Work Text:
a hundred flags flying in a field
and who cares if i'm coming back alive?
so what? 'least i have the strength to fight.
— florence + the machine, too much is never enough
-:-
Cassian’s not quite the kind of person built for closeness, she thinks, judging by the fact that his best friend is a reprogrammed murder machine. He keeps her at arm’s length – of course, he has every right to; she’s, what’s the word, volatile – and he doesn’t touch her any more than he has to.
In a ship like this, though, there’s not really any space for privacy.
Their second night adrift, on the route to Jedha, she goes down to the lower deck to memorize the layout of the ship. He doesn’t follow her, although she suspects he wants to. Has to keep an eye on her, make sure she’s not jeopardizing the mission.
As if she would. Jyn adjusts the blaster strapped to her thigh, reminds herself he doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know how important this is to her. The rebels had offered her freedom, but that wasn’t the important part.
They had offered her a chance to find her father. She’s not about to let Cassian Andor’s prickly sensibilities get in her way.
She turns her head the wrong way peering at a piece of machinery and cuts her cheek open. She gasps out a curse and hurries up to where Cassian and K-2SO are bickering in the pilot’s seats, hoping to avoid their attention as she hunts down the medical supplies.
No such luck. Cassian notices her immediately. She wonders if he’s been training himself to pick her out, in case she gets lost in the crowd, or tries to run away. His gaze catches her and stays fixated, though he doesn’t ask what’s wrong as he watches her scramble for some gauze to press to the blood.
“Jyn,” he begins.
She cuts across him, too annoyed to be anything less than sharp. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I wasn’t.” But he moves closer anyway. “Here.”
“I can handle it,” she protests, but she doesn’t stop him from wrapping a hand around her wrist and taking the gauze from her grip. His touch is firm, but he’s gentle in a way she hadn’t expected. So much of him is all jagged edges and war-hardened heart. She hadn’t thought there was much room for softness.
Cassian wipes the blood off and reaches for a bandage. Jyn finds herself standing very still, her whole body tense as his fingers flutter over her cheek, deft and careful. He doesn’t seem to notice the set of her shoulders, although she’s sure he has – he is nothing if not observant.
Maybe he just doesn’t want to ask why he makes her so on edge.
He presses two fingers to her cheekbone and pastes the bandage over the cut, flattening it down with his thumb. It’s not intimate, really, but she can see his jaw working, count his eyelashes, hear his breaths as he leans in close to check his handiwork. He’s too, too close – and then he’s not.
“Be careful down there,” he remarks, pulling away from her. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “Can’t have you bleeding out before we even get to Jedha.”
“It was just a cut.” Jyn brushes her fingers over her cheek, the imprint of his touch lingering on her skin. “Thanks.”
Cassian turns away. He’s not smiling, she doesn’t think, but at least he’s not scowling, either.
-:-
They’re walking through the streets, a delicate sort of tension in the air, the whole city on a knife’s edge waiting to be sliced. Jyn shivers from the feeling, the certainty of the coming bloodshed; Cassian presses warm against her side and urges them forward, against the current of the crowd.
She turns a corner and sees three men with hulking shadows approaching a young girl and reaches for her blaster before she can think.
“Jyn, no.”
Cassian reacts faster than her and catches her around the waist, his arm too solid to fight against as he drags her back, away from the alley, and presses them both into a sandstone wall as she struggles.
“We can’t just let them – ”
“You can’t just charge in blind with a blaster,” he argues. Jyn pushes against him, craning to see what’s happening in the alley, and people are starting to stare at them. Cassian doesn’t let her go, but he lowers his head until his lips brush her ear.
“I thought you rebels were all about protecting the people,” she challenges, heart thudding in her chest. She’s sure he can feel it, with his fingers splayed over her side, right up against her ribcage.
“Jyn.” Cassian exhales a sigh, his breath ghosting over her cheek. She knows he knows she’s right. His grip on her waist loosens, but she doesn’t immediately take advantage of it.
“Do it without your blaster,” he tells her.
Jyn nods and shakes herself loose. She can sense his gaze hot on her back as she storms into the alley, can feel his touch still warm around her. He’s taking a risk, letting her go. She doesn’t know what’s changed for him to trust her like this.
Lucky for him, she doesn’t intend to betray that trust.
-:-
After the escape from Jedha, the ship is a lot more crowded than it had been. She doesn’t resent it, not really; the presence of the other three men is comforting, in a weird way, but she does leave the bathroom to them more often than not, going down to the lower deck when she has to change.
She’s not worried about anyone walking in. Either way, Chirrut is blind, K2 is a droid, Bodhi doesn’t seem like the type to even dare look, Baze doesn’t seem like the type to care, and Cassian –
Well, he’s Cassian.
Protecting the little girl from the Stormtroopers’ attacks hadn’t been easy on her back. She exhales heavy as she removes her shirt, remembering being bent over the child, letting the blasts graze her instead. She’s sure there’s a nasty wound there, but there’s no mirror to check, and she doesn’t really want to, anyway.
“Jyn.” His voice washes over her as she stands there, unable to move to put her shirt back on. She closes her eyes before she turns to look at him, knowing his face will tell her how bad it really is.
It’s really bad.
“Don’t you knock?” she asks, even though there’s not exactly a door for him to knock on. It makes her feel better to be snippy with him, because the look on his face is far too raw and real for her to be comfortable with.
“Was that from the Stormtroopers?” Cassian asks, and they both know it’s a stupid question. He seems to regret it the minute it leaves his mouth.
“No, actually, it was from the rebels,” Jyn mutters, mostly to hide the flush that’s warming her skin as he moves closer and her arms refuse to move to cover herself. “What do you think?”
“I think you need medical attention,” he remarks, sliding his hands up her forearms and spinning her around. Jyn shivers as he stares at her bare back, at whatever horrible scar is forming there. He inhales through his teeth, a sharp hiss, and then his fingers are on her skin.
“I’ll be fine,” she says, although she winces when he brushes the spot where she’d been hit. His hand stills in concern. “I’ve weathered worse than a few Stormtrooper blasters, Cassian.”
He doesn’t dignify that with a response. His fingers move again, soft and steady, this time tracing the lines that will surely be scars in the morning, all the way from the middle of her back to the side of her body. Jyn should stop him, but she doesn’t. He bumps up against her bra and hesitates there, where the pain disappears, before withdrawing himself.
“I’ll get you some burn salve,” he tells her, moving away so quickly that she thinks she must have unintentionally scared him off. When she turns, he’s not looking at her, but at a spot just beyond her shoulder.
Jyn reaches for her shirt and pretends not to notice the way his gaze flickers. “If that’ll make you feel better.”
“Jyn – ”
“You don’t have to worry so much about me,” she says, shrugging her shirt on. He glances briefly down before the fabric covers her skin and he looks away again. “I already got you what you wanted, didn’t I?”
Cassian’s jaw works, but no sound comes out.
Jyn bumps his shoulder, half accidentally, half on purpose, as she walks out. She’s not sure what she’s mad at him for, maybe for coming back and saving her when he didn’t have to, or for not believing her about her father even though he has no reason to, or for the way he touched her, so light even with his calloused palms, so warm even when she’s half-naked and shivering from the cold.
She turns her head just slightly to look at him before she leaves, and he’s still standing there, staring at the spot where she had been. Jyn bows her head and leaves him to mull over the possibility of not caring about her in peace.
-:-
She’s tired, and hungry, and angry, which is not a new combination for her, but this time, the anger is at Cassian and this time, it’s legitimate, and it drains her like very little else has before. She storms off after their fight, leaving the tension hovering around the other four, and slinks down into the lower deck, because she’s got no other escape.
Cassian finds her, because of course he does.
She’s not sure why, but he sits down beside her, back sliding against the metal wall, his presence heavy at her side. She should push him away, or walk off again, but she doesn’t have the energy, so she lets him join in her simmering silence with no small amount of resentment.
It strikes her sometimes that she is a fundamentally angry person. Cassian is so sharp and rough around the edges, just like her, but he knows how to be gentle. He’s got both a killer’s and a healer’s hands. She’s only a fighter, nothing more and nothing less.
For the longest time, he doesn’t say anything, and she just listens to his breathing until she gets sick of it. “Are you here for a reason or are you just going to sit there?”
She feels his gaze flick over to her, although she doesn’t turn to meet it. Her blood is still running too hot, too much adrenaline, too much raw pain and anger. If she looks at him, she might explode.
Finally, he speaks, his voice low. “I’m sorry you lost your father, Jyn.”
Her lips part, but she can’t think of anything to say, so she lets the statement sit there, cold and heavy in the air. And then a sob wrenches out of her throat.
Cassian jumps in surprise. He’s never seen her cry – no one has seen her cry, not since she was a child. Jyn wants to laugh, but it chokes out into a cry instead, and she buries her face in her hands, hating the fact that he has to see her like this, when he’s the cause, when he’s mad at her, when she should hate him, she should hate him.
But then he moves, arm sliding around her back, tucking her body into his side. Gently, he loosens her hands from around her and lets her bury her head in his shoulder instead. Jyn’s hands are shaking when they fall onto her lap, until he covers them with his own and rubs his thumb in soothing circles over her palms.
It’s not fair. He shouldn’t be so good at this. She shouldn’t be crying in the first place. He shouldn’t be here when she is. They’re completely the wrong people for this moment, him all secret rebellion and haunted heart, her all cold survivalism and anger burning in her blood.
Jyn, the daughter of the man who created a planet-killer. Cassian, the man sent to kill her father.
In all the wrong ways, still, they sit, and slowly, her sobs ease. She hates him, but she doesn’t, but she can’t. He holds her soft and warm, not saying anything, just letting her cry.
Sometimes, she imagines she feels his lips brush her temple, but it’s probably just her state of mind. It’s probably not something, not anything.
When her throat is hoarse and dry and the tears have dried, she looks up, although she keeps her head on his shoulder because it seems more comfortable than parting from him. Cassian glances down at her, his face immeasurably soft, and she hates him more for that than for anything else, she thinks. He shouldn’t look at her like that.
“Sorry,” she mutters, a flush of embarrassment crawling down her neck. “I didn’t mean to – ”
“It’s okay,” he says, and she can hear the rueful tone in his voice. “It was my fault anyway. I shouldn’t have come down here.”
Jyn huffs out half a laugh. He’s right, but he’s wrong. “I’m glad you did,” she admits.
It feels like she’s unlocked a breath caught in his chest with her confession, the way he exhales. She has to wonder how much the fight had stressed him out; he had been so defensive, so angry, she hadn’t thought he actually cared how she felt, with the way he leaned in close just to hiss at her, the way he stalked away, the way he refused to look at her as she left.
She feels so much more tired, suddenly. The anger replaced by heavy exhaustion, sinking into her bones at the mere thought of everything that happened today, the fire and the screams and the deaths. Her eyes close without her willing them to, and Cassian doesn’t move as she drifts in and out of sleep.
He feels so safe, when he had been so dangerous to her earlier. He strokes circles on her back with his hand, lulling her into sleep. Her heart is fluttering; she’s sure he can hear it. Tomorrow, they will have to face each other again, but right now, she doesn’t have to look at him, she only has to feel him.
K-2SO finds them down there in that same position, her head resting on his shoulder and his arm around her. She’s almost awake again, enough to register his presence and jump up off Cassian quickly, the embarrassment returning.
K-2SO looks between the two of them, processing. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, although droids can never sound very apologetic. Jyn studies the floor. “We’re about to land at the rebel base, and we need you two up there. If you’re quite done cuddling.”
Cassian coughs. “Yes, thank you, K2, we’ll be right there.”
When she chances a glance at Cassian, he looks a little red, too. K-2SO makes a noise that sounds disbelieving, but he takes the cue to leave them alone.
“You should go,” she says, before he has the chance to say anything. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
Cassian stares at her, then sighs, getting to his feet. “Come on,” he says, and when she looks up, he’s offering her his hand. “You need to be ready to make your case to the senators.”
Jyn looks at his hand like it’s something alien. Cassian shifts his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable. Finally, she accepts the hand and lets him pull her to her feet.
“Thought you wouldn’t care,” she says.
Cassian swallows. “I do care.”
That’s the end of it, because he walks away, leaving her to stare after him before she follows him up, but it feels more like the beginning of something.
-:-
The end comes on a beach in Scarif, with the whole world violently golden around them. She takes his hand and holds it tight, lets him wrap her in his arms and presses her head into his shoulder. So familiar and yet so, so different, here, at the edge of the world where the sky meets the sea and dies a lonely, lovely death.
She feels Cassian’s eyes close as he buries his face in her neck, whispering something not quite I love you and not quite goodbye into her skin. Her eyes stay open this time, marveling in the beauty of the apocalypse, the way the world looks when it’s falling all around you.
In her arms, he is soft and solid and warm, so many things she wishes she had the chance to love better, to love longer. To see his face as he looks at her one more time, but this will have to be enough. This is enough.
The light washes over them. They’re not so much touching as melded together at this point, and it’s enough.
Jyn closes her eyes and breathes.