CW: PTSD, chronic illness, disability, medical settings, implied sexual intimacy
Ao3 Link
★★★★★★★★
You don’t know many people who wear glasses. Most beings on Chandrila and other developed worlds undergo a simple surgery to correct their vision. But Bodhi—he had a particularly unpleasant experience with the Imperial surgeon who’d worked on his eyes at the academy, and he has no intention of ever having that kind of surgery again. Which means the goggles he wears for other mechanical work aren’t just a safety precaution—they now have prescription lenses. And if he needs to read anything, whether it’s his data pad or a cereal box, he needs glasses.
At the moment, Bodhi is frantically going through every drawer in the house. “Love,” he asks, “are you sure you didn’t move them?”
“I never touch your glasses,” you say. “Because of exactly this.”
He sighs. “I could have sworn I left them on the table in the living room.”
It occurs to you that Bodhi fell asleep reading on the sofa last night and had to be coaxed to get up and come to bed. After lifting a few cushions, you find not one but two pairs of specs in the sofa. You call his name and hold your findings up in front of you.
His smile brightens his whole face. “I was starting to feel a bit mad,” he says. “Where were they?”
“Couch cushions.”
Bodhi takes the lenses from you, puts one pair on the kitchen counter and one on his head, like he used to wear those welding goggles back during the war. You know based on your own experience with eye health, and the eye health of many of your peers, that one of these days your partner is going to find himself needing corrective lenses for more than just reading. As you watch him return to his task, hunched over the recipe he’d been trying to read, those glasses ever so slightly sliding down the bridge of his nose—you can’t help but think how handsome he looks.
“Good,” he says. “I added a few things to the grocery list, and I’ve sent it to Cilvie in case you two want to do that tomorrow.”
“Bodhi—”
“It’s fine if you don’t. I can take care of it after work.”
“We can probably go to the store tomorrow. But I need you to sit down. You haven’t stopped moving since you got home.”
Bodhi sighs, running a hand through his long, dark hair. “I’ve been trying not to think about it,” he says. “I just feel like…maybe I’m forgetting again.”
Every fiber of your being wants to run to him, but you know he needs to come to you. With his memory—he doesn’t talk about it if he doesn’t want to and you know not to pry.
So you sit on the couch, take a deep breath, close your eyes. And when you open them, he’s there, next to you. He wraps his arms around you, his big hands gentle and warm. He slides his glasses to the top of his head again, pushing back his hair.
“You always figure me out,” he says. “But please don’t panic on my behalf.”
“Are you actually comforting me right now, Bo?” you ask. “When you’re clearly struggling?”
“No one calls me that but you,” he says. “Not since I was small.” He stares straight ahead for a moment, something in his eyes tells you he’s not entirely here with you.
“Bo,” you say, “come back to me.”
He smiles, takes your hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Sometimes…” he says, pausing to take a breath. “Sometimes it’s nice for me to just be able to take care of you. To make sure you are safe and happy. Maybe it’s a bit selfish but it’s something I couldn’t do even for myself for a long time.”
Resting your head on his shoulder, you notice how nice he smells—some combination of shampoo, the clean cotton of his shirt, a light cologne he knows you like. You want to ask him what he’s thinking, whether he’s okay. But you know he has more to tell you. And the only way you’ll hear it is if you wait for him to be ready.
It’s not long before he lets out a long breath and says, “I made a doctor’s appointment a few weeks ago. Neurology specialist.”
“That’s a big step,” you say, wondering how much he’d been keeping from you, knowing how he hates the idea of burdening you with his own health issues. “You could have told me—I know this is really hard on you.”
“I know. It’s just a little too real, I guess.” He pauses. “But I have to know.”
It had been years since Bodhi had had his mind violated by Bor Gullet, a being who could not only see inside your mind but change it, move things around, make you believe anything or leave you with nothing at all. Bodhi was lucky to have mostly recovered, but there were side effects—then and still. For a while doctors said his symptoms lined up entirely with his PTSD, but Bodhi wasn’t so sure. Doubts like that can overwhelm a person, and now, after all this time wondering if he might have some kind of brain injury, there’s only one way to find out for sure.
“When is it?” you ask.
“Well,” he says, a “It was set for a few months from now. But I got a call right before I left work today and there’s an opening tomorrow. So…”
You take his face in your hands, gently caress his short beard before drawing him into a brief kiss. “I’m proud of you,” you say. “Where are we going tomorrow?”
“We?”
“I’m not letting you do this alone.”
“All right then,” he says. “The specialist is on Hosnian Prime. We’ll have to leave early.”
“Okay,” you say. “I’ll be with you.”
Bodhi takes your hand, brings it to his lips for a sweet kiss. “Thank you, love.”
You hear Cilvie chirping from down the hall: packing your bag.
Someone in this house is always eavesdropping, but it is nice of your droid to take care of that for you. You thank her, and then look to Bodhi, his big, dark eyes reflecting so much love.
“It’s going to be okay,” you tell him. “We’ve got this.”
*
You’d been living together for just a few months the first time Bodhi went to a doctor’s appointment with you. He’d actually suggested it, hoping to provide some comfort, maybe even get some insight into what to watch out for in an emergency. If it had been any other man, you might have balked at the idea, wondered what controlling nonsense he was up to. But it was Bodhi, the most sincere being you’d ever met. So you agreed.
Unfortunately, the appointment he joined you on had brought a decent amount of bad news. Medications weren’t working as they were supposed to, side effects of other medications might be too risky given your conditions. You left feeling somehow both deflated and panicky. When Bodhi came in from the waiting room, the physician had nothing helpful to share with him, either.
In the turbolift, on the way from the doctor’s office to the parking garage, Bodhi asked you, “How are you feeling? I mean, physically.”
“Not terrible,” you told him. “Same as this morning.”
“Right,” he said. “Okay, well, we’re getting dessert then.”
“Have you even had lunch?” you asked.
“I think dessert is in order regardless,” he said, putting an arm around you, bringing your body close to his. “Maybe a bit of chocolate, even.”
Bodhi touched his nose to yours and you closed your eyes, breathing in the comfort of being close to him, his familiar scent, the steady beating of his heart, the strands of hair fallen loose from his braid brushing against your cheek.
“I really thought there was going to be good news today,” you said. “Something helpful.”
“I know.” he whispered. “I’m so sorry that wasn’t the case.”
“I’m so tired,” you said. “How do we have so many advancements in medicine and I’m still such a mess?”
“You’re not a mess,” he said. “I know I can’t do a lot to help right now, but…whatever I can do? I’m going to do that.” You’d almost reached the level where your speeder was parked when Bodhi pressed a kiss to your lips and said, “If that’s all right with you, I mean.”
And in his embrace, some of your anxiety started to fade. He took your hand as you walked to your vehicle, opened the door for you as if you were on a first date. “I know a place,” Bodhi said. “I have a client in this neighborhood that I’ve done work for. She has a hard time leaving the house so usually Pao or I come to her. And there’s a cantina—you’ll see. The sweets menu is glorious.”
“Glorious?”
“Glorious.”
It was a quick drive to the little cantina, and when you walked in, Bodhi’s arm around your waist, you immediately knew why he wanted to bring you here. It was a casual comfort food spot, and right by the door was the very full dessert case.
You found a booth in the back corner and you ended up ordering a sandwich to split before indulging in the dessert menu. It was just before dusk and not particularly crowded. As you were waiting for your late lunch, Bodhi got up from the table abruptly, told you he’d be right back.
When you’d met, back on Yavin, Bodhi had been shy, almost debilitatingly so, often compensating for his anxiety by talking too fast and too much—something you’d come to find charming even if others merely tolerated it. But in the pilot’s seat or in combat, according to the folks who’d fought alongside him, he would almost become a different person—a man with a commanding presence and a sharp tactical mind. That was how he’d been consistently promoted. If he hadn’t decided to step away from the Navy, you both knew he would have earned the rank of General.
He’d grown into himself since those early days, his confidence coming back to him as he’d found strength in his found family. In you. But still, it surprised you when he put a credit in the cantina’s old-fashioned jukebox, returning to you with an outstretched hand.
“I’ve always loved this song,” he said. “Come dance with me.”
“What?” you asked, not entirely sure that he was serious.
“Dance with me, love. Just for a little while.”
You raised an eyebrow as you took his hand, the slow, soft melody coming in over the speakers in the early evening calm.
“Come on, now,” he said, a smile in his eyes. “This song makes me think of you, you know.”
As soon as you were in his arms, it didn’t matter whether people were watching. “How many years have I known you, Bodhi Rook? And not known that you could dance?”
“Too many, perhaps,” he said, quickly brushing his lips over your cheek. “Maybe this is something we should do more often.”
“Dancing?”
“With the promise of dessert.”
*
Bodhi’s original U-Wing was a total loss when it crashed on Endor. And while he’d enjoyed his stint as an X-Wing pilot through the Battle of Jakku and the month that he’d spent piloting a repurposed zeta-class transport—much like the one he’d flown with the Empire—it was the U-Wing that he kept coming back to when he was looking for something to salvage for personal use.
“My whole life turned around when Cassian pulled me aboard that ship,” he said on the day he finally made his decision. “It’s a quite different, this civilian model. I’ll have to install a hyperdrive somehow, and we’ll need a new droid port…”
You’d let him ramble, even though what he was saying may as well have been Huttese to you. And today as you board the U-Wing—Bodhi’s U-Wing—you admire as always the beauty of it, so much of it built from scrap but crafted and polished to look like new. With his hands.
Now in hyperspace, the silver streak of stars just outside the transparisteel windows, you settle on one of the plush benches that Bodhi had reupholstered himself a few years back. With Red keeping an eye on the navigation, Bodhi comes back to sit with you.
“Thanks for coming with me, love,” he says, “I can’t say I’m excited about this.”
“I know,” you say. “But if you get some answers, it’s worth it, right?”
He nods, pulling your legs over his so you’re nearly in his lap, his arms around you, bringing closer to his body. “I’m so afraid that I could lose something important. In my mind,” he says. “That I could lose my memories with you.”
You place one hand over his heart. He’s wearing a v-neck t-shirt and a soft cardigan—so different from how you used to find him in the back of the old U-Wing, so many years ago. But, stars, how you love him in v-necks—how they compliment his toned chest, the way one of his tattoos peeks out from under the collar.
“Bodhi,” you say. “That won’t happen. And if it did, I’d be right here to remind you.”
You caress your partner’s cheek, give his neatly trimmed beard a little tickle before he touches his forehead to yours, a few strands of dark hair slipping from where he’d pulled it halfway back, still damp from his shower earlier this morning.
“I hope the answer isn’t surgery,” he says. “I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll do it together, Bo,” you say. “I promise. There’s nothing in the galaxy that you have to do alone.”
“Okay.”
“You look really nice today, you know.”
“Now you’re just trying to distract me.”
“Maybe I am,” you say. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
Bodhi kisses you then, his hunger for your touch evident as he takes your face in his hands, his lips moving slow but firm as they fit to yours so perfectly that you feel like you were made for each other.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Is this okay?”
“It’s more than okay,” you tell him.
He responds with more kisses, deeper and more urgent as he leads you to the little pull-out cot he’d installed where on his old Alliance ship there would have been a second door and an ion canon. As you lie down, Bodhi folding the both of you under a blanket and sliding his hands under your clothes, you’re glad for the curtain behind the cockpit. When Bodhi’s gentle fingertips trace the curve of your thigh, you hope that this moment of pleasure is bringing him even half the peace it’s bringing you, a bit of warm calm in the cold of hyperspace.
*
“You know, the day we met, I thought that I’d never get to spend any time with you—and I hated it,” you told Bodhi. Back at home, you were now snuggled up on the couch together watching a holofilm you’d both seen more times than you could remember. “You were a big hero—the kind of pilot who had so much attention on him that he’d never have the time to spend with non-combat personnel.”
“Well,” he said. “As I’ve told you, I fell in love with you the day I met you, when you handed me that jacket. I’d never had a jacket that fit me so well,” He paused to softly run his knuckles over your cheek. “And you were so beautiful, love. Radiating kindness. I had no choice but to break things on purpose to keep coming back to see you.”
“Excuse me?” you said. There were a few times that you suspected he might be up to something, but back then you couldn’t quite imagine that this attractive, important man would break so many zippers just to see you.
“I didn’t really leave the cockpit much that first year after Scarif. Between having to learn to use my new leg and the fact that I was rubbish with a blaster…well, I wasn’t putting as much strain on my clothes as, say, Han or Jyn.”
“I knew it,” you said, laughing.
“And you never said anything?” Bodhi’s smile was so big and so charming—the smile you’d fallen for back on Yavin. And you reached to tuck a few strands of hair behind his ear, a handsome, if premature, streak of silver that had come in a year or so ago.
“Because every day I hoped to hear you’d somehow popped another button on your uniform. So that I could see you, too. Plus, you always brought me caf—and knew exactly how I liked it.”
“Of course I did. You were it for me,” he said, kissing you softly. “You are it for me, love. You know that right?”
You smile. “Well…let’s just say a more responsible tailor would have taught you to sew a button.”
“I’m glad you never did.”
“Me, too.”
*
It’s hard being in the waiting room, knowing that Bodhi is just beyond a door you can see a few meters away from where you’re sitting, and not wanting to be there. But there’s radiation involved, and he has Red, so Bodhi suggested that you go explore downtown. And you’d thought about it, but ended up just getting a cup of caf and a sandwich and returning to the waiting room to read a book. It’s been a few hours, and you’re starting to worry when the door opens and Bodhi emerges, followed by Red.
He looks tired—but not upset. You must look tired, too, because the first thing he says is, “How long have you been sitting here?”
“I just wanted to be here if you needed me,” you told him.
Red chirps: made sure Bodhi was okay.
“I know you did.” You say, giving the droid a little pat. Turning back to Bodhi, you ask, “How’d it go?”
He takes your hand and leads you out of the office, to the turbolift, out to the busy sidewalk. And then he says, “Mostly good news, I think.” He pauses, takes a breath. “Let’s find a place to get some dinner and we can talk about it.”
So you find a little diner, snag a corner booth, retrieve Bodhi’s reading glasses from your shoulder bag so he can read the menu, and after ordering some local comfort food, he tells you about the appointment.
“So they did find something,” he says. His voice is a little shaky, and you squeeze his hand. “I should have had you come in to hear it from the doctor—something about scar tissue. But it’s entirely treatable.”
“What kind of treatment?”
“There’s a medication that they sent to the pharmacy back home,” he says. “But I have to take it in conjunction with therapy.”
You smile at Bodhi, the look on his face a bit sheepish. Bodhi hadn’t done talk therapy in years. His previous therapist had retired unexpectedly and he never got around to finding someone new. He was doing pretty well so you’d never felt like it was your place to push him to find a new clinician. But you can tell in this moment that he’s dreading it.
“Are you going to do it?” you ask.
“Of course,” he says. “The neurologist already put in a referral to someone back on Chandrila. I looked her up, she sounds lovely. But I’m not thrilled about it.”
You reach to touch his face, tuck a lock of hair behind his ear. “Whatever you need from me to support you in this, it’s yours.
“Thank you,” he says before sneaking a quick kiss. “I’m glad you came today.”
“Me, too.”
When you leave the diner, it’s dark out. Both of you had talked earlier about possibly doing something fun tonight, but that was before the long day you’d had. Standing on the sidewalk, you ask Bodhi if he’s about ready to head back to the ship to get some sleep before leaving tomorrow.
“Actually, love,” he says. “I booked us a room. I thought it would be nice. Maybe even a bit romantic…I know you’re probably exhausted, though.”
“How far is it from here?”
Bodhi points out a tall building just a few blocks away. “It’s right there, I think. With the red spire. Are you good to walk?”
“I should be fine.”
With Bodhi’s arm around your waist you make your way to the hotel and, when you get to your room, Red plugs himself into the droid port in the corner and lets you know that he’s shutting down for the night. You’re about to ask about your luggage when you find that Bodhi has had your bags brought here by a courier earlier that day.
“You’ve thought of everything,” you say.
Bodhi pulls you close, touches his nose to yours. “You deserve everything, darling,” he says. “I mean that.”
When he kisses you, the sounds of the city fade away and a desire wakes inside you, a hunger to be closer to this brave, good man—who even in the midst of his own difficulties is thinking of you. You press closer to him, and Bodhi starts humming—a song he always says reminds him of you, and you sway with him, a sweet slow dance to shake off the stress of the day.
Soon you’re undressing each other, stumbling toward the bed, sliding into the soft sheets, clothes landing in piles on the floor.
Bodhi kisses your jaw and whispers in your ear, “You took such good care of me today. Can I take care of you now?”
You nod and he begins a gentle trail of kisses down your neck, your shoulder, your clavicle, your sternum. His beard tickles your skin as you realize you have goosebumps from the pleasure of his touch.
“Stars,” he says, taking your hand, his fingers lacing in between yours. “Have I ever told you that you’re perfect?”
And as he continues, pressing his soft lips to your tummy, you know he knows that neither of you are perfect by any standard measurement. That you are both deeply flawed, clinically. Emotionally. Still, you believe him when he tells you this.
“So are you,” you tell him. “And I love you so much.”
He hushes you, and you make a mental note to reassure him later of his strength and his beauty, how his body and his mind are exquisite and how lucky you are to have him. But for now, you relax into this moment with him, a sweet bit of pleasure that both of you deserve.
★★★★★★★★
Thank you so much for reading! I love writing Bodhi. I need a universe where he lives. But we have our AU. I hope this fic makes you feel seen and loved.
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