fic: Leaving Anchorhead (SW, Biggs/Luke, Wedge/Luke)
What's this? Fic? Why, yes. Yes, it is.
title: Leaving Anchorhead
fandom: Star Wars (original trilogy)
pairings: Biggs/Luke, Wedge/Luke
rating: R-ish
note: extra-special thanks to shdlm for beta-ing. <3
dedication: to ponderosa121, theoretically for her birthday. Which was over a month ago. Oops?
The one thing that really got to Luke was how they made him feel like a little kid. Camie teased him sometimes with jokes that he didn't really understand but felt like he was supposed to. She would bat her eyes and smile at him like she had a big secret that she was never going to share with him, and Fixer would laugh like he knew what that secret was. Fixer would wink at Luke and Luke would try to laugh and smile like he knew what the secret was too, but they could always tell he was faking it.
"Poor little Wormie," Camie would say. "Never been kissed." And then she'd laugh again, and Fixer would laugh, too.
And when Biggs was around, he'd say, "Aw, quit picking on him. Leave him alone." Luke hated feeling like Biggs had to protect him - like he was letting Biggs down by needing to be protected - and yet he always felt better when Biggs did protect him. So it was weird, and kind of hard sometimes. Luke hated being the 'little kid' of the group, but when Biggs stuck up for him like that, it didn't seem like such a problem.
"It's true, you know," Luke said once. He and Biggs were out back of Tosche Station, a little ways away from the building fiddling around with the engine on Biggs' T-16. "What Camie says. It's true."
Biggs wiped sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. "Camie says lots of things, and most of them are total crap."
Luke rolled his eyes to cover his embarrassment. "You know which thing I mean."
Biggs stood up straight from where he'd been kneeling, the spanner in his hand dropping down, into the sand. "No, I don't. Tell me."
Luke didn't want to tell him - it felt weird and a little scary, saying the words, as if something was about to change forever - but when he saw the look in Biggs' eyes, Luke couldn't not tell him. "The thing about never being kissed. Me, that is. About me never being kissed. She's right. I haven't been."
"So? Biggs said.
"So, I think I'd like to be," Luke said. "Someday," he added. "I mean, I don't even know any girls except for Camie, and she's not going to kiss me..."
"Good," Biggs said.
"Huh?"
"Nothing - listen. Does it really bother you that much?"
Luke didn't know what to say for a second, and then all his words came out a bit too fast. "Well, yeah - I mean - yeah." He shrugged. "Kind of. Wouldn't it bother you?"
Biggs smiled that little smile he got when he'd beaten you at something, only it was different this time - less confident, more warm - and Luke shivered in his belly. Biggs' hand closed around Luke's bicep and he was pulling Luke closer to him, and the next thing Luke knew Biggs was kissing him. It felt weird, but still okay; if he'd thought about this moment before it happened, Luke might have told himself he'd be angry at Biggs for kissing him, for deciding that he was going to be Luke's first kiss. First kisses were a big decision, after all. Not the sort of decision that should be left to someone else. But now that it was happening, Luke wasn't angry at all. He let his eyes drift closed and concentrated on how not-angry he felt about being kissed by Biggs, and then it was over and Biggs was pulling away.
"There," Biggs said with a smile, only it wasn't his usual smile. It wasn't the one Luke was used to seeing. There wasn't a hint of competitiveness in it, nor of Biggs' usual unstated 'watch me' that went with his smile. Luke swallowed his breath when Biggs smiled this smile. "Now when Camie teases you," Biggs said, "You can know exactly how wrong she is."
When Luke opened his mouth to speak, his voice came out softer than he'd meant it to. "Okay."
--
Two days before Biggs left for the Academy, Luke challenged him to one last race through Beggar's Canyon. Deak and Fixer said they were going to come along, but when it came time to leave, neither one of them was around. So Biggs shrugged at Luke, and Luke shrugged back, and without any more being said, they took off on their own.
It was a good race - a close race, a clean win. Luke didn't have that lingering doubt he got every once in a while that maybe Biggs had let him win. When Biggs landed on the canyon floor, Luke hopped out of his T-16 with a huge grin on his face, and when Biggs got out of his, he was grinning, too. "See? You should be coming with me to the Academy!"
Luke's smile faded a little bit. "I wish. Uncle Owen's gonna keep putting it off until I'm his age."
Biggs shook his head. "You're about as cut out to be a moisture farmer as I am to be a Hutt's slave girl." Luke started to reply but Biggs put his hand on Luke's shoulder. "Never mind. You'll get your chance, Luke. I know you will. And when you do, I'll be right there."
"Yeah," Luke said, nodding slightly. He wanted to say something else, but he didn't know what. He kind of wanted to bring up the time Biggs had kissed him and kind of didn't want to, because asking about it might make Biggs think he shouldn't have done it. But then Biggs was smiling at him again with that same smile from when he'd kissed Luke, and Luke couldn't work up the energy to care about words. Asking seemed like an awful lot of work. So instead of asking, Luke grabbed for Biggs' arm, pulled him closer and kissed him. It was harder - rougher - than he'd meant it to be, teeth knocking against teeth, and when he pulled back to apologize Biggs fisted the front of Luke's shirt and kissed him back, just as hard, just as rough.
This time, when Biggs finally pulled away, Luke's shirt was open and hanging loose off his shoulders, half down his arms. His belt was on the ground and his pants were undone, and Biggs' hand was shoved down there, squeezing Luke's cock. Biggs pushed Luke against the wing of his T-16 and Luke's head tilted back until it touched the metal. He could feel Biggs' hand down to the last callous, and his own breath thick in his lungs, in his throat.
With his teeth at Luke's collarbone, Biggs murmured low, "If Camie could see you now, she'd never call you 'Wormie' again, that's for sure."
Luke let out a breath of a laugh that shifted into a shiver. "Camie who?"
Now Biggs laughed, a soft chuckle of sound and air. He slid his hand out of Luke's pants - left him exposed and hard and wanting - and drew his thumb along Luke's lower lip. Luke kissed Biggs' thumb without thinking, on instinct, and when Biggs pushed his thumb-tip a little harder against Luke's lips Luke opened his mouth, just enough for Biggs to be able to push his thumb inside. The scrape of Luke's teeth along his skin was making Biggs shudder, or that was how it looked to Luke. Luke could feel Biggs quivering a little against him and he could see the look on Biggs' face, and somehow knowing that he was the one making Biggs look like that made Luke feel stronger and taller - more like a man and less like a boy - than he'd ever felt before. When Biggs slid his thumb out of Luke's mouth and drew it along Luke's chin and his cheek, the dampness of Luke's own saliva was cool against his face just for a moment before the desert heat burned the cool away.
"This is it, isn't it?" Luke asked, half-whispering. "What we're doing. What we're about to do. This is it."
"This is what?" Biggs asked.
"The secret...when Camie teases me about never being kissed, what she really means is this."
Biggs half-smiled, one corner of his mouth turning upwards. He touched his tongue-tip to the line where Luke's lips pressed together, and when Luke opened his mouth for him, Biggs licked at Luke's teeth and gums before pushing his tongue in further. Biggs raised one hand up to Luke's jaw, held it between his thumb and forefinger and pressed gently, until Luke's mouth opened all the way. Biggs kissed Luke like that until he could feel Luke's chest start to heave, rising and falling and trying to hold onto all the oxygen his lungs had left. Biggs eased back to let Luke breathe, but before his mouth was too far away from Luke's to feel the air being breathed, Biggs said, "What happened to 'Camie who'?"
Luke snorted. He put his hand on Biggs' chest, pushing him back but not away - just back far enough to be able to look into his eyes. "Biggs, what are we doing here?"
Biggs took a single step back, his eyes never leaving Luke's. "I'm not sure," Biggs said. "But I'm pretty sure it's something I've wanted to do for a long time, now."
Luke snorted again, but more softly this time, and with a smile on his face. "Yeah," Luke said. "I think I've wanted to, too."
For a minute they just smiled at each other, and then Biggs glanced over his shoulder. He bent down to pick up Luke's belt and handed it to him. "Whatever we're doing, let's do it inside the ship. I don't really want a bunch of Sandpeople coming up on us with our pants around our ankles."
"Right," Luke nodded. He took his belt and cocked an eyebrow at Biggs, walking backwards up the ramp into Biggs' T-16. This was it. And knowing that - somehow knowing that made Luke feel free and strong, confident, like the whole galaxy was lying open and waiting at his feet. It was a rush like racing, like sandsurfing, like any number of crazy things he and Biggs had done to keep Tatooine's boredom from crushing them, only moreso. This was it, and knowing that was making Luke smile like he'd never smiled before. He batted his eyelashes the way he'd seen Camie do a thousand times to Fixer and said, "Hurry up, slowpoke."
Biggs grinned and shook his head, and then ran up the ramp. The door closed behind them just as Biggs tackled Luke to the cockpit floor, and they were still laughing breathlessly the first time they came.
--
Luke almost dropped his binocs when he saw Biggs standing there in Tosche Station.
Biggs looked different, and not because of his Academy uniform. His eyes were just a little bit wiser than they'd been when he'd left, like they'd seen more than Luke could imagine. Luke was pretty sure they had and was just a little bit jealous. He wanted to have wise eyes, too, and waiting for them was hard when you were pretty sure you'd never get a chance to earn them. And for a moment all Luke could do was look at him, standing there in Tosche Station like he'd never gone anywhere - even more grown-up now than when he'd left; even more of a man - and somehow just looking at Biggs made Luke feel like even more of a boy.
Fixer was laughing and slapping him on the back, and when Luke realized he was staring like a slack-jawed idiot, he felt Camie's eyes on him, looking for his secret. His and Biggs'. Somehow, Luke knew - in that moment - how to play this scene. He'd been trying to decide for a while now what he would do when he saw Biggs again; what he would say, how he would act. And now with Camie watching him, trying to figure out his secret, Luke knew. He played it like Biggs had never been anything - meant anything - more than just a best friend.
He nearly blew it when Biggs smiled at him - that happy-to-see-you smile mixed up with a silent signal of 'message received' - and played it that way, too.
--
When Luke first held the lightsaber in Ben Kenobi's house, when he first saw it glow to life, he remembered the excitement in Biggs' eyes when he'd told Luke he was joining the Rebellion. The sound the saber made when Luke swung it from one side to the other reminded Luke of the growl in Biggs' voice - the conviction - when he'd told Luke his reasons why. Luke let Ben's words sift through his ears and his brain. Ben's stories about Luke's father; stories that had only lived in Luke's imagination before. And he thought maybe if he could take this path, this path away from Tatooine and moisture farming, he'd finally be able to face Biggs and not feel like a little boy.
--
It wasn't supposed to end the way it did. The big things, the important things - yeah, those turned out the way Luke had hoped they would. But making it through the battle when Biggs hadn't - no, that part wasn't right. That wasn't how it was supposed to end up at all.
Luke said so, or words of that effect, to Wedge. He was sitting on a corner of Wedge's bunk with three bottles of Corellian ale in his belly, and when he said the words he'd been thinking, Wedge gave him a funny look.
"Yeah," Wedge said. "I mean, no, it wasn't. It wasn't supposed to go that way." He took a long drink of his ale. "I guess it usually doesn't. Go the way you think it's supposed to, I mean."
"Yeah," Luke said. He reached out and Wedge handed him bottle number 4. "I guess it doesn't."
Wedge raised his bottle and said, "To Biggs Darklighter - one crazy, charming, crazy, brave, crazy son of a bitch. Did I mention he was crazy?"
Luke laughed a little and clinked his bottle against Wedge's. "I think you did, yeah. To Biggs."
They drank in long swallows and when Wedge's bottle was down to the dregs, he set it down carefully on the floor, turned toward Luke, drew his finger up under Luke's chin, and kissed him. Luke's eyes went wide for a minute before he closed them, let himself feel what it was like to be kissed by someone other than Biggs. When he stopped thinking of Wedge as not-Biggs was when Wedge chose to pull away.
"Sorry," Wedge said. "I just...he talked about you all the time, so I figured...I don't know what I figured. I just wanted you to not look so sad."
"Oh," Luke said. "It's okay," he added quickly. "I mean, I don't...I don't mind. Didn't mind. Don't mind." He let out a quiet, uneasy laugh. He was turning the bottle around and around in his hands and when he realized it he drank the last of its contents and put it down. Trying for nonchalant, he added, "It wasn't my first kiss or anything," and then wished he'd said something else.
Wedge smiled - kind of like Han, Luke thought; a little cocky and a little kind-hearted - and Luke wondered if that smile was a Corellian thing. "The way Biggs used to talk about you, I couldn't tell if you were his little brother or his best friend or his lover."
Luke felt his eyes go wide. Lover. That was a word he'd never attached to Biggs in his head, but it certainly wasn't wrong. "Oh."
"I think maybe it was a little bit of all three," Wedge said.
Luke didn't say anything, just looked down at the empty bottles on the floor and wished he had another one, a full one, something to wash that word - lover - out of his throat.
"Were you? A little bit of all three, I mean. Were you?" Wedge asked. He was looking Luke dead in the eye, and somehow it felt like Luke didn't need to keep his and Biggs' secret right now.
"Yeah," Luke said. Then he licked his lips - Wedge-taste, instead of Biggs - and asked, "Were you?"
Wedge grinned a little bit. "He was a charming, brave, crazy son of a bitch."
"Yeah," Luke nodded. "He sure was." And then he leaned into Wedge and kissed him back.
title: Leaving Anchorhead
fandom: Star Wars (original trilogy)
pairings: Biggs/Luke, Wedge/Luke
rating: R-ish
note: extra-special thanks to shdlm for beta-ing. <3
dedication: to ponderosa121, theoretically for her birthday. Which was over a month ago. Oops?
The one thing that really got to Luke was how they made him feel like a little kid. Camie teased him sometimes with jokes that he didn't really understand but felt like he was supposed to. She would bat her eyes and smile at him like she had a big secret that she was never going to share with him, and Fixer would laugh like he knew what that secret was. Fixer would wink at Luke and Luke would try to laugh and smile like he knew what the secret was too, but they could always tell he was faking it.
"Poor little Wormie," Camie would say. "Never been kissed." And then she'd laugh again, and Fixer would laugh, too.
And when Biggs was around, he'd say, "Aw, quit picking on him. Leave him alone." Luke hated feeling like Biggs had to protect him - like he was letting Biggs down by needing to be protected - and yet he always felt better when Biggs did protect him. So it was weird, and kind of hard sometimes. Luke hated being the 'little kid' of the group, but when Biggs stuck up for him like that, it didn't seem like such a problem.
"It's true, you know," Luke said once. He and Biggs were out back of Tosche Station, a little ways away from the building fiddling around with the engine on Biggs' T-16. "What Camie says. It's true."
Biggs wiped sweat from his face with his shirtsleeve. "Camie says lots of things, and most of them are total crap."
Luke rolled his eyes to cover his embarrassment. "You know which thing I mean."
Biggs stood up straight from where he'd been kneeling, the spanner in his hand dropping down, into the sand. "No, I don't. Tell me."
Luke didn't want to tell him - it felt weird and a little scary, saying the words, as if something was about to change forever - but when he saw the look in Biggs' eyes, Luke couldn't not tell him. "The thing about never being kissed. Me, that is. About me never being kissed. She's right. I haven't been."
"So? Biggs said.
"So, I think I'd like to be," Luke said. "Someday," he added. "I mean, I don't even know any girls except for Camie, and she's not going to kiss me..."
"Good," Biggs said.
"Huh?"
"Nothing - listen. Does it really bother you that much?"
Luke didn't know what to say for a second, and then all his words came out a bit too fast. "Well, yeah - I mean - yeah." He shrugged. "Kind of. Wouldn't it bother you?"
Biggs smiled that little smile he got when he'd beaten you at something, only it was different this time - less confident, more warm - and Luke shivered in his belly. Biggs' hand closed around Luke's bicep and he was pulling Luke closer to him, and the next thing Luke knew Biggs was kissing him. It felt weird, but still okay; if he'd thought about this moment before it happened, Luke might have told himself he'd be angry at Biggs for kissing him, for deciding that he was going to be Luke's first kiss. First kisses were a big decision, after all. Not the sort of decision that should be left to someone else. But now that it was happening, Luke wasn't angry at all. He let his eyes drift closed and concentrated on how not-angry he felt about being kissed by Biggs, and then it was over and Biggs was pulling away.
"There," Biggs said with a smile, only it wasn't his usual smile. It wasn't the one Luke was used to seeing. There wasn't a hint of competitiveness in it, nor of Biggs' usual unstated 'watch me' that went with his smile. Luke swallowed his breath when Biggs smiled this smile. "Now when Camie teases you," Biggs said, "You can know exactly how wrong she is."
When Luke opened his mouth to speak, his voice came out softer than he'd meant it to. "Okay."
--
Two days before Biggs left for the Academy, Luke challenged him to one last race through Beggar's Canyon. Deak and Fixer said they were going to come along, but when it came time to leave, neither one of them was around. So Biggs shrugged at Luke, and Luke shrugged back, and without any more being said, they took off on their own.
It was a good race - a close race, a clean win. Luke didn't have that lingering doubt he got every once in a while that maybe Biggs had let him win. When Biggs landed on the canyon floor, Luke hopped out of his T-16 with a huge grin on his face, and when Biggs got out of his, he was grinning, too. "See? You should be coming with me to the Academy!"
Luke's smile faded a little bit. "I wish. Uncle Owen's gonna keep putting it off until I'm his age."
Biggs shook his head. "You're about as cut out to be a moisture farmer as I am to be a Hutt's slave girl." Luke started to reply but Biggs put his hand on Luke's shoulder. "Never mind. You'll get your chance, Luke. I know you will. And when you do, I'll be right there."
"Yeah," Luke said, nodding slightly. He wanted to say something else, but he didn't know what. He kind of wanted to bring up the time Biggs had kissed him and kind of didn't want to, because asking about it might make Biggs think he shouldn't have done it. But then Biggs was smiling at him again with that same smile from when he'd kissed Luke, and Luke couldn't work up the energy to care about words. Asking seemed like an awful lot of work. So instead of asking, Luke grabbed for Biggs' arm, pulled him closer and kissed him. It was harder - rougher - than he'd meant it to be, teeth knocking against teeth, and when he pulled back to apologize Biggs fisted the front of Luke's shirt and kissed him back, just as hard, just as rough.
This time, when Biggs finally pulled away, Luke's shirt was open and hanging loose off his shoulders, half down his arms. His belt was on the ground and his pants were undone, and Biggs' hand was shoved down there, squeezing Luke's cock. Biggs pushed Luke against the wing of his T-16 and Luke's head tilted back until it touched the metal. He could feel Biggs' hand down to the last callous, and his own breath thick in his lungs, in his throat.
With his teeth at Luke's collarbone, Biggs murmured low, "If Camie could see you now, she'd never call you 'Wormie' again, that's for sure."
Luke let out a breath of a laugh that shifted into a shiver. "Camie who?"
Now Biggs laughed, a soft chuckle of sound and air. He slid his hand out of Luke's pants - left him exposed and hard and wanting - and drew his thumb along Luke's lower lip. Luke kissed Biggs' thumb without thinking, on instinct, and when Biggs pushed his thumb-tip a little harder against Luke's lips Luke opened his mouth, just enough for Biggs to be able to push his thumb inside. The scrape of Luke's teeth along his skin was making Biggs shudder, or that was how it looked to Luke. Luke could feel Biggs quivering a little against him and he could see the look on Biggs' face, and somehow knowing that he was the one making Biggs look like that made Luke feel stronger and taller - more like a man and less like a boy - than he'd ever felt before. When Biggs slid his thumb out of Luke's mouth and drew it along Luke's chin and his cheek, the dampness of Luke's own saliva was cool against his face just for a moment before the desert heat burned the cool away.
"This is it, isn't it?" Luke asked, half-whispering. "What we're doing. What we're about to do. This is it."
"This is what?" Biggs asked.
"The secret...when Camie teases me about never being kissed, what she really means is this."
Biggs half-smiled, one corner of his mouth turning upwards. He touched his tongue-tip to the line where Luke's lips pressed together, and when Luke opened his mouth for him, Biggs licked at Luke's teeth and gums before pushing his tongue in further. Biggs raised one hand up to Luke's jaw, held it between his thumb and forefinger and pressed gently, until Luke's mouth opened all the way. Biggs kissed Luke like that until he could feel Luke's chest start to heave, rising and falling and trying to hold onto all the oxygen his lungs had left. Biggs eased back to let Luke breathe, but before his mouth was too far away from Luke's to feel the air being breathed, Biggs said, "What happened to 'Camie who'?"
Luke snorted. He put his hand on Biggs' chest, pushing him back but not away - just back far enough to be able to look into his eyes. "Biggs, what are we doing here?"
Biggs took a single step back, his eyes never leaving Luke's. "I'm not sure," Biggs said. "But I'm pretty sure it's something I've wanted to do for a long time, now."
Luke snorted again, but more softly this time, and with a smile on his face. "Yeah," Luke said. "I think I've wanted to, too."
For a minute they just smiled at each other, and then Biggs glanced over his shoulder. He bent down to pick up Luke's belt and handed it to him. "Whatever we're doing, let's do it inside the ship. I don't really want a bunch of Sandpeople coming up on us with our pants around our ankles."
"Right," Luke nodded. He took his belt and cocked an eyebrow at Biggs, walking backwards up the ramp into Biggs' T-16. This was it. And knowing that - somehow knowing that made Luke feel free and strong, confident, like the whole galaxy was lying open and waiting at his feet. It was a rush like racing, like sandsurfing, like any number of crazy things he and Biggs had done to keep Tatooine's boredom from crushing them, only moreso. This was it, and knowing that was making Luke smile like he'd never smiled before. He batted his eyelashes the way he'd seen Camie do a thousand times to Fixer and said, "Hurry up, slowpoke."
Biggs grinned and shook his head, and then ran up the ramp. The door closed behind them just as Biggs tackled Luke to the cockpit floor, and they were still laughing breathlessly the first time they came.
--
Luke almost dropped his binocs when he saw Biggs standing there in Tosche Station.
Biggs looked different, and not because of his Academy uniform. His eyes were just a little bit wiser than they'd been when he'd left, like they'd seen more than Luke could imagine. Luke was pretty sure they had and was just a little bit jealous. He wanted to have wise eyes, too, and waiting for them was hard when you were pretty sure you'd never get a chance to earn them. And for a moment all Luke could do was look at him, standing there in Tosche Station like he'd never gone anywhere - even more grown-up now than when he'd left; even more of a man - and somehow just looking at Biggs made Luke feel like even more of a boy.
Fixer was laughing and slapping him on the back, and when Luke realized he was staring like a slack-jawed idiot, he felt Camie's eyes on him, looking for his secret. His and Biggs'. Somehow, Luke knew - in that moment - how to play this scene. He'd been trying to decide for a while now what he would do when he saw Biggs again; what he would say, how he would act. And now with Camie watching him, trying to figure out his secret, Luke knew. He played it like Biggs had never been anything - meant anything - more than just a best friend.
He nearly blew it when Biggs smiled at him - that happy-to-see-you smile mixed up with a silent signal of 'message received' - and played it that way, too.
--
When Luke first held the lightsaber in Ben Kenobi's house, when he first saw it glow to life, he remembered the excitement in Biggs' eyes when he'd told Luke he was joining the Rebellion. The sound the saber made when Luke swung it from one side to the other reminded Luke of the growl in Biggs' voice - the conviction - when he'd told Luke his reasons why. Luke let Ben's words sift through his ears and his brain. Ben's stories about Luke's father; stories that had only lived in Luke's imagination before. And he thought maybe if he could take this path, this path away from Tatooine and moisture farming, he'd finally be able to face Biggs and not feel like a little boy.
--
It wasn't supposed to end the way it did. The big things, the important things - yeah, those turned out the way Luke had hoped they would. But making it through the battle when Biggs hadn't - no, that part wasn't right. That wasn't how it was supposed to end up at all.
Luke said so, or words of that effect, to Wedge. He was sitting on a corner of Wedge's bunk with three bottles of Corellian ale in his belly, and when he said the words he'd been thinking, Wedge gave him a funny look.
"Yeah," Wedge said. "I mean, no, it wasn't. It wasn't supposed to go that way." He took a long drink of his ale. "I guess it usually doesn't. Go the way you think it's supposed to, I mean."
"Yeah," Luke said. He reached out and Wedge handed him bottle number 4. "I guess it doesn't."
Wedge raised his bottle and said, "To Biggs Darklighter - one crazy, charming, crazy, brave, crazy son of a bitch. Did I mention he was crazy?"
Luke laughed a little and clinked his bottle against Wedge's. "I think you did, yeah. To Biggs."
They drank in long swallows and when Wedge's bottle was down to the dregs, he set it down carefully on the floor, turned toward Luke, drew his finger up under Luke's chin, and kissed him. Luke's eyes went wide for a minute before he closed them, let himself feel what it was like to be kissed by someone other than Biggs. When he stopped thinking of Wedge as not-Biggs was when Wedge chose to pull away.
"Sorry," Wedge said. "I just...he talked about you all the time, so I figured...I don't know what I figured. I just wanted you to not look so sad."
"Oh," Luke said. "It's okay," he added quickly. "I mean, I don't...I don't mind. Didn't mind. Don't mind." He let out a quiet, uneasy laugh. He was turning the bottle around and around in his hands and when he realized it he drank the last of its contents and put it down. Trying for nonchalant, he added, "It wasn't my first kiss or anything," and then wished he'd said something else.
Wedge smiled - kind of like Han, Luke thought; a little cocky and a little kind-hearted - and Luke wondered if that smile was a Corellian thing. "The way Biggs used to talk about you, I couldn't tell if you were his little brother or his best friend or his lover."
Luke felt his eyes go wide. Lover. That was a word he'd never attached to Biggs in his head, but it certainly wasn't wrong. "Oh."
"I think maybe it was a little bit of all three," Wedge said.
Luke didn't say anything, just looked down at the empty bottles on the floor and wished he had another one, a full one, something to wash that word - lover - out of his throat.
"Were you? A little bit of all three, I mean. Were you?" Wedge asked. He was looking Luke dead in the eye, and somehow it felt like Luke didn't need to keep his and Biggs' secret right now.
"Yeah," Luke said. Then he licked his lips - Wedge-taste, instead of Biggs - and asked, "Were you?"
Wedge grinned a little bit. "He was a charming, brave, crazy son of a bitch."
"Yeah," Luke nodded. "He sure was." And then he leaned into Wedge and kissed him back.