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Bodhi Rook couldn't wait to have his three fluffy pillows and two warm blankets for sole horizon in the next twelve hours. As much as he loved flying, there's something to be said about what it usually did to his internal clock. What he meant is that sleep being sporadic at best, the perspective of getting a little reprieve after a 48 hours long shift made him giddy.
Speaking of giddy, it's probably why he was already a little circumspect when he fumbled tiredly to put his house keys in the lock. Despite the distance, he swore he heard the sound of a girl giggling inside, the kind of breathless tinkling laugh that couldn't belong to reasonable, reliable Jyn Erso. Must have been a trick of his brain, besides, she didn't have the flat to herself last night, Cassian was there too.
They had a strict policy about not bringing girlfriends and boyfriends to do the nasty when other roommates could witness something. He will never forget his embarrassment when Luke poured himself a glass of cold milk in the middle of the night wearing his RAF Tee-shirt... Not only did he cross path with Jyn freshly out of the shower, but Cassian chose that exact moment to get back from work due to a nightly stakeout, with Kay in tow.
Bodhi thought he would die then and thus rules had been enforced to prevent something like that from happening ever again. Sure, they had to block out some noise with music from time to time, and fixed a fourth breakfast plate the following morning, but it was all in good sport and nobody got scared to death.
Yet nothing compared him for the scene that greeted him once he almost sleepwalked to the kitchen area:
Cassian was leaning on the counter, face half-hidden by his coffee mug (the one with "best roommate ever!" written on it) while Jyn was perched next to him, looking a bit flushed and perhaps a tad disheveled. Bodhi's first inclination was too dismiss it as the sign of her getting back from her morning run. Only...
Jyn was too surprised to see him, too earnest in greeting him, while for all the bags under Cassian's eyes, they were crinkling at the corners. He was happy. That alone he could have dismissed, if their state of undress wasn't sending a horrifying scenario through his sleep-deprived perception: Andor was shirtless, nothing too unusual but Jyn was too, and Bodhi suddenly had the instinctive urge to look away.
Because while she was wearing a bra and leggings, one was actually made of lace — he may be gay, but he still wanted to blush at the thought — and the other was so fitting it left very little to the imagination. And still these very private people he thought he'd known for years were very at ease sharing such personal space and degree of intimacy.
All alarms were blaring in his head, causing a slight headache already, but as he was obviously masochistic he still asked:
"Guys? Did the washer die on you or something?"
"No," Cassian replied, his tone annoyingly bland, "why do you ask?"
"I thought maybe you were lacking clean shirts, judging... anyway you know you could have borrowed some of mine, right?"
What his blubbering stupid mouth was even sprouting about?! The whole kitchen was altogether looking too pristine to his bulging eyes, the scent of disinfectants suspiciously reaching his flaring nostrils, and while his hands grew cold, hot blood ran up to his ears. It was obvious they hadn't wanted to bother with any shirt, least of all his! Or worse, their respective shirts may have been actually used to do some cleaning beforehand? He had a plethora of naughty possibilities coursing in his mind thanks to his active imagination and truthfully he could have done without.
However, his roommates had the decency of not reacting at all — that must be why, as much of a good poker player he was, they were better. Indeed his best friend put him out of his misery without missing a beat:
"That's sweet of you, Pilot, but we're all set," Jyn replied as neutrally as Cassian did next to her, either of their faces betraying nothing.
He bet they were, some dry part of his brain drawled, sounding like slimy Lando Calrissian of all people. But Bodhi knew when to retreat, so he kept his mouth shut.
He nodded and turned slowly toward his room, hoping he would get a clearer mindset once he had a few hours to sleep to block out this alternative reality. Alas, as he was perhaps a bit stalling — he was bone tired after all, and said room was literally on the other side of the flat, a hundred leagues away, so to speak. He already had a hard enough time reigning in his mental flood, he just wanted to shut the world out, roommates included...
He almost groaned out loud when as soon as his hand closed on his door handle, Cassian cleared his throat and volunteered:
"Bodhi, if you ever think you need to, you can burrow my iPod to help you fall asleep, all right?"
For a brief second, he did not understand the offer, yet to give a clue to his overtired brain cells, Andor was already passing behind Jyn to put his chin on the top of her hair.
"Sweet dreams," she added, unconcerned by the shift of gravity they were experiencing.
Well, that was unlikely now. He had the urge to whine, or to put his fist in his ears, closing his eyes painfully tight like he did as a child. He just wanted to sleep, he didn't care if they planned to bugger their brains out, really. Hell, they could be going at it in his own bedroom and he wouldn't register it as long as they left his bed alone. He was that tired. He would probably care once he woke up, but for now, he preferred to ignore the obvious. Jyn was intertwining her fingers with Cassian's though, so he felt obliged to state:
"I'll be sure to use my headphones, just so you know. It has a noise reducing function too. Good stuff."
"Oh, okay Bods, thanks," Jyn smiled, as if nothing was amiss.
"Don't thank me yet. You owe me a meal when I wake, and fifty bucks."
"What, why?"
"Because you spoiled my appetite and that was the amount Shara Bey bet a year ago when she and I were training together and I told her the three of us were renting a flat. She was sure you would end up fooling around eventually and she was right."
He sniggered gleefully as he closed the door on their open-mouthed faces. At last, he was safe in his sanctuary... He sat heavily, removed his shoes and reached for his headphones. He didn't even bother with undressing or even putting a song on. Between his cocoon of blankets and pillows, he was asleep within two minutes top.
The boisterous sound of Kes Dameron's laughter woke him up a while later. He couldn't quite say what time it was, but clearly, judging from the ink black night he could see from the window, he had slept the entire day away. He was bleary eyed and slightly out of it still, but he figured he couldn't go back to sleep just yet. Apparently they had company and his stomach was making itself known. Might as well make the best of it.
Thankfully his two friends were conservatively dressed this time around. Bodhi could happily believe he had somehow hallucinated the whole encounter that morning. He was more than prepared to do so, no matter what.
He said hello to the Damerons — Shara was getting bigger with the little one nesting underneath her navel — and pulled Kay into a formal but warm handshake. He hugged Chirrut and let himself be gruffly patted on the shoulder by Baze. Luke and Leia, not to mention the rest of their clique, were nowhere to be seen though, and he couldn't help but be disappointed by that.
Cassian got him a beer he didn't feel like drinking, and a plate filled with delicious chilaquiles that made his mouth water. He was fairly happy to dig into these and let chat flow around him. As usual, Kes and Cassian were bantering and he couldn't blame Kay for his clipped tone. Frankly, having to deal with that all day long at the precinct would tire a saint, though to be fair, the closest to a saint they knew was Chirrut and he was chuckling at their antics.
Jyn was not so well disposed, however, and for once she was taking Kay' side, telling them Kes couldn't be as careless, considering his impeding fatherhood. Of course, her own family history made her quite passionate about the conflict between work and parenthood, even if he probably was the only one there to instantly make the connection with Galen. But as she almost spat her food out while making her point — not a particularly lady-like stance, he would grant that — her effect was spoiled.
"Finish your mouth before you talk Jyn," Cassian admonished gently.
"Why, so you could have more room to put your tongue in?" Bodhi commented flippantly at a low volume, hoping a second too late that nobody was paying him heed.
Silence. Cold, icy and windy silence that stretched for the longest time, or so it appeared.
He just woke up, so it just slipped through his lips before he could stop it really. He visibly shrank on his chair at Jyn's murderous glare, but really he didn't mean it! Or rather he did, but it was meant to stay in his mind, his own private monologue, not to be voiced at all... and now he had put his two feet in.
He was going to die in atrocious circumstances, he was sure. People often joked that with the way he slept, all covered in blankets and pillows, he would suffocate himself to death someday — his nickname at the academy had been marmot because of that. Now he was half convinced that if he got back to bed in a few hours, Jyn Erso would help the process along, pushing said pillow against his face until he really had no breath left in his body. Perfect plan, not suspicious at all. She looked dreadfully tempted to do so now, at any rate and Bodhi would not think of defending himself.
Then she and Cassian would have all freedom for their half-naked mornings in the kitchen — and on any place offering a plane surface too, come to think of it... He wouldn't even haunt them after his death, if anything, he was the one haunted by that perspective right now.
He would still miss Luke like crazy, if that counted for something.
Okay, maybe he was a tad getting ahead of himself, feeling a bit dramatic, but still, nobody was speaking!
Kay was repeatedly blinking like an howl and with his head bobbling confusedly, his round glasses reflected the light of the spot above. Baze squared his shoulders like he was preparing to receive a blow. Aside from that, all the guests seemed frozen.
Until Shara sprang on her feet suddenly, fist up in the air — so he wasn't the only drama queen here, must go with the job description really — and exclaimed:
"Rha, I knew it Rook, pay up!"
Her fiancé went from Cassian and Jyn to him, a question openly visible in his eyes despite his upturned lips, but Bodhi felt like his loose tongue should remain safely put. He had said enough already.
"What does it mean... you finally confirmed the cliché about roommates from opposite sex? Which type are you then, sweethearts, fuck buddies?"
"Only one or the other? Not something in between?" Shara asked, turning to Dameron with a mischievous look.
"That's for them to say," he replied, waddling on the couch like an excited kid.
"Did you kiss," Chirrut prompted too, uncharacteristically noisy, as if the giddiness tangible in the air was affecting him.
"So you're a couple now," Baze stated more subdued, considering said couple with an open face.
For answer, Jyn only shrugged while Cassian sighed — neither confirm nor infirm, how typical — but nobody needed further proof. However, after two more seconds of tense silence, Captain Andor hit the situation as level headed as usual:
"I don't get the roommate cliché, nor all the fuss about us getting together or not. Besides, Jyn and I aren't the only people living here."
"Come on, Bodhi's gay, as gay as a rainbow unicorn and he's in a steady relationship. Of course it would be you two that would hook up eventually! It's the way of things really..."
"I, as male thriving in celibacy find Dameron's wording slightly offensive, but the point stands nonetheless. You had 79.9 percent of chance to yield to your carnal desires and mutual attraction."
"Excuse me?!"
Jyn was fuming, face red while Cassian was trying to hide his cough with his beer. The laughter bubbling from deep in Bodhi's belly was a second away from joining the hilarity of Shara, Baze and Chirrut but somehow he refrained himself. See? His sense of preservation had woken up, perhaps too late, but it had.
"Oh, I know," Kay answered unperturbedly, "it was only a rough estimation, human behavior is perhaps the most versatile field to consider, too many variables, precisely when Jyn Erso is involved, but I did my best."
"James Kay," Cassian asked relatively calmly while his hand closed on Jyn's wrist, "does it mean you've bet your hard earned money on us ever getting together?"
"I certainly did not!"
"He was the only one at the precinct, at the Cloud City club or among the regulars of the Jedha restaurant not to do so, though," Kes specified merrily, "and to name a few, the Skywalker twins, Calrissian and Chewie chimed in. But Shara was the only one to guess you would be stubborn enough to last a year before you got caught, so she's the one winning. Never been so proud of my woman, I've got to say!"
"I congratulate you Shara, yet, it was an inevitability," Kay acknowledged, "and thus I wouldn't bet, not even a copper. But for the record, I wasn't the only one, Han Solo didn't bet either, he told me he didn't even want to know what the odds were, if you recall."
"True that, but we just pinned him for a bit of smuggling so he had to pay a mean fine, it was probably broke then," Kes replied, still smiling.
"Whatever, I'm loaded today," Lieutenant Bey boasted gleefully. At her man lecherous look on her belly and the matching smirk Cassian sent an aggravated Jyn, Bodhi wanted to disappear already...
What did he start?! Couldn't he have just made a beeline for his room, like always? Then he would have been none the wiser and all would be well... but, sadly, he was too curious for his own good.
"Be as it may, I'm not paying up right now," he declared weakly, wishing for his sweet bed again, "besides, we agreed on the fact that as their roommate, Jyn and Cassian would pay in my stead."
"Did you, now?" Baze frowned, "I'd be curious to know what would justify this loan."
"No, you really don't," Bodhi mumbled, glad to have been out for most of it, in every sense of the word. It would take time to wrap his mind around Jyn and Cassian being in a relationship, but he could live with that as long as they didn't put on a show like the one he had walked upon.
"Okay, we will wait a bit, to gather everybody before we set the kid's trust fund," Kes said agreeably.
"With the fifty bucks that Bodhi owes you, he wouldn't go far," Cassian said as diplomatically while Jyn hurried towards the liquor cabinet, grumbling indecipherably.
"You seem to be under the assumption that Bodhi's share somehow constitutes the whole amount, while actually it was fifty dollars each."
"Each? How many of you played this charade?!"
Jyn was positively seething, drowning a shot after the other but Cassian found this pretty funny. That is, until Kay found the list of participants on his phone and answered:
"Twenty five, including Draven and Mothma."
"Well fuck me," a stunned Cassian let out.
"Precisely," Kay deadpanned.
This time, it was too much for Bodhi and he laughed until tears fell on his face. Kay had been stating the obvious, really, his roommates ending together was bound to happen, and as far as he's concerned, it was a long time in coming; from the moment they met, his friends had gravitated around each other with an intensity that could not be entirely platonic, despite their best efforts.
It was only a matter of time, a countdown that Shara had correctly estimated. He only wished he didn't have to witness the result, like, ever. He was not a prude by any means, but as best friend and unfortunate roommate, he already knew far too much about their most private habits than he felt he should have been privy to. The worse was that what he thankfully didn't know about, his brain could provide...
All things considered, Bodhi Vijay Rook was the one getting screwed.
That impression was confirmed when eventually Cassian had to demonstrate his kissing techniques on Jyn. It turned rarther quickly into a heated snogging, too. Bodhi had thought they would humor their audience with a quick peck on the lips or a movie kiss, yet they somehow ended up making out under the catcalls of self-appointed "impartial witnesses". Since when were any of them impartial, pray tell? Still both Cassian and Jyn gave their best performance, that is, if they had not instantly forgotten the jury, judging from the lack of restraint, he thought wryly.
Their new status had to be recent.
Bodhi could not believe he would have missed such... intensive display of... blazing passion going where he was living at. Despite his blushing cheeks — Cassian was his best mate, and he could appreciate the kissing mastery for the aesthetic, truly, but that's the girl he considered his sister that was giving as good as she got. That he could not stand: when he first met her, she still had a set of parents, her hair braided and was going kindergarten.
So, he never thought he would experience shell-shock out duty. But this must feel close, because, he was getting dazed already, so he should block out some of his Jyn memories:
"All boys are gross Bods, except you!"
"By the way Rook, I lost my V card while you were abroad. Don't see what you find so dreamy about guys. I guess I would not mind doing it again, from time to time..."
"My last boyfriend was a douche, I dumped him. I'm gonna stay single forever."
Yeah, right, he snorted, considering past Jyn Erso's declarations and pretending to drink. Cassian was far from gross, she definitely didn't mind his kissing, so the rest should be up to her standards, and if he ever proved to be douchey — and Bodhi knew he wouldn't — then roommates and bro code be damned, the pilot would gut him. Okay, he was pretty sure he would not manage to hurt him unless Andor himself let him have a go but intention remained.
While all good fun, his friends were getting increasingly joyous — a few of them intoxicated, even... Eventually Bodhi used an imaginary trip to the bathroom to text Luke, fixing up a few essentials to spend the night.
He was glad for his friends but that did not mean he would not try to escape the sight of a stripped Jyn perched on the counter that he, Bodhi, had crafted himself. From the way Cassian was currently making up for all this time of denial and mutual pining — "I don't get what you mean, were best mates", they said — the following morning would still be torrid.
So, right now, resuming his rest at the Skywalkers' was certainly the best option.
And who knew? With any luck Bodhi could be the one experiencing a half-naked morning!