look, whatever the han solo series ends up claiming as “backstory”, you and I know that what really happened was that han solo grew up an orphan of the late republic in the slums of corellia.

at some point in his erstwhile adolescence (’erstwhile’ is leia’s word; he remembers a lot more dirt and desperation and starving than ‘erstwhile’ really conveys) he takes stock of his worldly possessions:

1. a vague, foggy shape in place of his mother, a story she told han (or han told himself, he’s never sure) about a handsome pilot for a father;
   
2. four credits;
3. a perpetually-damp pallet that the Amber Twi’iek’s mistress sometimes rolls out in front of the fire, in exchange for him chasing off the rats in the cellar, running messages, and acting as lookout for troopers;
4. an itch, in his feet, in his gut, behind his eyes, that demands he get into the sky even if it requires building himself a set of wings out of wax and flimsi, which—well, lends some credence to the pilot story.

(there’s a saying: you can tell a corellian by looking. they’re born with crooked necks, to better stare up at the stars)

by the time he meets lando, he’s been haunting the cantinas around the docks looking for someone willing to take him aboard. they’re all eager—he’s young and strong and naive in certain ways—at least until they see the faint, raised bump in the hollow of his palm.

it’s a galactic crime to take an orphan from their planet of origin without the proper paperwork; it makes him a liability. (part of senator amidala’s anti-sentient trafficking initiative, and if han knew, he’d curse her and all her descendants. yes, even those ones.)

either way—it’s a smoggy night and he’s nineteen, trying to pass himself off as older, which lando finds inexplicably charming (there’s a lot about han’s bravado he finds inexplicably charming, probably because it’s so poorly constructed; probably because it makes lando feel so tender about the whole thing.) you have a ship? he says, and lando likes the way he flushes when lando says yes, leaning in—overeager, artless—and saying, buy me a drink then.

lando is only twenty-five and his ship is a junker, practically a historical artifact, that he won in a hand of sabacc and can just barely fly without a copilot. he buys the stranger drink anyway.

the first time han set foot in the falcon, he came home. lando remembers, because he woke up alone in his bunk the next morning—the attractive stranger from the night before was sitting, shirtless, in lando’s cockpit, touching the controls one by one, like he was turning over something fragile and desperately vital in his hands.

lando had watched, and lando had thought: I wonder if I can make him look at me like that.

(han hadn’t noticed. han had been busy falling headlong, desperately in love, in the way he wouldn’t again, not with anyone)

one night turns into three turns into—well, han crawling between lando’s legs and holding out a vibroblade. Then his hand, palm up. cut it out, he says, and lando looks at him, all that poorly-stitched-together bravado. han is very beautiful when he’s young, it makes him difficult to refuse.

if you want to be a pilot, your hands are your life. can’t risk damaging them, lando says, gently closing han’s outstretched hand into a fist. wait another two years, they’ll remove it—

it’ll be too late, han says, and this is lando’s great fault, he never really learns to predict these flashes of wild selflessness and loyalty, doesn’t know what to do with them. you’ll be gone, you’ll have forgotten me. cut it out.

it’s really difficult to overstate how beautiful han is, at nineteen.

I’ll be careful, lando promises. afterwards, they burn the bloody sheets and the tracker chip along with them. the heap is still smoldering as han watches lando prep for takeoff, and it’s—almost, it’s very close to how he looked at the falcon, that first morning.

(lando is very beautiful too, it should be said. but he will be his most beautiful at thirty-one, heartbroken and standing among the clouds of bespin—it hasn’t happened yet, how beautiful he is. han will never be more beautiful than he is now, the first time he clutches at the co-pilot seat so tightly his hand starts bleeding again and his eyes fill with the stars.)

what next? han breathes, as lando puts the ship on autopilot. he’s staring at the blue whirl of hyperspace like nothing has ever been so beautiful.

(lando is staring at him, ditto.)

anything you want, lando says, and han just—just laughs.