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It was a dark and stormy night altogether unlike any Luke had experienced before.
He’d seen storms like this in holos, and even heard thunder crashing down when sandstorms arced high enough in the atmosphere to entice lightning down to earth in glassy shards, but it was one thing to know of them. It was quite another to see it with his own eyes.
Yavin IV’s humidity had felt like stepping into a wall of water even on a clear day. Now, with sheets of water cascading down the old temple, Luke had to revise his thoughts on humidity; clearly that had merely been a light mist compared to this deluge. More water passed in front of his eyes each minute than his family’s moisture collectors gathered in a month. He could reach out a hand and fill a bucket in seconds. And from how little care anyone else was giving this incredible event, it was nothing to remark upon—except perhaps to complain about how annoying it made outdoor activities.
Luke should be bonding with his squadmates. Red Squadron had been a temporary assignment, one he’d gotten from Biggs, but after the fight Wedge had made it official. “You’ve got a place here as long as you want one,” he’d said, clapping a hand on Luke’s shoulder and smiling fit to split his face. “You’ve made us all heroes, and you’re a damn good pilot too.”
The memory was strong enough, as Luke stared out into the storm, that for a moment he didn’t realise the hand on his shoulder was a present weight. Then Wedge said, “Biggs was the same way when he first joined up.” His voice was quiet, barely louder than the rumble of rain gushing off thick stone. “Said he’d never believed storms like this could be natural. He’d seen a few big rainstorms on Coruscant while at the Academy, but with all the climate control there he thought it was a fancy way of washing gunk off the roads. Not something that could just happen.”
Luke swallowed around the lump in his throat. He’d seen his old friend for a single hour before Biggs had gone out in a blaze of glory, keeping Luke safe for that final shot. It was enough to know Biggs would be pleased with the value of his sacrifice. It wasn’t enough for the dreams Luke and Biggs had shared on cold desert nights under blazing crystal-clear stars. “Yeah,” Luke said, voice rough. “On Tatooine, we might get a flash storm, a single minute of a cloud falling, but nothing like this.”
Lightning punctuated his words, lighting up the jungle below with perfect clarity for a brief instant. Alliance members still ran across the courtyard. Work didn’t stop just because of the rain. A transport ship lifted off the surface, its running lights dim and hazy, reminding Luke of old stories about dragons that lived in the clouds and could carry you to the edge of the sky to pluck diamonds from the firmament.
“You wanna talk about it?” Wedge’s hand stayed on Luke’s shoulder. The steady weight reminded Luke of Biggs. Not in a way that dug the hole of his missing presence deeper, but in a way that reminded Luke that it might be possible to build the hole into something else. “Everyone’s sharing stories. Some of them are about the fight, but not all of them. It’d fit right in.”
Luke glanced over his shoulder, past Wedge’s sympathy and over to the table of Red Squadron’s new members. The Death Star and its forces had decimated the Rebels’ fighting force. Wedge was de-facto leader of Red Squadron now, as one of its only survivors, and remnants of other X-Wing squadrons were joining up because their own squadron had been destroyed. Some of them had been injured or ill, so they hadn’t been fielded during the fight. A few had still been in-transit to Yavin IV when the Death Star had arrived. Others had flown alongside Luke and Wedge. The cost of victory, and their role—or lack thereof—in the fight weighed heavily upon every single one of them.
Wedge followed his gaze. “If you’d rather go somewhere quieter…”
The other pilots were good people. Wes Janson, in particular, had a gift for telling jokes that brought everyone together in warm laughter. But right now, in the dreamy unreality of an ocean coming to rest on the surface of the world like something out of a fairy tale, Luke said, “I’d like that, yeah.”
“C’mon. Let’s make our excuses.” Wedge pulled Luke back to the table. His expression shifted as he walked, a broad smile growing that Luke didn’t think was a lie but sure was different from the soft kindness of his eyes looking into Luke’s.
It took barely a minute for Wedge to make their excuses—showing Luke a better place to watch the rain—and for everyone to take it as a thin veil over their real reason for disappearing: sex.
“Sorry about that.” Wedge’s fingers drifted away from Luke’s shoulder. “We’ve gotta take our pleasure where we can, so…”
Luke caught Wedge’s hand. “I don’t mind.” The Rebel base was full of empty hallways. Especially now, since everyone was evacuating, dispersing to smaller bases that the Empire didn’t know about. Luke took advantage of that to press Wedge a little closer to the wall, feel the heat of his body; even with the humid warmth of Yavin IV, a chill clung to the temple’s old stones. “If Biggs were here, we’d—” The words caught in his throat, but he met Wedge’s eyes and hoped he’d read Luke’s feelings there.
They’d grown up together. They’d been each other’s first kiss. First fuck. First everything, practically, as they’d raced speeders and competed to snipe womp rats from the furthest distance with the fewest shots. It had been Luke’s idea to go to the Imperial Starfighter Academy together and make a name for themselves as the best pilots in the galaxy.
Biggs had gone.
Luke had stayed behind.
And now, Biggs had gone to yet another place Luke couldn’t follow, but the barrier was more permanent than an application and a hyperspace trip.
Wedge’s eyes filled with water, like the rain outside had gotten into him, and he raised a hand to cup Luke’s neck. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I thought it might be like that. He talked about you a lot, you know? He said you would’ve loved it here. He wanted to recruit you, but he couldn’t get anyone to let him fly out to Tatooine to pick you up.”
Luke tried to blink back his own tears, but all he succeeded in doing was blurring his vision. “I would’ve followed him in a heartbeat, so long as my aunt and uncle would’ve been safe.”
Wedge pulled Luke into a hug. He wasn’t a large man; most pilots weren’t. Luke found himself curling into Wedge anyway, tucking his face into Wedge’s shoulder as Wedge’s fingers combed through his hair. “Hey,” Wedge said, “it’s okay. We’ve all got people to grieve.”
“You didn’t sign up for this,” Luke mumbled through the thick sorrow crawling out of his gut. He tried to release his death grip on Wedge’s jacket—how he didn’t die in the heat, Luke couldn’t comprehend—but Wedge didn’t seem interested in letting him pull away.
“I signed up to fight for a cause I believed in,” Wedge said, voice quiet and as piercing in its clarity as the first hint of dawn on the horizon. “I signed up to protect people against Imperial deprivations. I signed up to fly with my friends and watch each other’s backs. All of that means that I’m going to let you cry for a man we both loved for as long as you need to, Luke, though I guess I would rather do it in my quarters than in the hallway.”
Luke laughed, a wet burble like he was learning a stream could be. Probably that was Wedge’s plan all along. “Yeah, yeah.” Luke unbent himself. “Lead the way, captain.”
“I’m not a captain yet,” Wedge grumbled, but he shifted his hold on Luke so they could walk together down the cold halls.
“You will be,” Luke said confidently. “Leia and Ackbar just need to push the promotion through.”
Wedge shook his head. His arm tightened around Luke’s shoulders. “You’re so close to all the command staff. Why stick with us?”
Luke shrugged and leaned into Wedge more. He liked the way their bodies rocked together and the easy camaraderie of Wedge’s presence. “It’s less stressful,” Luke said, and despite all the grief at lost lives washing through him strongly enough to make the skies weep, he meant it. Managing the lives of a dozen squadmates was more lives than Luke had ever been directly responsible for; knowing that your word could send hundreds of people to their deaths, the way any member of Command could, was nauseating.
They walked quietly through the base until they reached the pilots’ quarters, a semi-official wing near the main hangar bays. Wedge led Luke into a small room with a single bunk across from an open trunk filled with clothes. A few posters were hung up on the walls in what was pretty clearly an attempt to make it feel more like a home, but it didn’t make the room feel any less cramped. At least there was a window, a narrow slit that let in the sound of water sluicing along stone, and which could let the sunlight in at other times.
“Sit,” Wedge said, and so Luke sat on the one available surface: the bed. Wedge thumped down next to him, their combined weight making the standard-issue frame creak a little. “Boots off,” Wedge added. “I’m not doing this without some kind of comfort.”
‘Some kind of comfort’ apparently translated into the two of them half-sitting and half-lying on Wedge’s bed, boots off and entirely in each other’s space. “It’s the only way to fit,” Wedge said ruefully, “but if you’d rather not—”
“I like it.” Luke closed his eyes and listened to Wedge’s heartbeat beneath his ear. Steady. A bit fast. Luke spread his hand over Wedge’s chest. “It’s been a while since I could… Rural problems, I guess. Everyone leaves for the big city or goes off-planet, but my aunt and uncle wanted me to stay.”
Wedge hummed. The sound vibrated through Luke, harmonizing with the way Wedge’s hand ran from the crown of his head and down his spine. “I know that feeling. Guess I did the same thing, in my own way. How’s your family now?”
Luke didn’t even try to stop the tears this time. He shook his head. Managed to say, “Stormtroopers.”
“Ah.” Wedge’s arms tightened, holding Luke in place. “Yeah. It hurts. Can’t say the pain of losing your home goes away, but it gets easier to bear once you make a new home.”
Sensations flashed through Luke’s mind, faster than lightning: an exploding fuel station, a woman saying “I love you,” a laughing man gone quiet with grief, the all-encompassing desire for revenge, a young woman holding him tight. They all tingled in his chest in the way Luke had grown to associate with the Force. He swallowed, tried to push away this too-intimate look at Wedge’s past, and said, “I’ve got the start of that, I think. Han and Chewie. Leia.” He lifted himself a little, opened his eyes so he could meet Wedge’s gaze, softly said, “You.”
Wedge smiled. “Yeah?”
Luke scooched himself up Wedge’s chest a little until their faces were inches apart and they were breathing the same air. “Yeah,” he agreed, and let his eyes drop to Wedge’s lips.
It was, as Luke had hoped, all the invitation Wedge needed to lead him into a kiss.