On fixing up a rusted old speeder ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

That night at the arena was both a boom and bust for the Nexus' scruffy haired scoundrel.

Han now had the money to get every part he needed for the Falcon with more than enough left over to make purchases of this and that for the Overracer. He didn't need to waste time slowly harvesting credits playing various games of chance anymore, so he had all the time in the world to devote to fixing either thing. It's just that a wrist in an immobilizer didn't lend itself to mechanic's work very well at all.

He expected to be held up for a while not being able to do much of anything.

Then he expected to try to get into it a little too soon before he'd fully recovered and thereby complicate his healing and cause himself a good deal of pain.

Then he'd be more disciplined - going stir crazy all the while - and wait until he got clearance from a healer before he tried again.

If anyone wanted to take him up on it, he would bet that would be exactly what would happen over the next few weeks after his big fight with Kirk. Imagine his surprise that nothing really happened the way he thought it would and it was mainly because Captain Solo neglected to consider the Joshua Washington factor.

For everything that was out of wack in the kid's head, he had a good mind for trade work. Something, Han never knew exactly what, but something told him that he would be. Josh would make a capable wrench handler, especially with his hands around to guide him and he downright excelled at the electrical work. He'd even manage to surprise Han when he rewired all the lights and displays while hadn't been paying attention.

And he always showed up when he said he would, which, meant more to the Corellian than he would ever let on. He'd expected the kid to lose interest half way through helping him fix the bike.

"Alright, Josh." Han says with a head tilted thoughtfully to the side whilst regarding the speeder. "We're going open up the engine today and check the ignition points."

Comments

[twelve_not_fourteen]

He's inclined to argue that, since Josh is following all his directions, he's not really acting like a know-it-all, but eh. If little brother needs to insist that he can sass and tell other people not named Han Solo what to do, then that's fine. He might even believe him.

"That's good sense, though, kid." He says with a bit of a spark in his eyes. It's not as if Han has gotten a tremendous amount of pleasure from killing people, but he does love the chaos of a stand off. He's all for intimidation, too. "I met a lot of formerly alive sentients that didn't have that much sense."

He listens. Absorbs everything Josh had to say about his father. For all the flip his friend is giving, he's gotta believe there's some hurt in there. In wanting a father to care who just didn't. For a moment, he wonders if maybe if he was lucky. No parents around meant they could never have an opportunity to hurt him.

And yet ... the absence of them hurt him too.

He shakes his head. "No offence, but he sounds like an asshole." Is that the kind of thing you say in support? He's not really sure.

[brother_alone]

Han hasn't seen Josh in his element yet. Well, at the movie nights is close. He is insufferable when he has opinions. Also entirely too genre savvy and judgmental about what he watches and more importantly how it was made.

That's not to say he doesn't like low quality movies too. But he definitely has a lot of opinions he needs people to listen to when it comes to his area of expertise.

Josh sucks in a breath at the comment about his father. Nods a few times.

"Well, it...makes sense. In a stupid way. He's real famous and in Hollywood image is everything. So having a dropout with schizophrenia looks...well. It looks bad. And then...my sisters got killed. I'm sure he wished it've been me instead. They were at least good. Normal." He runs a hand through his curly hair and shrugs.

"Now they don't have to worry about me ruining their image. I'm not going back, so. Everyone wins." He says that but. He doesn't sound much like he means it.

"Okay so that's cleaned out as good as I can do, let me know if it's good enough."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It's Han's default to deal with problems, particularly ones that have to do with emotion, by avoiding them. So. Josh might be thankful in the fact that his Corellian friend did listen, but ultimately dropped the subject. What could he really add to a conversation about shitty fathers? Or a conversation about any kind of father, really.

"Nah. It looks great, kid." He says as he hands over the new part. "Now's the easy part. New part goes on the way the old part came off. Then we get everything back together and who knows, maybe she'll even start for us."

[brother_alone]

Josh doesn't know what to think about his family troubles really. Supposes it doesn't really matter anymore since he doesn't plan on going back home to find out. He feels a bit lonely, but that's helped by the fact that Han is literally right here, and Han has become a surrogate sibling in these last months.

He's quiet while Han inspects his work, but a bit of light comes back to his eyes at the compliment. He's happy to do good work, even happier to make Han proud of it. Josh doesn't waste any time in grabbing his tools up and getting back to work.

Putting the new part in takes a bit of careful finagling to hold it in place long enough to get the initial screws and paneling back into place to hold it in. Once again Josh is half disappeared into the speeder, head and shoulders eaten by the machine as he works.

"Can you hand me that thing over there? The uh--oh that one? Is that next?" It's starting to get a little bit tricky to see what he's doing with the afternoon beginning to just barely slide toward evening. They've been at this all afternoon.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It's easy for Han to say 'okay, now let's put it all back together.' He's done all of this before. It's not quite as straight forward for someone who isn't as familiar with the procedure. Hell, the tech doesn't even exist where Josh comes from. So the kid gets a pass and Captain Solo gets a reminder that his teaching isn't finished.

No big deal. It ain't as if they're in a rush.

"The contact breaker." He gently points out. "We're making sure that's fastened tightly. With the clasps first and then the screws. Then we're fitting the housing we took off with a few bolts."

That's not all of the steps, but that's the next couple. It's going to end, of course, with Han holding up the fucking engine while Washington secures it as fast as possible. That part is gonna be fun.

[brother_alone]

"I swear I was payin' attention before..."

The light is beginning to fade and Josh is hot, sweaty, and tired. But despite all of that? He feels a rush of accomplishment and--dare he even say it--pride at the machine sitting in front of them that they've been working on.

Josh is working by feel as much as sight now, pinpointing the little holes where screws go and working them back into place one at a time. Clasps, screws, bolts. The little piles of parts Han had been so gracious enough to organize for him are disappearing one after another as Josh works his way around the speeder to put them all back on.

Of course, when he's got everything in place and Han has doublechecked his work to make sure it's satisfactory, that's when Josh looks back at the engine and cringes. Just a little bit.

"I don't suppose there's an easy way other than swearing in every language we know and working fucking fast to get that cocksucker back in huh."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Calling Ice Bear, who may or may not be busy?" He says with a shrug. If they were fixing this in a shop and not an empty field, there'd be lifts and chains they could rig up for the job. He's not going to buy a lift for one job, though. And he doesn't know anybody who has one they could borrow.

"As long as I can get a good grip on it, I'll be able to hold it up long enough for you to get the four primary bolts into place. That will hold the engine back onto the frame stability enough for me to let it go and for you to take your time finishing the rest."

"Do you know which bolts I'm talking about?" He figures the kid does, but he's going to point them out anyway because this seems like the kind of thing you'd want to be sure of.

"I think a brief beer recess is in order before we take this on, though ..."

[brother_alone]

"The little black ones?"

Josh looks around before pointing to one of the last remaining piles Han had gathered up while josh was taking everything apart earlier.

He's already plopping back down into the dirt, taking a few deep breaths and letting the breeze cool him off slightly. The siren call of a beer run is not something Josh is ever one to argue with, even when he should.

"You're seriously the best, bro."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han flashes a sideways kind of smile and points to his chest. "I know." And with that grandiose gesture out of the way, he's hiking it up to the Falcon to grab the beers.

With most of the liquor he'd brought from home used up, he's been making due with what's more readily available in the nexus. He's found, as Josh has insisted, Canadian beers to be a bit more consistent than American ones. So his little brother may or may not be surprised by the fact that he returns from the ship with two frosty bottles of Molson.

He passes one to the kid and then has himself a seat in the dirt.

[brother_alone]

"....I used t'get these all the time back home."

Josh holds the bottle over his head a moment, looking through the colored glass at the liquid safely sequestered inside as though it were an alien artifact. He flexes his back before pulling himself upright in one swift motion so he needs not put down the beer for even a moment.

Of course, getting it open is even nicer and Josh takes a long sip before he says anything else.

"....Do you ever miss Corellia?" Seemingly a random question, but Josh rarely doesn't have a reason when he asks anything, unless he's having an episode.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Sort of."

He shrugs and twists off the cap of his beer. It kind of annoys Han that you can't easily tell the difference between the bottles that are just going to come open for you and the one's you need an opener for. At least make them two different colors or something ...

"I think people who had a home and a family and a nice life feel more attached to their planet than I do." He says. It's easier to put it in terms of what everyone else has and not what he didn't have. "My real home is the ship."

[brother_alone]

"Yeah, I know that feel."

Of course by most definitions Josh had everything. A home, family, money...he never went without for things. It was the emotional distance that hurt him. The shame his parents held for his mental problems. The isolation after his sisters deaths. Knowing, deep down, that he should have been the one to go. That it would have made his family so much better off. His friends too. If he...

The bottlecap clinks with a little chime as it smacks against the bottle. Josh had been tapping it rather hard, lost in his own thoughts. He sighs and takes a long gulp of his beer as though the familiar taste will wash all of the sadness away. Though he knows he'd need more than a beer to do that, it helps.

"Ship's a good place. I like her." Josh affirms quietly. He's not going back. He doesn't want to go back. There's nothing waiting for him there. Not a goddamn thing. "Wish I could brag and say it's not as cool as the Bro Zone, but well. That's a fucking shack. No contest."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Sometimes ..."

Han struggles with the words and more with the thoughts. It's so personal what he wants to say and tied into things that he'd rather forget. Certainly, they were things he doesn't particularly want to discuss at great length.

"Home can be more of a feeling than a place." He says after a moment of trying to puzzle out the thoughts. "Like, one of the worst places I ever had to live at, it felt like home more than almost anywhere because of ... because someone who cared about me made it seem that way."

And then he'll follow Josh into the fools errand of trying to stave off his own sadness with drink. It doesn't really work and it definitely doesn't work with just one beer.

"Yeah. No offense, Josh, I got no idea what your place was like, but it's no Falcon."

[brother_alone]

"I haven't taken you there because it is literally a shack. No water. no electricity. No amenities of any kind. Just four walls, a floor, and my sleeping bag and blankets."

Josh takes another swig of his beer, this time smiling just a bit though. It tastes like home, and he's not exactly alone here. He's got Chris and he's got Han. And, for better or worse, that crazy fuckshit Dr. hill is here, too. He's not sure if it's the real one or not. He got tired of trying to figure it out. One of them is here, that's all he knows.

"Not exactly the sort of place you bring folks over to." He chuckles then and sits up. Whatever demons that had been invading his thoughts he seems to have staved off, or is at least pretending he has.

"Though eventually Chris and I are gonna get a place together. I'm trying...to get my shit together. Get some work again."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Oh, you meant the one here." He says with a shrug. Han's seen that shoddily constructed thing. He'd kept his eyes on Josh from a distance, for a while, till he was coming over every day or every other day to work on the speeder and at that point ... there wasn't much need too.

Though he wasn't bugging the place the way some people around here keep tabs on the people they care for.

"I thought you were talking about ..." The place on the mountain. Then Han remembers, even though they never got into the (bloody, gory) details, that place was full of bad memories for Josh. "... nevermind. I've seen the shack here. If you had tried to invite me over, I'd just insist you come to my place anyway."

But, happy for a subject change, a new place is a much nicer thing to talk about. Though um. His mind instantly drifts to Natasha. She sure as hell wouldn't move into a place with Josh, even if Chris was there to act as an intermediary.

"That's not happening just yet, though." He says more to himself than to Josh, whom obviously has a better idea of that than does Han. "Have you thought about what you want to do for work?"

[brother_alone]

Everyone's got their insecurities and hangups. Han's seen first hand on some of Josh's bad days how he'll tense, shoulders raised as though they could stave off the world, and say the most hurtful things he can think of just to try and push people away. Though he obviously hates being alone, so the action is intended to hurt Josh as much as it is to defend himself from others. Luckily those bad days haven't been quite so frequent anymore.

He's not wrong there. Natasha has threatened Josh's life on more than one occasion. She'd be less than thrilled to know Josh is trying to move in with Chris now or ever. It's not her call to make though both he and Chris would argue. How well that goes over has yet to be decided though.

"No, I don't have anything to help for rent yet." Josh sighs, though the followup question has him shrugging. "I'll do pretty much anything, work is work. Plus, my skillset isn't really something that is in a lot of demand around here. Making props, wiring stuff up. Special effects. That kind of thing."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Well, I think you'd make a decent mechanic and if you think it will help any, I'll vouch for you while you're looking for the next job. Whatever it is."

Han is better connected in his galaxy, where he happens to have a few connections with people who ran or worked in shops. Still, Han has been unable to escape the fact that some people around here seemed to think he's a big deal for reasons he can't explain. Not to mention he's got those undeniable people skills.

The scruffy mechanic who is actually surprised with how little dirt he's picked up working today, takes a long sip of his beer.

[brother_alone]

"You really think so?"

He doesn't say anything at the offer for Han to vouch for him, but the way his eyes widen and brighten at the trust and praise Han would need to have for his skills to do so clearly means a lot to him. People holding any part of him in high regard isn't something he's used to, even before Blackwood mountain's fiasco.

"Well shit, guess we gotta get this old girl fired up again before you can do that. Gotta prove I'm worth putting your reputation on the line for." But he smiles, a small genuine smile and scrambles to get to his feet.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Yeah, I think so."

Has Josh ever known Han Solo to be the kind of guy who says things just to make them feel better? He shouldn't because he doesn't do that. He's a straight shooter. The only exception is when he needs to get something done. He ain't above telling a lie if he feels like he has to. For a job, usually. Or to cover his ass.

Anyway, the point is, he wouldn't have complimented the kid if he didn't feel like the young man was deserving of it. He smiles when he sees him jumping up to finish the work because of the sudden burst of excitement. Scruffy knows damn well it ain't because the kid already fished his beer.

He takes one more swig from the bottle before he pushes himself up to standing.

"Let's push the bike over to the engine first to save us a few steps." The frame of the speeder is pretty light when the engine isn't adhered to it.

[brother_alone]

"Yeah, absolutely."

Josh is an entirely different person when he's motivated. He becomes alive with a constant thrum of energy, gaze flitting to every small detail to make sure he's got everything in order and doing things properly. It's such a night and day difference from the husk he sometimes is, distant and empty and despondent. medication would probably help with his mood swings and hallucinations, but he's been terrified of doctors since discovering his own hallucination version of Dr. Hill is real and a constant menace in the Nexus.

Josh's beer is forgotten, set aside on the dirt as he grabs the front of the speeder and starts moving it toward the engine. He's not a particularly strong guy, but even he can manage this with minimal effort. The engine really is the heaviest thing in the damn vehicle.

"God I can't wait to give this baby a drive. We could explore so damn much of the Nexus on this thing." He makes sure the speeder is steady once it's next to the engine and facing the proper way. "Like this yeah?"

He remembers how heavy this son of a bitch is, but this time Josh is nearly vibrating with excitement and determination to see the job done. He's already bending over, knees bent as he grips the same part of the engine that he had before.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

And there goes a motivated Joshua dragging the frame of the speeder over to the engine by himself. You gotta hand it to the kid, when he's motivated to do something, he doesn't mess around. It almost reminds him of the way Jarik used to get - happy to learn and be helpful, responsive to praise.

Been a while since he thought about that poor kid. Han missed him. Could be why, when he got to know Josh pretty well, he didn't hesitate to take him under his wing. The best way he could think to honor lost friends is to be good to the new ones and let yourself feel something when those bittersweet memories come rising up again ...

"You ever driven a vehicle like this before?" Han asks. By now he knows that there are some types of vehicles in the multiverse that compare. Natasha's motorcycle. Blaze's Sparrow. "Or am I gonna have to start from square one teaching you how to ride it?"

Han takes a swaggering couple of steps over to the engine and gets down on his knees. He's gonna need to be underneath most of the weight to keep it balanced on the frame while his young friend gets those weight bearing bolts into place.

"We'll pick it up on three, alright?" And then, he counts and on three ... he picks up his end.