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Truth be told, Din was getting rather tired of being stranded on ice planets. Once had been an annoyance, and an almost deadly one at that; twice was practically an insult. He’d come on this expedition at least partially to spend time with Luke, but this—
This wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.
“Can’t you do something with the Force?” he asked as the temperature continued to drop within the tiny hold of the ship, even though he knew it was useless. If Luke could have done anything, he would have done it already—say, before they’d had to touch down on this frigid wasteland.
Luke shrugged sheepishly, his blanketed shoulders rising nearly far enough to touch his ears. He tugged his blanket more firmly around his frame, and Din did the same with his own almost instinctively in response. “I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait until the patrol passes,” he said, his words visible as puffs of frost in the air. “It shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”
Well, a few hours wouldn’t be enough to kill them, but it would be enough to get dangerously cold. With all the power turned off to hide them from the Empire’s sensors, they were losing heat at an alarming rate. Din shot a glance at his companion out of the corner of his eye, the slight movement hidden behind the contours of his helmet. Luke’s cheeks were pink in the dim light of the fading sun through the viewport, and if it was a good sign that they still had so much colour, it meant that he made an unfairly attractive sight.
“You think Han will be okay with the kids?” Din asked by way of distraction—both for Luke and himself. They hadn’t intended to be gone nearly this long; it had only been a small scouting mission on the New Republic’s behalf.
“They’ll be fine,” Luke said firmly. “I trust Han with my life. He’s saved it multiple times in the past.” There was a pause, and then, his voice full of humour, “I just can’t promise Grogu won’t have learned any new and interesting words by the time we get back.”
“I was more worried about Han than the kids.”
Luke grinned, wide and delighted, and Din never failed to feel a swell of pride when he managed to put that look on his face. “Ah, well. That I’m less sure of. Han might never forgive us.” He sounded a little too cheerful for someone whose brother-in-law and best friend was likely going to murder him when they got back. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
Silence fell, but it was a comfortable silence, a thing born of familiarity rather than awkwardness. Things were always comfortable with Luke, Din found; the Jedi simply had that way about him, a presence so warm that it settled in Din’s bones with an almost physical weight. Somehow, Din felt less alone sitting in silence with Luke than he could feel in a crowded cantina.
“I lived on Hoth for a couple of years, you know,” Luke finally said into the silence, the syllables slightly blurred by the chattering of his teeth.
“My condolences.”
Luke chuckled, the sound low enough that it wouldn’t carry beyond Din’s ears even if they weren’t alone. It made Din feel like it was a private joke—as if here, in this moment, there were only the two of them in all the galaxy. “It wasn’t so bad, for the most part. I had Leia and Han and Chewie, and the Resistance.” It prompted him to launch into a story about one of their more dangerous adventures, but it wasn’t long before he could barely get the words out.
Din could feel his own thoughts beginning to grow sluggish, like water thickening to slush. It was about the time he realized that he’d missed part of Luke’s story—something he never would have done of his own accord—that he realized they had to do something.
In the end, he could only think of one thing to do.
Shaking off his blanket so he could lurch to his feet, Din removed his armour as methodically as he could beneath Luke’s curious, almost sleepy gaze. The beskar would only steal what little body heat Luke managed to produce. When he was down to nothing but his under suit and helmet, he folded himself back down beside Luke and tucked his blanket in around the both of them.
“I guess that’s one way around the cold,” Luke chattered wryly, but he didn’t argue, shifting so that he could slowly worm his own blanket around Din’s body as well. The press of his shoulder against Din’s, with nothing but thin layers of fabric between, was like a candle in the dark, or a building fire in the storm. “Here,” he said, reaching one arm around Din’s frame so he could rub a hand briskly up and down Din’s arm. “Is this okay?”
Din had to clear his throat before answering, and hoped that Luke would think it was merely from the cold. “Yes.” He leaned in a little closer, the pounding of his heart a staccato in his veins. Luke’s fingers trailed a fever from shoulder to forearm and back, again and again, sharp prickles along his skin as some semblance of warmth returned within the shelter of their shared body heat. “I suppose it won’t be long now,” he said almost regretfully, and he could feel Luke nod slowly beside him.
There was silence again, for a few moments, and then Luke’s breath was warm in the air. “You know,” he said, and Din hadn’t heard him sound so hesitant since the time he’d had to tell Din that Grogu had the flu. “If you wanted, we could always do this again.” He pressed his shoulder just a little more firmly against Din’s, as if afraid that Din might miss his meaning. “Somewhere more comfortable, I mean.”
Din could see it unfold in his mind—the warm curl of bodies on the couch in Luke’s study, or in the summer field beyond the Temple, or in the soft expanse of Din’s bed, and he had to close his eyes momentarily against the longing in his blood. “Yes,” he said again, and then, because it was true and because he wanted to give Luke more than a single syllable, “anywhere you like.”
Luke let out a relieved breath, and looked shyly at Din, and maybe—maybe, Din thought, being stranded on an ice planet wasn’t so bad after all.