“I've Done It Before"

Series Metadata

Creator:
Series Begun:
2024-04-11
Series Updated:
2024-09-25
Description:

Cassian : (re Luthen) “…tell him he needs to forget all about me. And that goes for everybody.”

Bix: “ I’ve done it before.”

 

I'm fascinated by the relationship between Cassian and Bix, as it's both more complicated and more unusual than first meets the eye. They're basically the 'lovers to friends' trope - but there's so much more to it than that. They were childhood friends. Bix is a kind of surrogate sister figure. 'Word of God' (see notes) is that they tried to be a couple multiple times, that they were 'meant to be together'.

This series starts with a fictionalised analysis of their goodbye scene in episode 7, and from there goes back in time to look at why they were first drawn together romantically, how Cassian's trauma impacted their relationship, how and why they first broke up, how they maintained their close friendship, how and why they got back together again … and how and why the romance part ultimately ended.

Notes:

There's humour, smut, a lot of angst and tragedy and a pair of really complicated young people at the heart of this. I've also taken the opportunity to explore Ferrix and to imagine the exact circumstances behind the little clues we get in the series. Fairly inevitably, you can see the whole series as a character study of young Cassian in particular, as he is the more fleshed out of the two (for now).

Depending on what happens in S2 the series might continue then. (For now, maybe try the otherwise unrelated fic 'Salvage Operation' which imagines Bix in the immediate aftermath of the finale.)

It's canon that they tried to be together as a couple more than once. In the Season 1 Production Brief Tony Gilroy says: "[Bix] and Cassian have been flirting and dating and circling each other and breaking up since he was, like, ten years old. They know everything about each other. They're meant to be together, and yet it's been impossible all these years. By the time of our show... she's done with him, he's burned every last bridge".

It's the present perfect continuous tense. 'I've done it before' is also in the present perfect. In other words, it's something ongoing... still affecting the speaker in the present time.

Put bluntly: they still have unresolved feelings, despite their rational acceptance that they shouldn't try to get together again. That's not necessarily a helpful thing for them as people. But it makes for great drama.

Stats:
Words:
26,326
Works:
6
Complete:
No
Bookmarks:
5

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