Cassian Andor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
candor1) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-02-16 10:35 am
candor1) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-02-16 10:35 am
La paz llegará, el amor siempre vivirá—No me ames, mas quedate otro dia
WHO: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Bodhi Rook, Finnick Odair (independent threads)
WHERE: Cabin 56, the woods, the spring, wherever else happens
WHEN: Feb 6 through now. "Ten days in the [new] life".
OPEN TO: Jyn, Cassian, Bodhi and Finnick
Quick apology for what a first-love middleschooler I've been being IC and OOC, with me neglecting and Cassian unable to gear shift at all away from Jyn! (Turns out we're super OTP, quelle surprise) Thanks for forebearance, and sorry, guys…!
This might help with moving back into the rest of the game from that first obsessed flush of her arrival. Mainly prompts forkestreldawn and I to multithread several CR developments in a single post, rather than a slew of logs.
WARNINGS: PTSD (both helping and triggering one another—and worrying about that), exchanging war/life/traumatic stories, issues they haven't thought about in decades resurfacing 'cause this is so new and everything's getting unlocked, smut (though surprisingly happy/healthy), treating physical injury (possible self-harm convo), reproductive choices, panic attacks
STATUS: Open
1. the next moment (Jyn and Cassian in their cabin)
2. that night (same)
3. in the next few days (Finnick and Cassian at the spring)
4. in days following (Bodhi, Jyn and Cassian TBD)
5. today (Jyn and Cassian, cabin and forest)
WHERE: Cabin 56, the woods, the spring, wherever else happens
WHEN: Feb 6 through now. "Ten days in the [new] life".
OPEN TO: Jyn, Cassian, Bodhi and Finnick
Quick apology for what a first-love middleschooler I've been being IC and OOC, with me neglecting and Cassian unable to gear shift at all away from Jyn! (Turns out we're super OTP, quelle surprise) Thanks for forebearance, and sorry, guys…!
This might help with moving back into the rest of the game from that first obsessed flush of her arrival. Mainly prompts for
kestreldawn and I to multithread several CR developments in a single post, rather than a slew of logs.WARNINGS: PTSD (both helping and triggering one another—and worrying about that), exchanging war/life/traumatic stories, issues they haven't thought about in decades resurfacing 'cause this is so new and everything's getting unlocked, smut (though surprisingly happy/healthy), treating physical injury (possible self-harm convo), reproductive choices, panic attacks
STATUS: Open
1. the next moment (Jyn and Cassian in their cabin)
2. that night (same)
3. in the next few days (Finnick and Cassian at the spring)
4. in days following (Bodhi, Jyn and Cassian TBD)
5. today (Jyn and Cassian, cabin and forest)
no subject
She saw his face and instead of Krennic's, she saw her father's.
She screamed, fell to her knees. Began to fall.
When her body hit the ground, she'd bolted up - skin plastered in sweat, heart pounding against her breastbone - so much so that she'd pressed her palm to it, willing it back to a state of calm. The Man in White wasn't here - she knew that. She'd worried that she'd woken Cassian again (she'd silently prayed that he'd not demand an empty bed after so many broken spurts of sleep), but the exhaustion had overtaken him. She could hear the buzz of his breath as it left his mouth, went into his lungs - and she'd smiled.
She felt the trickle of something on her leg, thought that perhaps it had been blood, and panicked slightly. She'd slipped out of the bed as carefully as possible, then quickly padded her way to the bathroom, using her hand to catch the liquid running down the inside of her thigh. She'd half-closed the door behind her, fumbling to find the toilet in the dark.
While sitting, she realizes - they hadn't used any protection. Before the fountain, she had received an implant to prevent any unwanted pregnancies. She'd had no sexual partners to speak of, but the need for the device was based in a more gruesome kind of prevention - avoiding pregnancy in the event of rape, specifically after being captured by an enemy force. She knew it wasn't in the realm of impossibility, and thus had taken procedural steps to avoid a child created under those circumstances.
But here? She doesn't know if the device travelled with her through - into? - the fountain. There is no way of knowing for certain. No med droids to do a scan for the thing, see if it was still firmly lodged in place.
It doesn't take long for her to connect the sticky substance she's hastily wiping from her thigh to what it could have done to her already, without her knowing, without her realizing. She feels her stomach twist, her heart leap. What do they do? How could they possibly handle bringing a child into -
The sound of her name being bellowed snaps her out of the panic. She remembers Cassian, realizes he's woken to an empty bed. She flounders with the door, her sticky hand sliding from the knob as she mutters a slew of inappropriate words under her breath. She finally manages to open the door, standing from the toilet.
"I'm here - I'm here!"
no subject
The pessimistic side…
…who cares. He had to find her. And since he hadn't properly mapped the place, he has to go only by her voice.
But thank the skies for her voice.
He finds her and instantly grabs her in a fierce hug. …And his legs go suddenly weak and he sinks down (as he had on the beach), pulling her with him… until she's sitting and he kneeling on the floor beside her, his arms around her waist, his eyes closed into her stomach.
For skies' sake, soldier, pull yourself together.
"It wasn't a dream," he says, muffled, trying to explain to her and sternly remind himself at once, though he can't yet release her or stand. "You're real."
no subject
But there's no part of her that regrets it.
She would've lived the life she had, lost all she had, a thousand times over if it meant she'd still end up here, with him.
Her clean hand comes down to his shoulder, gently rakes the strands of his hair. She makes quiet, comforting noises - not ones to silence him or demand he stop, but ones meant to soothe. Console.
"I'm here, Cassian .. I'm here" she coos, a phrase that seems to live permanently on her tongue. She knows his fear, knows it more intimately than her own perhaps. Whatever he needs from her, whatever she can provide for him to find a modicum of peace, she will give it - always, without hesitation, without condition. "A nightmare?"
no subject
It's ludicrous—they're both seasoned, well-traveled soldiers. And they're literally jumping here at shadows.
He releases a loud exhalation that was either a laugh or… or the reason he then broke away to turn slightly from her and hastily wipe his eyes. Before she can speak, he turns back to her, eyes still a bit averted but seeming now more sheepish than panicked. Those eyes also belatedly sweep the room, then fix on her in some dismay, realizing where they are.
"I'm sorry for barging in… I'll see you in bed whenever you're done." He unthinkingly reaches for her hand to squeeze it—which turns into a surprised jolt and grabbing her hand to look— "Are you bleeding—?"
Then realizing. His expression changes again to something not quite embarrassed but at least warm. "…Oh… yes. —Here." He sits more upright, eyes sweeping the room. Though he hadn't properly inventoried this cabin, he has examined others, and so knows what is provided and what isn't, what he's seeking… There. Mentally thanking whoever did provide these cabins with some furnishings. Still keeping hold of her hand, he reaches up, with an impressive stretch of his arm and back, to turn on the tap, and grab hold of the small towel he'd located to hold under the water.
The non sequiteur flashes in his mind—in addition to running water from the river—which he also remembers could be heated, if that hadn't been the best option earlier because it would have taken much more time to heat the furnace then the tank—he knew the houses are equipped for electricity; but there's no source. The strategic brain, having been dormant for a while, is suddenly glad to have a project and starts recusing itself from the rest of his mind, drawing up plans for setting up wind turbines.
It's the first proactive thought he's had about this place. Trying to add to it. Long-term.
No wonder. It's suddenly become a place he's grateful to be in and wants to protect.
He switches off the water and brings the cloth back down. Taking her hand into his lap (appropriately—shut up) he begins methodically to wipe it off.
no subject
Her mouth opens to echo his words, tell him she'll be only a moment but then -
No, no, no - don't! (She hates that she even has the thought of not wanting his hand in hers)
She tries her hardest to snatch her hand away before he can grab it - but it's too late. He's felt it, he's come to the same conclusion she has. Her tongue falls limp in her mouth, made defunct with the flush of embarrassment that's now blanketing her body in heat and pink (she's grateful for the darkness, just this once).
Jyn makes neither sound nor word while he seemingly takes charge, handles the situation with the tactical mind she'd come to admire and cherish in him. Hers seems to have faded for the moment, thanks to the mortifying discovery he'd made despite her best efforts. Maybe it was for the better -
He doesn't seem all that concerned -
Shouldn't he be?
She waits, feeling the rough of the damp cloth against her hand, feels the stickiness leave her skin with each swipe. Swallows the rock that's formed in her throat until she finally whispers one word - indicating the undeniable lack of,
"- Protection."
no subject
The single word causes him to look quickly up at her. He looks confused, concerned, mind visibly whirling through possibilities of what she meant… then his brow clears and he looks… now, quite definitely ashamed of himself.
"Yes, we should have talked… I forgot you didn't somehow already know… unless… are you all right? Has something…?" Being as helpful as a droid on a scuba mission, gilipollas…
no subject
She feels like she should simply know more at this stage of her life. Despite not walking the path of what could ever be considered a normal life for a woman like Jyn Erso, she still had the habit of occasionally (rarely) measuring herself against the standard milestones of those around her. She feels ashamed that Cassian's now had to come and clean her of something she should've been able to have handled on her own. There's embarrassment at remembering that she'd thought it was blood, though there was no logical explanation for it to be.
And these feelings are hot, and raw, and exacerbated by the gnawing panic at the back of her mind. She'd known more women than she'd ever be able to count who'd lost the seedling inside of them - sometimes by accident, more often by choice and on purpose. She'd known women who'd gone to great, dangerous risks to expunge themselves of the clump of cells.
She always assumed she'd be one of them, if she ever found herself in their position.
Her world was not one made for children.
The sandstorm of thought and worry is blinding her, howling in her ears. She doesn't hear him speak right away, can't seem to make sense of his half-sentences and vague implications.
"No, I'm - Nothing's happened," she murmurs. She pauses, inhaling sharply before adding, "I don't know if - the implant came with me, through the fountain." Safe to assume it hadn't, if their technology was seemingly destroyed upon entry, she wonders.
no subject
Mercifully, expression analysis and abductive reasoning, much as it can sometimes seem so, isn't mindreading. He's intent on her face as she speaks; his expression shifts a little as he thoughtfully nods. He's familiar with what she means by 'implant'. Practically standard issue for at least half the agents he's worked with.
"I hadn't thought of that… We might want to find out—if possible without being too invasive—"
More invasive than if whoever had brought them here had managed to remove even a technology inside her… the idea of which makes him obscurely furious. At the overall principle, having known many whose lives were only sustained through internal tech; but even more, specifically, at such a potential violation of Jyn.
But, though he didn't know how they'd interpret the results of such a discovery, it would be something worth knowing. Perhaps as a clue to the motives of whoever brought them here. Perhaps to try and predict if those motives would from now on leave them in peace…
That was too disturbing a line of thought to pursue. An enemy he didn't even know if he really had, as well as even if he did he wouldn't know how to fight…
—as well as all of it being entirely beside her excellent point that required response.
He set aside the towel. Turning his focus to them, he turned over her newly clean hand in his before entwining their fingers. "Either way, we won't… I…"
He'd never, ever thought this would even be a question…
Draven, of course, had denied his first request exactly because he insisted it could be. But Cassian had only waited the required window and requested again until approved.
—but now, a considering any "future", let alone one outside of the war, was actually an option for them…
…and though he suspected Jyn, like him, hadn't been interested in children… they had an entirely new paradigm to work from… if any elements of that decision were not solely about the war, then…
Oh, spit it out and be clear for sky's sake.
His voice is steady, matter-of-fact, but his gaze remains on their hands. "It won't be an issue unless we want a child. I was granted a sterilization procedure three years ago."
no subject
She wonders, if he's imagining a hypothetical future for them, one filled with the sound of children's laughter and bedtime stories. She wonders, what name he would choose for it, if it ever came to be, one only he would use - one only they would understand (Stardust has already been taken). She wonders, if the thought of a child repulses him, angers him, fills him with the same dread that's settled thickly at the base of her spine.
She wonders -
Broken, battered - held together only by the ever-present need to survive and the strength in each other's arms - yet promised a future unlike the one they'd been promised as children ..
No war, no Alliance, no Empire.
Could he have ever dreamt it before?
She'd never seen herself beyond the age of 30, perhaps 40 at most. No matter how hard she'd tried, no matter how many scenarios she could think of - they always cut to black. The thought of children ..
Her father had always said she'd inherited her mother's spirit, her mother's love of adventure and excitement and progress. He'd said she'd gotten his eyes, his acute sense for detail, his intelligence. And perhaps once upon a time, she'd fabricated a makeshift life - full of an apartment on Coruscant (perhaps even the same one she'd lived in with Mama and Papa), a shadowy figure meant to be a partner of some kind, a baby to dote on.
- But Jyn was not meant to be a mother. She'd known that the moment she stared into Lyra's eyes, felt her hands as she placed the crystal around her neck, pleaded for her to trust the Force. If being a mother meant the pain she saw reflected back in her mother's eyes - it was a fate she didn't want.
The touch of Cassian's hands slowly lets her mind seep back into her skull, the image of domestication quick to fade from her consciousness.
She reflexively squeezes his hand - using the other to touch and lift his face towards her. Her thumb skates across the bulb of his cheek, her eyes soft. Her tongue feels heavy, stubborn. Unwilling to move.
Then I'll make you kriffing move.
"A child was never in the cards for me." How could she torture a child by bringing it into her world? Of course, she'd never thought she'd be here, sitting in the darkened bathroom of a cabin, in some unknown and far-off town, clutching the hand of the man she loves (the latter piece is somehow the most absurd).
She falls quiet for what feels like hours, eyes studying his features, walking the terrain of his face, until she finally adds,
"But you would have made a wonderful father."
no subject
"Neither of us could know that."
Even without the war…
There was no without the war. No moment in his life had been unaltered by it… had been less than wholly defined by it. What ifs were worse than pointless.
But before becoming the full of what it would make of him,
(knowing how immediately young that could start to influence a child and how and why it shouldn't)
there were still his own parents to go by
—.
He shakes his head again.
But more softly this time.
Deliberately puts his focus back on their joined hands. Lets them reel him back.
Until he can speak again more gently. With an element of apology in his voice. "…Sorry. I… you know." Looks up at her finally, meaning it and wanting her to see that he did. "But. Thank you. For… thinking that. Of me." Whether he agreed or not, whether it worried him that if untrue she could be disillusioned of it, or worse, made vulnerable for it… still. It was very moving to know she could think that way of him.
His thumb moved across the back of her hand, trying to say what his voice couldn't.
no subject
It feels like a scolded child - needing to withdraw itself in order to be punished.
She feels, then - suddenly and all at once - how impossibly young she is.
Although forced to grow up at an impossible speed, although forced to learn the ins and outs of combat, warfare, weaponry, stealth as a means to deceive - she'd never learnt about life outside of what it meant to be a soldier. And it's here, now, that she feels a flare of anger for what she had taken away from her.
It isn't just Galen, it isn't just Saw, it isn't just Lyra - it isn't just Cassian (current situation temporarily suspended) and the rest of their squadron. It's the person she could have been, perhaps should have been, had things been different.
And she knows Cassian has lived the same life. Marred and scorched and singed by blaster bolts, by Operation: Everything. She wonders how often he mourns the child he'd been.
It made no sense to think of them in terms of anything aside from what they were, what they are now. Parenthood was never meant to be a part of that - and even now, when faced with a future not under the raining flames of war, it would never be theirs. Just as well, she thinks. That life was never meant to be mine.
She offers a slight shake of her head in reply, slightly dismissive, slightly - well, embarrassed. That she'd let those words slip out of her lips without thinking them through. Although beginning to shed the weight of the armor's she worn all her days gives her aching body reprieve, she finds it also overwhelms her - like the shield around her mind, the one that could process, release information strategically and to her advantage, has somehow been tampered with, weakened. Things that she knows, somewhere, shouldn't be let go of come rushing forth before she can stop them.
"I shouldn't have -" she starts, then stops, physically biting the edge of her tongue to make herself pause. "I shouldn't have said that." There's an apology lurking in her words, however concealed. "It wasn't right of me, to suggest it .."
/as ever, thought I'd jump things ahead, but will change in an instant if she wouldn't go along!!/
He touches his forehead to hers momentarily… then raises it to once more strategically scan the room.
Making the long cold walk back to the bed right now is unthinkable. (Far worse than the crossing of a rocky wasteland on foot over ten days which left him with muscle deterioration from dehydration; shinsplints, two sprained ankles, and three broken toes.) But staying seated on the cold hard floor, with plumbing accoutrements digging into their backs, isn't optimal either. Immediate options… all right… the water wouldn't heat yet, not without a more self-defeating walk and quest to find and stoke the right fire… so next best thing.
Pressing a quick kiss to her temple, he stands, keeping hold of her hand a moment longer, and does another quick search of the room. In short order, he finds all the towels and lines the bathtub with them. He holds out his hand to her again in invitation. And, if she takes it, will lower them both into the tub, to take her closely enfolded into himself, intertwining them both, warming the fabric with their bodies, in the makeshift nest/cradle.
So secured, feeling her warmth in the hollows of his arms and chest and legs, keeping her as enfolded as won't be claustrophobic/entrapping, and allows them both to breathe, he finally speaks.
"I asked you to tell me something from your past before," he said. "I…" how to word this without displacing or abdicating responsibility… from the known fact it was his own need driving both times… "…can tell you one of mine, now." …Didn't quite work but perhaps she'll understand the quality of his voice, his heartbeat in her ears.
noooo this is beautiful (and fml, i lost the tag i just wrote ._.)
The faint tensing of muscles, always on edge and always on guard for the first hint of needing to excuse herself - needing to run as the first, dreaded syllables leave Cassian's mouth: "It's best if you .." - "I think you should .." - "You need to .." So that her heart, her ears will not be able to hear the word that follows, the one that would demand her exit, demand her removal from his hands and his body and his life.
So when he stands, she braces herself for the moment - calculates how quickly she could grab her clothes and bolt through the door. But the words never come - instead, he rustles around and puts things into what she thinks is the tub (vague outlines in the moonlight, lack of memorized house geography). And then his hand is there, again, in front of her - calling out to her, reaching for her. Willing her to join him.
Eyes lift, hand mirrors. Skin against skin as she unfolds herself and stands, easily falling into the curves of his body with hers. Her head leans back against his shoulder, arms comfortably weighted by his.
A cocoon.
The symbolism of the act isn't lost on her - they can shed their old lives, who they had been before - be together now, here, in a life they'd never thought they could have - and come out on the other side happier, lighter, trusting.
She hums an approving note as she angles her face more towards his neck, closing her eyes - content. What a beautiful thing, this is - she feels she might burst open, break free of the tether-and-twine of bone and sinew.
<3 <3!
Evolution is an idiot, part him thought, making our most vulnerable, indefensible, compromised positions feel the most matchlessly safe…
But it is and he does. Safer with her than he's ever been in a steel subterranean bunker fully armed.
…
It's not something he's ever put voice to.
Not to anyone. Not even himself. Not ever.
Not even when pressed to do so for debriefing, rehabilitation, or under threat of courtmartial.
He says it aloud now, needlessly, unbidden, for no explainable reason. Probably when he shouldn't. To her.
"Draven recruited me when I was sixteen. He oversaw the development of my career. After two years of reeducation, he put me with my first field unit. All fresh agents. I was the most junior. It's standard practice—for us to learn with and from one another. All our code names were colors so we were called Spectrum. We worked together for a year. Every hour of every day. Sometimes with no one else available to us at all. Usually no space between us even when we wanted it. …I suspect you know the dynamic. Though compared to the rest of my own experience, even in guerilla cells… the social experience was… concentrated.
"Since I was the youngest, they took it on themselves to train me… not just in combat and espionage. In every aspect of the kind of life we would have as operatives. I thought out of tribal-initiation psychology or boredom, but probably part of the point of team training. No one can understand what kind of life it is except by living it. That was close as one could get before making the full commitment. Making the choice. While there's still a chance to turn back—find another way to serve."
There are certain things there's no coming back from. Unfortunately, that also means they are things you can't understand until they happen.
"So… among other things… Her" name—? "codename was Blue—"
Why are you telling her this, who wants to hear about a predecessor, good or bad…? there's no comparison nor should be, nor should it be implied… it's lose-lose either way… she can't want to know…
That's a terrible place to stop but he can't help taking a moment. To hold Jyn closer and breathe and marshall his thoughts. It seems he's going to tell this story even though he clearly thinks it's a terrible idea.
But it demands to be told. And never yet had been. So… get rid of it, at last, now.
He continues with a note of humor in his voice. That, given what he's about to say, probably shouldn't be there. "I think they played Sabacc for me. To choose who would give me my first experience." (All of them—Narede, Dorosz, and Blue [gender blind].) "I don't know if Blue lost or won."
He suddenly remembered Narede's expression at the time—and now in a new light. They'd all cruelly assumed that she was jealous, in a way that hurt but she'd never admit. Now, he wonders if she hadn't felt suddenly that she'd doomed him to something she felt powerless to prevent…
"It wasn't good."
Nothing like tonight. But even though tonight had been exceptional… trying to put that into words never quite worked, even if he could switch gears out of his slightly distant, chilly recounting to reallow the deep, intense warmth and affection that tonight with Jyn inspired… letting that open would make continuing impossible, and for some damn probably mistaken reason, it seemed continuing was going to happen.
"I could tell even without basis for comparison. And in retrospect… we ended up together for a while and I never knew how she felt about me. …Which… turned out to be the point: none of us really knew. I'll never know.
"We were…"
…okay, worse, place to pause still. But now he has to stop again to slow his heart from its sudden thudding.
—When in an entirely new tone, he suddenly whispers, "I don't know why I'm telling you this. You can't possibly want to know. It's not right… I shouldn't have said that much already—"
The feeling again: I'm doing something unforgiveable to her, this could have been beautiful and I just killed it…
ohhhhh the spectrum squadron ._.
But when his voice fills the air, the words gathering in a fog around them, it stirs her back to the land of the living. Her eyes flutter open, wanting no part of her to be absent from listening to the delicate sound of his heart opening to her. Allowing her entrance.
How little they knew of each other, yet how connected ..
She'd expected perhaps a story about his family - she'd assumed he'd had no siblings, but he had to have had parents at some point in his life - and so she'd mistakenly expected for him to perhaps share some distant, far off memory about one or both of them.
But as the words tumble, adding to the cloud which surrounds them, she realizes that the story will be different.
Very different.
There's a buzzing in her chest as she realizes what it is that he's sharing - not only for the sheer vulnerability and intensity of it, but for the content, as well. The buzzing grows into a vague roar as she realizes the discrepancies in their first experiences - how acutely unfair it was for his to be due to a gamble, as though he were nothing more than a thing to be toyed, played with.
As though he were not a person, full of choices and desires of his own.
As though such a thing were nothing more than a handful of Credits.
There is a jealousy underlying all of the buzzing, of course - how could there not be, however ill-outlined? But she knows she has no claim on the feeling, has no claim on who or with whom he'd been in the past. She barely feels as though she has claim on him at all, in any form or way - constantly in a state of terror that he'll ask her to leave is evident of that.
When he stops, she pulls his arms tighter - turns her head to kiss the edge of his jaw. She won't force him to tell her if he'd rather not - there's nothing good to come out of that - but she'll offer him the opportunity.
"You were .. ? -" her words cut off by his whisper. She shifts, allows herself to turn towards him as much as she can in the confines of the tub. Brings her hand to his face, finds his eyes in the dark. "I won't make you tell me; I never want -" she pauses, finding her words, "I never want it to be demanded, between us .. forced. I respect your privacy." Her thumb runs over his lips. "But please don't assume what I want and don't want from you; I want to know everything you want to tell me. Doesn't matter what. I want to know."
D'aww, you validate me… ^_^
…And dams can't burst selectively. He couldn't stop.
Finish it.
He kept his hand covering hers, not in force but in entreaty for hers to stay in place, so he could keep his face slightly pressed into and occluded by it.
Though his eyes were open, looking sightlessly into the dark.
"We were in a hostile zone to aid extraction of another operative who'd been compromised. Immediately, the situation wasn't what our intel had prepared us for. We split up to reassess, confirm status of the asset, and regroup. But when we rendezvoused… Blue wasn't there."
Narede's head snaps to stare back at them. The dawning realization, utter horror, far too late, in her taut, bloodless face. Beside Cassian, Dorosz's muscles tense, and his heart seems to stop.
Cassian's voice went more distant still. It practically echoed. "We didn't know… the asset was… someone close to Blue. She intercepted the intel before the rest of us and went off mission. Tried to make a deal to ensure the agent's survival herself. Forgetting, like so many do, something they themselves had hammered into me. You can't deal with the Empire. Because they don't deal fairly with us. We didn't know when we got there but the asset was already dead." The next words sound strange in his mouth because they aren't his own, they're Draven's. "It probably wasn't the letter of the deal, almost certainly not her intent—" Back suddenly and harshly to his own: "but what else could she think would happen by giving us up for trade…"
"No," Narede starts.
Then around them, the planet seems to explode.
"I survived because they all saved me. One by one. I don't know why except that…" Same words, opposite implication, as before: "I was the youngest."
And everything they'd done to him for that reason was proven, then, to indeed be in the hope against hope of his getting out.
I wouldn't. I'm sorry.
"Green—Dorosz—went first pushing me out of the way of the ambush. Red—Narede—went trying to give me cover. I still wouldn't have made it except… Blue showed up after all, from the wrong side of the lines…"
And she'd stared at him, face utterly blank, eyes empty and hollow and flat all at once… that dark hair of hers streaming like ribbons… her physical beauty that had so bewitched his teenage idiocy despite her own blunt attempts to get him to understand that that was meaningless, had no bearing or reflection on anything about who she was in any actual respect; Dorosz's suggestion that if he was going to fixate on anyone he might find a far more constructive partner in Narede; and Narede herself always fair and honest and good to him regardless of that icy sliver of injury in her eyes…
"…and bought time for me to get clear of the blast zone before she blew herself and the Imperials up."
He'd always wondered from then on why he was only issued a Lullaby pill and not a personal detonator. …But hers hadn't been standard issue. She may have made it herself. Perhaps—undeniably. On some level she had known.
"I only knew because Draven debriefed me. The part he left out, that I confirmed on my own, was that enough had been left of Blue to do postmortem analysis; and her blood chemistry was consistent with pregnancy."
There wasn't enough, of course, for genetic testing. But even had Dorosz been attracted to partners on the female spectra—and even were attraction a necessity always for needing connection or distraction or wanting to break up monotony—by then they had all been in close quarters without relief or sufficient privacy or individual shore leave for five months. He couldn't find a way to pretend it could have been anyone else's.
"That's when…" (despite there being plenty of other non-permanent contraceptive options for most genders, used by agents whether or not they ever had relevant assignments, he'd gone for the irrevocable) "…I applied for sterilization. Draven rejected the request at first. I had to wait a few years before applying again. To convince him I was sure. I could never do my work at best if that kind of victimization—even at the presentient cellular level—was remotely possible."
His color, by the way, had been Black.
Black and Blue. If it hadn't been obvious enough they spelled doom.
"By the time I was finally rehabilitated and cleared for field duty again… I was nineteen."
Though his loyalty and devotion to the Rebellion was undiminished, possibly even cemented, and one of his greatest strengths and services involved the recruitment and training of others, at which he wouldn't have been so exceptional without the charisma and drive/ability to connect with people exerting itself no matter how much suppression the Empire and the Alliance and he himself had done; nonetheless, he'd never work in a team or with a partner then on. The only exception made for a droid he'd reprogrammed himself.
Until Rogue One. Until Jyn.
He finally lowered their joined hands, to reveal that somewhere in there, his eyes had closed.
"I don't know why I told you," he said again. "Except that I've never said any of it before. And… …and I want you to know."
a billion times over <3
She thinks back, back to when they'd evacuated Eadu. The weight of her father's corpse still on her skin, in her muscles. The wildfire rage she'd felt burning away everything she'd ever been - how she'd thrown the blame on Cassian without hesitation. The pain and disappointment in his eyes when he'd told her he'd been fighting since he was six years old. The open-palm of guilt and privilege smacking the wind out of her.
How could she have known, that this was one story out of the hundreds, thousands that came together to create his life? How could she have known then?
She rests her head back against his shoulder, eyes trailing up to stare at the non-descript ceiling. Processing. Simmering.
She wants to say everything all at once, all of the things screaming in her ears, her head. She wants to cradle him like a child and exorcise every demon from his life. She wants to make the scars that muddle his body disappear with nothing more than a touch of her hand. She wants to leech out the darkness from his past, replace it with beauty and wonder and love. She wants to scream, curse the name of everything and everyone who'd ever dared to hurt him.
She knows that she can't.
She knows it's impossible.
But what she can do, what she can give him - is a life, now, for however long it might end up lasting (forever, she hopes) - that has all of those things. That is full of beauty, love, light, happiness. Tender touches when they're least expected, fingers through his hair, lips on every part of him she'd dare to explore (all of it), laughter until his belly aches, soft glances from across a crowded room and in the solitude of their home.
She turns her head again, presses her forehead against his cheek. Closes her eyes. Listens to the rhythmic sound of his breathing, wonders that they're still able to.
"I love you, Cassian," she whispers - a pale attempt at trying to convey everything she's feeling, but the most succinct culmination of it all.
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"Te amo, Jyn," he murmurs back. Wrong idiom; impossible not to recognize as the same sentiment.
He puts her hand against his chest so he can free his own to run under her hair, cradle her head.
For a while, they just breathe.
Telling the story was like having something huge and heavy surgically removed from his chest cavity. He feels now like… post-op shock, semi-medicated, blood loss. …But… peacefully.
The towel-lined bathtub could be an escape pod floating away.
From wherever his consciousness had wound up (somewhere near a ceiling that still shielded them but had stretched to be higher up than could be measured), Cassian murmured, "So, that was my first time. You?"
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"Jyn, if you're listening .. My beloved, so much of my life has been wasted. I try to think of you only in the moments when I'm strong, because the pain of not having you with me ... Your mother. Our family. The pain of that loss is so overwhelming I risk falling even now. It's just so hard not to think of you. Think of where you are ..
She tries to silence it, tries to ignore the first time she'd seen, heard her father since she was seven.
It frightens me to imagine you grown, somehow working to oppose injustice in the galaxy, whether from a laboratory or a starfighter; it frightens me, and I think the Rebellion could ask for no better friend.
Her eyes squeeze shut as her breathing shallows. His words are etched forever in the cavern of her mind, her heart - the one where she had once kept the disgust and hatred meant only for Galen - that now felt emptied of their sharp, dangerous weapons.
"Yet if it isn't so? If I'm wrong, and you left the Rebellion and Saw behind but this message still finds you? You make me no less proud, Jyn. If you found a place in the galaxy untouched by war - a quiet life, maybe with a family - if you're happy, Jyn, then that's more than enough.
Is that what this is?, she wonders. Is this the place her father had imagined for her, dreamt for her - a place untouched by war - with the family she'd found in Cassian? Had Galen meant to exclude himself from that grouping? Hadn't he been her family, once?
The gnawing, eroding guilt begins to seep its way back into her, compounded by the rage she'd felt listening to Cassian's story. She wonders if Galen would've wanted the same for Cassian, had they met - would have seen the echoes of his daughter in a man promised to the Rebellion from such a young age. She thinks he would have, she thinks he would have liked him.
His words force her out of the overbearing fog of her mind, and she's grateful for it. Breathing returns to normal, she thinks the tremor in her hands has left (if they'd been tremoring at all). She exhales the breath of a laugh, turning to again kiss his jaw.
"You were there for it."
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…something like a fresh overwhelming of love.
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She wonders if the look she sees there, in his eyes, is what she hopes -
Or what she fears.
She flicks her head, nodding ever so slightly.
"It - it was my first." A thick, slow swallow. "You were my first." There's the grating feeling of guilt, now, at realizing the discrepancy between their first times - how undeserving she is to have experienced something so beautiful, so intrinsically breath-taking - while he lived with the demon he'd let loose into the room only moments before. "I - should've told you, before."
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When their lips part again, with his face still close to hers, his fingers gentle on her cheek, he says, "I hope I… there are questions I could have made clearer…"
…while his expressions and body and voice continued radiating his surge of achingly, warmly protective and humbled: …thank you…
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She knew her own life had been hard, in its own way, but comparatively, she felt like - No, don't compare; you can't compare. It will destroy you both.
A quiet, breathless sigh escapes her at the parting, her eyes closed and her tongue rolling out to capture whatever might be left of him.
"I can think of no one else I would have rather it been," she whispers. "Only you."
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"Don't apologize," she breathes, teeth nipping at his skin.
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CLOSED