Corellian Gin

DISCLAIMER: I don't own a thing, this was written for the purpose of entertainment only.

Of course, there is another celebration when everyone has reached Echo Base on Hoth safely. There was bound to be one, and they were bound to force them all to be there.

Bodhi has made his peace with it, and Cassian doesn't look anymore sour than usual sitting further down the table with a few fellow Intelligence officers; but Jyn is already almost an hour late, and Bodhi is starting to feel slightly embarrassed about the seat he's keeping empty for her.

But then she comes through the door at the far end of the hall, and he has to look twice to make sure it is her.

His first reaction to the sight is slight shock – he could have never in his life pictured Jyn Erso in a dress, and it hits him very unexpectedly that she looks rather pretty in the pale blue robe.

His second reaction is slight amusement, because she looks so miserable the way she tugs at the skirt and at her necklace and her hair and he can't believe anybody possesses the sheer force of will necessary to force Jyn Erso into a dress.

And then, Bodhi struggles to stifle the laughter rising in his throat because, a few seats away, respectable level-headed Intelligence officer Cassian Andor has laid eyes on the newcomer as well. And his sudden violent coughing fit is nothing but a failed attempt at hiding the fact he just very nearly choked on his drink, and also spilled quite a bit of it on the table cloth in the process.

His comrades eye him in a worried sort of way, and he looks even more flustered.

Bodhi's self-control falters, and by the time she sits down in the empty bit of bench across him – in a manner that tells him she can't even remember ever trying to sit in a skirt – he is crying with silent laughter.

"What's so funny?" Jyn asks moodily, and Bodhi opens his mouth to answer but catches a murderous glare out of black eyes across the table and shuts it again.

"Bodhi?"

"... nothing," he mutters and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes to rid himself of the tears. "So you found something decent in the pocket of your west?"

She throws him a dirty look. "Haha. I apparently have no right to decide what I want to wear if there's a stupid celebration. I didn't even want to come. Instead I get Mon Mothma and a kryffing ball gown or whatever and "that's an order, Erso", great."

It's not a ball gown, Bodhi thinks, in fact it is basic for an evening dress – no frill, no adornment, just greyish blue fabric hugging her shoulders and falling down to her knees; probably the dress was chosen for those very reasons, so that she would eventually agree to wear it. But then he remembers he's probably the only one out of the three of them who's ever had the opportunity to see people wearing actual ball gowns, and doesn't say anything.

"I think you look nice, if that helps."

She keeps glaring. "It doesn't."

I know someone else who thinks you look good, Bodhi thinks with a slight grin and again, almost as if he's read her thoughts, the captain flashes him a cold, warning look, before his eyes stray to Jyn for just a moment, then flicker away like they've seen too much.

The frustration is so palpable between them Bodhi can almost taste it, and he almost has to force himself to be amused by it, or else it would just make him sad.

Still, it's a welcome distraction from everybody staring at them and growing eerily quiet when they walk by.

"Stop smirking," Jyn mutters and tugs at her skirt. "You seem to be enjoying yourself way too much. What are you drinking? Maybe I should have the same."

"Don't. It's some weird beer from...," he frowns into his class and shakes his head, "I don't even know. It's weird."

Jyn sighs. "Or I could just go back to my room. I don't think anyone would notice."

"I think they would," Bodhi says with a slight smile. "I hate to remind you, but we're the heroes, too."

"They have heroes. Skywalker and Solo are back, right, they can all go run after them!"

Bodhi internally debates whether or not he has to finish his gross drink, then forces down another gulp. "You could just try to enjoy yourself."

Jyn doesn't look placated. "I just wanna be in bed. Or at least have a decent drink."

"I can help out with that," says a voice behind Bodhi and he turns around to Cassian, grinning, brows raised.

"The drink," he says, a little too quickly, a touch of red creeping into his cheeks.

Bodhi smirks and moves over to make room for the captain. Jyn seems to be too busy tugging at her dress to have caught any of that, but looks up when Cassian puts down a dusty, half-full bottle of Corellian gin and three glasses.

For a moment, her sullen default face that she parades around at these kind of events cracks to show a smile. "Well, somebody's taken a leaf out of Solo's book. How the hell did you smuggle that in?"

He looks mildly insulted at being compared to Han Solo. "Didn't have to, Jyn," he says with a slight sparkle in his eyes, "people like me. I just asked."

"They're nice to you because they can't figure you out, and that scares them. We're the only ones who like you."

He shakes his head and pours liquor. "You're in a great mood."

"Yes! I was forced to be here."

His eyes flicker up to her. "You think I wasn't?" He hands her a glass, and Bodhi can't believe they still think he doesn't see their fingers touch and then the liquor shaking in the glass just a little when she takes it from him. It's painful, and painfully obvious.

(He doesn't presume to understand what holds them back, not fully, but he has an inkling, and he gets it. Everything has a faint taste of ash since they came back from Scarif, everything is a little bit greyer, and he understands the fear of it all not being what it might have been.)

Still, it's almost as tiring to watch as it must be to live it, to simultaneously watch how life goes on around them and how the three of them seem to be more or less frozen in time.

He shakes his head to rid himself of the thought, puts a smile on his face (he's getting better at that) and grabs a glass.

"Well then."

Cassian takes up a glass, looks like he wants to say something but doesn't, and in the end, it's Jyn who mutters: "To them, right?"

"Yeah. To them," Bodhi echoes softly, and their glasses clink.

(This is supposed to be a fun celebration – but then again he doesn't really think anybody expects them to have fun.)

.

If anyone had asked Bodhi about Cassian and Jyn before Scarif, he would've sworn they could drink him (and probably a lot of other people) under the table – Jyn especially. But that's not the case. He does take less than they do, but only very barely.

(Looking back the next day, he thinks that's probably a lie.)

Their saving grace is the fact that everybody else is clearly getting more and more drunk as well, and it's getting very loud in the hall so nobody really pays them much attention.

After three (admittedly rather full) glasses, Bodhi feels like he is sitting on a moving object, like a spaceship breaching orbit. It's very rocky, and it is rather disconcerting. He feels oddly light and distant, but not in a way that means he's forgotten why everything seems just a little wrong. Not in a way that means he forgets why it feels wrong to drink, and laugh over things that probably aren't that funny, and wear fancy clothes and listen to music.

Something else that his brain notes before it shuts off a few main functions is that it takes precisely those three glasses of gin for the captain's composure to falter and his eyes start lingering on places he wouldn't let them if he was sober.

(And it takes Jyn only seconds to notice, which tells him her eyes can't have strayed from him too much, either.)

Again, this would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Four glasses, and Jyn starts getting louder, and even more passionate about things than usually.

Five, and Cassian slips into different languages mid-sentence, and goes on for a while before realising nobody understands a word he's saying.

Bodhi feels very seasick at this point.

Some moment that escaped Bodhi's notice, Jyn complains about the blaster she was issued – not before she argued every day for months that she should have one, Cassian tried to persuade his superiors, twice, and found a doctor to confirm her mental stability (and probably threatened that doctor to say the right thing) – and it doesn't end well.

"… and it was better, and I want it back!"

Cassian's brows dart up. "Better, yes? You mean loud enough to… to… to alert everyone to your presence, and get you killed."

"Well, at least it wasn't so kryffing heavy, and unlike some people I don't tend to covertly shoot people in dark alleys."

He doesn't flinch at that, doesn't even blink. Bodhi can't help but be impressed with his level of faith in the cause. "One day you might have to."

"I won't even live to see that day if I get caught by a stormtrooper… because that clunky thing can't be hidden in any of my clothes!"

Bodhi is also very impressed by how well they still get their sentences out. He thinks he wouldn't do so well, and opts for just not trying. The conversation is headed for a shipwreck either way.

Cassian sighs and curses under his breath. "One look at your hands and you know why those things are a…" he flails his hands and tries to think of the word, "a nightmare."

She glances down at her palms and for just a moment, there is something insecure, almost hurt, flashing across her face, then she flashes him a dark look. "What about them?"

He seems to realise he's made a misstep, but there's no way to row back. "They have parts missing, that's why they're so light, and cheap. They overheat. That's how you burned your hands, right?" His voice is considerably softer now, and even though he hasn't mixed up Common with whatever other languages he's speaking for a few sentences, there is decidedly more of a foreign lilt to his voice than usual.

She just glowers at him and doesn't reply, which makes Bodhi think Cassian was right, and that he probably shouldn't have said that.

"So, they said I can fly on one of the next reconnaissance missions," Bodhi says loudly to disperse the tensions – very loudly, as he realises, and a little slurred too.

Cassian hurries to force a smile on his lips that doesn't convince him. "So soon? That's impressive."

Bodhi nods furiously. "Yeah. I hope I'll do well, I haven't flown. In so long. And not this model."

"You'll be fine. You're a great pilot, Bodhi," Jyn says, her smile even less convincing than Cassian's.

"You're not, so I don't think you can tell," Bodhi replies, and thinks alcohol doesn't do him much good.

Jyn looks taken aback for a moment, then she snorts and clasps her hands over her mouth, giggling.

Cassian is grinning, too, for a moment, then his face falls.

Jyn's eyes flicker to him. "Hey, don't look so sour, he doesn't mean it-"

"I really don't!"

He shakes his head. "Not it. Just… just forget it."

They're drunk enough at this point to grant that wish.

Jyn thinks they should toast Bodhi's next flight, for luck or something, and they don't argue that.

.

A few hours later, they're sitting in a corner, slightly more sober.

"It suits you."

"What?"

"The dress. You look... nice," the captain finishes lamely

Okay, maybe not that much more sober. Bodhi tries to look as non-existent as possible.

"I don't care how it looks," Jyn says, hesitating too long, inspecting her shoes and blushing deeply, "I'm kryffing freezing."

"You could have worn a jacket," Bodhi supplies helpfully. Alcohol does not work well for him at all.

"You remind me of someone right now," Jyn says in a slurred voice.

The captain shrugs out of his jacket and holds it out to her.

Jyn frowns and stares at him, then the jacket, then the floor, and mutters: "Um. Thanks, but you don't -"

He rolls his eyes, says something they can't understand, realises it's the wrong language, sighs – "Damn it, take the jacket."

Jyn looks at him like she's trying to figure out something very difficult, and Cassian doesn't move, doesn't look away, and Bodhi thinks they've all had far too much to drink.

(And then, while they do their staring, he's torturing his brain trying to figure out whether it would be a good or a bad thing if one of them made a drunken pass on the other. It would make things easier for everyone involved, if they -

But then again. They probably have their reasons for not doing it, and if they wind up hurting each other even more than they already are -)

They've all had far too much to drink.

Jyn leans over, leans close, very close – and takes the jacket from him. "Thanks."

For the first time, the captain looks drunk.

Bodhi has the distinct feeling he shouldn't be here.

"I like this better," Jyn says softly, putting on his jacket, and there's a strange smile pulling on his lips.

"But it's too big for you. And it's clashing with the dress." Right, the gin is doing things to Bodhi that he's not okay with. (But to be fair, he hasn't had a drink since he entered flight school, which is a long while ago.)

They don't take much notice of it, so it doesn't really matter this time. .

.

.

In the end, they end up leaving the celebration together, swaying a little, Jyn holding on to Bodhi's arm whenever she sways on her terrible shoes, and then at some point Bodhi takes a turn down one of the icy corridors and they're alone. Jyn shivers a little.

She's so cold. She wants to go home.

She frowns at that thought. She can't even remember thinking it – how old was she, the last time it crossed her mind? Twelve? Certainly no older than fourteen.

Must be the gin.

Suddenly, he stops, leans against the wall, putting himself in her way, the way he used to so often before, and it throws her off track, and her head really starts spinning.

"You could've left," he murmurs, stumbling over the syllables, his accent almost palpable.

"I don't –"

"Stop. Don't." His pupils are too wide, out of focus. "You could have. I thought you would."

She wracks her brain for words to explain herself, and finds nothing, not before he says, very quietly: "I don't understand. It's gone. The death star. It's over."

She pulls the jacket closer around her, loses her balance in the process, and stumbles right into him, and despite his very off overall state, he catches her. It's not an embrace, not like the beach. It's just his hands firmly closing around her shoulders, the stubble on his jaw scraping past her cheek for the fraction of a moment, but it feels far more intimate than it should.

"Easy," he murmurs, and waits decidedly too long to put her back on her feet.

She shivers, and tells herself that he can't feel that through the fabric of the jacket. She doesn't believe herself.

"Tell me."

Oh Force, she wishes she could kiss him. Or at least wrap her arms around him and pull him close and feel warm for a change.

"Tell you what?"

"Why are you still here? You have nothing to stay for."

She raises her head to look him in the eyes, black in the dim light, sees the dark shadows on his face and something tugging at the corners of his lips.

And then finds herself being drunk enough to say, too loudly "Yes, I do. Of course I do, you..." and shove him with both hands, suddenly shaking with what might be anger.

For a moment he looks like he's just trying to comprehend what she's saying, then pulls her to him in a way that is almost careless, almost hurts, and knocks the breath right out of her.

She clutches his shirt with both hands and leans her head against his neck. It's probably the drink, but she feels warm and fuzzy enough to be able to shove away the trembling urge to push her hands into his hair and crush her lips against his. She can just stand there, leaning into him, and listen to the distant chatter of the rebels.

And it's not perfect – far from it – but for the first time since she's set foot into Echo Base, she doesn't feel cold.

For the first time since they got them off that beach, she knows that she still has a place in the world.

.

Welcome home.

.

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