has to slouch to fit in Lando’s shadow. The realization makes Lando feel pathetically tender towards him, this boy with hands like plates and feet like skimmers and a perpetual scowl. Sometimes, Lando looks at Ben Solo and it’s all he can do not to remember Han, Han at not much older than Ben is now, and he thinks---

It’s not important.

The story Lando heard goes like this:

Ben was nine, all scabby knees and cute, probably. (Han wouldn’t shut up about his son being a handsome devil, but Lando’s seen holos of Ben when he was younger---‘interesting-looking’ is being generous.) Anyway, he was a kid. He got in trouble sometimes, like kids do. Especially when they’re Han Solo and Leia Organa’s kid.

But one day, the school commed Leia, and said, come immediately.

Ben was sitting outside the head teacher’s office, pale and shaking and babbling about an accident, a mistake, he was sorry. He was so sorry. And Ben reached for his mother with blood all down the front of his shirt, on his arms, and dried like black paint on his hands.

It wasn’t his blood.

Ben was nine, and Lando doesn’t know what Leia promised the parents of the little girl he almost-killed but it must have been something else, because nothing about the incident ever hit the holonews. This next part of the story gets elided, or maybe Lando’s just not remembering it all. He guesses Leia commed Luke and talked with him about the fact that her son was beyond meditation and floating rocks now; that her son needed help.

Han wasn’t commed until afterwards. (Lando knows because he and Leia fought about that, the first of the last; Han hid out with Lando in the wake of it. I’m his dad, Han had said after too much whiskey, and Lando’s blood had run cold. Han’s voice had never been that hollow and hopeless. He’d looked...so much older in that moment, an old man already.

I’m his dad, and I can’t even---I can’t protect him. I can’t help him. What’s the point of a father who can’t help his son?)

One month later, Luke arrived to take Ben to the Outer Rim and teach him how to be a Jedi. And that was that.

Ben can be coaxed into talking about Jedi stuff, at least in the theoretical. Lando will admit it’s all a bit beyond him, and boring as all hells, but it’s nice to see the kid get excited about something. Even if it’s just knowing shit Lando doesn’t.

He never talks about Luke or the other students at the school unless Lando asks directly. Even then, his answers are clipped, monosyllabic if he can manage it. The angry poison has faded from his voice, but underneath is a well of something uglier, a hardened sort of bitterness that Lando wouldn’t begin to know how to chip away at.

There were gamblers on Canto Bight who talked like that---old men, spice-addled and ranting, convinced the system had cheated them. Those imagined fortunes curdled their insides, turned them into something monstrous. What a man felt he was owed...

Lando decides it’s none of his business, and stops asking.

Sometimes---not often, but maybe out of the corner of Lando’s eye---Ben doesn’t look like Han at all.

The dining room where Darth Vader once used Lando to bait his trap was torn out on Lando’s orders, remodeled into a solarium. Folirian snowdrops and new, green hyranith trees grow there now, rising up from neat beds. One of the foremen leads exercises there in the morning and Lando knows that it’s a popular place for the younger workers to go after curfew---the cleaning droids keep complaining about empty bottles, and fluids.

There’s nothing to mark the place as anything more than that.

(”Did you save Cloud City from Darth Vader?” Ben asks, and it takes Lando fifteen minutes of cajoling to figure out that the stupid accounting interns have been gossiping with the Baron’s new assistant.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Lando says sharply enough that he sees Ben flinch from him. “That was a dark time, we did what we had to do.”)

Once, late into the fourth shift, Lando is making his way from the office block to his rooms and---it’s out of the corner of his eye, he doesn’t know why he looks but he does. There’s a tall humanoid standing in the center of the solarium, swathed in shadows and starlight and Lando’s heart, it stops dead, everything stops dead, he stops dead, staring at---at what---

Luke said he saw ghosts. Luke said---

Lando must drop his datapad, because the shadowy figure startles at the crunch of the casing. A moment later, Ben emerges from the solarium, barefoot, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and shadows beneath his eyes.

He’s just a boy and yet Lando is frozen, watching him move like a thing apart from the galaxy as it is---still somehow cloaked in shadow-blue, dangerous. Ben frowns, reaching out and taking Lando’s arm. His hand is hot, through the silk of Lando’s shirt.

“Lando?” Ben says. There’s rare concern on his face, but Lando only makes a choked-off noise, jerking his arm out of Ben’s grip like it burns. (Maybe it does.)

“Uncle Lando?” Ben repeats, and it’s that. Lando is---uncle. This is his holdson, his nephew, his. It’s fine. They’re all fine.

“I’m---I’m fine. It’s...it’s fine.” Lando forces himself to exhale, to bend down and pick up the cracked datapad and smile, weakly. “What are you doing in the iota east sector this late anyway? Come on, let’s...go back.”

Ben walks a step or two ahead of Lando, the tail of the blanket trailing behind him like a cloak. Lando swallows a rising tide of nausea and shuts his eyes, walks the rest of the way blind. Listening to the sound of Ben’s bare feet on the stone, and taking comfort in its humanness.

“Kid’s too pale to be yours,” Umlale says, and Lando doesn’t have to turn his head to know she’s smirking. He rolls his eyes, though he knows she won’t be able to see it through the thick protective goggles.

It’s easy to track Ben through the maze of the processing plant, taller than any of the other techs, the bright green trainee helmet bobbing amid the flow of grey-blue. He’d given Lando the blackest, nastiest look when Lando announced he was being reassigned. Lando had definitely not enjoyed that more than he should have.

“Son of some friends from the war.”

“Must not be very good friends,” Umlale says, and Lando does turn to look at her then. Her luminous eyes wink out from behind the goggles, yellow-green and still uncanny, even after fifteen years of being head of plant operations. Lando always thinks he should be used to it by now; he never actually is.

“What do you mean? He’s my holdson, the kid’s basically family.”

“And you couldn’t get him some swank job in the upper levels?” Umlale asks, her long antennae flicking forward. “Holdson of the Baron, you’d think you could have him making rounds in the casino or overseeing the resorts, working on...outreach, or whatever slick word you’ve come up with to sell the City as more than just a mining colony.”

Lando tries to imagine Ben outreaching to anyone, about anything.

(He pictures...fire. A lot of fire. And people screaming.)

He plays it off with a smirk. “Are you saying that plant tech maintenance isn’t solid work?”

Umlale’s eyes blink, and her whole thorax twitches, in the way Lando knows is as good as a shrug. “It’s solid work. But it’s dirty, and hard. Not the kind of work a Baron gives to family.”

“Unless,” she added after a moment, “you don’t like your family very much.”

“The boy could stand to get his hands dirty,” Lando says, but Umlale is still watching him with bright eyes. Lando flashes a thin smile, turns away. Ben’s green helmet is nowhere to be seen; he must have moved on with the others, into another sector of the plant.

“His pheromones are strange, I noticed when you introduced him. Like something dead and rotting. I know humans aren’t very good at detecting chemical trails, but I wonder...is that what scares you so much?” Umlale asks, and Lando---

---isn’t quick enough to hide it.

“Oh,” Umlale says, and Lando isn’t sure if it’s his face or his pheromones that give it away. Umlale’s spent enough time scenting chemicals and working with humans, it could be either. “You didn’t know. You thought you distrusted him for no reason?”

Lando opens his mouth, and absolutely does not say, no, I thought I was just terrified that he’d raise his hand up like Darth Vader and wipe out half my city, and there would be nothing I could do to stop him.

“Just make sure he doesn’t accidentally burn the place down, all right?” Lando says instead. “He’s my only holdson, but this is my city. I’d hate to have to choose between the two.”

Lando can hear Ben crying at night sometimes, thrashing in nightmares Lando has stopped trying to wake him from. Lando lies awake those nights, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what in all the hells he’s supposed to do, how---

“I liked him,” Ben says one morning, of the handsome investor who has stopped coming over because he can’t stand the howling cries of Lando’s holdson.

“Did you,” Lando snaps. He promised himself he would not get angry at Ben, he would understand, he would understand because he’d slept with Luke Skywalker a few times, back when Luke was young and less in control. Lando can remember the gold-touch of Luke against his mind, the fundamental strangeness of all that alien power pushing through to his skin. And that was just sometimes---he imagines it’s worse, weirder, having that crazy-making thing in your head all the time. Since before you were born.

(Like something dead and rotting, Umlale had said.)

He has sympathy for the uncanny strength collected in Ben’s hands. It isn’t irritation. It isn’t.

But Ben only flinches and then stares down at his hands for the rest of the meal. Lando isn’t sure what’s in that look. It exists. It probably shouldn’t. That’s all.

“It’s been almost three standard months,” Luke says. He’s pacing, and the holoimage keeps flicking in and out of focus trying to track him. It’s making Lando’s headache worse.

“It’s only been eight weeks,” Lando says, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to get the headache to ease a little. “Anyway, I don’t know what to tell you. He’s a pretty decent plant maintenance tech now, though. Give him another month, I think he may even be eligible for level two clearance.”

“Lando,” Luke sighs, and Lando wants to laugh at how similar they sound---Ben and Luke, that same tone of disapproval from on high. Maybe it’s Force thing.

“You said he’d be begging to come back! You told Leia!” Luke says, and it’s Lando’s turn to sigh.

“I guess I was wrong.”

“He belongs---”

“I’m not going to force him to leave, Luke. He’s an employee of Cloud City, I can’t fire him without cause, and his residency permit only expires upon his death, criminal conviction, voluntary departure, or termination by the City.”

Luke makes a derisive noise, and Lando cracks open an eye, grinning ruefully. “Sorry, Master Jedi. Some of us have to abide by the bylaws.”

Luke is quiet for a long moment. When Lando opens his eyes, Luke is staring off somewhere into the middle distance, looking---grave, maybe. A little sad. “This is his home,” Luke says finally. His voice is quiet. “This is where he’s safe.”

Lando is silent.

He coaxes Ben to talking to Luke himself, after Lando’s done. He gets a shattered comm box for his trouble, the cracked holoprojector throwing out alarming sparks.

“You can take it out of my pay,” Ben snarls as he stalks out of the room, and the air in his wake Lando can taste electricity, like a stormfront moving in.

Most nights, Lando teaches Ben to cheat at sabacc. “Han didn’t do the honors?” Lando asks, shuffling the deck. Ben shrugs.

“He didn’t want to pass on---that sort of thing.”

For someone who’d always loved the weightless speed of hyperspace, Han carts a lot of shame around. “Well, I was always a better cardsharp than he was anyway. The trick,” Lando says, flicking a card from one hand to the other and back again, “is not to be too flashy, trust your instincts, and never get caught.”

Lando takes him to the Cloud City casino, once he deems Ben acceptable. He makes Ben give all his winnings back afterwards, “Since technically, when you beat the house, it’s me you’re stealing from.”

“Thanks,” Ben mumbles, late one night when he’s sprawled out on the couch and already mostly asleep. Lando is just shuffling the deck back and forth between his hands, thinking about storm season, and whether they’ll make their number for the quarter.

In the dimmed light, his expression smoothed out and hair falling in his eyes, The kid looks much younger this way---like a boy, a child.

“No problem,” Lando says quietly. “Anyway, I imagine using the Force makes this sort of thing easy for you.”

“Yeah,” Ben says. His eyes are shut. “But it’s nice.”

Lando’s finalizing the new durasteel supplier contract---it’s been in the works for over a year and he wants it done; they have some major structural repairs to complete before storm season---which is maybe why he doesn’t notice. He’s distracted, running on a haze of caf and uneasy sleep; it makes sense that the rest of the baronetcy staff are also drawn and quiet, focused on pushing through the deal.

It’s a pity when Eroll quits abruptly, claiming a sick mother on Mygeeto, but Lando understands. And it’s a shame that Onrtia decides to use her vacation time just then, given that she’s one of Lando’s best assessors, but she couldn’t be persuaded to wait until the deal closed. Fedyn asks to be reassigned to a lower level, and so does Geem, but Lando always privately thought they didn’t have what it took to work in the baronetcy.

He doesn’t think anything of any of it until he wishes one of the accounting interns a mild good morning, and she promptly bursts into tears. A meddroid has to be called to sedate her.

(The durasteel supplier contract is put on hold.)

“I had an interesting conversation this morning with Saytini Raum, in the accounting offices,” Lando says to Ben that night at dinner. They’re in Lando’s suites, alone; Lando didn’t want to risk this conversation in the mess hall. He’s still not sure he wants to risk it at all, but all he can think about is Fedyn’s haunted expression, the panic in Onrtia’s voice as she insisted, no, everything was fine, why wouldn’t everything be fine?

Saytini, dosed with sed and her eyes still wide, terrified, saying, I can feel him in my head, moving around. Like maggots.

“What did you talk about?” Ben asks nonchalantly. Or what Lando imagines is supposed to be nonchalantly, the kid has a face like a pane of transparisteel, every emotion reflected there.

For a moment, Lando allows himself hate him, Ben Organa or Solo or whoever he wants to be right now, clumsily affecting innocence. For that moment, Lando hates him with all the fire of Bespin’s burning core.

Then he exhales, and lets it slide away. It’s replaced by a vast weariness. “Why did you do it, Ben?”

Ben smiles. He actually smiles, and Lando wants to be sick. He sets down his silverware with a clatter, but the smile on Ben’s face doesn’t falter. “I wanted to help,” Ben says proudly, and Lando shakes his head, uncomprehending. Ben just smiles. “To repay you for everything you’ve given me.”

“A---what?”

“I wanted to help you, help Cloud City. Eroll was talking about you behind your back, complaining about your leadership, so I convinced him to leave and go home. Onrtia isn’t loyal to you, she just wants to make money before she goes, so I made sure she wouldn’t get commission for the supplier contract. You don’t like Fedyn and Geem, they were the previous Baron’s staff, so I convinced them to get reassigned. Saytini was just...I needed information, and she’s a gossip, she knows about stuff.”

“You...convinced them?”

“With the Force, Luke calls it a mind-trick. I even convinced the other workers at the plant to put in more hours, work harder, without asking for any more pay.”

Ben is still smiling, like he’s expecting praise, a pat on the head. Lando dizzily remembers that he had noticed the uptick in safety incidents at the plant; he’d put it down to a learning curve with the new tech, or maybe the weather---everyone tended to get restless and careless during calms. He’d told the safety director to keep an eye on it and determine if it was a trend, then report back.

Of course it’s a trend. His people---his techs, his miners, his processors and ops staff---have been working until they’re too tired not to hurt themselves.

Lando really will be sick.

“Will it fade?” he asks, keeping his voice as light and neutral as he can.

“Fade?”

“What you---convinced them to do, will that fade on its own or do you have to give them new, different order?”

“I mean, I guess it fades on its own if I’m not around, but I don’t understand, why would you want it to fade? Everything’s going so well! Your profits are up, you’re producing more and purer tibanna than before!”

“Ben, you can’t do that, you can’t...”

“I didn’t make them do anything they didn’t want to, it wasn’t even for me. I was helping!”

The worst part is that Ben looks...genuinely confused, hurt and overeager and it’s too much, it’s all too much. (I can feel him in my head, moving around. Like maggots. Like something dead and rotting.) Lando told Umlale that he would hate to choose between his holdson and his city, but he’s made this choice before. Han or Ben, Darth Vader or no---

It’s the City, every time.

Lando squeezes his eyes shut and braces his hands against the table. The wood is cool against his skin. “Mr. Solo. As of now, your employment with Cloud Securities Limited Incorporated is terminated. Your temporary residency permit will expire twenty-four hours from the processing of termination. You therefore have twenty-four hours to leave the City, or---”

Ben shoots to his feet, knocking his chair to the ground with a crash. “You can’t do that! You promised I wouldn't have to leave! I’m helping!”

“This was wrong, Ben. You...you’ve made yourself a threat to Cloud City and my people,” Lando says, staying seated. He’s not as tall as Ben, but he’s broader, and he suspects he can throw a better punch if Ben gets close enough for it. If Ben decides to use the Force, though---

Ben is breathing shallowly, and all the blood has gone to his cheeks, two spots of blotchy red stark against his paleness. “I’ll stop,” he says wildly. “I’ll stop, I won’t...don’t make me go. I’m sorry. Please, Lando, please, don’t make me---”

Ben doesn’t cry, at least not like Saytini had---he’s white-lipped and gritting his teeth through it, as though outraged that he can’t stop himself. “I was helping,” he says again. "You just don’t want me here, like---everyone else, you’re just like the others, you just---”

Lando sits there and lets him rage, doesn’t even flinch when an invisible strength picks up his plate and hurls it to the wall, smashing it in a thousand pieces. Lando watches his dinner slide, forlornly down the wall; Ben is still yelling. Lando isn’t paying much attention to the words, just the---sound, the boy hurting and lashing out. (When he shuts his eyes Geem is there, trying to smile and failing, just looking twitchy and anxious and uncertain.)

It takes him almost an hour for Ben to wind down again, at which point most everything in Lando’s dining room has been tossed or hurled or smashed.

Ben sinks back into his chair breathing hard, blotchy-red from his neck to his ears.

“I’m sorry, Ben,” Lando says quietly. “I really am, kid. And of course we’ll get you passage to Endor, I’ll take care of it---”

“I hate you,” Ben says with that same ugly, hardened bitterness. “I hate you more than any of them.”

Lando swallows the protest. “You’re still---family, my holdson.”

Ben huffs, his mouth curving into a sneer, and staggers to his feet again. “Family,” he says with that familiar ugly, hardened bitterness. “Sure.”

Lando watches him go and then exhales, puts his forehead down on the table. The woodgrain is cool, and comforting. He shuts his eyes, and simply breathes.

“What did you and Leia fight about?” Lando asks, as they’re standing on the wharf, waiting for Ben’s ship to board. It’s a cold, clear morning, and the sun is brilliant white over the clouds.

Ben doesn’t look at him. “I thought it wasn’t any of your business.”

Lando hums, squinting into the light. “Maybe it should have been.”

The freighter captain calls for boarding, and Ben hefts his pack on his shoulder. He looks at Lando for a moment, then swallows and turns away. Lando watches him go, and says nothing.

#the warry stars #star wars #originally this was going to be ben/lando but uh. I wanted to go much much darker for that so instead you have ben & lando #also #this was.....extremely cathartic to write for personal reasons that I'm trying not to examine too much #ANYWAY #long post for ts #this is a thing I made

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fallwritesfiction · 7 years

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Prompt: 016. strawberries Fandom: RWBY Pairing/Characters: Yang Xiao Long/Hei 'Junior' Xiong Rating: Explicit Wordcount: ~2700 Summary: Yang goes back to Junior’s club. Part of the Beacon University AU. Notes/Warnings: professional kickboxer Yang, club owner Junior, alcohol mention, prescription drug use (Junior, not Yang), hot domme Yang, prideful sub Junior, power dynamics, begging, humiliation, please use safe words when you play, mutual masturbation, also solo masturbation, Yang gets herself off a lot okay Other Parts: Part One

Yang doesn't stay away from the club for long. She knows she won't get all of what she wants right now from Junior - not even close - but if she's careful, she might be able to work up to the point where she can get him inside her. It won't be tonight. It might not be this month, or for a few months yet. But she thinks it's possible, and she wants it.

"Yang," he says, when she comes in. It's a weeknight. The club's busy enough to keep it open, but not so much he really has to pay much attention. Maybe he should be calling her 'sir', but she'll let it slide. She does try to let him keep some of his dignity in front of his employees.

"Junior," she says, swinging her legs over a stool. "Get me something fruity."

He reaches underneath the bar for a glass, a bottle of her favorite vodka, and....

"Strawberries?" She asks, surprised. She's been in enough clubs to know that's not really a thing they usually stock. Limes, lemons, even oranges sometimes, but not strawberries.

He pours the vodka and mixes it, not looking at her. "You like 'em."

Yang should cut him off right now. She should make it really clear that she's not looking for this with him, that he's just someone she likes to fuck with. Honestly, she should leave, and stay away for a while.

But she does like strawberries.

So she reaches over the bar, brushes her fingers over his hand. He still doesn't meet her eyes, but he drops a few strawberry halves into the drink, and sets it down in front of her, complete with little umbrella. She takes the drink. He walks to the other side of the bar, helping someone else.

She watches him. He's so easy in this place, commands it effortlessly. Usually she finds it hot that she can reduce him to begging her for relief, but she can appreciate his power, too. There's no chance she'll let him use it on her - doesn't think either one of them want that, anyway - but she can enjoy watching him work.

"You've got a nice butt," she tells him, when he returns. She's halfway through her drink, and all the strawberries are gone.

Junior laughs for the first time she can remember. "I work out."

She winks. "I can tell."

He snorts. "Alright, Yang, what are you here for?"

She taps the edge of her glass. "After this, I'm going to take a certain club owner into the back and see how much fun he's gonna be tonight."

Junior watches her, his eyes darkening. "You sure about that?"

Yang tilts her head, tracing her fingers around the rim of her glass. "Oh, Junior, I'm very sure."

He walks away from her without a word, but he's not subtle; she catches him glancing at her glass, and she know he's started standing in ways that show off his butt. She doesn't try to hide that she's checking him out. He's the one that feels like he needs to hide what they're doing, not her.

When she gets down to the ice, she puts her glass down, leaning onto the bar. It only takes him a few seconds to flag down his replacement, and then he steps out. She follows him, watching his ass the entire way.

This time, he doesn't say a word when she sits in the chair. She planned this time, wore pants that she can get her hands in if she wants to, wore a tank underneath her shirt so she can show off her tits if he's good. She slips off her shoes, confident she'll be here for longer than before.

"Strip," she says. "Everything, this time."

He takes a deep breath, and unbuttons his suit jacket.

Yang stands, walking around him to get a good look. She was right about him working out. He isn't the kind of lean muscle she's gotten used to seeing on men. He's buff, built for size and strength over speed. She knows she could take him - he doesn't move like a fighter - without much trying, so long as she doesn't let it get to a grapple. She's not a bad wrestler, but at a certain size difference it doesn't matter. He stays in place, letting her inspect him.

She comes around to his front again, meeting his eyes. She grabs a pillow off of the bed, dropping it in front of him. "Get on your knees."

He drops, faster than last time. She does another circuit, this time letting her hands drift over his shoulders. He's still massive, but she's taller than him when he's like this. She stands behind him, gently pulling his head back to it rests against her. His eyes are closed, and she wonders if he's decided to put this much trust in her, or if it's coming naturally. She could break his neck. He doesn't seem to care.

"You've got a nice dick, too," she says, breaking the silence. He's only half-hard. She likes that better than if he had a raging boner, actually. They haven't done anything yet, haven't even really started, so any hard-on he had would be all in his head, not because of her. On the other hand, she'd be a little insulted if he were totally soft when she's in this outfit.

He huffs out a laugh. "Can't take credit for that one."

She traces his cheekbones with the tips of her fingers, curling them inward so her blunt nails leave faint red lines over his skin. He doesn't move, only flinches when she gets too close to his eyes, and even then he goes right back to where he was when she moves on. He's done this before. She thought so, but he's been so prickly about letting her take control that she wasn't entirely sure. He's probably one of those who thinks he's less of a man for letting a woman tell him what to do. If she sticks around, she'll break him of that.

"Are you drunk?" She asks, only half serious. She uses her thumb to trace the outline of his lips. He shakes his head. "High?"

"Took a pill right before you got in," he says. One of his eyes cracks open. "Pain medication, before you ask."

"I wasn't going to." She's not going to judge him about his life. His cope might not be her cope, but it's whatever. "Sober enough for this?"

"For what, you working me up and leaving me on the floor again?" There's no bite to his words, but Yang digs her nails in warningly even so. "Ow. Yes, I'm sober enough for this. Sir."

Him calling her that flips a switch. She slides her hand over his face to rest on his throat, and he straightens up, eyes wide. There's no fear in them, just anticipation. She can see his cock twitch out of the corner of her eye. "Stand up." He stands, much faster than he knelt.

"Hands behind your back," she says, feeling the blood thrumming in her veins. "I have to inspect the merchandise."

He clasps his hands behind himself, and she steps out in front of him.

Yang doesn't hide that she's appreciating him. She knows some people do this cold, without showing any emotion or giving out any praise, but that's not her. This whole thing - her in control of him, him letting her - gets her hot, and she owns that. She reaches out to trace the lines of his pecs, brushing her thumb over his nipple. He shivers. She drops her hand to trace his abs - not as good as hers, but that's a high standard - and skims over the curve of his hip. Yang walks around him, touching him wherever she wants, wherever the light catches the lines of him or her eye spots a muscle she wants to test. He stays quiet through her inspection.

"Pretty good," she says, falling back into the chair. "I bet you get all kinds of girls."

He chuckles. "I get whoever I want. Sir."

She raises an eyebrow. "Except me."

He tilts his head. He doesn't say that he has her right now, which is good, because he doesn't. He hasn't touched her at all, but she's touched him everywhere but where he wants her. She could walk out right now, and he'd be left naked with a hardon and none of his dignity.

She reaches up, starts tracing her cleavage. She needs someone to touch her, and it's not going to be him. "Kneel."

"You gonna keep me going up and down all night? Sir?"

She chuckles. "You'd do it if I told you to." He doesn't reply, but the red on his face tells her that he would. "Have you ever fucked a guy?"

He jerks, and she just grins. She has no idea where she's going with this, but she doesn't need to. It'll work out, with or without a plan.

"Yeah," he says, getting on his knees again. "Couple times."

"You like 'em pretty?" She's honestly curious at this point. She didn't guess he was bi.

Junior searches her eyes. "I like 'em loud, with big dicks."

Yang giggles. "Me too."

She crosses her arms over her ribcage, pulling her shirt off and leaving herself in just a tank. His eyes go wide, and she remembers, kinda late, that she had a fight last night, and kinda got the shit beaten out of her. Nothing on the face or neck, this time, but she's got a hell of a bruise on one side of her chest, and a handful of scrapes on her arm.

"You... Yang." Junior swallows. He's breaking the moment, but she lets it go because he sounds concerned. "Are you... okay?"

"I'm a kickboxer," she tells him. His eyes flick over her body, for once not to appreciate, but to size her up. She lifts her arms, flexing, and she sees his dick twitch. "Oh, yeah. I could definitely hold you down." Maybe she could and maybe she couldn't, but the way he goes red makes it worth maybe being wrong about the boast.

"You... any good?" He shifts, leaning back on his legs.

"One of the best," she says simply. Unlike saying she could hold him down, that's not an empty boast. She's top-ranked. "You good, or should I keep telling you about how I could kick your ass?"

His flush gets darker, and his eyes drop. "Sorry, sir."

"Don't apologize," she says. Then, sharper: "You know what to do."

His begging is a little better tonight. He's been thinking about it, she figures. Or maybe it's that he's completely naked this time, his dick hard and bobbing in front of him. The longer he goes on, the more she wants to ride him, but she bites into the inside of her cheek to keep her head clear. Instead, she shifts forward in her seat, dips her fingers inside her shirt to toy with her nipple. His breath hitches, but he keeps going.

"Good," she says, stopping him. She gestures him closer. "Come here."

He moves to stand, and she gives him a look. He sets his jaw, and settles down again, then shuffles forward on his knees. He stops when he's just shy of touching her. She uncrosses her legs and spreads them, pulling him closer with a hand on his chin. Yang moves him in until he's flush against the edge of the chair, his body only a breath away from pressing up against her cunt. He's breathing heavy, eyes dark and his skin red all the way down his chest. She grins, smoothing her palms up her stomach until they reach her chest. She runs her thumbs along the edge of the tank, then drags it down until her tits are free of the fabric. He whines.

Yang moves her hands up to his shoulders, traces her nails along his biceps. She moves further down until she's caught his hands in hers, and brings them up to her tits. He freezes, his eyes searching hers.

"Get me wet, big boy," she breathes.

He starts to touch her, and she rests her hands on the arms of the chair, watching him through half-closed eyes. She's already wet, honestly, but she wants to see what he can do to her. He doesn't disappoint. He knows just how to touch her, how to cup her tits, where to put pressure. She starts panting, moaning and rolling her hips. He groans, and dips his head.

She's going to let him, but he stops halfway down, looking up at her. "Can I?"

She pretends to think it over, but she's really taking the time to catch her breath. "Ask nice."

"Please," he says, breath hot on her skin, "sir, can I use my mouth to get you wet?"

She curls fingers into his hair, and yanks his head down.

They're both moaning as soon as his mouth touches her skin. He drags his tongue over the skin on her chest, greedily lapping up her sweat. She wraps the fingers of her other hand around the back of his neck, guiding him where she wants him. Every time she moves him, he moans, his tongue and teeth taking advantage of every piece of skin she allows him to touch. He wraps his lips around one of her nipples and sucks hard, and Yang cries out, bucking her hips.

"Fuck, sir," he pants against her skin, "I'm gonna--"

She plants a foot in the center of his chest and pushes him back hard. He hits the floor, looking up at her with surprise in his eyes.

"Jerk off," she orders him, her heart thudding in her chest. "You've got ten seconds or you're not coming tonight."

He stares up at her, frozen. She pulls on one of her nipples, hissing out a breath. "One...." His hands drop to his dick. "Two...." He cups one hand around his balls. "Three...." His other hand starts moving, frantic and rough. He winces. "Four...." He spits on his hand, moving it back to his dick with a groan. "Five...." He plays with his balls with the one hand, the other stroking his shaft. "Six...." Before she hits seven, he's spurting all over his stomach, groaning helplessly.

Fuck. She wants to stick around until he's hard again, get him inside her. Her cunt throbs, only getting worse while she watches him shoot out onto his own skin. She pinches her nipple, moaning. His eyes snaps to hers.

"Stay still," she tells him, standing. He doesn't move a muscle as she walks over to him, then sinks down to straddle his hips. His hands ball into fists at his side.

She pops the button to her pants, reaching one hand inside of them. Yang jerks when she finds wetness, swallowing down another moan. "Stay down. Play with my tits." His hands are on her immediately, kneading. She pushes her chest into his palms.

Between the two of them, she comes fast, but she doesn't stop after the first. She can see it in his eyes when he realizes she's going for a second orgasm, and she smirks. His dick is twitching against his belly by the time she comes the second time, and she knows he'd let her fuck him. That, more than anything, tells her she has to leave. She already didn't really mean to rub one out anywhere near him, she needs to go before she gets caught up in him. There are boundaries between them, and she doesn't think they can cross this one yet and have her still be in control. That... would put an end to this whole thing real fast.

She stands, turning to reach for her shirt. It's a little sticky with sweat, but she puts it on anyway, stepping into her shoes.

"You leaving?" He asks, sitting up. Part of her wants to tell him to stay on his back, but if she starts this up with him again, she's not leaving until he's been inside her.

"Mm," she turns to face him. "Yep. Seeya, Junior."

She thinks of the hunger in his eyes when she fucks herself later that night.

#rwby #rwby fic #yang xiao long #hei 'junior' xiong #call me sir #jesus I didn't think I'd continue this #beacon university au

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