a very happy birthday to silver_x_cross!
I went into this with graphics in mind, but this ficlet happened instead. I hope you like it.
PROMPT: None, it's a birthday ficlet!
AUTHOR: Jessi, princessjessia ( Disclaimer)
FANDOM: Star Wars, Labyrinth [
parabolical universe]
CHARACTERS: Jacen, Tenel Ka, Sarah
SUMMARY: Conventions come with a twist when you're fictional.
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 896
NOTES: for silver_x_cross on her birthday, with much ♥
"Is it really necessary for so many of them to be wearing that outfit?"
Looking up from the convention materials in her hands, Sarah spotted the woman in the slave-girl Leia costume several feet away and had to hide a grin. That brought the count to twelve in the last twenty minutes. With each addition to said count, Jacen Solo's lack of amusement with the situation had increased exponentially.
"What can I say," she said with a shrug. "The outfit is a hot commodity." A brief pause. "Like your mom."
It was only after she'd deemed it safe enough that she lowered the bag enough to peer over it at Jacen.
Unsurprisingly, the jokes still weren't funny, as he hadn't let up on the glare. Not just any glare, but that 'I was a Sith lord and don't you forget it' glare of doom. It only made her want to laugh harder.
She held the edge of the bag to cover her madly twitching lips until she could say, with the most believable straight face she could manage, "your trauma is very serious and I'm sorry."
"Traumatized by what, precisely?" The even tone, betraying no amusement, came from Tenel Ka as she moved back to the other two. But just because no amusement was shown did not mean no amusement was there, or that Tenel Ka hadn't been paying just as close attention, a fact quickly shown.
"Another of those costumes. They truly are very accurate, don't you think, Jacen?"
Jacen's response was both biting and verbally creative, which only served to draw the attention of two of the Leias. Their subsequent fawning over his 'Star Wars vocabulary' and Jacen's attempts, eventually successful, to extricate himself from their grasp was the first time that day that Tenel Ka and Sarah erupted into joint laughter.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The existence of fanfiction was, by this point, old hat to Jacen and Tenel Ka. Sarah likely should have prepared them for the fanart. Or, at least Jacen, as Tenel Ka had taken nearly everything to be found in the convention center with her same admirable calm.
"You will never draw art like this again," Jacen said clearly, holding up a sketch of what appeared to be Leia sandwiched between Han and Luke.
"I will never draw art like this again," the artist parroted back with a vaguely glazed look.
Two tables over, Sarah set a poster down and turned to Tenel Ka, speaking in an undertone. "He's doing it again."
"Yes, I see that."
"How many times is this now?"
"Three, I believe. Or are we counting all of the rows in this room?"
"You're still not stopping him?"
"No, I am not."
"Why?"
Tenel Ka held up the sketch in her hands, obtained at the last table Jacen had worked his skills at, a rendition of Jacen and Tenel Ka in their youth. "This world needs more art like this. I am doing these fans a favor by not stopping him."
Not even bother to conceal a laugh at the amusing self-servingness of the whole thing, Sarah shook her head. "You're both hopeless. Are we going to spend the entire convention converting every Star Wars artist in here to the Extended Universe?"
"Of course not," Tenel Ka said, then smiled slightly. "The artist at the next table has what appears to be Labyrinth art."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
While it had been great fun in the past Sarah to tease that she could be a better Jacen Solo, the fun of the last hour was completely about Jacen being Jacen.
At least, the costume competition had been fun until Jacen had lost - to himself. Sort of.
"There are still other things around, let's go do one of them," Sarah coaxed, clearly torn between amusement and distracting the very glowery Solo.
Slipping an arm through Jacen's, Tenel Ka steered him away from the gathering. "Souvenirs are a typical part of this experience. You can have anything you would like."
Jacen waved the second-place medal around again. "He beat me. At being me. I'm the-"
"Sorry, man." The winner in question slowed as he moved to pass around the trio. "You just don't have," he snapped out the toy lightsaber and struck a pose, "it. But you," he winked at Tenel Ka, "do. Call me."
As Tenel Ka let the offered business card flutter to the ground, Sarah stared fixedly at the departing Jacen cosplayer's back, biting her lip to curb the laughter as she listened to the thoroughly disgusted masculine mutter at her side, concerning the several things that might be 'it' that he did have and that at least one such 'it' was seconds from being drawn to permanently remove the man's head from his shoulders.
Eventually Jacen looked back at the two women with him, expression darkening further as he stared them down, clearly picking up on all the undertones queenly composure times two had worked to conceal.
"Are you laughing at me?"
Tenel Ka shook her head, lips almost twitching. "That would require understanding why the situation was funny."
"Oh, that. He just doesn't have," Sarah struck the previously used posed, sans lightsaber. "It."
"A-hah. Now I understand."
All pretense gone, the two women dissolved into giggles as Jacen glared.