Saga - OT A Little Help, Here? [Han, Luke, ghost! Anakin post-RotJ. Humor]

Title: A Little Help, Here?
Author(s): vader_incarnate
Timeframe: post-RotJ, sometime before Mindor
Characters: Han, Luke, Ghost!Anakin
Genre: Humor. Fluff.
Summary: There’s a lot of things you just don’t learn, growing up on Tatooine and then spending young adulthood as a fugitive. But isn't that exactly what friends are for?

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When Luke sent him the terse message ten minutes ago - Need help. I made a mistake. Please don't tell Leia - Han had dropped everything to come to the Kid's door with a fake identity card and a fistful of credits, ready to help bury the body.

Han had been involved in a lot of lawbreaking in his time, and instigated a lot of it, and he’d heard a lot of confessions. And a sizable minority of those confessions were about being an accessory to murder. So he thought he knew what he was getting into when he married into the Skywalker family. But somehow, he had never expected this particular brand of foolishness.

He'd been pacing the length of Luke's Coruscant apartment since Luke had started telling the story, and was continuing to pace as he attempted to process it. The apartment was small but functional, and the common area held little more than a couch and chair. There hadn't been much time for interior decor since the Battle of Endor.

Or for traffic safety classes, it seemed.

“Kid," Han finally started, then paused, looking over at the chagrined Jedi who was sitting in the armchair with his head held forlornly in his hands. Han sighed. "You are the origin of the phrase ‘to blow up a Death Star your first time in a starfighter.’ How can you possibly not know -”

“Well, that’s exactly why!" Luke exclaimed, looking up sharply. He took a hand and swept it through the air in a complicated series of barrel rolls and figure eights. "Starfighters don't have turn signals."

That was a fair point, but - "That's because space doesn't have turn lanes, Kid!"

"Neither did Tatooine!" Luke protested. "We didn't have any lanes. We just had sand, and more sand, and you just -" and here he made another wild series of gesticulations Han wasn't sure how to interpret, "- stay out of people's way!"

Han muttered a curse under his breath. Sometimes it was a little too easy to forget that the great and powerful Death Star destroying Jedi had been a backwater farm boy not very long ago. “Luke," he said, finally. "I can’t believe I’m saying this. But you can’t make a habit of mind-tricking your way out of traffic tickets because you can’t figure out how to use a turn signal.”

“I panicked, Han, okay?" Luke sighed. He paused, weighing whether he wanted to complete the confession, and finally continued. "And it wasn’t just the turn signal. Have you ever heard of a driver’s license?”

Han's brain promptly short circuited. “Luke. You don’t have a driver’s license?”

Luke looked aggrieved, big blue eyes shining with hurt. “So you have heard of them? Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“How do you not know -”

“We don’t have them on Tatooine!" he yelled, throwing his arms into the air and allowing his Jedi calm to evaporate in a fit of exasperation. "And I spent the last four years trying to hide my identity so my father didn’t come violently murder us. And why do I need a license to drive a speeder when everyone knows I can fly an X-Wing?”

An amused voice behind Han answered, "Because you don't know about turn signals."

Han yelped, half turned, half stumbled backwards, and fought valiantly to free his blaster from his holster before belatedly realizing that Luke didn't seem to be particularly worried about the unexpected company.

Instead, the young Jedi groaned again and reburied his face in his arms. "Father. Did you come all the way from the netherworld of the Force to laugh at me?"

"I heard you say father and violently murder in a sentence together and took it as my cue," the voice answered dryly.

Father?

The third man in the room was glowing faintly blue. He looked young, with a strong, sharp face and a long scar running through his brow and down his cheek. He'd been lucky not to lose the eye. His hair was shoulder length and gently waved, and he bore a distinct resemblance to Leia. His daughter.

Leia, his daughter. Leia, Han's wife.

This was his father-in-law.

"Um. Hi, Mister Vader. You're looking quite -" and here Han groped for an appropriate adjective that wasn't dead and settled on, "- blue." He immediately mentally slapped himself.

"Captain Solo," the ghost replied. The voice wasn't Vader's deep baritone, but still low and rich. He raised a sardonic eyebrow, and his lip curled slightly into a smirk. "My daughter married you, for some reason. We're family. Surely we can drop the formalities. You should call me 'General Skywalker.'"

Han shook his head, bemused. "Naw, that's too confusing, he's -"

"I was joking."

"You joke?"

"I've always joked," the ghost deadpanned. "I had a devastating array of truly breathtaking choking puns that I deployed at the most inappropriate times. But no one laughed, for some reason."

Han's brain, which was still rebooting from the previous short circuit and which up until this point had been operating in a sort of bewildered autopilot, promptly short circuited again.

"Father," Luke groaned, in a way that made Han think that this wasn't the first time his father had employed a terrible pun in reference to his own mass murdering sprees, "stop trying to break Han. Leia won't appreciate it."

The ghost - Anakin? - drew himself to his full height, and flourished his cloak dramatically. It didn't work as well as it had when he'd been Vader, but was still an impressive sight. "Captain Solo," Anakin intoned, "your assistance is no longer required."

Han, who had shown up ready to bury a body but who had still somehow ended up under prepared, was nonetheless hesitant to leave his friend with a mass murderer. Even if it was his father. His dead father.

"Yeah? What makes you say that?" Han challenged.

Anakin smiled. It was a surprisingly pleasant expression on his face. "A father,” he said softly, “ought to teach his son how to drive."

Han took a moment to process this. He glanced over at Luke, who had pulled his face out of his arms and was sending his father’s ghost a small smile of his own.

“Besides,” Anakin continued, shrugging again, “I’ve had my own experiences adjusting from Tatooine’s to Coruscant’s driving traditions. Turn signals are the evergreen bane to the Skywalker line.”

There was probably reason to doubt the traffic safety knowledge of a ghost who referred to speeder laws as driving traditions, and Han made a mental note to check on Luke later to make sure the young Jedi hadn’t picked up any strange ideas. An additional strange ideas, at any rate.

“It’s fine, Han,” Luke sighed. “Thanks for coming to help, I appreciate it. You should get back to Leia.”

"Sure,” Han responded slowly. “Of course.” He’d just have to find a place to keep the shovel and tarp, before he made it home to the apartment he and Leia now shared. It was probably worth holding onto, just in case; he didn’t know what would happen next time the Jedi needed help, after all.

Han walked towards the door and as he stepped out and prepared to pull the door shut, he shot a glance over his shoulder to glance at the strange tableau he was leaving. “Take care, Luke. Have fun, Darth Dad."

Anakin’s ghost laughed.

End.

 

*snags*

 

Well, you sure hit the ground running, didn't you? Angsty dark side!Luke and crack fics, it's just exactly like old times

It is absolutely hilarious to me how literally Han takes this, and how realistic it is that he might just need to

This is entirely reasonable And since we all know that in Mos Eisley anything goes, the bigger population centers, such as they were, probably weren't any more concerned about traffic laws than the remoter areas were. If you're not running over pedestrians or into buildings, what's to worry about?

Poor Luke

Finally we see the genesis of the line in NJO: Balance Point where Mara reflects that Luke is fully licensed to fly anything up to a Mon Cal cruiser, keeping up his flight hours and taking all the necessary tests. Clearly the boy was traumatized by this early experience

To borrow a phrase from Mira, oh, Anakin, you trash king

I strongly feel that Zahn would appreciate this

Aw The Skywalker family really does have its own take on every aspect of life

I get the feeling that this is basically Han's entire life since meeting Luke and Leia

 

I come in two flavors! And I've written a lot of the former recently, so seemed overdue for the latter.

I gave it a single line in "Inversion," in which Han was apparently told to keep Leia's meeting with Darth Vader a secret from the rest of the Rebels on Endor - but apparently he does that, because he's such a supportive boyfriend, and that was just quietly hilarious to me. Han Solo is the twins' ride-or-die and I absolutely needed to give him credit for that and explore it more deeply. Slightly more deeply, because this is after all a crack fic.

I was inspired after having a conversation with someone about traffic laws in Southeast Asia, which are more suggestions than laws. Like the Pirate's Code. But honestly, I'm so intrigued by how flying car lanes must work? How?!

He's a quick study, our Luke.

I didn't know how desperately I needed "Vader loves terrible puns" added to my headcanon of Vader until after he delivered the line about choking on your aspirations in Rogue One.

They're so dysfunctional and sweet.

I read somewhere recently (Tumblr? Twitter?) about how the OT trio works so well together because each of them thinks they're the adult in the room - Luke has to keep Leia and Han from killing each other in a lover's quarrel, Han has to keep Luke and Leia from weird Jedi Force shenanigans, and Leia is usually the one in possession of the single brain cell.

 

Ha, this was great! I love how Han thinks he has to help Luke bury a body and doesn't even think twice about it. And then that doesn't even prepare him for what he's truly going to experience with his in-laws during that visit. Anakin's dry sense of humor was great (a holdover from Tatooine, no doubt), and amid the humor I liked seeing some of the culture shock that Luke must have experienced going from backwater Tatooine to metropolitan Coruscant being addressed. It helps link those two very disparate parts of his life together and makes everything feel more cohesive and realistic.

I wonder what "driving traditions" Anakin ended up teaching him and what Han had to correct later. Though I imagine Han has a few "driving traditions" of his own, LOL. Chewie might have to correct what Han teaches Luke in turn.

Awesome job!

 

Very cute story. Lynda V.

 

Love it! A few thoughts and highlights:

• Of course Luke doesn't want Han to tell Leia-- he gets all the glory, but she wields all the authority
• Anakin's mass-murdering puns is a form of dad jokes
• Ghost!Anakin is omniscient, so he is naturally compelled to intimidate his son-in-law
• I see what you're saying about driving on Tatooine being like Southeast Asia, but there's something about Luke that just says rural Saskatchewan to me.

 

It had me laughing the whole time. Good job!

 

Luke getting confused by the concept of a driver's license shouldn't be so funny.
But it's Anakin's interactions with Han that really takes the cake.
We really need more stories exploring the Darth Vader as your father-in-law dynamic. It's too perfect to waste!

 

"Darth Dad", lol!

 

Loved the teasing about driving licenses and traditions Darth Dad is just too fun interacting with Han. Definitely too funny of a trope to waste.

 

So glad someone mentioned this in the Reading Challenge so I could wake myself up laughing at Han and Mr. Vader and Luke vs. the Turn Signal.