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It’s a quiet morning the first time it happens.
The two of them are lying in bed, tangled together and taking advantage of one of the rare mornings when neither of them have any other duties to attend to that day. Sunlight filters in softly through stone-lined windows, warming Luke’s skin and making him feel lazy and content as Din rakes a hand gently through his hair. He presses his lips softly to Din’s shoulder, just because he can, and lets the kiss linger, breathing in deeply.
“Do you want breakfast?” Din asks, tugging lightly on the ends of Luke’s hair. It’s longer now than he usually lets it grow, curling a bit around his face and neck. He doesn’t mind. He knows for a fact that Din doesn’t either.
“Five more minutes?” he bargains, lifting his head from the other man’s shoulder and propping himself up on one elbow, blinking as his vision swims with floating sunspots.
Din chuckles and the look he gives Luke makes his chest tighten. He wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling this way whenever Din gazes at him with such open adoration. How, after all these years, Din never fails to make Luke feel like a teenager again, flush and buzzing with the excitement of new love.
“Five more minutes,” Din agrees, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiles. His hand passes through Luke’s hair again, and Luke lets his eyes fall shut.
He never let himself dream about finding anything like this when he was younger. Not while he was living on Tatooine or during the war. There were never opportunities for finding something real then- he, like most, was too invested in staying alive to think about anything else. He certainly hadn’t the time for relationships after the war ended either, suddenly finding himself the last of a kind. There was never a right time and Luke had just found that he always had too much to do. Too much to focus on and rebuild. He couldn’t spare the time it would take to find the right person who would be open enough to listen. To understand what it meant for him to be a Jedi. To understand the weight and honour he carries in equal respect. Luke had found pretty quickly in those early days that it was far easier to simply dedicate himself to his teachings fully. Romantic heart be damned, he had convinced himself that he didn’t need what Leia and Han had- what everyone else seemed to have. That, in the sanctuary of the dark, he didn’t silently yearn for the easiness and comradery they shared.
He’d settled for the peace of mind he found in speaking his desires out to the Force and letting them be carried away.
Then, he met Din.
Din, whose physical armour rivalled Luke’s mental. Who stood tall and proud with his son by his side, asking Luke for his help to train the boy. Whose molten brown eyes seared into Luke’s very soul, stripping him back until all that was left were stars strung together. The Force had sung out and, like a blaster bolt to the chest, Luke had known that his life was forever changed.
Peeling his eyes open, he looks down at Din. Hazy and soft in the morning light, he’s a vision to behold. Luke would keep them in this moment on a loop if he could. Din’s hair is tussled from sleep and from Luke. His chocolate curls are greyer now and his beard has more salt than pepper these days. Freckles and moles dot along his shoulders where they hadn’t before and the hard lines of his stomach have begun to soften slightly. Luke doesn’t bother trying to hide the satisfied grin that pulls at his lips as he looks his lover over.
“What?” Din whispers, amused.
“How do you just keep getting better with age?” Luke admires aloud, leaning down to press a chaste kiss to Din’s chin. “You look so good. It’s infuriating.”
Din huffs, pulling Luke down gently by the back of his neck to plant a real kiss on his lips. It’s clumsy yet perfect in the way that only two people who have been together for as long as they have can accomplish- soaked in familiarity and ease and knowing. “You’re one to talk,” he grumbles between kisses. “Can’t even see the sliver in your hair it’s so blond.”
Luke pulls away, blinking again. “What?”
“I guess it’s more white than silver,” Din shugs. “But the saying is a silver vulptex, right? Not white vulptex. Unless I got that wrong.”
“I’m not a silver vulptex,” Luke argues, eyebrows pulling together as he sits up and back on his heels, ignoring the way his knee pops. “I don’t have any white hairs yet.”
Din frows slightly, pushing himself up to sit too. Their blankets pool around his waist and Luke would usually be very interested in paying some attention to the newly exposed skin, but all that he can focus on are the words that just came out of Din’s mouth.
“Luke,” Din says, watching him with curious eyes. “You haven’t noticed?”
Luke’s stomach drops and he shakes his head. “I haven’t checked!”
Din’s lips twist, holding back a laugh and Luke swats his chest. “Don’t laugh,” he snips. “When did you notice? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s been a while,” Din scratches the back of his neck. “We’re both getting older, cyare. I figured you knew.”
Luke opens and shuts his mouth, but no words seem to want to come out. How could he not have noticed something like that? He clambers out of their bed, kicking off the sheet that clings to his ankle and crosses the room hastily to the mirror he and Din have mounted on the wall. He doesn’t spend as much time on his appearance as he used to anymore, it’s just not a big deal when it’s only Din, Grogu and himself most of the time, but surely he wouldn't miss something as significant as his hair changing?
Leaning in close to the mirror, Luke runs his hands through his hair, eyes inspecting his roots.
White.
Not as much as he’d imagined with Din calling him a silver vulptex of all things, but more than Luke ever remembers having before. It mixes in with his natural blond surprisingly well, but stands out starkly against the darker bits at his temples.
His guts squirms uneasily. He should have seen this coming, really, but there’s something about seeing the silvery-white strands threaded through his hair that makes something like grief well within him.
When did it happen?
The feeling of hands on his hips startles him, and Luke jumps, having been so focused on his hair that he missed Din coming up behind him. Their eyes meet in the mirror and Luke feels a pang of guilt when he sees that Din’s face is filled with concern.
“Luke?”
Words are still a struggle to form on his lips, the right ones sitting like stones in his stomach, heavy like rocks, but he manages to shake his head and give Din a hapless shrug. “I didn’t notice.”
Din dips his head down and presses a kiss against his neck. “That’s okay,” he says. “It’s not that big a deal, right? I’ve got plenty of greys and you still think I’m handsome.”
Luke swallows, jaw ticking as he focuses his gaze back on himself in the mirror, leaning back into Din’s chest. His eyes are still blue, his skin still pale and marked with scars new and old. There are a few more wrinkles on his brow and around his mouth. A bit more of a scruff on his face he was never able to grow so quickly when he was younger.
Other than the white in his hair, he looks mostly the same as he always has.
Still, an inexplicable ache blossoms in his chest.
–
The second time it happens is when he’s looking after Ben.
His nephew is running wild in the woods outback of his and Din’s house, waving a stick around as a makeshift balster. Grogu bounces behind him, trilling happily, but overall he seems far more interested in the frogs hopping around the grass than whatever game his cousin is playing. Still, the sight of them together makes Luke smile, full of fondness and love and something akin to pride warming in his chest as he watches how well they get along.
“Ben,” he calls, ducking under a tree branch. “Slow down, buddy. You’ve got to stay where I can see you. Your Mom and Dad won’t be happy if you run off and break your arm!”
A childish groan of disappointment is the only response he gets, making Luke laugh softly to himself as the boy doubles back, tromping over a few impressively large roots that jut up from the ground.
“Uncle Luke,” Ben starts, holding a hand out to help Grogu over the root. “If I fall, you could just fix me with your magic, right? That’s what Dad says.”
Luke resists the urge to roll his eyes, hearing Han’s words as clear as day in his mind. Instead, he puts his hands on his hips and puts his best teacher voice on. “I don’t have magic, Ben. Do you remember what we talked about last time you came to visit?”
“The Force,” Ben nods sagely, far too serious for a ten-year-old, and it makes Luke grin.
He reaches out and ruffles his nephew's hair, “That’s right. We talked about how the Force is in everything, but everybody interacts with it differently. People like your Dad and Uncle Din don’t feel it at all, but me, you, your Mom and Grogu can all sense it.”
“And we can use it!” Ben chimes in. “Like magic!”
Luke chuckles and shakes his head, “In a sense, sure, you could call it magic, but it’s much more than that. The Force is everywhere, Ben. It’s in the air and the trees. It’s in the water and the grass. It’s its own living thing. It’s more than magic, it’s energy, and it takes a lot of practice for people like us who can feel it to use that energy properly.”
Ben bites his lip, looking down at Grogu who has sat down against the base of the tree root. “Is that why you wouldn’t be able to fix my arm if I broke it? You don’t have enough practice?”
“Oh, I could fix a broken arm easily,” Luke shrugs. “It’s more about respecting the Force and the abilities it gives us and not using them when we don’t need to. I’d much rather you just be safe and not get hurt at all than to have to use the Force to fix a broken arm, do you understand that?”
“I think so,” Ben says. “Is that what happened to your hand?”
Luke’s brain stalls for a moment. “Huh?”
“Your hand?” Ben repeats, suddenly sounding unsure of himself as he points down at the aforementioned hand. “Is that way you didn’t use the Force to fix it?”
Luke looks down at his right hand. The skin is pale and unmarred, a perfect replica of the one he lost. He’s taken to wearing it ungloved around family, even though he knows he still should regardless to protect its delicate circuitry. His fingers curl into a loose fist, a reflexive movement to remind him that, yes, they still work even as his fingers and wrist aches in a phantom thrumming of pain that never quite goes away.
“Uncle Luke?” Ben whispers. “Are you okay?”
Luke blinks, looking back up at his nephew and son who are both looking at him expectantly. “Sorry,” he clears his throat. “Yes, Ben, I’m okay. Your question just took me by surprise. The Force doesn’t work like that, bud. It can fix a broken arm because your bone is still there, it’s something that can be repaired. I lost my hand, and while the Force is powerful, it can’t bring back things that are already gone.”
He swallows back bitter remorse, watching as the kids take in his words. He hopes that this line of questioning dies there. How would he even begin to explain the circumstances of his loss of limb to them? Ben is old enough now to have begun learning some about the war in school, and Grogu has his own horrific memories from both the Clone Wars and the fall of the Empire, but both are still too young in his book to hear about what happened on Cloud City.
To hear about Vader.
Anakin.
His fingers twitch. Luke’s not sure he would be able to talk to them about it even if they were old enough. Already he can taste the bile rising in the back of his throat just thinking about it. The only person that he’s told about that day who wasn’t there is Din, and even then it had taken Luke several hours and several more shots of spotchka to get through the tale.
“That makes sense, Uncle Luke,” Ben sniffs, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand and Luke grimaces. “Sorry if I made you upset. I didn’t mean anything by it, honest! I think your hand is really cool, I was just curious ‘cause it looks so different from your real one and I thought that maybe you could use the Force to fix it so it would look like your other one!”
“What do you mean?” Luke asks, the twisting panic and discomfort under his skin turning into confusion as he glances down at his hands once again, trying to subtly see what his nephew means by ‘looks different’.
“Well,” Ben begins, sounding all too happy to be the one explaining things this time around. “Your real one is all rough with callouses and you can see the veins on it, but your fake one still looks really cool!”
The air leaves his lungs in a wheeze and Luke gives up on all subtly, holding his hands out and together to inspect them. His right one, as he observed before, is smooth and pristine, a little more so than a natural body part would be, but it comes with the territory of having a prosthetic. Yet, it had always been a double of the hand he lost. Designed to look as close to his other hand as possible with top-of-the-line synthetic skin and everything.
Except now he can see that Ben was right.
They’re different.
His left hand looks thinner and leaner compared to the soft flesh of his robotic one. The veins are more visible like Ben had said and there are indeed rough patches of callous on his palms. Upon closer inspection, Luke is relieved to see that there don’t appear to be any dark spots on his skin yet, but the conclusion is clear in his mind.
His left hand has been aging while his right hasn’t. Synth-skin nowadays ages along with its host, but Luke hasn’t had an upgrade to his in nearly as long as he and Din have been together. Nearly as long as Ben has been alive. They’re no longer a match. He hadn’t noticed until now.
He hadn’t noticed again.
That squirming, restless feeling appears in his gut again, gnawing away at itself and him. How does this keep happening? These signs of age keep escaping him, popping up when he feels the same as he always has, yet time and everything else around him seems to be telling a different story. His hands don't look like his anymore and Luke doesn't know what to do with that.
Unconsciously, he brings his bio hand up to his temples, fingers ghosting over the hair there before dropping his hand and shaking it out.
“It’s getting pretty hot out,” he says quickly, plastering on his best smile. “How about we head back to the house and have some ice cream? I think we have some left from our trip to Coruscant. What do you two think, huh?”
Ben cheers while Grogu lets out a happy squawk, both of them too thoroughly distracted by the promise of a sweet treat to pick up on the growing despair building in Luke's chest. The boys take off back through the woods, leaping and bounding and laughing as they go, and in a moment Luke finds himself alone. Stuck. His feet are unwilling to move even though he needs to be keeping an eye on the kids.
The forest whispers around him, a breeze winding through the branches and brushing past his face.
He looks down at his hands.
The wind blows his hair into his eyes.
Luke exhales shakily, deciding to put his glove back on when they get home, and brushes his hair out of his eyes.
“Wait for me!” he calls, taking off in a jog after the boys. “Ben! Put Grogu down, please!”
–
The third and final time it happens, Luke is covered in blood.
It’s not his blood, of course. Or, most of it isn’t anyway. Luke’s honestly not even sure how much of the thick, blood-like plasma dripping from him is actually blood.
“Cyare?” Din’s voice calls out.
“Fine,” Luke shouts back, wiping a glob of the oily, fake blood off his chin. His temples are throbbing and it feels like his limbs are made of lead, but overall he is fine. “I’m alright, Din!”
He looks down at the pile of scorched metal at his feet. The old Imperial base that he and Din were scouting was supposed to have been abandoned. ‘Supposed to’ being the key term there, because only half an hour after they’d shown up, they’d been ambushed by whatever it was that was currently oozing more of that fake blood all over the floor.
Luke nudges it with his foot, his lightsaber still glowing green and ready in his hands. The hunk of metal doesn’t move but lets out a ragged, high-pitched whirr before falling silent. A noxious bubble of tar-blood pops out of a joint that Luke had severed, spilling across Luke’s boots.
“Great,” Luke grumbles, shaking his foot to fling some of the gunk off. “Just great.”
“Hey,” Din says, coming up from behind to stand beside him, sounding slightly out of breath. "You said you’re okay?”
Luke nods, turning to give his husband a quick look-over. Din’s armour is smeared with more of the same black blood, the darksaber thrumming quietly in one hand and his beskar spear in the other. He doesn’t look injured, but as Luke leans over to wipe some grime off the front of Din’s visor, he asks anyway. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Din breathes, looking around, helmet cocked to the side. “What are those things?”
“Some kind of trooper I think,” Luke hums. “They seem pretty advanced, but it’s hard to tell. The real question is what they’re doing here.”
“They don’t look like any kind of dark trooper I’ve ever seen. Think they’re new?”
“If they are it would explain a lot. That, or they’ve been a closely guarded secret until now.” Luke shuffles around the droid's body. “It looks more like an android than a trooper though, look at its head.”
Din crouches down, deactivating the darksaber and clipping it to his belt. He uses his newly free hand to prod at the scrap metal. “It has a face,” he says, astonished.
“A lot more time went into these things than a trooper or a droid,” Luke agrees. “I mean, how many of them were there? They must have been working on these for years.”
“I counted at least twelve,” Din says, standing with a grunt. “Think there’s more?”
“Probably. We should tell Leia about this as soon as possible and get some reinforcements out here to comb this place over.”
Din nods. “Let’s get back to the ship. I can send out the call and we can get cleaned up.”
Luke spares one last glance down at the leaky, mangled mess of android parts before turning toward the entrance of the compound where he and Din came in from, powering off his lightsaber and slipping it under his cloak. Yet, as they start walking, Luke suddenly becomes all too aware of how tired he is. The pounding in his head grows stronger, and each step he takes sends a wave of pain up his legs, spidering along his scars, wrapping around his spine and stealing the air from his lungs. He tries to keep his composure, the ship isn’t too far away from the compound, but he doesn’t get more than a few steps further before his knee locks up, sending him careening into Din’s side.
“Woah!” Din exclaims, arms coming to wrap around him. “Luke, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he grits out, trying to keep the pain from his voice even as his knee burns. “I think I just need to sit down for a second.”
Slowly, he and Din limp over to a stack of crates nearby. A flush of embarrassment creeps up Luke’s neck as he realizes he has to rest most of his weight on Din, his body deciding all at once to refuse him entirely. Din helps him sit down and Luke gingerly extends his cramping leg, gasping in pain before sagging into his husband's side once more as Din takes a seat next to him.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
Din hums, “Not as young as we used to be, huh?”
Luke straightens abruptly, pushing at Din’s side so he can look over at the other man. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what?” Din asks, his bewildered tone making Luke’s annoyance spike.
“You know what,” Luke gripes. “Why does everybody keep bringing up how old we are now?”
Din doesn’t say anything and for a moment they sit in silence, Luke staring down at his leg, rubbing at his thigh to relieve some of the tightness from where it locked up. He feels bad for snapping at Din, it’s not his fault Luke has been dealing with things badly, and he knows he’ll apologize later when they’re back on the ship and they can talk things out better. He doesn’t expect to get into anything here.
Which is why it’s surprising when Din reaches up and takes his helmet off.
“Luke,” Din’s eyes are narrowed. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Din. I’m sorry. Just forget about it, okay?”
“No,” Din says, shaking his head. “Somethings going on with you and I want to know what it is. I didn’t push it before, but you’ve been acting strange since I brought up that there was some grey in your hair. I know you’re not so vain to let something like that bother you, so tell me what’s really going on.”
Luke’s mouth feels dry and he has to keep his jaw from dropping open by biting down on the inside of his cheek. “How do you know that’s not it? I don’t look like I used to, Din. It’s hard for me to be reminded of that sometimes. That I’m not as young. That I can’t do everything I used to. What if I’m worried that you’ll wake up one day and realize that I’m not attractive to you anymore?”
“I don’t look like I did when we met either,” Din counters easily. “And you still find me attractive, don’t you?”
“Always,” Luke answers without hesitation.
“And I know that you know how attractive I find you,” Din raises an eyebrow, looking him up and down. “Especially now. I also know you wouldn’t truly believe I’d be that shallow. Now, tell me what’s been bothering you about this, Luke. Please.”
Luke swallows, pressing his lips together. Slowly, he reaches out and takes Din’s hand. “I didn’t notice it happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“We got older and I was okay with that,” Luke starts. “Hell, I was happy. I never thought I’d live this long and getting to grow old with you is all I’ve ever dreamed of. I just didn’t notice until you pointed it out. Didn’t notice that I- ”
He cuts himself off, words dying in his throat, and that old, sad feeling begins to rise in his chest again.
“Didn’t notice what?” Din asks softly.
“That I was going to be older than my parents ever were,” Luke finally admits, the ache in his heart growing to a deafening, profound crescendo.
“Oh, Luke.”
“It’s stupid, isn’t it?” he laughs humourlessly. “I dealt with their deaths years ago. I should be over all of this. I don’t know why it's been getting to me so much.”
“Luke, you’re allowed to still grieve for them,” Din holds his hand tighter. “Your mother was what? Twenty-something when she died? Realizing that in a different perspective as you grow must be difficult.”
“Yes, I know,” Luke sighs, trailing off again as he drops his head into his free hand. “Her death was on my mind. As was my father's- in seven years I’ll be the same age he was when he died- but I wasn’t talking about them.”
“Oh,” Din says again.
“I mean, of course, I grieve for them. I don’t think my mother ever had the chance to go grey, and my father was truly dead long before he passed, but,” Luke takes a breath and looks over at Din with a weak smile. “Owen and Beru were my parents. In all the ways that mattered they were. And it just hit me, when you said my hair has started to grey, that I was going to be older than them and there was nothing I could do to change that.”
Sadness and loss swirl within him. He truly hadn’t expected these feelings, and was surprised that they’ve been bothering him so deeply, spurred on by grey hair of all things, but Luke supposes that it’s as Din had said- he’s grieving. After all these years. Differently now than he had before, but still grieving. He’s not sure it will ever stop, the recoil from having his parents and his innocence taken from him all at once. He thought he’d moved past it, processed it, but the moment Din had pointed out his whitening hair it was like a damn had burst somewhere deep inside him and all those emotions of loss had come spilling out.
Din’s face is creased with worry and Luke reaches a hand to smooth away the furrow between his brows, trailing his fingers across his love's face. He guides Din’s face towards his gently, resting their foreheads together. The pit in his stomach hurts, along with the heartsickness of his chest. There are a myriad of emotions that are fighting inside him. Shock, fear and sadness are all lingering and loud, but there’s something else there too. He can’t put a word to it. Not quite acceptance and not quite like grief, but it's comforting in a way, a relief for having finally spoken all of his woes aloud, and as Luke studies Din’s face he finds himself leaning into it. Because, underneath it all, there is the steadfast love that he has for the man in front of him. The comfort and the knowledge that no matter what, Din’s here for him.
“They’d want you to have this,” Din says eventually, hushed against Luke’s lips. “No parent wants anything else for their child other than a long, well-lived life.”
“You think so?”
Din nods, rubbing their heads together clumsily in the process. “I know so. You want that for Grogu, don’t you? For him to live on well past us. To be all wise and weird like your old Master Yoda?”
“Of course,” Luke snorts. “Of course, I want that for him.”
“Good,” Din says with a tender smile. “I know it’s not that easy, that it doesn’t change the fact they’re gone, but they’d want you to be happy, Luke. To become more than them. Grey hairs and all.”
Overcome with affection, Luke leans forward and brushes his lips against Din’s. “Yours wanted that too,” he whispers into the space between their mouths. “Your parents. They’d be so proud of the man you’ve become, Din.”
He feels Din’s jaw flex under his hand as he swallows roughly, “I hope.”
“You know you can talk about them too, right? Whenever you need to.”
“I know,” one of Din’s hands comes up to cradle the back of Luke’s neck. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Luke parrots back. “For putting up with me while I worked this out.”
“Kinda what we signed up for, isn’t it? Better and worse and all that?” Din says, lips twitching up, and while it’s not the most romantic of settings- what with all the Imperial remnants and sparking android body just a few feet away- Luke can’t help but feel a lightness spread throughout him. Love and hope and belief in a goodness that warms him from fingertips to toes.
“Yeah,” Luke smiles. “It is.”
Din kisses him then, slotting their lips together soft and sweet. Luke’s hands curl into his hair, savouring the feel of having Din so close to him. They don’t go beyond a simple press of the lips, but it’s more than wonderful. Just the grounding and reassurance he needs, and when Din pulls away, Luke feels a wave of peace settle over him.
“I still can’t believe you called me a silver vulptex,” he chuckles and Din groans, letting his head fall onto Luke’s shoulder.
“It was a compliment.”
“Is that so?”
“You were freaking out,” Din defends. “I was trying to be supportive.”
“Just supportive?” Luke teases.
Din damn near rolls his eyes, something Luke can only tell by the way he shuts them for a moment before levelling him with the most impressive look of fond exasperation Luke’s ever seen. “I think I’ve made it very clear that I find you and your grey hairs handsome.”
“I bet you say that to all the silver vulptices,” he quips before dragging Din in for another quick peck before he can say anything else. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“We should really get going. I think my leg is better now,” Luke pulls away, slowly standing and putting some weight back on his leg. Whatever twinge that had been there earlier is gone and he nods, pleased. He holds a hand out for Din. “Ready?”
Din takes his hand, standing as well. “Ready.”
They walk slowly out of the compound, hand in hand. Luke takes a deep breath as they step outside, a rush of fresh air hitting him, a light breeze blowing past, and despite the humid and rainy climate of the planet they are on, he swears for a moment he could smell the dry, desert sands of Tatooine.
A smile pulls at his lips. He squeezes Din’s hand.
Din squeezes back.