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[seenitbefore]

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[seenitbefore]

"Neph?" incredulously. "Neph and not Djem, that's - I don't know what to make of that." His magpie child, in all those endless tunnels. A shiver creeps up his spine.

He blots out that image deliberately, focusing for a moment on Bodhi's hand in his hair, the space of warm breath between them. Here. Safe. "What--" He forces it past the sudden clench in his throat. "What else did he say? This time?" He centers his palm between Bodhi's shoulder blades, digs his fingers in gently, and tries to ignore the crawling in his stomach. "If he's been trying to scare you, I'll - I don't know. Give him the mother of all hangovers."

[callsign_rogueone]

Make no mistake, Bodhi doesn't want Djem anywhere near any of this bullshit, but the thought of one child out there in the universe somewhere without the other is...wrong. Everything about this is wrong.

He makes an incoherent noise, something meant to be comforting, apologetic. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything at all, but what if Cassian ran into this Other Nephele at some point? Better to be braced for it, right?

"No, no, I don't think he was," he shushes, sweeping his touch from the crown of Cassian's head to the knob between his shoulderblades and back again. "The opposite, almost. I think he knows he's--that we're scared."

"He admitted we were all there with him. The other us'es. I knew that, but he didn't know that I knew, right, so that was a nice piece of truth." There's that noise again, the soft apologetic one. "He mostly asked about us, the kids, K. To keep from having to answer questions about himself, I'd guess, but we worked on some sign language. He...doesn't seem to want to scare the kids, if we can help it."

Then, hushed, "I don't think he was ever a kid. I think this war he's in has been going on a very long time." Bodhi pulls Cassian to him by all points of contact, digs knobby fingers in a little too hard, as if to wring away the might-have-beens of his own childhood and the realities that apparently exist somewhere out there in an infinite multiverse.

[seenitbefore]

Cassian is quiet for a minute or two, digesting this. Despite the evidence he's been picturing the other, the stranger, as a stranger: a tall menacing shadow to match his K-bot, a faceless invader from that other, nightmare world.

Easier, less threatening, than the image Bodhi builds for him now of a too-old twentysomething, a scared, scarred kid unwilling to hurt kids even younger. A human being open to reason, capable of compassion. Defensive among strangers.

And therefore not, perhaps, a stranger at all.

I'm afraid, he wants to say. Afraid I really have gone crazy and I'm dragging you both with me. That this has been inside my head all along, that I'm making it all up, that I'm lying to myself and I don't even know it. I don't want this to be real and I'm terrified that it's not.

"I love you," is what he says aloud, abruptly, against his husband's neck.

[callsign_rogueone]

"I love you," Bodhi replies instantly. Then he has to detour to seal a fierce kiss to Cassian's mouth, one that may give away his own fears about what is and isn't happening. When he pulls back, it's to rasp, "We will be okay."

That sits between them, resting on the spare pillow they'd pulled out of a closet for Other Cssian's use. It's lumpy and smells like Jyn's herb garden, old dry scents tucked in a sachet and tossed in the linen closet summers and summers ago.

"Let's start small," Bodhi says as he shuffles his knees for a better fit. "Are there any clients you can put off? Any appointments we need to cancel?"

[seenitbefore]

"Yeah," he murmurs back, and swallows, and says it more firmly: "Yeah, we will." If they just keep reassuring each other of it, it might wind up being true. Right?

Right. Sure.

Cassian digs his toes into the snug space behind the edge of the end cushion, and considers the question. Almost at once he realizes the essential problem. "That depends, though. On when it's - on whether I can count on being here ahead of time. How do you plan around--?" He breaks off, exhaling sharply. "This is nuts."

[callsign_rogueone]

Bodhi would much rather focus on something he can affect (dentist appointments and PTA conferences and track meets and deadlines) than things he can't (his own shitty coping mechanisms and sometimes-slippery grasp on reality). So he tightens his arms around Cassian's shoulders and taps points between his shoulderblades.

"Yes, but so far, it's been every other day," his ring finger strikes between vertebrae, "If that keeps up, you'll be with us, um, Wednesday and Friday and Sunday," his middle finger drops just inside the wing of a scapula, "Was there anything due by Friday that you can't get done in, um, two days?" index finger to the little wispy hairs at the nape of Cassian's neck, "What kind of bug lasts for a week that we can lie about you having?"

His voice peters out, thumb sliding up the rise of bone behind Cassian's ear. This next part is...not something he wants to pick at, much, but it's the question that rings loudest and most often. "And if it goes on longer than that, how do we tell the kids?"

[seenitbefore]

"If--" Cassian echoes, and sighs, trying to relax into the touch. "No, I don't think so. Just minor stuff. Djem's got cute art guy on Friday. Rex will probably call when he gets back from Florida, but I don't know if that's Saturday or Sunday..." all this evenly enough. But the last question makes him flinch despite himself, voice cracking finally. "God, I don't know, I don't wanna think about it. 'Hey guys, I'm losing my mind but don't worry, we think it's on a schedule...' Fuck. I don't know."