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“Hey, Han?”
“Yeah, what.”
“Is it a….is it a custom where Leia’s from to kiss people?”
Han put down his screwdriver and swivelled around to look at Luke, very slowly. Luke did his best to look nonchalant, nudging a tool he didn’t know the name for with the toe of his boot.
“Well, if it’s not, the sex must be boring,” he answered dryly, after about a million years.
“No, I mean platonically. You know what I mean. The way she kisses me. Sometimes.”
Han’s eyes darkened and he scoffed somewhere low in his throat, turning back around to the faulty field generator.
“I just. I was worrying that maybe I was supposed to do it back, or something,” Luke offered, unsure what to do with the stormcloud that he’d inadvertently created between them. “It’s just not really something we do on Tatooine. I didn’t want to cause offence.”
“She only kisses you like that, Luke,” Han said. “And she does it for only one reason.”
“Oh maker. You mean it’s not platonic?”
“Well.” Han coughed, put down the screwdriver again, picked up one of a slightly smaller size. “It’s to make me jealous. So I wouldn’t worry.”
“Oh, right.”
Luke felt himself becoming more and more exasperated with the traditional convolutions of romance by the second. Normally he was all for a good love story, but he was too much in the middle of this one. Leia was lovely and rational and clear-eyed until she got around Han, and it was just plain terrible.
He did kinda know how she felt though. Luke could smell a mixture of sweat and cheap, probably counterfeit cologne from Han, and the competent way he did whatever it was he was doing to the generator was messing with him. “I, uh. I see. I mean, I guess she does always do it in front of you. Is it working?”
“The generator? Not yet, but I’m getting there.”
“No, I mean Leia.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I see right through it, of course. I know who she really wants, and that’s me. No offense, kid.”
“Absolutely none taken at all.”
After a few seconds, Luke decided that a good and non-bitter friend would be more encouraging and jovial, and said jokingly: “Hey, maybe you should kiss someone in front of her. Make her jealous too.”
“You volunteering, Luke?”
“What. Ha ha ha ha,” Luke said in the miserable tones of someone who’d suffered under the heavy weight of an unrequited crush for the last three years. “No, that would be so weird.”
“Wouldn’t it just,” Han said grimly. “Hey, can you pass me. Uh. The one to your left?”
“Um…this one?” Luke picked up something metallic and vaguely phallic-shaped. He was starting to sweat a little bit under the arms.“The one with the cone-shaped head?”
“No, no – “ Han shuffled around on his knees so he faced Luke. Luke blinked down at him. Han had the universal exasperated look of capable working men saddled with a distracted and useless assistant, and still looked in charge even though Luke was the taller one for once. “Sorry, my left, your right. That one.”
Luke retrieved it. Maybe they were both distracted and useless. They were definitely both exasperated with each other. There needed to be an emergency some time soon. They’d only been on Hoth for two weeks but it was already starting to do his head in. Funny how he’d lasted eighteen years on Tatooine, bored and wanting to die, but two weeks sitting around in this icebox and he felt just about ready to scream. Watching Han do repairs on the Falcon during downtime was just another variety of claustrophobia. “Shouldn’t an ace pilot know his lefts and rights?”
“Alright, sweetheart, when you’ve piloted this thing away from ten bounty hunters in stolen Imperial starships through an asteroid belt, you can lecture me on lefts and rights.”
Luke felt himself lost in an exquisite void of agony. Did he have to call him sweetheart? Did he have to be everything that he was? “Okay, Han,” he said.
---
Three days later Luke found himself crowded around a table much too small and much too untidy with Han, Leia and an assortment of other multi-species soldiers, looking at a badly flickering hologram of Echo Base. Item number 13 of a meeting already gone far too long: a highly virulent outbreak of some lung disease amongst the animals.
“If we repurpose this hangar,” Luke said, pointing with a pencil, “couldn’t we quarantine the sick tauntauns in there? There’s only a couple of little fighters in there, it doesn’t get used much.”
“Yeah, all right,” a tired-looking general said shortly. “Good idea, Skywalker, I’ll send a memo. Okay, meeting adjourned. Stay warm, everyone.”
“Yeah, good idea, Skywalker,” Han said in a low voice, looking at Leia, who was busy writing something on her datapad as people shuffled around them. “Real good.”
“Don’t do it,” Luke said between his teeth as they filed out the door. “Han, I know what you’re thinking.”
“You’re just such a practical thinker, Luke, it drives me crazy.”
“Han.”
“The way you handle those Tauntaun.”
“Han, could you just stay focused please? We’ve got more important things to worry about than – ”
“What’s Solo done now?” Leia’s voice made them both jump. They spun around to face her. Small, one raised eyebrow and terrifyingly in charge.
Luke laughed nervously. “He’s just being a goof, Leia, very unprofessional. Um.”
Unfortunately Han Solo was one of those men who always had to carry a joke to its bitter end, and also one of those men apparently willing to destroy friendships just to get on the nerves of the girl they liked, so he said: “How can I be professional around you, Luke?” in a husky voice, kissed him roughly yet firmly on the cheek and strode away before either Leia or Luke could say a thing.
A wolf whistle from some passer by in the crowded white corridor. Han high fived whoever it was. “All the rumours about Tatooine farmboys, they’re absolutely true,” his voice could be heard declaring to someone around the corner. Leia’s eyebrow remained elevated. It was a thing that happened, and it happened to all of them, and it was a shared experience, but Luke was having trouble believing any of it.
---
Once Luke had come to terms with the reality of what had just happened, he found himself actually kind of hopelessly angry. Who even was this Han Solo guy, anyway? Coming into their lives, being attractive and piloting ships and all that stuff, all “Oh I’m going to abandon you and the cause for a selfish and easy life of criminality, oh wait no I’ve had a change of heart let me sweep you into my manly arms in a haze of post-battle euphoria, Luke”, kissing people left right and centre.
He stormed into Han’s bunker, where he and Chewie and a Rodian were sitting playing cards, and opened the reconciliatory dialogue with a friendly: “You shouldn’t have done that, Han, you great big asshole.”
Han looked slowly up from his cards, his eyes wide and confused. “Done what, Luke?”
“Don’t give me that, you. You nerfherder,” Luke spat.
Chewie laughed raucously. The Rodian, who Luke was fairly sure was called Tom, apparently decided this was all getting too real, as most of Han’s interpersonal dealings did, and quietly got up and left.
Han put his cards down and spread his arms out, having to kick his chair a little away from the table to complete the broad expanse of the ‘who, me?’ gesture. “What are you talking about, kid? All that reading about Jedi magic finally made you snap?”
“You know what I mean, Han, all that stupid stuff you said in front of Leia.”
Another snicker from Chewie. A tide of realisation broke over Han’s face, and he sighed heavily. “You’re really mad about that, huh. It was just a joke, Luke, I didn’t mean anything – ”
“Well, that’s the thing!” Luke felt trapped standing there still but he didn’t really have the room to pace much, so he just stood and felt his face turn red. “It didn’t mean anything, and you made me feel like a fool in front of all those people.”
“Wh – ” Han looked genuinely confused and a little frightened, starting to get the usual evasive look that appeared in his eyes when he screwed up. “Luke, you’re overreacting. What’s going on? Are you in love with Leia? Is that what this’s all about?”
“No!” Luke shouted. “No, I’m not in love with Leia! You think you’re smart, Han Solo, but you’re really. You’re really not!” Good one. Good one, Skywalker, great shot. Really hit the mark there. Just like hunting womp rats. He carried on wildly, face hot and hands freezing. “And you’re unprofessional, and you act the fool when we’re all supposed to be on constant vigilance – ”
“Hey!” Han stood up at that, shoulders set square and defensive. “Who are you calling unprofessional, kid? I’m not the one chucking a tantrum over some joke – ”
“ – and you stand there, looking all tall and suave – ”
“ – we’ve gotta keep our morale up somehow, and you know that when I’m in the Falcon I’m the most focused goddamn professional you’ll ever see in your life – ”
“ – and you know someone as smart and beautiful as Leia would never get involved with a joker like you – ”
“ – I thought you’d grown up a bit since you got punched out in that bar back on Tatooine but guess I was wrong – ”
Luke was cut off in the middle of his retort, or rant, or complaint, or whatever it was, by Chewie. Chewie accomplished this by lifting Luke gently but firmly into his arms, ignoring Luke’s frantic protestations and attempts to continue yelling at Han, carrying him over to the chair possibly-Tom had vacated and placing him in it like a child would place a doll with articulated joints.
“Chewie, what are you doing,” Han began, but was also cut off mid sentence by Chewbacca placing one large furry hand on his shoulder and pressing down, until the inevitable happened and Han’s body folded up into his chair.
“Hrrauwuuaaughugh,” Chewbacca said.
“I don’t want to have an adult discussion,” Han protested sulkily. “Not with him, anyway.”
“Hrauwagh,” Chewbacca replied, and left the two of them to their mutually destructive devices.
They sat there in a silence as heavy and stinging as a Tatooine sandstorm, as hard as it was to think about Tatooine here where the heating was playing up again and the cold lined Luke’s lungs with every breath. After a while, Luke couldn’t bear it any more.
“Look, Han, I’m sorry I got mad,” he burst out, “but you know you were being stupid.”
Han finally looked up from the small patch of dirty white floor he was examining, and levelled Luke with a derisive glare.
“I’m here, in this wasteland, running around after you and that ridiculous woman and your ridiculous crusade for justice. I think I’ve come to terms with my own stupidity, Luke.”
“You don’t think it’s ridiculous. The cause, or Leia. I know you care, Han, you wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Bounty on my head ring any bells?” Han said sarcastically.
“There are a million places in the galaxy you could be hiding and making money, but instead you’re here, fighting with us! You can’t keep hiding behind the credits excuse.”
“Well. Okay. I do care.” It sounded like it took a bit for the admission to come out, but there it was, Han had said it. “So what? Why are you so riled up over a joke, kid? All I’ve gotta do is be here. And I’m not gonna be some stuffy suited up stickler, that’s never been me and it never will be. Doesn’t mean I’m any less of a fighter. Thought you knew how to laugh.”
“I do know how to laugh, it’s just.” Luke looked up at the corner of the room. Could he say it? Here? Well, they might all be dying anyway, and it wasn’t like things were ever going to be entirely non-awkward now that the entire base probably thought they were getting it on. Han had his chair tipped back on two legs, looking at him all wounded and bright eyed. God, what an asshole.
“I really like you, Han,” he said grumpily.
A beat. A trickle of moisture down one of the walls. People marching past the door. Chewie and the Rodian having a joke about something in the hallways. Probably having a joke about Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Maybe one of the sick tauntauns sneezing, although Luke was probably imagining that in his desperate attempt to escape reality and ascend into a mind realm where nothing of the physical plane including a verbal admission of liking Han Solo was real. They were way too distant from the quarantine hangar to hear a tauntaun sneeze.
“Wait,” Han said slowly.
There was the clunk of the chair’s front legs hitting the floor.
“Wait,” Han said again.
“I don’t mean it like that, I mean I just like you as a friend – ” Luke blurted, in unison with Han's: “Do you mean it like that, or do you mean just as a – ”
They both stopped.
Another beat.
“You got a crush on me, Luke?” Han asked incredulously.
“No. Yes. I uh. Geez. Han, I really gotta go, I think I’ve got a patrol to go to, this was great, sorry for all those things that happened.” On that smooth and flawless note Luke shot up out of his chair and was prepared to make a rapid and strategic retreat, possibly all the way back to Tatooine, he could be a moisture farmer, it’d be all right, I mean what was so wrong with the quiet life anyway?
Han got to the doorway before him, impossibly quick. Blocked his exit, right there and all up in his space. Not that Luke wasn’t used to it, he seemed to spend half his life with Han’s arm hanging around his shoulder, or jostling him in the mess hall, but this was something different altogether. Han was looking at him the way he looked at the faulty field generator, intent and focus and internal calculation. Luke blinked up at him, as ever the shortest one. Must be an even longer look up for Leia into those eyes.
“Han, I’m sorry,” he said.
“I can’t believe you called me an asshole,” Han replied, putting his hand on Luke’s shoulder.
“Well, you are.”
“Maybe a little bit.”
And then Han leaned in and kissed him, and this time it was on the mouth and no one was watching, and it was for no one’s benefit except the two of them. Luke remembered to breathe through his nose but he still felt as dizzy as a Tauntaun with pneumonia.
“Thought you liked Leia,” Luke said afterwards, tugging his collar back into place.
“Ah, look, Luke.” Han pinched the bridge of his nose. “I do. I really do. But the problem with joining the Resistance is that everyone’s beautiful and everyone’s too focused on galactic justice to give me the time of day, and if I’m straight with you, kid, it’s driving me crazy.”
“Please don’t be straight with me, Solo,” Luke said.
All right, so Han probably wasn’t going to propose to him or anything like that. All right, so Luke was setting himself up here for an inevitably soul destroying disappointment. All right, so no one could reverse the inevitable collision course that was Han and Leia. All right. Han was still his best friend, and they had fifteen minutes of time before curfew, and Luke had a three year long crush to vindicate. It was freezing cold outside and there were wampas ready to sneak in and tear them apart and the tauntauns all had the flu and the Empire could be anywhere ready to destroy this hastily constructed illusion of safety, but they could make it warm in Han’s bunker for fifteen minutes.
Han grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Skywalker.”
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