#rebelcaptain fanfic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dilf-din · 2 months

Text

When You Call, I Come Running

(A Rebelcaptain Fic)

Febuwhump Day 14: Blood-Stained Tiles

WC: 2450

Warnings: canon typical violence, suicide mention, Dark!Cassian almost

A/N: hi happy Valentine’s Day please don’t hate me for whumping up our babies!!!!

Cassian’s jaw was set hard, headset on, eyes flitting between the green dot on the map and the breaking atmosphere around him. Grey clouds thick like smog parted against the nose of his ship as he descended towards the surface, taking much longer than he anticipated before he was met with a black glassy sea and sky, mirroring each other in their churning. Two full moons like beacons in the storm shone white hot light through the thundering clouds, casting scattered reflections across the choppy waves. Everything was dark as pitch, save for those silver pinpricks.

All at once, the planet flashed pure white as lightning seemed to engulf the entire firmament above him. Chains of electricity like string lights over a balcony. It made his hair stand on end.

In between the flashes, the metal runways and landing pads lit up bright silver with dim red lights lining them, and he adjusted his course to land on the nearest one. He couldn’t get his feet on the ground fast enough, get to her fast enough.

He thought of his heated exchange with Mon Mothma before jumping on the nearest ship and speeding towards Jyn.

“How could you send her out alone? With everything going on, you should’ve waited for me!” he spat, the vein in his neck straining along with his voice.

“You know we don’t always have time as an ally,” she said coolly, not backing down as he dominated her space.

“How can you be so nonchalant about this? One of your best operatives has been missing for days and nobody has lifted a kriffing finger to go after her!” he continued to shout.

“They know you’ll come after her, and that’s exactly why you cannot go.”

Cassian shifted his weight from one foot to the other and swallowed hard.

“They asked for the locations of our fleets along wi—“

“And you think I’ll give it all up that easily? Is that it? You think I’ll just betray the rebellion?”

“For her, I think you would,” her eyes softened though her mouth stayed in a hard line. Mon held a very delicate position with Cassian, somewhere between his superior and his friend. She knew the affection he held for Jyn, but she also knew how close they were to winning this war.

“I’m sorry but I can’t allow you to compromise our position,” she said firmly, “You are dismissed, Captain.”

When he stormed out of the conference room, she sank into her chair once more, knowing that whatever he was about to do would not end well. She hated to admit that she was rooting for the rebellion over Cassian Andor’s personal interests.

The wind shook the wings of his ship like they were made of paper, shuddering pathetically as he unceremoniously landed on a waterlogged platform. Cassian drew his hood tight around his chin and double checked the blasters in each inner pocket. He grabbed the tracking device with Jyn’s life source on it and gave it another stare as the green dot seemed to falter. He chalked it up to the storm, buried any concerns he might have before they took root. He was here. She was fine.

He walked down the platform quickly, heavy boots struggling to find traction on the smooth walkway. Rain pelted him from every direction, drenching him through every layer before he had even made it a few feet. The chill from the wind was already clinging to him as it whipped the tails of his jacket behind him. Each step felt like a mile. He feared that at any moment, he would topple over the edge into the sea and never be seen again.

Another flash of lightning and he could see he was only halfway across the bridge. Using every ounce of might he had, he pushed into the gale, pushed towards Jyn. He glanced at the tracker again to find the screen completely blank. It had to be the storm. His blood was running cold from the bite of the wind, but that lit a fire in him.

Cassian began to run, feet pounding and slipping against the thin metal, sending faraway echos into the night. Every breath of cold air was like a knife in his esophagus.

A dim light ahead like a doorway finally came into view. He pushed forward, tripping the sensor and causing it to open. He stumbled inside and transitioned from black nothingness to white nothingness. The hallway he found himself in felt clinical. Sickly fluorescent lighting caused him to squint as his vision adjusted. Water pooled around his feet as he tried to get his bearings. There was no one, organic or inorganic, in sight.

Cassian let the hood fall from his head and shook some of the water out of his hair as he drew his blaster and started down the hallway.

Adrenaline fueled his every move as he tried to stealthily slip through the maze of all white halls. He knew there were cameras, but he didn’t have time to take them out. He wanted someone to find him so he could make them take him to Jyn, so he could make them pay.

He finally crossed a threshold and came face to face with a woman. She had dark hair, neatly braided and pulled back from her face, and large round eyes. She seemed frightened when he spoke to her.

“Where do you keep the prisoners?” he asked.

Her eyes widened even more.

“Answer me!” he barked.

Her lip trembled and he realized that she must not speak basic.

He pressed the barrel of his blaster to her temple, “Take me to the prisoners,” he repeated firmly.

She began to cry, softly muttering in a tongue he didn’t recognize. She started walking him through the labyrinth of halls with trembling hands at her sides. Her high heels clicked loudly against the bright tiles, each step like a second shaved off of the time he had left to get to Jyn.

He wondered where everyone else was. The emptiness was beginning to breed paranoia in his head, and he was careful to check over his shoulder each time they rounded a corner.

Suddenly, they came face to face with a pair of stormtroopers, and the woman let out a pathetic cry as she crumpled to the ground. Cassian quickly dropped one with a fatal blaster bolt and pinned the other to the wall, his forearm tight across his neck.

“Take me to the prisoner, the girl,” he said filled with venom.

Behind him the woman continued to weep softly, huddled into a small ball against the wall with her hands above her head. He was thankful that he didn’t have to pull the trigger. She didn’t look evil, just like someone trying to make ends meet.

As the stormtrooper clunked heavily down the hall with hands up, Cassian’s hearing started to get fuzzy. Something felt off. He tried to shake it as he followed the white form in front of him to another wing of the facility where apparently all the action had been happening.

There were several stormtroopers in this hall alone. Cassian dropped the one in front of him with a shot to the head, and ducked behind the doorway to start firing off precise shots at each of the bodies starting to converge on him.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine clean shots. Nine bodies thudding to the ground as he approached what appeared to be a cell. He swiped a keycard from one of the troopers and scanned it at the data station. A green light of approval hummed above the door, and he walked in with a triumphant look on his face.

But his smile quickly faded when he saw Jyn, lying on the floor, glassy eyes and a hint of a smile. Dead.

No. She couldn’t be dead. This couldn’t be happening. There was another dead trooper lying a few feet from her. Cassian traced the scuffs on the floor to try to piece it together. His eyes followed the line of the trooper’s outstretched hand to Jyn’s limp one. Blaster in hand, fresh hole in her head. The pure white tiles were splattered with her blood. Her precious blood. Staining everything around her red.

Cassian tried to reason through it. The trooper came in. She overpowered him. He began to beat her. She took his blaster and she…. He couldn’t even finish the thought. Before he knew it he was on his knees in the corner spewing bile. His vision was swimming as he grasped desperately at the smooth floor for anything to ground him.

He let out a scream deep from within as he crawled towards her lifeless body, his hands shaking violently.

“Jyn,” he whispered.

He took her cheek in his hand, still warm.

This had just happened. He had just missed it.

Just another minute sooner and she would be in his arms, breathing in his scent like she was supposed to be.

If he hadn’t argued with Mon for so long. If he had been faster on the bridge. If if if.

Each realization was like a blaster bolt ringing inside of his head. The compounding pressure made him feel like he was going to explode at any second. His vision began to turn white with rage. He didn’t need to blame himself. The imperials were to blame. Right on cue, he heard frantic footsteps approaching. Without looking up from her body, he raised his blaster over his shoulder and fired once.

Thud.

Cassian turned to see a crumpled body sporting a grey officer’s uniform.

“I’ll be back for you,” he whispered to Jyn, caressing her cheek once more before rising to his feet. Cassian took the gun from Jyn’s outstretched hand and primed it, heading back into the hallway.

With calm, sure steps, he searched every wing of the facility, blasting everyone he saw. Every shot hit its target, every body fell lifeless. Officers, stormtroopers, scientists, sanitation workers. He didn’t think twice, he mowed each one down. It was as if his body was on autopilot, dealing out retribution like the reaper.

With a faraway look in his eyes, he marched back into the hallway Jyn was being held on.

Muffled crying carried to his ears from another corridor. Cassian walked through the arched doorway to see the dark haired woman from before still crouched in the same position. He lifted the blaster once more and let a shot go right between her eyes.

Once he was sure he had killed every imperial bastard on the godforsaken planet, he backtracked one more time to the holding cell, stepping on the slain trooper’s hand as he walked over his bulky corpse, taking satisfaction in the crunch of bone and armor beneath his heel.

Cassian stripped his jacket off and began to prop Jyn up, swallowing down the memories of what she felt like in his arms when she was full of life. He wrapped the long jacket around her body and pulled the hood up to keep her hair dry. He zipped it snugly just beneath her chin and almost smiled at the way the sleeves fell past her fingertips. She stole his jackets often, always claiming that she ran colder than he did.

He scooped her into his arms and tucked her face into his shoulder, pressing a kiss to her remaining smooth temple before navigating back to the landing pad.

As he walked he spoke softly to her, not even aware that he was doing so at first.

“Mon’s going to kill me for coming out here,” he chuckled, “You should’ve seen her, Jyn. You know the way her eyebrow twitches when she’s trying to stay composed.”

“Everyone will be so happy to see you,” he said softly as he nuzzled the side of her head with his nose.

When he made it to the door he came in through, he paused to draw the hood around her face one more.

“Just another quick walk, almost there,” he murmured, readjusting his grip and holding her tight to his chest.

The rain had lulled to a drizzle for the time being, but the wind was just as strong. Thankfully, the added weight of her body held him steady as he trekked through the darkness back to the ship.

Cassian clambered up the ramp, his limbs starting to fatigue from carrying her so far, but he set her down gently on the pull out cot, making sure she was secure before assuming his seat in the cockpit.

“Almost home,” he said over his shoulder, an unsettling smile on his face.

Cassian shook awake, sweat drenching through his night clothes and the sheets. He pushed the hair back from his forehead and tried to deep breathe. The feel of the threadbare blanket and the sound of the fan humming helped to ground him. Glancing at the empty spot beside him and the warm light coming in through the shades, he guessed he slept later than normal. He chugged the stale water sitting on his nightstand and headed downstairs.

The clay mug he used every morning sat perched on the drying rack beside the sink, ready to be filled with caf to wake him up fully. He splashed some cool water on his face while the pot behind him bubbled and brewed.

Those stale beans quickly transformed into a warm, welcome scent that he looked forward to each morning. Routine had been his close friend after the war. He sought stability, ate the same things, mended the same old clothes.

When his pot of caf was done, Cassian poured the dark liquid to the same line that had been stained into the side of the light brown mug from years of use, and let himself out the back door.

He lowered himself into the open chair with a groan.

“My knees aren’t what they used to be,” he explained with a chuckle. The light filtered through the cover of trees and caught his stubble, some specks of white gleamed where it used to be all dark in his youth.

He sipped his caf for a few minutes in silence, taking in the warmth of the late morning sun, the hum of the insects, and the discordant song of the frogs in the thicket beyond. The pulse of life continued on, as if the world didn’t know what had been lost.

“I had the dream again,” he said softly, his hand reached out to brush the stone that sat in the garden bed he had made for her. His fingers traced each letter and he imagined, like he always did, that if was the soft contours of her body instead.

Here lies Jyn Erso, daughter of stardust.

#febuwhump #febuwhump 2024 #rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptain fanfic

25 notes · View notes

mostthingskenobi · 3 months

Text

CASSIAN'S RECKONING - Chapter 17: The Absolution

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Both Jyn and Cassian carry a lot of pain and darkness… and they don't have to hide it from each other. Enjoy some meaningful fluff.

Just want to say thank you to the folks reading this fic <3 I hope you are enjoying it :)

READ THE FIC ON AO3

THIS IS A WHUMPY FIC W/GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE. PLEASE HEED THE TAGS ON AO3.

——————–

CHAPTER 17: THE ABSOLUTION

He could hear her screaming.

The sound echoed off the star destroyer’s sterile walls and glossy black floor with a brittleness that stripped Cassian’s nerves.

He ran after her, down corridors, up stairs, through vaults. But she always disappeared around the next corner, dragged away by growling death troopers.

“Jyn!” He shouted her name over and over, running as fast as his exhausted legs would carry him, sweat beading on his brow and soaking through his shirt.

Her screams changed from frightened to desperate before abruptly stopping all together. The silence was more tormenting than the screams. He forced himself to run faster; he couldn’t let the Empire hurt her.

Cassian rounded the next corner and entered a dark hall, the walls black, the lights red and low. He skidded to a stop. There, at the end, stood Tarkin, his posture like a razor’s edge, hands behind his back, jaw jutting upward in a proud smirk.

On the floor between the Grand Moff’s feet was Jyn’s twisted and broken body. Blood seeped across the durasteel in a black pool.

“Come closer,” Tarkin demanded softly.

Cassian obeyed, taking slow, unsteady steps. The closer he got, the more Jyn came into focus. He knelt down and pulled her into his arms. He tried to wipe the blood from her face, tried to rouse her, tried to stop the dark wave of fear that threatened to swallow him whole. “Jyn,” he said gently, his voice breaking. Tears fell from his lashes onto her cheeks as he realized she was dead.

“She told us everything she knew.” Tarkin leered. “Her blood is on your hands.”

A massive explosion suddenly shook the ship. Instinctively, Cassian protectively pulled Jyn tighter against him before turning on his knees to see what had happened. His breath froze in his lungs as he watched the star destroyer dissolved, replaced by a salty sea lapping on a sandy shoreline. The horizon blazed with a churning orange cloud that came racing forward across the water, consuming, burning, vaporizing everything in its path.

He clutched Jyn’s limp body against his chest, too weak to resist fate any longer, burying his face in her hair. He wanted to scream; instead, he squeezed his eyes shut until the flames devoured them…

…Cassian gasped and bolted up, promptly smacking his face against the over-hanging bulkhead. The blow dropped him hard and fast. Groaning, he clasped his aching forehead as the nightmare receded. He had known all along it was a dream; the unfolding scenes had never tricked him into believing they were real. But that didn’t make it any less disturbing.

Desperation, fear, exhaustion ran loops in his head.

And Jyn, her blood smeared across his hands, dead, empty, cold.

He shook himself, forcing the lingering discomfort away, and threw his legs over the side of his bunk before walking to the locker. Popping it open he gazed at his reflection in the mirror on the back of the door as he pulled on a shirt and pants. He looked more tired now than before he had gone to sleep. He gingerly prodded his face where he’d struck it on the bed; a bruise was already forming. “Good work,” he muttered sarcastically. He slammed the locker shut and went in search of food.

——————–

Rogue Crew had started playing cards in the evenings right after Scarif. It had been a simple way to keep each other company on Yavin, to offer a safe place to escape the residual disquiet they each carried, a touchstone of normalcy. Cassian didn’t usually have the patience for games and he found cards particularly boring. But laughing with people he actually considered his friends was a rarity, so he had taken advantage of it as much as possible. He was grateful to revisit the tradition now aboard the Redemption.

The group had a box turned on its side for a table positioned between their racks. Jyn made space for Cassian to sit next to her on her bunk while everyone else dragged chairs around the box’s other edges. They played sabacc and sipped a cold, fermented ginger tea that Chirrut provided. For a few hours they were able to forget the Empire and war and death.

“What happened to your forehead?” Jyn asked as they played.

Cassian wasn’t embarrassed. Instead, he smiled. “I hit it on my rack.”

Bodhi winced.

“You must have a hard skull,” Baze said, totally serious.

Melshi, who occasionally joined the group and was present this evening, snorted into his glass.

“You’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself,” Bodhi said.

“Can you imagine? I survive prison, Scarif, and Tarkin only to kill myself getting out of bed.” It was the kind of dark humor they all shared.

They played until the hour grew late and only stopped when Cassian started yawning. The party broke ranks and, as he stood to leave, he caught Jyn’s eye. “You want to walk with me?” He felt Bodhi glance at them, listening in, so Cassian hurried to remove any inkling of something gossip-worthy. “I need you to bring me up to speed on the officers’ briefing I missed.”

“Sure. I’m heading up top,” Jyn said, rising to her feet. “I have to stop in the ready room to pick up orders.”

They moved through the rows of racks and maneuvered toward the corridor. “So, what did I miss?” Cassian asked.

“Nothing you don’t already know. The fleet is going to be in constant motion until a more permanent base can be found. They’ve been scouting locations for years, so there are some immediate possibilities. Brass is dispersing several teams tasked with making more comprehensive evaluations of these locations. We’ll be on standby until they return. No non-essential missions. Everyone is grounded until further notice.”

“Sounds boring and dangerous.”

“My thoughts exactly. When people get bored, they get sloppy.”

“Let’s just hope the Empire doesn’t find us.”

Jyn was suddenly uneasy. “The thought of the Empire attacking while we’re trapped on this ship terrifies me. We’d be sitting ducks; nowhere to run, no way to fight back.”

He realized she was talking about Rogue One and not the Alliance. For the first time possibly ever, she had a real sense of belonging and a found-family she wanted to protect. Cassian understood the alarm she felt; fear of loss had snapped at his heels his entire life.

“I used to think I was brave,” she carried on quietly, almost to herself, deep in thought. “But ever since Scarif, I feel like I’ve lost my nerve.”

“I don’t see that,” Cassian replied honestly.

“You don’t?”

“No. To me, you seem to have nerves of steel.”

“I wish I was more like you.”

That nearly stopped him in his tracks. “What do you mean?” he asked in disbelief.

“Every situation we’re in, you always seem to manage it. Nothing phases you, at least not for long. You have an uncanny ability to push on.”

Cassian suddenly felt very cold. “That’s what happens when you lose everything you’ve ever cared about,” he said darkly. “It changes your perspective on what’s tolerable.” He glanced at her. “You don’t think you’re like that? You’re not able to push on?”

She didn’t respond; her brain was sifting through a lifetime of memories.

“A woman who survived being abandoned, who lost her parents and her home; a woman who was cast out by Saw Gerrera only to end up being manipulated into helping the Alliance; a woman who risked her life to rescued a little girl in the Jedha streets and who climbed a burning-hot datatower to steal the Death Star plans?” He shook his head. “Jyn, you’re the strongest person I know.”

These observations meant more to her than Cassian would ever understand. Though she felt awkward accepting the compliment, she felt touched that he’d seen past what she showed on the surface. Even so, Jyn felt unworthy. “You didn’t see all the moments where I was weak, where I betrayed people to save my own skin.”

Their pace had slowed as they walked through the empty corridors.

He was quiet for so long Jyn worried she’d said the wrong thing, confessed too much, and now he was second guessing how he saw her. “We aren’t born strong,” he finally said quietly. “We’re made strong by our mistakes. Sometimes terrible things have to happen in order for us to find our potential.”

Cassian had told her a little about his past; she knew demons haunted them both. In her opinion, she had no right to judge people by their history, though she didn’t extend that courtesy to herself. Jyn knew what she was; a survivor, a rat. Cassian seemed ready to absolve her, but she wasn’t sure she could forgive herself yet. She’d been lost, walking a dark and lonely path, but seeing her father again, meeting Cassian and the rest of Rogue One, had righted her, had given her a light to follow in the storm. Galen Erso sacrificed himself for the greater good; Jyn wanted to be more like that and less like the tip of a spear that Saw Gerrera had made her.

“Strength isn’t the same as being brave,” she finally replied. “Fear brings out the worst in me. You never seem to be afraid. I wish I could be like that; I wish I was fearless.”

Cassian stopped walking and turned toward her. “I’m not fearless. I’m always afraid.” She looked up at him in disbelief. “Ever since I was a boy I’ve been afraid, but I don’t let fear keep me from taking action.”

They looked in each other’s eyes for a long time.

“I know you’re feeling a little exposed, a little unsafe; after everything that’s happened I’d expect nothing less. But that doesn’t mean you’re not brave,” he said. “I’ve never seen someone manage their fear like you.”

Jyn bit her lip and looked away. “There’s a moment I can’t get out of my head, where I pushed through, managed my fear. It’s a moment that made me hate myself.”

She didn’t elaborate so he asked, “When?”

“On Scarif. After you fell.” She curled in on herself, withdrawing from him. “I didn’t want to just leave you there.”

Cassian understood; being left behind, abandoned, discarded caused a pain in Jyn’s heart that might never be healed.

“You told me to keep going. I knew I had to. But I hated myself for it. Whether you were alive or dead, I was surrendering you to the Empire.”

“We had a job to do. We were fighting for something bigger than ourselves, something important.”

Her cheeks became hot, though she managed to remain composed. She looked up at him. “You’re important, Cassian.”

An expression flashed across his face that Jyn had never seen, something vulnerable and raw. She saw him catch his breath.

“Has no one ever told you that before?”

His eyes were fixed on her, his breathing heavy as he fought to control a sudden wave of emotion, his mouth turning down at the corners. Jyn had unknowingly hit a nerve. She stepped nearer and took hold of the front of his jacket.

“I’m nothing special,” he said, his voice dark and low.

“That isn’t true.”

He shrugged. “I’m just one person.”

Her grip constricted and she pulled him closer. “You are important. To the Rebellion, to Rogue Squad… to me.”

His gaze tightened, as though he were receiving kindness for the first time in his life and the experience was so overdue it pained him.

Jyn suddenly understood; he truly believed he was expendable because no one had ever told him otherwise. She cupped his face in her hands. “You’ve given so much of yourself. We all use you; we all take from your strength. It isn’t fair.” He gripped her wrists and leaned into her touch, needing the comfort. “You might tell yourself that you have nothing left to lose, so there’s no harm in risking your life for the cause. But I think it’s the opposite. You know the pain of loss so intimately that you sacrifice everything in the hopes of giving others the safety you never had.” His breathing had become shuddering rasps as her words cut through every piece of emotional armor he wore. “I’m proud of you, Cassian.”

He stiffened, fighting back feelings that threatened to overwhelm him.

Maarva’s final words rang in his ears, delivered to him in a dark sewer by his best friend Brasso, words layered with the forgiveness and absolution only a mother’s love could offer. Tell him, none of this is his fault. It was already burning, he’s just the first spark of the fire. Tell him, he knows everything he needs to know and feels everything he needs to feel. And when the day comes and those two pull together, he will be an unstoppable force for good. Tell him, I love him more than anything he could ever do wrong.

He had always lived by his own code. But the Empire’s never-ending ruthlessness had hardened Cassian over the years. Jyn had unwittingly made him look at himself with fresh eyes. At first, he hadn’t liked what he discovered. But, in a short period of time, she had reignited his sense of self, unintentionally reconnected him with who he wished he could be without the Empire looming over all existence. Cassian wanted to be strong without being brutal. He wanted to be brave without being callous. He wanted to thrive without desperation. If Jyn was proud of him, perhaps that meant he had begun achieving these small victories. They hadn’t known each other long, but she always made him feel seen, like he existed with more intensity now that she was in his life.

Cassian wrapped his arms around Jyn, pulling her body against him, his hands pressed across her back. All he wanted was to hold her, to feel safe, to disappear into a reality where Scarif and Tarkin and IT-O droids didn’t exist. Jyn responded instantly to his touch, pressing her cheek against his, almost sighing with relief as her arms went around his neck. He closed his eyes and thought, I love you more than anything you could ever do wrong.

——————–

END NOTES

NEXT CHAPTER IS CALLED “THE REACH” - Perhaps it's a proximity trope…but I don't care. It's my story and I can do what I want :) You're welcome.

Thank you for reading!

Likes, comments, and reblogs are very welcome!

Much love!

——————–

READ IT ON AO3- Kudos and Comments Welcome :-)

READ CHAPTER 1 “The Razor”

READ CHAPTER 2 “The Scythe”

READ CHAPTER 3 “The Cold”

READ CHAPTER 4 “The Expendable”

READ CHAPTER 5 “The Truth”

READ CHAPTER 6 “The Detritus”

READ CHAPTER 7 “The Salt”

READ CHAPTER 8 “The Power”

READ CHAPTER 9 “The Betrayal”

REACH CHAPTER 10 “The Ruse”

READ CHAPTER 11 “The Reprieve”

READ CHAPTER 12 “The Ghosts”

READ CHAPTER 13 “The Redemption”

READ CHAPTER 14 “The Spoils”

READ CHAPTER 15 “The Interrogation”

READ CHAPTER 16 “The Rogues”

READ CHAPTER 17 "The Absolution"

READ CHAPTER 18 “The Reach”

READ CHAPTER 19 “The Hologram”

READ CHAPTER 20 “The Divide”

READ CHAPTER 21 “The Cost”

#rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptain fanfic #cassian #cassian andor #andor #cassian andor fic #cassian andor fanfiction #jyn #jyn erso #jyn x cassian #jyn and cassian #jyn erso fic #rogue one #rogue one fic #tarkin #baze malbus #chirrut imwe #bodhi rook

17 notes · View notes

sesamestreep · 7 months

Note

Jyn/Cassian, 11

11. 3 AM and I'm still awake (from this prompt list) sometimes, in order to defeat the prompts that are still in your inbox after a YEAR, you have to go into the archives, find an AU you wrote in 2019 (ON PAPER), type it up, and post the first chapter as a prompt fill even though the full fic is incomplete and that stresses you out to think about. this is one of those times. known affectionately amongst a small circle of mutuals by its draft name "sir, this is an IHOP", I'm releasing this one from the vault, please clap... cross posted to AO3 here 🌒🌔

The question Jyn gets asked the most when she tells people she works the overnight shift at a 24-hour diner is, “How do you do it?” As if she’s just admitted to shooting herself out of a canon for a living, which, to be fair, is a thing she wanted to do as a career when she was nine, but that’s beside the point.

The answer to this question is simple: you get used to it. Or, in Jyn’s experience, your life sucks for three weeks while you get used to it and then you get used to it. After that, the weird hours and irregular sleep schedule just become routine.

To be fair, she only started doing the graveyard shift in the first place because she wasn’t sleeping at night anyway and she could get more hours that way. Now, sometimes, she sleeps perfectly well in the daytime when everyone else is at work and then, other times, she doesn’t sleep at all and becomes convinced that she’s the first human being who was born with a biological indifference to sleep. Either way, she manages.

And it’s not actually that bad. The tips are a little worse because there’s fewer customers and they tend to be drunks or insomniacs or plain weirdos who don’t get the concept of twenty percent for good service and usually leave her whatever change they have on them. And sometimes it’s so dead that Jyn literally counts the seconds on the big clock by the door. But it’s also calmer than any other shift at the diner, and sometimes people feel so bad for her being up all night that they tip her extra, which is nice. It all balances out, really.

That being said, the overnight shift doesn’t lend itself to regulars the way other shifts do. She has some, but they don’t tend to be regular regulars. At most, she sees the same drunk college students show up there for breakfast at two a.m. but not the same day every week. Her co-workers that work other shifts talk about old couples that come in for dinner three times a week and always want to sit in the same booth, or the father and daughter who get breakfast every Saturday together that the entire staff fawns over. Jyn doesn’t get regulars like that, and even if she sees the same people, most people don’t want to make conversation as they’re inhaling pancakes in the wee hours of the morning. They barely want to make eye contact with her, honestly.

Not that Jyn minds. She didn’t get into waitressing because of her bubbly personality. She’s good at it, can be pleasant and accommodating when she needs to be, but she’s also fine with customers not wanting to chitchat. It’s one of the perks of the shift, in her mind, and why it suits her to work it, rather than the breakfast or the lunch shift.

Then, she gets a regular of her own and it doesn’t change everything, but it changes enough.

The first time he comes in, the restaurant is so dead that for once the manager on duty isn’t on Jyn’s case about drawing in her sketchbook while she’s working. It’s that slow. There’s a couple at a table in the corner that started out their meal by bickering with each other loudly and now Jyn’s pretty sure one or both of them is asleep at the table. She already gave them their check, though, so she’s giving them at least an hour before she bugs them about it. It’s not like she needs to turn over the table or anything.

When the man comes in, the place is so empty that he actually looks around in confusion, which catches Jyn’s attention from where she’s hiding behind the cash register.

“Sit anywhere you like,” she calls to him, half-relieved to have something to do and half-annoyed to have to do anything.

“Oh. You’re open, then?”

“As long as it’s one of the twenty-four hours in the day,” she replies, trying to sound sunny.

“Last time I checked,” the man says, sounding unsure, which makes Jyn smile for real.

She brings a menu over to the table he settles at and offers him her more standard customer service smile. “Hi, I’m Jyn. I’ll be your server this…morning. Can I get you anything to start?”

“Coffee, please.”

“Regular or decaf?”

“Regular, thanks.”

“Sure,” she says. Then she loses her mind momentarily, because she follows it up with, “You want crayons?”

That question clearly throws him, and for good reason. “What?” He asks, blinking up at her.

“Do you want crayons? To color in your placemat?” Jyn asks, less casually. She doesn’t know why she asked in the first place—he doesn’t look like the type, by virtue of not having any children with him and looking to be older than her, if she had to guess—but she does it anyway. Maybe she’s a little punchy from having no one to talk to all night.

Thankfully, he laughs, more like he’s surprised than anything else, but it still counts. “No, I’m good, thanks.”

She nods and heads off to get him his coffee. When she returns to his table with it, she doesn’t bother asking if he’s ready to order yet, because he’s still got his head bent over the enormous menu, reading it intently. She pops back over to her spot behind the register and resumes the sketch she’d been working on of the couple at the back table. She’s sure now that they are both, in fact, asleep, which is going to make it very awkward to get them to pay their bill.

A few minutes later, she hears the man at the other table clears his throat and she looks up, trying to mask her annoyance. When she does, though, she sees he’s not looking in her direction and probably didn’t do it to get her attention. Still, she should probably go check on him.

“Are you ready to order?” She asks, pulling out her order pad as she sidles up to his table.

“I—well, actually, I have to ask: why did you think I would want crayons?”

Jyn shrugs. “Technically, I’m only supposed to offer them to customers under twelve, but I think that’s bullshit. Kids aren't the only people who like to color.”

The man nods, processing this. “Okay. Not the answer I was expecting. I thought it was your way of saying I looked young.”

“No, no,” she says, and then winces. “I mean, you don’t look old or anything. You just definitely don’t look under twelve.”

“Then my disguise is working perfectly,” he says, half to himself.

Jyn snorts. “Is this your way of saying you do want crayons?”

“No, I’m all set. I think I’ll just have some eggs.”

Jyn gets the specifics of his order from him and goes to deliver the ticket to the kitchen. When that’s done, she decides it’s past time to finally collect her payment from the sleeping couple in the back. Under the guise of cleaning plates out of their way, she makes as much noise with the silverware as humanly possible, which causes the man to wake up. When she pointedly asks if there’s anything else they need, he grumbles a response in the negative and jostles his girlfriend’s wrist to wake her up too.

“You can pay right up front,” Jyn says, cheerily, before she swans away with their dishes.

After a few minutes, they come up to the cash register to pay her, even though it’s technically the manager’s job to run the register. He can’t be bothered when it’s this quiet. They don’t give her a tip then and there, but she holds out hope that they left her some cash on the table, which she checks as soon as they’ve gone. Of course, there’s nothing there and she curses under her breath before she buses the remaining dishes. She goes back again with a rag to wipe down the table, even though that’s yet another thing the manager is supposed to be helping with during overnight shifts. By the time she’s done with all that, the other man’s food is up and she goes to deliver it.

“Do you need anything else?” she asks, once she’s dropped off his food. “More coffee?”

“Yes, but could I switch to decaf?” he asks, looking like he’s asking for a kidney rather than something completely reasonable.

“No,” she says, automatically.

“Oh, I—what?”

“Sorry, that was—I was kidding.”

“Oh.”

“It wasn’t funny,” she says, feeling her face heat with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” the man says, waving a hand. “It’s fine.”

“It’s just—it’s a restaurant. You can have whatever you want.”

“Right,” the man says, smiling faintly in either amusement or confusion, like he’s not really sure what to do with her. And who could blame him for that?

“You were being polite. I shouldn’t have made fun of you,” Jyn says, fully mortified at this point. He’s definitely not going to leave her a tip now, which means this whole shift has pretty much been a bust.

“It’s really fine,” he says. “I probably would have caught on faster if it wasn’t…”

“3 AM?” Jyn suggests.

“Yeah,” he says, with a full, self-deprecating smile that catches Jyn completely off-guard. People shouldn’t be allowed to be that attractive without warning.

“I’ll get you that decaf coffee,” she says, trying to sneak off and preserve at least some of her dignity. He thanks her as she’s retreating, and when she refills his mug, she says as little as possible so she doesn’t end up accidentally insulting him again.

It makes things a little weird, realizing he’s cute at the same time as he becomes her only customer in the entire diner. She’s supposed to be checking in to see if he needs anything but it also feels suspiciously like fawning over him. Has it really been this long since she’s had a hot customer at this godforsaken place? She tries to distract herself with drawing, but her latest subjects just left. She’s also not supposed to be doing that where customers can see and the man is seated right across from the counter, putting her directly in his sight line. It’s unfortunate, really, in more ways than one, because he’d be fun to draw, with his messy hair and his stubble and the lines around his eyes, but doing so would involve watching him even more intently and that’s a level of weird she just isn’t willing to stoop to.

While she’s absolutely not staring at him at all, she does just so happen to notice the moment he takes off his jacket. His table is directly in the path of the draft from the front door, so it didn't seem weird for him to keep it on, because that section of the diner is always freezing. Now, though, with the jacket off, she can see he’s wearing some sort of uniform—crisply pressed navy blue pants with a matching shirt that has a patch over the pocket that she can’t read from this far away. He’s got an ID badge too, which she also can’t read, clipped to his pocket.

To her surprise, he’s not distracting himself from his lonesome meal by messing around on his phone, like most customers and honestly even she would be doing while eating alone in a restaurant. He is occasionally throwing a glance in the direction of the TV hanging in the corner, which is set to a channel playing reruns of “Murder, She Wrote” for no other reason than there’s nothing more interesting on at this hour.

Jyn hates the feeling of having too little to do and she especially hates having just one customer and feeling like she’s creepily watching their every move, so after what feels like an appropriate amount of time, she makes her way over to the man’s table, doing her best to seem casual.

“How is everything?” she asks when she gets there, even though she could have just as easily asked that from the counter. It wouldn’t have been professional, she decides, even if there is literally no one else around. She, of course, manages to catch him right in the middle of a sip of coffee, which is a special kind of superpower one only develops as a server.

He swallows and offers her an apologetic smile. “Everything’s great, thank you.”

“More coffee?” she asks, when she notices his mug is close to empty.

“Uh, sure. Thanks.”

“Decaf still?”

He laughs at that, for some reason. “Yes. I promise I won’t switch back and forth the whole night.”

Jyn shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, really. It gives me something to do.”

“Still,” he says. “Decaf would be great.”

“You got it.” She heads off to retrieve the pot of decaf and swings back to refill his cup. After he thanks her again, she asks, “Coming or going?”

He blinks at her in confusion for a moment. “I’m sorry?” he asks.

“No, I’m—” Jyn stops short, feeling ridiculous. “I just meant—are you coming from work, or going there?”

“Oh,” he says. “How did you—?”

“The uniform,” she replies, gesturing gingerly to his clothes with the coffee pot.

“Right. Of course,” the man says, looking down as if he hadn’t realized she could see him at all. “Uh, coming from.”

“What?”

“To answer your question,” he says, looking pained. Not that Jyn can blame him; this has been a trainwreck of a conversation so far, thanks mostly to her. “I just got off work.”

“So this is dinner, then?” Jyn asks.

The man laughs and it’s a strange, reluctant sound. “I guess so.”

“That explains the decaf.”

“Sure.”

“Not the one cup of regular coffee, though.”

That gets another laugh out of him, though he appears less surprised by it this time. “Does everyone who comes here have to justify their caffeine habits?” he asks, not sounding offended.

“Only the people unfortunate enough to sit in my section,” Jyn replies. It’s not worth pointing out that the entire restaurant is her section at this hour.

“I see,” he says. “Well, the cup of regular coffee is to give me enough energy to get back to my apartment without falling asleep at crosswalks, if you must know.”

“Ah, makes sense.”

“I’m glad you approve. You had me worried for a second there,” he says, and it lands somewhere between outright sarcasm and flirting, which is enough to make Jyn want to pull back.

“Yes, well, now that we’ve got that figured out, I suppose you deserve the chance to finish your meal in peace,” she replies, formally, and fights the urge to wince at how stupid she sounds.

“Okay,” the man says, sounding amused again as Jyn turns around and retreats back to the safe haven of the cash register to hide from the awkwardness she’s created.

Luckily for her, after only a few minutes, she gets another table to distract her. It’s four people who appear to be college students and they thankfully don’t seem to be wasted, which is a surprise, even for a Tuesday morning. It’s a nice change of pace for the typical night shift. If Jyn had to guess, they probably just came from studying late at the library. Then again, she never did the whole college thing, so she could be wrong. All of her knowledge of what it’s like comes from TV shows. The college kids are nice enough, if a little boisterous for this time of night, when she takes their orders, which is what matters. Once she gets everything in to the kitchen, Jyn decides it’s probably safe to check on the man who’s there alone again.

When she approaches his table, she sees that he’s done eating and that he’s gotten distracted by his phone. He’s reading some message with his eyebrows drawn together in concern, but he looks up as soon as he hears her coming and his face clears in a deliberate way that suggests he knows he was pulling a face and that he doesn’t want to be asked about it. Not that she would, honestly, even without the signal. It’s one thing to be weird about his coffee ordering habits—she’s his waitress and she’s bored; sometimes people like to banter with their servers—but she doesn’t know him at all. She’s not going to ask who’s texting him. That’s none of her business, even if her curiosity seems to be piqued by everything he does.

“Can I get you anything else?” she asks, as pleasantly and professionally as possible, even as her mind fills in a fake backstory of an emotional affair with a co-worker that’s turned sour and now results in petty 3 AM text messages that make him scowl at his phone.

“Just the check would be great.”

“Of course,” she says, and goes off to fetch it. She returns and drops it off at the table with a breezy, “You can pay at the counter whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” he replies, without looking up, and Jyn retreats again behind the counter, to wait for him or for her college students’ order to be up, whichever comes first.

The man takes a few minutes to finish his coffee and get his jacket back on, but he doesn’t hold up the table, which is nice. Even when the restaurant is empty like this, Jyn hates when people linger. It shouldn’t bother her, really—they’re paying customers, after all—but it still drives her nuts. She pushes off the back wall when she sees him approaching the counter and he has the audacity to look kind of shy when their eyes meet. Has this guy never met a waitress before? Is he a shut-in or something? And most importantly, why does she care? Hot people shouldn’t be allowed in the diner, she decides. It’s confusing, especially in the middle of the night.

He hands her the check along with the cash to pay it without a word, and she sets about getting him his change out of the diner’s ancient cash register. She hands over the bills and a few coins and thanks him for coming in.

“You have a good night,” she adds, sounding folksier than she means to. “Or morning. Whatever it is.”

He smiles at that. “Thanks, you too.”

“I will, thanks.”

He’s already turning to go when he adds, casually over his shoulder. “See you around, Jyn.”

By the time she’s remembered that she introduced herself when he first came in and recovered from her surprise at hearing her name come out of his mouth, he’s already gone. Apropos of nothing, there’s some buzzy feeling in the pit of her stomach that she kind of wishes would go away, but it’s also the most exciting thing that’s happened to her all night, tragically. The cook ringing the bell to tell her that she’s got orders up is the only thing that startles her out of her reverie.

She brings the food over to her table of college students, and then goes over to clean off the cute guy’s table. As she’s moving plates around, she notices he left a tip in the form of cash tucked under his water glass. It’s a little over twenty percent, which, given the night she’s had, basically makes this guy the love of her life. She’s pleased enough that she almost forgets to be disappointed he paid in cash, rather than with a card, making it impossible to learn his name. Almost.

#rebelcaptain #jyn x cassian #jyn erso #cassian andor #rogue one #jyncassian #rebelcaptain fanfic #firstelevens #taylor swift song prompts #ask #homelywenchsociety #that's my writing tag! don't worry about it!#this has literally been in my ao3 drafts for a month just get it out of my sight pls #i wrote a really weird emotional author's note on ao3 life is so weird #anyway here's wonderwall

35 notes · View notes

aoneko-lee · 6 months

Text

I spent the whole weekend on AO3 desperately looking for RebelCaptain fanfics that doesn't have a sad, open/ambiguous, or hurt-without-comfort ending...

#rebelcaptain #jyn erso #cassian andor #rogue one #rebelcaptain fanfic #Fanfic #fanfiction #Ao3 #I already have to deal with enough suffering irl thank you

26 notes · View notes

jynrso · 8 months

Text

some of it remains (but your love is unmoved)

hey all! this is the fic that i've been working hard on over the past few weeks. it's the first fresh piece i've written in over a year – the oneshot i posted a few weeks ago ("not without me / not without you") had a rough draft and outline so i had a bit to go off. this was a completely new story and i didn't intend for it to be this long. . .13.5 and 6k words later, here we are! jyn's experiences are based on my own. i got a concussion about 3.5 years ago and i still get icepick headaches to this day (that i never got before). while i don't get migraines, they are pretty bad. when i was thinking to myself about jyn's role as a brawler, i figured she'd get hit in the head pretty often –– and from that, this fic was born. title from "as it was" by hozier read it on ao3!

Jyn Erso has always had a remarkably thick skull.

Not in the sense that she isn’t intelligent. Rather, ever since she’d learned how to fight, she’d quickly found that she could bounce back from blows to the head quicker than her comrades. Hits that would render other Partisans unconscious usually only dazed her; if she got knocked down, she pushed herself back up in seconds, returning to the fight with her brutal efficiency hindered only slightly by slight dizziness and a burgeoning headache.

As a brawler, with the reach of her truncheons keeping her in close contact with her targets, she’s more exposed than a long-distance soldier. Though her armor absorbs many of the hits she takes, by favoring hand-to-hand combat, it’s not uncommon for her skin to be littered with various bruises and abrasions from hits she’s doled out and ones she’s taken in return. Even with her gloves, her hands often take the brunt of the damage; out of every place on her body, her hands are the most heavily scarred.

But despite her fighting prowess and experience on the battlefield, she’s had her fair share of close calls. Even she isn’t completely unaffected by someone slamming the butt of their blaster against her skull. The scar snaking up from the top of her forehead into her hairline speaks to that; a few years ago, she’d been hit so hard by a stormtrooper that it had not only knocked her out but also needed stitches –– ones she had to do herself without the credits for proper medical care. It had never healed right, the scar angry and raised to this day, but she’d escaped with her life . . . and only a few consequences.

The chronic headaches –– the bad ones –– had begun during her stint in an underground fighting ring, just after Saw abandoned her on Tamsye Prime. In an attempt to earn enough credits to survive, she’d played her strengths to her advantage and fought numerous other sentients for money. Though she’d won more fights than lost, her opponents usually got in a hit or two; and, with the lack of protective gear, the blows she’d taken had often been more debilitating, especially in the aftermath.

But in the middle of a war, a headache here or there is hardly her biggest problem.

It’s not like she’s bleeding out or has any open wounds. A stim shot usually takes care of the worst of the symptoms and dims them to a more manageable level. And when that doesn’t work, in the years after Saw, she’d hole up somewhere dark and quiet and ride it out for a few days by herself. With her high pain tolerance, she can push through just about anything, even if it means spending a few hours incapacitated.

Her last . . . episode had been right after Scarif. She doesn’t remember much of what’d happened after Bodhi had picked her and Cassian up from the beach but she recalls moments of blinding pain. The agony from her burns from the blast had only just been overshadowed by the splitting in her skull, feeling as if someone had taken an axe and cleaved her in two.

Ever since, however, she’s managed to keep her headaches under control and everyone else in the dark. But with the recent destruction of Alderaan and the move from Yavin IV to Hoth, it’s only a matter of time. With the amount of pressure and stress slowly building up on her shoulders, she just hopes that she’s alone when the inevitable happens, and strong enough to ride out the pain when it comes.

When Jyn wakes, unusually bleary-eyed and out of it, Cassian’s no longer in bed next to her.

The sheets on his side have long gone cold. Faintly, in the back of her mind, she remembers him leaving earlier that morning; before his departure, he’d briefly woken her up with a kiss on the forehead and a whispered urge to go back to sleep. Not recalling much more than that, she assumes that she’d fallen back asleep and pushes herself up into a sitting position.

As soon as she moves, a slow, heavy ache makes itself known in her left eye, radiating back toward her skull. She curses softly, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand, hoping that the pressure will help ease the oncoming pain, but to no avail. Even when she presses harder, digs her fingers into her hairline, the steady throbbing beats in time with her heartbeat.

A pit sinks in her stomach. She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, the pain of it a distraction. Even though her head doesn’t pound badly now, she knows from experience it’ll only get worse as the day goes on. And if this is one of those headaches. . .

Fuck, and she actually has shit to do today. She and Cassian are flying out in the afternoon for a surveillance and scouting operation at the abandoned rebel base on Dantooine. Bodhi’s swinging by later –– shit, maybe sooner than she thinks, glancing at the chrono and seeing what time it is –– to help her get the ship ready while Cassian takes care of the pre-flight briefing with Draven.

Okay. Okay. She exhales, throwing her arm over her eyes as she lays on her back in the messy remnants of their bunk. It’s not the ideal situation but it could be worse –– she just has to get out of bed and get ready while her pain is still manageable. Then she just has to meet Bodhi, get to the ship, and take off for Dantooine without indicating something is wrong, then find somewhere hidden and quiet to ride it out by herself.

(There’s no way in hell Cassian is going to let her get away with that, a small voice in the back of her mind reminds her but she pushes that thought away for now. Once they get into the air, she can figure out an excuse. She just has to get there first. )

Groaning, Jyn hauls herself out of bed, wincing when the simple movement jars her already tender head. Without bothering to flip on the lip, she fumbles around in the dark, picking up random pieces of clothing they’d scattered across the ground the night before.

In the bathroom, biting back a curse as the cold finally begins to hit her, the warmth of sleep finally wearing off, she quickly gets ready in the relative silence and dimness of the ‘fresher.

There’s a basic medkit under the sink, equipped with bandages, a few bacta patches, and hyposprays. It’s meant for the occasions when either of them has minor injuries but doesn’t want to go to the medbay. Though it’s here for this purpose –– and she knows she should grab something –– she still hesitates. It’s not that bad (yet) and she’s pushed through worse. And there’ll be times in the future when they have a greater need for these supplies. . .

With her thoughts feeling like static, it’s difficult to concentrate enough to make a proper decision. Before she can, someone knocks on the door and shakes her from her daze. She flinches at the sound, wiping a shaky hand down her face as her head protests the sudden loud noise.

“Fuck,” she mutters, rocking forward on her heels and leaning forward against the sink, so far that her forehead nearly touches the smudged mirror. The medkit looms in her peripherals but she ignores it, convincing herself that she’ll be fine. (She’s always fine –– she has to be ).

In a burst of strength, she pushes up and away out of the bathroom, heading toward the door.

“Jyn!” Bodhi brightens when it opens, then almost immediately falls when he looks at her properly. “You –– you look like shit!”

“Thanks, Bo,” she mutters, leaning against the doorframe as she pulls on her boots. “Good morning to you, too.”

Frowning, he rubs the back of his neck as he peers in closer, head dipping down and wide eyes scrutinizing her disheveled appearance. “Well, it’s actually closer to afternoon, now, but –– ”

“Still morning,” she grunts, straightening. The edge of her vision goes fuzzy for a few seconds, threatening to white out completely; she steadies herself on the wall once again and exhales heavily, then forces herself upright.

“Do you –– do you need to go to the –– ”

“No,” she bites out forcefully. Her voice harsher is than she intends but the pain makes her feel brittle, fragile even, and she can’t help but overcompensate. “Just –– I just had a bit too much to drink last night. That’s all.”

Both of them are keenly aware of just how well she holds her liquor and Bodhi is much more observant than people give him credit for, especially around the people he cares about. He frowns, eyebrows tugging together, and while his expression tells her exactly what he’s thinking, he’s also picking up on the hidden details in her own.

But for whatever reason, either her voice or the stubborn look in her eyes, he doesn’t comment on her flimsy excuse and nods instead, perhaps not wanting to put up a fight when it’s clear she’s looking for one.

She doesn’t miss the concerned look in his eye when she walks out of the room a little slower than usual. He stays close to her as if expecting to catch her if she falls, arms nearly brushing as he keeps her pace.

His intense attention makes her uncomfortable, her ears reddening from the unfamiliar notion of having someone care about her. She’s fine. A headache isn’t anything to make a fuss over, and really, he’s making a big deal out of nothing.

“I checked out the ship you’re taking this morning,” he says, keeping up a steady stream of chatter as they navigate through the halls of Echo Base. She only half-listens, occasionally offering up hums of agreement as he speaks, but it’s growing more difficult to keep her focus solely on him. “There isn’t too much to do but . . .”

After a few minutes, they reach their destination. When the noise and brightness of the hangar bay hall hit her full force, Jyn sways on her feet, eyes closing as nausea swells low in her stomach. Bodhi grabs her elbow to keep her steady but she just barely feels the touch, the hammering in her head overshadowing every other sensation.

“ ––yn! Are you okay?”

Bodhi’s voice grows louder and more nervous with each passing second she fails to reply. Jyn barely manages to clamp down on her flinch, forcing her eyes open and gritting her teeth as her head protests.

“Fine,” she rasps, then licks her dry lips. Just one more hour, at most, and she can lie down; she just has to get to the ship first. “I’m fine. Where –– where’s the shuttle?”

He pauses, scrutinizing her once again. “Listen, if you’re not feeling well, we can––”

“I said I’m fine!” she reasserts, a bit harsher than she intends. Her head throbs at the raised tone of her voice. She sighs. “Look, can we just –– ”

It’s clear he doesn’t entirely believe her. With all the time they’ve spent together since Scarif, he knows what her normal behavior looks like –– and this isn’t it. “Jyn, you really should –– ”

Her eyes flash in irritation. She doesn’t need to be coddled. “If you want to stay here, be my guest. But I’m going to finish up packing the ship.”

Once again, he must see something in her face that ends any possible argument. For him, this is a losing battle. Sighing, his shoulders slump in the face of her stubbornness. “All right. Come on.”

Leading her to a ship in the back of the hangar, she focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and pushing down the pain as best she can. No matter how lightly she steps, the impact of her boots against the ground sends electricity radiating up from her legs to her head, a dull thumping that seems to grow the longer she spends in the hangar bay.

She blinks and then they’re there. Almost robotically, she nods as Bodhi’s mouth opens and he begins to talk, only catching the tail end of whatever he says. He gestures toward the remaining crates of supplies that need to be loaded onto the shuttle and Jyn doesn’t bother to respond, turning toward them and setting her shoulders in preparation.

(With her back turned, she misses how his mouth thins, how he reaches out for her but drops his arm after a few seconds. She misses the determined set of his eyes, the way he seemingly comes to a decision before setting to work himself.)

It’s easy to lose herself in the repetitiveness of the task. With only the pain in her head to keep her company, she tunes out the rest of the hangar bay and loads up the ship. At least in there, the lights aren’t so bright and the noises around her are muffled some by the thick durasteel walls.

A blink and it’s done. It’s been –– how long has she been doing this, so lost in her head?

For a few seconds, she stands in the cargo bay and looks down at the crates without really seeing them. Her hands flex at her sides, fingers still primed to hold a box. But then a particularly painful jolt of pain goes through her eye and she hisses, pressing the palm of her hand against the socket. When it eases, her brain recircuits and she remembers her purpose, rocking back on her heels.

She turns to look for Bodhi, not finding him in the cockpit as expected. Instead, when she heads down the loading ramp to look for him, she sees him a few feet away, looking in her direction and talking in hushed voices with Cassian.

Jyn scowls in irritation, hands curling into fists at her side and marching over to them. She has a good idea of what Bodhi’s telling him –– that she’s been acting weird, that there’s something wrong with her, that she isn’t capable enough to go on the mission. All those thoughts jumble in her head at the same, overlapping and intensifying what’s already there.

“I’m fine!” she barks when she makes it over to them, putting her hands on her hips and tilting her chin up in defiance. Her jaw tightens, the muscles in her body bunching up and tensing. “I don’t know what he’s telling you but –– ”

Cassian holds up his hands and Bodhi takes a step back when faced with her sudden burst of rage. “We’re just going over take-off protocol since Bodhi isn’t coming with us on this one,” he explains gently.

Her anger deflates from her as quickly as it’d arrived and she closes her eyes briefly as her skull throbs in protest. Embarrassment at her outburst curls low in her gut but she refuses to let it show.

“Great,” she mutters, shoving her hands deep in her pockets and turning away from them. Her cheeks redden, ears burning beneath her hat. “I’ll be on the ship if you need me.”

If her behavior hadn’t been a cause for concern before, it certainly is now. She hunches in her coat, keeping her head down as she stalks to the shuttle, the snarl on her lips acting as armor to repel any stares from overly curious recruits that she gets on the way back.

Cassian isn’t far behind. She’s only been on the ship for a few beats before he joins her, standing close enough that there are only a few inches between them. When she looks back into the hangar bay, Bodhi’s still there, his body language anxious and worried in the distance.

She scowls, feeling betrayed and like they’re ganging up on her. She’s clearly fine –– she’d gotten everything on the ship quickly and efficiently. What complaints could they even have? When she turns away, she determinedly keeps her gaze focused on her datapad and makes a point not to look at Cassian, even when his presence

Finally, he breaks the stalemate, not bothering to pretend he doesn’t know something is wrong. “Bodhi says you’ve been off all morning.”

“Did he,” she says flatly, her eye twitching. Her mouth twists and she resolutely stares down at the datapad but not truly seeing the words on the screen.

“I’m not going to push you,” he replies steadily, his voice not changing despite the derision in hers. There’s no judgment, nothing but concern despite her growing frustration. ( Stars, she doesn’t deserve him. ) “But if something’s wrong, you can tell me.”

If he hasn’t picked up on it, then she must be successfully hiding the worst of her pain. When she turns to face him, she lets a little bit of her raggedness show, exhaustion written on her features. It’s not a lie, not truly, but a misdirection instead. Let him think this is the root of the issue. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

One of his eyebrows ticks up, likely remembering how she’d barely moved when he’d left their bed that morning. He doesn’t believe her, not entirely. But whatever he must see in her face must be enough to convince him that she’s all right for now.

He nods slowly, brows tugging together as he considers her words, but doesn’t drop the matter entirely. “You can sleep once we make it to hyperspace.”

It feels like an order rather than a request but she knows the decision is ultimately up to her. Too exhausted to disagree, the throbbing pain on one side of her head sapping all of the fight out of her body.

Cassian hesitates, giving her a chance to pull away, then reaches out to cup her cheek. She closes her eyes when his thumb brushes against her cheekbone rhythmically; it doesn’t relieve any pain but his touch soothes her, comforts her in a way that only he can do.

“Let’s finish getting the ship ready,” he says softly, and, eyes still closed, she nods once again.

It doesn’t take long for them to finish; apparently, Bodhi had gotten more done than she’d realized while she’d lugged crates of supplies back and forth. Feeling almost as if in a trance with only a dull throbbing pain to keep her company, before she even realizes it, they’ve completed everything else and prepped the shuttle for take-off.

(Dangerous, Saw’s voice barks in her head when she blinks in confusion, her body acting on auto-pilot as she buckles herself in and mechanically pulls on a pair of headphones. Just because you’re with someone you trust doesn’t mean you’re safe. Focus, my child.)

With one last wave to Bodhi, she closes the cargo bay door without another word and joins Cassian in the cockpit. Her limbs feel heavy, eyes squinting against the bright lights flashing on the dashboard. It takes her more than one try to get her seatbelt buckled in.

Numbly, she forces her awareness out of the cave in her mind and does her best to pay attention when Cassian completes the pre-flight checks. It only takes a few minutes –– she thinks, her thoughts feeling as if they’re moving through sludge –– before they’re up in the air.

“Calculating jump to hyperspace,” he says. She clenches her jaw, nods, and prepares herself.

The jump to hyperspace is worse than she’d expected. She presses the back of her head into her seat in an attempt to keep it steady and her white-knuckled hand gripping the armrests so tight she shakes. Against the roar of the engine, she inhales and exhales short puffs of air, eyes squeezed tight. It feels as if her brain is rattling against her skull, sharp pinpricks of pain hitting her through the eye in full force.

One particularly bad pulse through her head has her biting down so hard on her tongue that she draws blood. The sharp sting at least provides a distraction, the coppery, metallic taste now filling her mouth becoming something to latch on to other than pain.

But it’s getting more and more difficult to keep herself together. The combination of the lights, the noise, and the jerky movements of the shuttle around her have flayed her control almost entirely. She can’t do this, she can’t do this, but she has to, she has to keep it together for just a few more secon––

The ship stills.

The only sound in the cockpit is her sharp, rapid breathing that she struggles to quiet and the hum of the engine underneath her feet. Though she can’t see him, she’s acutely aware of Cassian at her side. She hears him take off his headset and set it down on its hook above the dashboard, then hears the creak of his seat as he turns, presumably to face her properly.

Hears the low, comforting sound of his voice when he tentatively asks, “Jyn? Are you okay?”

“`m’fine,” she mumbles after a beat, her brain taking longer than usual to comprehend his words properly. Even though it’s very clear that she’s not, she can’t quite abandon the ruse just yet, still hanging onto rapidly disappearing threads of composure. “Just. . .”

She trails off, swallowing down a wave of nausea. In the silence that follows, her stomach churns, due both to anxiety and her migraine; if she moves, even slightly, she’s going to throw up all over the floor. To tamp down on that, she focuses on her breathing: ragged inhales that catch before they make it to her lungs.

Cautiously, she cracks her eyes open, just a slit, to see Cassian leaning forward in his seat, gaze tight with worry. His fists are curled against his knees, his body tense with the effort of not reaching out to her. She imagines he wants to check her over himself and see what’s causing her pain but not without her permission.

“Are you hurt?” he asks. She can hear the desperation in his voice, likely compounded by the fact that he hadn’t pushed her to tell him what’d been wrong earlier. “Jyn, please. Did someone hurt you? Are you––”

“Fine,” she cuts him off weakly, ignoring his growl of frustration at her protests. He’d reluctantly taken her by her word earlier but that’s not going to work anymore. The ruse is up; it’s so incredibly clear that she isn’t fine, the jump to hyperspace having rattled something loose in her brain. “It’s. . .”

She pauses, licks her lips, then decides –– what the hell. She can’t physically keep her walls up much longer. Her eyes flutter close, the pressure in her head abating only slightly with the lack of light. Finally, she says, “My head.”

“Did you fall? Jyn, let me check––”

“No,” she swallows, fumbling with her words. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth, her thoughts slow and sluggish. “It’s –– it’s a migraine. I think. I, um, get them. Occasionally.”

When Cassian doesn’t reply, she opens her eyes to see what he’s doing, feeling nervous and exposed. She watches as he gingerly stands and reaches over her, flicking off the lights in the cockpit and dimming the space as much as possible. While it isn’t completely dark, with switches on the dashboard still blinking, it’s a marked difference from how bright it’d been before. Her breath leaves her in a stuttered exhale as her shoulders relax slightly.

His voice is quiet when he asks, “Better?”

“Yeah,” she rasps. It is. “Thanks.”

A beat of silence passes between them before he tilts his head to the side, in the direction of the back of the ship. Though it isn’t large and not meant for long-term travel, there’s a small bunk room and galley just behind the crew’s quarters. Though he doesn’t say anything, Jyn knows what he’s asking.

“No,” she grits out. She keeps her head still but follows him with her gaze. It’s a struggle to get the words out. “I don’t . . . need to rest.”

“Jyn. . .”

“No.” It feels like her last line of defense. It’s a stupid hill to die on but she can’t seem to let it go, barely clinging to what little she has left. Even though she knows that Cassian would never treat her differently –– and he never has when she’s come to him injured or in the aftermath of a nightmare –– she’s not unlike a feral animal when hurting, flinching away and attacking the hand that tries to help.

He’s seen her at her worst, has held her through it, has seen more of her than anyone in this galaxy ever has. But used to a lifetime of sharing a bunk and never truly being alone, she’s learned to keep her pain quiet, to remain small and unobtrusive in moments of true vulnerability. Cassian and the rest of Rogue One have slowly broken down some of her walls but there are some things she doubts she’ll ever be able to shake fully.

But then Cassian whips out his trump card.

“Please, Jyn? For me?” And if his saying please hadn’t been enough, he adds softly, “My back has been sore all morning. Lay down with me?”

“Just for an hour,” she relents –– barely. “And you have to actually lay next to me.”

His eyes soften. “`course. Come on.”

She stands slowly to try and offset the dizziness that she knows will come, but it doesn’t work. She bites the inside of her cheeks and closes her eyes when it washes over her, her head throbbing in time with her heartbeat. For a few seconds, she worries once again she might throw up all over the ground but swallows it down. Fuck, it hurts so badly.

There’s this urgent, wild urge in the back of her mind to cry out for her mother –– she feels like a child again, scared and in pain, and wanting nothing more than Lyra’s comfort.

Finally, when it passes, she opens her eyes again, breathing heavily. Cassian stands a few feet away, one arm outstretched in case he needs to steady her. He’s not even trying to hide his worry anymore; she’d reassure him in any other situation but she’s just so tired.

Slowly, she makes her way to the bunkroom with Cassian close behind. It’s not far, and soon, she’s perched on the edge of the small cot, shoulders hunched forward.

He reaches out and touches her arm gently. That one small gesture eases a knot of tension in her body and she sags like a puppet whose strings have been cut. “I’m going to grab you some water. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, she doesn’t like the idea of him leaving her sight right now. But at the thought of water, she swallows, her throat dry. Slowly, she nods, her head heavy and protesting the jerky movement.

She keeps quiet and doesn’t move until he returns with a glass of water in hand. Despite the position likely being hell on his back, he crouches next to the bed, offering it to her.

Silently, she reaches for it with a shaky arm, just barely managing to take a few sips without spilling before handing it back to him. He takes it, but not without a small sigh and a look of concern.

“You need to stay hydrated.” As quiet as it is, his voice is still too loud.

Not having eaten anything all day, she’s keenly aware of the hunger and thirst steadily growing in her stomach. But it’s no match for the pain in her head and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to keep anything more than water down if she tries. “No,” she manages. But then, to appease him, she adds, “Later.”

“All right,” he says finally, setting the glass on the small desk a few paces away. A pause. He shifts on his feet, and she’s just about to order him to move from his uncomfortable position when he speaks again, “I grabbed a hypospray. It’s yours if you want it.”

There’s a protest on her lips that dies when he interrupts, anticipating what she’d planned on saying, “We have more than enough supplies. It won’t be missed.”

Jyn licks her lips, then dips her chin in a slow nod.

Cassian’s jaw works briefly, clenching and unclenching before his expression finally smoothes. He knows her better than she knows herself, she thinks –– and they both know how stubborn she can get about soldiering through her pain until the last possible moment. For her to give in now without too much complaint tells him exactly how bad her pain is, what she’d been trying to hide from him all day.

Without a word, he waits until he catches her half-squinted gaze before slowly bringing the hypospray to her neck. She tilts her chin to the side slightly and closes her eyes; her breath stutters in her lungs when his warm hands brush against her skin, looking for the artery.

“Dispensing now,” he murmurs and she doesn’t have the energy to hide her flinch when the cold medicine enters her bloodstream.

The small, barely there movements of her body send shockwaves of pain through one side of her skull. Her whole body tenses, muscles rigid. She keeps her eyes squeezed to better ride out the wave washing over her, ebbing and throbbing; even as she feels the hypospray beginning to take effect, it isn’t immediate.

Now that she’s sitting, with no more tasks left to complete, she properly takes stock of her pain, it feels as if someone is repeatedly taking an ice pick to her head, stabbing her eye socket with each throbbing beat of her pulse. Before she can stop it, a small whimper leaves her mouth before she presses her lips tightly together so no other sounds can escape.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says softly. She feels him brush her cheek with his fingers lightly, then moves some of her hair off of her face. “You don’t have to hide from me, Jyn. What do you need?”

She doesn’t have to do much to convey it. Without speaking and moving as little as possible, she finds his arm in the dark and pulls him toward her. Gingerly, Cassian stands –– she can hear his joints popping as he does so –– and maneuvers himself over her and onto the cot.

He settles stiffly next to her with his back to the wall; at first, he doesn’t move, likely not wanting to cause her any more pain. But as soon as she feels him at her side, she reaches for him immediately. He is, as always, a lifeline for her, an anchor in the middle of the storm. She turns onto her side, curling into him, desperate for some sort of comfort, a distraction from the pain, if only for a few seconds. And even though it must be hell on his back for him to curl over her like this, he does so, anyway, his body a shield between her and the outside world.

Forehead pressed against his neck, her fists gripping his shirt with a white-knuckled grip, he quietly murmurs nonsense into her ear. All she can do is cling to him in a moment of uncharacteristic weakness strength and breathes.

Hours later, Jyn opens her eyes, slowly waking up. She doesn’t remember falling asleep but the combination of Cassian’s presence and the hypospray’s effect eventually lulled her to unconsciousness. She blinks once, twice, feeling a hundred times lighter than she had earlier; the pain in her head has abated to a manageable ache –– still there but not as debilitating.

She tilts her head upward, the tip of her nose brushing against Cassian’s face. He’s in the same position as he’d been in before, curled around her protectively. Still asleep, his face is relaxed, his breathing slow and even.

As much as he needs the sleep, she’s unable to resist her next impulse; she tilts her chin slightly, leaning up to press a gentle kiss to his mouth. It’s short and sweet, lasting only a few seconds; and even though it’s a selfish want, her heart skips a beat in her chest when his eyes open, warm and brown, blinking down at her.

It’s a testament to how much he trusts her that he doesn’t tense upon awakening. Rather, his expression warms, mouth tugging into an indulgent smile. “Hi,” he murmurs, voice rasping.

“Hi,” she repeats, her smile a mirror of his. When he moves to brush his lips against hers again, she meets him eagerly, basking in the afterglow of the morning and the relaxed feeling that only sleep can bring.

“How are you feeling?”

She hums. “Better.”

“Good.” His arms tighten around her, firm but loose enough that she can pull away. She doesn’t. “You scared me, you know.”

She stays silent as he continues. “When Bodhi told me he didn’t think you were feeling well, I didn’t think it was that bad, not when you marched over to us a minute later. But then, after we jumped. . .” he closes his eyes briefly, licking his chapped lips. She wants to smooth the wrinkle between his brows with her thumb. “I thought you would have told me that it was that bad.”

Is that disappointment in his voice? Shame curls in her gut. Had their positions been flipped, she would have felt just as helpless. “I know. I should have.”

“Why didn’t you?” An open question. If he’s judging her for it, he keeps that out of his voice.

“I don’t know,” she says finally. “It’s. . .It’s not that I don’t trust you, because I do, but. . .” she shrugs with a shoulder as best she can while lying on her side. “Just habit, I guess.”

A habit formed after years of being alone, exacerbated due to Saw’s abandonment and how quickly her ties to the Partisans –– her foundation of self, her family –– had been ripped out from underneath her. It had been necessary to hide the vulnerable sides of herself for survival, instincts that she hasn’t quite shaken now that she once again has a team she can rely on.

He licks his chapped lips. “Have you . . . seen someone about this? A medic?”

“Once.” After her symptoms had lingered long after a particularly bad head injury, Saw had forced her (not that she had much choice with how sick she’d been) to see one of the Partisan’s medics. “With how many concussions I get, this sort of thing. . .happens, they said.”

Cassian hums. “Will you see one of the Alliance’s medics when we get back?”

“I don’t think there’s anything they can do,” she argues. She can handle it –– not to mention that, with how many injuries those doctors have to deal with on a daily basis, she’d just be wasting their time.

He stays silent but the look in his eyes tells her he doesn’t like her answer. “There might be medicine that could help.”

“The hypospray worked well enough,” she retorts grouchily, cuddling closer to him so she no longer has to meet his gaze. His heartbeat beats a steady tempo against her cheek.

He brushes her bangs back behind her ears, his hand lingering on the side of her face. Perhaps reassuring himself that she’s still in one piece, that she’s no longer in as much pain as before. “To prevent this sort of thing from happening so often.”

She scowls. “It doesn’t happen that often.”

“Jyn. . .” he sighs. “What happens if we’re out on a mission and you’re like this? If –– if something happened to you, I couldn’t. . .” His jaw clenches, eyes flashing at the thought of the hypothetical.

Knowing he’s right –– it has happened out in the field but never to this degree –– she stays silent.

“Let’s make a deal, all right?” She remains quiet, listening. He continues, “You go to the medbay when we get back, see what they can do. I’ll come with you. And then, in return, when my back is bothering me, I’ll go. But we tell each other, all right? When we’re hurting. Trust goes both ways, remember?”

“Trust goes both ways,” she echoes softly, tipping her head back from his chest and onto the pillow so she can better look at his face. Her headache has been subdued to a dull throbbing, a far cry from the agony she’d felt earlier. “You promise you’ll go?”

“If you do, I will,” Cassian says. “And you’ll tell me next time your head hurts, yes?”

“Fine,” she concedes with a grumble, though her displeasure fades when he gathers her back up in his arms and kisses her forehead gently. Her breath hitches at the feeling of his lips against her skin.

“We have a few more hours before we reach Dantooine,” he tells her softly. “We should get up, grab some food. When’s the last time you ate?”

Even though she hasn’t eaten anything all day, the remnants of nausea still remain in her system. She makes a face, wrinkling her nose at the thought of leaving the bed and Cassian’s embrace.

“You said your back was sore,” she says instead. Regardless if it had only been a ploy to get her to bed, his back bothers him more often than not. It won’t hurt to rest a little more, especially not when they’ll be in hyperspace for a while still. “Lay here with me?”

The corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles down at her. It’s the type of true smile she so very rarely sees outside of when they’re alone together, the one that never fails to make her heart swell in her chest with a type of love she’d never thought she’d ever feel. “Always.”

#rebelcaptain #jyn erso/cassian andor #rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptain fanfic #rogue one fic #therebelcaptainnetwork #rebelcaptaindaily #dailyrebelcaptain #my writing

39 notes · View notes

ao3feed-rebelcaptain2 · 9 months

Text

Ice Above, Fire Below

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/a0cy9wv

by phillyofCS

Jyn and Cassian are assigned an undercover mission together. Problem is, Jyn's pretty sure Cassian hates her guts. There can be no other explanation for why he goes out of his way to avoid her. How will they get through this mission when they have to pretend to be married?

Takes place in the Star Wars universe but Jyn joined the Rebellion herself instead of being bribed into it.

Words: 6177, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Andor (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, K-2SO (Star Wars)

Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Jyn joins the rebellion early, Fake Marriage, Mission Fic, Undercover as Married, Jyn is oblivious to her feelings

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/a0cy9wv

#ao3feed #rebelcaptain #rebel captain #jyn x cassian #cassian x jyn #rebelcaptain fanfic #jynxcassian

17 notes · View notes

bejeweled-jyn · 10 months

Text

Chapters: 7/?

Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Andor (TV)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor & Jyn Erso

Characters: Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, Davits Draven, Mon Mothma, Maz Kanata, Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus, Saw Gerrera, Bodhi Rook, Ruescott Melshi

Additional Tags: Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Smut, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Undercover, Enemies to Lovers, Trapped In A Closet, Strangers to Lovers, Stranger Sex, Oral Sex, Sex, Porn With Plot, One Night Stands, Rogue One Fix-It, Angst, Fluff and Humor, Romance, POV Cassian Andor, POV Jyn Erso, Bisexual Jyn Erso, Captain Andor

Summary:

Jyn and Cassian meet about 6 months before the events of rogue one take place. They met on Takodana while Jyn was working on smuggling and petty theft to stay alive, she was going under the alias Kestral Dawn. Cassian under the alias Joreth Sward, was undercover working intelligence for the rebel alliance trying to get involved in a smuggling route that had some information on where the alliance could get resources for the new Yavin IV base. The night doesn’t go as planned for either of them chaos ensues and lots of fun has happened between the pair. They then reunite at Yavin IV after Jyn is rescued from Yavin IV. They assumed they would never see each other again but fate had other plans.

#rebelcaptain #cassian andor #jyn erso #rogue one #star wars #cassian x jyn #jyn x cassian #andor #captain andor #rebelcaptain fanfiction #rebelcaptain fanfic

18 notes · View notes

quarantineddreamer · 2 months

Text

Yours to Hold

For Fluffbruary Day 13 (Choice)

To be perfectly honest: my brain is still not quite with it these days. But, I'm holding out hope that the fog will clear at some point soon (plz) and in the meantime here's a little one-shot I managed! Hope it's enjoyable 💜 (Click above to read on AO3 or see below the cut)

It had been months since Scarif. Most of it he had spent recovering from his injuries. All of it, he had spent wondering why he could face death more easily than he could face life, face her and all she represented. Hope. Happiness. Home. He had come outside to think, hoping the bracing cold might clear his head and deliver an answer. He knew how he felt about her, knew what he wanted. What he was searching for was the courage to try–to choose a future that extended beyond the next mission; something permanent and lasting and full of possibilities. Something not for the Rebellion, but for himself. Something to be shared…

Of all the planets Cassian had been sent to during his time with the Rebellion, Hoth was by far his least favorite.

Maybe it was because it was frigid as hell.

Or maybe it was because the loose snow sliding beneath his foot had a tendency to remind him of sand…

Or because sometimes, when a storm blew in, the horizon disappeared, a blinding white, returning him to the awful edge of oblivion; a planet devoured before his very eyes…

Already, dark clouds were beginning to encroach upon the brief glimpse of blue sky he had managed to snatch. By his estimate he had maybe fifteen minutes left in the fresh air before he would need to retreat back into the gloom of Echo Base. He dreaded the thought, his head aching in memory of the harsh halogen lighting, chest tightening as he pictured the maze of tight, winding tunnels leading to crowded and too-small ‘rooms’.

Sure, on Yavin 4 he had been forced to check his bed every night in case a poisonous Yavinian centipede had wandered in, but it had also offered places to turn to when he sought solitude–jungle trees that he could lean against instead of the frozen rock wall at his back now.

At best, Hoth could offer him a barely habitable tundra to wander onto that–conditions permitting–would host him for maybe thirty minutes before the threat of frostbite drove him back into the Rebellion’s cramped quarters.

“Cassian?”

Even through the harsh whispers of the rising wind he recognized her voice–three, barely audible syllables and suddenly the icy air didn’t seem quite so cutting.

Jyn marched towards him, head ducked low against the wind, arms crossed over her chest, hands clutching her elbows in a tight self-embrace. A gray hat covered her head and a scarf to match was wrapped around her neck, the end of it tucked into the parka she wore–standard-issue blue, and seemingly at least a size too large–the sleeves hanging well-past her hands.

She stopped when she reached him and peered up at him, cheeks turned scarlet from the burning cold, loose strands of hair blowing across her face and over her brilliant green eyes.

He’d come out here to be alone. To think. And yet, suddenly all the thoughts in his head seemed out of reach, as did any semblance of speech.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked incredulously.

Cassian cleared his throat and gestured upwards. “You just missed it.”

“Missed what? I didn’t know there were any new arrivals scheduled today…”

He shook his head. “No, not a ship. Sky.”

Jyn tilted her head back, eyeing the infinity above them skeptically. “Pretty sure it’s still there, Cass,” she commented.

“Clear sky,” Cassian elaborated. “Blue sky. Remember that?”

“I’ve heard of it,” she laughed, and the sound was meant for his ears (as all sounds are), but somehow it wasn’t something he heard so much as felt–winding its way through him, leaving warmth and energy in its wake, before settling somewhere against his heart.

“Cass? Hello?”

“Sorry.” Cassian blinked, snow from his eyelashes melting against his cheeks and blurring his vision. “What did you say?”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “I asked if it was worth it, but I think I have my answer. The cold’s clearly gone to your brain.” She turned her back to the wall and leaned against it beside him, looking at him expectantly.

It wasn’t the cold making him so addle-minded, Cassian knew it wasn’t that. No, it was something far more daunting, far more potent, and definitely not as easily shaken.

Jyn looked away from him, out onto the increasingly hazy landscape. “Were you really just out here to look at the sky?” she asked quietly.

She knew the truth, or at least part of it. She always did. He didn’t know how, but she did, the same way he knew he didn’t have to answer her–that she didn’t expect him to. His silence would say enough.

“It’s suffocating in there,” she murmured. “Not enough light, not enough air.”

“Too many people,” he added quietly.

She nodded. “Too many,” she agreed. “But out here it’s…”

“Quiet. Gives you a chance to think.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Sometimes.”

She peered at him from beneath frost-covered lashes. Lips quirked in a pensive, knowing smile. “What about today?”

Today? Today his eyes had been drawn to Jyn the moment she entered the mess hall; had followed her every step with a sort of dizzying wonder that was at once exhilarating and terrifying. Today Chirrut, sitting beside him, had nudged him pointedly and asked, ‘What are you waiting for, Captain?’

But there wasn’t a single answer, there was an entire swarm of doubts that continued to plague him.

He had come outside to think, hoping the bracing cold might clear his head and deliver an answer. He knew how he felt about her, knew what he wanted. What he was searching for was the courage to try–to choose a future that extended beyond the next mission; something permanent and lasting and full of possibilities. Something not for the Rebellion, but for himself. Something to be shared…

“Today, it was a good thing,” he said at last. It was a good thing because having Jyn in his thoughts, even if they were anxious ones, was still having Jyn there, with him–a sudden, strange, and unexpected source of strength and light.

She pushed herself off the rock wall and stepped in front of him, so close he could see the individual hairs that were caught up in her eyelashes, fixed in place by her hat and the wind. “Tell me about them,” she said. “The good thoughts.”

Waking up in the infirmary to find her there, resting at his bedside, arms folded beneath her head…

Hearing her laugh for the first time, a proper laugh as he and K2 bickered over something inane; he’d forgotten the fight the moment he heard the sound, caught himself automatically smiling in response…

Her surprising patience during his recovery, tempering his own frustrations; the way she’d always been there to sit with him in silence after a particularly trying day…

A quiet corner of the galaxy, somewhere verdant and warm and free of war; Jyn standing beside him, always beside him…

Instead of answering, he found himself pinning the fingertips of one of his gloves between his back and the rock and tugging his hand free. His breath caught in his chest as he slowly reached towards her face, gently sweeping a finger over the surface of her forehead, sliding the hair away from her eyes.

He should have dropped his hand after that, should have pulled away, but instead, his palm moved instinctively to cup her cheek, the softness of her skin serving in stark contrast to the bite of the air around it.

Jyn stared at him, something unreadable in her eyes as she searched his face. “Your fingers are cold,” she said softly, even as she slowly removed her own gloves and reached for his hands, tugged his remaining glove away. “Let me warm them up…”

Time seemed to slow down as she folded her hands over his own, squeezing lightly, before bringing his fingers to her open mouth and breathing onto them, the warmth of her seeping into the chilled surface of his skin, setting fire to his stuttering heart.

“Jyn…” he murmured, but anything he might have thought to say to her stuck in his throat, forgotten and useless.

He leaned closer, till the breath that had been warming his hands was ghosting across his lips instead. And for a moment, that was all there was, just the sound and feel of their breathing: a whispered question so powerful, it blocked even the howl and bite of the rising storm.

Their eyes locked and held, the beginning notes of a song hanging in the air between them…

Cassian answered the call, tilting forward to press an eager kiss to Jyn’s lips.

A pleased hum buzzed against his mouth, matching the pull of her forming smile. She released his hands and leaned her weight against him as she rose to her toes, reaching to wind her fingers around his neck and into his hair.

He wrapped his arms around her, tightened the embrace, a wild melody tearing through him like thunder through spring air, full of promise.

When they parted, they did so slowly, scattering short kisses across cheeks and noses, and unable to resist one last deep, lingering kiss, before finally leaning away, just enough to clearly see each other’s faces.

The smug grin Jyn was giving him forced a soft laugh from Cassian. “What’s this look about?” he asked.

“Took you long enough,” she said softly as she stepped backwards, dragging the start of a trail in the deepening snow. “Now come on, you’ve been out here long enough–and I’ve got some ideas on how we can get warm.”

The plummeting temperatures didn’t seem capable of reaching him–not with the shadow of their kiss persisting on his lips–but Cassian didn’t bother to resist.

Jyn tugged gently on his arm, and he gladly followed

#rebelcaptain fluffbruary #rebelcaptain fanfic #rebelcaptain #jyn x cassian #b writes #is this fluff? maybe? idk? this is probably as close as i get anyways #the rebelcaptain network

40 notes · View notes

frostbitepandaaaaa · 7 months

Text

12 Days in Yavin, Wyoming - Chapter 4

oh hi there! please enjoy this bonkers chapter! (and huge thanks to my bestie, @justwandering-neverlost for the once-over and the beautiful moodboard!!)

PREVIEW

“Cassian here was just telling me that he’s something of a pool shark,” Han says with a challenging smirk as he accepts his Dewar’s and soda from her.

Jyn slides a questioning look Cassian’s way. “A ‘pool shark’?” she repeats.

Cassian frowns, handing an appreciative Leia another vodka cranberry (with extra lime). “Don’t think those were the exact words I used—“

“However you want to say it, chef...” Han interrupts with a wave of his hand. He points to Jyn and then to Bodhi, a light in his eyes that she knows very well. “Now, I can finally beat these two nuisances.”

Bodhi squawks indignantly from his corner of the table, where he’d been sipping a Diet Coke (he’s the DD this evening) and diligently prostelgzing European football to the hopelessly American (but also very patient) Luke Skywalker. “I’m sorry, Solo, but being better than you at something is being a nuisance?”

Han finishes the last of his initial drink and slides from the booth. “Yes,” he declares, claps Cassian on the back. “C’mon, chef, let’s claim that table over there before it gets snatched.”

“Oh brother,” Leia mutters, watching her husband-to-be march off to an empty table with all the assuredness of a man with a long-yearned for victory in his sights.

Cassian looks back to Jyn, his expression vaguely concerned. “What just happened?”

“What the hell did you say to him? Because, I have to warn you, I think Han just fucked you.”

read it on ao3!

#rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fanfic #therebelcaptainnetwork #dailyrebelcaptain #writing #my writing #12 days in yavin wyoming #updates

45 notes · View notes

rogue-durin-16 · 1 year

Text

THE MOMENT THEY KNEW

Summary: their imminent death brings surprising clarity to both Jyn and Cassian. While one of them surrenders to their bittersweet realization, the other decides to act on it.

Pairing: Jyn Erso x Cassian Andor

Genre: angst

Tags:

Rogue One/Andor: —

Permanent taglist: @elia-the-bibliophile @randomparanoid @karlthecat15722 @thebutchersdaughtersblog @amourtentiaa @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @comfort-reads

Warnings: broken bones, blaster wounds, major character death, canon compliant, language

A/N: Recently read the Rogue One novelisation in hopes of finding a little kiss in the elevator scene. I was so disappointed that I wrote it myself (I even made some silly little playlists). I was tempted to write a happy ending but I'll leave that for another fic. Enjoy <3

Rogue-durin-16 navigation

AO3 link

Jyn Erso wasn't stupid. She knew they wouldn't make it.

A part of her was made aware of that the moment K2 had shut the vault's gate. Said part kept growing the higher she climbed.

By the time she, through welled up, defiant eyes, saw Cassian Andor holding up a smoky blaster even though he could barely hold himself up on his feet, she knew.

They wouldn't make it to the shuttle. They wouldn't make it out of Scarif.

It didn't matter much to her at first, though; more important thoughts flooded her mind. Thoughts about the Alliance's Intelligence Captain who she had just learned how to read.

She thought about him choosing to grant her cover over saving himself while they had attempted their climb up the data tower. She thought about him plummeting twelve stories down and crawling back up to help her atop the citadel.

She also thought about how he constantly refused to leave her behind, like everyone else had done before.

And she surprised herself being capable of thinking all of that at once throughout the short path she made over the ruined catwalk in order to reach him.

It all washed over her like a tidal wave, erasing the looming planet killer and the suicide mission and the man in white, and substituting it by how beautiful Cassian looked.

Jyn forced her mind to remember she still had a mission to accomplish. Instead of letting Cassian's name slip out of her lips while she threw herself at his arms in a kind of relief she had last felt when she was eight, the woman rushed to the tower's computer and sent the message to the rebel fleet.

At least, she hoped so.

With all buttons pressed and the plans being broadcasted, she still knew that was it, and it still mattered little to her because she wasn't alone. Cassian supported his own body against the concrete column, right by Jyn's side; his chest heaved as much as hers, and his arm pressed at his abdomen as if he was trying to mitigate the pain caused by the fall, but he was smiling.

Jyn hoped he was as happy to see her as she was to see him. She started to step closer to examine him —although she knew she'd be little help for the Captain—, when she heard it. Someone's staggered breath behind her.

The man in white.

The warm feeling coursing through her veins thanks to Cassian's proximity ran cold.

She ran cold, yet rage made her skin burn, because the man who killed her mother, the man who ruined her father, the man who had sentenced Cassian to death even if they were to make it back to the cargo ship, was still breathing on the floor.

Her father's revenge was sabotaging the Empire's deadliest weapon; hers would be smashing the Krennic's skull until his brains were poured out on the metallic platform.

Jyn seethed and leaped away from Cassian with a growl. She didn't want to kill Krennic, she wanted to murder him, she wanted to—

"Hey— Leave it, leave it!" Cassian urged as his free hand gripped her bicep, tugging her back and holding her flush against him for good measure.

A part of Jyn wanted to try again, but her rage was subsiding increasingly fast, and the scalding feeling on her skin toned down to a tummy-flipping tingle where Cassian's torso met her side.

"That's it." His voice became a soft, soothing whisper on her ear, and she couldn't help but lean on the wounded man.

He gladly took her in, his calloused digits exchanging her elbow for the small of her back and then her waist. Cassian stayed like that, slowly swaying them both while awaited —maybe a bit too long— for her need to disappear. He wondered whether Jyn's hand clinging on the back of his shirt felt as intimate to her as it did to him.

"Let's go." He finally spoke, bumping his nose on the woman's temple —or maybe she had been the one closing the minuscule gap between them. Cassian didn't dare to assume that.

"Okay." With a nod and a camouflaged sniff, Jyn's fingers slipped away from his ragged up shirt and her blue eyes rose until they met the man's chocolate ones. Cassian was in immense pain, yes, but the way the woman who had fueled the rebellion's dying embers until they'd become a wildfire looked at him made up for it. That longing stirred with worry and fear put him at ease, because he knew he made the right choice when he decided he would die for her.

He was no longer dumbfounded by those sort of thoughts like he had been in Jedha —back when he didn't know why he couldn't leave her behind—, or scared like he had been in Eadu —he had betrayed himself so easily for a woman he barely understood.

No, now Cassian knew. Jyn was a reflection of him —the part of him he had left behind. She was also a force to be reckoned with; a hurricane that had swept him into her chaos the moment they met.

Jyn was everything he had been unconsciously searching for a couple of years already. He would have loved to discover her day by day —the scrappy criminal who had saved him in Jedha; the soft girl who glistened in her tears; the passionate leader who had taken them to a nonstarter victory.

Yet, he accepted they didn't have the luxury of time, so he would take whatever she gave him in those last moments.

"You look like shit." She stated, feigning a nonchalant cynicism whilst giving him an up-and-down.

Cassian let out a half laugh that immediately turned into a grimace due to his most likely broken ribs. How he made it up to the top was beyond his comprehension.

"Can you walk?" She whispered, and this time her true emotions bathed her sentence. Cassian surprised himself by denying with his head.

Without a single word, Jyn awkwardly passed his left arm over her shoulders and hoisted him the best she could. She was limping too, the brunet man realized, although he wouldn't bring it to her attention.

"Do you think anybody's listening?" He asked, trying with all his might not to let his discomfort show. If Jyn heard it, she didn't mention it out loud either.

"I do." she gifted Cassian a smile, genuine and peaceful, before confidently stating, "Someone's out there."

Jyn wasn't the best with words, but she hoped that was enough to hint to Cassian the effect he had had on her. She hoped he understood she decided to fight for the cause because he inspired her to do so.

It took them forever to reach the damn turbolift. Despite Cassian doing the best he could to walk by himself, he could barely take two steps without stumbling, which had Jyn's already sore body tensing the whole time to balance them both. She almost exhaled in alleviation when her hand abandoned Cassian's to press the opening button.

The dimlit elevator gave her a fake sense of security, but did little to erase the concern about the Captain's well-being. Even though she had let go of him and his shoulder blade and crown now rested against the holed up wall, Jyn couldn't bring herself to lower her arms. Out of instinct, she kept them extended towards Cassian, ready to catch him if his legs gave in.

No one could blame her; the man looked like he was about to break into a million pieces.

He would have been bothered by that in any other situation —he was no kid who needed to be pampered, he was capable to hold himself— but the agonizing ache lighting up his body was reflected on Jyn's eyes as they roamed his frame, occasionally looking into his with an unspoken apology.

She didn't know how to help.

K2 would have known, Cassian thought, and felt the nausea coming to him. He had led the droid to his death.

In all fairness, he had probably led every pathfinder to death. Melshi had joked about how Rogue One's mission was a one-way ticket to the hell the had earned.

More nausea.

Did Jyn feel that guilt too? At the end of the day, she hadn't really gotten to know those people. Maybe she did feel it for Chirrut and Baze. Maybe for Bodhi. Maybe even for K2.

At the very least, he knew she felt his own life weighing over her shoulders. With a strained groan, Cassian bit the bullet and turned to face the woman besides him.

Jyn felt her heart skip a bit. With a gasp, she stepped forward, her panicked, shaky hands immediately shooting to hold Cassian's forearms when his position shifted.

He was surprisingly fast to catch one of her hands in his, thumb tracing reassuring circles on its back.

His spy façade had fallen with K-2SO, but only now he was actively allowing her to see through him. She found herself once more admiring how beautiful he was like that; exhausted and calm, still standing strong enough to hold her, staring into her soul with gentle, comforting brown eyes.

"This didn't have to end like this." She confessed, refusing to take a step back and lose the grip she had on Cassian's forearm.

The man inches away from her seemed half taken aback —fuck, even she was—, but not entirely.

"It's alright." He muttered, his free hand squeezing Jyn's own forearm before squeezing her waist. "I chose this."

He did. Jyn tried to remind herself Cassian had been in this fight for long enough to know what was at stake, but it haunted her still, the fact that it took her arrival into his life for it to end.

"I'm sorry."

"Jyn..." She almost preferred the Captain's impersonal front now; the way Cassian's gaze made her feel seen was overwhelming. He carried the understanding of an equal, the tenderness of a friend and the yearning of a lover all at once.

She tried to swallow the lump in her throat while she reached out to cup Cassian's nape.

The man's lids fluttered close with her touch, a content exhale slipping through his parted lips, and Jyn's mind wander what they could have been in a fairer world.

The same Jyn whose life motto had been to live from day to day since she was a child, who had never had the luxury of daydreaming about future plans, became frustrated. She wanted to know this side of Cassian —the genuine, sympathetic Cassian who melted under her touch and smiled proudly at her curt speeches and would die for her in secret—, and it wouldn't even be an option, only a sour what if.

Jyn Erso didn't like the 'what if's. She didn't know if Cassian did, but she didn't really give a lot of thought before standing on her tiptoes to close the embarrassingly small gap between their faces.

It was a just an instant-long abrupt kiss, but for Jyn it sufficed to know it wasn't a 'could've been', but a 'would've been'. The certainty showed in her stomach flipping and the burning feeling on her skin under Cassian's tightening grip and the immediate reciprocation of her actions.

Jyn hadn't imagined that the bittersweet realization that came with that shortlived kiss would bring her peace, but it did.

The badly wounded Captain half chased the woman's cracked lips when she retreated. He didn't have to go far, though, since Jyn's forehead swiftly met his.

He wanted to say something —anything— but words escaped him. Perhaps it was for the best, Cassian thought. Jyn preferred action over talking that might have as well been hot air.

Trusting the woman to keep him up if he lost balance, his right palm abandoned the faux security of the turbolift's wall to caress her dirt-stained cheek with an equally smeared thumb.

Cassian felt a slight relief when her reaction to his touch mirrored the one he was having to her fingers toying with the hair on the back of his neck. He had to use all his willpower not to fall when Jyn snuggled closer, her nose bumping his own.

Having her close felt so natural. It wasn't fair.

Their blown pupils met through low lashes and, right when Jyn seemed to find her voice, an unprompted tremor shook the citadel's tower, making them both stumble and putting out the cold, flickery lights outside the shuttle.

Jyn had been quick to react, acting as a pillar for the pair and simultaneously forcing Cassian's back to lean on the wall again.

"What was that?" She whispered in the dark, and Cassian became well aware of the lack of space between them by the feeling of her hot breath fanning over his neck.

They both knew what it had been, but Cassian chose to shake his head briefly. "I don't know." Shaky breath in, shaky breath out. "We're still going down, right?" He caught himself having to ask. He hated the weak pitch he was forced to use.

"We're still going down." Jyn confirmed, carefully resting her face on his half exposed clavicle.

This time, it was Cassian's right that found Jyn's side, sneaking under vest to feel her closer.

Not even a couple of seconds passed before the lift fully stopped, signaling they had reached the lowest level in a shattered blue screen above the gate.

"Hold on, I'll open the door." Jyn requested in a resolved tone, her fingers slipping away from Cassian's biceps. "I'm going to get you out, Cassian."

That was the first time she used his name with earnest. He liked the way it rolled on her tongue a little too much for someone who was about to die one way or another.

"Wait."

Cassian slightly folded forward to take a hold of his savior's wrist and felt his insides twisting at the movement.

Jyn didn't complain. She didn't rush him or chastise him, she didn't even scold him for coercing his damaged self.

Instead, she obliged and waited; she let herself be brought back to his arms and fisted the collar of his shirt when his mouth desperately found hers once more.

She had had her chance, now he needed his. This time the kiss was messy and rushed and needy —so needy that Jyn wondered if Cassian would have denied it happened afterwards in a more promising scenario.

Cassian was writhing in pain and his own movements were at fault, because he needed Jyn's body burning life in every part of his own her touch could reach. He held her impossibly tight and winced against her lips when her own desperate hands did the same.

He kept up as long as his body allowed him to, moving in sync with Jyn until the pain became unbearable and he had to pull away.

There are worst ways to go, Cassian thought with salty tears caught in his eyelashes and his arms wrapped around the woman whose soul was a bit too similar to his.

"Cassian..." There it was again, that intimate sweetness. "We have to go." She muttered, cupping his stubbled cheeks with her fingerless gloves to plant one last featherlight peck atop his lips.

He nodded and complied, first letting go in order for her to open the gate, then draping his arms over her shoulders so she could drag him out into the unnatural hot of Scarif, and lastly allowing her to choose a place to rest.

A part of Jyn wanted to try and make it to a ship, but she was past the moment of knowing better, so the beach was her best call.

Her mother used to love Lah'mu's shores. 'The sea soothes the soul', she had confided Jyn. She wanted Cassian to have a soothing end, and Scarif's beaches were as beautiful as they could get.

She almost ran out of breath, but somehow managed to get them through the heating sand before Cassian's legs gave in, making them both stumble to their knees.

He had made it further than Jyn fathomed possible, which made a new kind of admiration for the Captain bloom in her chest.

Fixing her hopeless, terrified gaze in the horizon, she surprised herself by thinking how breathtaking the view was. Bizarre was an understatement to describe the uncanny resemblance between the upcoming boiling wave of destruction and the most beautiful sunset she had ever seen.

While she stayed mesmerized by the terrifying sight, Cassian sought comfort in observing her. He tried to imprint her silhouette in his brain through his already blurry glance, in case he would drop dead that same instant.

Her face turned and her apologetic crystal clear irises infused one last bit of life into Cassian. There was a thousand things he wanted to say, but maybe just a handful she would have needed to hear. Cassian wanted to believe he chose the best one.

"Your father would be proud of you, Jyn."

A tight-lipped, grateful smile confirmed it, and he felt content.

Jyn too wanted to return the favor, to give him the closure that, unbeknownst to her, she had already provided, but speech wasn't her strong suit.

Her unsteady hand reached out to his, at first miscalculating but ultimately intertwining with Cassian's fingers. I'm scared, she wanted to say at the feeling of the heat wave scorching her exposed skin.

The man whose job was to read people knew, and with one last effort, he propped himself up on his knees and prompted Jyn to do the same. He found the strength to hold her one last time.

Jyn could have cried in relief right there, but instead enclosed her newfound companion in the tightest of embraces. She heard him sigh peacefully, and felt his palms go all the way up to her shoulder blades while his face snuggled on the crook of her neck.

She plucked up the courage and shielded him from the world as it grew brighter, because she owed him; because he came back and wrapped her in a warm, safe embrace that felt like home at the end of it all.

43 notes · View notes

dilf-din · 5 months

Note

I’m also curious what you’d do with 15 for rebelcaptain if you wanted to play with that

Me going overboard on a prompt? Never

This was very challenging for me to work out, so thank you! It was different than my usual.

Rebelcaptain (Jyn x Cassian)

WC: 1950

Warnings: major character death (not J or C), lots of angst, hurt comfort, alcohol mention

15. Sharing a bed used to be quite normal for us, when did that change?

Cassian’s head hung low as he led the way back to the ship. Not a word was exchanged while they walked single file, boots on gravel and the low hum of a bird piercing the silence. The air between them was heavy as they ignored the gaping hole torn in the fabric of their lives, the breeze that was gusting through and nipping at their extremities like like a bug on a summer day. They continued in silence as they tossed their gear and jackets carelessly into the hall, the ring of metal on metal pounding their eardrums. Jyn’s jaw set like granite as they made their way into the cockpit and ignored the empty seat while Cassian slipped into the pilot’s chair. He drew the headset on with reverent hands, eyes glazed over and mind running on autopilot. Jyn almost couldn’t bear it, but she wasn’t going to crack before him. There wasn’t the time.

Cassian flipped switches and turned knobs, following all the pre flight checks and rituals before they lifted into the air and began their trip home. Jyn wondered if it would even feel like that any more, if it ever would again.

She rested her back against the doorway and sank to the ground once they were stable, for some reason feeling the need to create space between her and Cassian. As always, she was following his lead. He had been more stoic than she expected, colder. Like a switch inside him flipped that she hadn’t seen yet. Maybe it was survival mode, maybe it was who he truly was.

She was able to slip into her mind and away from the reality of their mission, thankful for the mercy that Cassian knew how to pilot. She thought of her parents and ached for their warmth. She fished the Kyber crystal out of the neck of her shirt and turned it over in her hands, freezing when she saw blood caked under her nails, deep crimson faded to that awful rust color. Her fingers began to tremble violently as she tried to force the white shard back into the safety of her shirt, wishing she had never drawn it out in the first place. Then she kept wishing. She wished she had never joined the rebellion, because gaining a family meant she just had more at stake to lose again. She wished she had rotted inside that prison, that they never came to break her out. She wished she had died that day with her mother, that all of them had been razed down by Krennic’s cold gaze and hunger for revenge. Peering back into the cockpit, she felt resentment curdling in her gut, boiling like something gone sour. That bitter taste crept into the bottom her throat and she scrambled to the fresher just in time to blow bile all over the floor. She spat and heaved as her stomach turned in on itself leaving her eyes bleary and her lips red from scrubbing away the taste.

She wiped snot and tears on her sleeves, uncaring as they joined the rest of the grime there. She was going to burn this shirt when they got back to base anyway.

She returned to the doorway on light feet with a heavy heart, her head spinning from some combination of fatigue and vertigo.

“I’m going to go lie down,” she called into the cockpit.

Cassian didn’t falter, didn’t flinch didn’t even nod. For the first time since they had known one another, he was completely unreadable. The longer he went without speaking, the higher the wall between them seemed to climb, much higher in one afternoon than she ever imagined it would be in a lifetime.

Jyn tucked herself under the bench in the hall, tried to rearrange her pack in a way that wouldn’t leave her with a crick in her neck, and let the motion of the ship sing her to sleep.

She dreamed of Bodhi.

——

Weeks passed after their return to base, and the rift between Jyn and Cassian only seemed to grow. The other commanding officers took pity on them, gave them on base assignments for the time being. It might’ve been a war, but there was still humanity Mon assured.

They held a funeral for Bodhi, a pyre piled high of his things disintegrating before them like his body slipping from the cliff they clung to and becoming nothing more than a speck below. Jyn relived every second of that day a thousand times over. Bodhi’s injury. The tourniquet. His insistence that he could make it. His face going pale. The slip of his hand and Cassian grabbing for him. The slick material of Bodhi’s coat gliding through his numb fingers as he plummeted to his death. Jyn stared at Cass, mouth agape, but he wouldn’t look her in the eye, couldn’t look anywhere but down, in the direction of one of his greatest failures.

They gave space for his crewmates to share memories of Bodhi. People from every area of the rebellion reminisced of his kindness, his wit. From nurses in the medbay to fellow pilots to the cooks in the mess hall, everyone had something to say about the bright eyed boy. Cass stared into the fire with his jaw clenched and eyes glazed over. He was either absorbing everything that was said like a blaster bolt to the chest, or he was completely checked out. Jyn still couldn’t tell.

When everyone slowly filtered back to their quarters for the night, Jyn entered her empty room, resigned to face her ghosts alone once more, but something insider her was gnawing to go check on Cassian. They had barely spoken in weeks. She couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled one of Cassian’s well worn tunics over top of her sleep shorts, the sleeves and hem dwarfing her much smaller frame. Cassian’s quarters were only a few doors down. She knew the path blindfolded, had walked it countless times in the middle of the night seeking refuge.

When she knocked, there was a pause before she heard anything on the other side, a hesitance. She pleaded inside for him to open it and not pretend to be asleep, felt the turmoil in the force surrounding him.

She almost called his name, let it fall from her lips in a way she knew would break him, but she wanted the decision to be his. The sound of bare feet crossing the floor, the sound of the door sliding open, the pain painted across his face, the uncorked bottle of jet juice on the table. She crashed into his arms as the door closed behind her.

“What are you doing here?” he slurred.

“I’m worried about you,” she said, pulling away and taking his face into her hands. It had been long since he shaved, his stubble thick under her fingertips. Alcohol hung on his breath like the stench of death. There were clothes and towels strewn over the room, on the floor and over the backs of chairs.

“I thought you hated me like everyone else,” he said in a flat voice, like someone who had the fight knocked out of him one too many times. He slipped from her grasp and went to slump over on the sofa. The glass of deep orange liquid was knocked back in an instant with a sharp breath from him.

“How much of that have you had?” Jyn asked, her brows knit together in concern.

He shrugged, “Enough. Not enough.”

“You must’ve have several bottles to get it in your head that I hate you, that I blame you,” she crossed the room to sit on the table in front of him, “Is that what this is about?”

His head hung low still, refusing to miss her eyes.

“I haven’t been avoiding you because I hate you. I was trying to give you space. I don’t know what you need if you don’t talk to me, Cass,” she said, softer on the last bit.

“I need to not be a fuck up. I need people to stop putting so much trust in me and learn that I’m going to let them down every time!” he shouted. The veins in his neck strained and red crept into his eyes as a thousand regrets stung them at once. He couldn’t keep it in any longer, her presence broke the dam that had built up, allowing everything to rush out, leaving her as collateral damage in the wake.

Sobs shook his shoulders as his resolve crumbled. Jyn slipped herself under his arms and allowed his weight to rest against her chest. His hands grasped at her desperately, taking fistfuls of the loose shirt and pressing himself further to her like muscle memory. They fit together whether they liked it or not, whether things were going well or not, it was always the two of them.

She shushed him, smoothing her hands through his hair, taking note of the unusual layer of grease covering his usually soft locks.

After a few minutes, the sobbing subsided into sniffling, his weight still fully resting on her.

“Can you do something for me?” she asked softly, pressing her lips against his earlobe.

“Anything,” he said shakily, “Whatever you need,” his eyes rose to meet hers, his favorite shade of green.

“I’m going to go start a shower for you. Do you feel strong enough to at least rinse off?”

He nodded.

Jyn took his hand in hers and led him over the piles of mess and into the fresher. She started the water and waited until she saw steam creeping up the edges of the mirror to turn her attention to him. Nimble fingers worked to undo his buttons, letting his shirt fall away. He lifted his legs one by one as she helped him out of his trousers, and leaned into her neck once more. Her arms wrapped around him, and she scratched his shoulder blades lightly with the tips of her nails, sending a small chill down his spine and an even smaller smile to his lips.

“I’ll be just out here if you need me,” she reassured him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Cassian lifted his head to press a long kiss to her lips, leaning his forehead against hers to linger for a moment before pulling away. An unspoken thank you, a gesture she recognized.

He disappeared into the cloud of steam, and Jyn re-entered the living space to get to work on the mess. She straightened the furniture, gathered the laundry, and filled a bag of the trash that had piled up. There were too many dirty clothes to wash in one load, so she did a sniff test on a few of the larger pieces, setting them aside to go in when the first load was done.

Cassian emerged to find her slipping new pillow cases onto each of their pillows atop the clean sheets she had used to dress the bed. He slipped his arms around her waist from behind, just content to hold her as she fluffed the last edges.

“I haven’t slept in weeks,” she murmured.

“Please stay,” he whispered, taking her wrist in his wide palm.

“Only if you want,” she gave him a chance to back out, didn’t want him to commit to anything just for her.

“I always want you near,” he smiled, for real this time, “As long as you’re alive, I want you in the space next to me at night, wherever that is.”

This time Jyn was the one to rest her weight against him, thankful to have even a glimpse of her partner back.

#rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fanfic #rebelcaptain fic #jyn x cassian #cassian x jyn #ask #sotvtaughtmehowtofeel

43 notes · View notes

mostthingskenobi · 3 months

Text

CASSIAN'S RECKONING - Chapter 16: The Rogues

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Some gentle fluff to entice you… Do I have an agenda? Yes, I do. Enjoy!!!

READ THE FIC ON AO3

THIS IS A WHUMPY FIC W/GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE. PLEASE HEED THE TAGS ON AO3.

——————–

CHAPTER 16: THE ROGUES

Describing how the Empire murdered his crewmates had shaken Cassian’s nerve. He stood in the corridor outside the ready room, grinding his teeth, breathing deeply through flared nostrils. Part of him wanted to hide in his quarters and avoid facing anyone, but his more practical nature, the part of his consciousness that guided most of his decisions nowadays, told him isolation was a bad idea in his current state. Solitude would lead to unrestrained self-reflection; sitting alone in a dark room while guilt ate him alive was the last thing he needed.

Instead, he went in search of Rogue Crew. Cassian craved their company, their awkward companionship, their grounding reassurance. He was their official commander, but they were such a mismatch group of dissidents the Alliance wasn’t quite sure how to utilize them. They were lumped into the Intelligence branch but that was a vague rubric. Cassian wondered if the Alliance’s ambiguous approach toward Rogue One had to do with the fact that none of the members, apart from Cassian, were actual sworn-in soldiers. Jyn was the only one who’d been assigned a proper military rank, but there was no guarantee that she or any of the other members would stick around for an extended period. Even so, as long as they remained, they were Cassian’s responsibility.

He found them in the mess hall eating donuts and drinking coffee.

“You all look bored,” he said, sliding into the seat next to Jyn.

“You finally look alive,” Baze replied totally deadpan.

Cassian smiled as he reached past Jyn for a donut.

“Welcome back,” Chirrut said warmly.

“Thanks.” Andor took a bite and gestured at everyone. “What did I miss?”

“We’ve been put on leave,” Bodhi answered. “Well, everyone except for Jyn.”

Cassian looked at her. “Really?”

“No explanation. They all got notified this morning,” she said.

“Maybe because they’re going to call you in for more debriefing?”

Jyn shrugged. “More like they have something especially fun planned for me.”

“It can’t be worse than anything you’ve already done.”

She laughed darkly. “True.”

“I’m on leave too.” Cassian bumped his shoulder against hers. “Sorry you have to miss out on all the relaxation, Lieutenant Erso.”

“Bastard,” she teased.

“Now that you’re better,” Bodhi said enthusiastically, “you should start playing sabacc with us again at night.”

“You’re still doing that?”

“We stopped for a bit.”

“When you got yourself captured and we had to rescue you,” Baze interjected.

Bodhi stuttered, nervous that Andor would be annoyed by the guardian’s jab, but Cassian just laughed. “We’ve started playing again,” the pilot continued. “It helps pass time living on this ship.”

Cassian hated playing cards but Bodhi was right, ship life for a grounded crew could be tedious at best. “Sure, why not.”

“Great!”

“Together again as we should be,” Chirrut smiled.

After a little more chitchat, the group gradually disbanded with the understanding they would meet again after dinner. As they stood and began to part ways, Jyn and Cassian naturally drifted together and walked side by side out into the corridor.

“Thanks for the clothes,” he said, leaning toward her and lowering his voice. “You didn’t have to do all that.”

“Planning on wearing medical pajamas to your debriefing, were you?” she smiled.

“Where did you get them?”

“There’s an exchange on board.”

“Can I pay you back?”

“You can pay me back by never getting into trouble like that again,” she chaffed him. “Anyway, you needed them,” Jyn continued, not giving him time to reply. “You lost everything on Yavin.”

“Except this,” he said pulling down on his jacket. “I don’t know how you managed to save it.”

“I brought it with for some reason. I stuffed it in a duffle before we launched your rescue mission.”

“Did you have another premonition? You always seem to know what’s going to happen.”

She absentmindedly brushed her fingers over the kyber hanging around her neck. “Maybe,” she said, betraying her troubled heart.

After a few silent beats Cassian spoke so quietly Jyn almost couldn’t make out what he said. “I wish I had listened to you.”

She knew he was referring to the last time they walked Rebel corridors together, when she’d tried to warn him about Tarkin. Now there was even more unspoken trauma hanging between them; he felt responsible for their fresh discomfort and she felt nervous that their suffering wasn’t yet over. Cassian was strong and wily and intuitive; seeing him broken and cowering beneath the Empire’s boot, bleeding on a durasteel prison floor, was unsettling to say the least. “I wish you had too,” she replied without reproach. “But nothing that happened was your fault.”

He changed the subject quickly, not ready to dive into the reality of his horror. “Where did they assign your quarters?”

“I have a rack with the rest of Rogue One in the main bunk room.”

“I still can’t believe they have you sleeping in there. You’re an officer, you should have a private room.”

“They don’t have the space for a spare like me. I’m not an officer of your stature; I’m just riffraff from the gutter.” She shrugged, only half joking.

“We were all riffraff in the gutter at one point. That’s why we’re rebels. But you should at least be with the other officers.”

They had made their way back to Cassian’s quarters and were now standing in front of his door. Jyn swept her arm dramatically and said, “You mean living in the lap of luxury like you? How do you like your broom cupboard?” she teased.

“It’s hardly big enough to turn around in.”

“At least it has a door,” she scoffed. “The only thing between me and fifty-nine snoring grunts is a fabric curtain. Do you have any idea how loudly Baze snores?!”

He smiled, enjoying how easy it was to talk to Jyn.

“How long are you on leave?” she asked.

“Four weeks.”

“Wow!”

“I know,” he was genuinely pleased. “The last time I had this much freedom I’d just broken out of prison.”

Jyn had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Which time?”

He smirked. “I only broke out once.”

She looked offended. “I beg your pardon, but doesn’t breaking out of Tarkin’s cellblock count for anything?”

“Technically you broke me out.”

“I did.” She smiled and crossed her arms over her chest in mock bravado. “I’m quite proud of myself.

“You planning to go anywhere?” she eventually asked.

“I’m not allowed to leave the ship. They’re keeping tight control over who comes and goes until they find a new base.”

“So, you’ll be around?”

“Looks that way.”

She couldn’t deny she was glad.

“Any idea why they didn’t grant you leave?”

She threw up her hands. “No, and I’m a little nervous about it. Why everyone but me?”

“They haven’t given you any assignments?”

“Nothing.”

“And you’ve already been debriefed?”

“A few days ago. They had me hand in the IT-O databank and they debriefed me at the same time.”

“You just handed it in a few days ago?”

“When we brought you into the Redemption’s medical bay, we arrived way ahead of most of the fleet. They were all still in the battle over Yavin while you were floating in a bacta tank. Draven and Mothma just arrived.”

“Did you…” he suddenly looked nervous. “Did you watch any of it?”

She took a step closer but didn’t touch him; she didn’t want to invade his physical autonomy after he had been manhandled by the Empire. “No,” she said gently. “Of course not.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you had.”

“I saw everything I needed to see in person.”

Cassian’s jaw tighten as his gaze drifted down and away. “That was the worst moment,” he finally said quietly, “when I saw you. I thought they’d captured you.” His eyes became dark as he stared at nothing. “Tarkin said he would make me watch while he tortured you.”

Jyn was horrified by the notion but tried to hide it from Cassian.

“I don’t think anything scares me more than the thought of them doing to you what they did to me. I’d rather live through it all again than ever have them lay a hand on you.”

Jyn bit her lip, fear and anger and guilt getting the better of her. “Cass,” she breathed.

He abruptly looked up at her, startled by the nickname.

“I’m…” she didn’t know what to say. Sorry felt grossly inadequate.

He stared down at her, his expression intense and troubled. “Thank you for coming after me,” he whispered. “I’m glad you came when you did. I think if they’d had the chance to move me to the Death Star no one would have been able to find me.”

Her eyes became fierce. “I would have broken down every single door until I’d found you.”

Emotion flickered across his face before he managed to subdue it. “You risked a lot to save me.”

“I’d risk everything to save you, Cassian.”

Each understood the weight of their confessions.

Jyn’s commlink suddenly beeped loudly in her vest pocket. She reluctantly broke eye contact with Cassian and reached for it. He waited patiently while she retrieved the message. “All officers are being called in to a briefing about the state of the fleet. You want to come or do you want to officially be on leave?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to sleep for a while. But fill me in later?”

She nodded. “Of course.” They shared a warm, knowing smile before she turned and headed up the passageway toward the ship’s central hub.

END NOTES

NEXT CHAPTER IS CALLED "THE ABSOLUTION" - Cassian's demons are still hovering in the background. He and Jyn share a very meaningful moment.

Thank you for reading!

Likes, comments, and reblogs are very welcome!

Much love!

——————–

READ IT ON AO3- Kudos and Comments Welcome :-)

READ CHAPTER 1 “The Razor”

READ CHAPTER 2 “The Scythe”

READ CHAPTER 3 “The Cold”

READ CHAPTER 4 “The Expendable”

READ CHAPTER 5 “The Truth”

READ CHAPTER 6 “The Detritus”

READ CHAPTER 7 “The Salt”

READ CHAPTER 8 “The Power”

READ CHAPTER 9 “The Betrayal”

REACH CHAPTER 10 “The Ruse”

READ CHAPTER 11 “The Reprieve”

READ CHAPTER 12 “The Ghosts”

READ CHAPTER 13 “The Redemption”

READ CHAPTER 14 “The Spoils”

READ CHAPTER 15 “The Interrogation”

READ CHAPTER 16 "The Rogues"

READ CHAPTER 17 “The Absolution”

READ CHAPTER 18 “The Reach”

READ CHAPTER 19 “The Hologram”

READ CHAPTER 20 “The Divide”

READ CHAPTER 21 “The Cost”

#rebelcaptain #rebelcaptain fic #rebelcaptain fanfic #cassian andor #cassian #andor #cassian andor fanfiction #jyn erso #jyn x cassian #jyn and cassian #jyn erso fic #rogue one #rogue one fanfiction #rogue one fic

16 notes · View notes