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It’s different from what Din remembers. It should be after ten years, but still, Din is disoriented when they touch down on Ossus. There’s a landing in a huge clearing outside of the school now and a mechanics hut. A large New Republic shuttle is parked there alongside Luke’s old x-wing which looks shockingly rusted. Din hasn’t seen it in five years and feels strangely bowled over by the nostalgia that washes over him at the sight.
No one comes out to greet them as they make their way up the hill to the domed buildings that make up the Jedi Academy. Which makes sense. Every being inside that school probably felt their presence the moment they broke atmo. Din glances at Grogu and guesses that he’s already mentally greeting them, tuned into the frequency that all Force users have even if he’s abandoned his study of it. Maybe Grogu’s mind will change when he sees how far along the school has come.
Din expected a throng of students in matching robes, spinning around lightsabers, and parsing the ancient language on the paper scrolls Din had once found and delivered to Luke. But instead find them in the kitchen, casually lounged across floor cushions as they eat and listen to Luke, perched on a table across from them.
“Were you scared?” A student is asking when they come into the room.
“Yes,” Luke replies, glancing over at Din and Grogu. “But fear is the real test. And our first teacher. Isn’t that right, Grogu?”
Din is surprised when Grogu bounds across the room to hug Luke. He’s less keen on displays of affection lately, ducking away from head pats when he’s irritable. Luke and Grogu haven’t seen each other in years, but you wouldn’t know it by the way they easily embrace each other.
Maybe Grogu’s been in contact with Luke more than Din realized. Din hasn’t been open with how often he comms the Jedi either. What had been an occasional message in the old days of his consultancy for the Rangers had become a full-fledged habit. Din had felt that he and Luke had developed something like a friendship, but now, watching Luke and Grogu mentally speak to each other, he wonders if Luke had only been messaging Din to follow up on Grogu’s progress.
“Sorry to interrupt your lesson– uh, meal?”
Din isn’t sure what is happening here. Most of the students are unbothered by their entry, munching on fruit and whispering to each other. But one dark-haired, pale boy is eyeing Din with distrust. Din vaguely recognizes him as Luke’s nephew Ben, a once ten-year-old who’d happily chatted away with Grogu the last time they’d seen Luke.
“It’s a little of both,” Luke replies, sliding off the counter. He extends his hand to Din and grips him tight, blue eyes bright with a warmth that surprises Din. “And you’re both always welcome here.”
“Mandalorians? Here?” Ben remarks. His tone has the kind of petulance that Din would expect from a teenager, but there’s a darkness in his expression that makes Din frown.
Luke is unfazed. Still holding Din’s hand in his, he levels Ben with a look and says, “Grogu and his father are the reason we have the scrolls you are studying so intently these days. Now,” he says letting go of Din’s hand and turning to the rest of the students, “chores, all of you. Our guests want to speak with me.”
The students scatter without complaint, cleaning as they go. Ben shares one last lingering look with Grogu, and even underneath his helmet, Din can read the stillness of Grogu’s dislike radiate back to Ben’s sullen face.
Grogu turns sharply to follow Luke, mood palpably darker than the one he’d arrived with. But with every step across Ossus’ idyllic landscape, he seems to lighten, lifting his helmet from his head and holding his face to the sun. The same midday sunshine that glows white through the pale hair on Grogu’s head makes Luke’s into burnished gold.
There’s streaks of grey among the blonde now, Din notices, and in the short beard that adorns his chin. It makes Din unfathomably sad for some reason, the way he sometimes feels when he remembers Grogu as the young toddler that used to sleep in the crook of his arm. Time is a thief.
Luke glances at Din occasionally as they walk uphill to a large tree and pond ahead. There’s curiosity in his eyes, no doubt noting the changes in Din’s appearance. But beyond a new kute and some thigh armor, there isn’t much to remark on. Din can’t look much different to Luke. But maybe there's some insight that the Force can grant him. Some molecular change that he’s undergone at fifty that he hadn’t presented at forty-five.
It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. When he and Grogu had found themselves in a corner, trapped in by some mercenaries that they’d unwittingly interrupted. And then, for the second time in his life, salvation had come in a black cloak and green flash of light; Luke Skywalker, the mysterious Jedi that had been entrusted with Grogu for more than a standard year. An hour after he’d single-handledly saved their skins, Skywalker had sat shoulder-to-shoulder with New Republic Rangers, giggling into his lager.
Was he a hypocrite? Din wondered as he watched Skywalker give equal attention to Grogu’s babblings as he did to the swearing, drunken pilots around them. He smiled with his head ducked like a child after Din had witnessed him crush a blaster with just the twist of his hand in the empty air. Din didn’t know what to make of him.
His bewilderment wound itself into a tight spring inside of Din’s belly the longer he looked at Luke. And Luke looked back. Stared. That had started when Din had taken a blaster bolt to the helmet for him. Luke had stared at him, for just a moment, assessing him before extinguishing his lightsaber. Din didn’t like that look. Especially now, hours later.
The tension had grown unbearable eventually. Din escaped with a dozing Grogu and tried to sleep himself. But it was no use. He had to go looking for Luke, to have it out with him, or thank him, or… Din hadn’t known exactly. He’d found Luke still awake, half-dressed and sloppily shaving in his tent. He’d opened his mouth, stepped closer, and then found himself pinned to the curved wall of a quonset.
“Please, I’m…” Skywalker had breathed with his teeth clenched tight, “can I touch you?”
The memory of Luke Skywalker falling to his knees replays in Din’s mind more than he likes to admit. It had happened too quickly for Din to process, to savor. The heat of Luke’s mouth, the rough texture of Luke’s calloused fingers–these are the details he tends to recall again and again. And Luke’s gasp when Din had grasped him. The way he’d relaxed into Din’s arms and breathed deep for just a moment before rolling on his back next to Din.
“Where are you going next?” Luke had asked, shoulder pressed beneath Din’s pauldron.
“Teva’s got a job for us in the Sprizen system.”
“Oh. Well, when you’re done you should come visit Ossus again.”
He’d said it so quietly. Like he wasn’t even sure he should say it at all. And Din had reeled with surprise at the invitation and his sudden desperate desire to do so.
“Bad timing,” he’d sighed.
He hadn’t been able to explain to Luke then about Mandalore. About the unanswered comms that flashed red on his ship’s dash and the relief of a hundred jobs from a tired Ranger General.
They make it to the top of the hill where Din had observed them the last time he was here, when Grogu was still as short as his boot. It’s strange to see him now, cross-legged across from Luke, armor shining, solemn as a true Mandalorian warrior, older by a decade than both of them, but still so very, very young.
“Alright then,” Luke says quietly to Grogu. “Show me.”
Grogu could’ve told Luke everything aloud in Basic or Mando’a or half a dozen other languages that Din had taught him in the last ten years of his training. But it was easier, he supposed, for Grogu to use their connection in the Force and explain. He’d only just begun to haltingly describe the horrible nightmares to Din. Visions, Grogu called them, of Luke’s school under attack. Students cut down, buildings destroyed, all at the hand of a dark, cloaked figure. Luke himself, Grogu had feared, quivering in Din’s arms.
“No,” Din had reassured him again and again. “Master Skywalker would never. There is nothing like that in him.”
It had taken weeks of convincing for Grogu to come here. His nightly tears had turned to a stony facade during the day as he refused to listen to Din’s pleas. He wanted to go to Mandalore instead, arguing with Din that they’d stayed away too long. But Din had held fast against that idea.
Mandalore was a mess. Lost without any proper leaders. Half-recovered cities struggling to find the resources they needed to make safe and tenable housing. Their food stores were depleting and trade negotiations were continuing to stretch year after year with no resolution. The New Republic was wary of Mandalorian power. But the Mythosaur was the crux of the Din’s concerns.
Awakened by the rebuilding activity, a female Mythosaur had emerged from the waters beneath Sundari and begun searching for a mate. The fragile infrastructure the Mandalorians had managed to build so far was disturbed by her increasingly frustrated search, and a hunting party had formed. Grogu and Din had arrived too late. They didn’t see the Mythosaur take Bo-Katan Kryze out. Din’s focus had been on Grogu and the calm way he’d approached the beast, like the day he’d quieted the rancor on Tatooine. All it took was a controlled, mental call to the fearsome creature to heel. And before Din could stop him, before he could pull him back, Grogu had bounded up, confident and sure, a small speck of green on the back of Mandalore’s famed creature. Riding her like a blurrg, like he’d always belonged there. She’d surrendered so easily.
That night Din had gathered Grogu and fled. He insisted they stay far away from the troubles on Mandalore. But Din saw that Grogu’s mind was never far from the beast he’d tamed.
It’s almost two hours before they both blink open their eyes to the beams of the setting sun. They return to the school quietly and join the preparations for dinner with the other students. Luke is distant for the rest of the evening, no doubt mulling over Grogu’s story. He asks Din to stay when Grogu leaves with the students for the night.
After they’ve cleaned the kitchen, Luke reaches a hand out toward a hidden nook and entices a bottle of revnog out. When Din nods his agreement, Luke pours, and they sit across from each other. Din drinks by lifting his helmet and waits. Waits for the censure or the wisdom that Luke is sure to lay at his feet. But nothing comes. They simply sit in silence, listening to the cracking of the dwindling flames in the fireplace.
That tension, the same that raised the hair on Din’s skin all those years ago, that had led him to Luke’s bunk on Adelphi, builds again. Din doesn’t know what to do with it, not this time. Not after five years. But at least the drink between his hands loosens his tongue.
“He’s too young,” he starts, then pauses, guessing Luke’s response.
But Luke says, “Padwan usually are.”
Din licks his lips. “Exactly. He’s still my apprentice. Still earning his armor.”
Luke hums as he sips his drink. “And as his teacher, you are to lead him on the right path.”
“Right.”
“Right. So what exactly is the path you have Grogu on, right now?”
Din’s fingers tighten around his glass as he glances up at Luke’s face. There’s no guile there, no smug expression. He’s deadly serious and almost frighteningly still. Din’s belly tightens like it does before a fight, like right before he reaches for his blaster. Din seriously considers if he could jump across this table and tackle Luke to the ground just so he doesn’t have to answer the question.
“He still needs me,” Din says, moving to stand. He wobbles slightly; he forgot how light his head gets after just one drink. Luke lifts his hand and stops him.
“Wait,” Luke says, “please stay. I don’t get much adult conversation.”
Din sits back down heavily and huffs, “Not much of a conversation.”
At that Luke smirks. “Well then I’ll just enjoy the view.”
Din stares hard at the table top listening to Luke finish his drink. He shouldn’t respond to Luke’s teasing, but the drink and the fire and the coil inside him seem to push the words out of his mouth without his permission.
“Do you… have many adult visitors?”
“The parents come and go. And my family, of course. But no one… stays with me. No one I’d invite, anyway.”
Some sort of distant buzzing begins in Din’s ears, like the earpiece in his helmet is acting up, but there isn’t a notification on his HUD. All he can see is Luke’s sincere, open face, waiting for Din to respond.
When Din doesn’t, Luke shrugs. “You’re always welcome to, you know. Come and stay.”
And then he stands and moves away. Down a corridor and out the front door, heading east toward an isolated hut slightly elevated above the rest of the school. He continues inside to a bedroom, sparse and cozy, with a door that locks behind them. And Luke turns and looks at Din with such an openly hungry expression that Din can’t think. He reaches up and removes his helmet and attempts what he thinks is a kiss.
Luke stiffens in surprise, and then releases a strange, strangled noise before placing both hands around Din’s head and tilting it. Then he presses his chapped lips to Din’s three times chastely before encouraging Din to open his mouth. Soon, Din is on his back, arms wrapped tight around Luke’s waist as he desperately tries to remember to breathe.
When Luke shifts his hips, Din groans, and they both pull back in surprise. Din should probably be embarrassed he’s as stiff as a teenager in his pants at fifty, but Luke looks genuinely delighted. He wraps his flesh hand around Din’s face and brushes a thumb across his lips.
“Is this a habit now?” Luke asks.
Din shakes his head slowly. He doesn’t have the right words or the time to explain. All he can think of to say is, “There are three living beings that have seen my face since I took the Creed. The first is essentially dead. The second is my son. And the third,” Din lifts his head to touch Luke’s forehead to his and sighs, “is you.”
Luke trembles against him. “That, uh,” he whispers haltingly, “gives me special access?”
Din pulls back to look Luke in the eyes. “Yes,” he says simply, with all the conviction that Luke’s presence seems to inspire in him.
Luke groans and they grind their bodies together, legs tangling, hips aligning and pressing down. Luke reaches down to tug at the edge of Din’s breastplate.
“How much access?” He asks.
Din nods hastily, indicating up and down his body. “Help me.”
One flick of Luke’s wrist and every piece of Din’s armor is gone, leaving him suddenly cold as he watches them float away in the air like small silver ships heading in to dock on Luke’s alcove shelf. Then he hooks his fingers into Luke’s belt and tugs.
“It’s, uh,” Luke pants as Din presses kisses to the scruff at his neck, “been a while. Years, as you know, and uh–”
Din stalls whatever Luke was trying to say by plunging his hand inside his pants to grope at his erection. Luke shakes and surges into another kiss, hands tight around Din’s biceps. His hips shutter forward, and then continue small abortive thrusts into Din’s naked hand. Din shoves his other hand down the other side, grabbing at the globe of Luke’s ass and tugging him closer.
“Kriff–” Luke curses next to Din’s ear, voice rough. “I wasn’t, ngh, hopeful enough to prep.”
Prep? Din wonders as he bites at the edge of Luke’s jaw and continues to make his way up curiously to the shell of his right ear. But when his fingers dip between Luke’s cheeks, it becomes more clear. Din’s cock throbs between their bellies, just at the idea.
“That’s alright,” Din pants, hand stilling, staring up at Luke’s flushed face.
He never thought this would happen again. Their correspondence over the years had been enough. Just to know that Luke remembered him, remembered Grogu, had meant so much to Din. And here he is again, with him. With Luke. They might never get this chance again.
Shakily Din encourages Luke off of him, and quickly undresses. Following his lead, Luke divests himself of his tunic and pants too, looking up at Din with the same hunger and openness that made Din ache all those years ago. When Luke spreads his knees, Din drops between them, bracketing Luke’s face with his forearms and leaning down to add more of his clumsy kisses. Their chests rub enticingly together, their bellies meet, and then their cocks, hot and tight glide against each other, making them both moan.
“Maybe…?” Din says, thrusting his hips again to chase the feeling. And Luke groans.
“Yes, ye-es,” Luke groans, reaching down to trap both their cocks between his large hands.
His body takes over before Din can really process what’s happening. One slick slide of his cock within Luke’s grasp, pressed tight against Luke’s throbbing shaft, and he can’t help the snap of his hips or the press of his body. His mouth finds Luke’s neck again and between breaths he presses kiss after kiss, until he’s trembling with it. He presses his teeth hard against the edge of Luke’s jaw and finally, finally releases.
When he lifts up again, Luke’s eyes are squeezed tight together, like they had been that first time. Din rolls away to lie next to him.
“So,” Luke begins, “tell me what’s going on with Grogu.”
Din frowns up at the domed ceiling of Luke’s hut. “He didn’t tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Din sighs, suddenly feeling how naked he is. He sits up to reach for his underwear. “He tamed a Mythosaur. Everyone saw. And it’s a political mess over there. But like I said, he’s too–”
Luke sits up too, looking deeply into Din’s eyes. Din wants to shrink away from the direct eye contact, more uncomfortable with it than their other acts of intimacy. But Luke looks too solemn to turn away.
“It’s his path, Din. Or the next step at least. Why do you think he’s having these horrible visions? The anxiety that’s building inside of him is muddying his future.”
Din stands and pulls on his underwear, avoiding Luke’s eyes. “He needs more time.”
“He has it. His species can live for nearly a millennia.”
“Right, so, he has–”
Din pauses, leg partway through a leg opening, gritting his teeth against what he can’t say. What he doesn’t want to admit. But Luke completes his thought for him.
“Time to be with you? And that’s what this is about, right? You want more time with him.”
Din tugs his underwear up, and stands still, staring hard down at his bare feet.
“It’s time to let go a little.”
Din presses his fists to his eyes like he learned to when he had first come to Concordia. When all he felt was the burning of his eyes from the smoke that had filled his village.
“I’ve never been good at timing,” he tries to say, but his throat is too thick for the words to make it out clearly.
From the way Luke holds him, Din thinks he understands what he meant.
—
When the sky lightens a few hours later, Din goes out to search for Grogu. It doesn’t take long to find him, sitting on the jut of a tree branch looking out over the valley below Luke’s school. Din comes around to the front of the branch and leans his back against it, crossing his arms and following Grogu’s gaze out across the misty jungle below.
“I guess I never asked you,” Din begins after a few quiet moments, “what it is that you want.”
Grogu sighs. “My place is on Mandalore. Even if… you can’t be with me.”
Din swallows the rebuttal that’s building behind his teeth, the pleading for Grogu to reconsider. His throat feels sore with it. He tightens his arms to his chest.
“Where else would I be?” He asks, voice hoarse.
Grogu jumps down from the branch, graceful and lithe. He removes his helmets and tilts his head, small face so serious. “With Master Luke?”
Din releases his breath and his arms. “Oh.”
“We’ve been together for so long, buir. And you’ve been the best teacher I could have ever had. But… I think you have somewhere else you want to be too. And that’s okay.”
Din reaches out to lay his hand on Grogu’s pauldron. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Grogu laughs, shaking his head. “Will you listen to me for once, old man? Stay here for a bit. Come to Mandalore when you’re ready to face the crazy. We can do that, can’t we?”
Din sighs, and reaches up to cup his hand around Grogu’s neck. “Yeah.”
They make it back to the school in time to help with breakfast. The students all greet them with enthusiasm, except for Ben, whose waryness has not faded. Din could help with that, he thinks. If Luke wants his help. At the stove, Luke is diligently frying some sort of protein, back to them all.
But when Din approaches, he says, “He told you then.”
“He says we have different paths now.”
Luke glances up at him, eyes curious. “What’s yours?”
And as privately as he can, Din touches Luke’s fingers with his own. Luke stares down at them, breathing once, twice. Then he intertwines them until their palms are clasped together.
“I guess,” Luke says, leaning his shoulder against Din’s, “it’s time.”