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Luke goes and gets religion from a sarcastic old witch in a secondhand bathrobe, and Han’s never met a problem he couldn’t punch, so when he’s left in his ‘64 El Camino with nothing but the sweat on his hands and the gel in his hair, he lays on the horn for a good long minute before he thunks his skull back into the headrest.
Fuck Luke and his daisy duke camos and knee-high socks and the world’s worst tan lines three days later. Fuck his massive fuckin’ doe eyes and his stories about shooting raccoons off the dumpster from his bedroom window. Fuck the easy slope of his wrist over Han’s steering wheel that kept Han from doing anything but wanting that hand in him. Fuck his unpracticed confidence in drag races and in drag and in Han’s lap while Han was busy trying not to have a panic attack, like, excuse him for not knowing where to put his hands or how to be a man who’s less than sixty percent bravado.
Han’s been a card-carrying atheist since age ten, so he can say this: that old man may want to die a martyr, but Luke’s the one who’s got the Jesus thing going on, anointed to save the world and a really good hugger if you get past the awkwardness of asking. Han’s just some apostate with bills to pay.
Him and Luke in the bed of his truck, though, talk about holiness. Han had never seen a body like his until he’d had all of Luke’s shameless nakedness under his hands, and that’s gotta count for something, right, he’s never had a come to Jesus moment but he’s come on this Christ figure’s thigh and fingers and face and he’s been a goddamn changed man ever since.
Han’s an asshole orphan high school dropout with a weed stash bigger than his bank balance and more than his fair share of wanderlust (and plain old lust, if he’s being honest, which he rarely is, but he couldn’t help but admit the way his mouth went dry every time Luke stretched his shoulders or stuck his elbow out the window). He gets that he’s not really meet-the-parents material even if Luke had any to speak of, either. God, what a bunch of sob stories, way past the age where people feel any pity about it.
Luke had wanted to get a place, some crappy apartment where they could argue and watch movies on Luke’s old laptop and fuck in the kitchen like a couple of domestic assholes, but Han’s been living out of his car more years of his adult life than not, and the first time she didn’t start when he turned the ignition, his heart kicked into overdrive so fast he almost fainted. He’s never gonna try to explain how any sort of safe harbor scares the shit out of him.
His flip phone beeps, and when he interrupts his brooding to check it, it’s Luke. Just an address, some guaranteed shithole where the stubborn bastard is sure to have gotten scammed into putting down a deposit he’s never gonna get back. Still, it’s—it’s good, okay, in the way that feels like it’s gonna burn him, or like how people dying of thirst can’t drink water too fast or they’ll puke it up. Getting enough of a good thing after so long without it can kill you, and Han’s not like Luke, he doesn’t have a whole mountain range of hills he’s willing to die on.
He’s familiar with the street it’s on, though, someplace flat and rowdy, somewhere Han would be comfortable and Luke would be all wide-eyed and kept up at night by the noise, even after all these years out of his one-stoplight hometown of dust and teen angst. It’s a royal flush and a peace offering and a conscious temptation. Han cranks the car.