Work Text:
It’s possibly the worst fight Cody’s ever had with any of the other Shebse. It’s definitely the worst fight he’s ever had with Ponds. Sith hells, it might be the only real fight he’s ever had with Ponds.
Fights with Bly are all quiet words of displeasure, grievances brought forth, emotions discussed with an air of rationality that few people can manage in the face of emotional confrontation.
Fights with Wolffe are loud and tend to get physical. They escalate quickly but are over just as fast. When a fight with Wolffe ends, it’s clear that there’s no hard feelings left.
Fights with Rex… fights with Rex are hard. They’re small voices, Rex getting quiet, retreating into himself and Cody having to coax him back out before they can have an actual conversation.
Cody has no reference frame for fights with Ponds, he’s come to realize.
It started with Windu, with Ponds accusing Cody of treating him unfairly, of judging Windu by who he thinks him to be instead of who he is. Cody doesn’t quite know why he reacted to that as badly as he did. And he should probably apologize for that.
Except… except Ponds said things. Cruel, mean, hurtful things. Things Cody wishes he could say Ponds didn’t mean. But he knows that Ponds did mean them. And not just because he’d been angry and hurt. He’d said them in anger but there had been an undeniable air of truth to them.
And Cody had responded in kind, didn’t pull any punches himself. And he knows for a fact that those punches landed.
They haven’t talked since - even though it’s been a month and even in the most stressful phases of the war, they’d managed comming each other about once a week. They’ve handled anything necessary with an air of professionalism that usually isn’t possible with Ponds. (Not because he can’t but because he won’t, not with them .) And that hurts, hurts, hurts with an intensity that Cody couldn’t have imagined.
It’s the cocktail of shame and hurt that keeps him from calling Ponds. He’s not ready to apologize first . Maybe he should. Scratch that, he definitely should. He’s the one who escalated when a rational discussion would still have sufficed. And yet, he can’t . Can’t bring himself to comm Ponds. Can’t bring himself to write a karking message.
It’s Wolffe who comes to his house with a bottle of that Torrent rotgut that always tastes, smells and looks like you won’t have a gut left for it to rot through after the first sip. It’s Wolffe who comes to his house, which means that Bly is taking Ponds and they’ve decided to keep Rex away from this for now.
“What are you doing here?”, Cody asks, just to make his annoyance at the unannounced visit known.
Wolffe raises an eyebrow at him: “Getting you drunk, so you’ll talk about whatever osik is going on between Ponds and you. I thought that was obvious.” He pushes past Cody to plop down on his couch, then pulls two pudding cups out of his jacket’s pockets. “And once you’ve talked about your feelings, you get a pudding cup.”
Ah, annoyance noted and ignored. Great.
“No”, Cody says, despite all hope already being lost. They should have just named their squad Atin . That would have been more honest.
“Yes”, Wolffe says. “I didn’t have to bring the pudding cups, Cody. That part’s just me being a nice vod . Carrot and stick, you know?”
Cody rolls his eyes but closes the door and sits down on the other end of his couch: “The stick being your presence in my home, right?”
There’s an indignant huff - played and the most over the top one Wolffe can muster - and a pillow being thrown at Cody. He catches it, pulls on its edges. He can feel his posture going rigid, his discomfort seeping into every one of his muscles. He lets it, doesn’t pull himself into a neutral facade. This is just Wolffe and him. He won’t do either of them the disservice of dishonesty.
Cody can feel Wolffe’s eyes on him, studying his movements. But he doesn’t look back, doesn’t acknowledge it.
“What happened?” Wolffe’s tone is soft in a way Cody has only ever heard him use with the vod’ikase .
(Hate is a strong word. Cody strongly dislikes it being used on him. He’s also not sure he could deal with anything else if they’re actually going to have this conversation.)
“I…”, he starts. Stops himself because he doesn’t know what he was going to say in the first place. “We had a fight”, he settles on after a moment.
This is where Wolffe huffs and says ‘I gathered as much’. Wolffe stays completely silent.
“It escalated. And…” He takes a breath because he’s going to start crying and he does not want to start crying. “And we both said things . Things I never ever want to repeat and…” His voice breaks and Cody clenches his teeth together to stop the sob he can feel forming in his throat.
Neither of them say anything for long minutes. Cody’s throat feels closed off. He’s not sure he could say anything if he tried.
“Should I be counting you as in crisis?”, Wolffe asks.
Cody shakes his head. Clenches his fists to keep his hands from shaking, too. He doesn’t bother trying to answer verbally. If Wolffe is asking, he’s already made the decision.
Cody makes it a point not to carry a weapon on Concord Dawn. (At least when he’s not venturing out into the wilderness. He’s not stupid .) Wolffe doesn’t. Wolffe usually carries a vibroblade in his shoe and a blaster in a holster under his shirt. Cody would never begrudge him the sense of safety those weapons bring.
The fact that Wolffe isn’t moving to remove his weapons means he expected the conversation to go this way. Or if not expected, definitely thought it a possibility. That just makes Cody wonder what a sorry figure he’s been cutting these last few weeks.
“I’m fine, Wolffe”, he says when he can bring himself to do so.
Wolffe shakes his head: “Never let someone judge their own condition while they’re injured or in crisis”, he quotes Seventeen.
He’s not wrong. Cody never recognizes himself being in crisis. He always thinks that his head is clear until the fog is gone and he realizes what clear, rational thinking actually looks like. Maybe Wolffe is right.
“Can I touch you?”, Wolffe asks.
Cody looks at him for the first time since they’d sat down.
‘You’re not supposed to approach someone in crisis’, he almost says but between the two of them, Wolffe is the one with the clear head, and Cody trusts his judgement.
Instead, Cody makes himself ease some of the tension out of his muscles. It doesn’t work, not really. He takes a deep breath: “Yes.”
Wolffe waits another moment, seems to evaluate Cody’s posture, his breathing, then nods and moves closer. He reaches out with his right hand, makes sure Cody sees it before placing it on the back of Cody’s neck. He stops there for a moment, then gently pulls Cody into Keldabe.
Cody’s eyes slide shut almost involuntarily as he draws a shaky breath. Wolffe’s grip is firm and soft. His hand is warm and calloused and familiar. Cody can feel Wolffe’s even breathing on his skin, makes himself match the rhythm.
“It’s okay, Cody”, Wolffe says. “It’ll all be okay. You just need to talk to each other, alright?”
“It’s not that easy”, Cody protests. He’s gripping Wolffe’s shirt with both hands, he realizes. He didn’t notice himself moving.
Wolffe’s thumb starts drawing slow, gentle circles just below his ear: “Why is that, Cody?” His voice is low and steady and patient.
“I meant it”, Cody says. “I meant every last word. And I know that Ponds did, too.”
His breathing is shaky again. He chokes on a sob.
“Deep breaths, Cody.” Wolffe waits until he’s managed to calm his breathing a bit. “Let’s look at this rationally, okay?”
They talk for hours and hours, Wolffe gently prodding until Cody voices his fears, gives form to his hurt, verbalizes his emotions.
They don’t ever touch the rotgut. It’s not any kind of conversation that gets better with alcohol - few are, even if the pain of some can be eased by its anesthetic effect.
They do eat the pudding cups. It’s already late at that point. Maybe late is the wrong word, though. It was late when Wolffe arrived. It’s the middle of the night - third hour - when they get around to eating the pudding cups.
It’s fourth hour when there’s a knock at his door. It’s fourth hour and Wolffe is already fast asleep in the guest room. Fast asleep like Cody had planned to be except that his brain won’t shut up. He was staring at the ceiling for five minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore and went back to sitting on the couch. He wouldn’t have heard the knock from his bed.
It’s not an emergency. His comm would be used for those. Or the doorbell. A knock means that whoever it is doesn’t want to wake him in case he’s asleep. Cody doesn’t think that it’s Bly. Bly doesn’t knock like that. Hesitantly. Rex might. He gets like that sometimes. Hesitant and scared. When he doesn’t know whether he’s capable of something, whether he can ask for something. But Rex isn’t on planet right now.
Whatever he expected when he opened the door, Cody didn’t expect this.
“Ponds”, he says. It’s barely more than a breath.
His every muscle feels frozen against any voluntary movement. His fingers twitch to reach out but his arms won’t lift.
Ponds smiles. There’s the twitch of his nose, the angle of his eyebrows, the position of his shoulders that scream nervosity to Cody. The smile is cautious and guarded and so very unlike the warm and open ones Ponds tends to share with the world.
“Hey, Cody.”
Cody moves without making any sort of conscious decision. Ponds tenses in his embrace.
“ Ni ceta, vod ”, Cody says.
Ponds lets out a long and shuddering breath. Cody’s heart is beating quickly - so quickly - and the hug is starting to feel like a mistake.
Then Ponds’ arms wrap around him. Once the movement starts, its execution has something fast and desperate.
“ N’eparavu takisit digu gar takisit ”, Ponds intones.
Ponds’ voice is soft and firm and earnest and Cody is pretty sure his heart forgets to beat for a moment. Maybe it’s powered itself out. He’s not sure how he expected this conversation to go. He knows he didn’t expect this.
“ N’eparavu takisit bal digu gar takisit ”, Cody answers when he’s sure he’ll get through the entire sentence.
Ponds squeezes him, lets out a breath: “Oh, thank the Force”, he says. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t accepted that.”
Cody laughs his relief, wipes at the wetness in his eyes and squeezes back: “Come inside”, he says. “Wolffe’s in the guest room but I can offer you the couch.”
He makes himself let go, his right hand lingering on Ponds’ shoulder despite his best efforts because there’s something about the touch that makes this seem real and Cody needs to know that this is real. Needs to know that he hasn’t kriffed up his relationship with Ponds beyond repair.
Ponds smiles at him - a truly Ponds’ian smile -, reaches for Cody’s hand on his shoulder and squeezes it: “That sounds good. It’s probably better if we talk in the morning.”
Cody will promise Ponds to
try
in the morning, he decides. To try and see the man in Windu who Ponds seems to think he is. He’ll try. Nothing more. But nothing less, either. He desperately hopes that that will be enough.