a/n: title is a dumb play on "star gazing" - obviously. can we have too many han/leia scar stories?
Scar Gazing
Leia raised a shaking hand to her forehead and, with a vicious flick, swept damp hair and water out of her eyes, gnashing her teeth. The frustration and fury that had been coiled in her core dissipated quickly, and as it bled away she felt heavy with shame, with – with –
She shook her hands out. She tossed her head, pushed all her escaping strands of hair back, tucking it behind her ears. Wisps soaked with the drenching of a leaky pipe, water making her dirty clothing clingy, slick oil and the stench of burning wires mingling in her senses.
She stood rooted to the spot, staring at a point on the ground. They were never going to get anywhere on this Sith forsaken broken ship if every attempt to fix it – together, Gods forbid – dissolved into bickering verbal bloodshed that resulted in careless slinging around of hydrospanners.
She knew this was her fault. Water gushing from a broken pipe, oil spitting boiling hot, out of a main frame – it wasn't dissimilar to the burns on her fingers she'd gotten in the circuitry bay, but that had been an accident, and this time she'd pushed too hard on purpose because she wanted him to be the one to run away.
There was nowhere to go on this ship and she felt small, powerless. If he was mad enough to leave her alone –
But she hadn't meant it to escalate to breaking things, even if it was only done because he was trying to argue and work at the same time, because she was trying to do the same, and split attention with tools in one's hand was a bad combination.
Han had run away, had stumbled out, swearing up a storm to rattle the proverbial rafters, soaked in the same water and half-blinded by viscous grease. The moment she was alone, she regretted the whole interaction – she hadn't wanted him to get hurt.
Passing by the mess, Chewbacca tossed a towel to her, and there was a distinct coldness to his usual gentility. She had always felt Chewy was on her side, so to speak, just as mildly fed up with Han's antics as her, but even her limited Shyriiwook told her he wasn't amendable to her now.
He kept on walking in silence, but he'd come to investigate the commotion earlier, to stop the leaks and the spewing after Han had fled, and though he hadn't raised his voice, he'd growled pointedly among the noise –
[You can be mean, Princess].
Spluttering, Leia didn't know if he sounded softly surprised, or disappointed.
"You – you heard him, he's -! He's infuriating, he's—"
[Annoying,] Chewbacca agreed grimly. [He can be an idiot. Foolish. You were mean].
And now Leia stood chastised, and cold, holding a wrinkled towel, well aware he was right, and she'd been…mean.
She poked her head out into the hall, watched Chewbacca's retreating form. She wrapped the towel around her shoulders, her heart stuttering in her chest. Mean. A word she didn't want to be.
She forced her feet to move, one in front of the other, tracing Han's likeliest footsteps. She heard water running as she neared his cabin door, and peered in.
"Han?" she ventured, half-whispering.
There was no answer, but she knew she hadn't spoken loudly enough.
"Han," she said again, approaching the fresher.
She saw his filthy shirt on the floor just outside of it and grimaced at the splatters and stains around the collar; taller, he'd gotten more of the burning oil to the face than her.
"Han, I – "
She stepped into the doorway, stopped. She clutched at the corners of the towel around her shoulders, her eyes falling on his naked back. Hunched over the sink, he splashed water on his face, seemingly oblivious to her presence. Her breath caught in her throat, and she didn't think, wasn't able to stop herself:
"What happened to you?" she choked out.
Han jumped. He smacked the running water off, jerking his head to look at her, a bitter gleam in his eyes. His brows were an angry red, his corneas inflamed from the incident, and Leia saw his face only in her peripheral vision, fixated on his back.
His skin was marred by deep, trench like scars, some redder than others, some thinly raised, some knotted welts. They crisscrossed his spine, brutal tattoos sprawling grimly, a tangled mess of badly healed flesh that hurt to look at and that seemed to gash into her own back as she stared, imagining what had wrought them.
Han turned away. He straightened up just slightly, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror.
"Go away," he snapped.
The words hurt, and felt vaguely deserved, and Leia knew her question – on the heels of such a charged moment between then – was crude. She stared still, biting the inside of her cheek. She hadn't meant to sound so appalled. If he'd reacted that way to any mark on her skin, she'd be stung – and yet the sight of his snared skin ignited an immediate kinship in her.
Kinship she couldn't voice.
Han blinked slowly, accepted she was not going to go away, and shifted his eyes from hers, to his own, in the mirror.
"They're old," he grunted shortly. He waved a hand, standing up. "Really old," he muttered.
The scars shimmered with movement as he straightened, his muscles taut. The pulling motion looked like it hurt, and Leia leaned heavily against the doorframe, her lips parted.
Han picked up a rag and rung it out, bringing it up to his eyes and swearing softly as he wiped them out again.
"How old?" Leia asked quietly.
Han's shoulders twitched.
"They're from my court martial," he answered, resigned. "The sentence was thrashing." He thrust the rag down, irritated. "You know that," he added.
She did. She knew about the expulsion, the punishment, but knowing and seeing were vastly different, and she couldn't imagine the length of time it would have taken for this to heal – these scars were carved into him, some even discolored, red, or faintly bruised, flesh damaged so badly it was unrecovered.
Leia's breath hitched in her throat. He moved his head to the side, glaring at her over his shoulder. His eyes cut downwards, watching her stare. Something kept him from lurching away. Her study of him didn't feel…lecherous, or gratuitous, or contemptuous. He didn't know what to make of it; she seemed lost.
Yet his skin crawled under the scrutiny. He hung his head, braced his palms on the basin in front of him.
"Leia," he sighed. "It's not an exhibit."
She glanced away, her eyes drifting to his white-knuckled grip on the sink. Then back to the scars.
"Do they hurt?" she asked.
"They're old," Han repeated, and his voice was a knife.
"Yes," Leia whispered, "but do they still hurt?"
Mine do, she almost said. There were four scars across her left hip, gouged there by an Imperial torture droid, puckered and red; they ached sometimes when she was cold. There was an ugly stretch of skin that ran from her right shoulder to the middle of her back, jagged from battlefield stitches, always tender. She hated the sight of them in mirrors, hated the knowledge of them there, etched forever on skin that had once only been broken by childhood knee skins and land speeder bruises.
Han tilted his head a little.
"No," he said, though he had once thought they would never stop hurting.
Leia shifted, slouching heavily.
"What did this?" she asked.
Han cleared his throat.
"Cat o'nine tails."
The scars were chaos, snarled and twisted, and she thought she could hear the whistle of the whip; the sick crush of it against his skin. Dragging through, drawing blood, ripping once, twice – how many lashes had he suffered? She didn't remember what he'd said, or what Chewbacca had once told her.
Without thought, Leia reached out. Her hand brushed his tense arm, and he twitched away, shuffling his weight uncertainly. He was tempted to tell her to go away again, but then she asked –
"Can I touch you?"
In so many ways, he'd have given anything to hear her ask that question, but here, and now, it was disarming; he was confused. He turned slightly, shot a questioning look at her.
She didn't look back; she was scar gazing again.
Han turned back to the mirror, raising an eyebrow.
"Knock yourself out," he said dryly.
Leia stepped forward, and he watched her in the mirror. At this angel, he could see her, but as she moved behind him she seemed to vanish from view. He stood slightly, though of course that didn't help – he was so much taller.
She pressed her lips together hard, hoped her hand didn't tremble, and let a finger alight on the grooved skin, pressing fingertips into flesh. She felt breathless, her touch drifting cautiously, reverently, along the scars, counting.
"They're all different," she murmured. "They haven't healed…the same."
Still unable to see her, Han looked at his own reflection steadily.
"Nine tails," he said coolly. They'd all been differently barbed, different rough materials crafted to inflict maximum pain.
Leia moved her hand over him, touch warming his skin, soft and thoughtful. Her lips moved in a silent prayer. She wondered if he'd taken this in silence, or if he'd been unable to keep quiet.
She'd tried so hard to grit her teeth and bear it when they tortured her. She'd been determined to hold onto that small point of pride, to be able to say that not only had she never told a secret, she'd never made a sound.
She'd screamed in the end. The only way to hold onto the secrets had been to scream for mercy.
She touched the scars, and that ashamed feeling in her stomach thickened; her body tensed with regret, with sadness, resignation – fear.
"Han," she said hoarsely, moving closer.
He swallowed hard, watching her shadow move on the wall behind them. It was like being touched by a ghost, her there but just out of sight, intimate without a hint of sexuality, and something pulled at his jaw, at his sinuses. He'd have expected to be aroused by something like this; he wanted to be, and in any other moment her touch would set him on fire – but this was something different.
The scars were a revelation to Leia, a tapestry of healed heartache that reminded her not only that he had been through more than she remembered, reminded her that though she'd had the blessing of privileged, happy youth, he never had- yet he was still standing; he was alive after the severity of all his injuries, physical and emotional, and he had enough left in him to try to – to love her.
She knew he loved her. Something like love. She knew enough of love to understand this was an unexplored breed of it for her, but it was there, and it scared her, and she fought it because she didn't want more.
"I'm so sorry, Han," she whispered.
His shoulders twitched, his jaw flexed.
"You didn't do it," he retorted.
"Not for this," she said.
Her palm flattened on his back, and then something else – the brush of her jaw, her lips - ? Her cheek, resting against his back, contours of her face pressed flush against his scars, her hip against his.
Dumbstruck, he froze, losing his breath.
"Leia," he murmured. "You tryin' to kill me?"
She made a soft noise.
"I think," she said, ever so soft. "I am trying to scare you off," her lips moved, imperceptibly against his skin, like he was imagining it. Her hand curled around his shoulder gingerly, squeezing. "I can't take much more pain," she admitted. "My scars," she trailed off, her hand shaking, "aren't quit so healed."
His reflection was haggard, eyes red. She'd figured some things out, then, and all it took was a glaring reminder that he wasn't coming at this unscathed, either.
"'M not scare of much," he said.
He lifted one arm, and hesitated – then took her hand, holding loosely. She let him. She rested her weight against him, lashes fluttering against his back, breathing faintly, as if asleep. He didn't know where to go from here, so he didn't move; he listened to his own heart pounding in his ears, wondering how he'd found himself in this moment.
Weeks until Bespin, weeks. Weeks of this.
"Leia, I don't want to hurt you," Han said, blunt and honest. "If you don't want…I need you to," he broke off, frustrated. "Tell me now," he said, switching gears. "If you want me to keep chasing or to, to…fuck off," he said callously.
"You're inevitable," she murmured.
He furrowed his brow, stroked her palm.
"Inevitable," he repeated.
"I need some time," she whispered.
He stood for a long moment, memorizing this – then straightened, and turned so abruptly she swayed on her feet. Her cheeks flushed, and he put his palm to her jaw gently; her eyes flicked over his arm to the mirror, scars reflected there now. He studied her, long and hard, and then his lips turned up in one of his devilish grins – gentler, though, this time.
"Would it help if I walk around shirtless?"
Leia choked on a laugh. Her eyes stung.
"I'm sorry I have been so mean," she apologized.
He nodded, considered her a moment. He was sorry, too. He wasn't willing to confess – to burden her – with testaments to how much her insults hit home sometimes, how much she really dug the knife in. No matter, now, when the walls were cracking.
He took a deep breath.
"There ain't a lot of time to be had in the middle of a war," he said carefully.
His hand slipped off her face and, brazenly, down to her hip – warm, and affectionate, but not wanton. Leia sucked in her breath, resisted the urge to lay her had on his chest as she had his back – it felt too personal now; too forward. With him looking down at her so intently, the first rumblings of that old, familiar combativeness started to claw at her nervously, the thing that told her to run away from whatever this was, or make him hate her before she started thinking she might find happiness in him.
She fought it down, but he saw it in her eyes, and he extricated himself. He swept his shirt off the floor, but he slung it over his shoulder. He didn't look back at her as he left, but she stared after him, eyes fixed on those scars.
She wondered – would she ever let him touch hers like he had trusted her with his?
yay! and why are we quoting Thanos!
xoxo
alexandra
#409
