Work Text:
Din doesn’t plan it. Honestly, he doesn’t even know what comes over him, in that particular moment.
They’re so close to home – the green of Yavin IV fills the viewscreen, and Luke is next to him in the pilot’s seat, humming under his breath as he navigates their transport towards the ground. It had been a normal supply run, nothing remarkable, nothing new, just the two of them taking a few days to themselves outside of the temple and the children. Din looks away from the rapidly approaching trees, looks at Luke and his confident hands on the controls and the slight crinkle around his eyes in concentration, and he just-
Well, he just can’t do it anymore.
Din’s hands move without any conscious thought or direction, reaching up and flicking the release on the underside of his helmet, pulling it off because he really, truly, feels that he will combust if he goes one more moment without Luke’s eyes, focused and sure, on his face. He takes one deep breath, and looks up, looks over at - at Luke’s hands flying off the controls to cover his face, his eyes screwed tightly shut.
For one wild second, Din thinks the world is actually shifting around him. Then he realizes it’s just the ship.
He doesn’t have time to think, to act before they’re tilting alarmingly towards the planet, picking up speed until the trees are a green blur. Shit, he thinks, and then they hit the ground.
~
The crash, thankfully, is minor – an explosion of noise, force like a fist slamming him back into his seat, and then Din is sitting, disoriented, staring through a now cracked viewscreen at the gouge they’ve left through the trees. His helmet is wedged underneath the control panel and he think he left his stomach somewhere back in the lower atmosphere, but he’s all in one piece. He hears Luke breathing raggedly beside him, and looks up sharply, scanning for injury. Luke still has his hands clasped over his eyes – Din doesn’t quite know what to do with that observation, but he’s fairly sure it’s not a good sign.
“I – are you all right?” Luke asks, turning his whole upper body towards Din. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – I promise I didn’t see anything, please, can you put it back on now, I need to comm Leia before she puts the entire planet on lockdown.”
Din, numbly, digs the helmet out and complies. Hearing the hiss of air as it locks back into place, Luke drops his hands and, with one panicked look at Din, bends back over the controls, already flicking at the comms. Din knows, logically, that his helmet filters any dust out of the air and balances his oxygen levels, keeping him safe – despite this, he finds he can’t quite draw a breath, and hastily makes his way off the ship, shoving the ruined door open and propping himself against the dented metal.
He knows they never promised each other anything. Luke, with grim humor and an intimate knowledge of what it felt like to live under an ancient code, had always been respectful of Din’s Creed, of his careful distance from the rest of the world. It’s just that Din had thought, just maybe, that there was a silent understanding between them of how that distance didn’t apply to Luke.
It’s just – with his visits to Grogu at the temple becoming more and more frequent until he finally just stopped leaving, with Luke giving Din a room that slowly came to feel more like home than anything since the Razor Crest, with the sparring they did together, the soft brushes passing in the hallway, how sometimes, at the end of a long day, after settling Grogu and the rest of Luke’s students to bed, Luke would put his hand on the back of Din’s neck, pressing their foreheads together and just holding –
They never promised each other anything, but Din had thought that they both knew.
“Din, what was that?” Luke’s voice, exasperated, makes him jump as Luke clambers out the door and into the forest beside him. “Why would you do that? Leia’s going to kill me and I just need to emphasize how absolutely not my fault this was. I swear I didn’t see your face but Din, that was a close one.”
Din is suddenly blindingly grateful for his nice, thick, tinted visor. He doesn’t even want to think about what his face is doing right now. He looks at the sky, then back down at the ground – anywhere but at Luke. He can’t really seem to make his voice work, so he doesn’t respond.
“Din?” The exasperation gone, now Luke just sounds concerned. He steps closer, and Din tenses every muscle in his body. He’s not sure what would be worse, right now – to throw himself away, or to not be able to stop from moving closer. He doesn’t trust himself, with the pull he feels towards Luke. It’s almost like gravity, but stronger.
As if to test his resolve, Luke takes another step towards Din, “Are you hurt? Din. Talk to me. I can – if you can’t breathe, if you need to take it off, just tell me this time.” He rests light hands on either side of Din’s helmet. “I’ll close my eyes or find a blindfold and we can patch you up – tell me what you need, let me help you.”
Din laughs, but the sound feels wrong, raw. “I’m fine, Luke. I’m not hurt. Let’s go – Leia will be worried.”
“That’s a load of shit,” Luke says. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Din wishes he would let it go, would write the whole incident off as a funny accident and go back to the temple. Din – well, Din will never forget how this feels, doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to wrench his heart back into place after this, but maybe, he thinks, if he doesn’t let on what could have happened today, they can go back to the easy relationship they’ve built together. Din can live without promises, but he doesn’t think he can live without Luke.
Gently, Luke raps on the side of his helmet. “Hello? Talk to me, Din. Are you worried I saw you? I told you, I closed my eyes in time. I know that nobody can see your face – you know I’ll respect that.”
Without thinking, Din rasps, “Clan can see my face,” and promptly wants to kick himself.
He stares down at Luke. Luke stares back.
Din can see the exact moment when it clicks for Luke – eyes widening, hands tightening on either side of his helmet, mouth falling open, slightly, in understanding and surprise. Din squeezes his eyes shut, preparing for the worst.
“I’m sorry about the crash, I wasn’t thinking - “
“Din.” Luke interrupts, sliding his hands to the rim of his helmet. “Din, love, please, can I see you?”
Not trusting himself to speak, Din nods, and Luke’s thumb finds the catch, slowly pulling the helmet up, up, and off.
For a moment, they both just look. A smile breaks across Luke’s face like the sunrise, and dropping the helmet, he raises a hand to cup Din’s cheek.
Din has never seen Luke before like this, unaltered by the tint of his visor and the limits of his view. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything, anyone, quite as beautiful.
Soon, they’ll trudge back to the temple, face Leia’s scorn and Han’s laughter, greet Grogu and the other children and get on with the necessary ship repairs. Soon, Din will move his things from his room to Luke’s, shifting his home from a place to a person. Soon, they’ll figure it all out.
For now though, Luke runs a thumb over Din’s mustache and tilts his face up and Din thinks, with a bone-deep surety, of love and of clan and of family. For now, he leans down to meet Luke halfway with a kiss.