Author's Note: I read guineapiggie's "Before It Gets Better" and had to write a response from Cassian's perspective.
This story comes after "I Could Fall In Love (in Corpus Christi)". I would like to apologise in advance for all the angst, the sappiness, and the general shitty nature of this fic.
Reviews are (almost) better than Jyn and Cassian being happy. So please leave one (or several) if you can. Cheers!
I didn't realise it would sometimes be more than whole,
that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea.
Because it's the halves that halve you in half.
Like Crazy
.
.
.
Stupidly, naively, he thought that by filing first it would mean less pain - for her, for him, for everybody.
Isn't that what filing first was supposed to be about? Somehow, he had thought (rightly or wrongly) that the person who files first is the one who is letting go, the one who is giving up, the one who is stronger.
But he is not strong at all, he thinks.
He wasn't strong when he signed his name on the dotted line next to that slip of yellow. He wasn't strong when he heard that she'd signed hers. He wasn't strong when his lawyer called, saying that it is now done, that he is now not married (divorced), and that she is now back to being Ms. Erso again.
He is anything but strong.
It has been three whole months and yet here he still sits, staring into his cup of coffee, twirling his pencil between his fingers, and looking through a bunch of paperwork that could have been written in Greek for all he knows.
File first, his lawyer had advised. Such bullshit.
- 10:15 p.m. -
She was the one who hung up. He's glad of that. He doesn't think that he could have done it; he's the one who called her after all. He had given himself a pathetic excuse to dial the number, telling himself that he needed to remind her to open her letters and check the bill.
But to be honest, he simply wanted to hear her voice.
Goodbye.
"Cassian…"
Kay is hovering by his desk, looking… well, as concerned as someone like Kay can possibly look.
"I saw you on the phone."
"Work stuff," he says, gesturing lamely at the mountains of paperwork before him.
"You are a detective, Cassian. You should be better at lying."
His laughter is forced, humourless. He takes another sip of his cold coffee.
"I just had to - "
"Check in?" The expression that Kay wears is not disdain exactly, although it has traces of that. It is more like pity, pain, mixed with a little bit of anger. "It has been three months, Cassian. You need to stop calling her. She is not even calling you."
Cassian doesn't bother to correct his friend. Of course, he hasn't told Kay about the incident a few weeks ago when she rang him at four in the morning, drunk and rambling. It is not right to humiliate her, he keeps telling himself. Kay would worry even more if he knew, and it would only make him hate her more than he already does.
And, despite everything that has happened, Cassian thinks he can stand most things, but he can't stand that.
So he says instead: "I don't call her very often."
"I talk to Bodhi sometimes. I know you call her more often than you're telling me you do."
"I don't want you to - "
"What? Worry?" Kay scoffs. He looks around at the few occupied desks in the precinct before lowering his voice. "I am your best friend, Cassian. At least have the decency to be honest with me."
The words twist in his gut like a knife. But then, for the past few months, just breathing feels this way. He drains his cup of coffee and stands up so that his height is level with his friend's.
"Kay, I know you mean well, but please…lay off. Things will get better."
It gets worse before it gets better, he had told her on the phone. But now, all he can think about is how much the phrase sounds like a bloody slogan.
"Cassian, things are not getting better. You've been sleeping at the precinct for weeks now. People here are starting to think that you're homeless."
"Don't be dramatic, Kay. Nobody thinks I'm homeless."
"Oh, please!" snaps Kay, his lips curling into a smirk. "Yesterday, Inspector Draven asked me why you have been wearing the same clothes for two days in a row. Melshi wanted to know if he could set you up in his garage."
"Don't be ridiculous," says Cassian, rolling his eyes. "I've just been working late."
"You can at least come and stay at mine."
"We're together all the time, Kay. I need some space."
"Then go home, Cassian."
A pause. It might be Kay who uttered those words, but it is her voice that he hears.
Go home, Cassian. It's late.
But he can't, can he?
Home is no longer there. It is now just a collection of empty spaces - of where her clothes used to hang, of where her books used to be, of where she used to be. He is not ready to live in all of those empty spaces just yet. Stopping by to get his things once or twice a day is already bad enough.
"I'll go," he finally manages to say, his eyes dropping from his friend's face to the grey tiled floor. "Soon, okay?
Kay nods, his mouth tightening as if he wants to say something else but can't.
"Just make sure that you do."
- 10:47 p.m. -
"Hey, Andor!"
Cassian is at the coffee machine when Kes Dameron strides pass, pulling on his jacket with his car keys in his hand.
"Dameron."
"You're not leaving?" asks Kes, slipping naturally into Spanish like he does every time he talks to Cassian. "It's almost eleven."
"How come you're still here then?"
"The Murdoch case. An absolute pain in the ass," says Dameron, cracking a tired smile. "But I'm heading out now. The missus will murder me if I'm not home by midnight."
Cassian's throat clenches, and "ah, yes," is all he can manage to offer as a reply.
Dameron's easy smile drops immediately.
"Andor, listen, I - "
"It doesn't matter."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to - "
"Really, Dameron," says Cassian, with a little more bite to his voice, "it's fine."
He knows that he's being a bastard, but he doesn't need the entire precinct to comment on why he is being a bastard. He already sees it in their eyes everyday: Is Andor going through a divorce? Is Andor getting a divorce? Is Andor already divorced?
They don't quite know how to approach him now. The fact that Dameron is trying at all only means that the man has more guts than common sense.
"Shara and I have been talking," says Dameron, scratching the back of his head in an awkward manner. "You should come around for dinner sometime. Maybe tomorrow? You can finally meet the little guy."
"Oh, yeah. The little guy," replies Cassian, trying to return his voice back to normal. "What's his name again?"
"Poe," says Dameron, grinning proudly. "He'll like you."
I doubt that.
"Thanks for the invite, Dameron. But maybe not. Okay?"
"Oh." Dameron's grin slips slightly and he looks…disappointed. "Okay. Well…"
"It's just not my thing," says Cassian quickly, trying to offer a friendly smile. "And I'd be rubbish company anyway."
"Oh, I don't know about that."
"Trust me. I'd only ruin your evening."
For a fraction of a second, it looks like Dameron is going to keep insisting. So Cassian does his best to hold his strained smile in place. Finally, the other detective shrugs and sighs, accepting defeat.
"Alright, Andor. Suit yourself. See you tomorrow then."
"See you tomorrow, Dameron."
The man lifts a hand to Cassian in a gesture of farewell as he continues to stride towards the exit, and Cassian turns back to the coffee machine. But just as he is about to fill his cup with more coffee, the same voice rings out again.
"Hey, Andor!"
Cassian looks up to find Dameron halting at the door. There is a strange, somewhat daring look in his eyes.
Cassian frowns, confused. "Yeah?"
"It'll get better," says Dameron, his mouth tethering between a smile and a wince. "I know things are a bit shit right now, but it'll get better."
Cassian sucks in a short breath. He feels like his hand that's holding the cup is shaking a little.
He should be angry with Dameron. He should be curling his hand into a fist and maybe considering punching the living daylights out of his fellow detective. Dameron means well, he knows, but how can he possibly understand?
("The missus will murder me if I'm not home by midnight", "Shara and I have been talking…", "You can finally meet the little guy.")
Cassian should be angry, but somehow, he's not.
Again, it is her voice that he hears, whispering to him just as clearly as it did two hours ago on the phone.
Don't shut people out, Cassian. I know you're good at that, but it will make you miserable.
When he finally finds it again, his own voice comes out all strange and strangled: "About that dinner, Dameron. Maybe ask me again next week."
A ghost of a smile. A wave of a hand.
"Will do, Andor."
- 11:50 p.m. -
He lights a cigarette and breaks out the whiskey after everyone has left.
He wants to laugh. (She would be laughing too.) He has become a goddamn cliche - drinking late at night, sleeping over at work, spouting out phrases like a walking post-it commercial…
But as he pours the golden liquid into the glass and watches it swirl around in there, he tries telling himself that this is normal. People drink when they go through breakups, don't they? It doesn't mean that his life is falling apart. He is simply going through the phases: denial, anger, grief, acceptance…
Damn it. Is that even the right order?
A sip of whiskey. A drag from the cigarette.
Goodbye.
He should call someone. He should't be alone, he knows that. But he can't call Kay because Kay was just here. He can't call Chirrut and Baze because he knows what they're going to say. And he can't call Bodhi because they have put Bodhi through too much already and Cassian has a hunch that they will put him through even more in the future.
(Because despite their attempts to minimise the damage, everyone around them keeps getting hurt anyway.)
The only person he wants to talk to he already did. Just three hours ago. But here he is, considering calling her again. He does not even know what he would say; words do not seem enough.
There is also the matter of whether she would pick up the phone. What if he calls again and she does? What if he calls again and she doesn't? He cannot decide which scenario would be worse.
Either way, it would be pathetic for us both, his brain reminds him just in time - before he has looked her up on the phone, before he has dialled the number - and his eyes sting with what he realises are tears.
So he forces himself to turn off his phone and store it in his drawer. Her face grows blurry around the edges as he wipes his sleeve over his eyes.
It gets worse before it gets better.
It gets worse before it gets better.
It gets worse before it gets better.
Maybe if he keeps telling himself that - maybe if he keeps repeating it like a mantra - it will become true.
Another sip of whiskey. Another drag from the cigarette. And he watches the lights on the highway, blinking and twinkling in the darkened distance.
It will be Christmas soon, he thinks.
"I wish you were," is what I'd say
If you asked me in the light of day
But these nights are like a dream I can't shake
And there's your hair and there's your head
And there's your empty place on the bed
I wish I could scream myself awake
.
.
.
Author's Note: Woah. That was rough. Thank you to the song "The Fifth Day" by The Airborne Toxic Event for the lyrics and the inspiration. I promise a slightly happier story the next time around.
Please let me know what you thought!