Friday, October 14, 2011

The Quickie Challenge (#1)

The following delightful story 
was submitted by Elivagar in response to our "Quickie Challenge".  

We are so pleased to have this wonderful contribution 
and hope others will soon follow suit.  

In the meantime, enjoy:

Leia was on a warpath. If the door hadn’t cycled open fast enough, he was sure it would have been demolished by sheer force of her stride. Stretched serenely across the couch of their apartment, Han lifted his head to better glimpse at the indignant little ball of fire tearing through the living room. It wasn’t that she had necessarily been loud, but he had grown rather accustom to her quiet arrivals. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to be greeted with an unannounced embrace, or touch of the shoulder, but so far he hadn’t received anything of the sort.

She swept past, light robes gracefully fluttering in the wake of less-than-graceful motions. Exasperated mumbles escaped her tightened lips in huffs, accompanied by head shakes as she disappeared down the hallway. A moment’s worth of contemplation roused him quickly to his feet, the sudden worry beginning to creep in that maybe, just maybe this could remotely have something to do with him, and if it didn’t, it soon would.

And it wasn’t that it was unusual for Han to have a fuming princess on his hands. Years ago he would have considered it a fairly common occurrence, but lately he found that it took some well placed button pushing to drive her to that point. At the moment, what he had was a ticking time bomb floating through the apartment. When the sound of cabinet doors slamming and opening started in, he knew he had better get down there, fast.

She better not be breaking anything in there.

He assumed a relaxed stance as he leaned against the doorway of their small office space, looking on curiously as Leia was knelt over a drawer, shuffling furiously through its contents.

“Well, hello to you too.”

She twisted, darting a surprised glance over he shoulder. “Oh Han, I’m in a hurry right now.”

He nodded, waiting for some kind of elaboration on her statement but she carried on her frenzy. Crossing his arms, he continued to watch her dig out stacks of flimsies and various unmarked datacards, tossing them carelessly on the desk above.

Moving to kneel on the opposite end of the desk she was currently tearing to shreds, he opened a drawer and began mirroring her, tossing items here and there over his shoulder. It took a minute, but it finally garnered the attention he was seeking.

“What are you doing!”

“I was helping.” He answered innocently.

“You‘re making a huge mess!”

“Well what the hell are you doing?” 

She rolled her eyes and expelled a harsh sigh that caused him to shift slightly.

“I’m trying to find the presentation I finished yesterday...” She ground out, stuffing items forcefully back into the drawer.

Of course
, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe, why didn’t I know that. He was doing his best to reign in his amusement as she continued to backtrack and describe her routine the night before, as well as the early morning. He wasn’t sure if she was actually speaking to him anymore, but listened anyway, watching an escaped strand of hair dance atop her head as she berated herself. He took notice of the red tint in her face, the heaving of her chest. Her wide brown eyes bore back into his, and was reminded of the Leia he knew once upon a time. The Leia who just wouldn’t shut up sometimes, and who he secretly wished he could make shut up just by pressing his lips against hers, controlling her wild tongue with his.

And here she was, still moving at the speed of light. The smile he had been holding back broke out brightly across his face. She halted and stared at him blankly, suddenly infuriated all over again.

“I’m sorry, is this funny to you? I have fifteen minutes to find it and get back to the meeting hall!”

Reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a datacard and waved it between two fingers.

“You aren’t looking for this, are you?”

At this point, he was sure her eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. Sputtering, Han leaned over to place a kiss on her hot forehead as he slipped the card in her hand. He moved in to place another against her lips when he was met with a small hand on his chest, obstructing his path. The fire wasn’t completely gone from her as she gazed up at him beneath furrowed brows.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had it this whole time?”

His voice lowered an octave, completely aware of the effect it had on a certain someone. “You’re the one who stuck it in my pocket when I picked you up last night.“ He lightly ran his fingers up her outstretched arm, smoothly slipping her hand from his chest to rest between his two larger ones. “It didn’t dawn on me until now.”

She took a moment to assess his honesty, and she seemed to accept it. His eyes dipped lower and slowly made their way back up to hers, finding the red had deepened, for an entirely different reason, finally giving into his kiss. The crescendo of what started as a feather light kiss grew rapidly. He leaned into her, arms tightly wound around her small frame as her own hung limply around his neck. Just as he finally thought he had shut her up, she opened her mouth again.

“Han, I’m going to be late.” She gave a half-hearted wriggle, but the thickness of her voice betrayed her protest.

“Relax, you’ve got fifteen minutes.”

She let out a sigh of what he decided was either pleasure or anger, or both.

You have fourteen minutes…” She corrected with an earlobe caught between her teeth.

The thrill of her challenge drove him to lift her up plop her down in the midst of the mess she had left on the desk. He moved to stand between her short, dangling legs and she complied to let him in. As they collided for another fervent kiss, one arm pressed her tightly against him while the other made a lame effort to clear a larger space on the desk. As items clattered to the ground, Leia shifted her head to the side. Damn, she’ll probably make me clean that up later. He dove quickly to capture the exposed flesh with his lips in the hopes it would distract her from his fine mess making skills--then he remembered again that this had all been her doing.

Before he knew it, the bare minimum of clothing had been shed and added to the nest they created. Taking her over and over again on top of and surrounded by everything that was normally a hindrance to what they were currently enjoying only served to fuel his excitement. Gradually quickening his pace, she clung to him with equal enthusiasm until they had both fallen over the edge.

With just enough time to spare, Leia was tidied up and almost headed out of the apartment when she froze in her tracks.

“Han…where is the datacard?”

“What? I handed it to you--” He paused when he caught the anger spark up again in her eyes.

Well, he reckoned, this can only end one of two ways; extremely bad or extremely good.

**

Another big thanks and a huge round of applause to Elivagar for sharing this.  

Well ladies, the gauntlet has been thrown, this challenge is officially ON!  

Who will be next?

9 comments:

  1. What a really great piece. I love the entire second paragraph from the contrast of the graceful flowing robes to her 'less than graceful motions' to her talking to herself to Han worrying if he's in trouble or, if not, soon will be. I could picture this entire scene perfectly. Magnificent job.

    I loved the way you had Han tackle the problem with joining her in her mess making. Again, could totally picture him doing that. And his flashback to the Leia of old and this sentence: "The Leia who just wouldn’t shut up sometimes, and who he secretly wished he could make shut up just by pressing his lips against hers, controlling her wild tongue with his." :-)

    Okay the quickie was great, Leia challenging him with the fourteen minutes and adding to the mess of the desk/office...but when Leia asked him for the datacard afterwards I about fell out of my chair. Priceless! A perfect ending.

    Thanks again for sharing and Bravo!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, this is fun :) Nice job with this. And glad you stepped up and started us off without the closet so other people know they don't HAVE to do it that way. Everything Push pointed out specifically I enjoyed as well. Knowing if he wasn't in trouble already he would be, throwing stuff on the floor to get her attention. But I also love that even though she is obviously very angry and frustrated he remains calm and goes from figuring out what's going on to using the time wisely :) Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well done! Your characterization was spot on! You've set the stakes pretty high for this challenge!
    And bravo for being the first one to write a quickie!

    I'm looking forward to the next! :-)

    Maybe one from Push or Zyra? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This was fun! I could picture the scene in my head. Great job!

    I actually wrote something as well. How would I go about sending it to someone?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great! Send me or Push a message via ff.net and we'll get it posted :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. If you have trouble posting it in a PM on ff.net (like it doesn't like italics) just let us know and we can give you an email address via PM on ff.net.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks all, and thanks to the P and Z for allowing these contributions. Again, the thing I like about this blog is that it offers encouragement to tackle subjects that (at least I) wouldn't normally touch. I look forward to seeing more of these spring up. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. this was fun. I always love it when Leia's on a rant and Han shuts her up ;-)

    I've promised myself that if I clean up one more chapter of the Bespin story this week, I can write a quickie as a reward.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I really liked that part about Han's thoughts on shutting the old Leia up. Liked the characterization too. Nice job!

    ReplyDelete