TFW school and work and life kicks you in the ass. Sorry about the wait, dears. But omg thank you all so much for the awesome feedback! I really appreciate it 3
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Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or its characters. I just like to mend my wounds with fic…
…
He was an idiot. Cassian Andor was an idiot who was going to get himself killed one of these days (not today).
But he was her idiot. Obviously.
They touched more often now, stayed close to each other, like their orbits were finally allowed to cross and mingle the way they wanted to. She had tried to keep him at arm's length, before the kiss, though it felt like she was dying when she couldn't see him.
A distance still remained, as they tried to figure things out, not sure how to have what they had now, not sure what to do next. It was clear neither of them was familiar with…feelings. Much less reciprocated feelings.
Cassian asked about the Rebellion, any news Jyn could find about Scarif. There was nothing to say. She didn't know and she couldn't seek answers out.
While they were out in the middle of nowhere, the threat of spies, of being tracked down, were still a constant source of worry.
Hour by hour, Cassian grew stronger. Color seeped back into his cheeks. He could eat more than a few bites of food. He could sleep more than a few fitful hours.
The relief of it all brought tears to Jyn's eyes, though she kept that hidden from him. She cried more than she wanted to admit over the course of Cassian's coma and recovery.
He still needed the medication and reapply bacta patches. The pain was still crippling when it wore off. And Jyn was nothing if not punctual with it, making sure he took every dose on the hour.
"You know, I can keep track of that too," he said, after a day passed of her reminding him.
Jyn gave him a look. So, what, she kept a fitful eye on the chrono in the corner of the room.
"I think it's best that the uninjured one of the two of us keeps track of it."
Cassian looked like he was going to argue before something else seemed to catch his attention. Like a switch had been flipped, he went from argumentative to as if he had been sucker-punched.
"You were injured too," Cassian whispered. "I remember that."
Jyn nodded, shrugged.
"Yeah, I was. The clinic gave me bacta patches. It's fine now."
The wound didn't give her pain anymore, which was appreciated. They couldn't afford to have both of them unable to fight. It had been an annoyance for the most part, making it difficult for her to drag Cassian around.
She shrugged again, dismissively. It didn't almost kill her. Sure, she got lucky. But she was alive.
"I want to see it," Cassian said.
Jyn froze, a refusal forming in her mouth before she could think about it. Wild animals did not show weakness, did not show off their wounds. She was like them, in that way. Saw taught her well.
He reached out a little. His hand shook, still weak. "Please."
Jyn could not be entirely sure if he was putting on an act to get to comply. He looked deadly serious.
She had touched him more than he had touched her. It was required, as Jyn was his doctor now. Changed bacta patches, cleaned his skin. She knew his body; he didn't know hers.
It was only fair, Jyn told herself, that she would obey his wish.
Out of fairness, not the desire to be touched and held that burned through her chest.
Jyn walked over to the bed and sat next to him. He sat up a little, this time with less pain, she noted.
Her fingers fiddled with the hem of her shirt. Cassian watched her, close, not too close.
Finally, she removed her shirt, bare except for her bra.
She didn't really know what the scar looked like. From trying to look in the mirror, she figured it was hardly noticeable. A shallow divot, a couple shades lighter than her normal skin tone.
Cassian shifted and touched the scar with a gentle hand.
"I'm sorry."
Jyn shook her head.
"Nothing to apologize for. We're alive. That's what matters."
His hand smoothed over and rested on her back, warm.
"Stay?"
His voice was small, like he was ready for her to refuse him. She almost did, the urge to keep her distance, to wait it out, burning through her.
Instead, she lowered her body so she lay next to him on the bed.
"Okay."
There were many things for her to do. She needed to come up with a plan to get them off of the planet. She needed a plan to get them back to the Rebellion, if there was still a Rebellion to return to on Yavin IV.
She threw enough money at the motel's management that they wouldn't be bothered for a while. They had time but she didn't know how much.
She needed...
"Okay."
She slept for hours and when she awoke her arm was slung over Cassian's midsection and Cassian had an unbearably smug look on his face.
Past-Jyn would have been sheepish, but present-Jyn let herself relish the warmth for a moment before getting up and fixing them something to eat.
…
"Take it slow, Cassian."
Cassian nodded as he put one foot in front of the other. His brow scrunched in effort and sweat collected on the top of his lip.
He was shaking, not quite like a newborn fathier, but enough that broadcasted the fact he wasn't in much shape to travel just yet. Still weak, easy prey.
Jyn was close by, though Cassian had insisted that he do this by himself and didn't need her to physically lean on.
"I've got it. I've got it," he muttered.
He was making process, but he had a look of intense concentration, like someone who let himself focus on one thing and one thing only in order to keep himself upright and conscious.
"Who would've thought that walking across a room would be such a great achievement for me?" Cassian mused.
Jyn continued to watch as he walked to the door, slowly turned around in place, and walked back to the bed.
It was not a great distance. He would barely make it out of the building's vicinity if that was the extent he was able to walk, much less run.
But Jyn kept that to herself, instead rewarded Cassian with a small grin when he sat back down on the bed and looked to her with an expectant hope.
…
Two more days passed and Jyn realized that, maybe, she was an idiot too.
It was raining outside. Thunder growled and rumbled as the rain poured down, turning the trash-filled streets into a disgusting soup.
Jyn was thankful to be inside.
Those thoughts slid between her ears as she kissed Cassian like her life depended on it, like his did as well, piling herself into his lap.
Fuck, she was so screwed. This was the sort of thing that Saw would have tried to discourage: any sort of passionate relationship, with a Rebel Alliance member of all people.
That thought disappeared as well, blown away like dust in the wind like the ghost of the man that still clung to her mind.
Cassian's mouth roamed over her neck, biting gently here and there. Jyn exhaled harshly, fisted one hand in his shirt and the other skimming under his shirt.
How did they get like this?
Jyn distantly remembered something like an argument, or, at least, an exchange of barbs. Followed by a heavy silence. Then, they crashed together, orbits crossing too close together, two planets colliding.
It was a blur from there, shedding of clothes and hasty preparation with shaking fingers.
Not enough preparation, if the thready burn when Jyn finally lowered herself onto Cassian told her anything.
She rolled her hips down, joining their bodies, and relished the moan that action punched out of Cassian's mouth.
"Good?" Jyn asked, breathless.
Cassian nodded. His eyes were glassy and his mouth was hanging open as he gasped for air.
She had to be gentle. The bruises were fading to brown and yellow, but she couldn't be sure how much of the damage remained under his skin.
As if sensing her hesitance, Cassian bucked his hips a little, restless.
"I'm not that breakable, Jyn," he rasped.
She couldn't be too sure of that. It sounded like he was dying and she hadn't even started moving yet.
"Jyn."
Right. He was hard as a rock inside her and she was shaking above him. No time for poetics.
"Fuck," she whispered.
He wedged an arm underneath himself and pushed up to kiss her, sloppy with a hint of teeth.
"Yeah, that's kind of the idea," Cassian grumbled into her mouth.
Jyn ground her hips down against his and he flopped back down to the bed with a groan.
"What was that?" she asked sweetly, eyelids fluttering as he shifted underneath her.
"Jyn, come on. Please?"
Well, since he asked so nicely.
She rode him like their lives depended on it. Maybe, in some way, it did.
They couldn't stay in the hotel forever. The war was out there, ever-present, though the unknown of what had occurred between the battle on Scarif and that moment lingered.
This was their little enclave, a rundown room in a rundown hotel in a rundown part of town.
They didn't look like stars in those trashy porn holos. They were hollowed out, scars and sinew, bruises and bones showing just under the skin. Warriors.
The world was out there and it was going to catch up soon.
They breathed each other's air, grabbed at each other like they would disappear the moment they let go.
The rush of orgasm brought tears to Jyn's eyes and watching Cassian fall apart underneath her made her want to tuck this moment into her chest and never let go.
Nothing like the holos, but it was perfect.
They came down from it, breathing heavily, on the same grimy sheets they had rested for days now.
"We can't stay," Cassian murmured.
It was as if he had plucked the thought right out of her head.
Jyn nodded, turning to press a kiss to his shoulder. "I know."
"I am strong enough to travel. In case this didn't make it clear."
He gestured between the two of them.
Jyn scoffed and lightly tapped on his stomach.
…
Stealing a ship brought a greater weight to Jyn's consciousness than she had planned.
The actual stealing of the ship was the easy part. Force knew how many ships that came into the Partisans' possession were stolen. Saw Gerrera personally taught her how to steal a ship.
She bargained and wheedled and stole. It got her in trouble but it also kept her alive. It kept her and Cassian alive.
When the day came, with what was left of their money and belongings, Jyn and Cassian snuck their way out of their room and to her mark.
It was a cargo ship, something she had seen the day before when she was casing the city, looking for transportation.
It had docked after unloading its shipment of merchandise. The owner was waiting for the next job, loitering around the shabby port on the southern part of the city.
The owner was also a sloppy drunk, making it all the easier to steal his ship.
This probably wasn't fair. Whoever owned this ship had a life, maybe a family, and maybe she was royally fucking this guy over.
But…but she was doing this out of necessity. Perhaps she could pay them back later somehow. Return to this backwater planet and repay this ship's owner, once the fighting was over and there was some sort of peace to be found.
Jyn choked down the guilt. It could be something she could wrestle with later.
The ease they had in stealing the ship Jyn chalks up to the unlucky owner ending up in a docking bay where the attendants were either drugged out on spice or didn't give a shit.
Neither Jyn nor Cassian brought that up, fearing that speaking would somehow undo their fortune. They survived their days on Otrarvis up until that point, but the last moments on this planet could turn to disaster.
It took too many precious moments for them to figure out how the controls work: a strange meld between two different styles and the Aurebesh scrawled on the metal that was meant to be a reminder to the pilot was barely legible.
Jyn's fingers tapped an uneasy rhythm on the console as the ship slowly rose into the air.
She glanced over to see that Cassian looked about as stressed as she felt, his brow furrowed.
"We're going to be okay," she said.
It sounded like a truth when it left her mouth, though it was more to reassure herself than anything else.
Cassian's face softened a little bit in response.
They flew as casually as one could in a stolen ship, the skyline getting smaller underneath them, before they escaped into the vastness of space.
Jyn tapped the coordinates with sure fingers as Otrarvis and its murky atmosphere got further and further away.
They would make two jumps: one very short jump to a nearby system, then the long jump to Yavin. It was a precaution more than anything, in case someone was tracking them. Jyn was thorough in making sure there was no tracking device stuck to the ship, but they had to be sure.
"Punch it," Cassian murmured.
The hyperdrive whirred as pinpricks of light smeared into lines.
They did it.
Cassian stood up to lean against Jyn's chair.
Before she could ask, he swooped down until his face was a breath away from hers.
Jyn made a sound that was both a question and an exclamation before Cassian's mouth sealed over hers.
A moment and a millennium passed before he pulled back, exhaling a laugh as Jyn leaned forward a bit to chase his lips.
"What was that for?" Jyn breathed.
Cassian grinned.
"A kiss for my hero," he said.
Jyn blushed, before turning back to the ship controls.
All they had to do was hope that the Rebellion wouldn't immediately try to shoot their ship out of the sky before they could attempt to make contact.
"Let's go home," Jyn whispered.
…
Just one more chapter and an epilogue!
All feedback is appreciated as well!
Cheers!
~Tiara of Sapphires