Archive: sure, just tell me where.
Archive Date: February 14, 2001
Author's Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/lady_aethelynde
Category: Missing scene
Disclaimer: The boys belong to George, but if he was
keeping them busy, they wouldn't be coming over, sitting on
my sofa, swilling my good whiskey, eating my doritos and telling
me stories to curl my hair.
Feedback: I crave it. It's my favorite high.
Pairing: L/H
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Alex's challenge: Han, Luke and a late night foray into the Falcon's galley.
Timeline: ANH, during the trip to Yavin
Hungry. He was so hungry. It had been a very busy day; he'd forgotten to eat. He was still a growing boy, as Aunt Beru often said.
That stabbed deep. So many people he loved had died in the last two days, no wonder he hadn't felt like eating. Now, the excitement died down, and only the prospect of a forty hour space trip ahead, he was ravenous.
Luke got up from the bunk and padded barefoot through the Falcon's ring corridor in search of the foodsynth. He found it, logically enough, in the forward compartment. But he hadn't expected to find the pilot tinkering with it.
"Does anything work on this junkheap?" Luke complained.
Solo scooted out from under the counter where he had the synth down to its component parts. He cursed roundly in three languages as he bumped his head. "Anything work on you, kid, beside the smart mouth?"
"My stomach. I'm starved and the galley's in pieces!"
"Zapper still works. There's some flash-heat stuff in the locker behind you. Plenty of survival rations in this locker." Solo thumped the one next to his head. "Now, I'm gonna see if I can get this bastard working before Chewie wants his morning kaf." He ducked back under the console. Virulent oaths and occasional banging came from the muffled work-space. Luke watched a moment and then rifled the packs of flash-heat food.
"What language is this? I don't want something nasty."
"Pretty picky for someone who just went swimming in an Imperial cesspool. It's Corellian."
"I don't read Corellian. How about some help?"
Solo cursed again, this time hitting a couple of languages Luke knew, and aiming the curses at obnoxious farmboys who should be asleep. But he did slide out from under the console and pick out a couple pouches.
"Heat me one, too. I'm almost done."
Luke matched the symbols for time on the bags to the symbols on the flash-heater. Shortly, two packets of stew were steaming and ready.
"Good number reading, kid. Taste this." The pilot held a cup to Luke's mouth. Luke sipped apprehensively.
"Good kaf."
"Hmm, musta fouled something up. Strong?"
"Kind of. I don't want to drink it because I want to go back to sleep after I eat."
"Okay." Solo punched something else up. "Try this."
"Now that's good. What is it?"
"D'lar fruit juice. Chewie's favorite. Let's eat before that stew gets cold."
They carried their food to the small game table. Luke ate carefully, trying not to burn his mouth. The stew was full of vegetables, with some sort of meat he couldn't identify.
"What is this?"
"Stew. Lergu meat, six kinds of vegetables and fungi, mavir grain and seasonings."
"Fungi?"
"This." Solo speared out a small tidbit and held it up. "Back home they call these 'tree ears.' They look kinda like ears when they're growin'. I think there's some leafhorns in here too."
Luke, his first rampant hunger sated, leaned over and delicately took the morsel from the utensil with his teeth in a deliberately provocative move. He looked up through the fringe of bangs and let a very slow smile cross his face. Cammie had always thought it was sexy and the time he'd used it on Biggs was one of his better memories of Tatooine. Uncle Owen had grounded him for staying out all night, he'd walked with difficulty for a day but the silly grin on his bruised lips had been indelible for a week.
The interest radiating from the kid blindsided the big Corellian. How had he managed to fly in under all the radar was a mystery. "Never answered my question earlier, kid." The words came out rougher than he'd planned.
"Yes, I did. I said my stomach worked."
Where had this gotten out of control? Solo wondered. He was the one who was supposed to be cool and in charge, and here was this backwater farmboy seducing him. "Anything else?"
"Maybe. Finish your stew before it gets cold, or I'll do it for you."
Solo noticed Luke's packet was totally empty. When had that happened? Now, a questing utensil had made its way across the table and was spearing a piece of kaid root from his packet. He watched the gravy-soaked tuber make a slow progress back across and almost moaned as Luke's tongue curled around it to draw it into his mouth.
A piece of leafhorn fungi went next, caught between even, white teeth and worried off the utensil. A utensilful of gravy vanished between smiling lips. A cube of lergu got the same curled tongue treatment.
At the end of his limits, Han pushed the stew packet across the table. "Finish it." He turned quickly away as he rose, his walk unsteady as he headed to the cockpit.
"Don't you want to see what else works?" Luke's voice followed him and echoed in his ears.
Did he? That was the question. Solo suspected the wide-eyed innocent act was mostly just that, an act. But some of it was real. And he liked the kid, didn't want to hurt him. He thought hard.
The autopilot was doing fine. He stared at the grey hyperspace limbo for a minute and made his decision, hoping Luke was still in the lounge.
He was, and Solo leaned nonchalantly on the padded edge of the ring corridor. "Yeah," he finally said, a little thickly.
"Yeah, what?" Luke asked, looking up from another package of stew.
"Yeah, I wanna see what else works."
Luke lingered over the last bite, before getting up and walking to where the pilot waited for him. "I thought you might." He wrapped slim, strong arms around the bigger man's neck, pulling him down for a lengthy kiss. "The answer, of course, is everything."
"Kinda figured it was."