And there she'd sit serenely 'neath the thorns upon the holly

[onlyeverdoubted]

WHO: Bodhi
WHERE: Around the forest, his house, wandering random paths
WHEN: 10/11-10/12, general second half of the month
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: (Please warn for adult content or anything triggering)

---

Tricks: 10/11-10/12

Bodhi is on one of his usual rambles, theoretically looking out for useful edibles (though they're getting much rarer as the the weather turns further toward what he considers comfortable) and firewood, but really doing his best to smooth out the jagged lines between stray thoughts. He's as calm as he gets, poking his way along, when he spots a koyo melon poking out from the bushes.

It doesn't immediately strike him as unusual. He's not from a planet where big, sweet fruit can really be grown, and he doesn't know a thing about koyo production. There's no real reason it shouldn't be there. It does seem like a really lucky stroke, though, and he immediately begins poking around looking for more. Koyo are pretty good when they're bought half-mummified at a space station. They must be amazing when they're fresh. Eventually he gives up spotting any more and reaches for the one he does see, hoping there's no weird trick to picking melons that his city boy soul isn't privy to.

Apparently there is, because... No melon. That's not just weird, it's petty and mean. Which... alright, maybe he shouldn't be surprised.

He's not aware his hair's gone neon purple until he passes a reflective surface, unless someone tells him. Interestingly, it's just the hair--the carefully shaped beard and rather prominent eyebrows are their usual warm, rusty black. A close look will reveal a stark line through the stubble of his undercut where it becomes sideburns, black to purple as sudden as though it were drawn in with a ruler.

He's mostly nonplussed, but it is kind of an odd choice. Whimsy is new.

Someone's going to have to tell him what Halloween is.

Intergalactic Leaf Pepper: Latter half of October

Bodhi has no idea what fall is.

Well, intellectually he can figure it out. This part of this planet (or carefully managed space station) is very seasonal, and conditions change when that happens. He's not even totally unfamiliar with the idea of plants doing stuff in response to cold. He's landed on dozens of planets, though, admittedly, he's mostly spent his time in spaceports that deliberately look exactly like all the others and serve the same bad noodles and suspect caf. He can't pretend to be worldly about this, and the only world he's spent enough time on to really have a sense of such a change is his own. Jedha's seasons comprised a few weeks of hard, chilly rain and an endless, unrelenting rest of the year of hard, chilly dry.

Which is all to say he's absolutely charmed. Whenever he can pull himself from work he's walking now, which is... not that different from usual. But he's staying close as he can to the trees, collecting interesting colors and shapes of leaf like he has the rock specimens he so carefully curates to the delight of only himself. There's often one stuck behind his ear or in his ponytail or headscarf (once his hair is back to its usual black) if it's a particularly good one. He's never seen nature grow itself jewels like this.

There's definitely some surreptitious stepping on crunchy ones. And, if he's sure he's on his own, a few jumps into windblown piles. It's not just fall. Bodhi's feeling a bit better about a lot of things lately. The better part of a year in the relative quiet of the valley, horrible as it can be periodically, has paid off. He's almost remembered how to be himself again. And if being true to that self involves flirting with a certain someone a bit, well, it doesn't mean anything, right? It's not flirting if you say it's not! He even hums as he wanders sometimes, apparently having forgotten the rule against Rook singing. It's off key and monotonous, but he knows what tunes he's getting at, and he likes it.

Oh, and there's a non-zero amount of sneezing. Someone might need to explain allergies, along with autumn and Halloween.

Comments

[onlyeverdoubted]

"You think I'd let you get out of It?" Bodhi fights against losing his nerve and wins. "Even if I chop my leg off, I get a really good view first." And immediately regrets it. That was too much, wasn't It? Kriffing hell, he just wants this to feel real, and he does mean it. Bodhi is shy and he's long lost whatever limited skill he had at this game, but it's not like either of them is... Well, even that's an assumption. What does he know about Jude's past. He means it as a compliment and hopefully that comes through. He absolutely is going to stare.

But he wishes he at least had tea left to hide behind. It'd be a backup plan. He looks down sheepishly and covers the back of Jude's hand with his other one, in apology if needed, with fondness either way. "I'd... I'd be glad to show you how to save a flagging engine in mid-hyperspace, but..." Well, they already knew who had the useful skills here.

[theintercessor]

It's maybe the boldest thing said between them, but it feels relatively safe in the confines of Bodhi's kitchen. In terms of boldest he's heard, well--it ranks somewhere between the dining hall on campus and the mind-shatteringly loud parties he'd been dragged to in New York. Men had shouted things over the music that had him sliding all of the way away along the bar, startled at even the concept, much less the very loud and public execution.

He has very few reservations about Bodhi's admiration, even if he's never looked in a mirror and quite understood it. He's not really his own type. "Well don't chop your leg off because of the view," he says, some of the exasperation explained by the flush rising along the back of his neck from his collar. It's not unwelcome, but even Jude knows it's a terrible line.

It gets a second hand over his though, so--acceptable. Charming even. It's not like he had any idea built up of what Bodhi might be like if he tried--he hadn't really expected it that much. "You're going to show me the tea," he reminds him. "It's a comparable view."

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi shoots him a wry smirk. Like watching a handsome guy doing pretty challenging physical labor is anything like watching him hunch over a tea set. But the thought counts. "I feel like I should throw in something a little useful," he says thoughtfully, fingers tracing idle designs on the back of Jude's wrist. (He's a natural cuddler, so even if caution tells him to stay away, the energy has to go somewhere. If his head was on straight, he'd be in Jude's arms. If his head was on straight, he'd be someone else entirely. And this is the first time he's had that thought with anything like mixed feelings.)

"Cooking?" He follows the thought idly, remembering Jude's comment about not doing it much. "But I'm still pretty bad. You'd just get what Kira shows me, mostly."

[theintercessor]

Should it feel like such an escalation, Bodhi's fingers tracing over his hand, some new floodgate of admiration spilled open? Most of Jude's experience is the long pining after a childhood friend versus the almost unspoken understanding of catching someone's eye at a party and letting them have their way with him in some part of his truck by the end of the night. Neither involved a lot of affection.

He probably couldn't name the last person he held hands with. A friend, maybe, on a long train ride, head on his shoulder and neither of them really awake.

He'd had good friends, before something closed him up in his dorm and made him--stop caring. The village feels a lot like trying to have that again, and maybe he just shouldn't question this. He'd asked for it, and for today at least, Bodhi's proving himself--somehow better at it all. More experienced, maybe. "I almost always eat at the inn," he says, Bodhi's hand on his soothing any last ill-feeling about the roommate. "Really, anything's better than what I know."

[onlyeverdoubted]

"The food there's usually pretty good. Well, better than what I usually get at cantinas." Accounting for the fact that there are more or less no seasonings here. If he could change one thing about their comfort in the valley, he'd be tempted to choose a good spice cabinet even over proper electrical heating coils or a supply of bacta. What's the point of eating sometimes? "Probably better than my cooking. I just..." There aren't any better ideas. Jude is better at this kind of life than he is. That's not okay, exactly, but what's he going to do about it? He'll always be playing catch-up.

Out of ideas, he just shakes his head, fingers wandering to the smoother skin on the underside of Jude's wrist. Compared with the roughness of a paper-maker's fingers, the softness is particularly enticing. "I guess I could show you the secrets of throwing everything in a pot and calling it stew if you want..."

[theintercessor]

After another night with little sleep to be found--in part because he'd hardly wanted to stop the picture once he started it--Bodhi's affection, the idling nature of the conversation, starts to lull Jude into something like real calm. More than that, it's a moment of actual relaxation, something he gets very little in the canyon. The paper pulp stings his hands; the woods are full of fading faces; he doesn't have his truck with its rumbling engine to just--disappear into.

It doesn't really even matter what Bodhi says, though Jude tries to keep up. Somewhere in the explanation of food and cooking, he stops glancing at Bodhi with anything like attention, and his gaze settles down on their hands. He doesn't smile, but he doesn't really make any expression at all--just something open, and calm.

"That would be good," he says, only mildly aware of what he's agreeing to.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi already knows he likes it when Jude smiles, but this is another discovery. It's hard to put his finger on precisely why, given the ineffable quality of the expression, but he wants to make sure this is something Jude gets to feel more often. It does make him lose the thread of the conversation a bit, just looking at the way his hair falls and the light hits those cheekbones, but it wasn't really that exciting anyway.

He lifts Jude's hand a bit and ducks his head, opening up his gentle grip a bit to kiss the pulp-roughened knuckles. It's not the same as what he'd like to do, but he feels better having done it. "Whatever you want," he says in the same vague tone. Words don't matter so much.