Author's Note: This is set after Jyn and Cassian's first meeting in You Go To My Head. This story was initially meant to be a one-shot but it ballooned into two chapters. So be prepared, guys.
Mild sexual content ahead. I apologise in advance for my horribly written smut. (The scenes were better in my head, obviously.) Thank you to the lovely guineapiggie and moonprincess92 for encouraging me to write this.
Reviews are (almost) better than Jyn and Cassian engaging in well-written sexy time (yes, I just said that). So please leave one if you can! Cheers!
Chapter One: A Window Booth Is More Romantic
What I am saying is your legs must hurt from walking in and out of people's houses, of people's lives, of people's hearts.
Your feet must be sore.
Lydia Wang
Please pick me up on my long walk back home
Give me something to eat, for I'm weak to my bones
Hold me tight in your arms, give me glimmers of hope
Do not love me though
Do not love me though
Do not love me though
.
.
.
It is like he is meeting with any of his other informants. Almost.
She gives him information in a way every detective likes - crisp, precise, accurate, with flashes of her own opinions mixed in when it matters. They keep their topics centred around the case that he is working on, the next lead he wants, or the next illegal job she has coming up. He is surprised by how professional they appear sitting across the table from each other - her stiff-necked, him straight-backed, both of them never smiling much or touching at all.
No one would guess that thirty minutes on from every meeting, they would be pressed against each other, clothes discarded on the floor of her place or his place with their lips roaming, hands touching, teeth clashing, and that they would have nothing between them but skin…
It is just sex, he tells himself. It is merely a physical thing between two people who are very, very attracted to one another. It means nothing. It doesn't matter that it has been going on for months or that sometimes they tell each other things they will never again say out loud when they are not wrapped together in bed. It doesn't matter that he thinks about her far too much when she's not around or that he now has her under his skin in more ways than one.
It is just sex. It doesn't have to mean anything.
After all, detectives aren't supposed to sleep with their criminal informants, are they?
They meet every two weeks on Saturday at exactly two in the afternoon at a Chinese restaurant three blocks down from his precinct. The place is always packed and full to bursting with customers and the sounds of plates, glasses, footsteps, ladles against pans, and people talking loudly in Mandarin and Cantonese.
The owner is a Chinese man in his fifties, all beard, long hair and gruff manner, and his partner is a blind man who just sits in the corner listening to the going-ons with a serene smile on his good-natured face. For the most part, the two men leave them alone. This, along with the busy nature of the establishment, are the reasons why Cassian chose this restaurant in the first place.
He and Jyn always sit in a booth at the back so they can be far away from the window. They always order a cup of coffee each and a plate of deep fried Chinese dough sticks which the owner had recommended during their very first visit. The meetings always last around thirty to forty minutes, during which he delivers clipped questions and she answers them in-between sips of coffee and bites of food.
It is nice, he thinks. In a way.
(But it is not enough. Not nearly enough.)
In their first meeting, he stops her from getting up and leaving immediately after she has given him the names of the murder suspects he has been searching for. It is a very small and insignificant gesture, with him simply reaching out his hand half-way across the table to rest it down a few inches away from her own.
"Jyn," he says, with his voice sounding far too eager to his own ears, "how about we make this deal more than just a one time thing?"
She raises an eyebrow in surprise. "Do you think I have a death wish?"
"No one needs to know," he replies, smoothing his expression into a serious one. "After all, I'm pretty good at my job. They will not know that my leads come from you."
"How do you expect me to keep making a living if I sold out my clients to the police?"
"I work in homicide, Jyn. I'm not interested in the petty criminals you deal with on a daily basis. I'm interested in the guys who take it too far, like those ones you just told me about."
"Are you saying that I care about honour among thieves?"
"Obviously you do," he says, smiling a little. "Otherwise, you would not be here."
"Maybe I am here because you gave me no choice on the matter," she replies tersely. For a second, it looks like she is going to return his smile, but she doesn't. "After all, we just came from your precinct where I was held in an interrogation room for six hours."
"Don't think of it as an interrogation," he says, waving a hand. "Think of it as an introduction."
"You threatened to file assault charges against my roommate."
"Well, he did punch a police officer in the jaw."
"He did it to protect me," she says, her eyes flashing angrily. "Bodhi wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I admit that the threat was a low blow." And he still hates himself for it, but then that's neither here nor there. "But if I remember correctly, you also threatened to - what was it? - 'force-fed this god awful cup of coffee into my bloodstream in the most painful way possible'. Charming."
"I try," she remarks dryly.
"Well, it got us here, didn't it?" he says almost wistfully. And he knows that he is holding her gaze for seconds too long when his chest begins to tighten. She looks away first and he has to clear his throat to dissolve the awkwardness.
"Jyn, at least promise me you'll think about it."
"Okay," she says, half-turning away from him. "I'll think about it."
"I'll be here two weeks from now. Same time. Same table"
His words draw a genuine smile from her and it is playful and hardened all at once, and he hears his brain whispering that he is making a stupid mistake - one that might now be too late for him to reverse.
"I wouldn't wait around if I were you," she says.
"I'm a detective," he replies and he takes a sip of his coffee to avoid getting drawn into her eyes again. "I'm just doing my job."
Her smile turns coy, but she doesn't make a comment.
They leave the restaurant separately, with her leaving first and him staying behind to pay the bill.
Two weeks later, when he shows up to the restaurant at two in the afternoon on Saturday, he finds her already sitting there in their booth, a half-smile on her lips and a defiant look in her swirling, green eyes.
The first time it happens, it starts out with him offering to walk her home afterwards. It is for protection, he says, because the names she's given him are now public knowledge, and she and Bodhi should move soon as a precaution.
"It is not safe to wander the streets alone," he tells her. An excuse, really, but he assumes that they are both passed caring at this point. "It is not wise to be out in the open at the moment."
"I can take care of myself," she says with a little lift of her chin.
"I know you can." Because even if he were ever to hurt her on purpose, it would never be by underestimating her courage. "I just wanted to make sure."
They leave the restaurant together for the first time. The Chinese owner - the man with the thick beard and rough tones - simply observes them with an unreadable expression. The blind man, however, offers them a farewell as though he could see them getting up from their seats at the same time.
(But that has to be a coincidence, right? Cassian tells himself.)
It is raining when they step out onto the pavement.
They walk side by side even though she is supposed to be the one leading the way, and their shoulders and elbows keep brushing against each other, and he is painfully aware of every movement she makes no matter how small. He thinks - fleetingly - that he should have brought an umbrella, but it is now too late. By the time they reach her flat, both of them are nearly soaked to the bone.
She turns to him just as she puts the key into the lock. She looks beautiful and scared in the downpour, but she doesn't seem to mind that he is standing close enough to count every drop of rain on her lips.
"Bodhi's at work. Do you want to come in?" she asks.
It is fast, clumsy and desperate. They do not even make it to her bedroom. They end up doing it on the dining room table, with her sitting on the surface and him planting himself between her legs. He only has time to tug down the collar of her shirt so that he can plant fevered kisses to her collarbone before she pulls his trousers down. He doesn't even know when he had managed to rid her off her jeans or if she had done that herself, but before he realises it, they are already pooling around her ankles. It is all hands, teeth and moans from then on, and it takes only a few hurried thrusts to make them both come undone like a couple of teenagers who have never done this before.
He stays inside her for a moment afterwards with his face buried in the crook of her neck and with her hands in his hair. Their chests rise and fall in a panting, sobbing rhythm, and all he hears is the sound of their combined heartbeats - a desperate, clawing, clanging sound that makes his heart ache in all the best and worst ways.
"I think you should go," she whispers eventually, her breath hot against his cheek, and he forces himself to nod in agreement.
(He also pretends not to hear the whimper that escapes from her lips when he pulls out of her or the way her eyes follow him out the door or the way his pulse is still racing when he steps back into the dreary, rainy world outside.)
"Have you found a new place yet?" he asks her four weeks later over their cups of coffee.
She nods. "Bodhi did. He's good at things like this."
"So are you two…okay?"
He was about to use the word 'safe', but he guesses that being 'safe' is not the highest thing on her list of priorities. She seems to understand though, and she nods.
"We're okay," she says, breaking apart a piece of the Chinese dough stick. "How is the case going?"
"We're close."
Cassian can see Kay rolling his eyes at his answer. Somehow, to his friend, the word 'close' does not mean sitting in a car at midnight, surveilling a drug den with only cold coffee and the same Paul Simon CD to keep them company. But, of course, he can't tell her any of that.
"Are they going to come after us?" she asks. She doesn't sound afraid, he notes. Simply intrigued. "Will Bodhi and I have to move again?"
"No," he says forcefully. "I told you, didn't I? I'm good at my job. I'll protect you."
"No one can protect me."
Her biting tone makes him smile. But then most things she does make him smile. He knows her a little more by now and he thinks that he has never known a person so hard and unyielding, yet so incredibly full of fire before. It is part of her conundrum, he has decided, one he's been trying to unriddle to no avail.
"How's Bodhi?" he asks.
"He tells me that he's working two jobs, but I know that he's working three," she says, a crease appearing on her forehead. "He wants to go to flight school and become a pilot and this is the only way he can make it happen."
"You're worried about him," Cassian says immediately.
Jyn has been dunking a dough stick into her coffee and she pauses at his words.
"How can you possibly know that?" she asks incredulously.
He shrugs. "I'm a detective. I notice these things."
To be specific, he notices these things about her. But again, he can't possibly tell her that. (There are too many things that he can't tell her.)
She drops her gaze and her usual cautious look steals over her expression. But she doesn't say anything - she simply pops the dough stick into her mouth and takes another sip of coffee.
"Do you have more information on the gang over at fifth?" he asks to diffuse the tension.
She shakes her head. "Things have been quiet lately. I've been trying to lie low."
"If you have no new information, why are you here then?" he asks, unable to stop himself.
She frowns at him over her steaming cup. "Why are you here?"
He is saved from coming up with an acceptable answer when the restaurant's owner - whose name, Cassian has since found out, is Baze - bangs another plate of dough sticks on their table.
"We didn't order these," says Jyn, glaring at the man like he is trying to cheat them. "We're not paying for them."
Cassian chuckles. "Why are you talking like you're the one who's paying? I'm the one who always pays for us both."
She scowls at him. "I just thought - "
"No one's paying for this," grumbles Baze in his thick accent. He looks even more annoyed than Jyn, if that is even possible. "It's on the house."
"You don't have to look so happy about it," scoffs Jyn.
Baze's lips thin into a straight, angry line. "My partner over there. Chirrut." He points over to the blind man in the corner who is smiling into the distance and swaying in time to the music that's playing on the stereo. "This is from him. And he wants me to tell you both that you can move to a booth by the window."
"Why would we want to do that?" asks Cassian suspiciously.
"A better view," says Baze, shrugging. "He says a window booth is more romantic."
"Romantic?"
To Cassian's dismay, his own voice comes out abnormally high-pitched. There's a horrible clanging sound and he looks over to see Jyn diving underneath the table to retrieve her overturned cup of coffee.
"This is not a romantic thing," says Cassian immediately, glaring at Baze and trying to school his expression back to normal. "It is a business meeting."
"Whatever it is, I couldn't care less. I'm just bringing the message. Do you want the window booth or not?"
"No," says Cassian sharply.
"Okay. Do you want to order anything else?"
"No."
"Okay. Suit yourself."
Baze shuffles away, muttering something under his breath in Mandarin. Whatever he is saying, Cassian doubts it is anything good.
"You okay?" he asks Jyn awkwardly.
"Yes, I'm okay," she says, emerging from under the table. There is a hint of a blush on her cheeks and she doesn't meet his eye. "So if we have nothing else to talk about, we should go."
"Okay," he says, but neither of them move.
"Where do you live?" she asks casually. Too casually.
"Not far from here."
"Okay," she says. She is still refusing to look at him, but she reaches over to grab her bag. "Good."
His breath hitches in his throat. "Good."
The first time he takes her to his barely-furnished flat, he takes his time. He peels off her jacket first, letting it drop to the floor, before bringing his mouth down to the mounds of her breasts. She moans at the contact and he slips his hands inside her jeans and pulls them down.
"Cassian, what are you - "
"Shh."
He reaches behind her and unclasps her bra. Then his fingers trail back down, down, down until they find the waistband of her underwear and she whispers against his mouth: "Bedroom."
They tumble together onto his mattress with her almost fully naked beneath him. For a moment, he looks at her against the whiteness of his sheet, her hair tussled and mussed from his hands being in them. He bends down, kisses her more thoroughly, and tastes coffee on his tongue.
"What are we doing?" she gasps between his kisses, but her hand tugs on his hair, pulling him in closer, and he does not have an answer, but he wishes that he does.
Sleeping with her should be like sleeping with other women - easy, uncomplicated, without the weight of something in his chest. But with her, everything has become all too much for him now. He stares at her too much, kisses her too much, feels her too much and still, it never feels like it is enough.
It still doesn't feel enough now as he hooks down her underwear and traces his lips from her ankle, up her leg, to the inside of her thighs. He sees her eyes clouding over and she tips her head back, biting her lips to keep herself from whining.
There is a scar there on her hip. Another just below her rib cage. He kisses them both and feels her shudder against his touch. He knows that he can't - mustn't - ask her about them yet. But one day, he promises himself. One day he will.
"Cassian." She brings a hand down to his chin and lifts his face up to her. "Cassian, you don't have to."
"I want to," he whispers immediately. Oh god, he wants to.
"You don't - "
"Jyn. It's okay." He turns his head and kisses her on the wrist. "It's okay. You can trust me."
He hopes that she remembers what she'd told him on the day they met in the interrogation room. Trust goes both ways, she'd said. Well, he chose to trust her and it led them here, and despite everything that might happen in the future (that he knows will probably happen), he thinks that he will never, ever regret his decision.
She is remembering those words now too; he knows it from the soft, broken way she is looking down at him. And slowly, with her hand on his cheek, she nods, and he lowers his head down to her centre with a grin on his face. When he brings her over the edge with his tongue and his fingers deep inside her, it is his name that she keeps whispering over and over again like a prayer.
(But it is still not enough. Not nearly enough.)
Much later, she slips out of his bed and begins to dress in the semi-darkness. But he reaches over and catches her by the wrist because he simply has to.
"Cassian - "
"Stay," he says.
"I can't."
He is smiling despite himself. "You're embarrassed."
"Of course, I'm embarrassed." She is not looking at him even though he is still tugging at her hand. She bends down to try and retrieve her clothes from the floor. "I never thought I'd let someone see me like…"
"Like what?" he asks, grinning. He did not know that he is still capable of grinning.
She rolls her eyes. "You know like what. I was…"
"Sitting on my face?"
She throws her jacket at him and it hits him squarely in the chest. "Don't be crass!"
He is laughing as he swats the jacket away. She is pulling on her jeans now, but he grabs hold of her hand again.
"Jyn, come on. It's alright."
"This is all a bad idea," she says, shaking her head and buttoning up her jeans. "I'm sleeping with a detective, for fuck's sake."
"Jyn, just stay."
"You can't just…" The blush that has crept up her cheeks is gone now, and he realises that she is not meeting his eye because she is trying to stop herself from crying. "You can't just say things like this, Cassian."
"Hey, Jyn, this doesn't have to be serious." He quickly sits up and puts his hands on her arms, turning her around to face him. "This doesn't have to mean anything. I just enjoy your company, that's all. That's why I'm asking you to stay. God knows, we are the last people in the world who are built for 'serious'." He glances out the window and a smile comes to his lips at the sight he sees. "And it's raining outside and neither one of us has an umbrella."
Her laughter is choked and dry, and she lifts a fist to rub the tears away from her eyes.
"Okay," she says a little too forcefully. "Okay. I'll stay."
But after she has crawled back into his bed and her small body is curled up against his own once more, he can't help but think that it must be impossible for him to have the happiness without the guilt.
What are you doing, Cassian?
What are you doing?
Let me lay in your bed, talk of things you don't know
Take the clothes from my back, and make love to me slow
And you're free to think of all you feel and let go
Do not tell me though
Do not tell me though
Do not tell me though
.
.
.
Author's Note: Woo hoo! Thank you for reading! I was so glad that I could FINALLY incorporate Baze and Chirrut into this series. The deep fried Chinese dough sticks are a big thing in Asia, guys, so I just had to put them in.
Thank you to the lyrics from Keaton Henson's "Strawbear" and to the song "You Always Hurt The One You Love".
Please let me know what you thought! I would love, LOVE to hear from you. :)