A/N: Professor Tolkien, please forgive me.

A Careful Application of Pressure

Chapter Six: In Which Things Get Sticky

Han's first impression upon waking was that he was dead. He was lying in a hammock beside a forest waterfall, and warm, gold sunlight poured through the leafy canopy onto his face. But the hammock seemed to be made of glue, and he doubted that his afterlife destination would be this pleasant, anyway. Slowly, like the pain in his head and limbs, his memory faded back in.

That's when he started to panic.

"Don't do that, please," Luke said calmly. "You're only going to get yourself more stuck."

Han forced himself to lie still. "All right. Can't you just cut through the web?"

"The thing took my light saber. For all I know, it was a snack."

"Oh. So is there anything else you can do?"

"Not that I can think of."

"So this is it."

"Could be."

Feeling strangely collected, Han pondered his possible courses of action. He could take the obvious route, and scream like a lunatic. Or he could try and make peace with the world before he went. In one of the peculiar shifts of character that accompany certain death, he chose option two.

"Luke?"

"Yes?"

"I have a confession to make."

"If you must."

"I never slept with your sister."

"What?" This was enough to pull Luke from his brooding silence.

"Leia and I… we didn't…you know."

"Oh." Luke laughed. "I knew that."

"Leia told you?"

"No. It's part of the twin thing. We can feel each other's sensations, if they're strong enough. If any of that had happened, I would know."

Han paled. "You would?"

"I can teach her to control what she transmits, of course."

"Good," Han said gratefully.

"After she gets married."

Understandable. So that's not what you're mad about?"

"I wasn't mad at you."

"Not even about the Zathron thing?"

"I was mad about that. But Jedi don't hold grudges."

Straining against the web, Han turned his head toward Luke. "Then why did you avoid me?"

Luke took a deep breath. "It wasn't you I was avoiding, exactly. It was the idea."

"Not following you."

"I didn't want to accept that my sister was in love with my best friend. It put me in a situation I wasn't comfortable with. If something were to happen between you two… I love her Han. I couldn't bear her being in pain."

Han looked him solemnly in the eye. "I would never do anything to hurt Leia."

Luke nodded within the allowance of his bonds. "I know."

"You do?"

"Yes. Now shut up and let me figure a way out of this mess."

Han closed his mouth. Something rustled in the trees not far off. "Uh, Luke…"

"Shhh."

"Luke? Luke, buddy, you might want to think a little faster."

"I got it," Luke said. "Hope your blaster's waterproof."

"Why?" But at that moment the creature burst into sight, uninhibited by its missing tenth leg. (Luke's handiwork, of course.) Similarly, the blaster wound Han had left in its side seemed to be paying it little trouble. Its arm-length fangs reached down. "Kid, now would be a good time to execute your brilliant plan!" Han shouted.

Luke shut his eyes. With a roar, the waterfall beside them switched directions and hit them, beast and all, with full force. Han felt the strands around him dissolve in the water as her was thrown through the air.

He hit the ground rolling and had his blaster drawn by the time he reached his feet. The creature floundered in its sea of legs a short distance away.

"Go for the stomach," Luke yelled.

Han steadied his blaster, waiting for a clear target to present itself. There. With three quick shots, the thing twitched and moved no more.

Luke was in a tangle around a tree trunk. One leg looked like it was pointing the wrong way. "You good, kid?"

"Mostly," he replied with a pained smile. "Just like the good old days." Han lifted him up and put one arm over his own shoulder.

"You mean, me saving your butt once again."

"If that's what you want to think, I won't contradict you."

"It's just too bad about Monster. Poor little guy, imagine all the ladies he had waiting for him…"

Something familiar jumped out from behind a fern, chirping amicably.

"Monster?"

The barqual rubbed up against Han's leg. "You know, if you weren't so special I'd kill you myself, you little rascal." Monster, unthreatened, climbed up his side and nestled between his head and Luke's shoulder.

Luke smiled. "In the end, we accomplished what we set out for, after all."

"Don't count your poultry just yet," Han said. "Let's get out of the woods, first."