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The Razor Crest rested on a flat patch of grassy vegetation under the shade of 30-foot trees, old and wide as the slowest banthas. Din bade it farewell for the time and stepped around the sloping ridges of tree roots to catch up with Cobb.
Six months of living in Cobb’s small desert home had left him feeling happier than he could remember. Every day, a worn-in smile to greet him and work alongside, and every evening a comforting arm around his shoulder as they whiled away the time fixing speeders, watching holo films, or talking on the smallest sofa in all of Tatooine. He couldn’t deny they’d grown close. They even shared clothes sometimes, on account of Din having almost none.
The first time they’d kissed had been on the stairs; the 3 steps that led down from the doorway to Cobb’s cramped living room, and Din had paused when the wiring box he was carrying unspooled. Cobb had leant against the wall of the tiny space on the same step and waited while he put the parts back into place, and Din had noticed him staring. Had let him help when it was taking too long. Had stood there crowded together once it was fixed and they both laughed at how close they’d gotten, both aware of how they didn’t want to lean away, and they’d drifted together easy as the setting of a warm, weary sun.
And yet the ache was still there, for Din, of missing his child. It was a common feeling, he knew, and he tried to let it live with him as any parent would. But Cobb could see it was eating him like the worms eat the bodies in the sands to dust.
‘He’s already older than I am. It’s not like I’m missing him grow…’ Din had whispered one night as his tears dried, trying to reason away his pain, and Cobb had held him with an arm around his waist and head on his shoulder, and told Din he himself must know that was just an excuse.
‘And there’re no excuses when it comes to heartbreak.’
Cobb had been right. Time had made it easier not to cry so often, but he could see that was about all that was easier. One night, about six months into their life together, Din had felt ready to tell the story of that day on Gideon’s ship. And now here they were.
‘Partner, I still can’t believe you’d never heard of Luke Skywalker.’
‘What’s one man’s news is another man’s dust on the breeze, Cobb.’
Cobb laughed gently. He sure had his turns of phrase but Din could say the most confounding things, too, sometimes.
‘Besides, I knew of the Jedi.’
‘There ain’t nobody who doesn’t know of the Jedi.’ Cobb’s playful smile stretched across his face kindly while he walked, feet treading over grass for the first time in his life. Not that he let it show too much.
‘You’d be surprised.’
And that was how they came to the temple—Luke’s temple—where he and a few disciples looked after trainee Jedi in a sparse forest on the planet Kehn, and Din had felt tears in his eyes upon seeing Luke again, when he knew for certain they were in the right place.
Arches of pale stone lofted in gentle curves to make domed buildings, within which children played and learned, and a few adults, too, new to their own undeveloped skills. Din couldn’t fathom how they’d found their way here. Perhaps in a way like Grogu, through the thing they called the Force.
When Cobb had heard Din’s story that aforementioned night, of the calm young Jedi with light brown hair who’d come to their rescue, his heart had raced with recognition. His mind had reeled and he’d interrupted. Did he wear just one glove? Was he cute? Sounded wise beyond his years? And Din had frozen for a moment and said yes, three times, and scooted closer to Cobb across the floor where they’d sat drinking rhizome teas in the low light from the projector.
Cobb had smiled then, the most beautiful smile Din thought he’d ever seen, and told him how Skywalker had made it known in the cities on Tatooine where he’d be if ever they needed him, since he was one of their people. And Din had slowly felt tears prick at his eyes, in disbelief, and Cobb kept on smiling with a warmth to match the twin suns.
At the temple, Luke had shown them to Grogu right away. Din sank to his knees and picked up his son, hugged him tightly against his neck and held him for a long time.
Cobb had looked at the two of them, father and son together, and felt the long-forgotten ache of his own childhood both ignited and soothed by the sight. As if on cue, Luke had reached out a hand and placed it gently on his arm, leading him to a nearby bench on the edge of the chamber where the sunlight poured in from a wide doorway, and sat with him, and talked about Tatooine, and Din, and Cobb.
Spring rolled into summer, and they were becoming a fixture of the temple same as the acolytes and trainee Jedi who lived there. Din taught lessons on mechanics, sometimes, and played with Grogu, mostly. They ate meals together, all of them, or sometimes just the three of them, Din, Cobb, and Luke, when the trainees were resting or practicing.
One afternoon, Din and Cobb paused on the way back to their room, stopping between the spacious structures on the temple grounds, when they noticed Luke huddled with some acolytes by the shrubs along the eastern hall. Each of them leaned on the low wall that served as a window from one outside to the other and watched, coming to see that he was picking berries. Din couldn’t help but smile.
The lands on which the temple sat were sparse forest blanketed with thick grass and full of wide, sloping spaces: small hills and embankments and gentle valleys. Din and Cobb would borrow sparring poles from the temple and train together, Cobb not knowing much in the way of combat technique and mostly there to learn; Din knowing he needed to keep up his practice even in what felt like downtime. A warrior couldn’t afford to become rusty— even if he wasn’t sure he was still a warrior.
They talked with Luke often. They laughed with him even more often. He turned out to be, to Din’s surprise, more talkative than he and Cobb put together, though with an almost-keen sense of when to be quiet. Almost. Din supposed it was ingrained in his personality; he was in some ways a lot like a kid and not so much like a religious figure. That suited Din fine; he didn’t need another religion right now.
Luke often let Din have his space when it came to Grogu, like he was trying to make up for the abruptness of their separation. Din could see the apology in his eyes, though he heard it enough times in his voice, too.
Cobb just wondered how someone from his own desperate, lonesome planet could etch out such a place in the universe as Luke had done. Not only that, but he’d done it with his kindness and sweet disposition intact.
~
An hour had passed since the sun dropped below the horizon in full, and darkness had come at last. Grogu blinked up at his father with those large, inky eyes as sleep weighed over him heavily, and Din tapped a finger against his nose just to watch it crinkle. Cobb leant against his side, nearly asleep himself. They sat sprawled on the tiled floor of one of the many rooms without doors, feeling the night breeze gently sweep around their limbs, when Luke came to the widest archway and bade them goodnight.
‘Hey, c’mere,’ Cobb said instead of the usual reply. Din looked at him with barely-raised brows and faltered a moment before unfolding his legs and making to stand up. Grogu was drowsy, then, and made only the lightest sound when he was jostled into Din’s arms and carried into the next room to bed. Luke came over and sat down beside Cobb, watching Din go.
‘You know, I’ll never get tired of seeing you take care of him. It makes me realize what a fool I was for thinking it was weakness.’
Cobb shook his head.
‘That what was?’
‘Attachments. Bonds between people. I have bonds of my own, even, and they don’t make me weaker. I have to remember that.’
Cobb didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t one for philosophizing, at least not out loud. Luke broke his gaze, glancing casually away with eyes a shade of blue Cobb usually found cold; but Luke’s were just ordinary and calm. For the leader of an esoteric school of magic, he was as ordinary as they came. Cobb could see him buying groceries and fixing tailwings. He knew from conversation that he often had.
Din came back, then, walking softly across the floor with socked feet and none of the urgency that used to plague him more with every passing day. No thoughts of where to go next, what to look out for, who to track down… There was only the present, and there was nothing like it.
He looked at Cobb, who he’d grown to care so much for, and at Luke beside him, no longer a kind stranger or figure of salvation but something more, and a shiver traveled along his spine upward, and he rolled his shoulders to be rid of it.
He’d never done this before, and so he said so.
‘Neither have I,’ answered Luke, and Cobb’s silence made them both break out into quiet laughter, and Cobb said what? with his feigned incredulity. Slowly, Din sat with his back to Cobb’s chest and Luke climbed onto his lap. His thighs hugged Din’s legs with a weight he hadn’t expected of someone so small.
‘Tell me what you like and don’t like, alright?’
‘Oh he likes everything,’ Cobb said, and Din blushed, and shuffled sideways a little so they were offset and Cobb could see their faces more, and Luke kissed Din’s lips with his soft, careful mouth, and kissed Cobb next, and between them they sighed and slowly kissed and held each other as the minutes of the night crept on.