Chapter Text
Jyn hated everything on fucking Wobani.
She hated the place, cold and humid and dark. Her clothes were never fully dry, always sticking to her irritated skin somehow. It trapped the cold inside, under her skin, clinging to her bones. She couldn’t shake it off. She couldn’t escape it, even under the poor excuse of a blanket she’d been ‘gifted’ with. (No one to share warmth with… Don't think of— Don't.)
She hated the cellmate. The Blutopian was a threat to her life. Had already expressed the desire to end it. Jyn wasn’t exactly sure to know why but she only needed to know when, so she could do it first. That’s how those things were supposed to go, always. (The memory of… him… was just an anomaly in the system.)
She hated the work, too. Fucking Empire. What were they even trying to build with this much durasteel? Nonsensical. The work was just an excuse to watch them fall to their deaths rather sooner than later. No one lasted long on Wobani. A few years, five at most. Jyn had earned twenty years of labor, courtesy of Solange, and she already knew she wouldn’t live to see half of it.
She wasn’t sure why she bothered to put up with this misery. Maybe she should have let Kennel plant that shiv in her throat.
(“When we’re going to the field, today. That’s when I’ll do it,” she’d said.)
Well, be my guest. Maybe I’ll take you with me.
Jyn sat still inside the armored vehicle transporting the selected workforce of the day. Getting outside of that prison was still a luxury compared to factory work. Jyn liked those days better… even met with her murderous cellmate’s instincts. Fucking psychopath.
The unpleasant rocking of their transport on the rough and uneven terrain stopped. Jyn tensed without reason.
The stormtrooper in the entryway, who’d managed to strike the most put-upon posture even compared to all the prisoners, grumbled to his feet. “What now?”
“I dunno,” said another dehumanized voice. “Must be another pickup.”
The first one frowned audibly through his helmet. “I thought we had everybody.”
He started to turn at a sound and was just in time to fling up his hands as the door exploded open.
The people outside must have infrared viewers, or a killdroid. No organic eyes could adjust that fast from the sunlight (such as it was on this planet) to the shadowy compartment—no more quickly than the stormtroopers could adjust the other way around. Two immediate shots hit each ’trooper stone dead.
Jyn was struggling to make her eyes adjust, too; she went more by sound and silhouette at first. Just by that, she knew whoever entered was military (sturdy boots hitting the metal, steps in time therefore in formation, all holding weapons of the same shapes at the same angles, and then one voice shouting “All clear!”). She was able to make out their camo gear when ice spiked through her spine with one yelling, “Hallik! Liana Hallik!”
She didn’t have to decide how/whether to react, because someone sold her out on the spot. “Her!”
Thanks, shithead.
The soldier stopped in front of her. “You wanna get out of here?”
Well, if asked so politely, she wasn’t about to say ‘no’. Jyn nodded without a sound and held her wrists up. The soldier bent to release them. The second before the restraints unclicked, one of Jyn’s fellow inmates shouted from across the cabin, “Hey! What about me?”
The soldier freeing her made the huge mistake of looking over his shoulder. She wasn’t going to wait and see what those people wanted from Liana Hallik.
Jyn slammed her foot into the man's chest and propelled him onto the opposite wall. She turned around with the inertia of her attack and punched someone else hard enough to send them to the ground. Without wasting her momentum, she grabbed the nearest shovel from a rack of equipment. The next in line received a blow to the face with her improvised truncheon, clearing the way to the exit. Alright, time to go. Jyn made a run for it.
No matter what awaited outside, she’d take her chances.
Anything’s better than another cage.
She simultaneously hit the doorway, the sunlight, and an obstacle right across the chest. —an arm. Someone outside had somehow seen her coming and counter-tackled.
Right... the fucking sniper. She’d expected a droid. But it was a humanoid soldier with an infrared visor obscuring their face. They bodyslammed and clasped her in both arms, dragging her off her balance so she couldn’t counterstrike in turn. Well, they were in for a kriffing—
In the moment of having her pinned, they ripped off the visor.
Jyn had only seen half his face properly, but the unbruised reality was unmistakable. Unrivaled. She sagged against him instantly, too shocked to process or to react, until her lungs started to scream for her to take another breath.
Those warm, worried, beautiful dark eyes—so much older and yet just the same—searched her face. ‘Ash-rabbit’ said, “Hi?”
Jyn twisted in his arms and grabbed the front of his gear, maybe to make sure that he wouldn’t disappear. “Took you long enough,” she complained like it wasn’t the most unexpected turn of events, ever. Inside her chest, her heartbeat was maddening.
You came back for me—
He hugged her hard and fast; refrained (as only he in the Galaxy seemed inclined, even/especially now) from kissing her mouth; did kiss her temple, and breathed in her ear, “Congratulations. You’re being rescued. Sorry I’m late.”
“I forgive you,” she smiled, full of arrogance, only so she didn’t cry in his arms.
⁂
They made it to their transport without further action. These deserted stretches of Wobani were barren and desolate, second only to… well, the inhabited parts. It had been a sodden purgatory of a planet even before the Empire made it their Undesirables vacc vat.
They boarded and got their U-Wing into hyperspace without incident. Only then did they exhale.
They set about, with varying success, to rid themselves of mud. In the case of the two Jyn had clobbered, they also bound their wounds. Melshi looked particularly beleaguered, with his bloody nose plugged with medical gauze. He wanted to resent Jyn, but didn’t. Cassian could tell—hoped she might—that none of them blamed her for not trusting them. (Why would she, there?) They’d admit later they respected her moves and how she’d tried to take control of her fate.
They wouldn’t let her know that so easily, of course. “Not so sure I’m happy about picking up your girlfriend,” Melshi groaned, walking past him.
“You know how and when I’m paying you back,” answered Cassian.
The man shrugged and broke off a short laugh. “You think she’ll punch Draven, too?”
“Taking bets!” shouted Bey from the cockpit. Cassian rolled his eyes in Jyn’s direction (apology). Then tilted his head aftward (invitation).
She was unnaturally silent, carefully looking around, and cataloging everyone’s presence. Her arms crossed over her chest, soothing herself, she leaned her back against the wall. “Who’s Draven? Your boss?”
“Yes,” said Cassian, settling beside her. He’d pulled off the headgear and flak jacket and took up a lot less space. “I need to tell you some things.”
Her eyes flickered warily to the others. Cassian touched her hand. “They’re being jerks, but you can trust them. I do.” That was why it was Melshi, Stordan, and Jav in the cabin, with Bey flying, when any three of them were overqualified as subordinates on this sort of run. But Melshi was Cassian’s friend and the others were Melshi’s.
“I trust you,” she said without looking sideways.
The barest corner of his mouth curved. (Trying not to overdo...) He moved his hand, near but not touching her. “I couldn’t find you for a long time. But you’d mentioned an Imperial commander wanting you, and being a forger for hire. Our Intelligence gained an interest in Lucka Solange. When we flagged the counterfeits, I started following the trail. Then…
“…then. …I’m… um.” He glanced over. Melshi, Jav, and Stordan had crammed as close as they could to the cockpit and were loudly talking with Bey, ignoring Jyn and Cassian. Friends, indeed. “…I… don’t… put my personal life ahead of...” (He didn’t have a personal life.) “If I was gonna need any resources to get you…”
An awkward moment. He started again before she could. He wouldn’t put it on her to help him: he had to get this out. Whatever happened after that… “You’ve guessed. We’re Rebellion. My CO—Draven—liked my pitch that you could help us get to Solange. That’s why he authorized this. So. I’m… using you, to get to the Empire. And I used the Empire to get to you.”
Moment to set teeth and mind race. “I’m telling you now because… If you don’t want all that… those conditions, on top of…” Catch in his throat, “…staying with me. If you just want to be free. Then… done. Bey can let you off somewhere you want. Extraction will have officially failed.”
Too: why Melshi, Jav, Stordan, and Bey were here, and Kaytoo wasn’t. Kay’s loyalty to Cassian didn’t make him an adequate liar.
Jyn’s attention had snapped on him with a burning stare, her exhausted face even paler than the minute before. The rigid tension of her shoulders tipped him off. She loathed every word he’d just said. Her hands gripped her arms to the point of bruising.
“So, I’m… bait…,” she finally said, voice blank. “Makes sense.”
He frowned. “Not bait. A connection—an informant. We’re not gonna put you back in harm’s way for this. We are gonna ask you… if only as a freelancer… to help us. To serve. For a while.” Tense-mouthed, “Like I said. Those… are the conditions of… you and I… spending more time together.” It sounded so juvenile… trivial… insufficient. It probably was.
Are you sure this isn’t all, really, because meeting her under those conditions chemically imprinted her on your brain? Kaytoo had inquired.
(And parts beyond? others would suggest.)
Very sure, thank you, said Cassian.
Kay had gone off muttering probabilities.
Cassian wished he was still very sure. “I don’t know how you feel about the Rebellion. Any of this. You don’t have to go there. It’s just... where I am.”
Jyn ducked her head, lips pressed into a hard line. It didn’t take a profiler to know how she felt about the situation. “What if your people are not happy with me? What if it’s not enough? What happens when you decide to screw me over and toss me into another cell? I don’t know if you noticed, but Imperial or Rebel, a prison’s just the same!”
He raised an eyebrow. “You ever been in a Rebel prison?”
“Looking forward to completing my bingo card,” she said.
“In other words, no. Because we don’t have any. Even if we had the conditions for long-term incarceration… All of us are criminals by Imperial law. Most by other laws, too. We choose to be there; we don’t imprison and we don’t execute. Why would anyone choose us over the Empire if we did the same things?”
That gave her a long pause. He could almost hear her brain spinning faster than light-speed. She was a contrarian by nature. She didn’t like playing by other people’s rules. She didn’t like playing by any rule. Untrusting, betrayed too many times, unwilling to show weakness. But somehow—
“So I just have to do what your boss says… and I get…,” she shifted against the wall, uneasy, “like what… a free pass for all the shits I’ve done?”
“Your actions seem to have been pretty clean.” (Something not true of Cassian…) “Anarchic, illegal, but not victimizing. We’d rather put your skills to use for us. We’re not trying to police everyone who’s been forced to the margins. We’re kinda trying to champion them. …If you come with us, then change your mind, you can still leave.”
Another pause. Her head fell back and she exhaled from the core: “I’m just… I’m so fucking tired.” Her arms uncrossed and all the tension left her like a broken bow. He almost didn’t hear her over the ship’s ambiance when she said: “I just want to stay with you.”
He finally put his hand to hers; his arm to shore her shoulders. There was still a tangle. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to recruit her, they couldn’t be differentiated now—but couldn’t they all be true? As long as she knew and agreed. Nothing was irreversible. …if only. “It’s not much,” he said gently. “But my condition, if we succeeded: I’d get a full day and night. To settle you in. Before you had to meet anyone else or make any decisions. My quarters aren’t big but they’re private. Have own ’fresher. They’re at your disposal. I am, too.”
“I could use a shower,” Jyn said in a dreamy voice. “And I could use the company… if you tell me your name.”
Oh… right. Sheepish, he craned his head to look her in the eye. “Cassian. Andor.”
“Cassian…” she repeated. “I like that one.”
He wouldn’t kiss her unless/until it was perfectly clear that was not a condition—of anything. He just gave her his fullest smile.
⁂
If he hadn’t told her everything, she might’ve been the only person on the damn base who didn’t know. People Cassian had never spoken to were peeking at them to see who this person was, that Captain Droidface had stuck out his neck and other parts for. Jyn glared back at them a fair amount.
It did help having a KX security droid as an escort. But only before departing did Kaytoo address Jyn directly. “Cassian says you are a friend. I will treat you as such unless demonstrated otherwise.” The way he angled his photoreceptor at her came across very much like a side-eye. “Please do not demonstrate otherwise.”
Jyn huffed an abrasive reply: “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“Depending on baselines, that could mean anything. For example—”
“Thanks, Kay,” Cassian interrupted. “We’re pretty tired. Going to head in.”
Kay retilted his head at her. “If you inspire Cassian to sleep, maybe you are beneficial. Good night.” He turned and walked away.
“Charming,” Jyn snickered (still uneasy about the Imperialness of Kay).
“He tends to say whatever comes into his circuits,” said Cassian. “It’s a byproduct of the reprogram. …Part of why I like him.”
“I bet you do,” she said.
He flashed a small smile. He made sure she was looking before hitting his entry code.
The door slid open. Jyn followed his invitation, looking around her with a curious (yet practical) stare, assessing commodities. “Nicer than our last date, uh?”
He snorted a laugh. “What Kay just said about ‘baselines’.”
Everything Cassian did next was to show her. He tossed his jacket in a cleaning compartment. His hip and ankle blasters went in the bedside drawer. (Usually one rested on top, but not tonight.) His boots went beside the bunk where he could step back into them. He thumped a storage compartment to click open, revealing spare sheets, extra blankets, and a portable sleeping pallet. (To take note: She wasn’t obliged to share the bed with him. He suspected, hoped, she’d want to; but he had to be able to trust that she did, too.) For now, he pulled out a towel and offered it to her, indicating the ’fresher door. “If you want anything not in there, let me know. We’ve been on this base for a while so we’ve actually stocked some amenities.”
She took the towel and nodded. “Okay.” With that, Jyn retreated away from view.
She didn’t close the door entirely. He heard the sounds of her clothes when she undressed, the water stream hitting the metal flooring, the change in resonance when she stepped under. For long minutes, nothing else moved inside the fresher, as if Jyn had disappeared from the surface of the planet.
For a moment, Cassian stood in the center of the room, and... breathed. He finally shook himself and turned to the data terminal. He’d start his mission report, which could take as much or as little time as Jyn needed to herself. He also belatedly remembered that he was dehydrated, and retrieved his canteen to swig while he worked. —Oh, feke, Jyn had to be much hungrier and thirstier than he was. He didn’t want to disturb her, though. Force knew he’d need to be alone, for longer than one shower, to try and begin shaking off Wobani.
Eventually, though, he checked the chrono on the screen and decided; grabbing the canteen, he went to the door, opening it just enough to alert her he was there.
“Jyn,” he called. “Will you want any food? I have nutribars and water, here; can get things slightly less tasteless from mess.”
Only silence answered him.
He went ahead and asked the stupidest question. “You okay?”
At last, she said: “No.”
Of course not. His face hurt from sympathetic frowns. “Anything I can do?”
“Can you come in?”
That made his heart ache, more. “Yeah.” He set down the canteen. A pause to consider… then stripped off his tunic and fatigues, but left on undershirt and -shorts. He tapped on the shower panel.
Jyn produced a weird noise that might have been permission to join her. Cassian slid the panel open and took half a step in.
She stood under the waterhead with both hands against the wall, hair sticking to her wet skin between her shoulder blades, her body slightly… shaking… or fighting to breathe.
“Are you… is this…” She groaned, frustrated with her diction. “This isn’t… you came… back… and nobody— Is this real or not?”
What kind of ‘real’… He wished his brain could calm the feke down sometimes, not always dissect. “We’re awake,” he said softly. “We’re really here. Everything I told you is true. I… don’t really know you, but I’d like to. And… help things… be better, at all, if I can.”
“Can you… hold me?” she asked with the tiniest voice.
He stepped to her immediately and wrapped her in his arms. (Undershirt instantly soaked through—garment designed to go through just about everything, shouldn’t be unpleasant between their skins.) He bowed his head to rest atop hers, furthering the embrace, and turned them just enough that the stream wouldn’t drown her.
Jyn leaned back against his chest, closing her arms around his. Her breathing was a little less shallow between words. “I thought… I’d never see you again…”
Had she always been so small? His impression of her was… measureless. “I didn’t know if I’d find you.” …The next was a ludicrous thing for him—him, who’d lost and broke away and had to leave so many—to say. It came out ’cause it was true. “I don’t think I’d’ve ever stopped looking.”
That got a wet sob out of her. “Why are you so fucking charming?” she weakly joked to mask it. “So unfair.”
“Comparison to Kaytoo,” he said at once.
“I’m charming compared to your droid… You… you’re a wild case.” She laughed a little and turned her head to the side. “I still want to keep you for myself.”
He hugged her a little tighter, wondering if his heart was pounding as hard in her ear as it felt. “How we met... I don’t think my instincts are wrong just ‘cause there’s also attraction. We… I don’t know where we go from here. I wanna find out.”
“No one ever fought for me like that, you know? I don’t exactly… care… about your rebellion… But I care about you… so much… and I want to stay with you.”
“If you don’t mind that the Rebellion’s a lot of who I am,” he said, almost unwillingly. “I don’t need it to be yours. I want to stay with you, too.”
Cassian remembered Mon Mothma and Draven, at different moments in his life, sitting him down to talk about why we fight. Well… this is why we fight. Everyone should get to know this, if only once. Even you.
Jyn reached out with a hand behind her, holding his neck. “Will I get kicked off for wasting water?”
He laughed. “Maybe in the dry season. It’s not the dry season, now.”
“I should probably… actually shower,” she finally said “See if I remember how to use soap.”
He cupped her head, through her silksodden hair, to kiss her crown. He stepped back to reach the soap and hold it to her. “I can help, or leave you to it.”
“Stay. Let’s be efficient for a change.”
His face muscles were not used to this—it made all the not smiling seem more difficult. “I’m gonna get rid of this, if that’s okay.” He indicated the underclothes, now so transparent and plastered, any difference it still made was not modesty.
“How dare you,” she mocked, “in front of a respectable criminal like me.”
“Pardon me, your decency.” He started soaping the front of the shirt.
She rolled her eyes and turned around to face him. “I quite remember riding your dick not three minutes after we met, so I think…” (She tugged at his shirt.) “...we can do without the awkwardness and hesitation around each other.”
His smile was smaller because it was more real. “Okay.” He handed her the soap, peeled off his shirt and shorts, and tossed them over the top of the panel. Then put his hand over the soap to take it back. “May I?”
She nodded, hands on his hips, a curious glow in her eyes. Cassian gently gathered her hair from her neck. He began washing her there and made his thorough way down. He knelt last to tend to her feet, then stood to offer her the soap to finish the places he’d elided—and to enjoy the way her wet hair moved as he brushed a lock from her shoulder.
“I’d like to use that shower a lot more,” Jyn whispered.
He breathed a laugh on her forehead as he leaned to say in her ear, “It is the rainy season.”
“Lucky me.” Her hands framed his face with a soft touch. She brushed wet hair away from his forehead, looking at him like she’d never seen him before. “Your eyes are brown… All this time, I wonder about it.”
He ran his fingers through her hair, with some effect of washing it, but mostly so he could feel it in his hand. He looked back into her eyes, and it struck him. “You have gold, in yours. Is that why they called you ‘Stardust’?”
“You remember that…” she said, taken aback.
“Memory enhancement… Can’t romanticize that. Though real confidences tend to stick.”
“Hmm.” She raised her chin a little, a mischievous smile at the corner of her lips. “I’ll romanticize whatever I goddamn please, Mr. Andor, thank you very much.”
That was a kissable pfassking smile. “Fair enough.” He led her to turn so he could rinse out her hair. Once finished, he started washing himself. If she decided turnabout was fair play, fine by him; at the same time, they had been here a while, and she must be so tired. “I didn’t get you any clothes,” he realized. (He hadn’t dared think further than… an hour ago.) “We can get yours washed overnight and you’re welcome to mine, meanwhile?”
“Anything’s fine. As long as I stop smelling like a dead blurrg.” She was wringing out her hair with both hands, ready to hop off the shower. A little shiver agitated her when she crossed the distance to retrieve the towel he’d handed her. She wrapped herself tightly in it, avoiding at all costs to look at her reflection in the foggy mirror hanging above sink.
“Clothes are in the compartment under the bedding,” he said. “Take anything.” Or, nothing. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Small footsteps walked away.
Cassian finished scrubbing himself with more customary speed, plus wringing out the underthings for transit. He emerged, leaving the door open for the steam to disperse… to see the heartbreakingly loveable sight of Jyn-Kestrel-Dawn-Stardust-Erso as a barely-distinguishable lump under the bedclothes.
She’d left room for him. He pulled on some sleeping pants and lifted the edge of the quilt, to warn her he was there. When her response was to scoot a little more over, he slipped in beside her, retucking the blanket around them both.
“I feel like I’m the queen of Onderon,” she said, melting against his side. “You even have a pillow, you lucky bastard. A pillow!”
He made a mental note to grab a second one, tomorrow, so she could have her own. For now, he slipped his arms around her again—finding she was wearing one of his shirts. He felt like he’d only just learned the word adorable. “I like your priorities. Last person in here judged me for not personalizing.”
“What else could you possibly want when you have such a soft blanket?”
He kissed her forehead. Jyn draped a leg over him and snuggled as close as she physically could.
“You’re so warm,” she whispered blissfully, words slow on her tongue. “Let’s sleep together forever.”
He put his hand under her head to cradle her completely. “Yes. Please. G’night. Jyn.”
⁂
Jyn didn’t remember falling asleep. One second she was talking to him, the next she was gone. Those forgotten luxuries of warmth and comfort had been too much to overcome for her exhausted body. (Her little stunt on Wobani had definitely drained the last bit of energy she had in stock.)
In the middle of the night, Jyn had a residual moment of panic, waking up with the dreadful fear of finding herself back in a cold cell. The clean smell of sheets and warm skin against her back calmed her furious heartbeat. She turned around and clung to him like a lifeline, trying to fall back to sleep. Waking, too, or on instinct, Cassian wrapped her all the closer and held on. For a few more hours, her mind played nice and let her catch some rest.
For the first time in her life, Jyn woke up in someone’s arms… and nothing could’ve prepared her for that.
She was ridiculous, really, but she couldn’t help the pounding of her heart. For all her wit and bad mouth, Jyn shyly wondered if she could have… something… more… with him. Just thinking about it was unusual enough. And thinking about him she had.
Jyn spent long minutes just looking at his sleeping face. He looked so much younger without that serious frown between his brows. She wondered how old he was. Blast, she wondered how old she was. Her life had been a blurry stream of events for so long… When was the last time she’d even lain in bed like this?
With a tentative hand, Jyn brushed some hair out of his face.
Cassian jolted, muscles tensing. Just as quickly, he opened his eyes and relaxed again. “Hi. Did you sleep at all?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Oh. No. That’s the most I’ve slept in… a while.” He moved his hand from lying passive across her, to tracing her hair. Jyn made an effort not to follow it.
“You’re adorable when you sleep,” she teased.
He choked a laugh. “I… thanks. You, too. Though you looked worried.”
“I had some dreams,” she explained. “I wondered if I would wake up back on Wobani.”
“Yeah… I hate those. Make sense, though.” He compressed her a little closer. “Do… I mean. Assuming we keep… Anyway. If you’re having a nightmare, do you want to be woken up? Or do you prefer to work through?”
She paused to think about it. The option had never been available before. “I don’t know… Maybe if I’m being too much of a pain to sleep with, wake me up.”
A small smile. “Okay. Me, too.”
Jyn agreed with a nod. She resumed her exploration of his face, letting her fingers trace his ear. A stupid smile gave away her thoughts before she could stop herself. “You smell so much better when you’re not covered in blood.”
He sputtered, now, with laughs. “Yeah. We gotta get you some higher baselines.”
“Cassian,” she said with a seductive voice. (Holy shit, it was nice to know his name.) “Would you hate it if I kissed you?”
He followed the double negative—with sudden pupil dilation. “Definitely wouldn’t.”
Jyn pressed her body closer and tilted her head to reach his lips. A flow of memories tangled into her brain while she created new, better ones. She wasn’t worried or cautious this time. The looming danger and desperation weren’t there, either. But the building pressure in her stomach felt just the same while kissing him. She gently kept her mouth against him, hands returning to his hair.
Even in the dark, Jyn had the impression to be lying naked under the sun.
He moved his hands on her, between pallet and blanket, palms mapping every line of her and fitting like they already knew. He returned her kiss fully, not greedily, not hastily, matching and meeting her and unhesitating to follow her lead. One hand swept-caressed-savored the slope of her back, curving under her thigh, and bringing her by it closer against him, holding her there… and, when she started too, moving them, there, together.
Jyn stole a burning breath against his lips and kissed him deeper. She followed the hard line of his shoulder, down his arm, to his hand—pushing it up her thigh, to her ass, brushing the fabric of his shirt up her naked skin. She hadn’t bothered with bottoms; and maybe she should have because she wasn’t as hairless as a veil dancer about anywhere, but if he could want her covered in sweat and blood, the state of her pilosity surely wasn’t a factor.
His fingers dug into her flesh, not bruising but like he was trying not to fall; his lips and chest and hips all rose to press to her still more.
A soft moan caught in her throat. “Did you think of me in that bed?” she asked.
He managed while kissing her: “A lot.” More than he’d tried.
Jyn hadn’t had the same freedom, but after months of acute survival, her arousal unlocked like the floods under his touch. “I want you,” she said, “get me naked.”
His hands were immediately under the shirt. His cleverness at getting it off her might have been aided by it being his… but then, that relentless dexterity continued after it was gone. Meanwhile, Jyn was busy discovering how toned he truly was. Lean and wiry, like a runner… Of course, you’ve been running for a long time, haven’t you… so have I…
He was already bare-chested; he didn’t move to get rid of his sleeping pants, but they wouldn’t prove much of a challenge for her. He covered her with caresses: his hands all over her back, his mouth to her front. Instinctively or deliberately, he kept giving… opposition? equilibrium? insatiability? where he applied attention to her body: above and below, back and front. For instance: his mouth was doing something ambrosial to her neck when his hand slid to cup between her legs—pausing there, for her reaction.
A needy moan escaped her, deeply uncharacteristic of her nature. Wet was an understatement of her condition. No one had made love to her like that and she was about to lose her damn mind.
Jyn slipped her fingers inside his sleep pants and managed to detangle their bodies long enough to undress him. She found some sense of irony in having so much time, for once, and still being unable to pace herself. She craved his body, the memory of that short moment lost between space and time, with him. She wanted it all back.
She hooked a leg higher on his hip, rolling on her back, begging into his ear: “Fuck me.”
His groan vibrated through her skin, where his mouth still pressed her neck, down to where his hand finally moved again. It lavished her, attending to her outside and in, with what had to be a lot of… technical understanding but totally subsumed in what seemed like his thirst for her responses. As he worked her there, (fluid… dilation…) he moved the rest of his body where she led and welcomed him. Until his hand turned to himself to guide him to her.
Jyn closed her arms around his shoulders, a deep sound of pleasure moaned into his neck when he entered her. The stretch was welcomed, needed. His hand slipped around her thigh to make way for his body; came to rest again beneath her, gripping her suddenly as he bottomed out, his voice echoing hers; then, as before (but more, much more) his hand began to move her, supporting, guiding and following, pulling and rocking her in beautiful complement, mirror impulsion, to how he began to move in her in front.
Jyn’s brain shamefully blacked out, but she allowed herself to let it be. She didn’t feel the need for control, not with him. That same trust… just like… Inexplicable. He’d proven himself so much, in so little time. Time wasn’t the essence, time was just a useless component on its own.
His abs sharply contracted and he doubled up in her, thrusting, needing, and the groan that escaped him this time was her name. Her stomach made an upside-down, both from pleasure and emotions. Every part of her seemed on fire, skin too tight to contain the state of her being. She felt the skin of his back, pressing her palms on each side of his spine, a light sweat covering their bodies while he moved inside her. Jyn arched her back to him, following his thrusts, pulling him deeper. Vaguely hearing her own voice somewhere in the room.
It felt… indefinable to be this lost into someone else.
“Cassian.”
(It’s easy to moan.)
He pressed his lips ardently to the side of her face; breath hard, heart thudding, skin damp with exertion as their waves deepened. His hand (though obviously enthralled with that part of her) ran up her body; momentarily gripping her waist—again, like he was about to fall; before finding and beginning to exhaustively survey her breast.
“Cassian— fuck.”
Jyn gripped his hair in one hand, the other resting low on his back. All of her nerve endings were sizzling with tension. Her feet tangled with the sheets, forgotten by the end of the bunk. She threw her head back over that pillow that smelled so much like him.
Jyn had the distinct impression that she couldn’t pull enough oxygen down her lungs. His lips were relentless on her skin, and oh, she wished she’d done the same, but she could only lay there and moan his name. And she’d never been this useless before, but—
“I think I fell in love with you that day.”
Wait— what the fuck, Erso?
He paused his motions, panting, hanging onto her for dear life, and raised his face to be able to look her in the eyes. He seemed about to speak when she panicked and beat him to it.
“It’s not like… we know each other,” she tried to explain, “and we’ve been only… It’s, hmm, okay— not a good time. I’m just… You don’t need to say anything. Don’t. Forget it.”
Oh my gods, shut the fuck up.
His eyes on her… what idiots thought mouths were where smiles happened? He brought up his hand to frame her face, brush his thumb over her lips, and said, like he was figuring out the words midway through each of them: “It’s early, that’s okay. It’s not a contract. I feel it, too.”
“You do?” she stupidly asked.
The only part of him now moving at all, he bent his head to touch their foreheads. “I don’t know a lot about this,” he breathed. “But, yeah. I do.” Again, “A lot.”
Oh. Oh. Jyn was able to breathe again, shaking off the terror in her guts. “I’m so sorry,” she exhaled with a mocking laugh, “that was so dramatic.”
He’d frowned (she could feel it where their faces touched) at the apology. Now it smoothed out. “My fault… I didn’t have to… stop… everything…” To illustrate the point, his lips moved to her pulse and his hips began again to move. Jyn closed her eyes and pushed her body to meet him. She was such a mess, his words still burned in her brain. A lot.
“I’m… so close,” she breathed.
The words worked in him; his grip tightened on her, his hips stuttered, his cock within her did… something independent of the rest of him. Lips on her skin, breathing her, he uttered words that weren’t Basic—then added, “Go on, Jyn, love.”
Holy shit.
Like he’d just flipped a switch. Jyn never had such a powerful orgasm in her life. Her shoulders lifted from the mattress, her body shaking until she fell back down, throat burning. A tickling sensation kept running in her limbs, pulsing in rhythm with her insides. She belatedly felt him arch back with her, and thrust highest yet, and crumble upon her, his body pulsing out; pulled through with hers. (Two for two now… guy could do simultaneous orgasms. That was… nice. …Though it might also be nice at some point to wreck him while she wickedly smiled…)
She held him without a word, for long minutes, while they both came down from that rush. She traced small shapes on his back, listening to his breathing so close to her. Her body felt weightless. A welcomed type of exhaustion. Lying still with him afterward, with no pressure to get away or get back on her guard, felt glorious.
She could get used to staying put, for a change. Here, wherever; she could even get used to his rebellion. Or she could try. See what came after tomorrow. If some of those people were like him, they couldn’t be so bad, after all.
“I still owe you a drink,” Jyn said. “And a date.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Clearly much, much too important to him to let slide as idiom. Then, with a lighter, quicker kiss, he continued speaking before she might have to: “Sounds really good, though.”
“If we get near Takodana sometimes… I’ll try to seduce you.”
Breath of a laugh and another brush of lips. “That sounds good, too.”
“Cassian,” she said, suddenly so raw. “Thank you for coming back.”
At that, his silver tongue failed. He just looked at her—for a moment—in which she saw the haunting, in him, of all the ways he could have missed and lost her; the bewilderment that someone he knew so little was in him so deep; and the fiery sharp protectiveness against all the what-ifs, past and future.
At last, he nodded; very little, insufficient on anyone else, but she’d profiled him back in the cell and had amassed quite enough corroborating evidence: showing the least meant feeling too much.
More eloquent was how hard (close and warm and with so much purpose) he hugged and kissed her again.
And she could believe that he would come back, again and again.