Chapter Text
Their contact on Ryza insisted they meet far outside one of the smaller cities on the planet’s southern continent. The contact had given them precise coordinates for a clearing in some sort of nature preserve, ending the message with only a cryptic Don’t touch the flowers.
The Imperial presence on Ryza was light and seemed mostly there to let the wealthy tourists believe they wouldn’t have to worry about any riff-raff spoiling their vacations. A ship like the Falcon would stick out like a sore thumb amidst the yachts and pleasure cruisers on Ryza’s hotel landing pads, so they’d decided to land her in a small industrial district instead. Chewie and Theepio would take a very long time making some urgent repairs, while Han and Leia snuck out in search of a speeder to take them out of the city.
A speeder was easy enough to procure, though the man who rented it to them didn’t appreciate Han’s attempt to haggle the price down–and since Leia didn’t appreciate Han’s suggestion of speeder theft, he paid the fee with minimal grumbling.
It was slow going through the city, its streets swamped by well-dressed tourists in the latest models of sleek landspeeders. Stormtroopers and local law enforcement milled about every few intersections, enough to make themselves known, but not so many that the patrons would find it distracting. Han looked nondescript enough, but they had to be more careful with Leia lately. She covered her dark braids with a shimmery emerald cloak that Han had picked up a few planets back (she’d accepted it with a dainty wrinkle of her nose even as he’d hastened to explain that it had simply fallen out of a shipment, entirely on accident). During the long crawl heading out of the city, she slouched with her elbow propped on the speeder’s door, her hand obscuring her face where the hood did not. She glowered at all the beings, mostly humans, laughing over half-eaten gourmet meals and sparkling drinks that probably cost more than their speeder.
Han leaned towards her. “You know, people usually come here to have a good time.”
“I can see that,” she muttered.
“What I’m saying is, if your goal is to fit in, maybe don’t glare at everyone we pass.”
She straightened at that, clasping her hands in her lap. “I am not glaring.”
“Yeah, right. I’m pretty well acquainted with your glare, Highness, I know it when I see it.” He shrugged, grinning. “Unless I’ve been misinterpreting and those looks are ones of deep, deep adoration.”
Leia snorted. “In your dreams.”
Yeah, maybe a little, he thought. Once or twice. Three times this week, but who was counting?
It took the better part of an hour to leave the city limits, and Han was finally able to hit the throttle across an empty road stretching through fields of dark grass. The road curved gently around patches of trees and was otherwise easy to navigate, allowing Han the freedom to observe the very cranky princess.
She'd discarded the cloak and stashed it at her feet, revealing furrowed brows and dark hair braided around her head. It had been a long time since he'd gotten to see her in sunlight. It brought out all the different shades of brown in her hair, softened the shadows under her eyes, ever present these days. Even in the warm sunlight, her pretty face looked dark and drawn, and partly because of that, partly because Han needed an excuse to stop staring, he decided it was time to do what he did best: bother her.
“Wanna tell me why you’re pissed off? If it’s because I tried to haggle with that speeder vendor, I’m still pretty sure he swindled us.”
At first he was worried she wouldn’t bite back, which usually meant she’d gotten lost in her own head. To his relief, she drew in a deep breath and replied, “Believe it or not, there are other people out there who are capable of making me angry.”
He shot her an affronted look. “What, more than me?”
She might’ve heaved an exasperated sigh, might’ve rolled her eyes, but he didn’t imagine the glimmer of affection in the smile she turned his way. “Don’t worry, Captain. No one in this galaxy can anger me quite like you.”
“Ah, shucks, Princess, you really know how to make a guy feel special.”
“Well, I had better stop that. The last thing you need is a boost to your ego.”
Han gave her another ten seconds before nudging her with his elbow. “So come on, what’s got you in this mood?”
Another sigh, but he recognized it as one of defeat, so he stayed quiet while she gathered herself. “It’s this planet. Or the people on it, I should say.” Han draped his arm over the wheel to steer one-handed and leaned closer. “I know I should be glad there are people in this galaxy who aren’t affected by the war. But something about watching them reveling like that, under the protection of stormtroopers, it just… it feels vile.”
She rubbed her temples. “Go ahead. Tell me I'm being ridiculous.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I am being ridiculous, and you're always first in line to call me out.”
“I'm usually the only one brave enough to be in that line.” Or stupid enough, more likely. “But look, much as I love arguing with you, I’m not too keen on defending a bunch of rich assholes.”
“Oh? I would’ve thought you wanted to hoard enough money to join them.”
“Sweetheart, I could be the richest man in the galaxy, and those snobs still wouldn’t want me to join them. But that’s the dream, you know? Having enough credits to march in there anyway, so they have to put up with seeing some bastard from the slums drinking all their fancy booze.” He shrugged, trying to keep his tone flippant. “So I got no problem with you judging them. Anyone who’s starving is gonna resent a glutton.”
It was only in the silence that followed, when she locked her shrewd gaze onto him, that he realized he’d piqued her curiosity. Leia was a little more subtle about it than Luke (although the kid turned out to be a quick study in knowing when to shut up and stop asking questions), but she hadn’t managed to get much out of him about his past. As far as he could tell, anyway.
He glanced at her sidelong to find her still watching him with narrowed eyes. He put his hand in front of her face. “All right, knock it off.”
Leia swatted his hand away, but she mercifully kept any questions to herself. Her gaze returned to the passing scenery. “For what it’s worth,” she said softly, “you’re a better man than any of them.”
Han couldn’t stop the smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “Easy with the compliments, Your Highness, I’m gonna start to think you like having me around.”
She scoffed, but her cheeks turned pink. She seemed all too eager to point out the rough stone marker indicating where they were meant to turn off the main road.
There were more trees here, surrounding a road that was little more than a slip of packed down dirt. They ditched the speeder about half a mile in, when the forest got too thick, and trudged their way through the underbrush. Leia had the datapad with the map, so Han let her lead the way. There wasn't much of a path, and the gnarled tree roots had a nasty habit of arching fully out of the ground at perfect shin height. At least they'd landed well ahead of schedule; even at their current crawl, they still had about an hour until the rendezvous.
“Are we meeting this guy in a treehouse?” Han grumbled as he ducked beneath yet another branch.
“There's supposed to be a clearing up ahead, some kind of ancient ritual site.” Her voice betrayed hardly any sign of exertion from dodging roots and branches. At least this forest was better than that icy nightmare of a base they'd left behind. After a month on Hoth, Han couldn't agree fast enough to this intel mission.
Of course, it helped that Leia had asked for him personally. She hadn’t even had to bat her eyelashes–not that she ever did that on purpose. Han just got distracted by them a little too easily. Same as he did with the curve of her hips in those form-fitting civilian clothes as she hopped over tree roots.
The one upside to him staring like a lecher was that he saw her stumble on a thick vine. He lunged in time to grab her waist before she fell. Leia held his arm to steady herself.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, and there was that blush again, brighter now, stark red against the paleness of her face.
Experimentally, Han kept one hand against her back as they continued through the forest. She didn't object, and he allowed himself a little half-smile. He could trust Leia to tell him if she didn't like what he was doing.
It was his own voice hissing at him, from some obnoxious middle ground between honorable and cynical, that gave him pause: You're gonna give her the wrong idea. You're gonna get her hopes up for nothing.
But he rationalized it, same as he always did. He was just touching her to keep her steady while they navigated a strange forest. And Leia wasn’t some bright-eyed, naive girl looking up at him hopefully– well, she was that sometimes, when she was trying to pull him deeper into this rebellion of hers. But she wasn’t naive about him. She couldn’t be, with how he kept reminding her that he was on his way out, any day now.
Maybe he needed to start reminding himself, too.
They came across a fallen log, at Han’s chest height, blocking their path. As Leia prodded it with the toe of her boot, looking for a foothold in the bark, Han put his hands around her waist and hoisted her up.
Leia rolled over the log and onto the other side. She glared over the wood and huffed a strand of hair out of her face. “Was that necessary? Tossing me around like I’m a broken hydrospanner?”
“Hey!” Han leaned forward onto the log and pointed at her. “I’d never toss a hydrospanner. Those things’ll put a dent in the bulkhead.”
She muttered something under her breath that sounded like a threat to put another dent in his bulkhead. But before Han could demand she repeat it, Leia turned, stumbled, and vanished into the underbrush–
–tumbling down a slope.
Cursing, Han vaulted the log and raced after her. The slope was so steep he practically slid across the grass towards the clearing below. Luckily, it wasn’t a long fall–Leia had already come to a halt at the base of the slope and was rising on her hands and knees in a cluster of tiny pink flowers. There must’ve been thousands of them surrounding her, so small and numerous they looked like a cloud over the sea of grass.
Flowers.
Fuck.
“Leia!” he called out.
As she lifted her head to look for him, he saw the air around her turn pale pink. She sneezed. Then coughed, and coughed again.
Too late, Han realized that pink distortion had begun to slither his way, and he could now make out individual tiny spores drifting through the air. He sucked in as deep a breath as he dared and held it through the cloud, but already his nostrils tingled.
Leia staggered to her feet just as Han reached her. Tossing out any semblance of propriety, he wrapped his arms around her waist and carried her out of the pink cloud. Rough stone markers, like the one that had led them into the forest, stood on either side of a cave entrance, bare of any damned flowers. He ducked through a curtain of ivy into a cave about double the size of the Falcon’s main hold. Thin light strips tucked away in rocky crevices overhead illuminated the space with a warm, golden glow.
Han didn’t stop to think about what this cave was or where the power source for those lights was; it was uninhabited and free from any spores, which was all he cared about now. Large boulders covered by thick moss dotted the cave. Han went to one that was waist-height and set Leia atop it.
Between rounds of heaving breaths, she demanded, “What did I say about tossing me around?”
“Yeah, yeah.” His muscles screamed from the effort of carrying her across a field, even as adrenaline and panic sent tremors down to his hands. At least she was still snapping at him, that had to be a good sign. He dug through the satchel he carried with their emergency supplies to pull out a med-scanner. “Put it in my performance review.”
“We don’t give our contractors–” Another cough interrupted her. “--performance reviews.”
“Sure, ‘cause you don’t want the other ones to feel bad when they see how amazing you think I am.”
As he ran the scanner down her body, he heard Leia’s breath catch. Her voice was a strained whisper when she retorted, “You’re delusional if you think I’d give you an amazing review.”
He tilted his head and smirked; she was so short, even sitting on the boulder, she had to crane her neck to look at him. “I get the job done, don’t I?” He set the scanner down on the rock beside her. “Heart rate’s a little high, no broken bones. How’re you feeling?” He took hold of her chin to peer closer at her eyes, which were darker than normal, pupils blown wide.
A sharp breath hissed between her teeth, and she jerked her head out of his grasp. “I’d feel better if you gave me some breathing room!”
Han threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, Your Royal Brilliance, forgive me for making sure you’re okay!”
“I’m… sorry.” Leia said the word through gritted teeth, as if it pained her. She looked pained, too, gripping the rock behind her, back bent and head bowed. “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at myself. I should’ve watched where I was going.”
He pressed the back of his fingers to her forehead and used the movement to force her head up. The med scan hadn’t picked up a fever, but her cheeks were flushed red. Bending to get a closer look, he could see her pulse racing beneath the skin of her neck. “It’s gonna be fine. Think they would’ve mentioned if the flowers were fatal.” Unless this was a trap, but he wasn’t going to bring up that possibility when she was already so frazzled.
Leia nodded with a single jerk of her head, taking the water canteen he held out. He watched her drink, continued to watch her after, when she tilted her head back and drew in deep breaths. His gaze drifted to the parting of her soft lips as she sucked in gulps of air.
He shook his head roughly. No wonder Leia’s cheeks were red; this cave was sweltering. He shrugged off his jacket and began rolling his sleeves up to his elbows.
“What about you?” She sounded out of breath. “You got hit with some of those spores, too, right?”
“Not as much as you. I feel fine.” He glanced back to find her staring at him–at his arms? “What?”
Her wide eyes shot back up to his face. “I– that’s a good idea. It’s boiling in here.” She unzipped her jacket to reveal a simple black tank top that–well, he’d always tried not to notice her curves, but it was now impossible not to. He wouldn’t expect any clothing to be tight on her small frame, but that shirt certainly managed.
Leia rolled her shoulders in a way that arched her back and dammit, now Han was openly leering. He started pacing the length of the cave, dodging all the different mossy boulders crammed into the small space and wondering why someone had gone through the trouble of installing lights but not removing all the furniture-sized obstacles. When his pacing brought him back to where Leia sat, he kept his gaze pointed at the leafy veil covering the cave entrance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her cross and uncross her legs in very un-princesslike squirming. His eyes were downright mutinous today, because suddenly they were locked on to her again as she rolled her head from side to side, her pretty face scrunched in discomfort.
He stopped his pacing to ask, “How’re you feeling?”
“Fine,” she snapped, far quicker than anyone fine would ever answer. She'd kicked off her boots and socks at some point, and he watched her toes curl into the rock. Her knees pressed together, and she let out a faint whimper.
Han stormed up to her and snatched the med scanner. He wished he'd been gentler when he grabbed her face, especially when she gasped, but fear had taken over. He'd seen her take a blaster bolt to the shoulder; hell, he'd seen her hours after Imperial interrogation and the genocide of her planet, and none of it had ever made her whimper.
“Your pupils are dilated.” Aiming for clinical calm, he announced the results of the new scan: “Heart rate is still elevated, but nothing else is coming up.” He tossed the scanner aside. “What hurts?”
“Nothing.”
“Princess.” The word left him in a warning growl that he hadn't intended to be so low.
Dark eyes gone nearly black flicked up to him through thick lashes. “Nothing hurts,” she bit out, “it's just… uncomfortable.”
“Right.” He searched her face for lies and found nothing but pursed lips awfully close to his own. He placed his hands on the rock on either side of her hips, towering over her, and he liked how she looked down there, all soft, round features that she somehow chiseled into a wall of defiance.
“Back up, Captain.”
“Let go of my belt first, Princess.”
Leia’s eyes widened, shooting down to where her fingers curled around his belt. She let go and scrambled back, but she couldn’t seem to find purchase on the moss, and she slid back down towards him. Han caught her waist, her legs spread around him–
He hadn’t meant to do it. He’d meant to maintain a respectful distance, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he moved forward or she simply fell against him; but their hips collided, and the cry that left her was like a jolt of lightning straight down Han’s spine.
Leia went completely still in the silence that followed her outcry, the icy facade she’d been trying so hard to maintain cracking under the heat of pure mortification.
“Ohh,” Han murmured, the word stretched into the beginnings of a groan. Dilated pupils, racing heart, flushed skin, squirming her hips in discomfort–it all added up to one thing. He hadn't escaped the effects, either: he had to force himself to loosen his grip on her waist, and his pants were so damned tight– “I think I know what those flowers did to us.”
Her lip quivered, and she let out a breathless, “Us?”
He smirked. “Don't look down.”
Of course, she immediately did. He snatched her chin and lifted her face, and even as warning klaxons blared in his head, he leaned closer and hissed, “It's rude to stare, sweetheart.”
When she repeated in a tremulous voice, it was not a challenge but a genuine plea. “Please, back up.”
Now it was Han’s turn to be mortified. He backed away, all the way to the cave wall. Leia’s legs buckled, and he was worried she’d fall, but she managed to cling to the boulder and remain upright. An oily feeling crept up his throat like bile. “Sorry,” he muttered.
Leia didn’t look at him, but she nodded, as good of an acceptance as he was going to get. He could see her nostrils flaring as she sucked in deep breaths and stood straight, trying to slip back into the stoic princess who wouldn’t let a little mortal problem like arousal interfere with her duties.
Han tried to channel some of that stoicism, for her sake if not for his own. He had managed to only get a whiff of the spores, and it had turned him into a quivering lecher. Leia’s small body had absorbed an entire cloud of it. And even though he already knew the answer, he had to ask anyway: “Should we go back?”
“No. We need that shipyard data.”
The datapad beeped, signaling an incoming transmission. They both lunged for it, rabid for any sort of distraction–Han reached it first, but he let Leia grab the other end of the screen and held it down so she could read the message from their contact.
DELAYED – ETA 2 HOURS – APOLOGIES.
At least Leia’s groan could not be mistaken for anything erotic.
“No, this is good. This is good!” At the withering scowl she threw his way, Han explained, “Gives us more time for the, uh. Effects to wear off.” He hoped it would be enough time, anyway. He didn’t want to think about meeting a Rebellion informant in his current condition unless he could park himself behind one of those waist-high boulders.
“Right.” Leia nodded and wrapped her arms around herself.
They didn’t look at each other. Han walked over to the cave entrance, pressed his shoulder into the rock and stared out between the vines, tapping his blaster and wishing grimly that there was something out there for him to shoot.
—
Thirty minutes passed, and the effects did not wear off. For Han, at least, they'd gotten worse. He'd taken to listing planets in alphabetical order, and so far it was doing nothing to alleviate the strain in his pants, which had crossed from awkward to annoying and was fast approaching painful.
He didn’t dare look directly at Leia. Out of the corner of his eye, he could tell she’d perched herself up on the boulder again, legs crossed beneath her and hands resting on her knees like she was doing one of Luke’s weird meditations. Except Han was pretty sure those meditations weren’t supposed to involve so much panting. Still in that little tank top that so artfully displayed the way her chest expanded with each deep breath, she had a crease in her brow and beads of sweat along her hairline, and shit, he was looking at her, stop looking at her, idiot– But those sweet lips of hers parted with another shuddering breath, and that wasn’t sweat on her cheeks, those were tears.
He’d kept his composure so far, not only in this cave but on every mission that somehow featured a beautiful princess half-asleep tucked beneath his arm. He could handle some suggestive gasps, but tears? Leia didn’t cry, not when she thought anyone might be looking.
Han was already walking towards her when she rasped, “It’s not going away. It’s getting worse.”
“Yeah, I know.” He held two fingers against her neck, trying very hard not to notice the tremor that ran through her. She must’ve been really worked up, if such a simple touch had her trembling. But that didn’t concern him nearly as much as her pulse did. It raced against his fingertips like she’d been outrunning a TIE fighter, not sitting still for half an hour. “You’re not gonna like what I’m about to say.”
Her brows twitched together. “Then spare me.”
Han let out a haggard breath. The fact that she refused to open her eyes and look at him made this a little easier, but it also meant she could ignore the sincerity he poured into his expression, and he needed her to take him seriously. “You need to go to the back of this cave and take care of things.”
That got her eyes open. “‘Take care of things’?”
“You want me to use some other euphemisms? ‘Cause I got plenty.”
Her only response was to flare her nostrils and hunch her shoulders, like an animal backed into a corner.
He lowered his voice. “Look, your heart’s going so fast, it’s gonna hit light speed and fly right outta your chest. You said yourself, it’s getting worse. Am I supposed to just sit here and watch you have a heart attack?”
“I’d rather that than you watching me… do… that!”
“Who says I’m gonna watch?” What little blood remained outside his cock rushed up to heat his face at the thought. It’s not like the image had never crept into his brain, at inexplicable and inconvenient times, often when he’d just pissed her off. The only positive thing about being on Hoth was that he could counteract any intrusive thoughts by simply walking outside into the icy winds. The idea of being trapped in a small space with her while she touched herself was pure torture, but, well. Some things were more important.
She scowled at the rock wall behind him. “I have it under control.”
“That so?” He moved quickly, so she didn’t have time to dodge as he swept a finger across her tear-streaked cheek. “Then what do you call this?”
For the first time since they’d entered this cave, Leia showed a flicker of fear. Guilt hit him like a punch in the gut.
“Well,” she snapped, “forgive me for being human! It does happen sometimes.”
Han backed away; he’d leaned closer without realizing. “I got no problem with you showing a little humanity, Your Highness, so why don’t you go do this other perfectly normal human thing so I don’t have to watch you die?”
“And what about you? Will you… are you also going to…”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said before she could stammer her way through completing that thought. “I didn’t get hit with nearly as much of that stuff as you did.”
She snorted. “Really? If I look down, what am I going to see?”
He tried to grin, but it ended up more like a snarl. “I dunno, maybe something that’ll inspire you!”
Leia lifted her chin, even through her flush of outrage, even though it was still not enough to bring her face level with Han’s, and not for the first time he thought how beautiful she looked when she refused to back down. “Oh, trust me, Captain,” she said with utter calm, “you’ll be the last thing on my mind.”
She refused the hand he offered to help her down from the boulder, though she swayed on wobbly legs as she made her way to the back of the cave. She found a little alcove that didn’t quite obscure her body and dropped down onto the moss-carpeted ground. Han returned to his post by the entrance, his back to her, trying to remember where he’d left off with his list of planets.
“Cover your ears.” Leia didn’t have to raise her voice for him to hear her on the other side of the cave, and Han didn’t have much hope that his hands would block out the noise in such a small space. But he had a feeling she knew how to be quiet; because of course he’d imagined that, too, in those moments where some wry brilliance escaped her soft lips, and Han had to fight the urge to shove her into the nearest supply closet.
He pressed his palms flat against his ears. “Covered.”
He tried to scuff his boots against the cave floor, but the moss was annoyingly too soft to make much of a sound. Dantooine. Datar. Was she on her knees? Dathomir. Back arched, head back, braids in disarray–
Han knocked his forehead against the rock wall.
“Han.”
His heart jolted at the sound of his name, the quaver in her voice as she said it; but the wild elation only lasted the second it took him to realize something was wrong. He took his hands off of his ears. “What is it?”
“It’s not working.”
He whirled around. He should’ve waited, made sure she was okay with being seen; but Leia wasn’t bothering to hide the panic in her voice, and that scared him. She had her back to him, bent forward over her knees, her head hanging so low it almost touched the ground. “What do you mean, ‘it’s not working’?”
“I mean–” She let out a ragged breath that ruptured into something too close to a sob. “Don’t make me explain, just try it yourself!”
The command was so desperate that he didn’t think twice. He unbuckled his belt enough to reach his hands down his pants, and– fuck, he was hard. And for this long–no wonder he was so light-headed. Wrapping his hand around himself, he immediately realized what Leia meant. It was unsettling. His hand was fine, he could feel all the same bumps and textures; but his cock was numb to his own touch. He tried his other hand, only to get the same eerie sensation of touching but not feeling.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
He shoved himself back into his pants, noting with irritation that his cock wasn't numb to the pain of that, and stumbled to the back of the cave, snatching up the med scanner on the way. He knelt beside Leia and touched her neck. Her pulse raced, and she clutched at her chest as she took gasping breaths.
“We need to get you to a medic,” he said softly as he started the scan. “The ones on this planet might know about those flowers, maybe–”
“No! We can't jeopardize the mission.”
“Leia,” he pleaded through gritted teeth.
As if to emphasize his point, the scanner beeped an alert: CARDIAC ARREST IMMINENT. He turned the scanner to show her; she glanced at it out of the corner of her eye and gave only a dainty little wince in response.
Han threw the scanner aside, worried that if he held it too long, he’d snap the thing in half. The effects of the spores tangled with the effect she always had on him, making him feel like his skin was too weak to hold all his blood and twitching muscles in place. He’d always thought Leia’s stubborn pride was going to get her in serious trouble one of these days, just as surely as her brown eyes and clever mouth were going to get Han in even worse trouble, if he stuck around her for much longer. Knowing that hadn’t gotten him to leave, like common sense screamed at him to do. Survival instincts weren’t enough anymore. These damned rebels had snuck past the defenses around his heart, and this reckless, brilliant princess had carved out a home there.
And now he had to beg her for her own life. He put his hand on her face and drew his thumb across her cheek. “What do you need me to do?”
It was clear in her expression that she knew, as well as he did, the options that were left. But Han needed her to ask.
“You think it’ll work?” she whispered.
“No harm in trying.” A damned lie, at least for him. Leia would probably justify it as a necessary inconvenience for the sake of the mission. For Han, it might end up being the tug that sent the last threads of his self-control unraveling.
“If you’re–” Leia bit her lip to silence herself, cringing.
Han raised his eyebrows. “Willing?” he offered, baffled at the idea he’d be anything but.
She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “I was going to say, ‘If you’re up for it,’ but I didn’t want to give you such an easy opening.”
He magnanimously declined to say anything about easy openings and gave a soft snort. “Well, I am, in every sense of the word, so don’t worry about that.”
Leia drew in a deep breath. “Can you help me up?”
When Han narrowed his eyes, worried she was going to go back to pretending everything was fine until her heart exploded, she nodded towards the center of the cave. “Not on the ground,” she mumbled.
Han clenched his fist, relief buffeting against a newer terror sparking in his chest, pinpricks of anguish that had nothing to do with the spores’ effects.
He thought about scooping her up and carrying her, but he didn’t trust his legs to support them both, and he almost didn’t trust his hands to stay where they should. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and helped her stand. Leia leaned against him, her fingers digging into his waist and her side flush against his. Han barely suppressed a groan.
He led her back to that same rock and laid his jacket out on top of the moss before taking her by the waist and setting her onto the boulder. Then he went around to the other side, placing his hands flat on the rock. Leia dropped her head back onto his shoulder, and he got too good a view of her heaving chest. His erection chafed against the rock in a way that was a little bit relief and a whole lot of pain. He brought a hand up to her neck, partly to monitor her pulse, partly because he needed to touch her somewhere. He rubbed his thumb into her skin. This was safe enough, nothing he hadn’t done before on those long flights when she’d complained about the Falcon’s seats, or when he caught her leaving a stressful meeting, or when she was up too late pouring over datapads. It was one of those actions that skirted the edges of acceptable, just far enough into platonic territory that she allowed it to happen.
Touching her neck didn’t feel particularly platonic now, though: with her nose brushing his jaw, each heaving breath seeming to bring her face closer.
Han tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes,” she said in a strained, desperate whisper, “just… help me, please.”
Han had to muffle his groan in her hair. He kept one hand on her neck while the other went to her hip. He moved his fingers in circles until fabric gave way to the soft flesh of her stomach. Her quick breaths ruffled his hair, and he continued to rub circles into her skin until she breathed another please against his jaw.
Swallowing hard, he pushed his hand beneath the waistband of her underwear. Leia grabbed his forearm and lifted her hips, bringing his hand closer to the heat between her legs. When he at last slipped a finger between her wet folds, he had to bite back a curse. He stroked her once, twice, and that was all it took before she shuddered and bucked her hips against his hand, crying out. The sight of her lifting off the rock, her lovely face contorted in ecstasy, had him grinding against the boulder, desperate for any sort of relief as he stroked her through her orgasm.
He bit the inside of his mouth so hard he almost drew blood, and the pain distracted him just enough that he could turn his attention to her pulse against his other hand. It still fluttered beneath his fingers, and he was far too dizzy to figure out if it had gotten better or worse.
“I gotta–” Han ducked his head away from her panting lips; her hot breaths hitting his ear weren’t helping him maintain any semblance of composure. “Gotta get the med scanner.”
He started to withdraw his hand, but Leia wrapped her fingers around his wrist to hold him still. “Wait.”
His head shot up. “What? Are you okay?”
She gave him a wry, tired smile. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not.” Leia bit her lip, and the way she furrowed her brow and wriggled made him think one quick orgasm wasn't going to cut it. “I should’ve been scanning you, too. You might be in just as much danger.”
He drew his nose up her neck, eliciting a gasp that pretty well confirmed his suspicions. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“You took care of me, now let me take care of you.”
He lowered his voice to a husky rumble he knew drove her crazy. “If you wanted more, sweetheart, all you had to do was ask.”
Leia let out an exasperated sigh. “Shut up and get over here.”
It took all his willpower not to obey her. How many times had he imagined her saying those exact words, with that exact breathless urgency? But it should’ve been because he’d finally broken through her wall and she’d finally torn down his own, and they stood together, naked and needy, on level ground. This wasn’t how he wanted to have her. But he did want her, and maybe it was that selfish desire, more than the spores, more than his need to see if she was all right, that had him lowering his hand again.
“I am here,” he murmured.
“You know what I–” Leia cut herself off with a strangled cry as Han slipped his finger inside her.
He curled his finger, and they both moaned, her nails digging into his arm. The hand he had still pressed to her neck should’ve been checking her pulse, but instead his thumb traced along her hairline. He’d always wondered what it would be like to bury his fingers into those braids and use her hair to pull her head back– but not now. This wasn’t for him. It was for survival.
At least, that’s what he told himself, as Leia rolled her hips against his hand and gasped, “oh,” over and over again.
Watching her writhe was agony, knowing it wasn’t real, knowing it was nothing but weird alien spores that made her crave this touch. It could’ve been anyone in this cave with her. Rage, shameful and ugly, burned through his chest at the thought, making him plunge a second finger inside her and pump harder.
“Wait,” she gasped, “wait, stop.”
He took his fingers out, maybe a little too quickly, as her resulting moan sounded pained. He made to back away, but she hadn’t let go of his wrist, and now she twisted around to face him, shaking her head. After a few steadying breaths, she said, “Stop distracting me, this is serious.”
Han raised his brows. “You think I’m not being serious?”
“I think you’re pretending that I’m the only one affected by this mess.” Leia looked down at his chest and lifted her hand as if to lay it there. Instead, she fiddled with his shirt collar. Most of Han’s body seemed to be on stand-by while all his blood and focus got routed to his crotch; but the nervous motions of her fingers on his shirt made his heart clench. “Look, this is… it’s humiliating, but I know you’re feeling it, too, and it might help us both for you to get involved.”
One corner of his lips twitched up as he attempted to smile. “I dunno, I like to think I’ve been pretty involved.”
“Han, please be sensible about this.” A hilarious thing to say in that long-suffering tone when his fingers were still wet with her.
“Believe me, I’m trying.”
Leia lifted her gaze to him again, and there was something vulnerable in her eyes that gave Han the wildest urge to press a kiss to the crease between her brows. As if he could be the one to kiss away her worries–hell, he was the cause of about forty percent of them.
“If it’s because…” The tremulous whisper she used had him almost as scared as the imminent cardiac arrest. It wasn’t like Leia to sound meek. “I’d never want to force you, if you didn’t want…”
Realization struck him with the force of an ion cannon. She needed to hear a resounding yes. It made him wonder if he hadn’t been as painfully obvious as he’d feared the past few months. “That’s what you’re worried about? That I don’t want to–” That I haven’t been wanting to kiss you until you can’t stand? To fuck you until you can’t walk?
“Well, you’ve been awfully restrained about the whole thing.”
“Hey, I’m trying to be a gentleman!” His knees wobbled, and the cave started to spin.
Leia surged forward to put her hands on either side of his face, and for one giddy moment, he thought she might kiss him. She even glanced down at his mouth, and he saw her arms shake as a tremor ran through them. But then she looked at him steadily. “That’s nice of you, but I’d rather you stay alive.”
Maybe it was an effect of the spores, or the pain in his cock making him dizzy, but it felt so easy to fall into those eyes, brown as Corellian soil, warm as any sun. Leia could silence a room of disparate rebels with only a glance from those eyes, and Han was just as powerless against them. He felt drunk as he leaned into her hands, mumbling, “Real sweet of you to be so worried about me, Highness.”
That earned him an eyeroll, and some of the tension left his shoulders.
“All right,” he murmured.
Leia drew in a sharp breath and slowly took her hands away from his face. The warmth of them remained, seared into his skin. “All right.”
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and Han thought about catching it with his teeth. Instead, he settled for something only a little less manic: he put his two wet fingers into his mouth and drew them out slowly, gathering the taste of her along his tongue.
Her eyes widened but stayed locked onto his, although her arms seemed to tremble with the strain of holding herself upright. He allowed himself a smug little smile, the effect of which was undercut when he started walking and immediately swooned at the movement.
Leia grabbed his arm to steady him and pull him around the boulder to face her, and now it was her turn to smirk. “Easy, hotshot.”
“Mm, I like when you call me nice names.”
When she was satisfied that he wouldn’t collapse, Leia wriggled out of her pants. Han’s breath quickened, and he focused on a spot of moss on the far side of the cave to avoid looking at her bared legs and what lay between them. Leia’s hand touched his face and turned it back to her. She looked like she was trying to say something, but Han beat her to it.
“Tell me what’s off-limits.”
She shook her head. “I think we’re past that now.” He drew in a deep breath, a fear-tinged scowl gathering on his face, but she cut him off. “I trust you, Han. And I think you trust me, too. If I want you to stop, I’ll tell you.”
Han pressed his lips together, and he wondered if she mistook the restraint twisting his face for hesitance. Her hand drifted down, lightly brushing the fabric of his shirt, which he’d untucked in a vain effort to cool off. He made the mistake of following her hand with his gaze to find her thighs spread wide around him. Groaning, he buried his face in the crown of her head. Tentative fingertips ducked underneath his shirt to touch his stomach.
He understood why she’d come so quickly, if she was even half as wound up as he was–because that light press of fingers on his stomach had him jerking his hips. And fuck, what was the point of feigning detachment about this? Of pretending this wasn’t going to change everything for him? He’d already felt her shuddering beneath his hands. If he wasn’t in so much pain, he’d be on his knees, tasting her. He’d make it last. That’s how this was supposed to happen, in his most depraved fantasies, where he’d sweep her up in his arms and promise to stay by her side, and her face would alight with her rarest of smiles, the smiles where she shrugged off the weight of the galaxy and let herself be free.
Leia’s hands went to his belt, and Han lifted his face to the rocky ceiling and tried to breathe. Maybe some detachment would be a good idea, enough to keep him grounded and remind him that this was a matter of life and death, nothing as complicated as whatever disaster brewed in his chest. He could do this. He could keep things impersonal.
“You can finish inside me.”
Han’s gaze shot back down to her in disbelief, half expecting that his own debauched imagination had conjured those words. But as she stared wide-eyed at his chest, cheeks flushed, she continued, “We don’t know how those flowers work, and I’m still– it didn’t fully– it might require a certain level of… completion.” She swallowed hard and lifted her chin, but kept her eyes determinately averted from his. “But it’s fine. I take a contraceptive shot. Because– for– to keep regular.”
It was a miracle Han was still standing, with how the room spun around him. He couldn’t seem to get enough air in his lungs. “Great. That’s great. I’m glad one of us is calm about this.”
“I just have slightly more blood getting to my head than you do.” The irreverence in her voice didn’t match the nervous twitching of her hands as they fisted the bottom of his shirt. “Can I…?”
It only occurred to him then that he was still mostly clothed, while she wore only that tight little tank top. He lifted his arms and let her pull his shirt off, and he tried not to let it go to his head when she bit her lip.
He watched her lay back onto his jacket. Leia was always beautiful, even when she yelled at him, even when she was running for her life; but there was something ethereal about seeing her lying there, her hands gripping his disheveled jacket, that made him want to ignore his own predicament and feast on her until those spores finally ruptured his heart. He couldn’t think of a better way to die.
But she’d be pissed at him if he tried it. He steeled himself to voice the concern that had been lurking in the back of his mind. “I gotta ask. It doesn’t matter, but– I just need to know if you’ve done this before.”
Leia nodded. “Once.”
“Oh. Okay.” Then, inexplicably, he found himself asking, “Was it good?” He cringed as he said it; those damned spores had addled his brain.
Well, no. He couldn’t blame the flowers for that, any more than he could blame them for the truly profane dreams he’d been having the past few months. And he definitely couldn’t blame the flowers for the fantasies he’d spun up while fully conscious, which somehow felt more shameful than the dreams: fantasies where he whispered tender promises into her hair, where he nestled between her legs and took his time coaxing her to climax after climax, and then he’d tuck her into his chest and they’d fall asleep and wake up together because he stayed, he stayed–
He couldn’t tell if her groan of frustration was from her current state or his ridiculous question. “I didn’t exactly have anything to compare it to!”
“All right, all right! I just wanted to know your expectations.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and with her other hand reached up to cup his face. It was not surprising that Leia, of all people, could manage to look so commanding while panting and mostly naked; but the sight still left him awestruck. “I said I trust you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.” It was a sobering thought, one that humbled him in a way that little else could. A woman like her, proud and noble and good, putting her trust in a guy like him. It didn’t seem real.
Because it’s not real, he reminded himself. It was survival. She put her trust in him because she had to, because the alternative was to make this something distasteful, something tragic, and she’d been through enough of that.
Han put a hand on the back of her neck and dragged the other up the tense muscles of her thigh. She was still so wet when he pressed two fingers inside her. He could go deeper at this angle, could better see her face, and he didn’t dare to blink as he watched her lips part in a gasp. As Leia tilted her head back, Han let his hand slip into her hair until his nails scraped her scalp. She let out a long moan as he curled his fingers before drawing them languidly out again.
All the filthy things he’d dreamed of panting into her ear in this moment, when he lined himself up at her entrance, and all he could think to say now was, “It’s gonna be all right. Just relax.”
“I am relaxed,” she whispered through her teeth.
“That’d be a first.”
His quip lifted the fog over her eyes, and she glared at him incredulously. “Are you going to fuck me or not, Captain?”
Right. This was Leia. She wasn’t frail, he’d known that ever since he’d felt the heat of her blaster bolt inches from his hip. Living nightmares had tried to break her and failed, what harm could Han’s unremarkable wickedness do?
This should’ve been the part where he sniped back, hit her with the smirks and one-liners that had shielded him all his life. Instead, he stroked the back of her neck and let himself drown in the dark pools of her eyes as he pushed himself inside her.
It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.
It was the only real thing in the galaxy.
Han gripped the edge of the rock behind her and pushed himself deeper. Something between a groan and a growl tore its way out of his throat. All his nerves seemed to crackle with unspent energy. It took every ounce of his self-control not to shove her back onto the boulder and slam into her. But even this, just being inside her, her hand tangling in his hair, her breaths hot against his face, nearly undid him.
The nervous smile flitting across her face had his chest aching. “See?” she said. “At least a bit more preferable to suffering and dying?”
“A bit–?” Han tightened his grip on the rock, trying not to yank at her hair. He was in the middle of the closest he’d ever come to a divine revelation, and Leia was cracking jokes. And she had the nerve to say he wasn’t taking things seriously? “One of these days, I’m gonna kiss you just to shut you up.”
Not nearly enough blood getting to his brain, if he’d let that slip out so easily. Han thrust fully into her, hoping to distract her so she wouldn’t think too hard about what he’d said. And though she shuddered and gasped, Leia still managed to watch him through heavy-lidded eyes and whisper, “Why not now?”
Why not? a greedy voice echoed in his head. He already had his cock inside her, what was a kiss compared to that?
Han looked down at her dark eyes, fierce with challenge and hope.
A kiss was for a man she could rely on. A man who would stay by her side. He was not that man, and the sooner she accepted that, the better off they’d both be. At least now he could get her out of his system; maybe after this, he’d stop seeing her every time he closed his eyes.
If he couldn’t kiss her like she deserved, soft and lingering and tasting of promises he could keep, then he wouldn’t kiss her at all.
Han clenched his teeth and surged forward, pinning her to the rock with one hand splayed across her stomach. He withdrew only to slam back into her. “I’m already scared you’re gonna hate me when this all wears off.”
He felt her heels press into his back, and she whimpered at the new angle. He started to pull out slowly, trying to gauge her reaction, but she didn’t give him the chance: her legs tightened around him to tug his hips back into hers. Leia put her hand over his on her stomach. “Never thought I’d say this, but you’re thinking too much.”
She gazed up at him as she panted out the words, chest heaving, wisps of hair flying loose about her head; but it was the gentle stroke of her fingers across his knuckles that almost broke Han’s resolve. He buried his face in her neck and thrust hard into her. The reverberations of her moans thrummed against his lips, because those still ended up brushing her soft skin.
The hesitance in Leia’s touch was gone, and she grasped at his shoulders with needy hands. Han rolled his hips in a steady rhythm, lifting his head only enough to watch her face: at first, because he needed to know she was all right, and then because he couldn’t take his eyes off her, her lips parted in a wordless cry, her nose scrunched and her head thrown back. There was so much Han got wrong with her; but seeing her unrestrained like this, at least he knew their bodies understood each other.
“S’not how I wanted–” He hadn’t meant to say it; but he never could shut up around her, could he? Untangling their hands, he traced his fingers down her stomach, a thrill jolting up his spine as he felt how she writhed beneath him. And if there wasn’t any point grasping for dignity, then maybe he could go for brazen. He rasped against her ear, “Tell me what you like. I wanna make it good for you, sweetheart.”
A choking sound was Leia’s only response at first. Han lifted himself to get a better look at her flustered face, and to better reach where their bodies joined. Much as he loved her voice, making her speechless was intoxicating. “It’s– it’s already good, I–” She cried out as he pressed his thumb into her clit, and her back arched off of the rock.
“That!” she gasped. “Just like that, oh, Han–”
“Fuck.” Han gritted his teeth and pounded her hard and fast as his thumb worked her clit. With each thrust, his body became more frenzied even as dreadful clarity came to his mind: there was no getting Leia out of his system. He’d never be tired of the proud tilt of her chin, of shoulders stiff beneath the weight of ghosts, of a spirit held together by equal parts spite and hope. He’d never stop wanting her. That was why he could never bring himself to leave, even when he kept throwing it in her face that he was on his way out. He should’ve been long gone.
But here he was, cupping her face, brushing his thumb across her lips as he chanted her name like it was the only thing he knew, like it was precious as stars.
Leia wrapped her fingers around his wrist and turned her head to nuzzle into his hand.
It was more than he could handle. He came to the feel of her teeth scraping his palm.
Mercifully, she followed him over the edge, and through the haze of his own ecstasy he watched Leia spasm beneath him, felt her ragged, desperate cry against his hand before she finally fell back onto the mossy stone.
Han barely managed to catch himself on his elbows as he slumped atop her. He pulled out, moaning at the loss of her heat. Not close enough. He’d never be close enough again. How was he supposed to just live the rest of his life without this, without her?
He looked down at Leia, brushing the sweat-damp hairs from her brow. Her eyes were closed, and she took in deep, shuddering breaths. “You all right?” he asked softly.
Leia didn’t answer except to let out a contented hum.
Han slipped his arms beneath her back, her body limp and pliant as he pulled her to his chest. “Don’t scare me like that again,” he muttered.
Though he couldn’t see her face, he heard the smile in her reply: “You know I can’t promise that.”
A breathless laugh burst out of him, and he tightened his grip on her. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
When she gave him a little push, Han was half-tempted to ignore her, to melt into her and stay there. But he relented and let her sit up while he grabbed her pants off the ground. He handed them to her and then turned, leaning his hip against the rock and remembering how to breathe normally.
After some rustling, he felt a touch on his back so light that it tickled, and his muscles spasmed. Before Leia could withdraw her hand, he reached back and grabbed it, pulling it around his waist and tugging her close. She tensed for only a second and then wrapped her other arm around him. Her breaths caressed his back, slow and deep, no longer subject to the frenzy of the spores. His own body had eased into boneless exhaustion, and it might’ve only been her grip on his waist that kept him standing. Not for the first time, he wondered when it had happened–which moment had made gravity shift to put Leia at the center of his universe.
“Do you want to hear something strange?”
Han traced his fingers over her knuckles. Pressing her hands into his bare stomach somehow felt more intimate than the (incredible, star-shattering) sex they’d just had. And she was letting him do it. Talking was a terrifying prospect. Talking was usually how he got himself into trouble with her. He didn’t want to risk anything that might make her stop melding her body into his, or make her stop tracing circles into his skin with her delicate fingers. “Yeah?”
“I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so relaxed.”
He gave a soft laugh. “Can I take that as a compliment?”
Her hair brushed along his back as if she was ducking her head. “Probably.”
Nice as it was to hear her suggest this was all as incredible for her as it was for him, he knew there was more to it. He tapped his thumb against her hand and waited.
When she finally broke the silence, her voice was low and careful. “The truth is that when I see people like the ones in the city, I get jealous. I wonder what it must be like to be so carefree, to not have so many lives to worry about. And I get so jealous because I know I’ll never have that sort of life.” She pressed her brow between his shoulder blades. “I’ve never admitted that to anyone.”
“You worried people will judge you for being a human with complicated feelings?”
She mumbled against his spine, “I wish you were the only complicated thing in my life.”
The admission hit him like a blaster to the chest. It sparked with the guilt he kept buried there, igniting into grief and something worse that he wasn’t ready to name yet, a dreary counterweight to the euphoria of watching her come undone. Those spores had left his system, but they’d torn him open, revealing how deeply Leia had burrowed into him, how she made his sad shell of a heart feel too small for all the possibilities she saw in him.
Han took her hand and turned it to brush his thumb over her palm. “If I was still that guy Luke met in Mos Eisley, I’d tell you to leave it all behind. Steal some credits, steal a ship, find some quiet planet where you could just be a woman living her normal life.”
“You really think so? You think even back then, you were the sort of man to tell me to run away?”
To say it? Sure. He’d always liked getting a rise out of people. But to believe it would make a difference? “Yeah, maybe Old Me wouldn’t’ve bothered.” He threw a smile over his shoulder. “I know a lost cause when I see one.”
Leia shifted to the side so she could rest her cheek against his shoulder and smile up at him. She looked so content, so bright, amplifying that glow of hope that always seemed to light her from within. Yeah, Han knew a thing or two about lost causes.
His voice cracked on her name. “Leia, I–”
The datapad’s shrill beep jolted them both back to reality.
Their contact was five minutes out.