Chapter Text
It started with a tingling in his chest. It worked its way throughout his body, each of his limbs, his fingers, and toes. The tingling was enough to cause him to stir. It felt like the sensation of a body part falling asleep and moving it. He let out a soft little groan and tried to ignore it. Then he started to twitch, his arm and his fingers. Maybe it’ll go away, he thought, though he was becoming more and more lucid. The twitching worsened in his fingers, now he felt shocks. He was forcing his eyes closed, willing whatever it was to go away.
Then the sparks started from his fingertips, hitting his skin, jolting him awake.
He groaned once more, rubbing his eyes with the heel of hand to avoid getting sparked on. Tiredness and irritation were already starting to build. His eyes peeled open and he turned over to look at the clock on his nightstand, thinking, whatever time it is, it is entirely too early.
8:07 A.M.
With another groan, he turned back over and debated on really letting whatever it was go. Silver was probably out by now. He could most definitely handle whatever it was. He was becoming quite skilled.
Luke threw an arm over his forehead as he stared at his ceiling. Silver had always been skilled, he corrected. He had the public’s favor for a reason. No matter how frustrating that may be, it was always fun watching him work.
He sighed in slight annoyance. Goddamnit Din, he thought as he rolled out of bed and into his bathroom to freshen up as quickly as he could.
When he finished, he stood before his window and stretched his limbs before his transformation rings flashed around him. In seconds, he was throwing his window open and shooting out of it.
It wasn’t hard to find the commotion. He wasn’t flying for very long before he found them. Among the towering buildings, sounds of the cars below, and the general ruckus of the city in the morning, the two beings stuck out like a sore thumb. They whizzed past Luke, a silver and blue-white blur, before he was even twenty feet away from his apartment building. With the speed and force of their flying, they knocked him back a few feet, jostling his cape. Once he righted himself, he shot off to catch up with them.
He came up next to Silver and was met with a modulated scoff he just barely caught.
“I see you decided to show up. Sleep in again?” He sneered.
Luke rolled his eyes. “For your information, no,” he lied.
Silver went on anyway. “Why do you even need to sleep? You’re a ghost.”
“Ever heard the phrase, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’?” He snarked. “Now, can we just focus on the matter at hand here?”
The man made no more comments, but he could swear he heard something faint come from him. He ignored it in any case to try and aim his ectoblasts at the ghost. It was a tricky thing, dodging this way and that. Neither of them could land a hit.
“You fly ahead!” Silver barked at him, like giving him an order. “Try to cut him off!”
Luke did as he was told in spite of his chagrin. He was faster than Silver’s board, it only made sense.
Now that he was in front of the thing, he finally realized how horrid it was. It was a beast through and through, that was the only way to describe it. It was a huge eel-like creature, glowing with a faint blue hue, with white scales, and the gnarly fangs were a nice touch. It was certainly faster than anything he had ever encountered, and definitely smarter than most monstrous ghosts, if it could give Din the runaround.
It was gaining on him quickly. Just a few more seconds and he’d be face to face with it.
He shot off a blast, hoping to at least stun it, but the eel absorbed it, like it was nothing. Welp. If that’s not going to work…
He hoped to god Silver would be on the same page.
He raced toward the eel, on course to meet it head-on.
It looked like it was ready for him. Its eyes were blazing red and as soon as it had him in its sights, it fired off the red energy at him. With a yelp, he veered to dodge.
Righting himself, he could see that it was gaining speed now. What a cocky thing. He barreled on, trying to get an eye on Din behind it. If this didn’t work, he’d just seem like an asshole.
Din, thankfully, was closer behind it, now. He had given up on shooting it, but he still had his arm extended, brandishing his vambrace, seemingly aiming it at the thing.
“Excellent!” Now he just hoped the eel wasn’t electric.
The air began to fizz around him, he was leaving a trail of sparks behind him. Shocks traveled up and down his body, starting in his chest and spreading outward. Soon he was encased in the sparks, he could barely see what was in front of him. He let the volts build and build until he felt he was numb with it.
He sent the discharge toward the eel and heard the wail it let out. He stopped where he was to catch his breath, let himself be dizzy until it passed. The next thing he heard was a clang of metal and the squelch of something wet. As his vision cleared, he could see that Din had the eel entangled in his net.
He let out a sigh of relief.
Just like he planned.
Well…almost.
Luke unhooked the trapper from his belt, switched it on, and just like that, the eel thing was sucked in. He huffed as he capped the trapper, reminded that he needed to fix the “Release” setting.
The net of the Hunter’s let up, causing the man to jerk just a bit where he floated. The net fell downward, hanging off the end of Silver’s board. With a kind of snap, it retracted into the man’s vambrace. Silver steered closer to Luke, looking like he had a bone to pick. He was setting him with a hard look behind the helmet, no doubt.
If he was going to shoot himself in the foot, might as well do it now. “Great work, Silver. Thanks for having my back,” and he meant his words. Of course, he did.
“I don’t get why we set a morning patrol if you never show up, Phantom, ” he spat in his modulated tone, ignoring whatever Luke said. “He wouldn’t have chased us around the damn block if you had been here. He was on your side.”
Luke re-hooked the trapper back on and held back a sigh. He brought his arms in front of him, clasping his hands together. “I was only ten minutes late, Silver,” he said calmly. “We rarely get much action in the morning, you know this as well as I do. Nonetheless, I won’t make an excuse, it was a slip in judgment and I apologize.”
The helmet stared at him for a few seconds more before speaking again. “Don’t be late tonight.” And with that, the man was off, zooming across the sky, probably back to his assigned section of the city.
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. Things are never going to get better, are they? He flew off in the opposite direction toward his part of the city.
Not even a few seconds later, his ghost sense was going off again. So much for a moment of reprieve. He traveled a block or two before finding the source of the warning. It was one of those rather formless ghosts, the green squid-like ones. He ran into them entirely too often.
They were causing a ruckus in a corner store, knocking over shelves and merchandise, frightening the morning shoppers, running them out of the store.
He flew in, blasted the ghoul, and sucked them into the trapper. Simple as that.
His patrol went on in much the same way. Incapacitate and capture. Rinse and repeat. But it proved to be infuriating nonetheless. No matter how many ghosts he caught, it was a never-ending stream of sparks from his fingertips.
All the while, he couldn’t get his mind off of Din. Could he ever? He was more simmering than anything else. Fed up with it all. If they had been Din and Luke, the man would have at least asked if he was okay, would have said “Good Job,” with that small little smile of his.
But that wasn’t how Silver and Phantom operated. All they had ever known were cold shoulders, deadly fights, and just the bare minimum of tolerance.
Luke wasn’t even sure he had any right to be irritated. Din’s hatred of ghosts, it was understandable. More than, he’d say. He really couldn’t blame him.
He clenched and unclenched his fingers like it could stave off his thoughts and the sparks. It never worked, but he never stopped trying anyway.
Just as he was passing the border of his beat, Din was passing his, coming from the opposite direction. Luke nodded to him. Silver flew past.
He continued on with a sigh, and if his fingers produced more sparks, he wasn’t paying attention.
He decided to throw himself into his work instead, devote all of his focus to helping people. Finally, finally, there were longer breaks between his sparking. He hoovered over the buildings after what he hoped was his last ghost, glaring as he swept his gaze over them, like he was daring the city itself to try him.
He waited.
Seconds passed.
His glare let up.
His shoulders were starting to untense.
Was he finally–
His fingers sparked.
“Shit,” He cursed. He whipped around, trying to spot the offender. It wasn’t anywhere in the skies, so he swept the streets again. All the while, that warning was falling from his lips every few seconds, like a taunt. This is what he got for challenging the city. He checked his watch as he flew, groaning at the sight. He had twenty minutes before work.
“C’mon, c’mon,” He muttered to himself. “I’d like to know what it’s like to be on time.”
He made his way through his whole beat with no sign of any astray ghost, but his ghost sense never let up. For ten minutes, he felt as though he was losing his mind, and maybe he was. His sense had never been wrong before, there’s no way it could be.
As far as he knew, anyway.
But maybe the ghost isn’t malicious? He reasoned to himself. Something harmless? Those were rare, but they did happen.
When he checked his watch to see that he only had ten minutes, he shook his head like that would stop his ghost sense from going off. If they hadn’t caused any havoc as long as he was looking for them, nothing would probably come of it at all,
Right?
He had no time! He needed to get to work! He could investigate further later!
With one last glance around, he shot off back to his apartment.
At 10 A.M. he parked his car in his assigned spot, turned the key out of the ignition, and grabbed his bag from the back seat. He came to stand outside of his place of work, preparing himself for more of the same.
Skywalker Paranormal Defense, read the sign.
He could hear his father now, “That damn Phantom was out again today. I really think you should move out of that area, Luke, that’s his side of town.”
What if I just told him, he thought wildly as he walked into the employee entrance. He nodded in greeting to the secretary with a terse smile before continuing his musings. What’s the worst that he could do? He wouldn’t tear his own son apart, would he?
At the age of nineteen, before any of this started, he hadn’t thought he would find anything that could be worse than coming out to his parents as gay. Not that they treated him badly after that. They were as supportive as any set of parents could be.
But it had still plagued his mind, worries and doubts that they would hate him, throw him out, tell him he was crazy.
Then he sort of died.
And he was in a whole other ballpark.
He passed his father’s workstation on his way to his own, smiling all the same despite his thoughts. “G’morning,” he greeted, leaning in the doorway.
Anakin handed him a cup of coffee that had been sitting on his desk, still steaming. “Morning,” he returned.
Luke sipped the coffee as his father picked up his own mug. “Need any help in here before I get started?”
Anakin’s office was an ever-changing landscape. Some parts would be immaculate in the morning, while others were in complete disarray, and more often than not by the end of the day, the sides of the room would be completely flipped. Papers strewn about would be in a nice order, parts and tools that had been organized to a startling degree would be scattered about the room.
“No, no,” Anakin waved him off. “It’s all boring paperwork today.”
“Ah,” Luke said with a nod.
Anakin turned back to his work then, scribbling something on a paper as he spoke. “Did you see that Phantom kid out today?”
Luke inhaled deeply. “Yeah, I did. He was helping out Silver.”
“Hm,” his father hummed. “I still don’t get why they work together. How the Silver Hunter can tolerate him.”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t know if you can even call it that.” He stared into the light brown of his coffee, wondering when he had gotten so good at appeasing his father when they talked about these things.
What would he think?
“I’m going to get to my office,” he told Anakin as he began down the hallway.
“See you at lunch, son,” he called after him.
Now onto the next hardest part of my day, he thought bitterly as he grabbed his lab coat from his coat rack, switching it out for the light hoodie he had worn in.
For the last six years, Luke’s office had been the one next to that of Din Darjin, the kid of a friend of a family friend. It was rough going at first, Din was shy and Luke had been immediately smitten. For every civil conversation they had, there was an awkward one, or a squabble of some sort. Luke couldn’t even remember what they had ever fought about, honestly. They started in the same position, two extra sets of hands for Luke’s father, Din’s mother, and Ahsoka. Their prolonged time together during that period eventually gave way to friendship.
Now Din was the Silver Hunter, their relationship was…whatever it was now, and they were the ones designing the ghost weapons alongside their parents and Ahsoka.
He had a few minutes before Din was to arrive. He fished out his trapper from his hoodie pocket and placed it in a drawer to work on later. He couldn’t even be seen with the thing, considering how integral it was to his hero persona.
Just as the drawer clicked shut, there was a knock on the doorframe of his office. “Hey,” said Din’s soft voice.
Luke turned, smiling once more. “Hi.”
Din held up a small paper bag, shaking it a bit. “Kid wanted breakfast burritos today.”
Luke came over, taking the bag from him while waving him inside. He opened the baggie to find a burrito, and just by feeling the bag, he could tell it was still warm. With morning patrol and dealing with Phantom, Grogu, and their job, Din could somehow still make time for homemade breakfasts every morning. There was a familiar pang in his chest, dull now after so many years, but still nagging. How is he this caring? “Did you–”
“Eggs and potatoes, nothing else.” Din leaned against the counter, hands braced at his sides.
Luke stood next to him, hip to hip with the man. The pang was almost stabbing now. “Din, you really don’t have to do this,” he started, as he did almost every morning.
Din only shrugged, as he did almost every morning. “I’ll stop once you start bringing your own breakfast.”
Luke scrunched his nose and pursed his lips. As much as he protested, he couldn’t admit to not liking it.
This caused a light chuckle from Din.
They spoke softly after that, as Luke ate. About work, about Grogu, about cases Leia was taking. Their usual morning fodder.
Once Luke finished, the wrapper discarded on the counter next to them, they stood in silence.
Luke could feel Din’s arm pressed against his back because of the way it went around him to grip at the counter. He just knew he was going to be thinking about this pseudo-embrace for ages. It warmed his entire back. It was such a nice feeling. He wanted nothing more than to lean further into it, press himself right up against Din’s side and lean his head on his shoulder. It was oh so tempting, as it was every morning when they stood this close together. He wondered how he would react if he just…Would he welcome it? Would he move away?
No, he couldn’t have that.
“Thank you,” he muttered instead of doing something drastic. “It means a lot, what you do for me.”
“I know. You don’t have to keep thanking me.”
Luke looked up at him. “What, and risk my mother’s wrath?” He joked.
Din rolled his eyes. He squeezed Luke’s side with the hand that had gripped the counter, then moved away, turning toward the doorway. “Don’t be late tonight.”
Luke watched as the man’s figure disappeared down their hallway, rooted to the spot, his side burning. A soft yet modulated voice rang in his ears.
When lunch rolled around, his sister came in like she owned the place, as she often did. He and his father watched through the office windows as Leia sauntered in, turning into the office. She greeted them both with a kiss on the cheek and before either of them could say anything, she was glaring at Luke.
“...What is it, Leia?” He said tentatively. Looks like that could mean too many things, ranging from a slap across the face to a suffocating hug.
Looking as if she’d come to some sort of conclusion, she adjusted the lunch bag over her shoulder–it had a cute design of a cartoon Ben liked–and was tugging Luke out of his chair. “Sorry to cut this meeting short, but I need a moment with my dear brother, if you don’t mind, Dad.”
Anakin huffed in amusement, waving them away. “Make sure he eats.”
That earned him a flick to the temple as he was dragged out into the hallway. “I have a toddler at home who’s better at taking care of himself.”
“I eat!” He insisted.
Leia rolled her eyes and dragged him all the way to his office without another word. She pushed him toward his chair. “Sit,” she ordered, leaving no room for argument. She set down the cartoon lunch box and fished out two salads. She handed one to Luke and kept hers in hand. “What happened this morning?”
“Uh… what happened this morning?”
“What happened this morning?” She pressed.
Luke crossed his arms. “Why do you think something happened?”
“Oh please, I could tell how sad you were as soon as I walked in. Something happened between you and Din again.”
Luke looked off to the side, sagging in defeat. “It’s fine, Leia. It’s been like this for three years. I can handle whatever he says to me.”
“I think you should tell him.”
He rolled his eyes, here we go, he thought. “And have him hate me completely?”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“That’s why I don’t want to tell him.”
“This is self-destructive.”
“Well, yeah, so was dying.”
Leia bristled, her expression souring as if he had taken a bite of a lemon. “You can’t keep playing that card.”
“You don’t listen to me any other way,” he crossed his arms.
“Because you’re an imbecile any other way. Just tell the man, Luke!”
“I can’t.”
“You’re making this a lot harder than it needs to be.”
“He’s not going to make an exception for me. You know just as well as I do how much he hates ghosts, why he hates ghosts. He can’t make an exception for me.”
Leia regarded him for a moment. “Then maybe you don’t know Din as well as you thought.”
Luke slumped. He opened his mouth to say something stupid and childish, like I know him! But Leia was speaking again.
“Don’t ruin this, Luke,” she sounded pleading.
“I…”
She squeezed his shoulder, it was almost comforting. She turned to leave.
How am I supposed to keep that from happening?
Toying with the Ghost Boy was easier than she had thought. Nothing could ever be more amusing than watching him fly around the city like a headless chicken in hopes of finding her. She wondered how much fun he’d be when she had him caged. If Bane would let her keep him, that is. There was still no other ghost that would fit as the jewel of her collection. There are only two half-ghosts after all.
Though, she didn’t have a human, surprisingly. None had interested her before. None were ever fit to be prey. But that Silver one. Now there was a prize. A challenge. Better yet, as she had been observing the two of them, the tension was palpable. There was some bad blood there, she knew it. The ghost boy was fun, she could only imagine what the human would be like.
The question was, who to go for first? She could possibly take on the human much easier than Phantom. He was skilled, but not on the halfa’s level. True, she’d yet to beat the little punk, but if she had one of his allies…She knew how he could get about those closest to him.
…Or, and here’s and idea she really liked: Two birds, one stone.
That would work out nicely.