#because monday

He stood up, a little abruptly. “Come on.” Scooping up the wine bottle and tucking it under his arm, he grabbed his glass with one hand and her hand with the other. “Lounge.” 

Mara bit back a sharp retort about being hauled around like a sack of topatos and snatched up her glass before they were through the door. 

“Tell me more about the food at the Palace,” Luke commanded, handing her toward one end of the sofa. “What you hated most.” He dropped beside her, close enough that their thighs touched, and scowled as he refilled her wine, then his own. “What could possibly have been worse than ration bars?” 

“Ration bars,” she informed him primly, “are perfectly good food. They’re convenient and --”

“Not food,” he interrupted, decisively. “Tell me about real food, Jade. Fancy things. Weird things.” 

“I bet they eat all sorts of weird things in Tatooine. Bugs.”

He laughed, scooted closer. “Not bugs.”

“Okay then what?”

“People think womp rats are weird,” he started with the air of someone having explained this countless times, “but --”

“Wait, womp rats?” she leaned towards him. “Like vermin?”

He waved a hand. “It’s all in how you stew them.” He thought back. “And you have to make sure they’re not diseased.”

“Stars, you are weird.”

“Not food, though.” 

“You could be.” She raised an eyebrow, pointedly. 

His face fell, pinched, and his grip on the wine glass tightened. She winced. “It’s not -- you’re beautiful,” he stumbled over the words, one hand ducking inside the robe at her ribs, pressing as if he thought she’d push up and away from him. “I — I want —”

“Rank,” she cut in. His face screwed up in confusion. “Rank,” she repeated. “It’s -- you asked what was worse than ration bars. It’s a -- a paste, sort of.” 

Luke relaxed. “Yeah?” 

He leaned in, nuzzled her shoulder, nosing aside the robe. “Tell me.” 

“It’s awful.” In spite of herself, Mara wriggled a little lower into the sofa and tipped her head. Luke burrowed deeper against her. “Slimy.” 

“Mmph.” 

Taking that for “keep going,” Mara searching her memory. “They serve it in buckets.” 

His chuckle was a puff of warmth against her throat. “Do not.”

“I’m serious. Hey --” She caught his glass as it canted dangerously sideways, appropriated it. 

“Buckets.” Freed of his glass, Luke slid onto her, his hands shoving at the robe, rucking it askew. “Exaggerating.” 

“I am not!” Indignation rose. “It comes out of barrels in a -- a slurry.” 

“Hmm.” He sighed, inching down until his head rested at her collarbone, his arms tucking in around her. “Lies,” he mumbled against her skin, rubbing his cheek against her breasts the way Senator x’s overly affectionate office feline rubbed at her legs whenever she had the misfortune to attend meetings there.  

“Lies! No, they served it in ships. Mainly cheap transports, I think. It’s only saving grace is that it had all the ingredients you need. Kind of like a ration bar, come to think of it, but the texture is terrible. Maybe it was cheaper, I’m not sure where they produced it. A lab somewhere most likely. Rank is not the type of food you actually cook, by any meaning of the word, but at least it’s not Hutt slime and diseased rats out on the edge of nowhere, Farm boy.” She took a breath expecting the obligatory quip. 

All she heard was a snore. 

She snuck a glance down, seeing his hair poofing around her chest. She could feel his breath soft and even on her.

Kriffing hell. Mara dropped her head back and let her eyes fall shut. He was asleep. On her. Like -- like she was some kind of pillow. Or -- what were those things his niece and nephew had in their travel carriers last time she saw them at an event? Stuffed somethings. Kashyyyki wild things of some kind in absurd colors, fluffed all out of proportion. 

Five minutes. She was going to give him five minutes to realize he’d dozed off and come around, and then she’d make her excuses and take off. She spent the time surveying his apartment in detail, making note of things she’d missed before -- where the controls for the lights were,subtle security measures. Signs that someone -- probably Luke, or maybe someone from Organa’s staff -- had removed tech fixtures recently, doubtless to upgrade their encoding and anti-hacking capacities. 

At the four minute point, Mara realized she was roasting. The apartment was always warm by her standards -- a fact that worked to her benefit when she was naked on her knees on Luke’s floor. Her cheeks heated at the memory, and her body reminded her petulantly that as naked as she’s been -- and as half dressed as she now was -- she had not, in fact, been kriffed tonight. She shifted her hips with an unhappy sigh. Luke mumbled in his sleep and nosed himself deeper between her breasts… which did nothing at all for her unsatisfied itch and served only to press more of his desert-bred body against hers, increasing the likelihood that she would die of heatstroke in short order if she stayed put.  

At exactly five minutes from when he’d snored at her, Mara relocated both their half-empty wine glasses to the table behind her and shoved at Luke’s shoulder with the heel of her hand. 

“All right, Jedi. Up.”

He snorted, jerking, and twisted to squint up at her, blearily. “M’ra?” 

“Up,” she commanded again, using her best I’m in charge here tone. “Bed. Now.” 

“Com’fble.” He nosed at her breasts again.

Oh, no. Mara grabbed a handful of sandy hair and tugged, bringing his head back up. “I am roasting to death,” she informed him. “And I’m not your pillow. Get. Up.” To emphasize her point, she tightened her core and did a full-body roll, as she might have on a sparring mat. 

Unprepared, Luke toppled straight to the floor, hands shooting out clumsily to catch himself so that he landed on all fours. “Ow!” He scowled up at her, cranky and peevish. 

Unmoved, Mara swung her legs off the sofa. “Bedroom.” 

“Tired.” He complained.

Rolling her eyes, Mara hooked a hand under his arm and hauled him upright. “Yeah, I noticed.” He mumbled grumpily, but was pliant enough as she dragged him around the couch. “Don’t grouse at me, Jedi,” she pursed her lips as she hit the lights on their way into the bedroom, darkening the rest of the apartment and bringing up just enough illumination to see their way to the bed. “I’d planned to kriff your brains out, remember?” 

Stopping beside the bed, she dragged the covers back, then set about making short work of Luke’s clothes. He swayed on his feet, obviously only half awake, if that, as she efficiently stripped him.  If her hands wandered a little it only made her more aware of how the night had turned into a wash.

“I brought you food and my favorite wine,” she lectured, scowling at his sleepy face as she pulled his undertunic over his head.

He sighed when she dropped to her knees and peeled him out of everything below the waist, his hand drifting over her hair. For a second she held her breath that he could somehow bounce back and tug her forward, but when she looked up, he only mumbled, “Soft.” 

“For the price of my cleanser it better be.” She rose. “Into bed.” 

“Hhmm.” He didn’t so much climb in as fall, but she ignored that, turning instead to pick up the clothes laying in a heap where he’d been standing. Luke made a disgruntled sound. “You.” 

Mara put his folded pants on top of his tunic. “I am not your pillow.” She grabbed his belt and lightsaber, setting them neatly atop his clothes and started on her own, still laying around from where he’d stripped her earlier. 

“Space,” he pointed out, crankily. He made a useless, flailing gesture toward the other side of the bed. 

“It would serve you right if I went home,” she reminded him, stacking her clothes neatly on the dresser. 

She really should. He probably wouldn’t remember any of this anyway. Turning off the lights, she made her way back to the bed anyway. It was late. Disappointment and thwarted desire left her drained and unsatisfied, and the idea of riding the mav-lev like this, the too-bright lights, the crush of people, the silent, empty walls of her tiny apartment… Mara undid the belt of the robe, sliding it off her shoulders and draping it over the end of the bed. Crawling under the covers, she stretched out. Luke really did have a very comfortable bed. 

There was a rustle, and then Mara jerked as Luke rolled directly into her personal space and latched his arms and legs around her like a Lew’elan star squid strangling its prey. 

“Luke!”