fulfilling a promised lesson on the fine art of blasting things ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Walking back to the Millennium Falcon through the Nexus has gotten a little bit easier each time.  The first time, it took him more than an hour to get back despite the fact that his ship has always been parked about a thousand yards away from a path that leads to the forum.  The shiftable nature of this place makes no walk to and from anywhere as straightforward as it seems, but you can get used to it.

 

For a while, he cleans up the areas that he thinks both he and Verity are likely to be in for a while - the cockpit and the lounge especially, but also near the entry ramp and the living quarters.

 

He did promise lessons on how to fly and in due course, he will get her into the sky with him ... but he's still doesn't have a ton of fuel yet and the priority was always teaching her how to use the blasters.  So he's pulled four weapons out of the storage lockers, completely disassembled them and cleaned them.  He also discharges all, but one, of the plasma magazines.

 

They get placed them on top of the holochess board, which, sadly, is among one of the biggest flat surfaces available to him on the YT-1300 and then, he takes a shower and slips into a light weight pair of pants.  It seems to take a long time for him to drift off in the small bunk that he's claimed for himself.  The sound of the winter wind skips across the surface of his ship and makes a low howling sort of sound.

 

This is one of the reasons it's always preferable to put your ship in a proper hanger, but, when you're Han Solo, you work with what you got.  After a few hours he wakes up, not knowing what time it is, until he opens the entry ramp and looks outside.

 

It seems too early for her to arrive.  The sun hasn't even reached the apex of it's path yet, so he decides to lay back down.  Leaving the ramp down for her to facilitate her letting herself in. 

Comments

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han starts to lean in closer to Verity. It's subtle. He's a little more interested in this all of a sudden. And he's a bit surpised that she's willing to entertain and even encourage this behavior, though, it seems a shame that is no smugglers ball to speak of.

"Allow to speak from experience that sometimes that does work." He purses his lips thoughtfully. "Do you think you could pull it off?"

In fact, making someone work for attention feels like it's happening to him right now, on some level.

Also, not that he's apt to say this aloud, but he kinda struggles with the idea of Verity commanding a room, with her being on the withdrawn side around him.

[brave_heart_verity]

It really is a shame. She secretly loves that kind of thing. Especially if there's dancing. But really, any excuse to get dressed up and take her mind off things is welcome.

"No con is guaranteed success, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to pull one over on you." She smirks and leans forward, casting him a glance over the top of her glasses that's both playful and challenging. "Can I get dolled up and then spend an evening not being interested in boring people? Gee. That sounds tough."

She knows how to flirt, she just rarely chooses to.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han places the palm of his hand on his chest to keep himself from swooning and he flashes her a rueful smile.

"Careful, sweetheart, it's working."

Honestly, he wishes he was kidding, although, he might be embellishing his reaction a little bit for the sake of making her smile again.

[brave_heart_verity]

The pantomime makes her laugh again and shake her head. He should be careful what he wishes for.

"I promise to only use my powers for good," she answers solemnly. "My good, your good... what kind of good might be negotiable. But always something good."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Frankly, he never wanted to lock lips with her as badly as he did when she was mock flirting with him and talking about stealing from people. As much as they're laughing it off right now.

Han's not surpised at his own realization of that, but he's not sure what it means and, ultimately, it's not likely to affect what's going on between them. At least, he's pretty sure his efforts aren't going to get him any closer to her than they are right now. Not anytime soon anyway.

Still, he's done eating, so he's going to stand up and stretch. Crates will do for sitting on when you got nothing else, but they're hardly comfortable for a long period of time.

[brave_heart_verity]

There's a brief look of surprise when he gets up without a word. Guess that's done, then. She'll take the moment when he's stretching to clean up. (Yes, she was prepared for that, too.) It's also a chance to try and figure out what she did wrong.

The flirting, she decides. It was too far. Won't be doing that again.

"So, what's next?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

A shame. If he would have known he had a moment, and missed it entirely, he would have been kicking himself. Still, it's not as if he hasn't been up front that he likes her - her ability to detect his lies notwithstanding. There's only so much he can do before it's on her to reciprocate a little.

"I'm gonna put these crates away." He points out. "Then we either handle my prized possessions or we can go see the stern of the ship."

[brave_heart_verity]

Her passions have never run hot; they're so rarely flaired most people would think they don't exist. He isn't missing much. But she's aware that she's the defective one, and she shouldn't tease. That was wrong, and worse, it was unkind.

"One prized possession or another? Tough choice. But we might want to get some practice in before we lose the light?" It does get dark so fast this time of year. She'll help him move the crates if he'd like.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He can honestly say, he's got no idea what Ver's thinking. Not now and not really at any point before that either, which is saying something, because he has a knack for reading people.

Maybe that's part of the allure, she interests him because he can't see right through her. He also likes her to the point that he doesn't really want to push her away. So for now, he's walking the fine line.

He's not going to request her to move them for him, the crates, that is, but he wont deny the help either. He stacks the two they were using for seats on top of each other and starts pushing them back to the cargo bay.

"Wasn't planning on shooting today. I was thinking we'd just going over parts and maintenance and trying to figure out which size, if any, jump out at you."

[brave_heart_verity]

She's pretty much a human Voynich manuscript, all full of color and mystery and signifying who-knows-what. Cryptography has its fans for reasons. Mysterious reasons they don't want anyone to know. And maybe even scoundrels like having boundaries sometimes.

No, he doesn't need to ask her to help. Being useful is the price she pays for companionship. Moving a crate is nothing compared to some of the things she's done.

"Ah. Right. Safety first."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Is that disappointing to you?"

Part of the problem is that they don't really have a good place to shoot either. He wouldn't want Verity's first shots to be in the cold and the wind. There needs to be some stillness while you're first learning everything.

But, ... thre seems to have been a shift in her mood as far as he can tell. He, probably wrongly, assumes its because she's tentatively being told she'd not being able to blast anything.

[brave_heart_verity]

Her emotions are a discarded heap on shifting sands. She had no idea what's going on half the time either.

"A little," she admits, "but I understand why we're starting there."

There are gun ranges and shooting galleries and the like, but she's grown up with the idea of tin cans on the back fence. Some cultural hand-me-downs are hard to shake. "I'll get to shoot them someday, right?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han wouldn't blame her. If it was him, he'd be utterly dissapointed, as a matter of fact. There's maybe a small part of him that wonders if there was something else, but ... he shakes the feeling off.

And his preference would be shooting outside too, if the weather were better.

"Well." He purses his lips. "Maybe we'll go up on the roof and shoot a few bolts." He actually kind of wanted to get up on the roof to gaze at the stars later ...

[brave_heart_verity]

There is always something else. Several of them. A face she'll always look for in the crowd, a name that makes her want to cry, memories of fire.

But there's something nice to look forward to, so she chooses to smile instead of moping. "That sounds fun. Thank you."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He certainly has his own baggage. Not to mention he has a fair bit of experience consoling women in pain, but that's neither here nor there. You can only help when someone wants to let you and he understands both sides of that.

"No problem."

Han secures the trio of crates back in the storage crates with a maglock and then, he'll lead them over to the holochess board that his toys are laid out on.

"I laid out four types. There's a hold-out blaster, two kinds of heavy pistols, and a blaster rifle.

[brave_heart_verity]

The better she knows him, the more she'll open up. Skittish tauntaun, remember? And she's more likely to talk about these things when they're not going to need steady nerves to play with his toys.

Ver looks over the options; it's not hard to figure out which one is which. She makes no move to touch them without explicit permission--she's been well-trained in that regard already. "Where I come from, the bigger the gun, the bigger the impact. Is it the same with these?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

The holdout blaster is the smallest one. It's clearly tapping into an easy to conceal modality in it's design. These are the one's Han tends to hide on his person somewhere if he expects things to go down.

The riffle is obviously the biggest one. That one is semi-automatic, which, is actually kind of rare where he comes from. It's easily the most powerful looking gun on the table.

Of the two medium blasters on the table one is a DH-17 which kind of resembles the length and bulk of a one handed riffle and a DL-44, which is the same model as in Han's holster.

"Generally speaking, yeah, the bigger the gun the harder it hits." He says with a nod. All the guns are somewhat disassembled. Barrels detached, gas cartridges and power packs removed. "You can touch them, if you want."

"Knowing how they come apart and how they're cleaned is vital to making them reliable, because they'll find the worst times to jam on you if you don't. I'll probably teach you how to do that next time."

[brave_heart_verity]

"Thank you." They've been taken apart, but she doesn't know what those parts are so she's going to treat them like they're loaded. No fingers near triggers and no pointing them at him ever. Contrary to trope, she goes for the little one first. It would be the easiest to conceal, which appeals to her. There are a fair few places she could hide it.

Next she examines the DL-44. "This is like yours?" Ver is very detail-oriented. "Of course, I'll have to learn to take care of the weapons, every good crew member needs to know that sort of thing."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"I like that you're observing the first rule already." Technically, he broke it earlier today, but, they're well enough passed that. Or he thinks they are, anyway.

The holdout blaster is so small that Han can actually palm the weapon if he needs to. Though it's not as if he'd be able to keep it hidden for a real long time with just his hand. Solo has been known to carry two on his person, along with the trusty DL-44 on occasion.

He is possibly thinking too deeply, but, it says a lot to him that she looks at the holdout weapon first.

"In the fact that it's the same model." He confirms to her question. "That's a standard. Mine is modified."

[brave_heart_verity]

She grins, but she doesn't look away from what she's doing. He gets to break the rules because it's his ship and his guns and he's much more familiar with these things. "Samus has been teaching me about weapon safety," she explains. "A fair bit of it carries over. Handling them is a whole other story."

If he's getting the impression she's not a killer, he'd be right. If he's got the impression she hasn't been armed every time he's met her, he'd be very wrong.

"Modified?" She puts the blaster down before giving him a curious look. "Is that something you did yourself?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han removes the stability strap from his holster, engages the safety of his weapon and removes the pistol. Carefully, he hands the gun for her to examine with the barrel pointed down at the floor.

What she notice right away, if she's detail oriented, is that even though this one is fully put together, it's nearly as light the shell of a blaster she was touching before. There is also a different scope on it. There are a few things different on the inside as well, but she won't notice that from just observing it.

"All by myself." He says with a slight nod.

[brave_heart_verity]

The pistol will remain pointed at the floor the whole time she's holding it, and not pointed at their feet either. She suspects that would hurt.

"It's light." She notices the scope too, but it's the weight that really impresses her. "If you'd ever be content with a desk job, you'd be an excellent engineer. And a dangerous one."

Back home, he would have built himself a suit of high-tech armor and... well, she hopes he'd have been a hero. If for no other reason than he doesn't deserve to be stuck around people like Boomerang and the Chameleon.

"Is there much recoil on these?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han Solo behind a desk?! You might as well clip the wings off of a bird, lady.

"Helps when you're trying to draw your weapon as fast as you can. Every ounce matters." He points out. If she's impressed with him, he can't really tell, but, he wasn't necessarily expecting her to shower him with praise over making his gun slightly easier to pick up.

"Hardly any. Not on weapons this small."

[brave_heart_verity]

That would be a crime.

There's a moment before she responds; thoughts of her home sweep her up into times and places that will never be. It can be hard to escape. But she comes back with a smile and a nod. "So I've heard. It's impressive."

She offers the blaster back to him. "But on some of the larger ones?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He would find it interesting that she could see him as a superhero, or hope for it anyway, if he were from her world. As it is, he doesn't know what she's thinking, all he knows is that she's smiling at the moment.

The smuggler's hand settles against hers, seemingly uninterested in the gun. It's a gentle touch and he doesn't bother to try to say a clever line, thereby spoiling the moment. When it feels like he should, he will take replace the gun into his holster.

"There are some extra large caliber artillery weapons that have something of a kick, but they're more used for wartime purposes." We're taking weapons big enough to put holes in starfighters. Nobody is going to be trying to handle one of those without a mount, though.