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

[fishermansweater]

It's a difference between the two of them: Cassian asking so many questions, Finnick so careful not to admit ignorance. He's used to being ignorant, being the one who is so backward he's treated as entertainment, no more real or human than the Games themselves. For years he'd been an exciting novelty, expected to be amazed at the world around him, though he's become the jaded sophisticate. Here, though, he's been careful not to show what he doesn't know, in most situations. Some questions are safe enough, like finding someone to ask what those birds that aren't goslings are. But anything that relates to their situation, what it might be and what it might mean, he's tried to offer an opinion, let others opine, even encourage them to do so.

Cassian is outright admitting that he doesn't understand what Finnick says about the Games. Given what he's said so far, Finnick doubts that's from lack of education, even technology. After all, even in the districts, everyone has a television, when even something like a car is so rare in most places.

Finnick steps back, letting his hands drop in a signal to Cassian that he's finished, now. For all his lack of expertise, he's done a neat enough job rewrapping the man's hand.

"It means they're on television. It's a device, everyone in Panem has one, because there's mandatory programming you have to watch. It shows recordings, sound and vision. They record the Games, the whole time they're on, and send the recordings to every television in every home in Panem. That's broadcasting it. The whole time the Games are on, they're showing the pictures of what's happening. Whatever happens in the arena, the whole country's watching."

There's another pause, and he glances down, fingers reaching into the grass in search of ... nothing in particular, but finding a stone to run over, smooth, warm from the hot spring.

"Highlights are a selection of the best things that happened in a day, or in a whole Game, and a recap is like a summary of what's happened in the last day, or earlier in the Games. A rerun is when they show it again, after they've already broadcast it when it was happening. They show a lot of reruns."

[candor1]

"Vid transmitted open-channel to viewscreens," Cassian confirmed, more to himself than to Finnick. Didn't think Finnick would care about Cassian's terminology, nor particularly trying to teach translation (as with Jyn and Basic to Yaval). Just (hopefully) demonstrating that he understood after all and cementing the equivalences into his own mind by reinforcing with speech. The same tech or close enough.

"So the blanket surveillance is limited to the arena… Not everywhere in Panem?"

…Which means—which makes perfect sense to Finnick's worldview—Finnick must think this is an arena.

Cassian didn't feel particularly good about it, but the sick heaviness in his chest felt like he may have cracked it.

[fishermansweater]

The words Cassian says aren't familiar, but they're similar enough that Finnick thinks it probably means about the same. Either way, it seems to have answered Cassian's question well enough for his satisfaction, except that the next question is ...

Difficult.

It's not that the Capitol watches everything. They can't, not in the districts, though it's well enough known among the people of the Capitol that the government has surveillance cameras on public spaces in the Capitol. Finnick's long thought that's the case in at least some parts of the districts, too, but it's not known there. Not to those without a reason to be particularly paranoid about the Capitol watching them.

Like victors. Like Snow's pet whose main value to Panem is his desirability to the Capitol's wealthy elite and the amount of money they'll pay for him. He's certain his house is bugged, and Annie's, and all the other victors, just as much as he is that some parts of the district have hidden cameras. There'd been a reason when he and Annie really needed to talk in private, they'd sail out to the islands where only the fishermen go, and most of them not often because they don't have the time for leisure sailing the victors do.

Nobody knows that, though, until they become a victor. It's one of those silences that comprise the grand conspiracy of victory, the lie that the victors become free of the Games when they're freed from the Reaping.

The lie he has to be complicit in.

So he looks up, and he lets a little of the fear and unease show. A flash of vulnerability, too subtle to be seen on a camera, but surely, surely noticeable to Cassian.

"Just the arena," he confirms.

Finnick Odair is an excellent liar, but this time, he's not really trying not to be caught out.

It's just another of the lies everyone in Panem tells themselves, every day, just to survive.

[candor1]

Cassian's too-sharp eyes rake Finnick's face.

Then abruptly lower to the finished bandage on his hand.

Finnick has done a beautiful job. For a bit, Cassian had forgotten any pain.

…This is a risk. It might undo the progress they'd just made. But there was a chance it might also cement it. —take the wrong Cassian had unintentionally done to Finnick from the first and make it something shared. Put it back into Finnick's hands. Not power Cassian was trying to claim over Finnick, but power they could give to one another, create together. Against common odds.

Cassian brought up his good hand to experimentally touch the fastening of the bandage. Then his dark eyes flashed back up.

He stood, put out his good hand to touch Finnick's arm. Said, "This feels much better. Thank you." And, as if tentatively, drew them together.

Turned his face as if to kiss Finnick's cheek.

Face so obscured from any likely angle—Cassian didn't believe for a moment the surveillance had followed Finnick here, but he finally respected that it mattered that Finnick did—Cassian moved his lips almost voicelessly against Finnick's cheek. "What would be required for you to speak freely to me?"

We can do spycraft together if that's what will help. Until I can figure out how to prove to you this is something else.

[fishermansweater]

He'd played this very same game with Cassian earlier, when he'd used the cover of flirtation to whisper to him. He'd played it with Annie, when they'd first taken that leap together, stopped pretending to be just friends and started pretending to be new lovers driven together by the pressures of this place and the benefits of their alliance. So he understands what's happening and plays along, instead of freezing like he might have done if Cassian had done this earlier in their conversation, melts into his touch, leans his head a little towards Cassian's lips as though craving the warmth of his breath.

Let him play this game for whoever's watching. He lets Cassian's hand stay on his arm, lets Cassian draw closer to him.

Let their Gamemakers think there's a draw to infidelity in the attraction he's blamed himself for ever since he and Cassian first met. That protects Annie.

So he arches his neck, gives a self-satisfied little smile, then turns his head back towards Cassian.

"I can't speak freely to anyone," he whispers. "Not while we might be being watched."

[candor1]

Cassian hesitates.

Betray yourself and others a little less…

I never want to do it ever again…

No more lies…

Jyn?

Why did he feel driven to… just take the cautionary tale as that… someone similar—someone so much like him—taking what could be his heaven and insisting on making it a hell… turn away from that, abandon a brother to his self-made fate, and go, be satisfied in his own heaven with Jyn.

love, loyalty. hijacking and redirecting those. to separate, compete, rather than unify

Perhaps Finnick's paranoia was contagious. Perhaps Cassian had been avoiding his own regarding their unknown "hosts". That what had been so miraculously given could be as easily taken away.

Of course it can that's kriffing life it doesn't mean ascribing intent is any less self-centredly superstitious

Force, help me

Perhaps… it was just what the Empire and indeed the Alliance had never quite been able to beat out of Cassian after all. We help and serve each other. No matter what.

For a phantom flash, it was Cassian's body language that resembled what he had read in Finnick's earlier.

Please, man, please don't make me.

…But this was important. It had to be. Just as it had been important to recruit for the Alliance.

Give him the power back. Even if…

It had never been necessary with Jyn… Neither he nor she had ever had to sacrifice or compromise their own power to respect or serve the other's…

But if anyone in any universe had mastered avoiding psychological capture, it was Jyn Erso…

what was your first time?
you were there for it…

If anyone had done to Jyn what someone—many someones—have done to Finnick… nothing would be too self-compromising to try and help.

If self-defeatingly…?

Against Finnick, Cassian trembled.

He let it happen. Pay attention, Odair. Feel it. Role reversal, now. Will you become the inflictor

It might be more triggering to Finnick now… but it would stay with him later… See if hanging on to the old code is worth the price.

Turning his face after all…



Jyn.



…No. Cassian couldn't kiss him.

No. No more. I'm done sacrificing the smaller ideals for the larger ones. That's no kind of foundation. They won't stand.

Not when the larger ideal was Jyn.

I promised to be different. This is a greater good, too. Choosing her.

…And following his own advice to Finnick.

Don't carry the games with us.

He would join Finnick's to an extent. Not far enough to not know how to face Jyn. Not enough to hurt her.

Sacrificing one's own power entirely is no way to build someone else's.

Trust goes both ways.

Don't give up what you don't even know he might take without him having to fire a shot

The start had been visible, so Cassian enhanced the change of mind—visible wince, visible fear, a slight physical withdrawal. Not to pull away from Finnick. Just to change the tenor of their embrace. There won't be a sex scene for the 'highlights'. But seeking comfort may play too.

Shaking his head once more, Cassian ducked it as if embarrassed and put his forehead against Finnick's shoulder.

His good hand could still stick to the original choreography, though. (Promise more for the sponsors, for later.) It slid up Finnick's tight-muscled arm. Worked its way around the hard topography of Finnick's shoulders and back. Found the smooth passage of his spine to neck to cranium… buried his fingers under Finnick's hair.

…And so camouflaged, began to trace a pattern against the sensitive, nerve-rich skin of Finnick's scalp.

A. B. C. D.

Heaving a deep, visible breath, Cassian raised his head once more and put his face beside Finnick's. Breathed, "Do you know this alphabet"

cw: non-con mindset, ptsd

[fishermansweater]

Finnick has learned many things from Annie. Where he'd always been forced to surrender himself and his power, she's slowly, so slowly, taught him to take a little back. But while he's had to learn from the one person who'd taught him what it was not only to be wanted, but to want in return, he'd equally had to learn to set aside her lessons every time he boarded a train to the Capitol.

Cassian's tremble, though, is only faintly reminiscent, enough to feel uncertain for a moment. Not enough to stop Finnick feeling the dread of compulsion when Cassian looks at him, shifting his head slightly for the kiss.

He knows how impossible it is to say no, even without any single reason he can point at to comply, and with so many not to. But as though feeling the silent, almost invisible dread, Cassian doesn't move for the kiss. Instead, he turns, pressing his head against Finnick's shoulder, his hand sliding along Finnick's arm, the touch sparking revulsion and compulsion mixed in together, impossible to separate, so all he can do is act on instinct, tilt his head into the touch, close his eyes and hope, hope, this is all this is becoming.

He can feel that part of his mind that always rebels start to switch off, and he has to swallow back a sick feeling as the name Annie, Annie, Annie replays itself over and over through his mind, the name he always wants to spit back at them to tell them he's not theirs for the taking.

It's the whisper that draws his mind back, with a sudden jolt, back to that place where he can turn against them, rebound from their devastation to turn it back against them in the only way he can. Here, though, he has no vengeful payment to seek, just the need for attention, focus that he can't have while his mind slips out of his body.

It's a question, and a moment of forcing himself to feel the sensation on his skin is the answer.

He reaches a hand as if to caress Cassian's hair, offer his feigned apology or comfort for what he now realizes Cassian has turned into some sort of feigned misstep. Like Cassian's hand in his hair, Finnick's finger traces along Cassian's scalp.

Y E S.

[candor1]

Cassian's tense body goes a little limp against Finnick's. Thank the Force. This move wasn't for nothing.

They could stay this way apparently naturally for another moment, no more.

Cassian traced on Finnick's skin:

I W I L L W R I T E D O N T W R I T E B A C K

Unclear now but will make sense when Cassian's first letter is slipped under Finnick's door. Show that this isn't entrapment. Cassian isn't trying to get Finnick to leave a paper trail.

Just for Finnick to be able to engage with whatever Cassian can tell him without having to divert energy to the shields.

(Hopefully Cassian will figure out what in Hoth to say.)

It'll be up to Finnick to decide if/when they proceed from there.

And Cassian pulls away, bowed head shaking, keeping his eyes averted. "I'm sorry. …I'm sorry. …I'm going to go."

[fishermansweater]

His guard should be better.

His guard should never have slipped enough to let Cassian see fear. Now that it has, he's not sure he can ever stop feeling apprehensive about that weakness he'd shown, how easy it would be to exploit. Cassian's good: he's known very few people who could read and play him as well as this man can. Plutarch Heavensbee, perhaps. Coriolanus Snow, certainly, though Snow's weapons were more brutal.

Focus. He has to focus, because Cassian is writing something longer, more complex, on the too-sensitive skin of Finnick's scalp. He doesn't want to concentrate on that feeling, and his mind is trying to slip again, back into that distant nowhere-place it goes so that his body can do what it has to do.

This moment, he has to be here for this moment, and the next, and slowly piece together the string of letters that Cassian is forming on his skin.

"Understood," he breathes, because he can't not do what Cassian says. Agreement feels inevitable.

It's a relief too great for words when Cassian pulls away. It gets him away from that touch, that embrace, the feel of fingers in his hair, fingers that aren't Annie's, and he's never been allowed to care about that, but he still hates it, every time.

"Go," he agrees, nodding, taking another couple of steps back, to get more air between them. "Be with Jyn."

[candor1]

"Captain Andor!"

Cassian looked up from where he'd just deposited his duffle in the ship's hold; past Jyn, waiting to follow, now raising her eyebrow at him; to see Draven crossing the landing platform. Sparing Jyn a glance, Cassian left her and the ship to meet him.

His C.O., former mentor, recruiter, converter, tilted his head and Cassian understood. They stopped in the center of a clear space on the tarmac. There was no one around them and nothing anyone could hide behind to listen. Even among their own people… except they were a smaller subdivision of "their own", now; not just Rebels, but Intelligence. They all shared loyalty, but Intelligence didn't always share all is information. Not amongst its own let alone the rest of the Alliance.

They stopped face to face. Draven had his hands at his sides. Cassian's were clasped loosely behind his back. Draven was half a head taller than Cassian, which might be part of why, when they stood this close, for all Draven had groomed him into a full colleague, Cassian always felt a bit regressed.

Being taller, Draven had to bow his head to make sure Cassian (and no one else) heard him. And, perhaps, so that the back of Cassian's head would block the view of Draven's lips moving from the vantage of the ship Cassian had just left—from, potentially, Jyn's eyes.

Draven said in a low voice, "Galen Erso is vital to the Empire's weapons program." Cassian's brief nod. Draven met his eyes grimly. "Forget what you heard in there. There will be no extraction. You find him…"

Cassian's chin lifted slightly, eyes fixed on Draven's. (Don't…)

Draven didn't wince, but his brief exhalation between his teeth was equivalent. (I'm sorry.) "…you kill him."

Cassian looked away, mouth tightening.

Of course. Of course it wasn't enough to put him on a volatile mission to a precarious locale seeking an imbalanced warlord with a chip on his shoulder. (Or maybe just a chip. The shoulder might be gone by now.) It wasn't enough to add to that the unwelcome x-factor of another human. It wasn't enough that that human was as undisciplined, anarchic, convictionless, unpredictable, provocative, and aggravating—and who somehow connected with something in Cassian's chest that made it burn and hurt and be irritated all the more—as Jyn Erso. On top of all that… he would have to travel with her one-on-one, into a warzone, keep her safe, keep her trust, and try to keep everything at some impossible equilibrium; while having to conceal from her the exact thing that betrayed their express request of her, and, if he'd read her right (which he had) was most likely to provoke the least predictable of reactions. Any more explosives you want to add to that pile…?

Draven offered no apology or commisseration for Cassian's momentarily averted eyes (which would read between the two of them as clearly as a grimace). Only added, flatly, "Then and there."

Allowing one more millisecond to turn his inner rebellion to dispassionate, resigned detachment, Cassian lifted his eyes back to Draven's. Likewise didn't speak—no argument, no goodbye. Definitely no verbal agreement for a classified directive. Only meeting Draven's gaze and giving a single crisp nod.

Then turned on his heel and strode back to the ship. Where he would proceed to speak with Jyn as if nothing had changed. As if their purpose was still synchronized. As if nothing had happed.

…and instantly compromised regulation, precedent, and his mission (for the first time, not the last) to let her keep her stolen weapon.



Cassian raised his eyes back to Finnick. Though Finnick would never know it, the same look was in them as when he'd looked then at Draven.

Of course. You care about Jyn.

…Which wasn't fair… either time, but even less for Finnick. Who'd saved her. Who'd helped her. Helped them both.

But there was still that sense of… ludicrous irony.

But Cassian was hardly innocent or passive in either case. And then as now, there were reasons. Hopefully good ones.

So Cassian likewise nodded. This time, to complete the act, gave a smile. But the same again when he let all inner turmoil drop, to turn, and walk away.