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ruby-red-inky-blue · 4 days ago

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the arms of the ocean

for @andorerso's Fix-it Week, for the prompt stolen moments/traditions

After the mess of the past twenty hours, finding the shimmering purple lake feels like a little bit of a miracle. Or, to a less cynical being, perhaps a reward for all the shit they’ve been through – again – in this endless, painful, stupid fight that has clawed into their bones all their lives, and that she often things will be the last thing left of her when all else is gone.

Regardless, Jyn thanks the Force for the heavenly sight, and the perimeter check she makes before ripping off her sweaty, stained clothes would have got her yelled at for roughly a standard hour back when.

It doesn’t matter – right now, she’ll gladly fight whatever wants to stop her from sinking her battered, reeking body into the crystal-clear water. (And, on a more practical level, she is not really concerned. She is no longer alone, and Cassian, ever careful, hypervigilant, boring Kath-mutt of a spy is hanging back as she throws herself into the blessedly cool waters of the lake. With him watching her back, she can afford to be a little foolish sometimes.)

The water is divine after the heat of the fumes and the explosions and the overheating speeder barrelling through slate-grey sands, like grit paper on every sliver of exposed skin. She feels raw, all over, and her shoulder throbs where the trooper’s baton hit… But the lake’s embrace is gentle and soothing, the cold water lapping ever-so-faintly at her as she dives to the bottom.

And, true enough, when she comes up for air, feet digging into the fine sand below and dirt dripping from her hair into her eyes, Cassian is standing at the edge of the water, fully dressed and blaster in hand, shaking his head at her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone get naked this fast.”

[Read on Ao3]

She grins at him and tips her head back to rinse some of the grime out of her hair as best she can. “Sure you have.”

She hears him laugh, muffled by the water. “True. I meant I haven’t got a chance to, ah… admire the speed. From a distance.”

Jyn rolls her eyes at the pearly white sky, and dips her head underwater again, smoothing her tangled hair back as she resurfaces. She hadn’t really thought past the feeling of cool water on her skin and the opportunity to wash the slime and grit of the factory explosion out of her hair… but they do have at least five standard hours to kill before Bodhi, Chirrut and Kay will be at the rendezvous point. And, barren and lonely as it is, this is a very nice place. And there isn’t a sentient in miles and miles out here. After months on base… well, it would be downright criminal to squander this opportunity, wouldn’t it?

“You could admire up close,” she says, smiling up at her partner and pushing a little further out again. “The water’s nice.”

He smiles. “I’m good.”

“You’re every bit as disgusting as I am,” she scoffs. “Bodhi might not take you on board like this, and I wouldn’t blame him.”

He shrugs. “Someone should be on guard. This model isn’t water safe,” he says, waving the blaster in his hand.

“We lost them,” she says, with as much patience as she can muster. “We doubled back four times, Cassian.”

Instead of relaxing, he just tenses up a little more – not watching the shoreline as she thought, actually, but the water of the lake.

“We don’t know what might be living in there. You should come out.”

She sighs, and forces herself not to roll her eyes at him again. No, this one’s on her, really. She had to pick the jumpiest son of a ruskakk she could find. He is a spy, it’s not like she didn’t know this about him.

“Look around,” she says, gesturing at the empty, silvery shores and cragged obsidian rocks lining the lakeside. “What would live here? What would it eat?”

He opens his mouth to argue, and she can picture it already – oh, but there’s a jungle nearer the equator, Jyn, things do live here, you’re the one always telling me to remember that the –

“Jyn, if something pulls you in there, I will be very little help,” he says quietly, eyes still skimming the glimmering surface of the water.

Jyn feels her thoughts grind to a painful halt, not unlike the lumbering troop carriers she used to wrench durasteel rods into when she was thirteen. The realisation drops in quietly, slowly, and then one after another the gears catch and whine, misalign, and –

“You’re telling me you can‘t swim?” she asks, and Cassian just shrugs, eyes never leaving the water.

“Where was I going to learn it?” he answers lightly. “On Fest, most water was frozen solid.”

Jyn swallows at something – a memory, a burning in her lungs, a horrible sound in her ears, a weight, wriggling and heavy, pulling…

She tamps it down, in tried-and-true fashion; cauterises it with searing, white-hot rage. It’s not difficult to summon. Those banthafuckers –

“And it’s not like you’ve been a soldier for like twenty years since then!” she snarls. “Doesn’t the goddamn Alliance teach their people to swim? Didn’t the Seps?”

Another shrug. “I guess they were giving the underwater espionage to other people,” he says, and puts a sardonic little smile on his face, but his eyes still watch the gentle patterns of the wind on the lake’s surface, and she has looked at him long enough now to see that the smile is off – not very, but enough.

She does wade back to shore, just so he’ll start actually listening to her. The tension melts out of his shoulders immediately, and he reaches down and holds out her jacket to her.

The wind is a shock on her bare, wet skin, but she is too angry to feel it.

“Who was your drill instructor?”

“Sargeant Karle,” he says patiently, still holding out the worn, coarseweave work jacket, though something crinkles around his eyes in concern when he finally clocks her mood. “But you can’t yell at her now, she’s been dead for a long time.”

Jyn huffs. “Did she drown?”

“No. Faulty grenade, I think.” He sighs. “I’m not sure. I was off world when it happened.”

Something about his tone soothes her a little – hell, how many times had a grenade, a blaster bolt, even the local fauna stopped one of her lessons short? How often had Saw dropped her into some mess, only to be irritated and confused when she had to hack her way out because he’d failed to impart some crucial information, had assumed she would know?

(Maybe he’d lied about it, too. It got so tiring, so embarrassing, being the kid of the group. She remembers that. She remembers, after the fiftieth time of piping up to say “I don’t know how to do that”, after the eightieth time of someone rolling their eyes and rattling off some condescending instructions – just nodding when someone asked if she knew, and praying she’d just figure it out in the moment… though she can about imagine how that well that would go when the thing you were lying about was knowing how to keep your head above water.)

She holds the jacket, runs her thumb over the coarse material, considering.

“Jyn,” Cassian says, very softly, and she drops the jacket on the sand.

She will not accept this. She will not –

“Get in the water, Cassian.”

The concern in his dark eyes makes room for something somewhere between bemusement and alarm. “Jyn –“

She shakes her head, steps up to him and slowly curls her hand around his over the blaster. He wouldn’t hurt her – well, he’d never want to. But they are what they are, and she’s not about to take chances while she’s actively triggering his fight or flight response.

A third emotions enters the confused mix on his face, battling the two much more serious ones. Jyn, too, suddenly becomes a little more aware of the fact that she is having this conversation very naked.

She makes use of his distraction by taking the blaster, and jutting her chin up defiantly. Naked or not, she could knock him on his ass whenever she wants. She wouldn’t, unless she had to. But she could.

“A blaster bolt to the head, or your karking little pill, that’s one thing,” she says quietly. “But you’re not drowning.”

The memory rears its ugly head again, for the span of a breath, but she swats it down. She has a task now. She can ignore it.

His eyes flicker, a motion so small she only catches it because she spends an inordinate amount of time looking at this man (and still, Force, not nearly enough yet, not by a long stretch). The anxiety still sits in his eyes, but something softens. She’s not sure what did it – usually, she has to hammer down the fact that she is concerned for him for hours until anything sticks. She probably gave something away. (Kriffing spies.)

“Get in the water,” she repeats, and he sighs, checks his commlink, sighs again. His eyes are still soft on hers, but the tension in his shoulders is back. She doesn’t need to clock this to know what he thinks of this suggestion – but he still watches her, and whatever he’s seeing seems to mean something.

“Alright.”

She tries to let her expression soften a little, too, but doesn’t feel very convincing. She attempts a smile. “Could be fun.”

He scoffs, steadying himself on her as he steps out of the uniform pants. “Don’t expect me to get too excited while I’m fighting a body of water for my life.”

She does smile, now. “One day, Cassian,” she mutters, pulling the grimy shirt over his head, “you’re going to loosen up. And I’ll be there to see it.” She steps in closer and kisses him, slowly, languidly. For once, not listening for the hiss of a door, the ping of a comm, the trampling of plastoid boots or the blaring of klaxons...

He doesn’t relax, but he does tug her closer, and the reflexive, practised movement of it makes her blood boil a little more. She won’t lose this man. Not yet. She is so far from having her fill of stolen moments like this –

“I would not mind doing this instead,” he murmurs against her lips, leaning his head against hers. She can tell he’s not putting in real effort to try and convince her, but shavit, she almost lets it work anyway.

Almost, though, because that memory is still simmering just under her skin and she will be damned if she ever hears anyone make that noise again. And not him, not for all the galaxy.

So she breaks away, not far, just far enough to look up at him with a teasing grin. “Try hard enough, and maybe there’ll be something in it for you.”

That brings a spark to his eyes, despite the nerves. It never stops being funny to her, how much this ever-patient kung loves a challenge, underneath it all. “Deal.”

She reaches for his hand, and pulls him towards the water. As soon as the water laps at their feet, she can feel the tension returning to his movements – not the limp, she barely even remembers how he walked before. But she can tell how much it takes him to keep following.

“We’re not going in far,” she says, as matter-of-factly as she can. “You can just stand up, and you’ll be fine.” She turns back to him, finds him staring out to the middle of the lake in apprehension again, and runs her hand through his hair until he looks at her.

“Are you with me?”

He exhales, slowly. “Yes.”

“Good,” she says softly, and pulls him further in, until the clear water is up to her shoulders.

“Okay. Just bend your knees and put your head underwater.”

He looks at her like she’s gone crazy, and she sighs.

“Hey. It’ll get all this druk out of your hair, and you can stand up whenever you want.”

He glowers at her for another second, but then goes under obediently – a little too fast, which tells her he had to force himself, and he’s breathing a little too hard when he comes up again.

She attempts a smile, even though no part of her feels like smiling. She doesn’t know what she hates more, how uncomfortable she’s making him or how obviously he, too, has some kind of very real experience with the feeling of drowning.

“Go again. Maybe actually wash your head this time,” is all she says, because she knows he doesn’t want pity, and she’s shit at it, anyway.

(When they get back, she will get Draven to sign off on mandatory swimming lessons, and if it’s the last thing she does. Perhaps the princess, or Mothma. She’d like to see them look down on her partisan training then, when she asks how many of their soldiers would survive the first ten minutes of being dropped onto Manaan.)

They repeat this for a while, until he lets her dive down with him and run her hands through his dirt-crusted hair, until his breathing is even when he comes back up.

“Good?” she asks, and he makes a motion somewhere between a nod and a shrug, which she declares good enough, because she’s getting cold. At this point it dawns on her that she doesn’t really remember being taught how to swim – at least not in what order she learned anything. But she figures she might get him more comfortable just standing in the water for a while, and teaches him the arm movement first. Breaststroke to start with, the way she learned – it’s not ideal, in fact with his limp it might tire him out a lot, but he needs to unlearn his fear before he’ll swim in any way that forces his head underwater.

The movement isn’t complicated, of course, so after a minute, he starts looking at her with his brows raised, as if to say I don’t think this is all it takes. He still looks at the lake like it wants to eat him, though.

Jyn sighs. “Look, if you keep your body tense enough, the water will keep you on the surface, okay?”

“That wasn’t my experience,” he says testily, in a tone that makes him sound far younger than he is – possibly as young as he was whenever he formed that memory.

“You go where your feet point, basically,” Jyn replies. “If your feet and your ass are close enough to the surface, the rest of you will be, too. Here,” she places her hands on his shoulders and lets her feet drift up behind her. “See? Doesn’t take that much.”

He eyes her like he’s not convinced she’s not doing some kind of magic to trick him. She brings her feet back down and places his hands on her shoulders. “Your turn.”

“I –“

“You said you trust me.”

Cassian sighs. “I do, but –“

“No but. I’ve got you,” she says flatly, placing her hands over his. “Just trust me.”

His hands clamp over her shoulder so hard she almost winces, but he does as he’s told, and eventually stays afloat without fidgeting, even though he’s still looking at her as if she was asking him to swallow a live vespid.

“Okay. You were watching me earlier. Do you remember how I moved my legs?”

He tries to set his feet down again, but she stops him. He glares at her.

“I was watching. Not strictly… to learn, though.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “You… pull your knees towards you, then move your feet apart and have them meet again as you stretch your legs. Like you’re making a circle with your feet.”

“What?”

Jyn sighs. “You ever see a frog swim?”

“A what?”

“Never mind,” she mutters. She’s a very good swimmer. She’s a good instructor, too – hell, several councilmembers signed off on that fact. This shouldn’t be this complicated.

He sets his feet down and releases her shoulders with a patient smile that seems less fake than his previous ones. His thumb traces a gentle line along her arm as he pulls away. “Can you show me?”

“Yeah,” she mutters, regaining some resolve. “You should look underwater, though. You’ll see better.” And it’ll freak you out less if you have a task. Wins all around.

She swims a few laps around him, and is pleased she knows him well enough to tell when he’s seen enough and getting distracted again. Force, she hopes he gets the hang of this quickly, so they can make some less depressing use of their precious few hours out time… well, regardless, really, they’ll have to get out of the water eventually. It wouldn’t do to get hypothermia (and away from Hoth, too, that’d just be kriffing embarrassing). They’ll need to find some way to get warm... She can think of a few.

She has him hang on to her shoulders for a while, practicing the movements, until he succeeds in his first task (pushing her over). A little too well, if anything – she miscalculated. Her prosthetic doesn’t have as much traction on the sand as her good leg, and when he pushes her backwards, she actually goes under, cold water going up her nose, and, what’s worse, fully dropping out from under Cassian. Which is fine all things considered, they’re in shallow water and he’s already on his feet when she comes up again, but she feels a raw flash of panic anyway, and he looks about three shades paler than he did a few seconds ago.

“Are you okay?” he asks very quietly, and he sounds out of breath.

“I’m fine. Good job,” she mutters, probably just as unconvincingly nonchalant.

His face twists into something she doesn’t like, guilty and vulnerable. She feels that, too, and a sting of irritation – they teach each other things all the time. It isn’t usually this awkward… well, it was sometimes, at the start. Especially for the vulnerable things, like having to explain when and how she needs to be told things or needs reassurance, when and how to touch her and when to stay the fuck away from her and how to tell the difference (hell if she knows, most of time). She doesn’t like being suddenly reminded that even when she has never been this comfortable around another person all her life, it doesn’t mean that they get to be done with the painful, awkward learning of it all.

Chirrut would probably make some cheesy point of there being joy in that, in the learning always continuing.

She thinks that’s bantha shit, right now. She loves learning from Cassian, and teaching him… teaching him how to use a weapon he’s never held before, or play a game he’s never played before. Not… this.

She tugs him close, in lieu of anything good or helpful to say; slowly running her hands over the tight muscles in his shoulders and the line of jagged scars along his spine until his breathing slows against her.

“Sorry I dropped you,” she mutters into his ear, and feels him tug her closer in response. “It won’t happen again.”

“I know,” he whispers, fingers digging into her tousled, wet hair, and they stand like this for a few breaths longer, alone in the cool, dark, gently moving water. Pressed together like two stars in the same orbit, slowly, slowly fusing into one brighter sun.

She does not let him leave the water before he’s got the hang of it enough to swim out to where his feet can no longer touch the ground, and from there back to shore, and back again three more times. In the end, she needs to be coaxed into stopping with the promised incentives, and only relents after promising (threatening) to make him continue the lesson as soon as they get near an unfrozen body of water again.

(Unsurprisingly, nothing kills the mood faster than being naked on fine sand – it would, Jyn imagines, even if that wasn’t what she felt under her feet in most of her nightmares – so they do end up in the shallow water again. She thinks to herself, afterwards, staring up into the featureless, pearly sky, this might have gone further in endearing Cassian to the element than the ninety-or-so minutes they spent on the impromptu swimming lesson. It’s a real shame this method will probably not come in as useful the next time, since most bodies of water won’t do her the favour of being both beautifully clean and entirely deserted.)

“Who taught you to swim?” Cassian asks quietly, combing his fingers through her tousled hair.

“Papa. At the IoCE sports centre, they had this enormous pool,” she replies, turning over to tuck into his side so she can look at him. “The size of the Yavin landing pad, I swear.”

He smiles distantly. “I bet the water was warmer at the Imperial Corps of Engineers’s sports centre.”

“Yeah. But there were significantly less imps and ISB creeps watching us here.”

Cassian snorts. “Thank the Force for that.”

“Mmh.” She grins, tracing her fingers over his arm. “It’s fun, once you get the hang of it, you know. Swimming. It’s… nice. Someone said once, it’s the closest a flightless species gets to flying.”

He crinkles his nose. “I think flying is the closest I get to flying.”

“No, like… flying without a ship, you drydak.”

He grins and rolls to his side, facing her. “Well, maybe… if this is how these lessons go… I might see the vision eventually.”

“Yeah?”

The teasing melts out of his eyes, slowly. “I’m glad you’re here to teach me, Jyn.”

She may be getting lessons in vulnerability these days, but she thinks she’ll need a million more before she’ll know a sensible reply to things like this. But he tried, for her, so she makes an attempt, a feeble one – “Yeah. Me too.” – and leans in to kiss him again, before she thinks of drowning again. She’ll let him steal her air, on and on, until the memory has faded once more.

(They hike to their rendezvous point hand in hand, silent and exhausted, and there is a stillness in her head that she has not felt in… Force, maybe ever. For an hour, they wait there in the twilight, shoulder to shoulder, talking only in the press of fingers, in the passing of a canteen, in following the other’s gaze to the horizon. Making the most of their stolen time.)

[Leave a comment on Ao3!]

#rcfixitweek #my words #therebelcaptainnetwork #for a fic where one of them is naked for like 80 percent of the text this is extremely tame #Somehow tamer than even I wanted it to be? Idk there were two competing moods here and they do not mix.#on a perhaps related note I tried to make up an alien planet and accidentally made 'Ace Flag: The Landscape' lol #Do not ask me about the ecology of this planet. I do not know.#It was simply vital that no weird Star Wars creature would pop up and eat them.#anyway late with starbucks!!!#after years of fic writing... i have made rebelcaptain fuck on a beach! in sad and nondescriptive ways true to brand but STILL!!#i... don't love this fic. but i really wanted it finished before the day ends. i had to pick a weird topic. idk it feels janky #i'll probably be tinkering with the ao3 version for a bit

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dilf-din · 5 days ago

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We’ve Been Lonely Too Long

A rebelcaptain fix it fic for @andorerso ‘s event

Day 2: how they confess feelings

WC: 2600

Warnings/tags: descriptions of ptsd, hurt/comfort, little spoon Cassian

Read On AO3

That day would always be hazy in Jyn’s memory. Like the ringing in your ears after a bomb goes off, swallowing up your senses and replacing them with chaos. Haunted by the all too near echoes of the metallic clash of blaster fire on armor, of agonized cries and waves crashing. When she breathed deep, she could still detect traces of burnt flesh and salt air. Her tongue tasted faintly of blood mixed with the sea, like a coastal gust had settled in the deep part of her throat. If she opened her mouth to scream, she was certain it wouldn’t be her voice that came out, but the winds of Scarif.

The exposed bits of her forearms were still dotted with sand, stuck on with a combination of blood, sweat, and grime. A familiar second skin that she couldn’t bear the thought of being rid of just yet.

She tried to recall the comrades that she led into certain death, but something kept her from the agony of seeing their lifeless eyes on repeat. Instead it’s all covered in the bright green beam of the Death Star, slowly draining her memories of any other color.

Shock is too weak a word for what she was feeling, too mild for the survivor’s guilt that was already tying itself into a noose that would haunt her dreams for the rest of her days.

The debriefs and meetings she was whisked away into the second they touched ground on Yavin were equally hazy. No time to grieve. No time to process.

That wasn’t fair, though. Not really. Because she had been sitting on her freshly made bed in her newly assigned quarters for almost an hour, and she hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t attempted to unpack any of the loss circling her chest like a whirlpool. She was afraid if she dipped a toe in, she would get pulled out of herself completely, disconnected from the fraying tether fighting like hell to keep her mind and body together as one fragile piece.

There was still blood on her hands, her cheeks, streaked through her hair. Some hers, some Cassian’s.

Cassian.

There was so much Jyn wanted to say to him. So much that had already been imparted through glances and touches. They had come to terms with death, wound tightly around each other, before they were ripped away from another collapsing horizon on the last rebel ship skating the beach in hopes of any survivors.

She didn’t feel like a survivor. She felt like a ghost, hollowed of the things that made her who she was. Maybe in time, that emptiness could be filled with other things, other people, a new hope, but for now, she decided to air out the wound.

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she let out a gasping sob that shook her shoulders. Jyn didn’t try to stifle the noise. She wailed for all that she had lost. The myth of her father, the giant that was Saw, bright eyed Bodhi. For so long she had kept herself from crumbling, but when the foundation is ripped from your feet, what other choice do you have?

When the watershed had slowed to a trickle, Jyn drew in shaky breaths to try to steady herself once more. Allowing herself one good cry would have to suffice for now. Stars, it was late. Her head was beginning to throb along with everything else.

She had just about mustered the courage to rise and wash herself when there was a knock at her door, no louder than a whisper. For a moment she thought she imagined it. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and loosened her blood crusted bangs from the wetness of her cheeks before taking a few unsteady steps towards the door.

Cassian stood on the other side, freshly showered, though his eyes betrayed him. They would forever be colored by what they lost that day. He opened his mouth as if to speak, inhaling a breath that hitched in his throat.

Jyn couldn’t find the words either, settled instead for reaching for his forearm and sliding her hand down to his own, which he took quickly. She gently led him through the threshold of the door as it slid closed behind him, safely encasing them in the walls of her room.

“I was just about to wash up,” she explained awkwardly, finally breaking the heavy silence like a safely chosen small stone dropped into the surface of the water.

“I don’t care,” he said like a dam breaking, pulling her into his embrace and tangling his hands in her grimy hair. Jyn clung tightly to him, clawing at the surface of his shirt and inevitably staining it. She had stained a lot of things beyond repair this week.

Though she had already allowed herself a good cry, tears welled up again as they held each other like they did huddled down on the beach, certain that they only had moments more together. Despite the fact that they had made it through the day, it felt like the clock was still ticking on their time together. The fight hadn’t just begun, it had been waged the sum of their whole lives, but now it was entering a new level that they were both unfamiliar with.

Cassian’s hold on her strained, and he let out a pained grunt. Jyn quickly pulled back and cupped his shoulders lightly.

“Your back,” she intoned with regret.

“It’s fine. They shot some bacta into it. Just stiff now.”

He took in the sight of her with all her defenses down. Wildly brave and defiant, but still full of the love and care that made for a great leader.

There was a gentleness in his gaze one wouldn’t expect from a high ranking spy with a kill count like his. Jyn had seen over the course of their missions that he was weary. His humanity was being stretched paper thin, already torn at the edges, still he clung to the tender parts of himself, refusing to turn his back to them, sometimes to the detriment of the cause at hand. She heard it in the way he spoke to her, in the way he spoke of others, in the sum of his decisions always leading to the fewest casualties if he had any control over it.

“You did well today,” he said softly, bringing the back of his hand to her cheek in a featherlight touch. Tears were tracking slowly down his own cheeks. Not a desperate cry, but one of relief, pain, and uncertainty about how to move on.

Jyn swallowed hard as she tried to parse the part of him that was speaking to her. Was it Cassian the Captain, Cassian the friend, Cassian the apologetic who had tried to kill her father and still wanted to make it up to her, or another facet of him she thought was just developing. The Cassian who had kissed her so softly in the elevator. The tingle of her lips was one of the only things she felt through the crushing numbness. The Cassian who had taken her hand on the beach. The Cassian who had clung to her when the sky had burned white with the threat of infinite nothingness. A Cassian who could love her? If not now, maybe someday?

Jyn quickly banished the thought. Surely when he looked at her, he saw K2’s fried circuitry, Melshi blown to bits, Tonc facedown in the sand. How could he ever look into eyes as green as hers and ever see anything but the death sentence of the Death Star beam? She felt herself begin to tremble again under the weight of his gaze.

“I’m so sorry more didn’t make it,” her voice broke as she wrenched herself from his grip and turned away from him, collapsing in on herself like the holy city. She felt like the Empire was reducing her to rubble day by day.

“Jyn,” Cassian whispered, placing a hand on her arm and trying to draw her back to him. “I don’t blame you for any of this. All of these people, all of them were soldiers. All of them knew the risks. All of them were willing to die for this chance. Just like you and me.”

“So why didn’t we?” Her words were bitter, angry.

Cassian shrugged, “Tomorrow, we take the next chance, and we do it for them. And the next one, and the next one, till our chances are spent,” one corner of his mouth turned up in the hint of a smile as he repeated her words back to her.

Jyn had no strength left to fight his gravity as he pulled her back to his chest. Cassian tucked her securely under his chin, pressed a lingering kiss to the top of her head, and Jyn refused to allow herself to get used to the weight of him in her arms and against her body. She tried to fight it, but her limbs were so tired that she began to melt against him.

They stood frozen in time. That seemed to happen a lot the past few days. Like the hands of the clock had pity on them, fighting to slow the moon’s rotation and allow them a moment to grieve.

Wordlessly, they fulfilled each other’s needs; Jyn’s, to be held by gentle hands; Cassian’s, to hold someone he cared for against his beating heart. To share warmth and breath and hope.

When Jyn eventually let out a shuddering sigh close to contentment, Cassian rubbed his hands up her back as if to wake her up. “Go wash up. Take your time. I’ll wait right here.”

Jyn’s eyes were blown wide, illuminated only by the soft light next to her unmade bed. Cassian walked to her dresser and pulled out a starchy set of standard issue sleepwear. “These are better once they’re worn in. Let me grab you a set of mine. Might be easier to sleep.”

Jyn nodded, struggling to anchor herself to this moment, this new reality. She perched on the edge of the desk by the window and began to shed some of her layers. Her boots, belt, vest, and gloves all piled into the floor to be dealt with another time. She reached back and pulled the tie out of her hair, wincing as it snagged and pulled out a number of bloodied strands.

Cassian came back in a moment later, having changed into his own sleep clothes with a pair of faded slippers on his feet. In his arms he carried a pair of pants and a shirt almost identical to the ones he had one and an extra blanket.

“Here,” he handed the bundle to Jyn, setting the blanket on the edge of her bed. “It can get cold in here.”

“Cassian,” she started.

He turned to her almost expectantly. For the first time, he seemed out of his element.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His eyes softened and he flashed a shy smile.

“I’m just trying to repay you for everything.”

They shared a look that only people who had survived tragedy together could share, and Jyn disappeared behind the fresher door.

Cassian got to work dressing her bed. He tucked the sheets under the mattress with care and precision. He swapped the thin top sheet they provided everyone with for the thicker knit blanket he had taken from his own room. It was a cream and brown simple chevron pattern with a thicker down layer in the middle. When he finished, he sank down on the edge of her mattress, suddenly weighed down by the exertion of the day. His back ached violently and his limbs felt as if they could completely detach from his frame at any moment. Cassian allowed himself a moment to lie down, convinced he would force himself to rise when he heard the water cut off.

Jyn took the longest shower of her life, hoping if she stood long enough beneath the scalding stream, she could peel out of her skin and let it slip down the drain with the rest of the ash and blood, leaving no trace of Scarif on her surface. It was already spreading like a cancer inside of her. Attaching itself to her brain and heart and lungs, weighing her down with every breath, reaching its ice cold fingers farther with every beat of her heart.

After towel drying her hair as best as she could, she rubbed a clear spot in the middle of the mirror and tried to make sense of her reflection. Staring back at her was someone with hollow, reddened eyes and a permanent frown. The girl in the mirror looked exhausted, defeated, afraid. Had she always looked like this? Would she always feel this heavy?

Jyn looked at the faded pajamas on the edge of the sink, and her breath hitched once more. On the other side of the door waited a man who had stayed with her through the darkest days of her life since Lah’mu. Something made her think that he would’ve stayed with her then if he could. Cassian’s steady eyes and hands were seeping into those memories and filing down the sharp edges that had sliced her tender skin open for years. She pulled his shirt over her frame and almost sighed at the softness and the scent of him. The pants sat low on her hips and spilled over her feet, but she liked the feeling of being covered by someone else, so she kept them on. As her hand reached for the light switch, she couldn’t ignore the fluttering pound of her heart in her chest. Jyn took a few deep breaths before exiting the fresher.

The edges of her eyes and mouth softened even more at the sight of Cassian snoring softly on her bed. Jyn quickly weighed her options and almost decided to just sleep on the floor, before one final burst of boldness overtook her. She crossed the room with careful steps and nudged Cassian slightly towards the wall.

“Move,” she mumbled softly.

Cassian roused in a slight panic. “I’m sorry. I can leave, I—“

“Hush,” she instructed with no hint of harshness in her voice.

Cassian scooted in and kicked the cover down over his feet while Jyn sidled up behind him. She draped a firm arm over his waist and pressed her face tenderly into his back, ghosting a kiss over the broadness of it while being careful to not exacerbate the hurt any more.

Cassian tensed slightly at her presence and tried to stutter out another apology. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I can leave, really.”

“I want you to stay,” she said firmly and clearly.

Cassian winced as he rolled to his back and then once more to face Jyn. Her eyes were already closing, eyelashes heavy on the sharpness of her cheekbones.

“Are you sure?” He asked carefully, giving her one final out. The tensions of the day had surely clouded their judgment, though he knew deep down that his feelings were true. He had made his mind up about her on Jedha. When he saw her rush into a firefight to save a little girl and carry her to safety, he knew the kind of woman she was, and that only became increasingly clear over their time together.

Jyn leaned forward to catch his mouth in a firm kiss that softened at the end. They lay nose to nose, and she breathed a final sentiment against his lips, “I’m sure.”

#rcfixitweek #rebelcaptain #jyn x cassian #cassian x jyn #rogue one fic #I stayed up late to post this bc I got too excited

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