#also weirdly have a thing for drawing them crashing after a long night idk what that says

[edenxrosey]

~WIP~

[vagrantblvrd]

I’ve seen posts where people think Sebastian Stan should be cast as Luke for future space adventures? Which believe me, are amazing and I would 100% watch the hell out of?

But also please to consider this:

Din comes across this character played by Sebastian Stan who gives Din what is obviously a fake name. Because Antilles, right? One of the most common names around and he might as well have not given Din a name at all, but it’s not like he’s going to call the guy on it or anything, right?

Din’s out hunting down Imperial remnants that have anything to do with the experiments on Grogu and finds this Antilles guy in a cell at one of the bases. He’s clearly had a rough time of it if the look he gives Din when he opens the door to his cell is any indication.

Just this...shock and surprise and something like grief before he tucks it all way behind this oddly familiar smile.

Antilles has clearly been treated to Imperial “kindness”, in that he’s bruised all to hell and can’t walk on his own - almost falls when he insists he’s fine, no really - so Din gets to play human crutch. (Might have been there a while, because he’s all scruffy too, unkempt beard and hair, and anyway, he’s not had an easy time of things.)

Which is fine because Din dealt with most of the Imperials by the time he found Antilles, but! They hit an intersection while looking for the labs and a couple of stormtroopers coming from the opposite direction.

This moment where they all stare at one another in that uh, situation? kind of way but haven’t had the time to react just yet.

Thing is, Din and Antilles happened to trip over their feet just before the troopers walked up, are untangling themselves but Din’s not in a good position to draw his blasters or any of his other weapons. Is like of course this would happen now and resigned to using himself as a human shield, because Antilles is in rough shape and Din’s armor, and anyway.

Doesn’t matter in the end because he feels this tug at his hip and Antilles ducking under his arm and pew-pew-pew, down go the stormtroopers, felled by incredible aim and Din’s blaster and Antilles who gives him this little smirk that is also oddly familiar.

Antilles shrugs, says something about his dad teaching him to shoot or whatever and when Din gets them both back on their feet apologizes for grabbing his blaster. But since doing so just saved their lives, Din’s not all that bothered by it.

Anyway, they get to the labs and Din parks Antilles in a chair while he digs for anything helpful. Scrounges up some datasticks and destroys the rest and when he turns to collect Antilles on the way out - 

The guy’s got this look on his face. Complicated, because angry and wistful and a whole bunch of other things Din doesn’t have the time or luxury to unpack.

They get back to Din’s ship, and Din catches the - he doesn’t even know - expression on Antilles’ face when he sees it.

Some of the grief is back, and the wistful nostalgia and weirdly enough, Antilles pats the hull of the ship as Din gets them up the ramp and he swears he hears him say something like long time no see, old girl, and anyway. Din has stuff he needs to get back to Lu - to Skywalker to see if he or his New Republic friends can make sense of it.

He gets Antilles patched up and there’s clothes for him to wear - old bounties who didn’t need it anymore or gifts from people Din helped in the past an he didn’t know what to do with them and anyway.

Antilles looks better after he’s patched up and cleaned up, wearing this mishmash of clothes but he’s not complaining. Seems more grounded, settled, too, than he had earlier, like he’s had time to sort things out for himself.

Shaved his beard, but kept the mustache and just shrugs when Din notices it, just an observation on his part and doesn’t ask because it’s not like matters and anyway.

They run into some trouble getting back to Skywalker’s school, but Antilles isn’t useless. Knows how to fly, is a damn good shot - impressive, really - and knows his way around both jungle and desert in survival situations.

Because that trouble they run into and crashing and continuing to not die after the crashing is done because Imperials or other baddies, and anyway.

Antilles is far from useless and also snarky as hell and Din actually starts to like him.

Wonders a little at how sad he seems sometimes, the two of them sitting at the fire they’re cooking that night’s dinner over and Din looks over when Antilles isn’t expecting it.

Staring at the flames and sad, the kind that runs deep.

Din doesn’t ask, though, doesn’t think it would be appreciated because there’s something...brittle about Antilles in the right conditions and anyway, he doesn’t ask.

Antilles gives him little pieces of himself here and there, though. Mentions his parents, the one who taught him how to shoot, the one who taught him how to fight. Both of them arguing about who was going to teach him to fly until his aunt and uncle had enough of the pointlessness of it and taught him themselves.

(”I learned to fly on a freighter,” he tells Din, cutting through an asteroid field to avoid Imperial TIES after them like it’s nothing. “Corellian make, fastest thing around.”)

Apparently Antilles knows a whole lot of things besides all that, knows how to cheat at sabacc well enough Din almost doesn’t catch him at it. And when he does, the man gives him this wide-eyed look of innocence like who, him? cheat? he would never that is so painfully familiar Din has to look away because there’s a reason he’s out here on his own, isn’t there.

(All these inconvenient Feelings and no chance that Skywalker would ever return them, because Jedi and also look at Din, okay, kind of a mess of a human being and Luke is Luke.)

Anyway.

Eventually they make it to Luke’s school and Din can’t help but notice how quiet Antilles gets as they come in for the landing approach. Hands whit-knuckled in his lap, and he’s trying to look like everything’s fine but his jaw in clenched and he’s got that look in his eyes again and anyway.

Luke comes out to greet them with Grogu running ahead, and both of them stop short at the sight of Antilles.

“Din,” Skywalker says slowly, in such a way that Din realizes something is going on, “who’s your friend?”

Din explains meeting Antilles in the cell of an Imperial remnant base and their many adventures getting back to the school and so on.

The entire time Skywalker (and Grogu) are staring at Antilles, and Antilles is staring back at them, and Din is just like this is Force nonsense again, isn’t it.

And then Antilles is like, So I Have Something To Tell You.

At which point he tells them that he’s from the future - because of course - thanks to some doohickey in the ruins of a Jedi temple he was investigating - because of course it’s to do with Force nonsense - and also he’s here to set the timeline right after a sith or whoever got their first and meddled with the original timeline.

Because of course he is.

There’s a whole Thing in which Antilles and Skywalker go off to talk Jedi stuff.

(Oh, yeah, apparently Antilles is Force-sensitive, probably actually a Jedi himself and Din is like, of course he is because that’s his luck, isn’t it?)

Anyway, Din goes off to check on Luke’s students with Grogu and everyone’s happy to see him, pepper him with questions about what he did while he was gone and he tells them the parts that don’t involve killing people, because wow, no.

And then later on when everyone’s asleep or supposed to be asleep Skywalker finds him and they just kind of enjoy a moment of quiet, peace, while they can.

Comfortable the way things are around one another, and Din’s traitorous heart goes all soft and squishy when Skywalker gives him this warm smile as he catches Din up on happenings at the school while he was gone.

(How many frogs Grogu’s eaten - too many to count, honestly, I’m starting to worry - and so on.)

Din feels guilty at how much he enjoys these moments with Skywalker because they’re not something he gets to have, and anyway, yes.

Shenanigans in which Antilles is clearly in league with Skywalkers students and just about everyone in shoving Din and Skywalker together until finally one of them breaks and confessions concerning Feelings are had and convenient that they’re locked in a storage area because no one else to see when Din presses his forehead against Luke’s and they both do that breathy little laugh that’s all soft and surprised and only for them, and anyway!

Then the Serious Shenanigans happen in which the sith (or whtatever) Antilles was after pops up and does an Evil Monologue in which it’s revealed they were responsible for killing Antilles’ family in that original timeline and also ushering in a new era for the Empire and oethr bad stuff.

Oh, and also, Luke and Din are his parents because those experiments on Grogu and that time both Din and Luke got caught and had blood samples and the whatnot taken and anyway.

He’s cloned from them or something equally dramatic, idk how science works, and they rescued him and raised him as their own and the mustache of his should have been a bigger clue, really, it’s been staring them all in the face (literally) the whole time, what fools they’ve been not to realize!!1!

Emotional fallout and sacrifice plays with one of them being no, bad, don’t try that again or I’ll be Disappointed and the good guys winning the day as the timeline is set right, and all that good stuff.

Din, Luke, Grogu, and Antilles go to where the Jedi ruins are with the time travel doohickey to send Antilles - he still won’t tell them what his name is.

There’s emotional goodbyes all around and then poof, off he goes back to the future where he belongs Din and Luke and Grogu like wow, that was a thing, huh?

But also.

The thing where they’ve both been captured - together and separately - by Imperial remnants and had blood samples and the whatnot taken and Antilles could exist in their timeline right now.

Realize he never told them where they found him or how, and are like oh, no, because what if they don’t find him now? What if they never find him???

So of course Artoo trundles over and plays this little holomessage of Antilles.

Looks nervous as hell and that sadness they knew the reason for all over him, must have recorded this before he told them who he was, and anyway.

He doesn’t know where they found him exactly, just the name of the system and his best guess at when it happened, and then he gets this look on his face like. It’s too much like the one Luke gets sometimes, like Din’s when he’s in a bad place, and anyway.

They go looking where he told them and they find this kid, tiny, adorable, scared kid who can tap into the Force and he’s got Luke’s eyes and Din’s hair and other little small things and he’s just.

“Would have been helpful if he told us what we named him,” Luke says, but he’s kind of an emotional mess the way Din is, and anyway, yes.

(Also, though. Grogu is the worst influence on their kid, but an awesome big brother.)