(no subject)

[imthepilot]

[From here]

There rooms are a bit of a mess. Bodhi spend all night cooking and as much as he cleans as he goes, there's still a lot left to do. But it can wait. He puts the last ingredients away to be made into something else tomorrow.

He turns to Galen, shedding his jacket. "That was enjoyable. I missed markets like that."

Comments

[galen_erso]

"Even if..."

Galen shakes his head. "I love you. You are my lover. I want a life with you, or an afterlife. Jyn is a grown woman -- it would have been lovely to know her again, but she has her own life. Must have her own afterlife. Do you know if she had anybody?"

[imthepilot]

Bodhi curls up close in Galen's arms. "She and Cassian were close towards the end but- I don't think they were that sort of close."

[galen_erso]

Galen leans his cheek against Bodhi's hair. "They might have grown closer, over time. Tell me about Cassian."

[imthepilot]

"He was the rebel agent who got out of Saw's prison. Off Jedha just before-" He ducks his head, hiding his face in Galen's neck. "I trusted him and he lead them to you."

He sniffs, trying too focus on the question and not the guilt. "When the council wouldn't support Jyn's plan, he did. He and some of the people he knew. We took the ship we stole on Eadu and went to Scarif."

"Jyn didn't like him at first. Not after Eadu. He was meant to kill you himself but he didn't. She forgave him."

[galen_erso]

"Why didn't he?" Galen says.

Very telling that he doesn't ask 'Why kill me?'

[imthepilot]

"I don't know. I don't think he knew. Maybe because of Jyn. Maybe because he believed in her. I don't know. But he didn't pull the trigger."

He can't raise his eyes. "I saw you. From the ledge where we climbed that last time. You were leading your scientists outside in the rain. He wanted to know which one was you. I thought- he'd said we were there to rescue you. I went back to find a working ship. I thought they'd come back with you. But the explosions started."

It comes out as a babble, tears tracking down his cheek. "Jyn was so angry. So-" he cuts himself off. "She said you were dead. She was yelling at Cassian. It was all I could do not to fall apart. You were dead and it was my fault."

[galen_erso]

Galen just holds him close and strokes his hair and lets him cry. That poisonous guilt must come out, like an infection.

"Not your fault," Galen says. "The fault of whoever ordered that attack. The fault of Orson Krennic for conceiving his evil project in the first place."

[imthepilot]

"I just wanted to hold you again." Bodhi whispers. And then kisses Galen - deep and desperate.

[galen_erso]

"And now, you do," Galen says, holding him close and kissing him, as fierce and as desperate.

[imthepilot]

The tears run their course between kisses as their franticness gives way to breathlessness.

"I'm sorry." Bodhi rests his forehead against Galen's, a hand buried in his hair. "I thought I was past this."

[galen_erso]

"You are with me," Galen says. "You went through hell between our parting and now, so of course, there are things left to cry about."

[imthepilot]

"I just want to be with you. Out of the shadows of the past. I just wish I knew how."

[galen_erso]

"We need to come out of those shadows consciously, intentionally," Galen says. "It takes effort, even for me. And those Guardians are not helping. They have wandered very far from what they used to be."

[imthepilot]

Bodhi strokes Galen's cheek, lifting his eyes to meet Galen's. It was always the main thing that bothered him about Hannibal. No-one but Galen should have those eyes. "They don't you. They don't see past their own prejudice."

He kisses Galen again, sweet and soft and loving this time.

[galen_erso]

"The Guardians that I used to know -- or rather, Lyra used to know -- on Jedha before the Empire were very different," Galen says. "That's probably why I'm disappointed that they're not helping you. Because the ones she met, would have."

He returns the kiss, softly and lingering.

[imthepilot]

"They did a little. When I was young. They handed out food when it could be spared. And set up schools for those who wanted to learn. Back then I was too busy with my younger siblings."

He keeps sharing kisses, unhurried and comfortable. Or heading back to comfortable anyway. "You and Lyra knew Jedha in a better time."

[galen_erso]

"We did," Galen says. "But it reminds me that a lot of people would say I'm too old for you. That I am abusing the emotional need of a very lovely young man..."

[imthepilot]

Bodhi draws back rather sharply at that. "Who says that?" He demands, a spark of anger in his eyes. "What right do that have to say that?"

[galen_erso]

"Nobody has said as much to my face, but it was implied, back on Eadu in our co-worker's reaction to the rumours about us," Galen says. "I don't think the Guardians have as yet added that bit to their general disapproval of me, though."

[imthepilot]

"I don't care what they think." He pulls Galen close and kisses him possessively. "I'm not some cadet with sand still in his jets. I fell in love with you because of you. Not some emotional manipulation."

[galen_erso]

"While we had to be in hiding," Galen points out, sensibly, between kisses, "we had no way of disabusing them of whatever notion they had about us."

[imthepilot]

Bodhi is the one who laid a man out for commenting on them. "We're here. And here we don't have to hide anything."

[galen_erso]

"And so we can reclaim our own narrative, like any couple would," Galen says. "Because no couple lives in a vacuum. Not even Lyra and I did when we were farming on Lah'mu."

[imthepilot]

"I don't know how to do that." Bodhi admits shyly. Even though Galen knows this is his first actual relationship. "How to be a couple."

[galen_erso]

"Plant a balcony together?" Galen suggests. "Use the same bathroom? We're already there, most of the way."

But he kisses Bodhi, gently, in acknowledgement of that shyness.