Work Text:
The flat steel bench is unforgiving under Luke’s tailbone, but as long as Platen, head of engineering, drones on, he is trapped to it. So the sides of his fingers rub against each other as he fidgets as much as he can — his leg bounces hard enough that he’s distracted the violet-skinned Omwati pilot on his left more than once, and his body is coiled up like a spring.
He doesn’t know whose idea it was to schedule a briefing just before supper, but Luke’s willing to bet at least half the pilots sitting on all sides of him are paying attention just as well as he. The interior glowpanels blaze down on them, washing out color in the bare hangar into deathly shades of bluish and pale, and he feels sort of bad for Platen. It isn’t this fault his voice is as captivating as a salt flat.
Booster prototypes is what he’s lecturing them on, prototypes that were initially conceptualized for the X-wings but the engineers wanted to experiment with similar styles for other ships in the fleet. Han, who is leaned up against a column at the far end of the group, has already cast Luke multiple longsuffering glances from over rows of heads — whenever Luke has flicked his eyes in Han’s direction because he just can’t help himself — and Luke knows he has no intention of making changes to the Falcon’s boosters and he really doesn’t want to be here at all.
Luke really doesn’t want to be here either. If he doesn’t get the opportunity to get up off the bench soon, he might implode. Every time he sees Han looking at him, the prickling in his skin gets stronger under his fresh black shirt.
Finally, like an airlock pushed open, Platen claps his hands and calls the meeting, and the room erupts into the clutter of moving bodies and conversation.
Luke lets everyone flow around him in their river of fatigues and flight suits, and he trails behind in the group heading for the entry doors. Pilots smack his back or tousle his shoulder as they pass him by, every friendly contact strengthening the smile that takes over his face. One of them catches Luke’s eye as they mosey on ahead of him, a depthless gaze under wild curls, and a deliberate, playful look from over their shoulder that might hook in his gut and make him wonder, if not for—
An arm swings around Luke’s shoulders and knocks him off-balance; Han tucks him snug against his side, and Luke’s stomach flips when he’s pressed up to a solid wall of warmth. They amble along together, and despite Han’s naturally long strides, he doesn’t push them to catch up with the rest, which revs Luke’s confidence up to something stronger.
Han’s voice is deep and mild over his head. “I’m thinking they’re just making shit up to have us do now to pass the time before they get everyone off this rock.”
Luke nudges into Han’s ribs. “Just because you don’t care what they’re talking about doesn’t mean nobody else does.” He hears an echo of his words off the ceiling as the building empties out.
Han chuffs and tightens his arm around Luke’s neck in a harmless squeeze. “I don’t care because it’s got kriff-all to do with me,” he needles. “All you pointer pilots sit around and talk about your boosters and leave me out of it.”
As Luke watches the entry doors ahead of them slide shut at the end of the silent hangar, Han gives him a shake.
“Why are we hanging at the back of the pack here, anyway? Not in the mood for dinner?”
Luke bites his lip and slowly disengages from Han’s grasp, messing up Han’s steps. He watches as Han slows up, confused, and he’s frizzing with hopeful anticipation.
“Not yet,” he says, then steps back toward a side passage that’s hardly half as well-lit as the rest of the floor. “There’s something I wanna take care of first.”
Han’s eyes narrow a little, the side of his mouth tics up, and at first Luke thinks he’s got no idea what he’s saying, but then recognition seems to dawn. Han shoots a look around to be sure they’re not being watched, and Luke’s heart leaps into his throat with excitement when Han follows.
Luke grabs for him, and Han’s, “I should’a guessed,” is almost a taunt while Luke just tugs him by the front of his shirt into the corridor. Yeah, Han probably should have guessed. Han’s the one who’s got him like this, after all.
He’s had his first true taste of another man’s touch, of wanting and of being wanted — and by this tall, roguish sharpshooter of all things, something straight out of the dust in a glitchy holofilm he would watch years ago at Biggs’ place, until Biggs waved a hand in front of his mesmerized face and joked that he was going to wear out the disc. And he laughed and shoved Biggs’ hand away as his friend shot him a white grin that glinted like his eyes, and Luke would end up staring for a moment too long.
Things are a lot different now. Biggs is… Biggs is gone, and all those films might be gone, too. But now, Luke isn't resigned to just staring. Now more is all there is for him, crawling over his skin for every second he’s awake and not with Han.
All but dragging Han down a short flight of steps at the end of the hall, Luke hears Han’s voice jolt with every footfall as he says, “You been back here before?”
“I saw it when they called us in,” Luke admits as they hit the base of the stairs, and Han barks a laugh that hits off the close walls much too loud. He hauls Luke over by the waist and presses him into a corner beside a storage closet door.
“No place is off the table for you, huh?” Han teases as he reaches to get the door open. The motion sensor flashes yellow and it doesn’t budge, and Luke yanks Han in against him and starts kissing him without an answer.
Han doesn’t need to know how consumed he’s been, how Han was an itch he couldn’t scratch from the moment they met, how Han cracked him open after he came back and saved his life and kissed him, and Luke’s been spilling out of himself ever since.
Han’s lips work his words between their kiss. “You’re kind of insatiable.” And for a beat, he thinks Han does know.
Luke’s eyebrows go up. “That’s a big word,” he says through a flash of a smile.
Han shows his teeth in a sneer that’s lean and a little dangerous, and Luke likes it maybe more than he should. “Lemme talk simpler for you, then,” he retorts a breath away from Luke’s lips. “Wise-ass.” Han squeezes his sides under his ribs and Luke goes electric, still beaming as Han guides his chin up and takes his mouth again.
He lets Han pry his lips apart, lets Han crowd him into the wall, crane his head back with the force of his kiss and loom over him. He doesn’t like being restricted, stuck in tight spaces where he can’t stretch or move or fight. On the farm, he would roll out of bed early and spend his time above ground as much as he could before being called in after suns-down, just to be outside of that cave. But Han cages him in — broad and strong and igniting his blood like the rare glint of lightning off over the Dune Sea; Han, who wants him, who came back for him…
It’s nothing at all like home, which isn’t home, is it; not anymore.
“Anyone ever told you how pretty you are?” Han says against his teeth. He gathers Luke up with his big hands to mold him like clay and drag the numbness of loss off his skin, stroking his sides, up his spine as his breath comes harder. “Your mouth,” Han murmurs, then sucks at his lower lip as Luke grunts softly. “Your neck.” Teeth scrape his jaw as Han moves under his chin.
Those hands slide around his thighs, closer to where heat pools between his legs, and he feels Han’s voice at his throat. “Bet the rest of you is nice and pretty, too.”
A pang hits deep and nauseating in Luke’s stomach, tightening his skin like he’s out in the cold. He hadn’t thought about this, about going this far and Han seeing more of him.
Well, no, he’s thought about it. Stars, he’s thought about it since Han, with his long legs and languid voice, first sat down across from him in Chalmum’s and looked him in the eye — he thought about it an awful lot last night in his bunk, sleep nowhere on his horizon. But he knows how his fantasies go, and there’s never an issue in them and never a hitch, because of course there isn’t.
Fingers toy under the hem of his shirt and skate across his lower back as Han licks a stripe up the column of his throat that coaxes a powerful shiver out of him. “I’ll bet you got a nice, pretty cock,” Han whispers when he reaches Luke’s ear, voice like a finger grazing up his back.
His lips are parted and he can’t catch his breath. No one’s ever said this stuff to him before, all close and promising; only the faceless lovers in his head. In his head, though, that tall roguish sharpshooter never said the wrong thing.
“Han… I—” he starts just as Han sucks at the tender dip between bone under his ear, and his eyes flutter. “Wow, keep doing that,” he breathes while his thoughts scatter out of his grasp.
Han snickers and does as he says, teasing his earlobe between his lips and tongue and making Luke’s limbs feel all soft. Han gets the shell of his ear between his teeth before he rumbles, “Just wait till I get you in my mouth,” and it’s like Luke’s been touched by the void of space, a heat so scorching that it might as well be ice. He has to get something out of his mouth before he forgets how to speak at all.
“Han, uh…”
Nothing else makes it through, but this time the uncertainty there is enough to make Han slow up and pull back.
“What’s the matter?” he asks, then he ducks his head to meet Luke’s eye. His face is doused in shadow. “I don’t have to talk all” — he flicks his gaze to the side — “y’know, if you don’t want.”
Luke feels a nervous giggle bubble up in his chest. “No, no, it’s… You” — a quick glance down between them where their bodies don’t quite meet — “might not like what you see.”
What if Han won’t touch him anymore? What if he doesn’t have what Han wants and this is over?
But Han just seems amused. “Kid, don’t worry.” His voice pitches to a higher, harmless octave. “I don’t give a damn how much you’re packing.”
“No, it’s not— No, I’m not…” Luke flattens a hand back over his hair as he exhales with incredulous frustration, and he can’t stop his smile that cracks like transperisteel. Skies, this is awful.
He can feel Han’s eyes raking up and down his face. “Luke.” A callused hand goes to his wrist where his fingertips dig into Han’s chest. “Hey, if you don’t want this, you gotta tell me. I don’t exactly get off on having a reluctant partner.”
Luke gives up. He takes Han’s hand in his and slides it down between his legs to press to his crotch, his pulse kicking up speed at the touch and like it’s trying to outrun the fear of this whole thing imploding.
Han pauses, blinks. His face goes blank, no doubt at the boldness of it.
“I do,” rushes out of Luke before he can regret this. He looses a short breath. “I really want this, but…” He trails off as he holds Han there against him. “If you don’t…” His stare is glued to Han’s face, darting between his eyes though they are lowered to their joined hands, as his heart slams against the walls of his chest and a quiver coils in his jaw.
Han huffs a weird little laugh. “Uh. Well, forget what I was sayin’ about cocks.”
On the edge of hysterical, Luke cautiously removes his grip, sliding his palm up Han’s forearm before he pulls away entirely, and it’s just Han’s hand between his legs.
“You’re not…?”
Han raises his eyes to meet Luke’s stare, but there’s no confusion or frustration, or worse, that Luke can make out, cloaked in the dim as they are. “Not what?” Han asks. “What were you thinking, I’d be disappointed? Is that it?” His mouth splits open with a breath. His voice is gruff. “Shit, Luke, I’m the one who started goin’ off before I even got your pants down. I just didn’t know you'd be so forward.”
His cheeks go hot. That hand is still there. Han steps in closer, pressing their bodies together from chest to thigh, and oh, he can feel Han through their trousers, hard and nudging his lower belly, and black heat is a molten fist in his gut. He did that.
“I didn’t mean to make you nervous, kid,” Han tells him, low and level like how a herder would gentle bantha spooked by the wind. “’M sorry.” And Luke thinks he means it. Han slides his hand up slow and Luke loses his breath. He wonders if Han can feel him throbbing, pleading for the touch of another, now that he’s closer than anyone’s ever been.
Han tucks his face under his jaw. “Let me make it up to you,” he says into Luke’s skin. Lips kiss the bone there, the side of his cheek. Luke doesn’t know what to do, what he’s supposed to do. “Let me make you feel good.” His pulse thunders in his ears as the panic of newfound eagerness zips under his skin.
Han rubs him over his pants and the seam of the material digs in through his drawers. One of his hands fists the front of Han’s pale shirt, the other grasping at the hair at the nape of Han’s neck to try and ground himself while he does the only thing that comes natural to him and hitches against Han’s palm.
“If you just…” Han murmurs, wispy, and he sounds distracted. Luke’s chest is heaving as Han curves in around him, and he’s so stupidly turned on, it almost hurts. He feels awfully small in Han’s deeper shadow, a liquid, pliable thing. “Just let me do this.”
A manic laugh escapes him and he wets his lips. “Right here,” he observes. Anxiety and blistering desire twist together oily and thick in his stomach in some wild, disconnected thrill.
“You started it,” Han replies, and Luke is breathless and without argument. “Want me to stop?”
“No—” It hardly comes out, fast and shaky as Luke grapples at Han’s neck and shoulders. He swallows and says stronger, “No, no, don’t.”
Han goes for the clasp of his brown trousers, knuckles brushing the skin of his belly and making his muscles tense. “Good,” cuts from Han. “Swear I can’t go five minutes without wantin’ to take you apart.” His voice strains as he works the material open, shoves his hand under Luke’s drawers and down, over short, coarse hair, and the slide of his fingers is a shock against Luke’s aching flesh. Han’s skin slicks with his generous wetness, and his mouth falls open as that wide palm rubs into him. It feels like the world is slipping out from under his feet, and he holds onto Han in fear he’ll actually fall. Skies, he can’t even think.
Luke sighs hard, then again, like the air is abandoning the stairwell. “That… Oh.” A dizzied groan escapes him, and he gives up all his self-control and whimpers, “Oh, that feels good.”
“Fuck, Luke.” Han’s voice breaks on this edge of a thin sound Luke has never heard from him. They’ve only known each other a matter of days, though — there’s tons Luke’s never heard from him.
A finger drags up between his folds and Luke bites down on a whine as his hips lurch to follow the touch, and Han presses in and keeps rubbing him. Fingers curl in to tease him deeper, and he grabs Han’s face and kisses him to stifle the noises that claw up out of his throat.
Han’s tongue is eager against his own, dragging over his teeth. Han skates his hand up to his clit and starts circling, just grazing around the nub, and Luke’s mouth goes slack against Han’s with a sort of airless sob. They’ve known each other a matter of days and he’s touching Luke where only Luke’s hand has ever touched, and it makes him burn.
“’S that good, too?” Han says low enough to scrape through his chest as he speaks, and Luke’s whimper is much too loud — his voice. Han smears a hand over his mouth, and Luke’s eyes blink open with a start as he gets a warning look. “Take that as a yes.”
Han starts to massage his clit between two of his knuckles, up and down, slow and tight, and Luke wrenches into his touch. He moans with abandon into Han’s palm, grinds against that hand, and somewhere in the wreck of his mind is a little voice. It’s telling him he’s acting like someone in one of those other holofilms, ones his friends would nab in secret when they could find them and trade off between each other after a few nights’ indulgence. His aunt and uncle hadn’t had a decent projector at home he could steal away for some time, and watching with any of his friends was never on offer, but Luke heard things, and he’d always been told he had an active imagination.
But a handful of bored, giggly teenagers trying to describe the best parts of a dirty holo is nothing, it’s a speck of sand, it’s less than that, to this. To Han’s breath in his ear, the weight of his body pressing Luke to the wall, the long, heavy strokes of his fingers that nearly bring tears to his eyes. He’s never known touch like this, he doesn’t think his body has ever moved like this, and it’s absolutely destroying him.
Falling into a haze, Luke tugs the hand down off his mouth. “Han—” He ropes in a breath. “Can’t breathe.”
“Then you have to be quiet,” Han rumbles, and Luke bites into his lip with a keen.
“While you’re doin’ that?” he throws back. That being the most incredible thing he’s ever felt.
“I can stop,” Han replies, friendly as a switchblade. Luke feels Han’s middle finger dip into his entrance, and his thighs tighten around his hand.
“Easy, baby,” Han soothes, moving to mouth and lick at Luke’s throat as he rubs into him. “Loosen up. I don’t wanna hurt you.”
Baby. Luke pulses with a rush of arousal, and there is no way Han doesn’t feel it. A rough thumb strokes the outside of his folds, strokes a groan right out of him. Baby. Oh stars, the way that makes him feel, cradled in the husky slide of the smuggler’s voice.
“You like being called that, huh,” Han says, lips following the beating line of Luke’s pulse and making him all shivery. “Sure seems like it. You are drenched.” And Luke flushes to the roots of his hair.
“I do this to you?” Han goes on, just goading Luke for the good of his pride.
His back bows as he tightens his fist in Han’s shirt. “Han— c'mon, just…”
Two fingers pet at his entrance. “Tell me, Luke.”
“What d’you think?” he gusts out, indignant. “I—”
He flusters with a tripped-up laugh. He doesn’t know how Han does this to him, like it’s a skill, honed to dig into his mind and drive him right out of it. Rallying his nerve, he grips the hair at the nape of Han's neck tighter, as if pinching himself to distract from a greater pain. “Last night, I— uh, I touched myself and thought about you.”
The exhale he gets in response is a sharp gust on his skin, and so is the next, and it shakes like Han is laughing. “Oh, fuck this.” It comes out of Han violent and thick, firing straight to Luke’s gut.
And then Han drops to his knees, yanks Luke’s pants down to his thighs and his drawers with them. He says harshly, voice rolling down Luke’s spine, “Cripes, kid, you’re gonna kill me,” before Luke can even startle at the touch of naked air on his skin and catch up to what he’s doing. Han wraps his big hands around Luke’s thighs and buries his nose and mouth between them — Han’s tongue takes a long drag up the center of him, and his entire body goes boneless, sagging against the wall as he practically mewls like a newborn kit.
Han licks apart his folds and into him, nose nudging his clit, and Luke’s moan is helpless and shakes him down to his bones until he’s flooded with flame. He plants the back of his hand against his mouth as a flush burns up his neck and across his cheeks, and the other rests on Han’s head, tentative and flighty, so overcome with the shocking stab of pleasure up from between his legs, his mind flies apart.
Han laves up the length of him and flattens his tongue against his clit, and Luke twitches in his hands; then Han starts to suck at it and he gasps and arches off the wall and snarls his fingers into Han's hair all at once. Han groans in satisfaction and grips his legs tighter, and Luke’s eyes roll back in his head as the sound bleeds into his flesh. Engulfed in relentless sensation, he hardly realizes that Han had eased a finger into him.
It thrusts smooth and slow like Han knows just what he’s doing, rubbing deep into him, stroking into places he never thought could be felt, and Luke’s never felt like he knew what he was doing. He hardly ever tried exploring himself because it never gave him anything, just cramped his fingers and made him frustrated and sweaty. Even now, it's nothing compared to the hunger of Han’s mouth, but it’s also a completely different feeling in itself, and so foreign when it’s someone else's hand, when their fingers are long and skilled and unrelenting.
Luke screws his eyes shut, lip wedged between his teeth as quick, breathy groans slip out, but he can’t even maintain that for long. Another finger nudges in alongside the first, and Luke tenses at the intrusion, but Han’s tongue lathers his clit, smothers the ache, and his lips drift apart for breath as he rides Han’s mouth, fisting his hair, working for more of his heat and his tongue and his fingers, anything, anything—
“Did y’think about this?” Han’s raspy voice is muffled. He suckles at him and it almost tickles; Luke squirms as his thighs clench on either side of Han’s head, and Han’s free hand caresses the hollow of his knee. “’Bout me eating you out? Tasting you till you came on my tongue?”
He hadn’t even gotten that far last night before he fell apart, and it doesn’t even matter, but Luke gets hold of his voice, his words for what he wants, as he digs his head back against the wall.
“Gods, Han…yes, yes— fuck me,” wrenches out of him like it hurts. Now he’s sounding like he could be someone out of those holofilms. The desperate force of his own voice sets his skin aflame, but he can’t be bothered to care. He feels so filled and like he’s just barely hanging on, and all he can do is suffer it and exhaust himself by rocking his hips to meet Han for every thrust.
Han breathes rough and it shakes. “You’d like that,” he exhales on Luke’s clit. “Like me to fuck you right here, so anybody could hear you.” Han sucks him between his lips again and he struggles to keep from crying out. “You’d be so tight, and wet.” Han sighs. “Maker, you’d feel so good.”
Riding the rhythm of those fingers delving into him again and again, Luke fails to stifle a little wail that’s half for Han and half out of sheer desperation. He feels Han smile against him, and he might lose his mind if he thinks about that too much.
He stumbles through a messy, enraptured laugh, restless hands raking through Han’s hair and making a mess of it. “Han,” he begs, for something; for more, for mercy, he doesn’t know. Stars alive, he can’t believe they’re doing this. He feels wild and reckless and like any damn thing he wants, he can get — these last few days, nothing feels impossible anymore.
Luke trembles from head to toe. His hair sticks to his forehead, his neck, and he can feel the building deep in his gut as Han trades off between burying into him and licking up his juices, and rolling his tongue over his clit, working it with his lips and melting Luke against his mouth, so efficient he can’t keep up, can’t bear it any longer.
“G-gods, Han,” he gasps out. “Please, please.”
Luke chances a look down at Han as he pulls away with a ragged burst of air, too loud, panting just as hard as Luke, still stroking in farther than he thought he could ever be felt. Han is wet with him, from the tip of his nose slicked all down to his chin, and his flaming gaze is impossibly dark, and the sight is so overwhelming, Luke has to shut his eyes and lean back into the wall again and breathe.
Han lets out a noise that could be a laugh and says, “I got you, baby.” His voice is scratchy and it rakes up Luke’s spine. Han nips at his folds; his free hand slides up Luke’s thigh to his bare ass and grips tight, holding him close, licking him up, wide open and savoring, and Luke thinks he's going to cry—
“C’mon, I got you,” Han pushes, curls his fingers like he’s beckoning Luke to let go, and the pressure has Luke bucking up toward him without meaning to. “Come on, sweetheart.” But Han doesn’t have to bother because he’s already there, oh, he’s right there.
The surge takes him and he’s shoved over the edge. He releases a grieving breath, then his whole body locks up. “Oh, f-fuck—” His voice cracks and one hand clutches a fistful of Han’s hair while the other knocks his teeth as he smothers his mouth when he somehow remembers where he is as release slams into him.
He lurches against Han’s mouth; Han makes a noise that ripples through him and his knees buckle. Han’s hand moves to grip the groove of his hip as he spasms, and Han keeps going all through it. His head pitches back, before his neck goes weak and he sags forward again, hair falling over his brow.
Gasping, Luke takes drags of air like a half-drowned man, and he knows the sound is hitting off the walls of the short stairwell. He knows he’s a wrecked, whimpering mess, but he’s too far gone for it to matter. A hand still splayed in Han’s hair, that and Han’s vice of a hold on his hip are the only things keeping him upright as his head spins.
He hears Han sigh, and lips smear along his swollen, oversensitive flesh, and Luke jolts with a halted noise. His body tremors as Han slides his fingers out, and a kind of emptiness follows. Han rubs his folds with those two fingers and Luke collapses into a moan, weak and shivery.
Han lays kisses on his inner thigh. “Beautiful,” Han murmurs, and Luke preens, letting out some dazed, meaningless noise in reply. The word blooms between his lungs; it feels like he’s glowing.
He finally lets himself slump into the wall on quivering legs as Han hefts up off his knees. Luke’s hand slides down the back of Han’s skull as he stands, still curling his fingers in his hair. Han bends in and mouths a languid trail up his throat, soothing and wet, and Luke’s head lolls back to offer more of his skin. Han hums in what sounds like approval, making Luke shudder as bliss embraces him.
“That was…” Luke flashes a breathless smile, wavery with the ebbing tide of ecstasy. He still can’t seem to breathe right, and he swallows. “That…” Exhale, inhale, out and in. “You, uh…” He gives up, and his ensuing chuckles are delirious.
Han pulls away from his neck to look at him, smooths damp hair aside from his brow. He murmurs, “For once, he’s out of words,” then kisses Luke deep, with the same mouth that was just tasting between his legs.
Luke goes dizzy at the thought and groans into him, long and loose and shameless, both hands fisting in Han's shirt and pulling them in together. Luke licks into him, sure he’s tasting himself, and Han laughs between their open mouths, one hand groping his ass and making him sigh. His body is tingling, boundless, like he’s clambering down Red Five’s ladder all over again and the world is loud and whirling, and joyous noise is raucous in his ears, and Han is yelling his name and slamming into him and he’s here, right here, adrenaline-red and lit up like a firecracker, and Luke’s never been happier to see someone in all his life. And Han came back for him—
“I was right,” Han says against his mouth, and Luke blinks his eyes open, having lost himself in Han’s lips and the reeling of memory.
“’Bout what?”
Pulling back, Han strokes Luke’s lower lip with damp fingers, damp with him. “You’re nice and pretty everywhere,” Han practically croons, and on top of everything else, stirring in the center of Luke’s chest, he feels warm, syrupy relief. This almost seems like a dream. He doesn’t think Han realizes what he’s just done to him.
Catching Han’s eye and holding it, Luke licks at those fingers. Han’s gaze sharpens and he slides the fingers onto Luke’s tongue and into his mouth, a sleek, slow smile cutting across his face. It’s a wolfish thing too much to be the focus of, and Luke’s racing heart skips; he just shuts his eyes and closes his lips around the fingers, and even in the dark behind his eyelids he can feel the weight of Han’s stare. He feels dirty, but he’s completely coated in a quivering sort of contentment. And besides, he wasn’t the one just on his knees.
Han pulls his fingers out, drags them down Luke’s chin and draws a slick, cool line. He gives a subtle shake of his head and muses, “The things I wanna do with this mouth.”
Luke lowers his voice. “What kind of things?”
Eyes hooded, Han tucks a finger under his chin. “Keep pullin’ me into dark hallways and you might find out.”
Han kisses him again, and Luke can feel him pressing into his hip, still just as hard and wanting.
“Han,” he breathes, “you haven’t…”
A huff of air. “S’alright, don’t worry about it.” He almost sounds pained, and white-hot want spears through Luke’s gut.
“What if I wanna worry about it?” he whispers hard at Han’s lips, sliding his hand down Han’s chest in hopes to show him. “I want you.”
Han looses a sigh that makes his stomach sink under Luke’s palm. “Kid, you don’t have to—”
Luke’s fingers stutter and catch on Han’s belt; he’s callow, and he knows it. He’s never touched anyone else before, but he wants to touch Han. He wants to know how Han feels in his hand, his girth, his skin, and more, if he has the chance…
He tips his head and moves further up into Han’s space, closer to his mouth to hear his breath grow shallow, and stars, he wants to learn what other noises Han can make.
Then all of a sudden, like he’s closed his eyes tight, everything goes black.
Luke startles, and they both freeze up.
A few beats of quiet. Then, “Shit,” from Han, and Luke almost laughs.
He listens to their breaths while fiddling with Han’s belt loops. “Uh, we can go to one of our rooms?”
There’s an amused huff, and Han takes a breath. “After I eat something first.”
A thrill jitters Luke’s nerves as, “I thought you just did,” slips off his tongue before he even knows what he’s saying. Alright, now he sounds like someone right out of those holos.
It’s harder to make out Han’s face now in the darkness, but he can see Han tilt his head with this incredulous smile and wet his lower lip and get it in his teeth — Luke is fixated on that mouth, an echo of heat flaring deep, deep in his core. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to look at it the same again.
“They’ll only give me so much time to get something from mess,” Han drawls as he shifts in flush against Luke’s front. He smears a thumb along Luke’s jawline. “You I can have all night, and I’ll tell you, kid, I don’t know if that’s enough time, not for what I’d like to do.”
A small noise falls from Luke’s lips, and he worries the fabric of the vee of Han’s shirt between his knuckles. “Do you talk to all the guys like this?” he jests as steady as he can. Han’s smile just widens.
“Only the real fun ones,” Han says while he gets his arms around Luke’s waist, tracing absentminded shapes on the base of his spine. “And the ones who…blow up space stations.”
Grinning big enough to hurt his cheeks, Luke probably looks like an overeager rookie, if Han can even see him that well at all, but he feels like nothing else. He’s coasting along on a high that has lasted him days. “The ones who manage to keep you around, you mean.”
Han’s smile is shadowed then, fades from the corners of his eyes, and Luke realizes that might not have sounded the way he meant it to sound.
“If they can manage that,” Han replies, “they might as well work miracles.”
There’s a tightening around Luke’s throat. Lot of simple tricks and nonsense, he hears. Han doesn’t believe in miracles; he seems to believe in caution above all else. But— but he’s still here.
Luke’s mouth is dry when he says, “Blowing up a space station seems sort of like a miracle.”
His mouth still crooked, Han looks at him, just a look, one that Luke is swiftly frustrated he cannot seem to read.
“If you think too hard about it, it might,” Han acknowledges. He cocks his head. “Besides, one miracle too many and you’re pushing your luck.”
You saved my life. Luke had said it to him in the shaft of the Falcon after their ceremony, before he had crossed the empty space between them, grabbed hold of Han’s jacket and pulled Han down into him, the medals on their chests clacking together.
Han had been so certain about wanting nothing of this, of jetting out from under the eye of the Empire and finding the far end of the galaxy in record parsecs because they were all certain to die. Were miracles not, by definition, things that turned certainty on its head?
That tightness in him thickens, turning cold and sinking in his chest. He can’t help but feel that Han is warning him away from something — away from him, from this. He doesn’t want to think about Han taking the opportunity to leave now, in this brief respite, now that there’s no thought of a lone X-wing flying for its life in a trench to drive him to turning around and returning to Luke. Not right now that Luke has him.
He knows what this is; he knows he's afraid of a future loss, and the familiarity of it is frightening. All he can think of is Biggs, when he first left for the Academy and left absence in his place to eat away at Luke’s heart and to feed his loneliness and his restless aches instead. He doesn’t want to be there again; he doesn’t want to be that person again.
Shoving down that rising weight, Luke rocks on his feet and finds his voice. “Should we make sure they didn’t lock us in?”
He sees the red glow of an emergency light glint in the whites of Han’s eyes as he casts them up the stairwell. Without Han’s attention on him, he feels oddly alone and starkly naked, which he still is. Quietly, he drops his gaze as he tugs his drawers up his thighs and over his hips, and he starts on his pants when Han’s face turns to him again.
“Here.” Han’s hands tangle with his own — “Let’s get you back together.” — as one of them tries to get his trousers right and the other to get his shirt straightened out. There’s nothing but the rustling of his clothes, neither of them speak, and when he’s in one piece again, the silence that settles in leaves him unsure what to do with his hands.
Han smooths Luke’s shirt; then he lightly combs Luke’s hair on his brow into something a little neater, and they both slow to a pause, Luke at the softness of the touch, and Han as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing.
Luke swallows and a shy smile quirks the corners of his mouth. “Am I— How do I look?”
He feels fingers trace the collar of his shirt. “Better when I can actually see you,” Han says, then ticks his chin toward the steps. “C’mon.”
No one locked them in the hangar, as it turns out, and Han makes a crack about the excuses they’d have to think up if they were there inside to greet the cleaning crew come morning.
“Now,” Han blusters casually as the sliding doors scrape shut behind them, “you said something about one of our rooms later?” and Luke gets a rush of delight. There is more air out here in sight of the looming trees, it feels like; more space to exist and more light beneath the gatherings of stars over their heads.
He doesn’t have to be that person again — he isn’t that person. He’s standing in grass, not sand, and there is someone here who wants him.
Luke moves in close to Han and tries for it. “Mine’s closer,” he offers, toying with the hefty buckle of Han’s belt. “But the, uh, the walls are kinda thin.”
Han sways closer still. “Saying you’re gonna make me get noisy, huh?” His eyes glimmer as he regards Luke from down his nose, and he’s relishing his height over him right now, Luke can see it. “You think you’re that good?”
Obviously, Luke doesn’t think anything close to that. He can’t, he has nothing to go by, but Han doesn’t need to know. So he nudges Han’s chest with his fingertips. “I thought you liked my mouth for a reason.”
That earns him a sharp smirk. And then Han is twisting him around, planting a hand on the center of his back, and driving him down the path in the direction of the makeshift mess hall, his voice a tease in Luke’s ear. “Don’t get too sure of yourself, kid.”
Han also doesn’t need to know how much he likes that Han is taller than him, or the way Han gets his broad hands on him and handles him like he doesn’t weigh a thing.
It takes a dozen strides or so for Luke to start hearing muffled ruckus in the night ahead of them. The sounds of shouts and conversation trigger an odd laugh in the back of his throat.
“D’you think anyone noticed we never left the building?” he wonders, and he can hear Han’s rueful humor in his voice.
“Given that they turned the lights out on us, I think we’re alright.”
They walk under the shadowed patches of jungle that shroud the temple base, Han pushing him along and him pretending to be bothered about it, and Luke lets those words linger in his mind.
We’re alright.
It wouldn’t hurt to let them take root. It wouldn’t hurt if they ended up being true.