Chapter Text
Bodhi and Luke spend a lot of time together over the next few days, usually while one of them is working on fixing their ship. Often they talk, but sometimes they just exist in a comfortable silence.
It's not until Bodhi collapses from exhaustion again that Luke admits the pilot means something to him - something more than simple friendship and camaraderie. Luke finds Bodhi in the infirmary, again.
"Aren't you getting tired of this place?" are the first words out of his mouth, and he's rewarded with a faint smile on Bodhi's face, though he doesn't reply. Luke sighs, crossing the room to sit on the edge of Bodhi's bed, again stilling Bodhi's fidgeting hands with his own.
"Bodhi, you need to take better care of yourself," Luke says softly. "Look, I'll make you a deal. I'll convince the doctor to let you out of here quick - within an hour or two at most - if you swear to me that the next time you are tired and can't sleep, or won't let yourself sleep, you come to me right away." Bodhi looks up at him, faint curiosity in his eyes.
"Do we have a deal?" Luke asks. Bodhi pauses for a long moment, his eyes locked with Luke's, searching. Finally he nods. "Thank you," Luke says, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
True to his word, Luke convinces the doctor to let Bodhi leave before the end of the hour.
Luke isn't sure Bodhi will keep his side of the promise, given his stubbornness and his anxiety about relying on anyone other than himself, so it comes as somewhat of a surprise when Bodhi shows up at his door in the middle of the night, just over 27 hours after leaving the infirmary.
Opening his door to an exhausted Bodhi, barefoot and with a blanket wrapped around himself, Luke immediately drags him inside, guiding him to sit on the bed and settling next to him, their shoulders pressed together. Bodhi's silent for a long while and Luke lets him be, knowing Bodhi will talk in his own time, if he wants. Finally, Bodhi shifts, curling up against Luke, who wraps his arms around Bodhi. Bodhi leans his head against Luke's shoulder with a sigh and begins to speak.
"I've never told anyone everything that happened on Scarif..." he starts out, his voice quiet in the dark as he begins at the beginning, telling Luke everything. Eventually, he reaches the end, his voice tight. By now, tears are trickling down his face and Luke quietly wipes them away with his sleeve. There is silence for a long while, until Bodhi speaks again.
"You know what Cassian said to me before they left the shuttle? He said 'Keep the engine running, you're our only way out of here.' And I couldn't... I couldn't get them out of there. I even saw them, on the beach together, before I had to fly away. I should have saved them." He chokes on the words, and he's crying again. Luke says nothing - he doesn't know how to comfort someone, has no idea what to say, so he just holds Bodhi against him, offering silent support to the man he now admits he's fallen in love with.
"I should have saved them. I should have saved them." Bodhi mumbles over and over. Luke's arms tighten around him but he says nothing, just holds him silently, thumb gently rubbing Bodhi's shoulder as his words devolve into quiet sobs. Eventually he exhausts himself and Luke thinks he's finally asleep, until he hears a broken whisper. "I should have died too. I should have died instead. I shouldn't be alive... Maybe I should just kill myself and be done with it all."
Luke freezes at the words, though he supposes he should have expected them - he's had his own share of moments of survivors guilt and depression, but Bodhi seems to be worse.
"No." Luke's voice is low, quiet but tense.
"No," he repeats again, and he goes on, words finally coming to him. "You should be alive. You deserve to be alive and don't you even think about daring to argue with me about this. You did all you could, there was absolutely nothing more you could have done, you would only have gotten yourself killed and taken Baze and Chirrut with you and no one would have made it back from Scarif. Yes, people died, people including Cassian and Jyn. But they knew what they were getting themselves into and they chose to do it anyway because it was the right thing to do. It was not you fault they didn't make it out - it was a kriffing suicide mission Bodhi, the fact that even three of you escaped is a kriffing miracle and that only happened because of you. And Jyn and Cassian - at least they had each other in the end, neither had to die alone, which is a lot more than most in the Rebellion get.
"And so help me Force, if you kill yourself, I will drag you back from the dead just to yell at you for leaving me. Because I don't plan on letting you go that easily." Luke lifts Bodhi's chin until he can meet his gaze. "Promise me. Promise me, Bodhi, that you will live."
Bodhi stares at him for a long moment before nodding. "I promise," he says softly.
"Thank you," Luke replies, emotion making his voice rough. He carefully shifts them to one side so they can lay down instead of leaning against the wall and pulls the blanket up over them.
"Hey, Luke?" Bodhi's voice is hesitant.
"Yeah?"
"Please don't leave me?"
"I won't."
Silence.
"Hey, Luke?"
"Yeah?"
"... I think I might be in love with you. Is that ok?"
Luke smiles in the dark. "Yeah. Yeah that's definitely ok..." His voice trails off.
"Hey, Bodhi?"
"Yeah?"
"I think I'm in love with you too."
This time it's Bodhi's turn to smile, and he wraps his arm over Luke's chest, snuggling into him more. That night, curled up against Luke, Bodhi sleeps without nightmares for the first time since Scarif.