La paz llegará, el amor siempre vivirá—No me ames, mas quedate otro dia

[candor1]

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 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)

Comments

[candor1]

There was a risk Bodhi might think Cassian was laughing at him, which he wasn't, but Cassian couldn't help it. "I haven't met many war heroes as self-deprecating as you," Cassian said. With pointedness and warmth. As if defending Bodhi from… Bodhi. Yes, trauma, uncertainty, the impossible, grief… but they were bound together by mutual self-sacrifice, and if Bodhi didn't realize he was absolutely anyone's equal… he deserved to.

[onlyeverdoubted]

It was a nice gesture. It just felt wholly undeserved. The kind of war hero who missed all but a few days of the war. And made it worse for the right side for all that time he missed. Right. "I don't remember doing a lot of difficult flying," he said dryly, eyes on his drink. "Actually, um, I think it was all covered by a general shuttle license."

[kestreldawn]

Jyn's been respectfully quiet, preferring (as usual) to listen rather than speak. Although she and Cassian are still discovering each other - past lives included - he's more familiar to her than Bodhi. They've had more time together. Part of her wants to let forth a barrage of questions about who Bodhi was, before - before Rogue One, before Jedha, before -

She wonders if he's still struggling with the effects of Bor Gullet, if the fountain managed to mend some of those broken mental strings. She knows better than to ask.

The other part of her, of course, adheres to the self-protective protocol of her life and knows there's no real need to know all the details of his life, not in the greater sense, anyway. Certainly it shows interest, it shows respect for himself as an individual with a lived life behind him. But it's not as though she has some greater purpose for the intel.

Still, she decides to pursue the latter part, a bit.

"Were you anything prior to being a pilot?"

[onlyeverdoubted]

He shifts in his chair a little, eyes still down. He's being irrational and he knows it. The questions are perfectly ordinary, questions he's answered in cantinas over drinks with dozens of pilots, mechanics, and landing pad crews. Questions he'll probably answer here plenty of times, too. It's how people get to know each other. Sometimes he can even cue himself close enough to the script to ask the same questions back. But it's different with these two. His life is such a small, banal thing beside theirs, and talking around the parts he doesn't dare talk about isn't the same with someone who knows something of them already.

Wanting to escape this conversation is just as cowardly as everything else he's ever done, though, and he stays put. "Kept accounts for my mother?" Bad idea thinking about her. There's no reason at all to think she wasn't in the city when... "I wasn't quite, um, eighteen when I--when I left for the academy. Not a lot of chance to..."

[candor1]

It doesn't take a spy's skill set to tell that this is backfiring.

Hard or impossible as it may be for Bodhi to think so yet, Cassian has no negative judgment for what Bodhi's apparently feeling. "Normal" conversation can turn so easily to interrogation… even for someon who hadn't so recently, literally, brutally been interrogated. As Bodhi had. If anything, seeing Bodhi's difficulty gave Cassian a renewed sense of regard for him. Yes, passing for normal could be hard work indeed. Passing or failing, ideally, wasn't the metric that mattered. Just taking on the task was heroic.

So… for all he was intent never again to outright lie, it was okay to choose to play. It wasn't quite working to bring Bodhi out to where they (mercifully) were; time to try joining Bodhi where he was.

Which was… to see himself as inferior, outside.

All right. Simple countermove. Instead of trying to draw Bodhi out to build him up, Cassian could work on humanizing himself.

All of which assessment took about the span of a heartbeat.

First and easiest; Cassian slung his arm over the back of his chair. It was a conscious choice, but still natural—remembering to counteract what was unnatural. But by practice had become default. It was subtle enough but broke all the straight lines of his too-honed posture. They didn't have to wait here to be given permission to be "at ease". But if any part of Bodhi was still considering Cassian a superior officer, then it's okay, he was granting it.

Hopefully none of this would actually catch Bodhi's (or Jyn's—though she had caught onto him too quickly even the first time round) conscious attention. Cassian wasn't trying to manipulate him. Just help modulate the scenario.

Next: force himself to share something he wasn't particularly comfortable with. …And Bodhi had been talking about the Academy, and not feeling he'd made enough of himself… and had just had that flash in his eyes mentioning his mother…

For all it's his tactical brain making these suggestions… it doesn't mean that when Cassian follows them, the results aren't genuine.

They are.

Looking into his glass, gently swirling the contents, Cassian managed to keep his tone amiable. But there was also the air of mutual confession. "I understand, I think… I was a kid but I was raised at the Academy. Sort of. Circumstances intervened when I was still pretty young." They probably both know how young. "But my father took me there with him, before I was old enough to remember anything else. The one thing I probably did understand fully was how it left him no time, no room, for anything else. Didn't really want him to be an individual person. Not even for a son. He was training for Imperial intelligence." A somewhat shamefaced smile, focused on Bodhi, with an including glance at Jyn. "I don't know if that's irony or not." He'd certainly found it hard to swallow when that was the track he was headhunted for with the Rebellion.

[kestreldawn]

The shift in Cassian's posture isn't unnoticed, but she doesn't draw attention to it. She subtly mirrors, not in an overly conspicuous way, but allows herself to relax. Sits back to press her body against the rear of the seat, casually crosses her legs at the ankles, rests the butt of her glass in her lap. She's picked up the same uncomfortable, nervous tension that Cassian has. For all of the things he did for them, the last thing Jyn wants to do is make Bodhi more anxious than he already is.

She bites the tip of her tongue, trying to will herself to share bits of her own past with Bodhi (Cassian already knows some of it), and is grateful that Cassian goes first. Listens to him intently, admires and respects his willingness to share and open himself up. Softens her expression when he glances at her, brings her attention back to Bodhi. Inhales to fortify herself.

"You already know my father," Jyn starts, stops, corrects herself, "Already knew my father. I'd been born on Vallt, in a separatist prison. I don't remember any of it, but I was told we'd gone from Vallt to Coruscant to Lokori and then back to Coruscant. I remember the second time." Her eyes go somewhere distant, recalling the memories. "Then we escaped to Lah'mu. Lived peacefully for a few years, until -" She shifts in the seat, eyes falling to her glass. "Krennic came, found us. My father had me run, tried to save my mother and me, but my mother went back. Shot Krennic in the shoulder and then was shot by his troops. I ran to a bunker he'd created, hid. They took my father." It's all a list of rather sterile facts, and there's only a slight wavering in her voice to betray the stoic exterior she's displaying - but after she's done, she clears her throat, shifts again in her seat, takes a long sip of water. Shrugs somewhat weakly. "Just once, I want to hear about someone who's had a good childhood," she mutters, a bitter laugh following.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Bodhi's not conscious of most of Cassian's intricate maneuvers, and they work to some degree. He is glad of what's clearly an effort not to try and pin him down, though. Not all of what he takes from it is quite what his companions might have wanted--that Cassian was a sort of defector himself and from a much earlier age, and simply better, and that his own short, reluctant sentences have been met with much more thoughtful, thorough returns than they deserved. He's a bit more comfortable, but also very glad Jyn chimes in before he has to try to find an answer.

And then he's not, but at least squirming over mention of Galen is an entirely different level of discomfort. His own feelings aren't even relevant. He's guilty over even thinking of the man with Jyn there. Any time together, any words and memories, any importance Galen had for him feels stolen from the daughter he was separated from. Part of him wants to talk to her about her father, wants to go over the details that seem safe and the moments he turns over in his own head all the time, but even broaching the subject feels like a reminder she didn't have him. And Bodhi did.

It's lucky that he already knows a bit of that story from Galen's end. Being flustered distracts him a bit from listening, but he gets the gist and can fill in any holes he missed. Once again, they gave him quite a bit in return for, what, an acknowledgement that he has the job they already know he had and that he didn't accomplish much as a teenager? A proper answer feels as much like a duty as a natural gesture, but it's something. Bodhi gets most places by roundabout ways.

"The--the childhood bit was fine. Early on." War happened all at once for Jedha. There was no front on a little Mid-Rim world with a strong Jedi presence and not much significance beyond the religious. Before Imperial occupation, there were only disquieting rumors that bothered grown-ups. "School, temple visits. My... My parents owned a tea shop." He's not sure if he's appreciably increased his contribution. Most of those were sentence fragments at best. Funny, if he thinks farther back, it stings less. The NiJedha seen through the child's eyes is no less gone than the one he saw destroyed.

[candor1]

Cassian nodded, with a maybe-sad nearly-smile, at Jyn's words.

His expression sombred, if only subtly (having not had far to go), at Bodhi's. Somehow picking up on Bodhi's thoughts, or just because they ran tandem to his own—the latter, if the sudden, different timbre of quietness in his voice was anything to go by—

"What was Jedha like," Cassian asked, "before Imperial occupation?"

…his personal, eternal, underlying question:

was it justified
was I right
was it worth it

[onlyeverdoubted]

That was too big a question for one person to try to answer, one person who had only a child's impressions and had tried to fly away from those memories for years, at that. He only dares to try because he owes them that much. He's not really sure why the captain wants to know, but he does his best. "Alive. It was... it was always a little place, out of the way aside from Pilgrims, Monks, and Jedi, but that was enough to keep more than the temple, well, I didn't study there much. Maybe I never would have. I was too young..." The words spill out too fast and he reigns himself in carefully, trying to sort out those thoughts. His parents had been pious but practical. Religious instruction was present, but not forced, and he'd only been five years old when the hammer came down. And after that it wasn't really safe to talk about, especially not to a dreamy, distractible chatterbox of a child.

He tries again. "The--the market wasn't always like that. Odd things, yes, anywhere you mixed people from so many worlds, but there was..." All the words that come to mind feel pretentious or overwrought. Elegant, stately--It was just life. Life with dignity and a community that never dreamed it would fracture. "It all fit together." He knows that's meaningless, but he can't find words that would mean anything.