001- As you're standing at the edge of your life

[onlyeverdoubted]

WHO: Bodhi Rook
WHERE: The fountain, around town, and the inn
WHEN: February 14th, throughout the day
OPEN TO: All!
WARNINGS: None, will edit if necessary
STATUS: Open

---

Arrival-For Finnick

The grenade lands. He has a split second to understand, to anticipate if not actually feel impact and heat and an end to every last, desperate plan to turn it around and save the few--very few--that might still be saved. Then there should be nothing.

Instead there's water.

Indefatigably analytic in all things, Bodhi tries to make sense of being submerged. He was awfully disoriented, probably some inner ear damage from the explosions, toxic smoke inhalation. Maybe he wasn't facing the way he'd thought, and the explosion had thrown him back. Not that the water should be deep and ice-cold and empty, but--

Even he can't put that much energy into trying to puzzle something out while he's also drowning a little. There's some momentum upward, but Bodhi has never tried to swim. Water didn't come in volumes larger than "enough to stay alive" back home, and there aren't a lot of pool parties cargo pilots are invited to. He's not getting to the surface on his own.

Sightseeing

He's not really taking very much in, but motion is soothing, and it's not like the scenery is that captivating. He'll appreciate the fine points later. For now, he's alive and deeply confused about it. He moves quick and guarded, stiff with the memory of pain. (Every little wound and ache, every souvenir of Saw's holding cells and Scarif has faded to nothing but a few scars, indistinct from a lifetime of little burns and slices from ship repairs. Even the bone-deep weariness, the never-quite-treated dehydration and malnutrition have faded.) Missing his goggles and poncho more for what they represent than any practical purpose, he fidgets with his unfamiliar clothes and blinks owlishly into the middle distance as he paces. Nothing feels quite real, least of all him.

And he's still a bit damp. Less than comfortable in this weather, even with his Jedha-bred cold tolerance.

Roosting

Eventually, as the light lengthens and dims, he finds his way to the inn. Closest thing to a cantina. He's still a pilot, no matter how dazed and lost. He's visited dozens of worlds, most of them experienced mainly through whatever bit of the spaceport was friendliest to clusters of Imperials talking too loud, gambling "secretly," and trying to forget. It's an extra sense, maybe some very small sliver of the Force dedicated to guiding worn out vacuum jockeys to drinks, forgettable music, and forgiving lighting. He slips in as unobtrusively as he can, not sure what he'll find.

Comments

sightseeing

[kestreldawn]

Jyn has found a quiet alcove of trees conveniently lined up enough to look like targets. Her finger twitches for the familiar feel of a durasteel trigger against it, but seeing how that doesn't seem to be a possibility anymore, she knows she has to adapt - learn to use a new weapon. She eyes the trees, projecting Imperial soldiers in her mind's eye onto each, remembers (everything, anything, of her previous life). Spear in hand above her shoulder, she catapults it forward with as much strength as she can find.

She's miscalculated.

The spear curves too far to the right of the target in her optical scope and sails through the gap between the trunks. She mentally reconfigures her technique, taking into account the curve of the branch, the wind resistance, the angle of her arm as it straightens. She rummages back behind them to retrieve her obnoxiously primitive weapon. It's as she's coming back out through the trees to resume her original position that she catches sight of someone walking. Hears the sound of (familiar?) steps in steady procession. Can almost feel the nervous energy coming off of the body.

Silently and swiftly, she clutches her spear and seeks out the source of the sound. Electricity firing at alarming rates but not quite able to reach its destination in a symphony of bangs and pops in her skull - trying to piece it together. The recognition, like the vague outline of a body in a mattress after years of use.

She comes up from behind, crouched slightly in case of weapon usage, and halts.

She knows that body.

She knows that gait.

She knows that distractedly nervous fidgeting in the hands.

She feels like screaming, but instead -

"B-Bodhi?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi's taken entirely by surprise. Not solely because of Jyn's woodswomanship--everything is happening at once and his brain feels completely overloaded just shuffling along looking at things and waiting for the world to make sense again. His name coming without warning hardly feels strange for a second. Nothing seems to be happening for a reason, so why not that?

Then he manages to actually react, turning toward a voice he can't immediately place. Because he's never heard that tone, because the quiet of the trees is entirely unlike the clatter of shipboard engines or the chaos on the ground (different sorts of chaos on Eadu and Yavin 4 and Scarif, but chaos nonetheless). Because he never really had a chance to know her well, close and significant as she feels. He looks blank for a moment before the connections slide into place.

He doesn't actually say anything. Words are hard. But his eyes light up and he actually trembles with relief, knees going a bit weak. All he knew until this moment was that he crawled out of an unforgivably wet hole in the ground this morning, and there's been nothing to tell him anyone else was spared or whether any of their losses were worth it.

[kestreldawn]

Jyn wonders, in a moment of panic and distress, whether he will recognize her. Whether he will see her face, hear her voice, and be able to piece together who she was - who they were - before the decimation of Scarif. She wonders whether Bor Gullet had taken too much, left too little for his memory to ever be the same.

In the silent moments that pass, she remembers seeing him for the first time in the U-Wing after Jedha. The deserted city in her chest. How her tongue, her brain, her heart ached to submerge him in all of her questions about her father. Did he smile? Did he mention her? Did his eyes still crinkle when he laughed? Did he laugh at all? Dhe he still clear his throat when he was about to say something uncomfortable?

Instead, she blurted, "you know him?" as though she hadn't already known the answer. Of course he did. How else .. ?

She's about to introduce herself, like flint to kindling, hoping it will spark an ember when the fire lights up behind his eyes. He recognizes her. She rushes over, tossing the spear to the side when she's close enough to him to -

No, she stops - doesn't embrace him. Doesn't reach out for him. Instead, she smiles - brightly, vividly - and holds her hands out, palms up, as though displaying him for some invisible audience.

"Bodhi," she repeats, the essence of softness. She sees the dampness of his clothes, knows he must've only just arrived. "I came through the fountain about a week ago," she says, speaking at a moderate pace, not wanting to overwhelm him despite her excitement to see his face. "And -" she pauses, eyes shining, "Cassian's here, too."

[onlyeverdoubted]

Hugging would have been a mistake, but the slow, careful offer works. He's fine with touch as long as he knows it's coming. He takes a deep breath and brings his fingers to hers, tentative, proving to himself that she's real. Or at least that his hallucinations are consistent. The theory that this is all some kind of protracted neural misfiring as his brain boils away has crossed his mind, of course. The best evidence against it is probably that he doubts he's that creative.

He still doesn't answer right away, grip tightening a little at the news. Jyn accounted for, and the Captain. Even if the rest of the news isn't good, that's enough to make him glad he's here.

But despite the beginning of an uncertain smile, it's not all he needs to know. "The plans--did they..." The grenade landed before Bodhi knew anything but how many of Cassian's volunteers had fallen, too many of them protecting him.

[kestreldawn]

His hands are rougher than Jyn had expected - though why she assumed softness when he'd spent a lifetime working with his hands to repair and fix and alter is beyond her. She's grateful, the moment that his skin slides against hers, because she knows it will help to solidify what he's seeing, feeling, thinking. Because touching Cassian, when she'd found him, had been the only way to convince her that he was real.

She returns the slight squeeze on his hands, eyes delicately observing for any negative reaction. Anything that might suggest danger to either one of them.

She'd been expecting the question that stumbles out of his mouth, then. She'd rehearsed the answer many times over since she arrived, on the tail of a fading hope that there'd be another after her. Another one of them to come through the fountain.

Her grip tightens but for a moment.

"Yes." It's as direct an answer as she can give him. "Yes. They did. Thanks to you."

Sightseeing

[womanofvalue]

There's a certain look to people, she's beginning to realize, a sort of distant look on their face as they wander. To her, it's quickly become the look of someone who's either newly arrived or has had something happen that they don't quite understand. Glancing up from where she's unwrapping her hands after a good few hours of training at the schoolhouse, she presses her lips together sympathetically and heads in his direction.

"Come on," she gestures, seeing the damp of his clothes when she's close enough, "I'm Peggy Carter and if you want to be warm, I know just the place." On reflection, perhaps not the best phrasing, but it's sure to capture the man's attention enough to get him headed towards warmth, she hopes.

[onlyeverdoubted]

The sound of an Imperial accent makes him jump before he can remind himself he sounds more or less the same after his years in the academy. And her offer is very welcome, even if the bluntness is a little strange. Honestly, it'd be nice if communication were always that clear. "Th-thank you?" And then, after a moment spent remembering what social graces are, "Bodhi Rook."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy gestures for him to follow her with a cant of her head, waiting along the path as she angles them in the direction of the inn. She knows better than to simply bring strangers home to her place with Stella, because it's a personal space and she likes to keep her life compartmentalized, even if only a little.

"Have you just come from the fountain, then?" she asks, given that it's either that or he has a rather unwise predilection for getting wet in the winter.

[onlyeverdoubted]

"That... yes." That happened, and everything about it seemed particularly ridiculous, even in light of the place he's landed now. He falls into step with a bit of a clumsy scramble, reorienting himself from wandering to following. "Why is--" He cuts himself off, suspecting that if anybody had any answers about the decorative hole in the ground that nearly drowned him, he'd have heard by now.

fountain

[fishermansweater]

It always seems to happen when Finnick's stopping by the Inn to deliver fish for Kate Kelly. He often heads up the road north from the Inn, but today, he's cutting across the park to the west to make a wide sweep of the southern outskirts of the village on his way back to his and Annie's house. It's a very long way around, and he likes to make sure he takes a particularly circuitous route fairly often; throwing off pursuit may be a moot point now, but it's still good practice, and habit.

Just after he passes the fountain, he hears the texture of the burbling of the fountain change, something disrupting its constant rippling flow. It's enough to make him pause, shift his grip on his spear, and double back.

There's someone in the water, an indistinct shape in teal deep down under the ripples. A desperate flail sends a hand skimming towards the surface, then disappears again, and it becomes clear from the figure's movements that the person's in trouble. There's a moment, just a moment, when Finnick's Career tribute instincts war with everything else, when he asks himself if it's too much of a risk, but he's a fisherman's son and a fisherman's grandson, and he was those things before he was a victor, a tribute, a career.

You don't let someone drown in District Four.

So Finnick slips off his backpack, sets down his spear, and strips off the outer layers of his clothes before he slips into the water and kicks off, swimming down, down, down towards the drowning man, arms outstretched to grab him.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi has no more sense of how to cooperate with water rescue than he does of swimming in the first place. At least he's not particularly heavy or strong, but the flailing is still a hazard. He's trying not to inhale, but his lungs are burning and everything's fuzzing out already. He's not going to have that discipline for long. He doesn't fight the hands that reach him, but he can't help weakly grabbing at the first solid thing he's found in the water.

[fishermansweater]

There's always at least two people on a fishing crew who are the strongest swimmers, who know how to save someone from the ocean's grasp, and Finnick has always been strong, always been able to swim with the best, always willing to throw himself into the danger of a drowning man's desperation. So he knows how this goes: don't expect them to be able to control their movements, don't get dragged down with them, do expect them to panic.

The water's got a bone-deep chill in it, even after a few moments, and Finnick knows that time is critical. He has no way of knowing where this man had been, in what circumstances, how fit he is, how long he can hold his breath. It's not about that, it's about action. The man's hand reaches out for him, but it takes more than a handhold to get a sinking man to the surface.

There's no time for hesitation, or for wondering if the man will understand what he's trying to do. Finnick swims in towards him, past the reaching hand, to grab him around the waist. Finnick's a strong man, years of training before the Games and keeping in shape since only honed by the hard work of daily life surviving in this place. He's thinner than he used to be, a little of his bulk lost to hunger and hardship, but there's still a steely strength in the arm that reaches for Bodhi.

"It's okay," he shouts, though he knows how difficult the words will be to hear, distorted by water and the man's own desperation.

But Finnick's movements have no uncertainty in them as he kicks, upwards, one arm left free to help propel them towards the surface, and the other tight around the stranger. The man feels heavy, but Finnick knows that's resistance as much as weight, and he forces himself to kick faster, pull harder, drag the two of them up to the light.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Putting things together is hard enough when he has full use of his faculties. He has no idea what his rescuer is doing, but all he's able to do is try to cling and struggle not to inhale--a battle he loses abruptly as he tries to do several things at once. His grip feels weak, and shouldn't he be holding on? He needs air to do that, and the impulse bypasses every conscious effort. He doesn't quite land a lungful of water, but he does get some and completely lose the lock he was keeping on his windpipe until now. It's almost helpful--his efforts to hold on weaken to almost nothing, making him a lot easier to move.

Roosting

[theroadremains]

Casey spent most of his time in or around the inn, working himself to the bone and his hands to calloused messes. He's used to the coming and going of people whose faces he does his best not to recognize and voices he only listens to enough to hear whether or not they need a hand with something, or the ever present concern that a fight will break out.

When Bodhi slips in, Casey's seated on the windowsill nearest the door, his feet resting on a chair and his hands occupied carving a rabbit out of a chunk of wood. He catches the movement, his hands pausing mid slide through slicing off another shaving along one of the sleek, tall ears. It's nearly finished, and the evening meal has finished long enough before the man's arrival for most of the non-residents of the inn to have slipped out.

He hesitates. Casey isn't the usual person for greeting. He's a fixture of the inn, more than an inhabitant. A shadow that slips about doing chores and making sure things keep running but keeping to himself and his shared room with Kira or the inn. But there's a quality about the man in teal that catches his eye, more than just the bright and unfamiliar color. His own clothes are tattered and filthy with dirt, worn thin and light grey where they aren't scuffed and darkened.

"You here for rations?" His voice is rough, touched with a faint rasp of battered lungs, but he watches the stranger with a studying and curious glance.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi jumps a little at the voice, but there seems to be nothing threatening about its owner. He'd jump at anything right now, is all. It takes another moment to process the question, and realize he actually is hungry. He's been too busy being confused to notice, and going without for a long stretch isn't unusual for him. Pilot ration bars make waiting for the spaceport seem worth it even on some pretty lengthy hyperspace routes.

He lives in constant horror of stepping out of line somehow, though. "Is that how it... rations? Um. Yes, I think, what do I need to..." Bodhi's not good at words when he's frazzled, and he is very easily frazzled. He still has no clear sense of what's going on, and that seems to guarantee he'll do something wrong. The stuttering ramble that comes out of his mouth as a result makes it more likely still.

[theroadremains]

It's a reaction Casey's familiar with. An uncertainty he had known well on his own, and seen in others more than enough times to place. He nods and slides off the windowsill, finding his feet beneath him on the solid form of the floor.

"The camp shares to an extent. You can ask around about what needs done tomorrow. Work out how to earn your share." He knew it wasn't a spoken rule, but it was one he had lived by all his life and he was sure it still existed in the village. Everyone did their parts. But for the moment, with barely any concept of the production of food, he rooted through the cabinets to find some dense bread and a bit of dried meat for the newer member of the camp, laying both on a wiped down plate and sliding it across the counter toward Bodhi.

"Sit. Have some food. You'll need the energy." For his part, he leaned on the counter, studying the teal clothing again with interest. He slid the harmonica from his pocket, idly bringing it to his lips and considering playing a few notes. The sun hadn't quite set yet. He could still get away with some soft music, and he played a few notes of a soft blues tune he knew, before pulling it away and tilting his head to study Bodhi a little more.

"There's meals here most days." Every day, but he wasn't making promises he wasn't sure people could keep. The camp kept growing. He was sure it couldn't keep up forever.

[onlyeverdoubted]

"Thank you." Not just for the meal. This makes sense. Good. First thing that has. And after his years of pilot rations and spaceport food, bread and jerky is a completely acceptable repast, especially with his stomach abruptly remembering how it's supposed to work. This really feels like a bar and he could use a drink like nothing else in the galaxy right now, but he doesn't want to overstep. He'll take what he's given.

He makes himself eat slowly. He'd regret anything else, and the music is almost as pleasant as a drink would be. It doesn't matter what the tune is, exactly, just that it's there, though he tries to get a little sense of it. It's over too fast for him to work out, though.

"Does... Does anything need doing tonight?" He's here. He doesn't want to just take up space. He used to know his way around a kitchen, though it's been so many years he's not sure anymore, and that was helping cook for a family, not the same scale.

Roosting

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana was sitting by the fire. It had become habit for her since the 10th, trying to finish the net that she'd been asked to make. Her fingers twisted and pulled at the fibers while a sweet song drifted from her lips.

"See the light as it shines on the sea, it calls me and no one knows, how far it goes.."

The soft scraping of a boot against the wood floors made Moana look up. She didn't recognize the man that had stepped inside and she knew almost everyone who lived at the inn. Ignoring the stiffness in her right leg, Moana pushed herself up to stand. She wasn't wearing shoes and her tank top exposed the twisted and path lightning scar down her shoulder.

"Are you new?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

The tune is completely unfamiliar, but he's glad to hear it. There should be music in a place like this. There should also be alcohol, awkward flirting, loud tables, and preferably semi-legal gambling, but he'll take anything. He manages to dredge up a smile for the singer, barely noticing the state she's in at first. Horrid injuries have been part of the everyday buzz of his life for a while now. "Yes? Hello. Bodhi Rook."

[chosenbytheocean]

A small smile slipped over her lips at his greeting. "Moana Waialiki." Being here wasn't great, it was too cold, but it was better than other places. It might not have been better than other places. Moana didn't know. She hadn't been to anywhere outside of her island before now.

"Where are you from?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

That's a very heavy question for him right now. He tries not to let any of that show. It's not her fault. He's... somewhat successful. "niJedha. It's, um, it's on a small noon, not... not very important. To most people." Was. Was on a small moon. But he hasn't had time to deal with verb tenses yet.

Roosting;

[repressings]

Credence lives in the inn. He works at the inn, and even if he doesn't see it, he's definitely a staple. He goes for walks and then returns, normally without a change in his disposition but with a clear mind.

He heads down the stairs to the main room, bundled up and with the tiniest of springs in his step. Today is lessons with Mr. Graves--today is a time where he gets answers he's always wanted, and in turn, answers difficult questions about the manic week or so that consumed all of New York.

He turns the corner and his brows raise, met unexpectedly with an unfamiliar face. He looks curious, and Credence's eyes scan him, openly staring.

"Hello," he says finally, and he completely and utterly lacks tack: "You're new here."

[onlyeverdoubted]

Tact is a quality Bodhi has always considered overrated. He nods, perfectly comfortable with the scrutiny because it's straightforward and has a perfectly good explanation. Meeting people in bars is one of those situations where he's more or less confident. Just pilot stuff. "Yes? Hello. Bodhi Rook." He might as well be straightforward and efficient right back.

[repressings]

Bodhi Rook. The name is foreign, exotic on his tongue, and Credence mouths it to himself. Bodhi Rook, he memorizes: the one with the light accent and no compulsion to think he's strange for staring at him for so long.

Ah. He should probably say something. Credence clears his throat, and tries his best to smile--he doesn't get very far, but it's an improvement.

"Credence," he introduces, and eyes his clothes, including scrub colour. He tilts his head to the side. "You didn't just come out of the fountain, though--aren't you cold?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

Smiling is also overrated. For his own part, he does try to remember the name, but he's used to meeting new people and forgetting most of them on a fairly constant basis, and it'll take a while to adjust. There's a chance he'll still know Credence tomorrow.

The question brings him up short, which in turn makes him feel a bit silly. "I'm, um, I'm used to cold, I guess." It's chilly, but he hasn't really thought about it much, and the air is so damp and soft. It doesn't really feel like bad weather to him.