#throatcaught

crutches.  they have him on crutches, puttering around at a speed that feels crawling compared to his normal rush between crowds, wayward people, sweat on his brow and the callouses of his fingers, palms, growing red with an aching sore far too deep for any stretching or ointment.  bodhi’s mouth feels like a tight line.  step, wait, step.  no goggles on his head and nothing but strangers all around him.  access to planes, denied.  access to next to any information, denied.  having the very right to shower is a fresh new concept, a forced helper to keep bodhi from soaking his legs as she washed his hair with a dismissive coldness, helped him shave before vanishing once his clothes were back on.  

there’s pain, at least.  a new ache in bodhi’s legs that wasn’t there weeks ago, when the skin was gone gone gone and the flesh blistered in gurgling bubbles that he couldn’t hope to forget.  ( instead he wonders if his mothers looked like that all over, before jedha vanished behind a nuclear bomb. )  he greets the few people who try to speak to him with rusted french.  but, everything coming from his voice is rusted.  a croak just as awful as the creak of his crutches as he forces himself closer to a door.  three men going in.  they shove the door shut behind them before a single word can break from bodhi’s throat.

instinct throws his arm up to stick his crutch between both doors.  stupidity is what he calls it a second later, wavering with just one support, and legs that shake if he applies more than the slightest ghost of weight.  

     “merde.”  bodhi manages.  “merde, penses-tu, bodhi?”

no, no obviously not.  his neck cranes for a moment before he breaks with a half eaten smile at the nearest person, a woman who actually pauses when their eyes meet.  

the baby’s face lol