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Luke moved a pair of pants and an empty holster from a storage crate in Han’s bunk, dragging it from against the wall so he had room to kick his leg out. He set everything out on the small bed, the swab and the needles and the little bottle he and Leia kept trading off to whoever was inside so it wouldn’t crystalize in the cold; there was never much room in medical.
“Is that warm enough?” Han shouted from somewhere down the hall.
Luke rubbed his bare hands together for a few seconds before wiggling his fingers. “Yeah, thanks.”
Han waited by the thermostat for a minute to make sure it stayed at the right temperature before wandering to see if he had any food left onboard worth eating.
There wasn’t much of anything.
Han huffed and pulled his hood a little tighter around his face; maybe there was still some chocolate mix.
He dug through the cabinets until he found the mostly-used tin, just enough left for a couple mugs. The water took longer to heat up than it had on Yavin, his heels bouncing by the time it was warm enough to mix in the milk powder and chocolate, something muffled over the spoon clinking against the mugs.
Han stopped for a second and pushed the hood down.
“Han!”
“Shit,” he muttered, pushing the mugs back from the edge so they wouldn’t fall; it didn’t sound like the first time Luke had said it. “What?”
“Tissue, need a tissue, or, something—fuck.”
Han rushed back to the counter for a towel before rushing again to his bunk.
“What did you do?”
Luke reached out for the towel with his other hand cupped against his thigh, a little trickle pooling in his palm, but Han was already on his knees in front of Luke to wipe the towel over it.
“I just needed a tissue, it’s not that bad.”
“You shanked yourself.”
“I probably just caught a blood vessel,” Luke said quietly, his fingers twitching a little when Han wiped his hand with the edge of the towel, the rest of it still over his thigh. “It happens sometimes.”
Han grunted and licked his thumb to smear away at a dried spot.
Luke bit the inside of his cheek but didn’t quite bite back a smile.
“It looks worse than it is,” he said; he didn’t manage to stifle the impulse to smooth Han’s hair where it had gotten tangled from pushing the hood back.
He was going to explain, how it just ran a little more from the oil, not really worth a ruined dish towel, but the words stuck in his throat when Han looked up at him from between his knees.
Something about him sitting like that but with both of them almost fully clothed sent a sweet twist through his chest.
Han’s hand tightened just a little over the towel on his thigh.
“Then bring a tissue next time.”
Luke nodded, not fully realizing his hand was still in Han’s hair until Han leaned into it slightly; there was that twist again before Luke shifted his hand to cup Han’s jaw, dipping in just a tiny bit, prompting.
Han leaned up on his knees to meet him the rest of the way.
“Thanks,” Luke said, more of a whisper than he had meant it to be, still close enough to feel the little twitch of a smile against his own lips.
“Don’t want you bleeding all over everything.”
Luke huffed through his nose, and Han grinned, and Luke kissed him again.
Luke stood at the counter, the words still taking a second to process before, “There isn’t any available?”
“We should be getting a shipment with the cream in just a couple weeks,” the tech said behind the counter. “Sorry. We have the oil.”
Luke was still a little thrown off by the change from his routine of simply walking to the counter, placing his left thumb on the reader, and thanking the tech for the little tub of goo.
“That’s fine,” Luke said. “Thank you.”
His usual routine thrown into an older one, he didn’t realize he was heading to the Falcon with his white paper bag until he was almost to the hangar.
He might as well just get it over with.
He nodded at a pilot and an engineer on his way across the hangar; the loading ramp was shut, no one inside when he closed it behind him.
He hesitated for a second before turning to Han’s bunk.
He emptied the bag onto Han’s bed, the swab and needles and two-dose bottle, sliding his pants down his legs to sit on a storage crate.
He stared at the needles in front of him, and then the bottle, and then the needles again.
He got as far as swabbing his thigh and the top of the bottle before his hand froze around the first syringe to draw the oil.
It wasn’t that he didn’t think he could do it; he just hadn’t in so long, switching to the cream when he had gotten his prosthetic after the couple times something glitched or stuck, and then he just hadn’t switched back. It was a little annoying, having to mind that it had absorbed and wouldn’t smear on anything, waiting around for his skin to dry, but it had been easier than worrying about something glitching again at a tricky moment. That part wasn’t habit anymore.
Luke took a deep breath before drawing the oil into the syringe and swapping for the second needle.
He froze again with the end just above his thigh.
“You’ve done this before,” he mumbled to himself. “Lots of times…”
His hand still didn’t move any farther.
Luke huffed and leaned his chin on his free hand, elbow on his other thigh; his fingers left no prints on the syringe, no smudges, and it didn’t help even though he knew, consciously, that the synthetic skin could grip fine.
Luke groaned and covered his face with his hand.
“It’s not,” he muttered insistently to himself, “that hard.”
It still felt like it.
The time dragging on didn’t do him any favors, just getting him more and more tense, until he jumped and almost dropped the syringe at the rusty sound of the loading ramp opening again.
Luke let out a slow breath.
He hoped it would be nothing; the familiar footsteps still came closer, stopping in front of the closed door, a couple seconds before, “Luke?”
Another breath. “Yeah.”
“You good?”
Luke looked down at his thigh, the syringe in his hand. “Yes.”
He said it a little too late.
“Can I come in?”
“Alright.”
Han’s eyebrows twitched when the door opened; he glanced at Luke’s thigh, and then the bed, before back to his face. “They’re out of the cream?”
Luke nodded with a small frown.
“It’s, uh.” Han stiffly gestured towards the bed. “Been a while, right?”
Luke nodded again; he hesitated, but, “I haven’t done it this way since before Cloud City.”
He shrugged, but Han’s mouth still curled down at the corner, a little wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“Can you help me with something?”
Luke huffed almost a laugh through his nose and wiggled the syringe between his fingers, pointedly looking from his naked leg to Han.
“It’ll just take a sec.”
Luke huffed; he capped the needle, pants back up, checking that everything was still in place before following Han out to the cockpit.
“What is it?”
“Your hands are smaller,” Han said, crouching down by the dashboard to reach underneath and pop open a hatch. “I can’t get a grip in there.”
“The fuse splitter?”
Han nodded as he got back up for Luke to take his place.
“Part of it just came loose or something,” Han said.
Luke huffed again and reached under where Han had opened the hatch; the mechanism was tiny and delicate, easy to get jostled but just as important if they wanted to get more than a few feet off the ground with the rest of Han’s modifications. There were six bulbs along the casing, small enough that his fingertip could easily cover two as he gently tapped along until one shifted a little too much.
“I think you need to replace the fourth,” Luke said. “How many times is this?”
Han frowned and folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against the pilot’s seat with a muttered, “Five.”
“Mm.”
“It’s not that old,” Han said. “It should be fine.”
“It’s not,” Luke said, carefully twisting the bulb back into place with the tip of his middle and forefinger, no room inside to use his thumb without taking out more than he had time for, “because you get what you pay for and I told you this was refurbished.”
“The rest of it looked fine.”
“Mm.” Luke popped the hatch back in and held out his free hand. “Can you—?”
Han pulled him back up, and then a little closer, kissing Luke’s knuckles just before Luke’s chest bumped into his. “Thanks.”
Luke tilted his chin up just slightly, just a tiny glance between Han’s mouth and his eyes before Han leaned in; he felt when Han’s back bumped the side of the chair, the hitch in his breath before he wound his arms loosely around Luke’s waist with a soft hum.
His arms tightened a little when Luke pressed closer.
“Someone could—”
“Then go do your shot.”
Luke’s forehead dropped against Han’s shoulder with a muffled groan before he stepped back and straightened his shirt; he still caught the beginning of a smile as he turned to pass Han on his way back to Han’s bunk.
Everything was unfortunately exactly where he had left it.
He heard the footsteps again just before Han’s hands at his hips, his nose bumping the back of Luke’s head.
“Usually like undressing you,” Han mumbled with a light squeeze, “but they’re gonna be out of anything that isn’t freeze dried soon.”
Luke halfheartedly swatted Han’s hands away and went back to the crate.
“Do you want me to—?”
“No,” Luke said a little quickly. “It’s fine.”
Han nodded and leaned his hip against the wall.
Luke wiped his hands clean with another swab, his leg and the bottle and the needle again; he didn’t need to be Force sensitive to feel Han’s eyes on him enough to look up.
“Take the rest off.”
Luke snorted and steadied his grip on the needle.
He still didn't manage to lower it all the way.
“I know,” he said, before Han could point out how he had done just fine in the cockpit; he felt it before Han had to say it. “I’m sorry. This should be easy.”
Han shrugged. “It’s been a while. Your psyching yourself out.”
“I’m not.”
“If you stop thinking about it so much, it’ll be easy as it was all the times you did it before.”
“Yes, I’ll just stop thinking about it,” Luke said. “And under no circumstances should you think about dancing womprats. Are you thinking about dancing womprats? You shouldn’t be—”
“Luke.”
Luke’s shoulders sagged.
Han pushed off from the wall to stop just in front of Luke, between him and the bottle on the bed, the backs of his fingers brushing through Luke’s hair before cupping his face in both hands.
“We’re gonna be eating dinner in five minutes,” Han said. “We got nothing to do after and I want to do some things with you, and then we’re going to bed, ‘cause I’ve been up way too long already.”
Luke had barely straightened his head from a nod before Han leaned in to kiss him, his chest warming at Han’s thumb rubbing over his cheekbone until he almost dropped the syringe again.
Han started to pull back, one more quick kiss before he actually straightened up again to sit at the edge of the bed.
“You know you still blush like on Yavin?”
Luke could feel it on his cheeks when he looked away with a short huff; he remembered it.
“You’re keeping it warm in here,” he mumbled.
He wanted to kiss Han again.
He squished the meat of his thigh, stuck a little more on the phantom feeling of Han’s lips against his than the faint sting as he pushed the needle, the promise of Han’s hands on him later more than the slight resistance when it reached the muscle.
The rest was easy, checking for the air bubble and pushing down on the plunger and popping the syringe into the sealed box, and Luke realized he had forgotten that Han was sitting in front of the bottle and the white paper bag.
Luke bit back a smile as he stood to pull his pants back up, barely a speck left from the needle, everything neatly back in its bag and on a rare clean spot on one of Han’s shelves; Han waited by the doorway with his hand out for Luke to take when he was done.
Luke took it and pulled Han right back in.
He had still wanted to kiss Han again.
Dinner could wait another couple minutes.