1.
The man's dangerous, they tell Lando, but he doesn't listen. He's a heartbreaker. That he doesn't listen to either, because whose heart has he ever broken?
Maybe he's not a heartbreaker, then, the others say over beers and behind grins, but he'll break your heart all the same.
Lando wonders to this day if he only kissed Han Solo out of spite.
2.
The man's kind, Lando tells himself, even if he won't admit it. He feeds the stray dogs on the street and always spares change for those who ask. He stops any man with groping fingers before they can do more than look the wrong way at the waitress. One of them- her name slips from Lando now, but he knows she loves Irish Car Bombs because they have to be guzzled so fast and because she knows Lando loves making them for her- she always offers Han Solo a kiss.
He always denies it. "I've got someone, honey," he says with a smirk. "And two timing isn't my thing."
It takes Lando a long time to realize Han means him.
3.
Does Han mean him?
4.
He wonders if he means anything at all some nights, when Han gives him the same smirk that he gives to the servers, as though he is not fucking the man behind the bar, as though Lando's rooms above the pub isn't filled with Han's forgotten clothes and his own razor, because in Han's words, "Someone will figure this whole thing out if I keep coming in looking like Robin Williams in Jumanji." Lando has never seen Jumaji. Han keeps insisting they watch it, but he can't remember his Netflix password, and Lando doesn't really care either way.
Han doesn't live with him, though, and he never will. Lando knows this. Lando is fine with this. The man thinks Lando's idea of a good time out is watching a children's movie, after all. He's got the bar, and sometimes he's got Han. It'll do.
5.
It won't do.
6.
The man's a fucking asshole, Lando tells everyone, borrowing all that money from him and disappearing like that. What kind of piece of shit does that? Borrows all that cash from a friend (they snicker at the term, because only Lando still pretends that is what they are) and fucks off into the night?
Han does, apparently, and Lando hates him for it. He finds an old photo of him and pins it to the dartboard. He doesn't care if it's his only photo of Han. If he comes back they'll take another. Kind of the point really.
Throwing darts at the stained old photo of Han Solo's face becomes a pastime. Lando is unsurpassed at it.
7.
When Han comes back he leaves the door swinging open, steps in, and sees the dartboard. "Aw, really?" he says, wincing so hard you can see his body draw back. "I have debts, Lando, I'm sorry for disappearing like that, really, and I have the cash- well, some of it- look, I'm sorry, okay?"
Han says sorry in that whiny voice, leaning over the bar and searching for Lando's gaze, trying to meet his eyes. He's persistent when he cares to be. If only he cared to be so much more than he was.
"Fine!" snaps Lando eventually, and the waitress (he can remember her name now, although he doesn't want to, because she's going back to school in the fall and he likes her, dammit, and knows she won't be coming back) shakes her head.
They end up in his bed that night, Lando looking up at that smirk and wondering if Han knows he has it. Wondering a lot more than that, too.
He closes his eyes. Han knows how to make him stop wondering.
8.
The man's an idiot, Lando thinks fondly, even if he knows it isn't true.
Lando borrows the camera from a friend. They're at a picnic for a few old friends when he takes the photos. Strange, to see Han out of his natural habitat, in the sun instead of under dim bar lights, making small talk instead of negotiating the price of his drink. Strange for Lando, too, really. He needs more time out.
Han is mid gesture when he snaps the photo, his face alive as he tells the punchline to a joke, his hair just the right shade of brown to attract the sun's almost unnoticeable halo. Lando misses that quality of old photos; how they'd fade and you could see the sun's saturation in every inch.
"You're not going to put that photo up on the dartboard are you?" Han asks, laughing.
"Only if you deserve it," says Lando. They both know he's not joking.
9.
The man's dangerous. They warned him.
10.
"Get out."
"I won it fair and square," says Han, with that goddamned smirk on his face, like this is funny, like he thinks that he could play with Lando like this, and he can't, because maybe Lando doesn't know how to take control of his love life but god he's not going to sit down and let Han Solo take his livelihood.
"What, are you going to take it to a fucking court of law, Han?" says Lando. "Are you going to go tell them you won my bar in a bet? Gonna go and say, oh, your Honor, the mean man just won't hand over the business he built up from the ground!"
Han leans back in his chair, expression unchanged. "You know the rules. You don't bet anything you're not prepared to lose."
"No," says Lando. "You don't. Congratulations, Han. You've lost me. Now get the fuck out of my bar."
11.
It is years before Lando sees Han again. Not many, but time is threatening them all the same. When the man steps through the door his eyes stray to the dartboard. There is no picture taped up.
"You said you'd put it up if I deserved it," says Han Solo, and Lando realizes he is not smiling. "I deserved it."
"You did," says Lando, tired of all this. "I don't want to do this anymore, Han. You're not getting another penny out of me."
"That's not what I want out of you," says Han, and the smile comes back, but it's still not a smirk. "You know what I want."
"I think I want more than you do," says Lando, leaning across the bar. Han reaches out and grabs his shirt, the color the same blue he's loved wearing for longer than he's been making drinks.
"I think you're wrong about that," says Han. "Give me time, and I'll prove it. I'm not going anywhere this time."
12.
They were right to warn him. Lando is glad he never listens to good advice.