A Wide Awake Nothing

by carbonfrozen

Summary:

Han Solo has quite a lot to think about.
For better or for worse, It’s all he can do while he’s frozen in carbonite.

Set of short vignettes that string together to form a coherent plot. Unannounced flashbacks, Jumping around the canon timeline like it’s hopskotch, and spiral into literary madness abound.

do not advertise your art commisions under my fic or you will get the hose 😇

Chapter 1: 01

Han Solo couldn’t breathe.

    Attempting to gasp for oxygen as he came to, He could barely grasp his surroundings as suffocation initially made it near-impossible to think. Running on panic and survival instincts alone, Solo took the incentive to scramble to his feet and physically claw his way out of whatever predicament he had been tossed into while he was unconscious.

But he couldn’t. Han couldn’t move. Distraught, he tried to shout for help— but nothing came out, as if his vocal cords were clipped and his mouth had been sewn shut.

     It wasn’t quite paralysis, no— though the realization that Han couldn’t move prompted further attempts to writhe himself out of this chokehold, it quickly came apparent that it was as if there was nothing to move in the first place. Panic temporarily fizzled into acute, mind-racing confusion. Han knew he hadn’t been breathing for some time, and even being aware of that irked him— but the suffocation itself wasn’t painful. In a denial-riddled last ditch effort, Solo attempted to bring his hands to his line of vision— a project that failed just as miserably as his escape plan.

Wherever he happened to end up was silent. Quieter than silent. Every place in the galaxy had some sort of background hum— the buzz of a crowd, wind, the whirring of electronics. Yet here, nothing accompanied the deafening, abnormal quiet. Sound didn’t exist here. The darkness was equally disturbing. Never had Han been blanketed in such endless, merciless pitch black— No, not even black. Darker. 

Where was he? Why couldn’t he move?  Why didn’t he have a body to move? If he can’t breathe, how the hell is he still alive, let alone awake? Where is everyone? Are they okay? Is Leia okay?

Leia.

Oh my god.

Memories flooded back into his consciousness, and he understood. 

It knocked him out at first— That explains why it felt as if he woke up here. The events leading up to his being knocked unconscious slowly returned to him as his questions became answered, his morbid curiosity being abruptly replaced with complete, overwhelming dread.

Han survived being frozen in carbonite, and he was wide awake.

No, No— None of this made sense. They called it hibernation for a reason. If the freezing process didn’t kill you, surely it was akin to being put into comatose. Perhaps there was a mistake. Bespin’s equipment was in terrible shape, anyways— this couldn’t possibly be intentional. This couldn’t possibly be happening.

Attempting to Logically make out the circumstances of this new prison, Han first went through his senses. He already knew he was essentially deaf, blind, paralyzed, and numb while frozen— he quickly realized smell and taste followed suit. Being aware while physically in suspended animation was by no means painful— but the lack of any feeling at all, pleasant or agonizing, was enough to drive a man mad. The concept of loosing his own sanity struck discomfort into the man. Solo couldn’t let that happen to him. He couldn’t. 

There was nothing left. The empire reduced Han to a lone, stray conciousness with a slab of metal as its vessel. There was no way to know what was going on outside, What they were about to do to him, how much time had passed since his pseudo-execution. There was no way to stop them, or to free himself. Never had Han been so irreversibly trapped. His attempts to be logical and calm finally slipped, falling and falling and falling into the abyss of his scrambled mind.

Captain Solo wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything. But this time, he was. He was scared, hell, horrified beyond words, perhaps beyond comprehension.

To the rest of the galaxy, he was dead— His corpse a trophy for the empire, the vessel he found himself suspended in his casket. Everything Han had ever known, Everything he worked for, was gone. All but his racing, constantly racing thoughts, thoughts which provided no solace to this purgatory, remained.

Han wanted to scream. 

Chapter 2: 02

 

With nothing else to occupy his mind, and desperate to make heads or tails of the last few hours, he brought himself back to his final moments. He turned these memories over in his head, analyzing every last aspect of their existence until he knew them like the back of his hand, perhaps even more.

   The carbon freezing chamber was nauseatingly hot. Those four iron walls trapped a kind of heat that leaves you dizzy and turns even breathing into a labor of temperature-induced discomfort. The metal floor plates rattled under his feet with every step as apathetic stormtroopers took Han by the arms and separated him from his only allies. The equipment was set up, the crowd had gathered, and all was in order for Han’s life to potentially be taken.

   This execution had a large audience. Spite fuled Han as he refused to look any of them in the eye, to even wince as they watched emotionlessly. He was too angry, too strong, better than to show such fear in the face of death for these people. Everyone, that is, but them. As the platform under Han rumbled to a start and began to crawl lower, Han kept his eyes on the two figures whose safety made this death worth dying.

    Chewbacca was still begging. Begging for them to stop the machine, begging for Han to forgive him. Roared Apologies, Promises of loyalty, and wails in a language only the two would understand reverberated across the room. Much of Chewie’s parting words were too much to ever repeat.

   Then there was her. She stood next to Chewie, practically under the crook of his arm in fear. She was so beautiful. Leia Organa. Han didn’t want to resonate with the emotion, but covert adoration for Leia adorned his every move in his final moments. He never expected that longing to be returned. 

Those three words echoed in Han’s head, words nobody had told him in years. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

    Han had been attempting to squirm out of long term bonds for years. yet, against his instincts, he didn’t want to leave her. Regardless of how much Han wanted to stagger back into her arms, to kiss her again one last time, he stayed put, looking down only to adjust his stance and begrudgingly acknowledge his restraints. A good captain goes down with his ship. As his eyes, almost tearing up and breaking the facade of his emotional strength returned to his spectators, he focused only on her.

I know.

     Not once did Han break eye contact with his mortified lover, as if to greedily consume whatever time they had in each other’s presence left. The freezing chamber’s platform finally reached its nadir, a destination that took seconds but felt more like hours. The Captain of the Millennium Falcon, The Hero, was now being looked down upon en masse. Han cringed— It had been long since he was the object of condescension like this. Still, He craned his head to look up at Leia. Solo was in hell, looking at heaven. She was the last thing Han saw. The carbon freezing chamber suddenly hissed in his ears, louder than before. This was it.

   Han Solo always hated the cold. This was no different, but in a degree more extreme than he’d ever felt before. Han flinched as he was engulfed in absolute zero, writhing at the sensation of unfathomable cold eating at his flesh. This was agony beyond what a human was supposed to endure, the kind of pain Han only heard of when Correlian storytellers back home would explore when imagining what hell was like. Unable to see through the carbon-laced smoke, He flung his shackled arms up in an attempt to cover up his face, a scream escaping his vocal cords against his will. It was only seconds before his mobility disappeared and his awareness began to slip. It was done. 

     Han’s recollection ended there. He lingered on those last moments with access to his senses, how horrible they were. He wondered if he would rather going through that pain again than endure this otherworldly numbness. He thought of Leia. He prayed she was okay. He dreaded the concept of not being able to remain by her side, but slipped into a desperate acceptance that it didn’t matter, anyhow. It was too late. And so he took it from the top, replaying his last moments spent truly alive.

The carbon freezing chamber was nauseatingly hot.

Notes:

i wrote and edited this entire thing while listening to radiohead - exit music for a film on loop. to enhance your reading experience please consider doing the same lol

thank you so so much for all the hits and kudos :-) this is my first fic, so seeing people support my mediocre writing means the world and a half!!!

the carbon freezing chamber scene from ESB is one of my fav scenes in all of media so writing it was a lot of fun. enjoy!!

Chapter 3: 03

Get it together, Han.

       He was neurotically moping— something Solo never, ever did. What the hell has gotten into me?, he asked himself, fueled by an almost comical disbelief as he became self-aware. So what if there was no getting out of this one? Going crazy about it isn’t going to make it any better. Putting a stop to his pity party, Han circled back to getting to the bottom of his predicament.

       It’s not like I can let myself out. That’s something someone else, someone out there has gotta do. And that’s not impossible. There’s lots of ways Han could have someone else stumble into granting him freedom. There’s gotta be some idiot on Bespin or Tatooine or wherever they ended up taking him who was morbidly curious and stupid enough to flip the right switch and thaw him out. He then turned to even more wishful thinking— Perhaps the rebellion would go looking for him. His friends wouldn’t let him be scooped up by the empire like this for so long— At least he hoped.

      Luke and Leia had shown such a bizarre amount of loyalty, no matter how many times Han tried to squirm out of the rebellion— perhaps knowing that this time around was against his will, they’d have even more incentive to drag him back. Hell, the resistance owed Han a lot— after all the time he begrudgingly poured into their efforts, they surely loved him too much to let him go. Besides, the rebellion couldn’t afford to loose one of their best pilots. Initially, the dread of being permanently trapped in his own mind devoured Han, horror shutting down any rational thinking. But now, he realized there was hope. He’d be just fine.

All he had to do was wait.

     Han had been awake for two hours. Growing up in the slums of Corellia, followed by years of running a tight smuggling schedule allowed him to develop an unnaturally keen internal clock, which grew to be suprisingly useful now that he was stuck in carbonite. Despite being awake for such little time, and though he was pleased with the progress he made in acclimating to his circumstances, all Han wanted to do was go back to sleep. Complete sensory deprivation paired with endlessly racing thoughts left Solo feeling completely burnt out, an emotion that felt abnormal without physical exhaustion to accompany it. Surely making an attempt to fall asleep wouldn’t hurt.

     He was never great at it, and going unconscious again would mean a disruption in his understanding of how much time had passed— a risk he was initially nervous to take. But slipping into sweet, sweet unconsciousness, allowing himself the luxury of thoughtlessness for a while, was far too enticing. The rest would keep him sane here. Besides, there wasn’t much of a point of keeping perfect track of time in a situation like this— perfect archival of time was worth sacrificing. With renewed confidence that he could manage this new existence, Han set out on the project. Attempting to quiet his thoughts and focus on slipping into sleep, Han eagerly awaited a break from consciousness.

 

It never came.

 

     Two more sleepless hours passed, and worry began to creep back into his thoughts. The darkness seemed darker, The silence more grating than before.

Four hours melted into six.

Eight.

Thirteen.

Twenty.

Twenty-four.

       One full day frozen in carbonite, each minute, each second, accompanied by the overwhelming awareness of his own conciousness. Han would have shuddered if he still had the luxury of moving. No matter how mentally exhausted, no matter how irritated or starved of sleep he was, Han couldn’t sleep. It was no product of insomnia, nor was it a byproduct of adjusting to such bizarre circumstances. Being frozen prohibited Han from the escape of unconsciousness. Sleep was now a feat literally impossible— there was set to be no end to Han’s full awareness, nor his droning inner monologue. Han relapsed into horror as he realized His unspoken thoughts, the agressive nag of being conscious, the deafening silence and the eye-straining darkness would march on into the rest of eternity, and Han had no choice but to experience every single agonizing second of it, completely aware.

       That’s not true. You’re spiraling again, idiot. Han pulled himself back, attempting to invite logical thinking back into his train of thought. Remember? This won’t be forever. It will be worth it. You’ll get your life back. Someone will unfreeze you. They’ll come back. They’ll come back. You just have to wait. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait.

Notes:

“wait a second i have to make sure im not mischarachterizing han so i don’t get murdered” the chapter. it’s 12 am i want to sleep 🫨🫨🫨🫨🫨

Chapter 4: 04

    Nobody could sleep on the trip to the rebel base. The lights were shut off, vacant goodnights were traded, and the crew members of the millennium falcon fell into a quiet accompanied only by the hum of the starship as it flew through hyperspace.

       The crew quarters had never been more full. Having not one, not two, but four extra passengers on the falcon was already abnormal, only worsened considering their trip had snowballed into something unbelievably more convoluted than what Han was prepared for. All he was planning was to give this kid from Tattooine, his nutcase grandfather, and their very irritating droids a ride to Alderran— an Alderran that no longer existed, an Alderran whose royal sole survivor was now apart of the Falcon’s guest list. Worse came to worse, and suddenly these people believed he was capable of joining their rebellion against the empire. Their invitation weighed heavy on his mind as he fidgeted with his blanket. Believing he was the only one awake, he pushed himself upright, meaning to make his way to the cockpit.

    “Where are you off to, captain?” A soft, slightly monotone voice mused from the cot above him. Han, who volunteered to sleep on the quarter’s floor, turned up to look at Leia’s outline, just barely illuminated by a crack in the door which refused to fully close (one of many inconveniencing things needing repairs on the falcon).

       “Shouldn’t you be asleep, your worship?” Han retorted in a near whisper, Leaning back against his pillow.

     “I asked first,” the princess didn’t hesitate.

     “Why are we fighting?” A third voice, Luke’s, interjected. Chewie let out a gruff chuckle at the passenger’s sensitivity.

      “First of all, we’re not fighting. Captain Solo’s just being… difficult. Second of all. are we seriously all awake?” Leia asked, surprise seeping into her words. Almost everyone in this room happened to be mere strangers, yet they were united simply by the fact something was keeping each of them awake.

       “Guess so,” Han grumbled, laying back down as Luke began, the first to open up.

        “I think i’m just… overwhelmed. I miss my Aunt and Uncle. I miss ol’ Ben. I can’t believe I let them all die… I’ve never been outside of Tattooine, never in my whole life, and this whole rebellion thing sounds awesome, but—“

        “It’s not your fault, kid. You didn’t kill nobody. Y’got a good head on your shoulders, you’ll be okay,” Han assured him.

“But it feels like I did. And that I don’t. I can’t go on with— with those images in my head. Of what happened.”

     “I understand, Luke. Truly,” Leia murmured, her tone haunted by the entire population of her people. She refused to say it outright, but the lack of description spoke more than enough for everyone to understand.

<Loss isn’t easy. You both have endured a great deal. I’m sorry,> Chewie added, prompting Luke to turn over in his sheets and curiously ask for a translation. Han was quick to provide, opting to avoid giving a snarky fake answer the way he usually would.

      “… I’m sorry, too. For your losses,” Han finally added after the room went silent. He couldn’t provide much else— loss was an experience so foreign to him, one he hadn’t endured himself since he was just a teenager. Years of conditioning himself to be as self-sufficient as possible made the concept of mourning to be pitifully abstract. Knowing these two strangers lost their entire family made Han reflect on the fact he never truly had one, and made his own troubles feel so small. Even so, the raw emotion his passengers seemed to carry was intense enough to prompt him to provide some sort of solace, poor as it was.

      “Thanks, guys,” Luke responded, Leia choosing to silently digest their words. It went quiet for a while.

      “How do you not get lost on this ship, Han? It’s incredible.”

       Given its spontaneity, Han almost laughed at the question. “What?”

      “Yknow, like…. There have been times within the last few days where I try to go from the main hold to the cockpit and I somehow end up in the circuitry bay. How’d’yuh figure out where everything is?”

     “I’ve been captain of this ship for over a decade, kid. It just happens over time.”  

    “Woah…” Han couldn’t see Luke’s face from where he was laying, but he already knew he held the same naive, awestruck expression that he held every time the two spoke. It was the look of amazement, of someone who clung onto every word he said— Of admiration. Perhaps even more. Han didn’t want to admit he had a soft spot for the young man. He had been in his shoes before, and the memories of that one-sided clinging to another person stung him. He had to shake these people off, as much as he wanted to appreciate them.

        “How in the galaxy did you go from worrying about your family dying to being amazed by this flying junk pile?” Leia’s tone was breaching on neutral, but Han had a hunch she wanted to linger on the more emotionally intimate conversation.

       <You know a lot about starships, Luke,> Chewie began to inquire, to which the passenger responded with an eager “What’d he say now?”

     “Chewie says shut up and sleep,” Han sighed, turning over once more. In response to the incorrect translation, his best friend roared and threw his cot’s pillow at Han, aggressively landing in his chest. Luke and Han snickered at the banter, banter which Leia did not find as funny. With Han returning Chewie’s pillow and providing an actual translation, Luke shot up in excitement, eager to respond to the wookie’s observation.

“I DO know a lot about starships! Ships in general. Ships are cool. I would love to be a pilot someday, I’m actually really good at flying! I’ve never flown in a cargo ship like this before, but I’ve heard all about them. You’re flying a YT-1300 light freighter which is a ship they used to make in Corellia! Did you know that they’re one of the most customizable cargo ships ever made? You probably knew that. I noticed there’s a lot of modifications on this ship. That’s so cool…”

      Luke and Chewbacca went back and forth about Space travel for a very long time, with Han providing translations for his second mate’s stories. For a farmhand from the outskirts of the galaxy, Luke’s knowledge on space travel was beyond impressive— clearly, he spent whatever free time he had on his love for piloting. It was nice to see the kid get the last day or so off his mind— Han was sure he needed this.

   However, as much as he enjoyed listening to the passionate jedi-in-training, his other passenger’s presence was haunting, her greif dripping into the room and onto the floor where Han lay. As Luke continued, he once again stared up at Leia, who coincidentally was also looking at him. As their gazes met, silent words were traded in the dim light, an exchange in glances that they perfectly understood.

 

I’m sorry, Leia.

Don’t worry about it, Captain.

      For the first time, a level of unspoken equality was reached between the smuggler and his royal passenger. Mutually, something was keeping them from relaxing. For once, though, they weren’t going to fight because of it. That alone, though not fully, brought some sort of peace to the two. And the crew quarters were warm and comfortable and The sliver of light just barely illuminating the room provided immense comfort and the familiar hum of the Falcon’s engine kept the environment from becoming truly silent, a comfortable quiet not a deafening one. And Han wasn’t alone.

   At the time, The lack of solitude tore Han apart— he wasn’t used to being anything but alone. But as he grew neurotic wishing he could writhe and claw himself out and crawl back to that room that moment and everything about it to relive it all even if it was just in his memories 

 

God, If he could go  back.

Notes:

-YAY IM SO PROUD OF THIS ONE. ladies and gentlemen it’s flashback time!!! this fic jumps around a lot so ummm have fun with that.
-I’ve seen a lot of fics do this so i jumped on the bandwagon, Chewie’s dialouge is written in english and quoted with <> these things to indicate he’s still speaking wookie OK BYE
i had a lot of fun writing this chapter, i hope you guys enjoy!!

Chapter 5: 05

I’m never getting used to this.

 

    Han kept trying to move. To feel something. To contort his limbs and writhe into a position other than the one he had held. A task not only illogical, but impossible. Part of him knew this— there was a clean-cut disconnection between his brain and his body, to the point it didn’t even feel like he had one. As if he was just a conciousness, a collection of thoughts determined to be something more. But it was driving him up the wall.

       Han wanted to move again. To be able to shift his posture, to raise his arms and to wiggle his fingers, to blink and walk and breathe and speak and feel sunlight on his skin and feel warmth and the sensation of someone else’s skin on his and he wanted to eat and drink and he wanted to live. God, He wanted to live.

       Every second that passed he became more aware of the absolute nothing that held him captive, that wrapped itself around his whole body like a parasite. He was endlessly starving, endlessly suffocating. Pitch black ate at his eyelids as silence’s emptiness overwhelmed him. Sound was extinct. Everything was extinct. It was a nothingness paralleled only by the end of a universe, after every star had exploded and every planet had dissipated into dust. He and his horrible endless thoughts were all that was left in this hell made just for him.

         He desperately returned to his memories of the carbon freezing chamber— a habit that was now ritualistic to him— and scavenged to remember the sensation of cold tearing his skin open and the smoke scalding his windpipe and the horrible disgusting metal smothering him as it covered his body no matter how much he tried to writhe away from it shut up shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP PLEASE

 

 

 

        Han, for the first time in so long, spent just a handful of seconds without thinking. Pure, wordless fear shut him up. Han was never supposed to look back on the past, to be horrified of it, to be horrified of himself. Even if the past was all he had now he couldn’t rely on it forever. Forever. Forever is so long.

 

        You’re not going to be here forever, Han. Stop letting yourself slip. They’re coming for you. I promise. It hasn’t been that long.

How long had it been, anyways?

      Han counted four sets of twenty-four hours. No, five. Six? Three? No, definitely four. No, no, wait. No. No no no no no. He had to keep track of time. Nothing was stopping him, especially since he couldn’t sleep. If he was going to make good use of being alone with his thoughts, he had to keep track. Four days, he was certain. He had been frozen in carbonite for four days. Four. Four.

Remember that, Han. keep track. Four. No, Five— No, definetly four. I hope. Either way, you’re not going to be here forever. You’ll be fine. I promise. Just wait. Just wait. Just wait. How many times have we gone over this? Just wait.

Han would have curled up then and there, head in his knees wrapped in his arms. As he had dozens of times before, he picked himself up, managed to bring his thinking elsewhere, and pretend the slip in his stability never happened. He had to keep it together. For himself. For his sanity. Admittedly, for his friends.

 

Please keep it together.

 

Please

Notes:

sorry this one’s kinda similar to chapter 3…… kinda all over the place but it was fun!!! let the spiral into madness begin

Chapter 6: 06

“Baby, what the devil have you gotten into?”

       Han, sprawled on a pile of half-opened crates in the Falcon’s cargo hold, sluggishly gazed up at his copilot. Lando Calrissian stood with one hand on his hip, smirking as if his at-the-time boyfriend’s predicament brought him great amusement. Han rubbed his bloodshot eyes, slurring his words as he spoke. “….I wanted to, um…. to test our client’s spice. Make sure it was….. spicing.” A poorly rolled blunt containing the drug that was clearly too strong for Han hung loosely between his fingers, which he waved around as he tried to explain himself.

       “Oh, darling,” Calrissian purred, taking Solo by his free hand and bringing the very high smuggler to his feet. “You’re gonna get us in real trouble. Let’s get you squared away.”

        Han vomited on his way to the main hold, Lando keeping an arm around him as he coaxed him away from the drugs. “You know you can’t do our client’s drugs, baby,” he lectured. “Even outside of giving them less than they ordered, half the stuff we deal is far too strong for humans. You know this, right, Han?” Han grumbled in understanding.

         After cleaning him up, getting him settled on the main hold’s couch, and getting something to drink, Lando joined his partner with a box of nail polish that he kept with his belongings. “Since I’ll have to babysit you for a while, I might as well keep myself entertained while i’m at it,” He explained, Han never taking his eyes off him. The two’s relationship had been on and off for years— they’d do a handful of romance-fueled spice runs together, Lando would remember how bitter he was about loosing the Falcon, a spat would ensue, and they would go their separate ways, rinse and repeat. The two had gotten used to a routine of being at each other’s throats one month and cuddling the next.

        For a while, Han quietly watched Lando paint his nails a glittery violet, a shade that matched the cape he adorned. He felt awful— his system still hung heavy with nausea, and his sinuses stung from smoking the heavy-duty spices. He suddenly half-leaned-half-collapsed into Calrissians shoulder, leading his delicate handiwork to veer off his nail and leave a vibrant streak of purple on his finger. “Oops,” Han blurted.

“… Can y’do me too?”

       A long, drawn out sigh escaped from Lando’s teeth. “Sure, Darling. Just let me fix myself up first.”

 

—

 

       “There was this thing queer kids did back on Corellia. We used to all paint our nails black so we could recognize eachother,” Han slurred in an explanation as to why he requested his color of choice.         Lando let him ramble, Han’s clumsy hand limp in his. Lando had flawless dexterity and a gentleness that Han hadn’t experienced from anyone else— it was nice to know someone whose body language didn’t feel like a threat. When Calrissian was done and Han’s nail polish had dried, he slid against the seat they shared and let his head land against Lando’s leg. As if on cue, Calrissian reached out and ran his fingers through his constantly messy hair. The two made for a wildly unlikely couple— Lando’s perfectionistic demeanor and Han’s careless one clashed more than anything. But they were a good team with the same goals, and when you’re a criminal on a job that was more than enough for a friendship to blossom.

    “I love you, Lando,” Han began. “And I’m not jus’ sayin’ that cos’ I’m high. Truly. You’re so good to me, takin’ care of me. And makin’ me look pretty… I might have to paint my nails black again soon.” Lando looked down and smiled, a genuine, warm one. Han breathed in his floral perfume as he replied.

     “I love you too, Han. I know we fight a lot, but you’re a real special guy. I’m pleased we can have our good moments.”

      The two fell into a comfortable quiet. They would repeat their song and dance more after this, fighting and making up and fighting again, but for now they were happy.

—

 

      Over most of his imprisonment, Han boiled with rage towards Lando. Every time his name crossed his mind, his anger became animalistic. This was his fault— all of this, this personal hell designed just for him, all for a stupid deal and all because he couldn’t get over the stupid fucking Falcon. Sure, he had a pretty face and more charisma than anyone he’d ever met, but that man was more self interested and viciously toxic than he let on. It made him want to scream more than the fear did. He remembered the final glance they exchanged in the freezing chamber— God, how Han wanted to wipe that pathetically, only-slightly-remorseful look off his face. Sometimes he’d spend entire days letting himself seethe, raving in his own head for hours on end about how horribly he’d done him. How horribly he’d done Leia. How horribly he’d done everyone.

      But when he wasn’t mad, he was mourning. What could he have done for things to go so wrong? When things weren’t ugly between the two, they were beautiful. So beautiful. Nobody had been so gentle to him, nobody so pacifistic. Yet, Lando still turned his back on him. It almost added hints of guilt, perhaps jealousy to Han’s poisonous cocktail of emotions towards his ex. Was he not enough? Was it something he did or said? Was it his fault?

      Han quickly pivoted, dispatching scorn on the question. It was not his fault. Carbonite was making him soft, making him think too hard about everything when there was nothing else to do. In moments like these where he was more coherent, more able to manage the sensory hell he called home, he was much more capable of sober thinking. There was no room for guilt here. He was already suffering enough, suffering because of him. There was no need for such pity parties, no matter how much Lando haunted him. Perhaps Lando had always haunted him— to the day he was frozen he consistently kept his nails under a shade of black paint. Remembering this made Han cringe. He hoped Lando was being haunted, too.

   He counted two weeks. Fourteen sets of twenty four hours, each neatly accounted for. Two entire weeks of purgatory, crafted by Lando’s hand. Greif looped back into rage once more.

I’m going to kill that man if I get the chance. 

Notes:

THEY WERE LOVERS!!!!!!!!
i’m really hyperfixated on this fic atm so expect lots of content lol

Chapter 7: 07

The Biggest order of business was staying sane. Without sensory input, Han was left to his own devices to ensure his identity wouldn’t be warped by isolation. He had to keep himself busy, a task that was substantially harder than he first expected within the first few days. When all you’re capable of doing is thinking, you have to get creative. 

Han had a damn good memory, but only in obscenely niche fields that held value only to him. When he wasn’t thinking obsessively about the people in his life or moments that made him mourn the life he once had, running through everything he knew on subjects he was inexplicably an expert on kept him somewhat sane.

Catalogues of spices and how people used them. That one always lasted him a few hours.

Another was listing planets he previously ran spice runs on. Not ideal, as many of those places carried near-sickening memories, but it was better than nothing.

Conjugations of words in the many languages he understood.

Creating a mental map of the Falcon— by the time he hit the first month, he catalogued every button, switch, and system in every single room with flawless retention in his head— information he already knew, but now he knew it like he used to know breathing. He could wander around the Falcon just like he used to, albeit only in his head.                        God, was he homesick.

 Now he decided to move on to lists of tools, star ship parts, flight maneuvers, and so on— piloting was his greatest strength, so naturally running through everything he knew provided much sola You wanna know how I survived as long as I have? I trust no one. Assume everyone will betray you and you will never be disappointed. "

 

Wait.

 

Han could have vomited from pure shock. He immediately recognized the voice of Tobias Beckett hissing directly into his ear. The first voice, the first thing he had heard since he was frozen.

” You wanna know how I survived as long as I have?” He asked again, in an identical vocal cadence to before.  “I trust no one. Assume everyone will betray you and you will never be disappointed. "

     No. No. No. No. Tobias Beckett is dead. Han Solo shot Tobias Beckett and he bled out in his arms and died. Horror, confusion, and a plethora of sickening memories put Han’s train of thought in a chokehold. He hadn’t thought of Beckett, at least not conciously, in years. He didn’t want to think of Beckett, or the sound of the gunshot, or how parasitically he admired the man, or anything. Beckett didn’t care. He repeated himself a third time, and, after a few paranoia-inducing minutes, a fourth.

       Han tried so hard to please Beckett up until the day he died. He was an idol, and Han was his most devout worshipper. If Beckett said to trust nobody, Han was adopt that as a holy commandment. But something, some parasitic need for someone, anyone to stay by his side, always reared its ugly head no matter how hard he tried to snuff its influence. He always relapsed, and that’s how he ended up here. Now, Beckett was rubbing it in his face. Shame, the kind a child feels after getting in trouble, domineered Han’s senses.   

       What was he doing here? How was he here? How was he alive? How was he contacting Han? What good was it for Beckett to smear Han’s fate in his face? Why was he mocking him? Could he please stop mocking him? What did he want?

       Han recoiled in realization as to what was happening. Beckett didn’t want anything. Beckett wasn’t real.

       It hadn’t even occurred to him that hallucination could become a problem for Han while he was frozen— but as the sickly reimagining of his former mentor spoke once more, the concept suddenly made enlightening sense. Almost every second of his life had been spent with his guard up— between the way he was wired and the absolute nothingness he found himself in, it was no wonder that his brain scrambled to create a threat even out of pure emptiness. Thats why Beckett was here.

        Han had hated, had reeled from every last second of being trapped in this metal casket. He couldn’t imagine it could get any worse, that he’d just have to adapt to the emptiness and wait. Just wait.

     But now it was as if he wasn’t waiting alone. Han’s hatred, his anger, shattered. From their remains crawled the demons he’d been trying to snuff for a month now: Defeat. Guilt. Most pungently: pathetic, pure, animalistic hysteria.

       He wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t scared anymore. He didn’t have the energy. He didn’t have an audience to prove anything to.

 

“You wanna know how I survived as long as I have?”

Notes:

oh hello beckett what are you doing here

last night i woke up at three in the morning with the most diabolical pain in the ear. i thought it was infected and that the ao3 curse got me, but it went away!!!! i live in peace another day…. for now

Chapter 8: 08

“Why are they doing this?”

      Han blinked, utterly dazed as he turned to shield his eyes from the Bespin sunlight. He panted, head spinning from the amount of agony he had spontaneously been put through. Why Vader had strapped him to a chair and forced his entire body into an active scan grid, sparking with near-insurvivable voltage escaped him.

        “They didn’t even ask me any questions,” he mumbled, still dizzy from the last half-hour spent getting electrocuted over and over again. Through his delerium, through everything, he summoned all his strength to focus on the girl crouched over him, a living, breathing beacon of hope and safety and companionship. Leia. God, she was so beautiful.

         Gentle, elegant hands slowly lifted him into a lackluster sitting position as Han refused to take his eyes off of the princess. As she wiped away blood from endlessly stinging electrical burns across his cheek and the bridge of his nose, Han studied her angelic face, her soft, worry laced, attentive eyes. Merely being in her presence was healing.Han let out an exhausted, tormented sigh as he draped his arms over Leia’s shoulder, pressing his face into the crook of her neck. Leia returned the gesture, allowing a long, drawn out embrace between the two. When they loosened their hug to gaze into eachother once more, Leia expressed no discomfort at her white gown becoming stained a sickly reddish-brown from Han’s blood.

       Han knew exactly what kind of emotion had begun to fester in his chest for Leia, but the level of vulnerability it brought made him recoil. Being a loner was his forté; the ramifications of becoming someone’s lover was too much for him. But he couldn’t bear to leave Leia’s embrace.

    “You were right, Leia. I’m sorry I let us get dragged into this. Listen—“

       “—Han, It’s… not your fault.” He knew she was lying, but didn’t stop her from responding. Her speech was lulling, a heavenly reprieve from the nightmare they’d been tossed into. It almost made him feel like everything would be alright. “You’re only doing what’s best for our crew.”

    “I know I— I know I messed up,” Han admitted, an abnormal confession for him to make. “But I’m gonna get us out of here. Y’understand?”

      Leia didn’t respond verbally, instead pulling Han back into her chest and shoulders. Pure trust between the two radiated from their embrace, their arms gently interlocked around each other’s figures. Only minutes from now, their comfortable solitude would be interrupted. Their peace would be broken by worsening of the deal between the Empire, by Lando, by an outdated killing device deep in the belly of Cloud City that would separate the two before Han could save his loved ones. Before he had the guts to say he loved her back.

 

-

 

I shouldn’t have said I know.

How stupid of me.

Han ached for Leia. He craved her presence, her voice, her warmth, the way her hand interlocked with his, her safety, her happiness. He mourned her as if she was the dead one, not him. He shouldn’t have said I know.

Han didn’t know why Leia felt the way she did. Compared to her, Han was akin to a stray dog, a stray dog that bit the hand that fed and didn’t stop sinking its fangs until its teeth met again. His entire existence was parasitic. And yet Leia still loved him. At least, she did before all of this happened. Han wondered if she still felt the same, and guilt seeped into his senses as he lingered on how feral, how vicious he was compared to his lover. It made him sick.

        Han wanted to cry. For the first time in perhaps his entire life, He wanted to cry. He longed to inhale in great, unending sobs, to whine in agony like the sick animal he was. He wanted to bury his head into his arms and empty his soul out from his tear ducts, to be held in someone’s arms while he fell apart. The only thing stopping him was the carbonite, and that only made him desire a meltdown more.

       Leia. My Leia. I love you too. I wish I told you. I wish I told you how much I love you. You’re the purest, most special living thing in my life. I take it all back. I love you so much. I love you more than life itself. I know I hurt you. I know you’re busy. If I ever get the chance, I’ll take it all back. I promise. I’ll make it worthwhile. Things will be different. I’ll be better. I love you too.

 

Leia, It hurts.

It’s so numb that it hurts.

Leia, I want to go home.

Leia, I want you. 

Leia, please come back.

Please come back for me.

Please come back for me.

Please come back for me.

Please come back for me.

Notes:

finally bringing some hanleia back into the spotlight!!! sorry it took so long :-( they r my fav pairing don’t worry there will be more of them

fun fact: i headcanon han as asexual!!!

Chapter 9: 09

Han finally lost count.

 

 

Even with the most acute sense of time passing, the task of keeping a tally of days can only be upheld for so long. It was inevitable that he would slip after long enough.

 

The realization that he hadn’t been paying attention to the passage of time was like being hit by a landspeeder. How could he let go of the one real thing he was still tethered to? How long had it been since he stopped counting? Why did he stop counting in the first place? How long had it been? Did that even matter?

 

Last time he checked, Han had been sitting on a month and a half of being frozen in carbonite. That, however, was so long ago. Exactly how long ago was information that would forever escape him, but the understanding that there was no solid answer and there never would be again let unbridled panic infiltrate his senses. Loosing his sense of time felt like loosing a loved one, perhaps even more.

 

It may have been just a few weeks since he lost track. Perhaps a few months. Potentially, if the minutes and hours and days melted into eachother enough, a few years. Ages and ages of complete and utter isolation— only now becoming truly remote with the understanding of time finally taking its exit. Han never wanted to get out more.

 

He started to fall back into the habits he developed early into his imprisonment— possesed by restlessness, attempts to move or feel anything continued to be pursued and continued to fail and continued to become more and more aggravating. Hours upon hours, which must have stacked into the hundreds or thousands, were spent reliving his last moments over and over and over and over again. Though it was all he could do, all he could find shreds of faux comfort in, the monotony of everything he did and everything he experienced, only made it all worse.

 

The hallucinations gradually became more frequent, more grating. Beckett would occasionally return, the sound of his voice wearing grooves in Han’s awareness. However, now he was joined by a plethora of other auditory delusions.

 

Muffled, distant blaster fire. Footsteps, just behind him. The hiss of the freezing chamber, the last thing he actually heard. Nonsense-speaking whispers with no identity. People arguing, too far away to determine who or why. The sudden, jarring crash of metal clattering to the floor. His own pulse. Alien, unidentifiable ringing in his ears, deafeningly loud and droning. Beforehand, Han would have basked in the presence of something other than silence, but the festering of sudden, unexplained noise felt wildly unwelcome. There were times he almost believed he was granted his hearing back, the faux sensory feedback often seeming too real to assume they were just in his head. 

 

Qi’ra’s laugh.

Qi’ra’s laugh.

He could only dream of any of these sounds being real.

Qi’ra’s laugh.

Say somethin’, Qi’ra. Anything. It’d be cruel of you to join me here without even saying hello, He thought. Please.

Qi’ra’s laugh.

Notes:

hi everyone!!! sorry for a shorter chapter and a mild lack of activity. i was at college orientation, woo!!

also, it’s still me, pyritepawz07!!! i had to change my username because an online cultist threatened to doxx me :-)

having crazy author notes is a rite of passage im finally a real fic writer

Chapter 10: 10

Summary:

hiiii!!! not much to say today but this one was fun :-)

There are two children crouching against eachother in a Correllian alleyway. They aren’t any older than 16. Neither experienced the luxury of a living, let alone functional family. All they know is crime, rot, and scraping for survival. But right now, their priorities are fixed on something other than the planet’s miserable socioeconomic state that landed them in these living conditions.

“Right there,” he whispers, barely able to contain his excitement, his line of vision rapidly turning between his companion and his subject.

“What… is that?”

“It’s a Loth-Cat.”

“What is— How do you know what that is?”

“I’ve seen ‘em be smuggled around before. Rich schmucks keep ‘em as pets sometimes. This one musta gotten loose.”

The Loth-Cat in question lingers on the opposite end of the alley, nose pointed towards the ground in an attempt to find its next meal. It’s a delicate, dainty animal, shockingly out-of-place in these slums. Occasionally its large, tawny ears swivel in the pair’s direction, only to disregard their presence and return to the hunt.

She hums in curious, albeit not overly-awestruck, acknowledgment of the feline. Scanning his face for an understanding of why this young man was so enthralled by the creature, she stifles a chuckle. He returns the glance, a smirk crawling across his face.

“Watch this.”

He leaps from their hiding spot, the light from outside the alley revealing he is clinging to a large wicker basket he must have dumpster-dived for. Diving in the Loth-Cat’s direction, there is a blur of a scrap between human and animal and he laughs as he comes out of the wrestle triumphant, basket on the road and Loth-Cat in his hands.

She shouts his name in surprise, stepping to her feet as she watches the animal writhe in his arms. It’s clawing at his hands and arms, leaving long, spindly scratch marks, but he’s too wrapped up in boyish pride and adrenaline to let go. He’s still laughing as she scrambles closer, sighing in a disbelief almost condescending.

“What are you doing?!”

“Ha! Look at me!!! Y’know, we could start a pest control business with skills like mine!”

She rolls her eyes. The Loth-Cat pauses, going motionless and silent as the duo fixate on it’s beady eyes and intricate fur patterns. It doesn’t take long for it to strike again, going for the boys face. Caught off guard, he flings his arms in the air in an attempt to throw it off, releasing a high pitched shriek. His partner in crime erupts into laughter as he backs up across the alley. It launches itself off the boys chest, darting away at a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed. He takes a moment to register what on earth had just occurred, but soon he is laughing too. They’re both laughing. They’re both happy.

She leans closer and wipes the blood from the bridge of his nose. She smiles. He basks in her grin, the way her nose wrinkles as she does so and in the glimmer of optimism in her eyes. Something about the way she carries herself equipped so much more poise than he could ever manage— she knows she’s meant for more than these slums. Both of them share a belief that he is not built with the same potential. He senses this condescension, just barely lacing her opinions and thoughts and speech, but he loves her nonetheless. The feeling is mutual. It doesn’t matter if one of them is bleeding from a particularly deep scratch barely missing his eye, one that would scar and stay visible for the rest of his life, or that they only had eachother and absolutely no one else or they live on the most disgusting planet on their side of the galaxy, or if the future holds the worst for the duo, they’re both laughing and they both love each other and they’re both together and they were never to be separated and that was more than enough.

 

-

Even as he began to slip, part of Han understood that that wasn’t Qi’ra. The laughter that taunted him, not because it was at him but because he couldn’t join in or provide a rebuttal, was not Qi’ra. It was merely an auditory hallucination, one with no motives or personality or thoughts. It was merely an extension of Han’s instincts going haywire in this darkness, a pitiful and counterintuitive attempt to subconsciously make sense of the sensationless. But it felt like her. It held the same looming, parasitic control that she did. It clouded his thoughts with a fog of sickly, submissive adoration, an adoration he tried to stamp out decades ago. It was no longer romantic the way it used to, but it latched onto and warped his logical thinking all the same. It was as if she wrapped her arms around him and didn’t let go. Wouldn’t let go couldn’t let go please please please let go please let go let go let go let go let go

If only it was Leia’s voice that manifested itself in his derailing mind. Or Luke’s. Or Chewie’s. Anyone but her. Anyone but Beckett. Someone who saw him as an equal not a pawn or a clueless apprentice or a frozen corpse. Desperately, did he long for this faux company to be at least a little friendlier.

Back off, will ya?, Han thought, as if talking to himself in his head served as a tangible response. Imagining his inner monologue as verbal speech, in the right context, often helped him feel more grounded. He needed that right now. There’s no need to do this, Qi’ra. It’s been years. I let go of you long ago. At least I thought I did. At least I’m trying to. You should do the same. No need to harass essentially a dead man. Back off. Please. You don’t scare me. At least I shouldn’t be scared. Just let go. Just shut up. please please please shut up

As always, Qi’ra provided no response. It went silent again, for hours or perhaps days or perhaps weeks. Han couldn’t tell.

You can’t let go of her if there’s nothing else left to hold on to.

Chapter 11: 11

Han often wondered what Luke, Leia and Chewbacca were doing in the very moment his thoughts lingered on them. Thinking of them, knowing they were certainly still out there somewhere somehow, summoned shreds of peace even when his decline began. Surely, Leia had left Bespin by now. Surely she was back with the alliance, traumatized (a concept Han had began to feel guilt for) but safe and sound and far far far away from all those horrible people. Chewie absolutely kept her safe. He was the only person in the galaxy who would ever keep a promise with Han. Luke, of course was certainly just out there being Luke. His stupid, doofy smile, his unwavering and constant care, his clumsy but well meaning demeanor, his non-stop rambling about space and piloting, it was all still perfectly intact and it was keeping everyone in better spirits. He imagined all of them in perfect health in whatever ramshackle base the alliance had managed to slap together, talking about simpler times or perhaps planning on saving him or taking care of each other or being happy. He was sure of it. He clung onto these thoughts and refused to let go for hours, as if to replicate actually being in his friends’ presence. Sometimes, however he fixated on the worst case scenario, conjuring what-ifs of the complete opposite set of events. His outlet of solace often contorted into a muddled nightmare he couldn’t stop fixating on.

       Maybe Leia and Chewie were taken by Lando and Vader, meeting their ends in Cloud City, and Luke perished during his mysterious Jedi escapade. All three had already met their fates, and that’s why Han was still here. The rebellion had other priorities, and without his friends to remind them, retrieving their best pilot simply slipped from them. There were infinite combinations of events that could have happened after he went under, and over time he most likely analyzed every single one. Perhaps Luke crashed on his way to the destination which he refused to elaborate on, never to be heard from again. Maybe he landed just fine but got killed by some unseen wildlife. Maybe the entire trip was successful, but he was so focused on continuing his studies that the state of his friends were an afterthought. Maybe Lando changed his mind, tried to help the remaining alliance members, and he succeeded as they left in one peice, or maybe he failed and the four were subject to whatever sadistic whims vader had planned. Maybe Leia was forced to join Vader. There were billions of ways the his friends could have led their lives following his disappearance, and billions of potential reasons as to why they didn’t go back for him.

 

 

 Maybe they forgot about him.

 

 

      The idea constantly crept around the outskirts of his mind like a predator, and though he tried to ignore it, to assure himself that help was, in fact, on the way, but doubt and self-depreciation, habits Han had stamped out decades ago, had begun to thrive in this dark void.

    It doesn’t matter if Han helped blow up the Death Star, or if he was friends with a Jedi and the princess of Alderaan, or if he spent the better half of four years helping these people. Han was an afterthought. Saving the galaxy and the well being of the resistance members who actually cared was in highest priority. Han, for so long, didn’t care; The only things keeping him from returning to a life of independence was the money, and perhaps Leia. He didn’t want to admit the latter. At the end of the day, even when he did care, he only showed it for the wrong reasons, if at all. He was a nuisance, one who scampered on the outskirts of the alliance, helping where it was needed and making sure his disgruntled opinions of being tethered there were obvious. He was only a figure resistance members would glance to, roll their eyes at, and move on.

      In hissy, futile defiance, Han, in the beginning, pretended not to care. If they didn’t bother for him, why should he? It’s not like their involvement was absolutely needed to thaw him out. It was fine. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need them.

 But perhaps he did.

 And perhaps the concept of rejection and fading into obscurity was agonizing even when it just merely crossed his mind.

     Luke, Leia, even Chewie hurt the most. The mere concept of them mourning him, settling with a somber ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ and moving on with their lives while he rotted in purgatory, the concept of them getting married and growing old and having children and being happy and dying the sweet sweet peace of dying maybe he would have preferred death over this made him ache with self pity— something wildly foreign to Han. What the hell was happening to his dignity?

You guys can’t leave me after everything we went through together, he pleaded to himself. You have to come back for me. Please don’t leave me here please. Please don’t leave me here please don’t leave me here please don’t leave me here please don’t forget me I can’t go down like this please please please please please I can’t outlive you I can’t stay here forever I want to go home I can’t keep waiting waiting waiting I have to wait just wait but I can’t please please please Come back for me come back for me please

Chapter 12: 12

Notes:

HI I HAVE BEEN SO HYPED TO WRITE THIS CHAPTER. SO FUCKING HYPED. LITERALLY WAITING. FOR SO LING.

i know my last chapter was. not great. i needed some wiggle room between the qi’ra chapters and this one for good pacing, and it didn’t work the way i planned <:( i’m also sorry for saying that comments and kudos are appreciated, i didn’t realize that came off as egotistical 😭

either way i hope this one is a lot more enjoyable cuz. I HAD FUN WRITING IT. LIKE A LOT. vader/anakin and han have a lot of like. almost parallels it feels? i feel like vader just like. has a specific breed of hatred for han LMAO and i had fun writing it

Bespin was so beautiful.

   Han awkwardly writhed under his restraints as he tried to accustom himself to the presence of the scan grid just feet under his face. Flanked by stormtroopers and unarmed, he understood that his typical procedure of a daring suprise escape plan wasn’t likely to work. He was too scared for it to work. Something about Vader struck horrible, nauseating, uncanny discomfort in Han. Perhaps it was his height, or the fact he was barely human, both physically and in his level of cruelty, or his silence or his authority or his demeanor or his uniform or his planet-destroying genocidal tendencies or something. Whatever it was, merely being in the room with him made his every muscle tense up and his survival instincts take the wheel in his head.

      Now he stood across from him, running his eyes over the modified scan grid and the person strapped inside of it. There was a moment of silence as Han and Vader analyzed eachother. For Han, pure fear and anticipation ensured he wouldn’t, couldn’t take his eyes off the Dark Lord. Vader, on the other hand, was entirely calm, slowly reading his victim the way a predator would stalk its prey. Vader was satisfied, and he issued a silent nod to one of the soldiers just behind Han. The scan grid roared to life and lurched inward.

—

   “Let me go!”, Han snarled through his own agony, his fear quickly turning into rage-fueled retaliation. Nothing was going to taint his dignity, not even Vader himself. As the torture suddenly paused, an intermission brought on by Vader himself, The bridge of his nose was now marked by an unmissable, spindly, electrical burn, the first of countless to come, stinging with white-hot, thought-muddling pain. Still, the man grit his teeth, looking Vader directly in the eyes through his now-bloodstained vision as he fought to maintain his facade of being untouchable. He wasn’t going down without a fight, even if it had to be a verbal one.

    “Y’think you can walk all over me?!”, he spat, panting as his head spun. “I’m not your goddamn science experiment!”

 Something in Vader changed.

     He was still silent, still staring at him with blatant apathy, his facial expression completely hidden by his mask. But something in the nuance of his body language, just barely noticeable to Han, read like a satisfaction that was almost smug. It was a shift of realization, of epiphany, as if a problem he had been hovering over for some time now suddenly had a flawless solution.

He did not respond.

     Instead, he merely motioned to the stormtroopers once more and briskly exited the room. The scan grid lurched forward again, and lord knows how much time had passed until Vader gave Han’s spectators the approval to turn the torture device off.

 —

     Han understood that the carbon freezing was just an extension of the initial torture session when he began to hear the Dark Lord’s breathing over his shoulder. The robotic, labored, equally paced inhales and exhales from reality were now warped, as if Vader’s mask had partially shattered and left his respiratory vitals partially exposed. The gurgle of gutteral, pained breaths, like a never ending death rattle, seemed to monitor Han for hours and hours and hours and days and days on end. Its presence felt more purposeful than Beckett’s, than Qi’ra’s, as if it developed a conciousness of its own. It was the loudest, most sickening, most terror-striking force Han had ever experienced, delusion or not. Pure, thought-erasing fear possessed Han’s entire conciousness as he waited Vader out, begging, pleading for the only-hearable, undead behemoth to leave once more. He was constantly certain that one more second, one more stacked onto the thousands and thousands spent with the sickeningly audible recreation of Vader as company in this personal hell, would have driven him off the edge. But it never did, and Vader remained for hours more.

 

     Vader knew this would happen. There was no other way. The Dark Lord’s every move, every gesture, was planned out with flawless precision. Han’s being frozen was only an extension of that. He was certain that Vader hand picked him for the torture, for residence in this purgatory, for everything, for a reason. Perhaps he was still bitter over the resistance’s win only a handful of years back. Maybe it was Han’s debt. Maybe it was his connections to Luke. Something about Han drove Vader to the point of animalistic rage, rage which he had free rein to unleash.

     But how? How does Vader know? Confusion and disbelief laced the horror in Han’s thoughts. Was Vader aware that underneath the metal encasing him, he was wide awake? Was he aware of all the agony he caused? How did he know? How did he know? Does he enjoy watching me suffer that much? It’s not like he has personal experience being frozen in carbonite. Nobody does. At least to his knowledge, Nobody but Han. And yet he knew. And yet he planned this. And yet he kept him buried alive with only his deteriorating sanity for company. Why was that? Why? Why? Why? How? Why?

Let me go

 

 

I’m not your god damn science experiment

Chapter 13: 13

Shit. Shit. Shit.

What does my voice sound like?

How Han could have forgotten the sound of his own voice was beyond him. Admittedly, he would have loved hearing himself talk. Yet, No matter how many times he went over his memories, retrieving the recollection of his voice was simply impossible. With that, Han realized he was beginning to forget other things, too; his face, and the faces and voices of his friends, were all victims to his degrading memory. Eventually major parts of his life, moments with his loved ones, memories that made his predicament make sense, began to fizzle out too, leaving only snapshots, only glimpses of faces and snippets of conversations intact. The only thing that stayed even remotely intact was the recollection of his final moments, the torture, the agony they put him through on Bespin. Those final hours of mobility, of freedom, haunted him like a ghost, but outside of them, there was next to nothing. If this realization had taken place only weeks before, he would have broken down. He didn’t have the energy to do that anymore. Instead, Han’s thoughts festered in a sort of partially-numb defeat. His thoughts, his emotions, didn’t exactly feel like his own anymore. He was merely a spectator, a vessel for suffering, the host of an emotional parasite he just couldn’t fight anymore.

They’re never coming back for me.

 The acceptance of this concept rung through Han’s head, over and over and over as if to commit it to memory. How could he be certain his friends were to remember him he couldn’t even do the same? Simply put, He was past the point of no return. There was no point for the rebellion to free him from this purgatory— it was likely they simply found someone better. They, like everyone else in his life, were going to leave him high and dry.

They’re never coming back for me.

Han hated this. The paralysis, the hallucinations, the slow uncontrollable decay of his ability to remember and think straight— it all made him feel disgusting. Miserable. Sick. Like an animal. He would loose the words to describe this to himself, the ability to articulate how he felt, but he hated it nonetheless. The only six words he was capable of stringing together in that moment looped into themself as Han, forever, remained overwhelmed by the agony of stasis, the discomfort of silence. His thoughts, though haphazardly pieced together, continued to race.

Theyre never coming back for me.

Notes:

OH MG GOD YOU GUYS IM ALIVE!!! apologies for the lack of updates, i am now in college so mama is very busy . this one is really short but i hope you enjoy regardless

Chapter 14

The crew quarters were occupied once more, but not as full as the last time. It was just the two of them.

She faces him, arms wrapped around his torso, looking up at him longingly and just barely peeking out under the blanket they shared. He doesn’t return the eye contact; he’s not used to this much physical affection, welcome as it is. His arms hold her body in a similar embrace, only tighter, perhaps more awkward. The door to the crew quarters is still broken, and a beam of marigold from the hallway outside just barely illuminates the two.

“Do you remember the first night we slept in this room together? Me, you, and the others?” Her voice is a warm, low mumble. She hasn’t been this calm, this content in a long, long time.

“‘Sure I do.” he responds. “Hated it.” She chuckles, her response more playful than combative “That’s not true! You know you had fun. I had fun.” 

“I…” She pauses. That moment was three years ago, and it followed the most horrific event of her entire life. It’s hard to have fun when you just witnessed the decimation of your own home planet. “I don’t know.”

The two fall into silence. The one time they share a calm, friendly conversation without arguing is ruined, courtesy of him. “…I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” He expects her to pull away, a reasonable response for such a cruel interjection, an addition to the many other times she’s silently told him off. She holds on tighter, burying her face into his chest. “You’re all I have left.”

“What about Lu—“

“It’s not the same. It’s not like this.”

He holds her tighter. Her body heat is a gift, heavenly beyond words. He’s not used to having someone rely on him, but he couldn’t possibly fathom failing her. How dear she had become to him within the last couple of years.

“How long until Bespin?”

“Not much longer,” he mumbles. “‘Day or two, prob’ly.”

She hums in acknowledgment. Soon she is asleep in his arms. It had been a long time since she had been able to fall sleep so peacefully, so quickly.

He loved her. That’s what he realized, in that moment. The epiphany made him recoil, but only mentally. He couldn’t wake her, and he couldn’t fall asleep.

And He couldn’t fall asleep.

 

He couldn’t fall asleep

 

He can’t fall asleep

 

 

 

He      can’t sleep

 

 

 

 

She was important. He knew she was, without a shred of doubt. He remembered her name, her voice, her face. She was solace itself. How beautiful that was. How beautiful she was. How heavenly she was. Such grace and pacifism made everything okay, soothed his scattered, neurotic, barely-strung-together thoughts. And so he clung onto her, whoever she was, however they met, wherever she was now. He was all she had left. Now, the feeling was mutual.

 

He can’t sleep

Chapter 15

It had been decades since Han was frozen. Actually, Maybe it had been centuries. Perhaps even eons, all things considered. Han couldn’t tell. It felt like thousands of lifetimes had passed, the dark and the silence and the never-ending, animalistic discomfort possessing him being the only things keeping him company. He was certain anyone who could have come for him was long dead now.

 

He recently realized he was cold. He was cold, but he simultaneously was numb—incapable of feeling, yet suffocated by a painful sense of cold. He couldn’t parse if this sudden sense of agonizing, relentless hypothermia was real or not.

 

He longed for things that he couldn’t conjure clear memories of. Things he no longer understood. He craved, carnally, sensations every other living thing in the galaxy were granted on a daily basis. It was becoming more and more blatant he was no longer classified with them. How repulsive, how dirty it felt to no longer be a human being.

 

There was, truly this time, nothing left. No slim chances of being pulled out, No capacity to understand what happened to his body or his brain to be locked in such unending, agonizing stasis.

 

Han’s ability to stay lucid was slipping. His thoughts were the only thing he had left, and loosing whatever autonomy he still had fired panic through his consciousness, but the more he tried to string thoughts together the more they fell apart mid-sentence. He kept trying, scrambling to keep himself in a space of sanity, of clarity, but something was dragging him fathoms under. No matter how hard he fought, He had no choice but to drown.

 

He scraped for, clung onto whatever was left of his ability to think in words.

 

Scared.

 

 

 

 

I’m so Scared.

Chapter 16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Love You 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 17

I’m Scared

 

 

 

I’m So Scared You wanna know how I survived as long as I have? I trust no one. Assume everyone will betray you and you will never be disappointedI can’t breathe. I think I’m dead. This is hell.

 

I’m Dead. They’re not coming back for me. I love you

 

I know.

They’re not coming back for me

 

I’m cold I’m starving I can not breathe You wanna know how I survived as long as I have? I trust no one. no. no no n no o pleaseMy fault. My fault my fault My fault My fault I’m scared make it stop

 

I know I know I know I know. Who is She Who was She Please Come Back For Me Assume everyone will betray you and you will never be disappointed. please stop I Love you I know I love you I know I love you I know I love you I know I Love you I know I love you I know I love you I know I love you I know I Love you I  e9vji8jZDuk?si=yepVZe2Fm74D4WIy KnowIloveyou I know I love you I know I love you I know

 

I love you. I’m Scared

 

I can’t move

 

I’m coldCan anyone hear me? Luke? Luke? Chewie? Leia? Leia? Leia? Leia? Leia? Leia?Pleasecomebackforme

 

I’m scared. My fault. It’s my fault. I am bad bad bad bad please come back for me Please I am

 

 

 

Scared

 

 

 

I’m not                 Dead

I     can’t die

 

I can’t move

I can’t speak

 

I can’t

 

think You wanna know how I survived as long as I have? I STOP IT trust no one. Assume PLEASE everyone will betray you and you will never be STOP disappointed. SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UPI cant

 

do this

i hate

 

this body

this prison

it      hurts

but i cant feel anything

 

 

i love you

i love you

 

 

 

 

 

 

i cant do this

cant do this forever

 

 

 

 

im sorry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

im cold

Notes:

AHEM. LOOSELY BASED ON ONE OF MY FAVORITE FICS OF ALL TIME. https://archiveofourown.org/works/55159264 GO READ IT OR UOULL GET THE HOSE

Chapter 18

There is very little left of who used to be Captain Han Solo of the Millennium Falcon.

 

Unending, restless panic, like an animal trying to writhe out of a hunter’s snare, eventually gave way to a suffocating lull, too eerily quiet to be labeled as peaceful. No longer was there room or mental capacity for complete thoughts, for articulation to make sense of what he had been put through. Qi’ra and Beckett stopped making appearances, but by then those names meant nothing to him. If he was scrambling not to drown before, he was at the bottom of the water now, set to never grace the surface again.

 

Yet, despite everything, he was still awake. Just barely, but the peace of unconsciousness didn’t exist here. He lost most of the words to describe what happened to his body, and the memories to explain how any of this happened, but his consciousness endured. And, albeit primitively, he was still hurting.  He had been here for an amount of time incomprehensible, and things like physical comfort or recollections of what it was like to be alive were now things of the past; Even so the constant drone of overwhelming discomfort, the sensation of suffocation and paralysis, simply never went away.

 

Something existed before his sentence began. He was almost certain of it. Very occasionally would he retain just scraps of lucidity, treated with recollections of blurs colored dark blue and orange, and an agonizing cold nobody should be able to survive and the terrified face of someone he wanted back and syllables of a five word exchange— that was now all he could remember from whatever came before this. That was eons ago, and still he clung onto whatever he could before it slipped from him again. It was all he had left.

 

He didn’t know there were words to describe how he felt— but he felt disgusting, ashamed. To be this scared, this lost, this utterly helpless and alone, was unbearable. All of this was unbearable, even for a man who wasn’t aware enough to remember his own name.

 

This was a dead end. The resistance, the galaxy, would forget about him, if either of those things even existed anymore. The infinite lull of unending, delirious conciousness is all that will be moving forward.  There was no getting out, nothing to return to. This was it.

 

 

 

 

He knows. It’s the one thing he knows now.

He finally, truly this time, accepts it.

Notes:

happy late halloween from your least favorite author 😛😛😛😛😛 #awesome

we’re getting to the end of this sucker!!! believe it or not. not there yet. but soon. was gonna post on halloween but this fic is such a backburner project i kinda forgot to 😭😭😭 either way im pretty happy with this chapter ok bye

Chapter 19

Burning.

Why did it burn?

 

His neurons shot to life in a way that hadn’t happened in lifetimes. He was in pain. Actual pain. It had been so long since he had experienced pain that it took multiple moments to register the sensation of unbearable scalding heat, enough to litter his body with second or third degree burns.

 

His body. He had his body back.

Everything hit him at once.

 

 

It was all too loud, too painful, too everything. The impact of the floor beneath him, the unbearable heat of the air that put him in a colder sweat than he had already been in, the unbearable, overstimulating hum of the world around him. The air that finally graced his panicked lungs after eons of suffocation.  The unbearable headache, the nausea impossible to fight through. The registration that bodily, he felt utterly disgusting. The utter darkness that seemed to have followed him outside purgatory. And the uncannily gentle hands of someone trying to pick him up.

 

Threat. Threat. It’s a threat. It’s going to hurt you.

He attempted to scramble out of the figures arms, but in complete blindness and barely intact mobility, his efforts were futile. “Han,” it spoke, jarring in its garbled delivery and in the fact the man finally remembered he had a name, an actual identity, “Try to relax. You’re free from the carbonite.”

 

Han sputtered for air as he tried to get his bearings, to blink away his inability to see as words he barely understood innately came out of his mouth. The figure who held him responded with immaculate, hushed patience every single time, one hand wrapped around his torso in an attempt to soothe his panicked breathing, the other tangled in his soaked hair. Han could barely or understood the conversation they were having, and he clumsily brought a shaky hand to where his line of eyesight should be, and then to his saviors heavy, inhuman helmet. He slurred out the next words with more desperation, more fear, more confusion than he ever wanted to experience or express.

 

“Who are you?”

 

She slipped off the mask. He didn’t even hear what she had next, as he was fumbling for her shoulders, clumsily wrapping his arms around her and burying his sightless eyes into her shoulder. “Leia. Leia. Leia. Leia.” Han sputtered her name over and over, as if testing and cherishing his ability to speak again. “You- You— Leia. Oh my god—“

“I know,” she hummed, praying her volume would encourage him to also become quieter. “You’re okay. I got you. I got you.”

 

He was shaking like a leaf, beyond nauseous and beyond disoriented, barely able to process the immense amount of stimuli he was receiving after what felt like decades of nothing. But he was in Leia’s arms. She was alive. She came back for him. And he was free. Because of her. He felt her tilt her head and gently kiss him on the forehead. He then picked his own head up and kissed her straight on before ducking back into the corner of her shoulder and showering her once more in repititions of her name.

 

In just minutes, they would be caught. Leia’s cover would be blown, and the sickly disoriented man and his savior would be separated, forced to endure the unbearable. But for now, they huddled into eachothers presence on the floor of Jabba’s palace, unable to bear the thought of leaving eachothers arms ever again.

 

It was awkward, shaky, like a dying animal. But Han could finally breathe again.

 

 

-

 

It was in the dungeon of Jabba’s palace that Chewbacca told him everything. The wookiee refused to put Han down since they had reunited— Even for a sentimental man, Han had never witnessed his best friend be so emotional, so overly happy to the point of tears. It was uncomfortable being cared for so heavily, even from his dearest friend. Han had long since given up trying to squirm out of his arms.

 

It was a year.

 

What Chewie told Han couldn’t stop making his skin crawl. Within the hour or so spent just catching Han up to speed, of what had happened while he was gone, retellings of what happened on Bespin and how Vader— the name shot pure terror through Han— was Luke’s father and that they’d been scrambling to find him for so long, Chewie had to mention the amount of time Han was frozen in carbonite multiple times, as per Han’s repeated asking. He couldn’t believe it. It had felt like lifetimes, eons, thousands of years of agonizing stasis. But it was just a year. One Year. 365 Days.

 

That wasn’t the only thing making Han more nauseous than he already was. They used his frozen body as decoration. Surely Jabba should have—would have thawed him out, forced him to pay his debts— either through labor or his life— but Han instead had to pay through mental torture unimaginable. And as that was happening, they had pinned him up like a taxidermy animal. He didn’t know what he had looked like while he was frozen, but he didn’t want to know. For one year he was stripped of his humanity. Realizing he had spent that time more akin to some sort of visceral, disgusting, laughable spectacle for Jabba’s guests brought along dysphoria, insecurity he didn’t know he was capable of feeling. the thought alone made him want to vomit. Eventually, it did.

 

-

The next forty-eight hours were a blur of arguments, of sensory overload, of trying so hard to learn how to walk only to collapse under his own weight, of vomiting up carbonite residue, of being hauled around from place to place without even knowing what his surroundings looked like. Han barely remembered any of it, only having pulled through without loosing consciousness through adrenaline alone.

 

Now they were walking back to the falcon— slowly, as Han was still relearning how to walk— but they were going home. Han was going home. The falcon. The falcon. He remembered the falcon. It’s importance. It’s shelter. Shimmers of relief, of almost excitement, flickered through him. He was going home.

 

Something was wrong with Luke Skywalker. He couldn’t see him, couldn’t dissect his body language or his facial expressions, but as he spoke, the lack of exaggerated emotion, the monotony of his vocal cadence, made his skin crawl. What happened while he was frozen?

 

Frozen, right. It was still hard to understand that his lifetime of being a smuggler, a criminal, Captain Han Solo, and the lifetime of darkness and confusion and of utter isolation were one and the same. And Luke saved him from both. Guilt, and humiliation sent a chill through Han’s body.

 

They didn’t leave him. They never did. And they were never going to. Realizing abandonment was no longer in his future was surreal. 

 

The words were clumsy coming out of his mouth, not just because he hadn’t used his voice for so long but because he wasn’t used to saying them. “Thank you,” he managed, his voice almost shaking. “For coming back for me, by the way.”

 

What happened to the bubbly, geeky farm boy he had met on this planet half a decade ago? Luke’s eloquence, his disturbing calm that seemed to harbor emotions Han didn’t know Luke was capable of experiencing, shot chills down his spine once again. “Think nothing of it, Han.”

 

That’s when it hit him. Luke, Leia, Lando, all of them, didn’t have a single clue Han was completely concious that entire time. They didn’t know the times he spent wishing he could cry, the times he begged figures that weren’t even real to go away, the hours spent languishing like some miserable animal, the version of Han that being frozen brought up that made him sick, embearassed beyond words. Thank good they didn’t know. They didn’t have to. They never would. He vowed it. He finally brought himself back to Luke, his voice just barely caging the fear he felt.

 

“No, No. I’m thinkin’ about it.”

Chapter 20

Summary:

WAAAAAARRR ISSSSSS OOOOOVEERRRRRRR

“Something’s up. I’m not stupid.”

Han recoiled at the words. Leia had always been far more in tune with his emotions than he’d like anyone to be. Even in the face of this threat, he kept his walls up and enforced them with each sentence that came out of Leia’s mouth. “I’m fine, Leia. Seriously. What’s makin’ you so worried?”

 

“I— Oh, kriff. Han.” She rested her exausted eyes in her palm, then let them meet Han’s, who were looking in her direction but not at her or anything in particular. She sighed, Han not knowing if it was out of unwarranted sympathy or annoyance.

 

Of course, the biggest indicator was Han’s hibernation sickness. After the initial adrenaline from the sail barge fiasco wore off, his health took an overwhelming decline: He couldn’t go an hour without vomiting, among many other overwhelming symptoms that made him seem like he had some sort of flu. He had also spent the last few hours constantly swaying between fuzzy delirium and uncontrolled, anxious frenzy— both temperaments never before seen in the smuggler. That, of course, wasn’t all, though; Leia had caught onto much more, and she wasn’t afraid to list everything to Han as they sat alone in the Falcon’s cockpit.

 

When everyone but Luke first piled onto the falcon and sat down to try to make heads or tails of their time spent in Jabba’s palace, Han did the unthinkable: He apologized. Profusely. To Leia for having to be forced into what she had been in an attempt to save him, to Lando for all the trouble, for Chewie for worrying him so much. It was bizzare to everyone, and the strangest part was that Han hadn’t even picked their confusion up.

“Just got unfrozen, and he already got into the alcohol,” Lando mused.

“I’m serious,” Han insisted, his face littered with enough worry to make it past the expressionlessness of sightless eyes.

 

After that painfully awkward conversation, Han had retreated to the falcon’s cockpit where he had stayed for the last multitude of hours. His ship was in hyperspace, essentially on autopilot, but he stayed in the pilot’s chair and refused to move. Anyone who tried to check in on him was promptly kicked out, only briefly getting a glimpse of the Captain’s sightless face, lit up by hyperspace and deep in anxious thought before he picked up on their presence in the doorway and promptly asked them to leave. It was only until Leia tried getting to him that he accepted the concept of company.

 

“I just— I’ve never seen you act like this. I have a feeling it’s more than just hibernation sickness,” Leia sighed. Han winced at the word hibernation, almost offensive in its innacuracy, but said nothing. Leia can’t know. He reminded himself. Leia Can’t know. 

“Han, tell me. How are you feeling?”

 

“I’m fine. I— Look, you don’t get to psychoanalyze me, Leia. I’m fine!” At that, raising his voice too high, he erupted into a coughing fit, one he tried desperately to supress.

“It doesn’t matter what it is. You still can’t bottle this up.”

 

The two fell into a brief silence, one attempting to figure out what to say next and the other coming up with defenses for it.

 

“How’s your eyesight?”

“‘Can see lights n’ shadows. That’s it.”

 

Leia looked down. Han was anxiously shaking his leg. His left hand was fiddling with his right, moving between each finger and testing its mobility as if making sure they were all there. This was a habit he’d quickly grown into over the last day or so.

 

“…You still feel sick?”

“A little.” Han knew she was seeing through his attempts to seem stable, translating his every word in her head.

 

More silence followed.

 

“Han.”

“What?!”

“Something is on your mind. I can tell there’s something you need to get off your chest.”

 

“It’s not your concern, Leia.”

Her face fell. The two had just reunited, and he was already back to being just as defensive as before.

 

“Look,” She began, her voice more stern with newfound determination to get to the bottom of her lover’s emotions. “I know you don’t like talking about your emotions. It’s new ground for you. But you know you’re safe here— and we can’t even help you if you’re not going to explain what’s wrong!”

 

Han was listening intently, his face riddled with anxiety. He didn’t respond. He hoped she would take the hint and wouldn’t continue. She did.

 

“Han— you were frozen in carbonite for a year. I can’t think of any other time anyone has survived that. Emotions aren’t like the spices you used to smuggle, you can’t covet them and end up being safer because of it. It’s only going to hurt you more. And listen, I know that you’ve been comatose for a whole year, but that doesn’t—“

 

“I wasn’t! It’s not like that—“

 

Han’s hand shot to his mouth. Leia went silent too, her temperament shifting confusion and then shock. The silence between them was unbearable. Han never wanted to deal with unbearable silence ever again.

 

“You don’t mean—“ Leia began, but Han had already staggered out of the cockpit, tripping over the doorframe as he left. Lando must have tried to pry, as Leia could hear Han telling him off as he half-stormed-half-stumbled into the crew quarters.

 

She looked at the now-empty chair in pure horror.

 

-

 

“What’s his deal?” Lando mused lackadaisically as Leia warily followed Han, still simmering in denial of what her lover had began to imply. Chewie, who was much more concerned than the man sitting next to him, half-barked-half-growled, asking if he was okay.

 

“It’s— I don’t know. I’m gonna to figure it out, though.”

 

She assessed the two as they sat around main hold. Chewbacca shared her deep concern, almost motionless in his body language due to stress. Lando, on the other hand, seemed to find all of this very amusing. Leia found it a miracle that the two had managed to coexist for the entirety of this mission, let alone the whole year. Lando began to sat up with the intent to follow her, but Chewbacca quickly pushed him back into his chair. Leia sighed, too impatient for the two’s rivalry, and rushed out of the Main Hold mumbling promises of Han’s well being.

 

•    

 

The door in the crew quarters was broken, its sliding mechanism busted in a way that it couldn’t close all the way. Han, who had curled up on one of the quarter’s cots, froze as he watched the blurry light in the corner of his vision grow and then diminish again. He knew it was Leia. He didn’t respond as she sat down on the bed next to him, putting a dainty hand on his shoulder.

 

“Han,” she began, with more softness and solace than he’d ever heard from anyone before.

“I’m so sorry.”

 

Han accepted defeat. His voice trembled as he turned to face the direction of Leia’s voice, tears welling in his eyes.

 

“Leia, It was horrible.”

 

Han and Leia spent the rest of the night in eachothers arms, the ex-smuggler holding onto his lover as if she was his panacea. He was never good at being physically affectionate— recovering from a year of paralysis made it no better— but there was no way he was going to let go, and the feeling was mutual.

 

Han went in and out of soft, sparse fits of sobbing. It would be the first and last time Leia would ever seen him cry, and even then the man could barely pour his emotions out. His verbal opening up came in intervals, barely articulated in the way he wished he could, littered with panicked repetitions of  “It was so horrible, Leia” and “I’m so sorry” and “I feel disgusting”, and only a mere fraction of what he truly harbored. But Leia was patient. Han knew she had caught on— prioritizing survival meant he never got the chance, the time to process his emotions, and being frozen amplified that tenfold. She held his face with her left hand as he sobbed, his hand with his right. She wasn’t going anywhere.

 

“Thank you,” he mustered when he had cried as much as his body allowed him— which, compared to other people, wasn’t a lot. “For saving me, for lettin’ me out, for lettin’ me talk about it. I think I … needed that. I’m sorry. So emberassing,” he slurred, sniffling.

 

“It’s more than alright,” Leia hummed. She was playing with his hair, looking up at him with more adoration than anyone else had bestowed to the smuggler beforehand. Han couldn’t read or even see her face, but he could hear it in her voice. He pulled her even closer.

 

“Please don’t tell anyone. This is all— This is all— so embarrassing, and if it was anyone else I wouldn’t’a—

“Shhh… this is safe with me. You’re safe with me. You’re brave, yknow,” Leia reassured, “for letting your guard down like this. Thank you.”

 

Han didn’t respond.Brave and vulnerable were two things he didn’t think of being in close proximity. And yet Leia was praising him for it. She didn’t find it pathetic, or bad, or reason to get up and leave forever. It only brought them closer.

God, he was lucky.

 

“I love you so much.”

 

 

 

-

 

 

“Do you want me to see if I can shut that door?” Leia asked, likely noticing that Han’s breathing was slowing down and he was probably going to crash here for tonight. “Does the light bother you?”

 

Han shifted, overcome by a sense of urgency that Leia needn’t let go of him, an animalistic need to not be in total darkness.

 

“No. No. The light is good.”

“Alright,” Leia hummed, quickly understanding what Han left unsaid.

 

They were both under the blankets now, both comfortably warm from the cover and each other’s body heat. For Han, it was heavenly. No more darkness. No more isolation. No more nothingness. He hugged Leia tighter, resting his head over hers. He felt his guard, for the first time in decades, slip away.

 

Han took a deep breath, and finally fell asleep.

 

End

Chapter 21: The Fuckass Chapter Where I Put All My Art

 

as a fun suprise i’m finally posting all the art i made based off this fic…. if you know me outside of ao3 you probably know im an artist first and a writer second, and god do i love some good artistic symbolism!! 

a few things b4 i actually get to the art; no hans hallucinations are not visual. this fic does not take place in a giant black void. it’s all just for artistic interpretation/ effect / symbolism idk what the word is it’s 1 am as i’m writing this. 

-tw for horror content ahead!! 

-i’ll mention this in more detail in a sec but “the writer” is NOT a canon character, just a goofy shitpost self insert 

FUCK HTTPS ISNT WORKING FUCK THAT ok ok alternative time WATCH THIS GO MY YOUTUBE 

http://youtube.com/post/UgkxFQJTXcJq9l6JOwfbfBIoGM3IC-bJn-rs?si=p6hbSH-wmzF6qJmR 

 

i also made a bunch of fuckass animations for it https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqq6YDbDZe_GCsATODBi9yISOt6o0rCM6&si=du35nmXM1hZ_J_Oo

 

 

Notes:

hello everyone!!! carbonfrozen here!!!! ladies and gentlemen, i finally sat down, made an ao3 account, and started my first fic. this is a moment in history, take a frigging picture.

as you may expect i’m not completely acquainted to archive culture yet but i’m really exited to be part of the community :-) please let me know if i’m doing everything right, support is greatly appreciated!!! have a great day, enjoy my existential body horror slop