Jyn Erso doesn't expect the Director Krennic to visit her in what is a glorified prison cell. There's a fresher, even. Water. It made her laugh when the troopers found useful to give her a tour of her own jail.
This is not a torture chamber or an interrogation room, not even a regular cell. For sure. She knows what the Empire has in store for its arch enemies. The Erso daughter? She is nothing. Krennic said so, openly. And he hinted at it when he made her kneel for him anyway. You do not use a political prisoner so - though more because it is a conflicting message to send, than because of any attempt at morality. Jyn hates herself for giving in. She didn't even get forced. Now, in the silent, not quite efficiently aerated area, Jyn realizes how wrong she had behaved. She cannot do anything about it. It is forever the fact that Jyn Erso enjoyed sucking off Director Krennic.
"It makes you feel better?", she asked the stormtroopers, bitter, as they pointed to the refresher. They didn't reply, maybe not understanding. Her anger, rather, was directed at Krennic the man who would lock up his own frigging fiancée. She laughs outloud at the thought, at everything. Nothing makes sense. Will he keep her under lock and key in his bedrooms, or will he suddenly set her free once he takes her maidenhead and her maiden name. Lady Krennic. Not officially yet.
A lady has some rights, she thinks.
But not against her husband, she realizes.
Which means she will have just as much as he decides.
Stuck.
Her thoughts coil and uncoil, a sick animal chasing its tail, as her body nestles in the slightly too comfortable bed. She sighs, hating that she has this. She refuses to move when the door opens though the sound startles her. There is, always, an instant when the daughter of Galen Erso allows herself to forget that she is safe in quite a somber, depressing way. They are not coming to torture her. They are not coming, either, her friends. No one is coming to get Jyn Erso except a handsome, charming man she hates.
White, so bright it hurts her eyes as a prisoner who finally sees the sun again, appears in her field of vision. She despises how her mind compares him to that before she remembers a sun can burn, kill or explode, and that's what he is, with his golden silver hair and his damned cape and his hot lips. No. Staying in bed has no appeal suddenly. She wanted to offend whoever that was with her laziness, but she doesn't wish to appear weak or worse, wanton.
She sits quick as she can, then straighter up. The blanket has fallen from her body, and it is a relief that she is dressed, although in clothes that aren't either hers, or her. This unsettles her and she looks down, almost expecting the traitorous garment to ride up. It does. She scowls as if it was on purpose and tugs it down. His eyes have followed her every move, hungry to see, to stare, to stalk. When her gaze snaps back up at his though he pretends he hasn't been looking.
One option, the Director doesn't want to be seen as a mere man, with weaknesses even - especially - the most powerful have. Another, more frightening, possibility, is that he has regrets. He isn't there to fuck her, but worse to not engage, to back down, to come back on his word, well, as she did.
He misinterprets her frown.
"You aren't a prisoner here, so quit this ungainly sulking".
Immediately she can't believe she was horrified at the idea of losing this match. Everything is better, literally everything. As if on cue, he goes on.
"I have been speaking to your father". Her heart constricts. "As was to be expected, he is playing hero and considers that you should save your dignity from my clutches". He rolls his eyes and maybe he is actually repeating Galen's words. She would treasure those.
"So I am asking. Are you marrying me, Jyn?".
This is the closest she may have from a real proposal from him, and if she accepts, from anyone, ever. She notices he didn't ask if she wants to, but if she will. Jyn Erso cannot keep eye contact but she only figures that her hand is fisting her skirt's material, clenching and unclenching around it, when his glacier eyes trail down to her thighs again.
"Have you really been talking to my father?", she asks suddenly, almost begging. "Is he well? Did you…".
He physically recoils. "No! I didn't torture your father, if that's what you are asking". She cringes at the word. He only detests the assumption of him hurting Galen, not the act per se, but she knew that. She does file away the information, to use against him again and again. "I would never hurt him, I love him". She fists at the skirt with all her hatred and rage, thinking too late that her nails could tear it to pieces, since he is off limits. He has fire, too ambitious, too volatile, too passionate. Somehow he is like her, only her opposite, the dark to her light though he's the one wearing white. If she marries him, they'll match, she thinks madly. Jyn closes her eyes but in the dark it is even harder not to picture it. "Galen is my friend", he adds, maybe wanting to come back on his first declaration.
I love him.
"Some way to treat a friend", she spits. Her mind reels still at the other sentence. "If it is so…". If he is your friend, if you love him. "Let me go".
"He is the only one to blame for all this. Lucky that I am handling this, and not anyone else. He betrayed me - betrayed the Empire, your father". She growls and it is more than she can bear.
I love him. He betrayed me. Basically, he told her the whole story he doesn't even tell himself.
"You will meet them all, at the wedding. Your father, he'll be fine though quite red eyed". Somber joy in his voice. Galen would obviously lose two people that day. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to look at her in the eye, lest she would read jealousy there. Perhaps her father would be as lost to her as if he was dead. She cannot breathe.
"I don't want one more word about my father. What the fuck! What does my mother say? Is that why he doesn't want me to marry you?". She sounds hysterical, childish and lost and yes, jealous. Accusing her father of reciprocating whatever the Director is claiming exists. Of being ready to die for it. She cannot stop. She wants to stand up, jump from her bed and get rid of that awful energy, that fog surrounding her, but it is too late, he is too close to the bed for her to move.
"Jyn, calm down", he says, not unkindly, gesturing pacifically with his gloved hand. "Why do you care about these old stories? You weren't even born". He still plays upon the ambiguity, the kind of fidelity between engineer students, to the death, and the possibility of more. Of longer.
"This is part of his punishment", she says, half airy half hysterical, looking up at him. "Of course. You don't want m...". Oh fuck. What did she almost say. No. "You don't want to marry me, you want to fuck him up". In more than one way, she thinks and fears. Jyn cannot imagine loving someone and have them marry your kriffing kid. In this case, yes, it is even more devastating to have the child consent, to not conduct this as a rape. She is in horrible pain for herself, for her father, for her mother. Orson is watching at something invisible, half closed eyes, almost translucent eyelashes veiling his usually piercing gaze. He is considering the truth in this, because he never confessed this even to himself, not in those terms.
Galen is good with figures, numbers, but Jyn is great at reading people. She actually managed to turn whatever he shared to taunt her into a powerful weapon, devastating as an invisible, mental, moral Death star to turn him into stardust. He considers the words he told her, phrases he would never have uttered even in the privacy of his mind. It makes him sound like a lover scorned. He hates it.
"Your father is nothing to me, girl". Like she is nothing, he implies, or at least she hears it. She would bet her life on him lying about her father. As for herself, she is different enough that he cannot search for a younger, unattached, virginal version of Galen in her. Though she still is the closest he can get to that, female at that - his men may joke about him fucking Jyn, which they must imagine he does, it doesn't debase and disgrace him on remotely the same level as doing the same to Galen. The Director catching feelings - ha! - for Jyn would make him weak, ridiculous perhaps. But feelings for a male? He would never hear the end of it - debauched, decadent, degenerate. Not a man.
"I can't", she says again, as if she is really unable, more than unwilling.
He doesn't say anything this time, letting her continue.
"They'll all be looking me, watching… Imagining…". She sounds hysterical again, as her mind pictures his friends, older and Imperial and laughing chin up at the idea of Krennic having his way with the Erso kid now that he has signed some paperwork and spent on some ceremony, stilted first and then indulgent.
"Isn't it like that at every wedding?", he asks rhetorically. She cringes. She was hoping to be wrong, or that he wasn't considering this part of his norm. Why was she surprised that a man who didn't value life wouldn't value dignity in anyone else but himself? He doesn't seem to dislike that she is shocked. Perhaps he doesn't notice.
"Would you… Consider". She knows what he means. Jyn searches his face for clues. A trap, something to go to bed quick, or to mock her should she accept. She finds only open desire and a topping of concern. For her? No, she decides, for how the wedding night would go if she collapses.
She puffs and grimaces.
"You're waiting then…", he teases. "You're refusing me because you are keeping pure, for me". It sounds ridiculous in his mouth.
"It will not be said that Orson Krennic forced a woman who wasn't his". Jyn almost nods in agreement until she hears the end of the sentence and pales. He actually takes a step back, though, showing her physically what she doesn't believe outloud, and not understanding that she is now hearing the hint, Orson Krennic has no problem with people knowing that he would force a woman who is his. He sees her fear then, but misses the real reason.
"I understand you are afraid. It does hurt, that first time, I am not going to lie…". She laughs, because lies are his domain, and because really? Does he think he has to replace her mother in more than her father's… affections?
"And how would you know?", she snarks. She is not that innocent, that she thinks it is the same for a man and a woman. He is quiet, strangely, his eyes not quite keeping with hers, and she understands. She silently mouths a "Oh".
What he is confessing to, goodness. It breaks something inside her, but not necessarily in a bad way. Her face is bone white except where her cheeks are burning, painful as a sunburn. It doesn't say much and still it gives her much too precise an image of her father and her fiancé. She hums behind her palm. For some reason it disturbs her that Krennic was not - always - the one in control. She cannot imagine him relinquishing this. Not without profound feelings, and this isn't for him to have them, no. Krennic wanting to give this to someone.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck", she mutters under her breath.
"Language", he tuts, but it is weak. His face is ashen too, albeit his blood high on his cheeks. She imagines they look the same.
"Why do you tell me that", she breathes. She stands up now, uncaring that she has to brush past him. She isn't as afraid of him and his contact after hearing this confession. If she doesn't even tread toward thinking of her father in any of this, if she only, vaguely considers manly hands on Krennic's too pretty hair… The image isn't fully displeasing.
He doesn't reply.
"Why?", she insists, voice gaining strength where he is losing his.
"Now you know", he finally offers, his gaze still vague. Broken almost. Yes, she does. But it raises way more questions than it answers and she fears every single answer even though he is the one hurt and humiliated.
"I will kill everyone you would find interesting to tell", he states as if he was discussing getting another caf. She laughs, chin up, not necessarily unbelieving but certainly sure she is keeping that image of manly lips against his, manly hands grabbing his hips, to herself. It is awful but also beautiful, this gift he gave her.
It is wrong, what she wants to do even more than before, and how she wonders about his face then. She cannot ever find out. If there is a holorecord of that moment, she imagines Orson happily blowing up a planet to destroy it and then some. Of course, screwing the daughter when you like the father cannot be wholesome, even for the likes of Krennic. But. There is some poetic justice to taking the daughter's blood, in this case. If he has been the first, she wants to be the last. She grabs his chin for her lips to devour his as he did to her before, and she brings him down, down, down.