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Cody stood in front of the door, because he'd already rang the chime, and running now would simply be too pathetic, even for him. So instead he forced himself to stand there and breathe.
The war was over. Grievous was dead, and Nute Gunray had written up a formal surrender to hand the Jedi Council members who stood there over the cyborg’s smoking corpse. Perhaps Cody should have taken more time to consider that, to really think about what it meant, but instead he found himself running the second he could, to the one place he figured he would not be welcomed with open arms.
After all, he’d sorta fucked that up already.
When Bacara’s door slid open, he stepped forward and leaned his weight against one side of the doorframe, blocking Cody from even seeing into his quarters. Then he crossed his arms and raised his brows, waiting. Apparently the fact Cody had sneaked his way over here, onto the Galactic Marine’s ship, wasn’t getting him any points at all.
Mouth dry, Cody stared back at him and finally sighed. “You're not even going to make this a little easy on me, are you?”
“No,” Bacara agreed, mildly.
“Bacara, please,” Cody whispered.
For a second Bacara's expression wavered, before he slammed it shut again. “No,” he said again, and Cody probably deserved that.
He did not appreciate it, but he deserved it.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said, after clearing his throat.
“I haven’t had to,” Bacara said, still mild. “We’ve both been busy. Hardly any down time. Something about the war, the death of the Separatists movement, and maybe even the downfall of the Republic as we know it.” His expression was as flat as his voice, and he’d actually shaved recently, all his usual carefully maintained stubble gone.
Cody did not miss it, because he didn’t really have a right to miss it. It wasn’t like Bacara was going to let him nuzzle up against his cheek any time soon.
Or ever, if Cody couldn’t get through this conversation without turning tail and running.
The temptation was there.
“You didn’t have to avoid me at the Jedi Temple,” Cody said.
“You were busy with Fox,” Bacara pointed out, as if Cody needed to be reminded of the way he felt, sitting by Fox’s bed, waiting for him to wake up after he finally got to Coruscant. It had been a long hyperspace ride, sitting tense and quiet beside Obi-Wan, who kept rubbing his elbow.
Much later, Cody would line that elbow up with the arm Anakin lost, and Obi-Wan showing up in his quarters in the middle of the night with when Anakin and Fox had been facing down the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic in his own office.
Fox always had liked to lead from the front, and apparently that applied to questionable vigilantism, too.
Cody had similarly always been convinced it was going to get him into trouble at some point. Yet, he had never pegged his brother for the type to try a middle of the night political assassination without proper backup.
Then again, Cody had been reevaluating a lot about Fox, ever since he woke up in the Jedi Temple’s Halls of Healing and told Cody all that had happened since he went missing, and came back to murder the head of government.
“You still avoided me,” Cody said, digging his heels in.
“What did we have to talk about?” Bacara asked, still taking up his doorway, arms crossed, completely closed off from Cody.
“Everything!” Cody said. “You’ve never allowed me–”
“Cody, you were clear,” Bacara said. “What more do you want to even cover? You were clear , I received your transmission, that’s enough.”
“No, because you surprised me–”
“Surprised you?” Bacara said in disbelief. “How could I surprise you? We’d been together for over half the war–”
“Together?” Cody exclaimed, and Bacara straighted from his exaggerated slouch, face gone ashen. “You thought we were–” He barely caught Bacara’s elbow before he could step back into his room and let the door slide shut in Cody’s face. “Wait, no, Bacara–”
“What do you still think we have to talk about?” Bacara snapped, and it felt strange, to look at him, and know how hurt he was. Hurt by Cody, hurt by his sloppy feelings, hurt by his blindness. “We weren’t together? Then fine. Just let me deal with that in peace–”
“It’s not my fault you tried to bring a feral tooka inside before it was ready!” Cody blurted.
Bacara froze, elbow still in Cody’s grip. “Excuse me?” he asked, and Cody chewed his bottom lip before sighing.
Shoulders sagging, he let go of Bacara’s elbow, but he didn’t go to leave, or cross his arms again, apparently so surprised by Cody he was willing to hear him out. “It’s just. You know how Hound brought Fox a tooka in the Jedi Temple?”
“I remember it,” Bacara said, low, and Cody was still in the hallway of Bacara’s ship. The other Marines might come down at any moment, and see him standing there, Bacara not allowing him into his room.
None of their relationship had been public before. As far as Cody knew, only a few others even were aware it had been happening.
It made his shoulder blades itch, but he was the one who had gotten them into this situation, and if he had to bare his heart in a hallway to make Bacara hear him, it was still a better fate than never speaking at all.
“It made me realize,” Cody said, voice low. “That if Fox–Fox, of all our brother produced by Kamino’s finest cloners could figure it out–”
“It?” Bacara asked, when Cody stumbled over what to say next.
“How to be soft ,” Cody said, and said it a bit like a curse. “How to be gentle, and to be kind, and how to love something unconditionally, and how the fuck did he figure out how to do that in the middle of the war while under the thumb of the Sith Lord we were chasing the whole time? And if he could figure it out, what was wrong with me that I couldn’t?”
Bacara crossed his arms again, but his shoulder relaxed, as he watched Cody and waited.
“Please make this just a little bit easier, Bacara,” Cody said.
“Keep going,” Bacara said instead, and it left Cody still in the hallway, but at least Bacara no longer looked like he was about to close the door in his face.
Looking down, Cody rubbed both his hands across his cheeks. “When Fox was petting that stupid tooka, sitting next to General Skywalker of all people, I felt like I was going crazy. And then I felt like I was the tooka. The one who lived on the streets and thought he had to be so tough and strong, but really he was just hoping someone would open the door and let him in, scratch his ears, give him a soft bed–but when you did that, I panicked. I wasn’t ready to come in yet, I needed to realize not every hand was trying to hurt me.”
For a long time, Bacara stood there and stared at him, and eventually Cody shifted back on one heel. “I just thought you should know,” he said, miserable. “That I messed up, when I told you no, when I said I didn’t want those things. I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready.”
“You got all this from Fox’s kriffing tooka?” Bacara asked finally.
“Part of it,” Cody said. “I also got this from the fact I missed you, every time I saw you, and it was driving me insane that I couldn’t ask you–”
He yelped when Bacara reached forward abruptly, and yanked him inside. The door slid shut behind his back, and Cody opened his mouth to say something else, but Bacara shoved him against the door and kissed him instead.
The kiss was full of teeth, Bacara’s mouth harsh against his, but Cody only groaned happily and wrapped both his arms around Bacara’s shoulders, holding on as tightly as he could.
Far too quickly, Bacara pulled back, and gave Cody a serious look.
“I missed you, too,” Bacara settled for finally, and Cody managed not to whimper.
“I’m sorry,” he said, small and quiet.
“Kriff, you really are going through it, if you’re going to be apologizing twice in a row,” Bacara huffed, and then he peeled Cody off the door. Immediately, Cody went to follow him, heart jumping in his chest when Bacara dragged him to the bed. But instead of what he expected, Bacara sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled Cody down beside him.
“Bacara,” Cody started.
“You don’t actually get to fix everything with a couple of apologies and a kiss,” Bacara said, face giving nothing away.
“I know,” Cody said. “But–”
He blinked when Bacara shifted back and around, sitting on the bunk with his back against the top of it, legs spread out. He put a hand on Cody’s shoulder, guiding him down to lay on his back, with his head in Bacara’s lap.
Still a little confused, Cody turned his head toward Bacara, assuming he wanted his mouth. Instead, Bacara grunted and turned him, until Cody was on his side facing away from Bacara, head on one of his thighs.
“What?” Cody started to ask, stilling when one of Bacara’s hands settled heavy on his shoulder and the other–
The other hand went into his curls, and scratched against the top of his scalp.
Cody felt his jaw drop, looking at the bottom of the bunk.
But Bacara just stayed like that, scratching through Cody’s hair, holding him down on top of his sprawled legs.
“I did not mean I was literally a tooka,” he said, trying for offended and just landing on bewildered.
“I know,” Bacara said, calm and steady as the motion of his hand.
“Or that you literally had to scratch my ears.”
“I know,” Bacara repeated, and still made no move to do anything else, just sitting there and petting Cody’s hair, over and over.
“Can we please just fuck it out instead?” Cody asked, and realized with horror his voice wavered. When he reached up to touch one of his own cheeks, he found it damp, and wasn’t even sure when that had started. He’d never meant to cry in his entire life, but somehow it kept happening.
“No,” Bacara said.
“Can we make love instead?” Cody asked, and he felt the way that made Bacara’s fingers tighten for just a moment, heard the way he let out his next shaky breath.
“No,” Bacara said.
“Please?” Cody asked, and it was impossible to hide the fact he was crying, the way his voice came out.
“Not yet,” Bacara whispered.
“The war is over, Bacara,” Cody said, the first time he’d allowed himself to say it, and it shook all the way through him. “The war is over,” and his voice caught on a bitter sob.
“Yeah,” and Bacara bent down, pressing a kiss to Cody’s temple, still running his fingers through his hair. His other hand slid off Cody’s shoulder, pressing against the center of his chest instead.
Desperately, Cody brought both his hands up to cling to Bacara’s, curling his legs up toward his chest as another sob wracked through his body. Above him, Bacara made a quiet sound, and kissed the top of his head again.
“It’s okay, Cody,” he whispered. “I’m here. The war is over, and I’m here. Let go of all this endless bullshit you’ve held on to get this far. It’s going to be okay. We all got this far. The door is open, you can come into the house.”
“You are such an asshole,” Cody managed to get out. “Still using my dumb feral tooka–”
“Well, you came up with it,” Bacara said, and Cody could feel his grin for just a second, and it made another cry work through him, at the thought he could make Bacara smile, even now. He had not ruined everything by running away, by being so terrified. He’d hurt them both, but he had not ruined it. “And, it was rather appropriate. You were–are still perhaps–a bit feral.”
“Oh, kriff you,” Cody said, long past the point of worrying about swearing. During the war, he’d always held on as carefully as he could to his language, the way he’d held onto everything that kept him upright, that kept him from falling apart. Language was just a part of that. He’d slipped, on and off of course, especially while he’d been looking into Fox’s disappearance, and when he was on Coruscant afterwards.
But now, the war was over, and it had only taken the smallest nudge before he was falling apart.
He wasn’t falling apart alone, though. Bacara had his hand still heavy and warm on the center of his chest, mouth murmuring soft nothings to him, and his hand back to scratching the side of his head.
“Don’t worry, Cody,” Bacara said, eventually, when Cody felt like he could finally catch his breath a little. Bacara’s knee under his cheek felt disgustingly wet, but he did not want to move a centimeter from it. “I still want to make love to you,” and it surprised him, the hit of want that shot through Cody at that, despite the way his head felt stuffed full of wool from crying. “But tonight? Tonight I think I just want you to sleep here. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
“Will you please fuck me in the morning?” Cody mumbled, and Bacara laughed, low and warm behind him. It made Cody turn his head, and press his face more firmly against his thigh.
“Maybe,” Bacara said.
“I’ll take maybe,” Cody said.
Bacara’s hand hadn’t stopped, and it was making Cody’s puffy eyes feel heavy. He’d come in his dress greys, and Bacara had already stripped down to his blacks for the night. They would be heading back toward Coruscant soon, once they’d settled things with the remains of the Separatists. Who knew what they would really be walking into, back there.
Hopefully not another political assassination.
Cody didn’t want to think about the future yet. It felt too great and vast.
All he wanted to think about was seeing Fox and Wolffe again, and maybe if he could figure out a way to stay with Bacara without the two of them driving each other mad. It felt like an incredible turn around, to even consider what a future might be, for the two of them.
Slowly, Cody turned onto his back, peering up at Bacara. He hadn’t even noticed him dimming the lights, but he must have at some point.
Still, when Cody looked at him, Bacara gazed down at him, with that expression he’d had before. It was the one that no one in the Galaxy, not even other clones, looked at Cody with.
Except Bacara had, and Bacara was , and when Cody held his hands up in silent supplication, Bacara bent his head down again, let Cody cup his cheeks and press a careful kiss to his mouth.
“I wanna stay with you,” he whispered, when Bacara drew back.
For a while, Bacara just gazed at him. “Okay,” he said finally, and then the corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, I did always want to raise animals, when the war ended. I can start with my own feral tooka,” and Cody groaned, but when he lifted himself up, Bacara met him halfway for another soft kiss, without any anger or bitterness left in it.
It tasted like maybe.
It tasted like a future.
And Cody would happily take both those things and more, even as he let Bacara lift him up, just to lay him back down, tucked into the crook of one of his arms.
They’d rarely ever had time, just to themselves. They had never even slept the whole night together in the same bunk.
Cody closed his eyes, and breathed out, and knew even sleep wouldn’t wipe the smile off his face. He curled down tighter, and wrapped his arms around Bacara.