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His skull aches.
Cal operates on autopilot, the same way he does when he falls hard. He gets up. He keeps moving, even as the world tips a little to the side, even when there's stars sparking at the corners of his vision.
There's one lesson he never lost with the fall of the Order; when you fall down, you get back up. Cal applies that wisdom every day. This isn't any different. He's breathing, so he's moving.
By the time he doesn't have any blasterfire to deflect back though, he has to lean a little against a wall because the way his skull is squeezing around his brain. His mouth is drier than it should be and his neck is wet with more than sweat.
“You good there?”
Cal opens his mouth to say yes, and what comes out is breakfast.
“That's a no,” Bode says, a warm hand on his back as Cal reacquaints himself with a familiar dizziness. “You're bleeding. Concussion?”
He would nod if he wasn't sure he'd pass out for it.
“Hey, BD, can we get a stim over here?”
BD’s whistling reply is too sharp and has Cal cringing, and that hurts, scrunching up his face as he leans away from the sound. Bode’s a good spot to hide away in, he decides, the safety of the shade he provides from the harsh strips of the station lighting. He presses his face into Bode's sternum and finds the little strip of skin there to hold his aching head against.
Bode has shitty circulation, for all his mass. Cal thinks it's funny, the way he leaves socks strewn about like he does ponchos, always able to grab a pair in a hurry and drag them on to keep his icy toes warm. Cal's used him as an icepack on occasion to Bode's endless amusement, grabbing his hand stripping off his gloves to place them against his neck when he's gotten burnt from spending too much time in Koboh's sun.
Cal relishes the bit of cool skin he finds now before his own flushed face heats it up, nuzzling into the open vee of his shirt.
There's a hand in his hair, close to where his skull feels split, skirting around the edges of a lump that Cal can feel his heartbeat in.
“What did you hit?” Bode asks above him, voice gentling.
Electrohammer, Cal thinks but wisely does not say, since he's already lost his stomach once and he doesn't think Bode would be happy if Cal got sick all down his front. There's a sharp pinch of pain that he recognizes as a stim in his neck and he slumps further into Bode, trusting the other man to take his weight.
It's nice here in the safety of Bode's chest, he thinks. Muscle on either side of him, pressed close from how Bode has to hold him to keep him upright. The leather of his blaster harness digs into Cal's shoulder a little.
Bode's hand is back in his hair, trying to get a better look. The stim dulls some of the pain as Cal makes a noise of complaint into Bode's chest, but not all of it. Bode's gloved hands are careful, but not careful enough as he locates the part that feels hottest.
“Stars, this is… how are you standing, Cal?”
It's probably stupid to feel a flash of pride at the chastisement and worry in Bode's voice, but it's probably stupid to be contemplating if nuzzling down Bode's shirt is inappropriate for their friendship or not yet. And he's not operating with all the blood his brain needs to make those calls, he figures, since Bode's gloves are tacky when they skim down his neck.
“Not the worst I've had,” he mumbles against Bode's skin when he's seeing less stars.
Bode's fingers pause.
“No?”
Cal sighs. “No.” He's standing, after all. Mostly. He doesn't think any other knock to the dome will hurt worse than the first time he fell while scrapping and realized, mid-fall, that he couldn't catch himself with the Force. He'd woken up hours later soaked to the skin when the shift turned over and the pneumonia he'd been stuck with had nearly put the concussion and the broken arm to shame.
“This needs bacta,” Bode says. “Or staples. Maybe both.”
“Stim’ll do it.”
“Gonna have to disagree with you there, Scrapper.” Bode peels Cal off from where he's hiding away in his chest from the lights, tugging him along to a brighter section of the station they've already cleared. Cal winces away from the light, but Bode's persistent, and he can hear the tapping of BD right along behind him, so there's really no escape. “You're a reckless bastard, aren't you?”
BD-1 trills a confirmation. Cal makes a face as Bode has him sit on an old cargo crate, likely looted long before either of them were born. The moon base is full of them.
He dutifully tips his head forward. Bode's cold fingers are sans gloves now and feel even cooler with bacta smeared on the very tips, carefully spreading the gel over whatever gash has left Bode so spooked.
“Think it'll scar?” Cal asks absently, filling the quiet. His mouth still tastes sour and he crinkles his nose.
“Not if I can help it,” Bode murmurs. He's straying beyond the most tender part, slipping lower, and Cal can tell he's touching one of his other scars— one of the ones his hair’s long enough to hide. “You’ve got enough.”
Cal stares down at BD. He can see the scar over his nose reflected back at him in his buddy's photoreceptors. He can just barely see Bode behind him as well, his face drawn in an expression that strikes Cal as mournful, somehow. He tries to turn his head to look at him properly, but Bode's other hand catches his head and holds it still.
“Don't move so much,” Bode chides.
Cal closes his eyes. Lets his aching skull rest against Bode's hand. He should be getting up now. There's still more work to be done and they're so, so very close to their goal. Bode's hand is cool without his gloves and there's callouses that graze his cheekbone the further he leans.
“Don't fall over on me either,” Bode jokes, though there's that thread of worry in his tone that fills Cal with a warmth his hands lack.
“You'll catch me,” Cal finds himself answering, quiet but confident. Bode's fingertips pause again, but then the man is sighing heavily behind Cal and shifting. Bode's hands gently direct him back to that open spot he found before and Cal eagerly noses at the skin he finds there, pleased. He can hear Bode's heartbeat as his own recedes from the back of his throbbing skull.
“I'll try,” Bode promises.