While Luke works with the lightsaber, Solo tugs on Ben's robe. When Ben turns, Solo is leaning forward, nearly snarling.
"Never heard of the Falcon, huh? Daresay she's heard you, old man, plenty of times."
At least he's keeping his voice down.
"Solo –"
"No," Solo says, narrowing his eyes and getting a mean smile up, "this isn't fun-time pleasure-cruise go-get-your-rocks-off down at port, not any more. This is professional. I'm Captain Solo to you."
"As you wish," Ben says and turns back to Luke.
-
The first time, Ben was in Mos Eisley on his semi-annual trip in for supplies. At the far end of the docks, ships tended to unload extraneous or unwanted cargo at good prices; there was a small crowd gathered below a creaking Corellian freighter.
When Ben approached, those in the crowd edged away. There were the usual mutters about sorcerers and foreigners; a few children dared each other to touch his robes before they spooked and darted away. Soon enough, he had the display all to himself. There wasn't much to browse – some Mandalorian pottery, nearly-expired Imperial rations, the usual junk – but he took his time. Thieves and opportunists frequently didn't know the value of what they had.
At the end of the mat, leaning against one of the docking columns, a young spacer scowled against the sun. He had his arms crossed, and legs, crossed, too, affecting that particular sullen, juvenile insouciance that Anakin had radiated naturally.
Ben looked back down at the rations and a jumble of Alderaanian costume jewelry.
"No one wants to get near you," the spacer said. "What's your story?"
Ben raised his eyebrows. "I honestly couldn't say."
"Right," he said, disbelief dripping from his tone as he pushed off from the column he leaned against. He closed the distance between them in two very long strides; Ben noted that his breeches were slightly too small for him, riding low on his hips beneath a clinging white shirt that had gone nearly transparent with sweat. "Totally innocent, I'm sure, just the guiltless object of narrow-minded suspicion and fear."
"That's about the sum of it, yes," Ben said.
"Huh," the spacer said. He bit his lip, looked around, then up and down Ben – or perhaps at his sad display, it was unclear.
The Force liked this young man; around him, particularly when he spoke, it threw off bright, glinting lights like sun on a fast-moving river or stars past a stylish corvette. At the same time, it was a river, the essence of travel, ceaselessly pulling away, never pausing. He was interesting, to say the least.
Ben folded his arms. "Your goods are shoddy and absurdly overpriced."
"Is that so?"
"It's the truth, yes."
"Well, maybe I don't want to sell them to you anyway."
"Of course," Ben replied. "That's why you're chatting me up and appear rather desperate to keep me here."
"Chatting up? Desperate –?" He shrugged extravagantly, spreading his arms wide, and said, more loudly, to the general air around them, "He says I'm desperate!"
"If you have better merchandise, I would be interested in taking a look," Ben said. "Perhaps inside, where it's cooler?"
"Inside," he repeated. Ben could see him thinking it over, weighing possibilities, estimating odds and likelihoods. He started to smile, slowly, brilliantly; Ben hadn't been a hermit nearly long enough for the expression not to stir him. "You want to get me alone?"
"Believe what you will," Ben said, and gestured to the ship above them. "Shall we?"
"Oh, we shall," the young man said. "We shall."
-
Han Solo was Corellian, fairly new to the Outer Rim, absurdly proud of his terrible ship, and he needed, very badly, for Ben to believe that he was as brash and fancy-free as the hero of any holo-serial. When he got talking, one leg up on the seat, hand curled around his brandy, he chattered like the youngling he was, with sidelong glances to make sure Ben was still listening, still rapt.
The Force all but glowed around him then, in great syrupy sweeps and auroral curtains.
"And this is great, you'll love this –" Solo said. He leaned over to extricate what was sure to be another piece of crap "souvenir" or "artifact" that he was willing to let Ben have for the "special friends price".
Perhaps Solo didn't fully understand the concept of friendship (as if Ben himself did, either), because those prices were obscene, frequently downright offensive.
Ben sincerely hoped that Solo was a better pilot than he was a salesman, or his career was going to be heartbreakingly short.
Digging in the crate beside him, Solo overbalanced, started tipping over. Ben was on his feet in a moment, taking him by the elbow and righting him with a small, tidy rearrangement of the Force.
"It's not here," Solo said, looking confused, leaning against Ben for longer than was strictly necessary to regain his balance. He was a warm, sweaty weight against Ben's front; his hair much finer than appeared, soft on Ben's neck. Ben took a step back. "Must be back in the hold –"
"I'll just wait here, then," Ben said, smoothing down his robes.
Solo stumbled a little, caught himself on the bulkhead. "No, come back with me, it won't take a second –"
"All right." Ben did not need this distraction, this youngling's barely-concealed eagerness, the spikes of his loneliness and need spinning fast, blurring with his reckless confidence.
What Ben needed was to go back to his hermit's shack.
To do what? Sit alone for another several years, meditating on his failures, mistakes, and murders? Wait some more for the boy to grow yet taller and brighter? The bigger, more blindingly golden that Luke became, the greater, too, grew Ben's conviction that he would fail the boy. Somehow, inevitably, just as he'd failed Jinn, and Anakin, and Padmé.
He hurried after Solo. Here was someone you could not fail, someone who needed nothing from you but attention, appreciation.
"It's around here somewhere," Solo said vaguely when Ben joined him in the cargo hold. The space was enormous, vaulting, littered with crates and pallets in no discernible order whatsoever.
"Is it really?"
"It is, really!" Solo affected shock, a little outrage, definite offense. "What do you take me for?"
Ben tilted his head and crossed his arms loosely. "One who talks big but lives...small."
"You think so, huh?" Solo stepped closer, crowding Ben against the crates. "Too bad."
"I should be going," Ben said. Solo was so close now that he had to uncross his arms, just to gain a little room. Soon enough, Solo had taken that, too.
"Don't see you moving."
This close, Ben could smell the brandy on his breath, in his sweat. Solo's eyes were bright in the dark hold, his mouth wide and mobile.
Ben sighed, acknowledging Solo's statement.
"No," Solo said quietly, with a certain satisfaction, "didn't think so."
"Indeed," Ben started to say – to what end, he had no idea – but Solo cocked his head then, the skin of his exposed throat and chest catching the light from the passage, flashing. Ben touched Solo's chest, the hollow of his throat, and Solo pushed into the touch, mouth open, sighing.
It was a lonely business, spacefaring; memories, sensations, regrets, the cold and the dark, nearly bowled Ben over as they kissed, as Solo pushed Ben against the wall, mouth wet and hot, sweeping across Ben's beard, back to his lips, Solo's tongue testing the sharpness of Ben's teeth, the breadth of his palate.
Ben's hand was caught between them, fingers closing, scrabbling, on sweaty skin. Solo grunted against him, chin digging against Ben's neck, until the crotch of Ben's hand, thumb and index finger, pushed against Solo's throat. A little more pressure and Solo's eyelids were fluttering, his smirk widening, his hips rolling faster against Ben's robes.
Thrills, and danger, excitement from teasing the very edges of life and death: some people, Ben knew, never outgrew this fascination.
With difficulty, he slid his hand around the back of Solo's neck, hearing him groan a little, frustrated, but that sound lightened and sped up when Ben kissed him harder. Much harder, grabbing Solo's hair (as if his palm remembered this, sought out a braid that wasn't there), fucking his tongue deeper until Solo trembled, a little, bodily, against him. Ben turned him around, clumsily, and Solo tried to help, but stumbled over his own feet. His eyelids were heavy, his voice rough and thick.
"What'd you have in mind?" His chin on his shoulder, Solo peered back at him, wiggled a little. His breeches truly were exceedingly, absurdly tight; Ben tugged the shirt out of the waistband, but then struggled to peel the breeches themselves down.
"Hey –" Solo said faintly. "I don't –"
"Ssh," Ben told him, molding himself against Solo's back, reaching around to stroke Solo's cock. "Not fucking you."
Solo moaned again, higher, frustrated, maybe a little disappointed, even as Ben firmed his grip on his cock and worked the breeches farther down. "Then what are you doing?"
Ben gave him his free palm and Solo didn't have to be told; he licked it wet and messy, pushed his lips down Ben's fingers, left them dripping, too.
"This," Ben said, reaching between Solo's thighs, adding the spit to the longstanding sticky sweat there. He kissed the side of Solo's neck, the sharp edge of his jaw, and, holding up his robes, thrust between the hard, shifting muscles of Solo's legs.
Solo was laughing in the kiss, grinding back, clenching his muscles, then fucking forward into Ben's hands. He braced one hand on the crates and reached back with the other to grab Ben's hip.
"Didn't figure you for Jedi-Academy-style," he muttered, and Ben thrust harder, deeper, until his cock was riding the crease beneath Solo's, the head nudging the back of his heavy balls. "Old-fashioned. A classic."
He was no Jedi. There were no more; he'd helped make sure of that, however inadvertently. And still the word could tear at him, break his heart as surely as it jacked his cock.
"Please," Ben said and bit the tendon in Solo's neck. "Quiet. Just –"
Solo opened his mouth to protest. His legs were newly sweaty, and Ben slipped and ground against the smooth skin, his eyes screwed shut; Solo leaned a little forward, going up on his toes, bringing Ben's cock forward with him.
"I'm good enough to fuck?" he asked, low and nasty, grinding his ass against Ben's pelvis. Another stream of sweat ran down from the hollow of his back to his crack. He panted, groaning, losing language for a moment when Ben worked his thumb into the sweat, parting his cheeks, teasing the hole. Solo's own thrusts sped up in Ben's hand, jittery, far from rhythmic. "But not to listen to?"
Yes, Ben didn't say, swallowed the nasty truth, and kissed Solo again, twisting his hold on Solo's cock, pulling him around at the waist so that when Solo came, it was as Ben's tongue fucked his mouth, and his moans shook Ben down to the root. Solo's hand opened and closed on Ben's hip, then fell, and he collapsed forward on a bent arm, ass in the air, chest heaving. His waist was tiny, narrow hips topped by wide chest and round, flushing buttocks. Taking hold of Solo's hips. wiping clean his hand on Solo's trousers, Ben hauled him up higher, chased his own orgasm in the crushing pressure between Solo's thighs.
"So good," he said instead, "so tight, make it tighter for me –"
And, limp and sweaty as he was, Solo did, bending a little at the knee, rubbing backward, clenching so tightly that Ben now found it difficult to thrust. He was so close, settling for pushing against Solo, feeling their skin stick together, then come apart with obscene burps, that when Solo reached down, grabbing Ben's cockhead with slippery, sticky palm, Ben swallowed a shout and came, shuddering, blanketing Solo's back from ass to neck.
"Hell," Solo said when Ben had managed to pull away, straighten his robes, compose himself. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, failing to neaten it at all, and shoved one shirt-tail into his breeches. "I'm never going to find that artifact now."
"Another time, perhaps," Ben told him and winced to see Solo's face transform with pleasure – brows jumping up, genuine smile flashing.
"It's a date," Solo replied, slinging his arm around Ben's shoulders. "Now, what can I show you in the way of fresh-dehydrated produce, hm?"
-
Ben extricated himself from Solo's company with difficulty, and even then, returned to his shack with more cutlery than he'd ever need in this or any other lifetime. The next time Solo brought the Falcon into Mos Eisley, Ben missed him, but a comm-message left at the cantina meant that Solo now had his full name and contacted him well in advance of his next visit.
That was all right, Ben supposed. The Wookiee first mate had news of Master Yoda, the merchandise selection was slightly improved, and Solo proved to be as free with his brandy, and with his affections, as ever.