Wibbly-Wobbly Ramblings

Idk if you will get to this or be able to answer but I was just wondering how you think Chewie and Han feel about each other (not in a romantic context)

Picture a stupid kid (not a kid, he would insist, he’s twenty-something, that’s practically middle age for his species thank you very much) fresh off his breakup with Lando and in that awkward middle phase when you pretend not to tear up when That Song comes on and drink things with an inadvisable sucrose-to-ethyl alcohol ratio

(”won the falcon in a game of cards”—okay, whatever, like we don’t all know that Han just sort of….kept it, like the unwieldy space equivalent of forgetting to give back the bf’s sweatshirt)

And this is the cocky preening insecure (drunk) idiot who saves the hero of Kashyyyk from slavery.

…….within about five days, Chewbacca is genuinely contemplating whether keeping his honor is worth listening to the same six stories again. Or having to co-pilot a ship that, as far as he can tell, is held together with slickplast and plastifoam. (Han doesn’t understand Shyriiwook yet, and so conversation is mostly them gesturing at each other and speaking very slowly and loudly. This is not effective in actually communicating anything.) Chewbacca can see the necessary logic of the smuggling lifestyle—what else could he do? it’s hardly as though there is an Army of the Republic to fight alongside any longer, or a Wookie people to defend—but it still disgusts him. The fact that Han Solo seems so comfortable, cocky, amid its dirty dealings and violent demands makes him wonder if he swore himself to the wrong person.

At least until a man in Mos Eisley offers them 50,000 credits to transport cargo to Coruscant. And—

Han goes white when he sees the cargo, stops listening to the preening man showing them around the warehouse. “Shit,” he breathes, in a very quiet voice stripped of all the cocky preening Chewbacca has come to expect from him. He looks at the twi’lek girls, their chains, like he’s never seen anything like it, like it’s not something he expected to see in this galaxy.

You found me like this, Chewbacca wants to say. Don’t you remember?

The preening dealer is going on about how valuable—how important—how many future opportunities they could have, if—

“Forget it,” Han interrupts. His voice is shaking, full of rage, and Chewbacca has never seen him so worked up, burning cold instead of hot. “Find someone else. I won’t—forget it. Deal off.”

He storms out of the warehouse. With a nod, Chewbacca follows.

“I’m sorry,” Han says as they walk back to the Falcon afterward, his shoulders hunched over and a miserable expression on his face. “I know—I know we’re running low on supplies, and the Falcon needs repairs, I know I haven’t—paid you. In a while. I’m sorry. I just…sorry.”

Han still doesn’t understand Shyriiwook, so Chewbacca reaches out and rests a paw heavily on his head. Han smiles weakly, and they walk the rest of the way in silence.

(They break into the warehouse and free the twi’lek girls, because of course they do. At least they manage to get into hyperspace afterwards, Han whooping despite minor blood loss. Chewbacca has to bully him into turning on the autopilot and at least lying down in his bunk with a bacta patch over the worst of it.

“You’re….you’re my best friend, Chewie,” Han says with a yawn, burying his fingers in Chewbacca’s fur. He looks like a young pup, just then, under the bruises and the drying blood. “I’ll—I promise I’ll be ready to go when I wake up, okay? Just…just let me rest my eyes…”

Chewbacca pets the—frankly insufficient—fur at the top of Han’s head, and lets him fall asleep like that, listening to the hum of the engines through the walls.)