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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After discovering that the monster that had kidnapped her and tried to force his way into her mind was related to Han Solo and Leia Organa, Rey had had her entire worldview shaken up. She'd thought she had no real identity, no sense of self, because she didn't know who her parents were or where she'd come from. But if this man who'd been named after a Jedi Master and came from such a heroic family could devolve into the thing he was today... then clearly Rey had been placing too much stock in her heritage. She wouldn't admit it, not out loud, but she'd at least learned that she couldn't stand still and wait for an identity to be bestowed upon her rather than earn one for herself.

As such, Luke had no more reason to apologize to her than Han or Leia would have. Ben Solo had made his choice, and his choice had been to turn away from a legacy unlike any of which the galaxy had ever known in an attempt to embrace the darkness. Luke hadn't forced that choice upon him, no more than he'd forced her into that chair on Starkiller and held her down so his nephew could try and violate her mind.

So the apology was unexpected, almost as much as the embrace, considering how cautious they'd both been with physical contact ever since this whole thing between them — whatever it was — had started. She stood there for a moment in quiet shock, unsure of what she could do, of what she dared to do. Finally admitting that there didn't need to be any pretenses between them, Rey allowed herself to relax, leaning in against him and burrowing her face against the crook of his neck as her arms wound around him in return.

"Don't be sorry," she whispered softly. "If nothing else... it brought me to you."

He wanted to protest that this was not something to be grateful for, that fate had a cruel streak in bringing her to him, but he couldn't. He was too distracted by the way she filled his senses, hair smelling of desert sunlight, her strong, slight form pressed against him in a way that suggested she could belong there. That she fit. He hated himself for thinking it, but had he not already given in? And hadn't she given every indication that he was not taking advantage?

But it was not pleasure that had pulled her to him, and he felt a dry tingling at the corners of his eyes as her breath stirred the hair of his beard.

"What he did to you... I did not teach him," he murmured. "What he did should be suffered by no one."

For a moment, he almost regretted not killing Ben that night, but the thought added to the nausea and he quelled it. Instead, he raised his real hand to brush against her hair, bound though it is. He leaned back to look down at her, and something made him smile, though his eyes remained sad.

"What a miracle you are," he murmured. "What can I teach someone who can stand up to that, and live to tell the tale?"

While Rey should have known that Luke wouldn't teach someone how to force his way into someone else's mind, the fact that Kylo Ren had picked that up on his own — or from some sort of outside source — still came as something of a surprise. What was a bigger surprise, though, was Luke's statement as he looked down at her, causing Rey to let out a short, dry laugh.

"I'm no miracle," she told him, though she desperately wanted to believe otherwise. "And if I am, maybe you can teach me how to feel like one instead of just...." At a loss for the right word, she shrugged her shoulders and murmured, "Just a nobody."

Luke's eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed as the brunt of her words bore down on him. Or at least, their meaning in contrast to his own experience.

"Do you think," he said slowly, "that I'm 'somebody' because of who my parents were? Because I know where I came from?" He shook his head. "If so, that's a sad legacy, don't you think? To say that I am who I am because of my family is to say that I am only important because my father was the scourge of the galaxy. That's not the way to feel important, Rey."

"What? No!" Rey had been speaking about her own experiences, her own sense of identity — or rather, her lack thereof. "You're important because of the things you've done, because of what you've accomplished in your life." His point was more than evident before she'd even finished speaking, but she was still reluctant to accept as much, shaking her head as she glanced away.

"It's... different. I'd spent my entire life waiting for something, and I just never knew what it was. I thought it was my family, but... maybe I was wrong." Maybe it was you, she wanted to say, but even while holding him close to her, she couldn't quite bring herself to do so.

Different. Luke wanted to laugh, but he feared she'd interpret it as laughing at her. "Yes," he said. "We are very different. Do you want to know what I'd done, by your age?" He looked down at her, unable to stop the smile at just how off she was. "I spent 'my entire life' wishing I was somewhere else, wanting to join the Imperial Academy, risking my neck in a souped-up skyhopper, whining and moaning to my very patient aunt and uncle that no one understood me. And, all right. Questioning who I was, weaving stories in my head about my parents. Wanting to be someone 'important.'"

He almost spat that last word, amusement fading.

"We don't need to be important, Rey. We need to do the important. I don't know where you came from, and I don't care. It wouldn't make one bit of difference, to me or the Force, whether your parents had never heard of the Force or whether you're Yoda's granddaughter. My father was Darth Vader. My nephew is Kylo Ren. My sister is General Organa. And none of that, really, tells me who I am. Does it?"

Rey felt an eerie sense of familiarity as Luke explained what his life had been like when he'd been her age. She could almost see him as a young man, before the Force, before finding his sister, before ever leaving his home planet... but it felt as though she was watching her own life while he detailed his own. Her desire to learn to fly, to build a speeder from the ground-up, to find the family she yearned for so desperately, whether they were "important" or not.

She and Luke would have been friends if they'd grown up together, she realized. They might have even grown to be more than that. So it only stood to reason that they should stand together as they were now, even if one of them might have been born entirely too early while the other had been born entirely too late.

"No," she admitted softly. "Only you can do that." Peering up at him curiously, she managed a small smile as she asked him, "So... who are you, Luke?"

"I... I'm not sure."

He looked down at her, eyes clouded with doubt, unsure in this moment what life had brought him to after all this time. He'd begun like her, hopeful and arrogant, and ended up a hero. But in the aftermath, there was only doubt, missed opportunities, and betrayal. Or anyway, that was all he could see, from here.

"I thought I was going to bring balance to the Force. I thought I was going to... help a generation without any hope find it in themselves. I thought I was going to be some small part of a new era, of peace and compassion."

Rey looked at him as he spoke, as though unsure where he was going with this. When he finished, she was still unsure, and she tilted her head at him, no less curious than she'd been earlier.

"You can still be that, Luke. All of that." Gently cupping his face, she pointed out, "It might not have been the generation you were expecting to help, but it still needs you. It still needs everything it can learn from you. You're still a living, breathing person with more experience than someone like me could ever hope for. There's no limit to what we can accomplish together, other than the ones we set for ourselves."

He smiled at her, sadly, as if against his will. It wasn't that he believed her, or didn't. It was that he wanted to, in a way he hadn't wanted anything in years. But that was her all over, wasn't it?

"I guess the point I started out trying to make," he said softly, "was that so can you. Be anything you want--it's not about your past, or your name. So if you want to know what you are, you'll have to make it. And hopefully, make fewer mistakes than I did."

Some experiences, no one should hope for.

He realized they'd been standing quite close for some time, and it made him suddenly self-conscious. "Is this okay?"

Rey met his sad smile with her own, though it was far more hopeful and encouraging than his had been. She didn't know whether or not he thought her naive or was just reluctant to hope for something better than he'd allowed himself to hope for all these years, but either way, Rey was willing to stand by him and do what she could to ensure that his future smiles were brighter and more genuine.

She nodded slowly, to show that she understood the point he'd been trying to make and was willing to try and change her former worldviews for the sake of advancing as an individual. But his question was unexpected, and she furrowed her brow for a moment before realizing that she had one arm draped around him while her other hand cupped his cheek. though they'd long established that there was nothing to be uncomfortable about, she still found her face growing warm as she glanced down for a moment and grinned, quickly forcing herself to meet his eyes again.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

There were about a thousand and one reasons it might not be okay, ranging from Luke smelling badly to his being a presumptuous, dirty old man. But he thought better of listing them, and just shook his head, feeling more than a little at sea. But his smile turned less sad, more wondering. As if he couldn't quite credit that she wasn't moving away.

"I don't know," he confessed. He just knew that he felt better about this than he thought he should, because it felt good and right and thrilling in a way he had certainly not been thrilled in decades. And in his life, in the place his mind had been for so long, that could not possibly be correct. "I guess I keep waiting to wake up and realize I've imagined all of this."

Her fingers still feathered along his cheek, and she hadn't moved them, so partly because he felt emboldened and partly as if to dare her to move them he turned his head slightly to catch the tips of them on his lips, a gentle caress he made without breaking eye contact.

Considering that Rey had grown up largely among criminals and other people for whom hygiene wasn't a high priority, and she herself primarily relied on dust baths to get clean given how precious of a commodity water was on Jakku, she didn't really notice any sort of smell coming off of Luke that was particularly unpleasant. If anything, the smell of the island was more overpowering, since it was unlike anything else she'd experienced. She'd associated that scent with Luke without really realizing it, and if Luke had bothered to make a list of all the reasons he'd imagined for why their proximity would be less than ideal, she might have outright laughed at him.

She did laugh, though it was more of a soft chuckle when he claimed to be waiting to wake up. Before she could point out that they'd already been through that, though, he caught her off-guard with a soft brush of his lips against her fingertips. Oh. That was... unexpected. And sweet.

Feeling the corner of her lips quirking up into a small, fond smile, Rey softly remarked, "If you really think you're going to wake up, you can probably afford to let your imagination run a little more wild." Not as wild as their shared dream had been, perhaps — at least, not yet — but certainly enough for him to know that his lips can touch her elsewhere. That much was clear when she leaned in towards him a bit, even if she was far too inexperienced to even pretend to know how to make the first move.

He really, Luke thought, ought to pull back, resume the lesson, get back to business. He was here to train her, or rather she'd come here to be trained, not whatever this was. It was undisciplined, unbecoming a Jedi and a man of his age, and so on. But the way she was looking at him, and the way his sense of her enveloped him not just in terms of bodily warmth but the dappled sunlight flow of her in the Force, was intoxicating. Plus, it helped to mute the part of his brain that wasn't sure exactly what to do with her, how to proceed with instruction when she was so wholly unlike any other student he'd ever had. Except for--

And he definitely did not want to think about him.

"Oh yeah?" he murmured, kissing the tips of her fingers and feeling a smile crease the weathered thing he called a face. "I guess you would say that, if I were dreaming." Pulling her hand down with his own, he leaned in and replaced her fingers with his lips, because despite all the mitigating factors and the wearing away of his sense of self, Luke was still Luke and diving in was a thing he did. If not now, when?

Their lips met, the kiss soft though their skin perhaps was not, and his metal fingers tightened around hers gently as a surge of fierce affection flowed through him.

Rey found herself hard-pressed to continue considering herself a student of Luke's. For starters, she had no reference for how a student should behave, especially in regards to their teacher. And even if she did, it was clear that the pair of them had crossed that boundary a long time ago... probably around when they thought it was okay to have heated dreams about one another and hold one another close for an extended period of time.

Whatever they were and whatever they were on their way to becoming, Rey was in over her head, and to that end, she relied on Luke to lead the way. Even so, she was a fast and eager learner, and so when he pulled her fingers away from his face and leaned in, she gently gripped his fingers and met his lips halfway.

She didn't know what she was expecting, really, since she'd never been kissed before. The first thing she registered was the way his facial hair tickled at her face. The second was the way his lips felt over hers, soft and yielding (if a little chapped on both their parts owing to years of weathering). Then she thought about the way his lips were moving, and whether she should be moving hers, and whether she was doing this right at all or if he was going to pull back and laugh at her. Soon, though, she forced herself to relax, feeling a certain warmth of affection blossoming over her and deciding that she was thinking far too hard; right now, she was going to opt to savor the moment for as long as she could before she was forced to think again.

Romance was about the last frontier Luke felt qualified to lead anyone into, but here they were. And he had to admit... it was nice. She was warm and soft, and somehow yielding and firm in equal measure, and it was a sort of connection that was very different from anything to do with the Force. It was both more and less primal and instinctive, in different ways. He wondered, distantly, if his beard was itchy. He'd never kissed anyone with a beard, before. Either way you wanted to take that.

He wanted it to continue forever, partly because stopping meant addressing this thing he'd done, but eventually he could feel his breath begin to run out and he drew back, ever so slightly, to put his forehead against hers. His eyes slid shut, instinctively removing all distraction but the feel of her.

"Was... is this okay?" he murmured.

Despite having never done this before, it felt every bit as natural to Rey as breathing. She wondered if there was some instinctive part of her that had always known how to do this, some base instinct that drove all living things towards other members of their own species (or other species; she was hardly one to judge). Maybe she'd just never been close enough to another person, given herself enough time and thought to really listen to that particular drive.

Or maybe she was giving herself too much credit and was actually messing this up spectacularly, but Luke was just too nice to say so.

But given that he didn't back away from her completely upon breaking the kiss, she was going to assume that she hadn't just made a complete fool of herself. She peered at him as he closed his eyes, a small grin on her face as she held him just a little closer. "It's more than okay, Luke," she told him softly. "Of course, if I'm doing anything wrong, I'm hoping you'd say something...."

That made Luke laugh, eyes opening in surprise.

"Wrong?" he echoed with faint amusement. "Rey, there's no such thing. Or if there is, I definitely don't have the manual for that." For all the ancient texts had been useless in figuring out how to teach a new class of Jedi, he had even less guidance on what constituted good form when you were putting the moves on the girl a third of your age who'd come to you for help. In a way, it was a small victory--he had not, after all, said it's all wrong.

Progress.

"You seem to think I have some idea what I'm doing, here."

When Luke actually did laugh, Rey closed her eyes and just barely managed to keep herself from flinching. She'd expected him to laugh at her, of course, but... well, not like this.

Though she was glad that he wasn't exactly laughing at her, she still wasn't entirely sure what to make of his response. Tilting her head and looking at him curiously, she mentioned, "Well-... more than I do, surely?" Realizing she didn't know anything about his past insofar as relationships went aside from the fact that he didn't have any children, she uncertainly remarked, "I'm assuming you're more experienced than I am. It's impossible to be less experienced."

Oh, no. He hadn't meant to embarrass her. Quickly, Luke's expression sobered, and he ran his fingers along the side of her face, sliding just slightly into her hair.

"Oh, Rey," he sighed. "Not that it matters, not one bit. But this isn't the sort of thing you can really teach. Do I have some experience?" He shrugged. "Certainly. I was a starpilot during a war--you don't come out of that without some fairly embarrassing memories. But you needn't worry I've got... expectations. My life has been, while very active, very... lonely."

Rey was immediately comforted by Luke's touch, eyes slipping closed again as she tilted her face into his hand and sighed softly in return. Though there was a small part of her that was jealous of whomever he'd been with when he'd been young enough to not care about allegedly embarrassing himself, she wasn't about to turn her back on the opportunity she had with him now, wherever it might lead.

"It doesn't have to be lonely anymore," she whispered softly as she met his eyes again. Her hands trailed along his shoulders as though she were smoothing out his robe, fingers eventually linking at the nape of his neck in a loose embrace. "Not for either of us. I just... want to make sure that it's fulfilling, as well."

What her touch was doing just to the back of his neck was ample evidence that 'fulfillment' was not going to be a problem. In fact, Luke privately wondered if he should be the one afraid of performance, given his age and his utter lack of familiarity with, at this point, even his own body--let alone another person's.

He still felt that she was making a huge mistake, but he was no longer willing to fight it. Of all the people in the galaxy, she'd come here, and chosen him, and it didn't seem fair--to her. But he was so tired of shouldering the blame. And tired of hiding, even though he had no momentum to do anything else.

"You've nothing to fear, on that score," he said softly. "I'm well-practiced at making myself unhappy, at this point. Nothing you could possibly do is going to contribute to that. If I am moody, if I am gruff--it's not you, Rey. I have no doubt that anything you do is going to be... more than satisfying."

If nothing else, Rey was blissfully unaware that age would have any impact whatsoever on performance, and it was hardly as though she had much of anything for a reference point on that front. Her own drive had always been relatively low, so there hadn't been a lot in the way of "self-fulfillment" occurring in the privacy of her hammock, so just having someone that she could comfortably share such close contact with was thrilling all in its own right.

She rolled her eyes slightly when he remarked on his penchant for making himself unhappy, though by the time he finished, her expression had softened considerably. "I hope so," she told him fondly. "You deserve to be happy, Luke. Regardless of how good you are at not being happy."

That last point was debatable, but Luke didn't feel like debating it just now. It was an endless circle, one he could not be talked out of, but one which she had no context for. Indeed, had they been speaking of any other party, he would have agreed--everyone deserved a chance to be happy.

Except himself, because he knew what he'd done, and didn't have the plausible deniability of not having a window into their soul.

Still, while Rey was by no means a replacement for Ben, he could do right by her by not pushing her away. And not making assumptions. Opening himself up to what she needed. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was certain this was some sort of excuse. Did it matter?

"That's a conversation for another time," he said with dry diplomacy. "But I've also little practice with others' happiness. You'll have to help me."

She might not have known what had happened in Luke's past to turn him from a legend to a recluse, but she knew that the good far outweighed the perceived bad. He'd been a hero, after all, and he still had that sort of heart inside of him, even if he'd willingly blinded himself to it for all these years.

Rey believed Luke Skywalker was a good man. And she'd do what she could to make sure that he believed it, too. Even if that took more than a little work.

"Help you... with me?" She chuckled softly as she glanced away, shaking her head slightly. "I... don't really know what makes me happy. This does, being with you. But beyond that...." She shrugged a bit helplessly, never having been one to focus on her happiness so much as on her survival.

Ahch-To, Baby

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