lukewarm.

Something just didn’t feel right in the pit of his stomach, and the cold he should be suffering through was completely numbing to his senses. In his head, all he could think of was Luke. Not the rebellion, not the money he finally had to pay off the debt on his head, not the Princess, just Luke. “He couldn’t be far,” Han whispered to himself underneath his wrappings, hoping to convince to himself that the worst hadn’t happened. No, no, get that out of mind. “He’s Luke. He always gets out of these things.”

Ever since the Battle of Yavin, all he could think of when he saw Luke was how lonely that kid must be. Ben Kenobi was dead and so were his aunt and uncle. No one was there to guide an impulsive nineteen-year-old, who seemed to be diving headfirst into rebellion. Was that his own call to make? Sure. Luke was a man, he guessed. Close enough, anyway. Han was keenly aware that his own smarts were equally as cunning as they were stupid, but they seemed to pay off, most of the time. The kid was just as foolish, mainly thanks to his immaturity to the universe around him, and maybe Han could help. He did save his life, after all.

Now, three and a half years later, Luke was twenty-three. He didn’t need Han in the same way that he used to; he could do missions on his own, without someone on his back. Han tried convincing himself of that, anyway, when he tried leaving of his own accord just a few hours ago.

But now he felt himself back three years, feeling it necessary to have Luke’s back.

 “If you really want to make me believe in some mystical all-powerful Force, now would be a good time, kid,” Han mumbled under his breath. “Use it, give me a sign, anything.”

The tauntaun beneath Han was slowing down; kriff. There wasn’t much time left.

Through the heavy flakes of snow, on the other side of the plateau, Han could see the unmistakable outline of a figure. Could it be? It had to be, that was maybe the rest that the creature could take him. Solo charged forward and let out a sigh of relief as he knew by the military fatigues that it was Luke; he leaped off of the tauntaun and approached Luke, turning his face out of the snow and facing the snowflakes that melted against his reddened purple face.

“Luke! Luke,” Han announced, trying to shake some life back into his unconscious friend. The youth was mumbling to himself, his words glazed and delirious. “Don’t do this, Luke. Come on, give me a sign.”

If he recognized Luke by his uniform and frame, he’d have almost been unable to by his face. Looking past the obvious frostbite, claw marks ragged from his temple to his cheek, narrowly missing his eye. His nose was broken, and blood was caked and frozen into his skin. The Luke Skywalker he saw lying beneath him, whimpering and unconscious, would become a different one than the one he spoke to just a few hours ago. If he survived, that is.

If they both survived.

“Ben! Ben,” Luke muttered, as Han tried cleaning his face just a tiny bit and getting a feel for a pulse in his neck. He continued to rant and rave, with surprising passion considering his wounds and the state of frostbite his body was in. “Yoda! Dagobah system, Dagobah..”

Han didn’t take much stock in whatever the kid was rambling on about – he was more concerned about the tauntaun that suddenly died behind them both. Kriff. There was only one option now to keep Luke safe if he had to create a shelter of his own; he looked down at Luke’s belt and back to the deceased tauntaun. He removed Luke’s lightsaber and held it in his hand.

What a strange thing to hold. In a way, it almost felt like it was a violation of a sort, as if it were sacrilegious to some religion Han wasn’t a part of or an intimate belonging of Luke’s made only for his hand. Han shrugged off these uncomfortable feelings and went to work: Luke was safe, for now, but the real challenge would soon begin as night fell and they’d be two men trapped in the dark.