coolhandluke | Ahch-To, Baby

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Ahch-To, Baby

There were a lot of things Luke hadn't asked himself in the years since arriving on Ach-To. Some because he didn't want to know--or imagine--the answers. Some because there was no reason to borrow more trouble than he already had, and the litany of regrets was already long enough. Some because, well, they just weren't thinks that Luke Skywalker ever thought of.

Like the fact that he looked like some old Jedi hermit, complete with beard and unkempt hair and dingy robes. It hadn't exactly been part of the plan, but then, there hadn't been anyone to comment, or even a mirror.

That was the outside, however. Inside, something in Luke had died long ago, stopping in its tracks. Meeting himself, he would have assumed wisdom and calm, if a little eccentricity. But that hadn't been why Luke had come here, and it hadn't been what he'd found. No, it wasn't the Jedi Master who had retreated. It was the scared farm-boy, who'd flown too high and been brought crashing to ground. It was Luke from Tatooine, who had tried to be Master Skywalker, the hero, and failed.

That was what he'd been running from. That expectation, and his failure at it. That, and the disaster he knew his presence would bring to what was left of what he and the Rebellion had built, if Ben knew where he was. Better, he'd thought, to close himself off and shut down before he hurt anyone else. By his own hand, or by leading Kylo Ren to exact revenge.

It was not so simple a thing, however, to die. Unwilling to take any more lives, including his own, he lingered. Unwilling to open himself up to the Force, he nevertheless existed within it, his body sustained by it as much as by the food he caught. For awhile it seemed that he would just continue, in a sort of limbo of his own making, unwilling to make a move that would upset the galaxy even further than his presence already had.

Until she came.

Rey held a mirror up to him, one he wasn't always willing to gaze into but one from which it was impossible to escape--not least because she simply wouldn't go away. At first resentful, he quickly became resigned.

And then, suddenly, he became expectant. Not hopeful--he would not go so far as to say that--but there came a morning when he realized he would be disappointed to find her gone, given up. Despite his fear, despite his warnings, he wanted her to persist.

Maybe because he hadn't. And as much shame as he felt over that fact, the shame was at least an emotion. And as much as he'd tried to suppress those over the past years, the irritation at her arrival had begun to wear away at his resolve like grains of sand until emotions he'd thought long buried began to unearth themselves.

The truth was, Luke Skywalker was every bit the mess he looked. And yet, the longer she stayed, the less he could find it within himself to resent it. He'd been too long alone, and too long waiting. It only stood to reason that he'd bend to the first wind that came.

Wasn't how this had all started, to begin with?

The sun had barely risen when he took position, waiting outside the hut she'd claimed, unwilling to seem too eager but having to quash a small stirring of impatience, just the same. Warnings not to get too close, too attached, flickered in his mind's eye like a glitched holovid. But Luke had never once detached from anything--and if going to the most remote location he could find hadn't done it, he didn't know that it was worth trying, anymore.

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Luke sighed.

"You're still thinking like one of them," he admonished, though he has little room to talk given the lack of training he's offered. Deciding to remedy that, he moved behind her, gesturing for her to take the pole and placing a hand on it as well, over her shoulder. For the moment, he was focused on teaching her basic survival skills, not her proximity, or he never would have risked it.

"With the Force, you are not simply yourself. You are the spear, the water, the rock. Even the fish."

Rey would have been insulted, but before she could take it to mind to feel that way, Luke was suddenly behind her, close enough for her to feel his body heat. Maybe she imagined it - she hoped she was imagining it - and so she did her best not to focus on how close he was to her and instead concentrated on what he was showing her.

"So I'm... spearing myself with myself?"

She glanced back at him over her shoulder, not wanting him to think she was being anything other than mildly cheeky with that comment. But oh-... that was probably a mistake, given how close they were, and so she quickly amended that with, "You'd cut yourself off from the Force. How did you catch fish without it?"

There were multiple levels to each question she was asking, and that was on top of the sudden knowledge that he'd positioned himself right behind her, close enough to--

Teaching had never been this difficult. What was wrong with him?

Getting hold of himself, he cleared his throat.

"First of all, there's cutting yourself off and there's..." He frowned, trying to focus on this instead of how she smelled, still, of sunlight and sand. How was that even possible? "If I unfocus my eyes, I cannot see into the distance," he offered imperfectly, "but I am not blindfolded. Do you see?"

She noticed the way he trailed off, and it gave her just enough time to look him over, noticing the light in his blue eyes. Had they been that bright when she'd first met him? And if not, were they now so vibrant because of her?

Realizing that she was just giving herself credit where none was due, she tried to focus instead on what he was saying and not on how stilted his explanation was. "I think so," she murmured softly, still looking into those eyes. "So it's... still an intimate part of you that you can't permanently turn off. Like any instinct or drive."

"Hmm," he rumbled in confirmation. She was staring. What did she see? Could she see all the way through him to what he'd seen in his mind's eye? She looked at him with an intensity and clarity that reminded him of Leia, back when he couldn't stop staring at her, either. Yes, good. Think of her like Leia. Sisterly thoughts, if he could not ignore at this close proximity the fact she was decidedly not a child. "Instinct, yes," he nodded. "There are things we do and perceive with our conscious minds, and those we pursue regardless of thought. What connects us endures, whether we reach out or not."

She couldn't tell if he was speaking in riddles or if she was just trying to tie what he said to what she felt. Was he telling her that it was all right to pursue her feelings regardless of what she thought of them? Or was he just straightforwardly teaching her to use the Force to fish? Either way, she wasn't going to come out of this without feeling foolish if she didn't manage to relax.

So she did. The trouble was, she relaxed against Luke, leaning back against him before she realized what she was doing. She could feel his chest against her back, and while it felt solid and strong even underneath the layers of his robes, Rey knew this wasn't something she could simply explain away. But maybe she could try to ignore it for just a little longer. "So your survival instinct enabled you to use enough of the Force to catch food while keeping you closed off from it on a greater level; is that what you're saying?"

There was no way that she knew what she was doing. Her body, warm and real next to his, a contrast not only with the chill wind around them but his years of isolation. There was no way she knew, because she would not have done it knowing his craven impulses.

Instincts. Force, but he'd been speaking around it without knowing, a double meaning in his words he had not intended. How much did she know? How gracious was she being by pretending none of this was happening? And how long could he allow it to continue?

"Y-yes," he said, not proud of his voice catching slightly. Perhaps she had not noticed. "You, too, are more connected than you know. Before hearing of the Force, even, it was a part of you. Not guiding your actions, but aiding you. Enhancing you. Allowing you to survive against all odds, because you are a part of it, too. And that is why you are you, and the fish. It is all one cycle, all part of life. You can't cut yourself off entirely. You cannot survive, truly, without feeling the feelings of others."

She was noticing little things, but also telling herself that it was all her imagination. Rey was usually fairly good at reading people, but she was either failing spectacularly right now or else she didn't dare believe what she was getting off of Luke. He didn't pull back from her body, didn't even look at her oddly, but he stammered just slightly. That had to mean something, didn't it?

But what?

She was only half-listening by this point, still looking at him intently as he spoke. "I think I'd be a vegetarian if I felt the feelings of others the way you're implying," she murmured absently. "Unless you mean feelings other than the fish's."

"I don't mean every blow, every prick of the knife," he said, distracted by the intensity of her gaze and what it could possibly mean. Why wasn't she pulling back? It had to be because she was simply that innocent, that unaware of what this closeness could imply.

That, or he was simply that unfathomable a sexual object.

"But if we lose track of the impact we have on other life, we, perhaps, lose something more."

He wasn't even certain what he was saying now, only that he could feel that life inside him, newly awakened, yearning for connection. And not with a fish. But that was, ostensibly, why they were here. They could hardly stand here at the edge of a cliff forever while he fought his inner demons. Better to direct it elsewhere.

Without thinking any more about it, Luke leaned slightly closer, but only to break eye contact, raise the long wooden pole, and bring it down again, feeling the blade unerringly find its target as he tried to ignore the press of her body against his.

Luke had a major impact on her life, but he didn't seem to realize that. She almost told him so, almost pleaded with him not to lose sight of just how important he was, not just to her but to other people. He was hurting himself every bit as much as he was hurting those that were left without him.

But going back to that topic might only make him distance himself from her again, and as he pressed himself against her, Rey felt her heart flutter in her chest as she realized she couldn't imagine there being any sort of distance between them ever again.

She was distracted from her overly dramatic thoughts when her hands - guided by Luke's - brought the pole down, and she could feel the momentary resistance before it definitely pierced through a fish. Startled, she let out a surprised laugh, not having expected the spear to find its mark or for it to feel so exhilarating.

"We got one!" she laughed, looking back at Luke with an excited grin. "We actually got one!"

"And you're surprised by that how?" he asked, almost petulantly. But it wasn't what he felt, and either way his pique, real or imagined, could not stand in the face of her obvious glee.

It was not an emotion he'd seen in her before, and why should he? She'd been either determined, sad, or dealing with his nonsense ever since she got here. It was no real surprise that she was beautiful when she was happy, but he found himself transfixed anyway, by the way her eyes danced and her mouth lost its little frown and her whole body gave itself over to emotion.

He tried not to think about what other sensations might do to her, so unselfconscious in her movements, and in shutting down that line of thought found himself giving in to her joy. He didn't even realize he was grinning, eyes crinkling at the corners, as he watched her.

"We're not done," he reminded them both and began, hand over hand, to pull the pole up the cliff. His heart raced and his cheeks hurt from the unaccustomed action of smiling, and he told himself it was the exertion of the kill rather than her influence. Never mind that it hadn't done it yesterday.

"Honestly? I was too distracted to think I'd catch anything, even with your help." Her confession felt innocent enough, but then she realized that Luke might wonder over what had distracted her, if he didn't already know. After all, she hadn't exactly been subtle about staring at him.

Not that she could stop herself from doing that now, not with the way he smiled at her. He was outright beaming at her, and she found herself unable to look away even if he pointedly told her to. No one had ever looked at her like that, aside from Finn after they'd used the Falcon to escape the First Order on Jakku. But that had been understandable; anyone would beam after surviving a near-death experience. Luke was just smiling because of her. That-... that was weird. In the best possible way.

Though she didn't want to turn around, she knew it wouldn't be fair for her to let him bring the fish up on his own, especially not when he was doing it while pressed against her back. So she faced forward again, helping him to pull the pole up along the cliff. Even this, though, felt intimate in its own way, working together towards a common task, and Rey decided they would have to go fishing together more often.

Distracted by what? By his proximity, and the discomfort that must mean for a person so unused to company? Was there something on his face? Granted, he'd had no mirror, literally or figuratively, for years.

But she was still smiling. Still grinning, eyes flashing, and he could not for the life of him figure out what might lead to such an expression. Maybe she really was that excited about fishing. Either way, he could distract himself a few minutes with the task of retrieving their kill, the large fish coming into sight slowly as they pulled it up together. It was fat and healthy, and would feed them both for awhile if salted or cured.

He had to move away to land it, of course, and he immediately felt the cold lack of her body against his and told himself not to dwell on it like some sort of pervert.

"So, what do you think?" he asked when they had the fish laid out and the spear was back in the water. "Could you do this on your own?"

As soon as Luke moved away, Rey immediately felt the loss of his body heat. It wasn't the same sort of cold she felt when the temperature dropped, though. This one was much more personal, and not the sort of cold that she'd ever learned how to withstand. At least, not since those first lonely nights on Jakku, most of which she'd blocked from her mind.

She helped him haul the fish up as best as she could, panting slightly at the exertion. It wasn't hard work so much as it simply forced her to exert her muscles in a different way from what she was used to. She could adapt to that easily enough.

Despite that, Rey hesitated at Luke's question, looking down at the fish so he wouldn't have to see the mild disappointment in her eyes. She didn't mind being given a task, and she was obviously used to being alone, but... she'd rather not be. Not now.

"I could manage," she reluctantly agreed. Looking up at him, she tried her best to sound casual as she asked, "I'd rather not, though. But I'd understand if you had other things to do."

Luke stared at her. What was wrong now? Was she just now understanding that he'd taken advantage, of sorts, just by being close? Had she objected but he just hadn't been able to see it? It took him awhile to realize that she thought he meant now.

"What?" he said, brow furrowing. "No. We don't need more fish now. You do realize this is part of your training."

Rey knew that more fish wouldn't be needed right at this moment - there was no way a fish as large as the one they'd caught couldn't be enough for her and Luke for several days, even given how much she could pck away if given the chance. But she'd assumed that, in the future-....

Oh, but right. She didn't have a future on Ahch-To. Neither of them did, if she had her way, and they'd leave this lonely island and return to the Resistance to stop the war and go on with their lives. Rey was already thinking for the long-term and playing house, embarrassed though she might be to realize it.

"Training?" she asked, as though having no idea what he was talking about. Of course she knew; she just didn't want to admit that she'd been thinking about long-term planning. Luke would surely think she'd overstayed her welcome at some point.

"The fish are part of a metaphor, then?" she asked, cracking a small smile in hopes of keeping him from asking after just how distracted she clearly was. "Or are you saying that fish play in an important part in fighting back the Dark Side?"

He was going to have to reverse his earlier analysis, that he was going to get away with it, that she'd let him off the hook. With how odd she was acting, Luke was sure that he'd done something to tip her from patience with a dirty old man into nervous avoidance.

And he'd already thought himself a failure as a teacher.

"The fish is just a fish," he said, as if explaining to a small child. "The point is that the Force is present in everything you do. There are connections, and consequences, to everything."

He paused, mirth departed at her discomfiture, unsure what to do now.

"You're clearly... in need of rest," he said after a moment, shifting his weight. "I can take care of this."

Give her an out. Let her know it was all right to depart his company, if she found it so difficult to stand.

Though she'd known she was making things uncomfortable, it had looked as though Luke had been willing to overlook it, given the way he'd been smiling at her. But now... was he just casting her aside all over again?

This? This is why she generally preferred machines to people. Even the most lifelike droids weren't privy to such a wide gamut of confusing emotions.

"Luke...."

Though she'd been calling him that for some time, it was the first time Rey had realized it consciously, and she stopped herself. When had that started? After the dream? During their discussion the night before? She couldn't remember, and she wondered why it suddenly seemed so important now.

"We caught it together," she settled on saying. "We should carry it back together, and clean it together, and cook it together. I-...." She closed her mouth, realizing that she was coming far too close to saying something she probably shouldn't, but then, she had no idea what she was and wasn't allowed to say anymore, aside from the obvious.

"I like doing things together. With you." That sounded even more awkward out loud than it had in her head, but she might as well keep going with it. "I'm sorry if I haven't made that clear. Or... if I've made it too clear."

That was about as straightforward as she was currently willing to get on the subject, and hopefully he'd understand the subtext well enough to help start clear the air.

He understood that something was going on, something Rey wasn't willing to address herself. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Should he bring it up? Should he let it go, pretend none of it ever happened?

But then what?

They'd go through the motions until either he died, she left, or something else happened to make this tenuous equilibrium untenable. Him pretending he hadn't had those thoughts, and Rey pretending, poorly, that she hadn't heard them. Luke sighed. He was, numerically, an adult. He was a legendary figure in the galaxy. He was, currently, trying to forget all of that by being alone on an island but clearly that wasn't working.

He did not want to admit this out loud.

"Look," he said, pressing a hand to the bridge of his nose. "You're clearly uncomfortable. You're too polite to mention it but I know I make you uncomfortable. It's kind of you to try to save my feelings, but ... I promise you, it was a mistake that will not happen again."

His breath let out in a rush, a flush of adrenaline unbecoming to his age flooding his system as fight or flight absurdly tried to kick in, now that he was, almost, admitting what had happened the night before. She'd tell him he was disgusting, that she was trying to overlook his obvious inappropriateness, and they'd... what? Go back to gutting fish?

Rey instinctively tensed the moment Luke began speaking, expecting him to finally bring everything out in the open and tell her that she was a nice girl but she was just a girl, a child that had had a dream that likely signified an awakening of a very different sort than just the Force. What he ended up saying, though... unless "uncomfortable" was an overly polite or antiquated way for expressing what he'd actually made her feel....

It didn't make sense. None of it did.

Calling it a mistake hurt, even if that was what she'd been willing to swear up and down that it had been. But that was different. She could call it a mistake. He had no right to disavow her feelings like that, misguided though he might think they are.

"You can't control what I dream about at night," she blurted out, trying not to get angry. "And if you can, you have no business doing so, nor any business calling my feelings a 'mistake.' Is that understood?"

Time stopped.

On the edge of a cliff, Luke stood, staring at an extremely powerful and entirely untrained force of nature, less than half his age, under the unfortunate delusion that the dreams that had caused him to wake with more ardor than he'd felt in decades were hers. It was almost worse, in his mind, knowing that she blamed herself. That he'd warped her mind enough that she'd internalized his gross desires and thought them her own. It made him feel sick to his stomach, what he'd done to her just by showing her the wonders of the Force. That his powers were both too great, and too rusty, for him to be trusted with other beings.

"Oh, Rey," he breathed sadly, the words snatched away by the wind. "You're wrong. I can, and I did. It was wrong of me, unconscious, but that's no excuse. The link we shared... I've gone so long without opening that door, I didn't realize I had not shut it. What you saw... I should never have dreamed, let alone let you see. I betrayed your trust. It was unintentional, but I did it. And I... I'm sorry."

The stretch of silence that followed her outburst set Rey ill at ease, and she wondered whether Luke had actually known at all, or if he'd only suspected, or if he was completely and utterly confused and searching out her thoughts for answers now. But she didn't feel him prodding about in her head - not that she knew whether or not she could - and his response when he finally did speak-....

Why was none of this making sense?

"What are you-...?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to parse out his words, only for her eyes to widen as she felt her face go warm again. "You never should have-...? You mean, you dreamed about it too?"

The idea that he thought the shared dream came from him and had absolutely no bearing on Rey's feelings on the matter was something that could be dealt with after she processed this first bombshell.

Luke felt his face reddening, and it was not the chill wind off the ocean. For all the unwanted heat he' felt this morning, this was a new kind, and equally unwelcome. He raised a hand, though whether to emphasize his point or to put a barrier between them was unclear.

"No, Rey, I..." He bit his lip. How obvious did he have to be? "I've been alone here a ... a very long time. It's no excuse, but I'm simply trying to explain... Sometimes we have impulses we don't... can't control. I'm only a man, and I apparently have the same drives as other man."

Some part of Luke wished lightning would strike him dead. Now. Or, preferably, yesterday.

"What I'm trying to say is, you didn't dream it. I did. And my dreams were... communicated. To you. Inadvertently, and inappropriately."

For a long time, Rey didn't respond directly. Then she finally let out a dry, mirthless laugh, seeming surprised by the sudden sound. "And you think women don't have similar drives? Or do you still think I'm just a child who doesn't understand sex?"

That... might have actually been one of the only times she'd ever even said the word sex, and so he wouldn't be too far off to still think of her as a child. But she was going to overlook that as best as she could, or else she just ruined her own point.

"Did it ever occur to you that it could have been my dream, and I was the one who communicated it to you? Because that could well have been the case, if you hadn't had any feelings to that effect before last night."

Luke stared at her, in a way that would have been comical were anyone else watching. Was she speaking another language? Or maybe she'd never met another human being. His mouth opened, then shut. He looked out at the ocean, until a porg made eye contact and made him feel even weirder, so he shut his eyes.

"No, it did not," he said. Maybe if he didn't see her, he could get through this. "Because of who I am, and who you are. There is no reason for you to... This is my fault. I... I'm older, and should know better. And should be able to control..."

He was a teacher. A mentor. All of this... It was beneath him.

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