Originally inspired by some behind the scenes photos from The Empire Strikes Back that were posted on Tumblr, featuring what I like to refer to as "stupid sexy Han" (Han in his parka) and "stupid sexy Leia" (Leia pretending to be a little provocative in her vest).
That Look
He can't turn away when he sees that look. He's already caught himself staring a touch too long for his comfort, enough of a moment that Chewie would notice if he were here. He's not, and Luke and Wedge are currently preoccupied, so at least there's that.
It's that unguarded look, the one the people she commands on this icy hellscape almost never get to see. It's a good day when Han gets to see it, when the stars align and he's managed to get her to drop the mask instead of piss her off. It's a lovely sight, too: the heart shape of her face relaxed rather than pulled tight, her brown eyes radiating warmth even as they maintain their intensity, her perfect braids shining in a dark halo around her head.
Now you really are staring, Solo. Han adjusts his gaze subtly enough to imply he's looking elsewhere, across the hangar, knowing better than to grin and give himself away. But he can't stop looking. She's playing a bit, responding to Wedge and Luke's gentle teasing with an exaggerated pantomime of a striptease, pretending to tempt them with the reveal of what's under her vest. She isn't showing a lick of skin, but right now that snowsuit is about the sexiest thing Han's ever seen.
Damn it. He wants to look away, but that's not what he wants at all. He wants that look. Mine, he thinks possessively, and then scolds himself for it. She can give that look to whomever she wants. I want her to have that look more often. I wish she could have it all the damned time.
Then he has a terrible thought: But I want to be the reason.
That's when he tears himself away.
Damn that look.
No, damn him. Damn him and the rugged planes of his stupid handsome face. Those godsdamned hazel eyes that see into her like he has some kind of x-ray vision. That tousle of hair that somehow manages to look perfect and rumpled at the same time after he gets back from patrol. How does he even do that?
But that's what Han Solo does, isn't it? Defies her expectations at every turn? Why he is still even here to look annoyingly sexy in a damned parka, she still doesn't understand. (No one looks good in those parkas. No one except him and his stupid beautiful smirking face.)
She's been distracted for a while, blissfully so, joking around with Luke and Wedge after a briefing. It's rather nice, honestly, to let the Princess and the Commander have a rest and let Leia out to play for a bit. She hasn't seen that Leia for some time.
(There was a time, a time before most of these people ever knew her, when she was that person, that Leia. That Leia was fun. She was fucking hilarious.)
Curiously, Han is one of the few people who can get that Leia to emerge from time to time. She's not sure why he's able to do it; maybe it has something to do with his having little use for royalty or command. Maybe it's that despite the nicknames and the casual banter and teasing that pepper their conversations, Han gives her more respect than most of the men in High Command. He trusts her judgment; he makes her hold her own.
Or maybe it's that she knows his secret: under all that cynicism and whiskey, Han Solo is nice.
Wait. How did I end up calling him nice? And who the hell is he looking at, way across the hangar?
Damn him.