“Han.”
Nope. Nope. Han buried his face further in his pillow, and started counting slorks. It probably wouldn’t help him get to sleep any faster, but.
“Han!” Luke hissed thirty slorks later, and there was a faint thud. Han resisted the urge to turn and look, because that way lied madness. Madness and still having this headache when he woke up.
“Han Solo.”
Luke’s voice was right beside his ear, and Han startled upright. After a minute of squinting at the dark, he picked out the shadowy form of Luke, crouching beside the bed like a demented fengla, and he groaned. “Oh, for the love of—kid, please go to sleep. Please. I am begging you. Because I have to be up in six hours to face her Worshipfulness, and I would give almost anything not to do that with a hangover.”
“What do you think about circuit multiplexers?”
“I don’t,” Han sighed, falling back against the pillow. “I think about normal things, like where the next meal’s coming from, and whether that girl at the end of the bar will give me her comm link.”
Though honestly, it’d been a while since there’d been a girl at the end of the bar. He’d thought the medal would make it a sure thing, but he was somehow always busy chasing after Luke, or distracted by some argument with the Princess. (Leia, though the idea of calling her that made him feel unsteady and hot, stupidly adolescent. He liked Your Worship, he could spit it out with a smirk, and she’d bristle, and he could go on breathing.)
“I think about circuit multiplexers,” Luke volunteered thoughtfully.
“You’re a very special farmboy, all right.”
It was times like this Han missed Lando. Lando was a fun drunk. There had been that night on Lothol…
“Yeah, but the thing about circuit multiplexers is—”
(You’d think those mystic Jedi powers might have some practical use,
Han thought, eyeballing the ceiling. He appreciated the ceiling, it wasn’t currently trying to tell him about the intricacies of circuit multiplexers. What’s the point of moving shit with your mind if two beers puts you under the table…)
“Han, pay attention,” Luke said, poking Han’s shoulder.
“I’m paying attention, buddy.”
“No, you’re muttering to yourself.”
Oh. “I will pay you to let me go to sleep.”
There was a long pause, and Han thought maybe Luke’d taken him at his word (which was great, Luke was welcome to all thirty-three measly credits in Han’s account, if Jabba hadn’t gotten there first.) At least until Luke said softly, “I know you like us more than money. You blew that one when you came back to help with the Death Star.”
Han felt the corner of his mouth twitch traitorously. “Don’t go getting ideas, farmboy. Maybe I like you equal to money, but that’s generally when you’re sober and not talking x-wing mechanics to me at oh-three hundred.”
Luke made a soft noise that Han suspected was a laugh. Then the shadowy outline of him shifted, and for a minute Han hoped beyond hope he was headed back to his bed—
It wasn’t…a bad kiss. It wasn’t even really a kiss, just the warm press of Luke’s lips to the corner of Han’s mouth, one hand flat on Han’s chest as though to anchor himself, as though the kissing wasn’t enough. (He smelled of weak beer and the recycled O2 they pumped into the cantina, and the fringe of his hair almost fell in Han’s eyes, because Han hadn’t shut them, his brain stuck in a loop of what—wait, what?)
Luke lingered there for a moment, then made a pleased noise and pulled away. “I know you like us better than money,” he repeated. It sounded like he was smiling.
By the time Han’s brain had rebooted, the kid was back in his bunk. The shadow of him was hard to pick out in the dark and several feet away, but it looked as though he had wrapped the blanket around just his waist. One arm was dangling over the edge of the bed.
“Okay,” Han said softly, tucking his hands behind his head. He shut his eyes. “Okay.”
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