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Han opened his eyes slowly and immediately regretted it. The blinds were open allowing the bright sunshine into the room, which was far too bright as far as he was concerned. Blinking quickly, he tried to let his eyes adjust to the morning light. He felt terrible. His body ached, he was in dire need of a shower, his mouth was drier than a desert, and his head, oh his head hurt like it had been stamped on by a Wookiee.
With a pathetic groan, he looked around the room, from where he lay on his back on the bed. It was a large, luxurious room, and he vaguely recalled that they had won big last night. They, of course, was him & Lando. When they had heard about the casino planet, a whole world dedicated to gambling, a visit was inevitable. And it had more than exceeded expectations, they had spent a long evening in the bustling, lively city devoted to Sabacc, flitting from one game to another, losing occasionally, but winning big a fair few times.
In fact, their final two games had been so successful that they had treated themselves to this swanky hotel room. They had raided the mini-bar before heading back out to enjoy the nightlife of the buzzy city. There had been drinks, many, many drinks. So many drinks that Han’s memories of the night were fragmented. He didn’t remember much apart from the part where they stumbled back into the room to have sex. That, he remembered very well.
A low moan interrupted his thoughts. Lando, who was naked, lying on his front, was waking up. His eyes opened and then shut quickly again. Clearly, he was feeling just as awful as Han was. Letting his eyes wander, Han found his gaze travelling down Lando’s naked back to the curve of his-
“Good to know that a hangover won’t get in the way of you checking me out.” Lando croaked softly, turning his head fully to face Han.
Eyes snapping back to Lando’s face, Han spluttered, “I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“I...so what if I was?” He muttered, trying to stifle the embarrassed tone to his voice. “We have sex. We can .... check each other out too.”
“You are so easy to wind up.” Lando said with a soft chuckle, taking his turn to look at Han. “What’s that?”
“Huh?” Han murmured distractedly, dragging his gaze back from where it had gone once again.
“That.” Lando poked him in the chest.
‘That’ turned out to be a small, square bacta patch. “Uh, I don’t know.” Han poked at the patch which he had up to that point not noticed. Peeling it slowly off, it revealed a tattoo.
“Ha!” Lando began to laugh, leaning closer to Han’s chest to inspect the tattoo. It was a little red heart with the letter ‘L’ in black. “L...for...now, who could L be?! Whose name could you possibly want permanently marked on your body?”
“I...I...it’s not your name, it’s the letter L which could stand for...for...any number of things.”
“Sure...” Lando rolled over onto his back, a satisfied grin on his face, “You know-”
“Ha! Well, look at that!” Han reached over to pluck a matching bacta patch off Lando’s chest.
“Kriff.” Lando sighed, as he noted the tattoo on his own chest, exactly the same as Han’s apart from the letter - ‘H’.
They stared at each other, then at the tattoos, and then back at each other.
“I need a shower.” Lando muttered, as he heaved himself off the bed and headed into the ‘fresher.
Han lay in the bed, wondering what this all meant. Was Lando angry? Did he hate the tattoo? Would he get rid of it? What did it mean that they both had these? He had to admit, reluctantly to himself, that their relationship had been getting closer and closer recently. This wasn’t just sex between friends, it was something else. There was a passion and a tenderness there that Han didn’t necessarily think two people who were just friends would have. Were they in love? Han knew he loved spending time with Lando, he knew that he loved the sex, he knew that he found Lando attractive, but he also knew that no-one else made him feel so happy and he didn’t care about anyone in exactly the same way he cared about Lando. And he’d felt a wonderful jolt of warmth when he’d seen that H in a heart on Lando’s chest, matching the one on his own. His stomach had fluttered in a pleasing way that he was almost completely sure had nothing to do with his hangover.
Kriff, he was in love. Well, he wasn’t going to be the first one to say it. And besides, Lando had rushed off to shower pretty damn quickly. Did that mean he was regretting things going this far between them? Maybe the tattoo had made Lando feel awkward or made him want to reconsider things.
Meanwhile, Lando had reappeared, toweling himself off, before chucking the damp towel at Han.
“Don’t think too hard. You don’t wanna sprain something.”
Han gave a little laugh as he got up, heading over to the shower. He was about to go in, when he paused, wondering if Lando would still be here when he came out.
“What?” Lando asked curiously, pulling his trousers on.
“You....gonna keep it?”
“I...” Lando cleared his throat, his eyes darting to Han’s chest and then back to his face. “Are you?”
Ah, this was familiar, this standoff. Han had lost count of the number of times when they would come perilously close to having a serious conversation about their feelings and nothing would happen because neither one wanted to be the person to broach the subject. However, this time...things were different, they couldn’t ignore tattoos. And, dammit, Han didn’t want to.
So, he shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe.” He stepped closer to Lando. “Seems like it could be a lot of effort to get rid of it.”
Lando licked his lips, reaching forward to trace Han’s tattoo with his finger. “Yeah, who has the time for that?”
Han mirrored Lando’s action, moving even closer. “So, matching tattoos?”
Placing his arms around Han’s waist, Lando smiled. “Yup.” He smacked Han’s ass gently. “Now, go shower....you really need one.”
Reluctantly withdrawing from the embrace, Han sniffed, “Ugh. Yeah. Ok....”
They stood there momentarily in silence.
“You, uh, need some help?” Lando smirked, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t wanna trouble you, since your half-dressed...”
“No trouble.” Lando replied quickly, hurriedly undoing his trousers.
Han smirked, grabbing Lando by the hand and pulling him into the ‘fresher.