#tragique

CHAPTER 2 OF BOHEMIAN RAPHSODY IS OUT!

38. ...running out of time Bode’s breathing is heavy, loud, fast. Full, billowing breaths he can’t seem to slow down. He’s teetering at the edge of a breakdown. He’s been teetering at the edge of a breakdown for weeks, but it’s really here now, no longer a fantom haunting his shadow but reality, inhabiting his body, making his fingers numb and his heart race.

It’s not the edge. He’s falling off. The comm is in his hand, his finger hovers over the button, and he has to make the call. If he doesn’t make the call today, the Empire won’t be here tomorrow, the Archive and the Path will move to Tanalorr and it will be ruined.

Exposed. Unsafe. And he’ll have lost his last, his first, chance-hope-dream. The first breath of fresh air he’s had in. Four years? Is that it, four years? Four years with his leash getting shorter and his collar getting tighter, tighter, tighter, sold to the only bidder for a golden cage for his little girl that will become an iron trap if he so much as misses two check-ins in a row?

He’s lurking in the corner but he needs to go outside so he can fall into pieces privately. But. Cal and Merrin are still out there, aren’t they? He wants to beg Cal to make a different choice, get on his knees and cry, but if he does then… his desperation won’t make any sense, after Cal already reassured him. After Cal thought he did and ripped the rest of Bode’s meager hope to pieces instead. If he does, all his secrets will spill out. If he does, even this meager, desperate last chance where he loses everything but Kata will disappear. Cal doesn’t forgive betrayal- not if it comes from the Empire.

And Bode is part of the Empire, no matter how he feels about it. He sold himself.

Death followed him long before that.

The next exhale sounds too wretchedly close to a dry sob for his liking, and he clamps a hand over his mouth, doubled over, a steadying arm against the wall. His vision swims and darkens, his nostrils bellowing with each panicked breath. A hand presses to his shoulder. His back all but slams against the wall as he yanks himself away. Cal’s hands lift up, held out by Cal’s shoulders, as the redhead takes a step back. “Sorry! I was calling your name but I don’t think you heard me.”

Bode didn’t hear anything. Not a thing. What was he thinking? Doing? He wasn’t thinking that was the problem. Cal must see something in his face, because he steps forward again, frowning, concerned. He reaches out again but slowly, his hands gently framing Bode’s shaking shoulders before curling around his upper arms. “Bode, it’s okay. Breathe with me. Let’s just calm down, and then we can talk, get you some water maybe. Okay?” Bode clenches his teeth together, presses harder into the wall. “Bode, hey. Hey. We’re fine, okay?” A damnable smile blooms, Cal’s green eyes sparking warm, the man reaching out for him in the Force, wrapping him up in Cal’s fiery presence like a reassuring blanket, and Cal says: “tomorrow we’ll move and we’ll all be safe and everything will be alright.” Bode’s breath stops. He slides down the wall until he’s sitting, and his insides are all ashes. His hand shakes as it falls from his mouth and he can’t see Cal for the tears falling from his eyes.

Cal, kriffing Cal. Why did Bode have to fall for him? An idealist. A man who can’t see danger staring him in the face. Who can’t listen to the reasonable voices around him, and yet who is so good that they can’t help but let him lead over and over again.

Cal only scoots closer, cradling Bode’s face between his hands and pressing their foreheads together. “I’ve got you. Breathe with me. We Jedi,” Cal jokes, trying to ease the moment, “we’re really good at breathing, you know.” Kriffing Cal. Bode wants years with him. A lifetime.

“I’m s-sorry,” he whimpers, gripping the sleeves of Cal’s jacket. He gets tonight, and then nothing. Nothing after that. Never. There’s no more time.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

Cal will change his mind tomorrow. He’ll understand tomorrow. They’re over, tomorrow.

Bode turns his head. His lips press into the heat of Cal’s palm, mark it with his sorrow.

This is their first and last time.

400$ and they cant even afford to put a diaper on the baby???