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It starts with a ship.
It starts with Han in a leather vest, his collarbone visible through the holes in his shirt, his boots echoing like he's trying to remind himself he's here. Lando doesn't doubt he knows what he's doing, but god, he's young. They both are; Han just doesn't hide it behind a mustache.
It doesn't make him come off as innocent. It just makes him look all the more dangerous.
There's a ship and there's two of them and there's an entire galaxy of laws to break, and maybe sometimes there's more money in larger shipments, stashes that cover the floor and take over one of the beds, so maybe they share.
So maybe there's a bottle of Corellian brandy and quiet curses and not enough space for two bodies, and maybe Han's hands are a lot softer than they look.
Maybe it really starts with hands overlapping on the controls and long stretches of autopilot and selling the other bed to make a quick buck. And the ship shakes and shakes and Han coaxes it back to functional with easy touches, and Lando's knuckles stop going white on the controls when they land.
There's a night when Han says “I love you,” and Lando says “I know,” says, “I might start shaving,” says, “You know you look like a thunderstorm.” There's a night when they almost buy another bed. There are nights and nights and nights of crash landings in his skeleton and Han's voice pulling him awake and drinking everything they'd been saving because the celebration is that they're alive.
God, they're alive.
There are so many people that want them not to be alive, and that's how Han says it, “Every day is a fucking victory,” and they wake up and spit in the faces of thousands.
It ends with a ship.
It ends with a deck of cards and resignation and Lando has known this was coming for a long time. Han’s hands have a callous on his trigger finger when he sets the cards down, calm, businesslike. He hasn't shaved in days. It makes him look dangerous.