a/n: so, this is basically based on one of Chewie's lines in my story "Identity" (Chapter 15, to be exact). it's just a bit of fun, and it's set way before that story starts. it can be read on its own if you're not reading the other, for sure!

Black Lace Stockings

Luke Skywalker scowled as he contorted himself into an unnatural positon in the gun turret of the Millennium Falcon, peering around the grimy underbelly of the controls with a furrowed brow. He had been lured to the ship under false pretenses, and now he was basically a prisoner aboard the vessel.

Han had claimed he wanted Luke's opinion on rewiring some of the weapons, and how it would affect fighting during evasive maneuvers. He'd then asked him, casually, how he felt about Todyarian wrysps, scurrilous many-legged creatures that often plagued dark, wet places.

Caught off guard, Luke had shrugged.

"I grew up with them; they don't bother me," he'd said flippantly.

Han had then proceeded to close the Falcon's ramp and lock them on it, preventing Luke's exit.

"Good, you can scour the ship for their nest," he said bluntly.

"What?" Luke had protested. "You said – "

"I lied, I knew you wouldn't come down for pest control," Han had fired back. He had gestured around wildly, a moody look on his face. "Leia saw one in the main hold and she won't come back to the ship until I clean it and show her the dead nest – y'know, there's never only one."

Luke had glared at him, skeptical.

"I've seen Leia eat questionable looking berries while covered in blood and hiding in a canoe next to a dead Stormtrooper on a rain planet and you want me to believe she's afraid of – "

"Well, the dead Stormtrooper didn't have twenty-eight legs, did it?" Han had griped. He pointed to a scratch on his neck gloomily. "She nearly clawed me to death climbing up me to get off the floor and away from it."

Still, Luke had not been pleased – he had been nefariously tricked, most likely do to his experience with eradicating the little buggers on his moisture farm, and he was twice as sulky about it because Han had eventually divulged that he was only slightly less jumpy than Leia was about the bugs. Luke had gaped at him in disbelief –

"You're afraid of wrysps?"

"Not afraid," Han had hedged defensively. "It's a lot of … legs – look kid, you don't wanna be around me if Leia's refusing to sleep on this ship goes on much longer."

"Why the hell don't you just move in with her?" Luke had whined.

Han had thrown out some evasive, muttered answer, and Luke had rolled his eyes while the Corellian thrust black gloves and a little light and some disinfectant into his hands and disappeared to mess with something else.

Which was why Luke was hunting around in the gun turret where he thought there might be a lubricant leak – which would create a prime dark, wet environment for the infestation. He was also hoping that Han unsuspectingly stumbled across the nest up in the hold or the galley, because then he could get a good laugh on his behalf.

Luke scrubbed some dirt he found in a little divot and then paused, thinking of what Chewbacca had muttered at him apprehensively –

[Don't get things too clean, though, if there's no dirt holding it together the ship might actually fall apart…]

The scowl on Luke's face etched deeper as he maneuvered his body around and sat up in the chair, disentangling himself from the headset that had fallen on him and looking around with a frown. They really could solve this problem if Leia would just relinquish her quarters near the old Imperial Palace and find a place with Han now that he was permanently reassigned to Coruscant – Luke supposed she was trying to avoid throwing the relationship in Mon Mothma's face, though –

Luke stood up to try and lazily go through the electronic panels on the walls of the turret and stopped, faced with something hanging from the lowest rung of the ladder. He hadn't noticed it when he climbed down and threw himself into the chair, but now –

He bent to pick it up curiously, tilting his head.

It appeared to be a stocking – no, it was definitely a stocking, a very delicate, very lacy stocking that felt like expensive material but looked like something a – well, Luke thought it looked like something he might have seen in an after-hours BlueNet film. The lace was black, stitched in flowery designs, and was topped off with a scandalous looking silk red bow at the top.

Luke supposed that red bow was supposed to sit rather high on a woman's thigh.

He stared at the item for a moment, and then his mouth fell open, and he glared up the ladder at no one in particular and shouted –

"HAN!"

Han Solo was rather pleased with himself for having successfully avoided being the one to scout out the wrysps. It really wasn't that he was afraid of them per se, he just didn't think bugs had any business having that many legs – again, it wasn't fear, it was a logical protest against what should and should not be allowed in nature.

He gave Leia a hard time for declaring the ship unholy and swearing she would not set foot in it again until he addressed the problem – which wouldn't really be a problem except currently, she wouldn't allow him to spend the night in her room.

"My quarters are next to Mon's and the walls are too thin," she kept insisting. "You're the one who is always saying I'm loud."

"You don't mind Chewie on the Falcon!" he'd argued back.

"Chewie has learned to sleep through it," Leia was quick to respond, "if Mon Mothma hears me screaming your name I'll never be able to look at her again."

Han had scowled, and whined, and insisted the wrysps were not a big problem, and Leia had sighed, and assured him she was in the process of looking for an apartment, and she wanted him to live with her, things were just – chaotic, at the moment, with his recent return from the campaign against Zsinj, and her recent confirmation as Ambassador at Large.

So, in the meantime, Han was desperately trying to avoid her finding out he was also leery of wrysps while simultaneously getting rid of them so he didn't have to spend another night glaring at her empty place in his bunk.

He was rummaging through a trunk looking for a shoe she claimed she'd left there when he heard Luke bellow at him from the turret.

He ignored it, because he assumed that meant Luke had found the nest and was being slowly attacked by ten or so wrysps, and Han was not about to go get involved in that. He was thus unsurprised when Luke came barreling into the cabin, missing his robe, and looking a bit dusty and annoyed.

"Find them?" Han asked brightly, without looking up.

"No," Luke fired back wildly. "Look what I did find," he said, shaking his fist pointedly. "Look!" he demanded.

Han turned and looked, arching his brows. He spotted blur of black and red movement in Luke's hand and shrugged, unsure what it was, and unsure why the kid was so outraged.

"It's scandalous lingerie!" Luke yelped, pausing and showing the stocking to Han without shaking it so much. He wriggled it. "What do you have to say for yourself?" Luke demanded.

Han stared at him, and then reached out and grabbed the stocking, running his hands over the soft lace. He held it lightly, and then snatched it from Luke and hung it around his neck, shrugging.

"'Been looking for that," he said gruffly – and he had been looking for it – Leia would be relieved, since she said they were frightfully expensive, and it had been a week since she realized the half of the pair was missing.

Luke's eyes widened, and he scowled, grabbing Han's shoulder and forcing him around.

"Whose is that?" he demanded, his expression mean and protective. "Are you – are you messing around behind my sister's back?" he hissed.

Han stared at him in disbelief and then arched one eyebrow, reaching up to touch the lace stocking around his neck. He shook his head slowly, saying nothing, and then turned back to the trunk, deciding Luke was being too stupid to be acknowledge at the moment.

"Han, if you're stepping out –"

"Stepping out?" Han quoted, whirling around, somewhere between amused and irritated.

"It means – "

"I know what it means, kid, I just haven't heard it used since the ancients evolved into higher beings," he interrupted sarcastically.

Luke folded his arms furiously.

"Would you cut it out?" Han snapped tersely. "I'd be dustbrained and then some to cheat on Leia."

"You'd never find anyone better," Luke snapped.

"I know that," Han retorted angrily. "What's gotten in to you? Why the hell are you making assumptions like that?"

"Tell me whose that is!" Luke responded. "How do you explain that!"

Han looked at it out of the corner of his eye and pointed, giving Luke a very careful, very serious, very pointed look.

"Well, kid, I don't know, did you think for a parsec that maybe it's your sister's?" he drawled, deliberate and sarcastic.

Luke gave him a sort of baffled, outraged look, and reached up to scratch his head, stepping back.

"Kriff, Luke, who else's would it be?" Han griped, scowling.

Luke frowned, flustered.

"You've been gone five months," he started, faltering. "I dunno, and people keep trying to marry Leia off," he trailed off, clenched his jaw, and then flung his hand out, "and I just can't picture Leia in something like that!" he said finally, his voice pained.

Han arched a brow again, lowering his hand from the lace stocking.

"How about you don't picture Leia in it?" he advised dryly, giving Luke a strange look.

"That's not what I meant," Luke said hastily, flushing scarlet.

Han let him splutter for a moment, smirking – no way Luke had any of those sorts of feelings left for Leia, but Han understood what he meant; hell, he himself hadn't really thought Leia the type to go in for sultry costumes until the black and red ensemble this stocking complemented had made an appearance, and now he wanted it tattooed on his eyelids forever.

"I'm sorry," Luke bemoaned seriously. "It's just it – how did it get in the – why was it in the – never mind," Luke lamented dramatically – he didn't need any of those mental images, either, although he would have to remember that if he ever found himself in a firefight on the Falcon again, the lower turret was tainted and he should go for the upper one.

Han grasped the edges of the stocking lightly and smiled smugly, comfortable with it around his neck – oh, Leia was going to kill him for this, she was going to kill him when she found out Luke had come across this –

"Is there any chance I'm going to find the other one?" Luke asked glumly, eyeing the stocking with distaste. "I'd really like to avoid the mental image of you and my sister in the…storage compartments or something."

"Hey, there's an idea," Han joked, and Luke scowled at him.

He laughed and shook his head, giving Luke a serious look – no, there'd be no second stocking in the storage hold, or the main hold, or the cockpit. He couldn't remember how this one had ended up in the gun turret, but he knew for a fact the other one was still knotted to the post of his bunk, where she'd tied his wrist up with it.

Luke gave Han one last resigned look and told him, seriously:

"That thing looks vulgar around your neck."

He trudged out of the room, glowering, and Han whipped the stocking off his shoulders running his fingers over it delicately, a smirk pulling at his lips – the sooner Luke rooted out that wrysp infestation, the sooner Han could get Leia's legs back around his neck.

is finally allowing me to upload documents so - this was posted to A03 first!

-alexandra
story #309