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Fulcrum; go
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[OOC—update: Just specify in subject line which game!]

[... Huh.

She hadn't heard that name, or thought of its affiliated system, in what felt like years. Mostly, she'd tried to block the memories out of her unfortunate ~~imprisonment~~ stay in the Five Points System.]

you were in the five points system?

[The memory comes rushing back like an open palm to her cheek.]

holy stars.

i remember you now.

i spent a lot of time in five points after i'd escaped tamseye prime. didn't have a ship to get anywhere else, got caught up and blackmailed by an imperial officer with a gambling problem, then got caught up with one of the gambling lords because i'd forged credits for his casino for the imperial officer.

was in and out of there for a couple of years before being apprehended on a ship outside of watassay with a group of partisans.

but i remember you. you'd been bringing in some prisoner. rowdy, large guy with a bald head and a big scar down the center. looked stapled shut or something. i'd been there maybe a week at that point, had sold what i could, was caught up with the gambling officer who was blackmailing me. sort of .. uh, took advantage of your situation to sneak some credits out of your pocket.

[there's a slight delay as he drops his comm.

Picks it back up to delete the keysmash and consider whether to say meet me now please or continue in type.

…Actually… he wants to continue in type. At least to start. Get it in writing to anchor his mind.

But he has to leave whatever room he's in and find some new corner to wedge himself into before responding.]

if that was you then there was a second time
do you remember?

[She feels the delay down to the cellular level. Wonders if he's retrospectively angry for what she'd done. Wonders if he remembers. Exhales a sigh of relief - followed by a snort of confusion - when he finally responds.]

.. a second time? no, i don't remember a second time. could've sworn it was just the one. wanna say i took about 50 credits from your pocket, which .. was appreciated a lot at the time. bought me food for a couple of days.

re: food - good

Edited 2017-06-11 10:10 (UTC)

[ooc: the plurk where we plot all this out]

you were only one ever managed to pickpocket me there
didnt see you do it but was able to [run back the mental footage] figure out who it must have been afterward
my important stuff in my boot so you didnt get anything i had to track you down for

but i [was kinda impressed so] kept an eye out for you
didnt have your face - just height and clothes but was enough

next time i saw you was the night before shipping out for coruscant
k-2 bringing getaway ship to coruscant directly - me transferring through 5.s for data trail
wasnt in uniform but had just changed to imperial hairstyle - to be sward

[close-cropped, and, more distortive by far, clean shaven. Offsetting the phantom years that kept getting longer.]

didnt want to sleep - crawling out of my skin
followed you to moeseffas
looked like you were hunting
guess for the two goons you picked a fight with

i was about to ship out for the highest profile assignment of my life
already looked like my cover identity
should not have drawn attention to myself

[Never would have. Only…

Add another one to the tally. Jedha. Eadu. Yavin. U-Wing. Five Points Station.

The only times Cassian Andor had lapsed in making sure the mission came first. Put a total or near-total stranger first instead. Put Jyn first instead. Based on even less knowledge of her than he'd supposed.]

but watched you fight them
could tell you could have beaten them
they were underestimating you - your abilities were exceptional
but then you just

[He'd seen it before

—an insurgent on Sullust simply dropping his weapon and standing, with sudden transcendent calm, to be gunned down
—one of his team on Chemvau when he made the mistake of looking back as he abandoned them, relaxedly leaning back onto a blade
—the tension around Xilo's eyes and in her shoulders going suddenly slack, as her hand found the detonator and she mouthed at him: Run

he'd felt it himself
hadn't succumbed
but]

lost the will to fight - just let them pummel you
i knocked one out with a chair - bluffed off the other - pretty sure you did want to die cause you just let me carry you out of there
wouldnt let me take you to a med facility - wouldnt tell me where you lived
took you back to my room - locked up my gear - and patched you up

[Her face had been beaten to a pulp, of course he'd never known her features; but how had he not recognized her stature, her frame, when he saw her on Yavin 4… the way she moved and fought on Jedha…?

Because it had been a different woman on Five Points Station. One aged beyond her years, in that moment far more extremely than Cassian; changed in carriage, stance, motion, practically in height; not yet hardened as she'd become on Wobani; withered and twisted and raw with…

…grief, he realized. Remembering from her story where she'd been right before then.

Who she'd been with.

The explosion that had gotten her there.

He stops.

Rereads what he wrote. Twice.

Not sure if he should…

…but did. Send.]

am i right?

[Jyn doesn't know how to respond.

She can't seem to control the shaking in her hands, her fingers, her very skin as she tries to cling to the comm with some sense of desperation, feeling like - if she'd let it go, if she drops it, it might sever some kind of connection she has to Cassian in that moment. She knows it makes no sense. She knows that letting the thing fall to the floor won't violently rip her out of the moment -

But maybe that's part of the problem.

Maybe she wants to be removed from the sudden displacement, the sudden submersion in the exact memory he describes. Her brain easily fills in all of the details that he leaves out, that he wouldn't have been privvy to.

She quickly presses the heel of her palm into one eye and then the other, in a vain attempt at trying to stop herself from crying.

When she eventually writes back, she isn't sure of how long it's been, but she guesses somewhere around ten minutes.]

i remember it.

Edited 2017-06-09 02:50 (UTC)

been at five points about a week, maybe less. i don't know, time sort of blended together while i was there.

an hour after arriving, two guys tried to rob me. i felt the brush of a hand at the pocket at my hip; only had 100 credits to my name from the planet hopper i'd sold for scrap. grabbed the wrist. caldanian and gigoran, if i remember right.

ended up in an alley of sorts. trapped on both sides. caldanian charged first, i used my fingertips as a spear to jab his eye. then both charged me. swung my knife to try and gut them or scare them or .. anything. caldanian grabbed me by the neck and started squeezing. stabbed him in the arm. gigoran had a blaster that i went for, punched him in the face, slammed his arm and wrist against the ground until he dropped the blaster. they both ran. caldanian still had knife in his arm. it was the knife saw gave me when he left me on tamseye prime.

wanted revenge on them for what they'd done. maybe foolishly wanted my kriffing knife back, i don't know. probably came up with a thousand excuses as to why it was a good idea to find them, strike up a fight. only thing i felt was numb. so numb. probably wanted to feel something, anything, to distract myself from the black hole in my chest.

usually went to moeseffa's two hours pre-night shift change and stayed two hours after. looking for jobs, sizing up the gen pop. knew they'd be there at some point. ended up being the night i guess you followed me.

found them. instigtated argument. didn't take much; they remembered me when they saw me. felt the closest to alive i think i'd felt since i left skuhl as the punches started flying, but then.

stopped.

couldn't figure out what i was doing. dissociated probably. couldn't justify what i was doing; they were idiots, they were thieves, but getting revenge on them didn't make me better. didn't see the point. no family, no hadder, no akshaya, no saw, no mother or father, nothing. what was the point? i'd already been put into servitude by commander solange, who banned my scandocs from leaving five points, posted my picture to keep me from bolting.

didn't see much of anything by the time you intervened. couldn't see much of anything. figured you were going to finish what they'd already started and that seemed merciful enough. couldn't tell you were i lived because i didn't really live anywhere. rented a room from an old guy but didn't consider it 'home.' couldn't make heads or tails of where we were, how to get anywhere. i kept thinking of coruscant, lah'mu, wrea, skuhl. couldn't tell which one i was on.

i remember thinking i wanted to go home but had no idea what that even meant.

remember waking up the next morning, bit less swollen but still bruised all over. looked for you, but you were gone. tried to get your name from the guy downstairs but he wouldn't give it without paying, and i didn't have enough.

i can't believe it was you.

[a slight delay before he responds, too]

i watched you sleep all night
should have woken you to say goodbye
thought i wouldnt get to coruscant if i did

bastard should have told you - i paid for the room if you wanted it for a few days
though would have been swards name

met a lot of people i'd always put out of my mind
never stopped wondering about that girl

[do you believe in the Force now

…delay explained for being partially because he's made use of those ten-plus minutes.]

i'm outside your office if youre there

don't blame you for not waking me. you had no obligation to me. you'd already went above and beyond what any other stranger would've done there.

plus, probably would've been terrible company afterwards, anyway.

i lingered for the bulk of the next day, after you'd gone. couldn't really move much without groaning or seeing stars, but felt weird taking advantage of the kindness you'd already showed me. eventually hobbled my way back to the rented room, once i remembered where i was.

[Commander Solange hadn't even batted an eye at seeing Jyn in her purpled state the following day. Jyn hadn't ever felt quite as expendable as she had in that moment - at least, until she'd landed on Wobani.]

you are? brt.

[She takes a few extra moments to regain something of her composure before taking the lift down to the main level and walking out the front door, dabbing at her sniffling nose with her knuckles. She glances around for him, finds him, and walks over - looking a bit shy and perhaps embarrassed at the revelation, and her current reactional state.] I don't remember seeing you at Five Points after that. Though not long after, I was apprehended by one of the gambling lords, Pso, and forced onto a ship to do his dirty work.

[He waits, watches, and listens attentively when she speaks. Gives a tiny shake of his head in answer.]

I was Sward for a year. Then a few months on Fest. Then… things were picking up nearer to Jedha.

[Then he shows behind the curtain of his composure to take and frame her face in both his hands and stare searchingly into it.

He's come to know her face and every inch of her body so intimately. But he looks at her now as if he didn't.

His fingertips trace the ridges of her cheekbones, her brow, her nose, her lips—places he'd gently wiped free of blood, applied disinfectant and numbing agent, however many years ago that was now. She'd been so swollen and split, he hadn't even mapped her underlying bone structure. Nor had he registered the green eyes that caught him by throat on Yavin 4 and he's come to love. One had been swollen closed, the other too bloodshot, and too hard to keep open from exhaustion and pain and despair.

But it was so obvious now.

Her face still in his hands, his shoulders and chest curved toward her as if to hold her with everything, he bent abruptly forward to kiss her. Gentle but fierce.

Moves slightly back, still holding her face, still touching her forehead with his—creased from the forcefulness of his closed eyes.

His voice is soft, low, but… had… rage]

I should have known you my whole life.

The war should never have happened to either of us.

We should have had all that time.

Edited 2017-06-09 03:54 (UTC)

[She murmurs a confirmation tone at his explanation; she recalls the memories he shared with her with vivid clarity. Her lips part to offer some sort of response when his hands lift to cup her face so delicately, she felt fragile enough to break.

Never in her life had anyone touched or treated her with such tenderness, such care, such consideration. Even when her Papa had brushed the hair away from her eyes and kissed her forehead, or when her Mama plaited her long strands of hair into two braids that slapped against her back as she ran, there'd been some semblance of roughness to it. Sometimes out of being rushed and hurried - like Mama needing to get her day started but needing to tend to Jyn's hair first - or out of exhaustion - like when Papa would sit at the side of her bed after a long day's work to tell her goodnight.

But the way Cassian's fingers practically vibrate and tremble against her skin makes her feel an incredible surge of love and humility. And, for perhaps the first time in her life, she feels like the young girl she could/should/would have been, had everything turned out differently.

A quiet noise rumbles in her throat as he kisses her - a choked sob or an exhaled laugh that never quite escapes. Her hands find his waist, rest there gently, returning the reverence he's showing her with her own. Chews on her lower lip as he speaks.]

I know. I know. Should, shouldn't, should. There are so many of them. [Her fingers tighten around the bones of his hips.] But we can make up for it now. We can have that now. We have a second chance to do that.

[she's right
he knows
he does and part of his mind runs through it

had he stayed
she would have wanted none of him
she was bereaved
he was a stranger
it would have gone badly
or never at all

but even if they found each other
recognized their reflections
stayed allies then friends then who knows more

he would have been deserting the Rebellion
abandoning Kay

and someday the Death Star would have destroyed not only Alderaan but Yavin
those he had loved, so many more
and somewhere inside he would have known he could have done something
and what would they be then

they never could have done anything but live out those lives

but it doesn't matter because it finally found him
(long cheated, long overdue)
the kyberradiation
splitting him to dust
he burns in it, consumed
and even her presence against him isn't enough to overpower the grief and loss
they could have had years

the loss of her before he knew her on Fivepoints
losing her just when he'd started to know her on Scarif
the utter theft of both their lives

I know
I know

we can have it now

He needs to feel…
something other than this
something not disintegration and fury
needs to be reminded—re-believe this is real

he wants to feel her
bear her up against the wall
wrap her legs around him
part her lips
lock inside
feel her hold him
her heartbeat through all

—but he's suddenly terrified that this is a violent desire.
The creature he might always have been, not in training but instinct, wanting to dominate and control, in the face of all that he can't…

but the radiant warmth of her
the quantum song
distant sunlight on the child she never was
the vulnerable honor of her trust

he could go down on his knees before her
close his eyes against her stomach
beg her to let him serve

all he feels is devotion and protectiveness, tenderness, longing, faith
he doesn't want to dominate her
he never never wants to hurt her

but this still…
he shouldn't be thinking that she is refuge
she is home
she is light
and need her to outshine the afterimage behind his eyes

That's not what… she's not a means to… she's not here for him,
she's Jyn—

(No
don't put that on a person
dont ask her
it can't be right
don't be an addict
it can't be right for him to need
so
badly

—make me remember
—make me forget

don't ask her)

…He's spent all control.

He bows his head against her shoulder.

Whispers,]

Can we go somewhere?

[I'm sorry
I'll stop if you ask me
I'll leave if you tell me
I'm sorry to make you tell or ask me

please let me feel
you
alive]

[She's alarmed at the sudden influx of - destruction. emptiness. loneliness. regret. sorrow. anger. fury.

The hands at his waist immediately lift to mirror his actions moments ago, gently supporting and outlining the curve of his jaw. Her gaze unsteady and unclear as his thoughts pelt her like a hailstorm. Somewhere underneath the detached exterior, she's screaming inside. Feels his need, feels his yearning - takes it, changes it, adapts it for herself. Feels it, too.

Wants it him them, too.

Feels a strange warm at her core - a hunger, a desire, a craving. Can't understand it, can't unravel it, can't decipher it in its entirety.

Simply feels it, knows it, acknowledges it.

Comes back into herself and into her eyes, blinks away the haze, and throws her arms around his frame to pull, hold, keep him close to her.

One hand comes up to rake through the strands of hair at the back of his head, face buried into where his neck meets his shoulder, the other clinging tightly like a cinch around his waist. She nods against his body.]

Anywhere.

Always.

[And then, smaller still:] Don't leave me.

[it's all right
she makes it all right
once again
by needing him too

A lightning surge passes through him. Pushing his body full against hers, throwing his head back up to kiss her fervently.

Voiced and thought, he answers her plea-command (don't leave me) vehemently,]

Never.

[I'm yours
you're in me

Fused to her by her hand in his hair and at his waist, he mirrors both: cups her head, grasps her waist, kissing her until he sees spots like bruises inside his lids.

Then he can't not solve the problem a moment longer. His strategic brain locks on, shunting everything else to standby.

He raises his head, looks around. They're in an alley beside her office building, off the main street. Not secure enough. There are fire escapes. Could climb to a rooftop. Suboptimal: would require letting go of her too long. Doorways, antechambers, stairwells, could lockpick any, but being mid-day no guarantee of desertion. Then he spots the broader doors, ramp and signage that indicate loading dock.

His human brain resurfaces long enough to meet her eyes. Seek consent. Tighten his arm around her side.

Strategic brain back in charge and launches operation. Holding her tightly, he walks them to it, reaches around her body to pull the rigid wire he'd seriously considered not secreting there out of the seam of his sleeve, using it to open the industrial but frankly below-security doors and: yes, it's a freight elevator. One of those bizarre universals: they tend to look the same and operate uniformly on so many planets for so many species. You need a key to make the doors close again, except you don't if you can use a wire.

He hauls shut the inner grate which closes the outer door and switches on the light. Throws the lever that locks their position, keeps them here no matter if someone tries to summon the machine elsewhere. Then slung the wire and his computational mind both uninhibitedly to the floor. Grabs her in both arms, lifting her off her feet, kissing her like it's how he needs to breathe, pressing her back into the wall.

Edited 2017-06-09 18:19 (UTC)

[Jyn's mind comes in and out of fog and light and clarity, the warmth at her core continuing to burn, to consume like a sudden inferno. She feels like dry kindling; never had a chance against its licking flames and burst of heat. She feels the pulse in her neck, feels it in her chest, against his body, down below. He could lead her into the pits of whatever this world's version of hell could be, into the darkness, into a screaming volcano, and she would follow. She would trust him - does trust him - with her life.

So his gentle but hungry urging is enough to make her trail closely at his side, mind fogging as the blood in her body begins to heat her from the inside out. When she figures out where he is going, she is unable to hide the smile that lights her features - eyes flicking to his with an innate understanding and hint of mischief and understanding. She takes in the surroundings only briefly, head snapping back at the ruckus of the doors being shut, before allowing herself to be - no, not overtaken. That would imply an imbalance, that she isn't just as willing or just as in it as he is. But she isn't carrying the shield. She isn't wearing the mask she often does with others. Even if she did, even if she wanted to (which she doesn't), Cassian would see through it anyway.

She emits a groan - no pain, all pleasure - at feeling the rough firmness of the wall at her back. She uses her hands to discover the skin under his collar, urging him forward, closer still, before dropping her hands to the hem of his shirt to explore the expanse of his abdomen, his back, fingers fumbling with the seal of his trousers with an insatiable hunger.

[As her fingers found him, his found her; plunging through cloth layers, curling inside her.

Then even as he kneels before her to pull down her clothes and put his mouth where his hand had just been…

…this is different than he's been with her every time until now. Even when he would accept dominance, it would be accepting it: taking only as she gave, wanting to be led, to be invited, needing a level of clarity and confirmation that would sometimes protract… not wanting to focus on himself, wanting to throw everything into serving her. This…

…he's not waiting… not checking and rechecking every signal… just…

…more like how it might have been for him in the past? With others, in wartime…?

…No. No. This level of… roughness, perhaps… even forcefulness… never painful, never against her, but… lacking finesse, abandoning technique, not trying so hard to craft and control. Letting himself feel and be driven by… need.

This is only possible with her. The level of trust they've built. Knowing the moment it isn't mutual it will stop, and they'll both know if that moment occurs.

But instead of preventing it, risking it.

…and even in that. Even on his knees, fingers digging into her thighs, what he's doing less like kissing as it's been before but… like this, too, is something he needs, the taste and feel of her… wanting her to fill his senses and drive everything else away.

It's swearing himself to her, still.]

[Jyn throws her head back, arching into his touch, as his fingers crawl underneath the fabric of her trousers. Fingers tangled and tugging on his dark strands of hair, pleading with him with sounds and urging muscles to continue, to take her wherever he might lead her, to undress her down to her bare bones and the galaxy she has swirling within.

Every reaction, every bend into his touch and against his mouth is her consent. Is her invitation. Is her asking for more. One hand's fingers try to dig into the wall behind her without success, the other rakes through his hair, pushing the strands away from his forehead, grip tightening as the quakes jolt down to the soles of her feet. She braces herself against the steadiness and solidity of the wall behind her, teeth digging into the plump flesh of her lower lip to try to stifle the sounds bursting forth from her mouth like an eruption.

She tosses her head forward to gaze down at him, eyes on fire as they burn down towards him. Cheeks flushed, breath in spurts. The hand that had pressed into the wall comes up grip her breast from over her shirt.

Her voice quivers like the rest of her body.]

Cassian ... Cassian, please ..

[One of his hands left her hip to do something fast and rough, impatiently dextrous, to his own clothes. Then both hands were back, fingers curving around her thighs, palms flush with her skin, kneading her flesh, pushing himself up her body to his feet. His hair, his face, as he rose, rippling a wake in the fabric still covering her stomach, abdomen, chest; his hands sliding up her legs to grasp and hoist her up. All part of the single movement, he was in her as his head reached her neck. Lips and teeth found hinge of her jaw. One hand fisted her shirt in the low hollow of her back. His other hand struck the wall behind her to brace his tremortaut arm—as he pushed into her, full.

For an instant he freezes, running all his senses over her like a diagnostic. Making sure there's no pain response.]

[Jyn exclaims a cry of hedonistic surprise at the speed of his movements, at the feeling of being filled, at the strength behind the thrusting of his hips. Her arm hooks around the back of his neck, the side of her fist pressing into her mouth to try and mute the knee-buckling whimpering and groaning she can't seem to contain.

When she feels his stagnancy, she loves him for it - loves him for the consideration he's showing her even now - and murmurs a confirmatory sound with a erratic nod of her head.]

Yes, please .. [It comes out more like a breath, one bent knee rising to rest against his hip, the other locking into place so as to keep her from collapsing the way her muscles threaten, awash with adrenaline and desire. She tugs him away from her enough to look at him, make sure he could see her eyes and the hunger burning behind them as final confirmation.]

[there are times he wondered who he would have been if one thing had changed

he couldn't imagine away the war. that would change everything.

he couldn't indulge any idea too far or too long. that was insanity.

but something. a handhold. an... insertion. when a memory couldn't be tamed. when there was no way to save or stop who he had been. he could send someone else back as a thought.

mostly that would be kay. someone who wouldn't have to change to be there or come back. whose own 'life experience', personality, trajectory, mortality, mission, choices, would be unaffected. as isolated a variable as one could wish.

kay could have helped him limp back to base.
kay could have guided him so he could keep his eyes shut.
kay could have steadied his shaking hand.
kay's photoreceptors could break up the dark
kay could keep him from being utterly alone

...kay could never take the shot for him. cassian wouldn't allow... wouldn't do that.

if he'd known kay since cassian was a child
perhaps he would have mimicked droid functions more than he even does now
how he manages his own mental processes in tech model
perhaps he might also have aspired to impermeability
never registering pain
nor doubt
nor love

Cassian has so… forebode, forbade— In their intimacy: that if he took his mind off Jyn, if he stopped focusing fiercely on the present, on giving to her, he would default.

The droid mode he slipped into when he had to survive combat.
Had to inflict damage.
Had to desert an innocent.
Had to find an exit. Complete a task. Steady his hands. Clear a path. Choose a method. See details. Commit murder.

And in that mode, would he harm her somehow
not physically hurt her
she could take him if she needed to
she was better unarmed than he was
he was pretty sure a blow from her would wake him up

but what would she think of him if he was… gone, like that
looked into his eyes and saw just shell looking back
would she fear him
would she feel violated
would she be angry
would he be deserting her
and what with?

Here's the answer.

She pulls him to look at her. His eyes feel like chasms looking back. He loves her, he knows her, he's with her… but he fears too distantly, too far down, too infinitesmal amid everything else that's been allowed to storm up inside…

But her eyes don't… she's not searching. Not looking to him for reassurance. She's giving it. Wants him to see that she's there. That she's with him, she's willing, she's wanting, he's wanted. She understands and she's staying and he should go on.

He hasn't made a sound… but something breaks from him. A shudder. He kisses her hard.

Doesn't linger… his mouth moves from hers to her cheek, her jaw, her neck; he seizes her body in his arms, scraping the backs of his wrists against the metal wall, not caring, as long as, if her chest against his can staunch the rupture; thrusting inside her until he'll only feel her, reach her from the depths, make everything else stop…

her

looking at him with the first brightness he's seen in her eyes, outgleaming the crystal at her fingertips
pushing herself suddenly aft, away from bodhi and kay, and catching cassian's arm
and both start, feeling the jolt through their bodies, blindsided at how after so many collisions, so much navigation, so much invasion of one another's space, their proximity suddenly feels entirely different
but she goes to tell the others in the hold that they're coming through the shield gate
and he clamps his hand to the grab bar to look out at scarif and put any such thoughts far, far out from mind

stabbing at him with her crystalshard eyes though she never shouts, her voice never raises, no bluntforce trauma but precision to pierce
looking for his armor
looking to shatter it
looking to cut through the curtains and mazes and lies of a terrible mess of ambiguous universe to find something real
he was a liar and a murderer
he'd lied to her and meant to kill her father
and by the force that had to mean something
they'd failed, they'd failed in everything
there had at least to be this
but he couldn't or wouldn't give it to her in his own failure and pain and rage
and because on some level he needed her to surmount it
for somebody's sake
needed the truth as badly
for both of them
it had them and they had to keep going

looking up at him from the shuddering floor
the planet literally splitting around them
kicked and battered
all her walls shown the ram
that what they'd been built on could be simply pulled away
and leave her foundationless
looking at him with open emptiness
and need
if he can't convince her to follow him now
she'll let it all fall around her

looking across at him, the green schematic and monitor lights flaring heightened in her eyes
jaw and shoulders and everything hardened from a life he's just barely glimpsed as data and can now see he hasn't grasped at all
but he meets that look with the full weight of his own
seeing someone who's decided only to survive
and wondering if he can bring her to where he'd instead decided to go
and must take her now

limp and broken and so profoundly struck, like she can barely find the will to keep breathing and doesn't understand why she must, but still and quiet, no flinch, barely a shiver, as he cleanses her wounds
crawling under the covers he held up for her, resigned or uncaring if she's about to feel him push himself against her, perhaps that's the price of his help the alternative to which was dying, or perhaps she's so far inside herself now she's not aware of him at all; but he didn't, he was never going to, he folds the blankets around her and turns away, silently finishes packing for the morning, then folds himself down to a shadow in the chair and watches her all night
until he made himself simply leave, knowing a second longer would change the life that wasn't his own
and though she'd been too hurt, outside and in, to make him even imagine such a thing when he'd been near her
every time in those first few months with aune
sometimes he would try to think
(minus her injuries, though he had no mental image of her likeness without them, just the notion—the shadow of her)
of that woman instead

He couldn't throw off their circumstances. Not one of those times.

When if he could, he would have gathered her in his arms and held on for the rest of his life.

He can now. He does it now. Exerting inside her, as if friction, nerves firing, can imprint her on him for good, send him back to hold her all the times he hadn't, generate from their stimulation a Force to shatter and replace that universe with one they bring to birth; and none of that even matters as long as he can stay with her wherever the hell they are, stay in her and hold her tight.]

Edited 2017-06-10 09:04 (UTC)

[Something in Jyn realizes that - on the peaks and ranges of pleasure and sorrow - the intensity of memory, of secondary thought ~~stolen~~ borrowed from someone else is blinding. Searing. As hot white bright as the light had been on Scarif as she felt the disintegration of epithelial cells and all that lie underneath, as she felt the calcium in her bones liquefy and float into the ether, becoming one with The Force or the Universe or maybe Nothingness in its purest form.

She isn't consciously aware of the difference, not while distracted and focused so intently on the sharp press of his hips against hers, the sudden bluntness at his being met with their limit of being able to go no further, no deeper. The friction inside of her consumes her much like the light on Scarif - reminds her vaguely of the same heat, the same brilliance - and she vaguely wonders whether they won't simply explode or implode or something-plode at the culmination of all of their efforts, at the highest peak before the fall, before the crash, before the delicious descent.

Jyn remembers the blossoming of color and heat in her cheeks as her fingers gripped his arm, the way his bone and muscle shifted beneath her hand, the immediate pull of both of their eyes to the source of contact and the agony she felt pulling herself away. The lingering, aching, gnawing pain in her chest as she alerted the others, trying to focus on the mission, on the words she knew they'd needed to hear from her in that precise moment, all the while trying to ignore the burning sensation in her hand and the stronger heat at her core. She remembers forcing herself to stay in the hold, finally beginning to feel the oppressive weight of what she could lose in those moments, on that kriffing planet, and knowing all of it lay in Cassian's eyes, the way he looks at her, the way he makes her feel. And ignoring it. Swallowing it. Knowing the sound of his footsteps coming down the rungs by instinct alone, and wanting nothing more to drown herself in his eyes while pulling away at the same time, falling into old practices of self-preservation and fear. Dislodging her tongue from its cocoon in her jaw and using the lingering warmth left by his gaze to fuel the words that came next: "Saw Gerrera used to say one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing left to lose can take the day."

Jyn remembers never wanting to so acutely rip someone's throat out as she had Cassian's after Eadu. Body and bone and soul drenched, quivering, frozen. Fingers and hand still blazing with the evaporating heat of her father's body in her lap, her cheek streaked with blood and ash that only she could see where he'd reached up to touch her face. "It must be destroyed." "Look at you. I have so much to tell you." She needs someone, anyone to blame for the way her father's presence had been ripped so violently out of her life, not just then - not just on the platform, but all of it. From the moment she'd been born on Vallt, to the weeks he'd go by without even acknowledging her, to the toys she'd wake up to in her bed as though it could substitute for his embrace and affection, to hiding in a bunker and praying for Papa to come and find her, save her, hold her. "Everything I do, I do to protect you. Say you understand." Empire, Rebellion, she doesn't care who'd done it. She doesn't care who'd been the one to ultimately clench its fist around her father's throat 'til all the air had been squeezed out. And Cassian's there, an easy target. With those infuriatingly dark eyes, the quick manipulation of his tongue to turn her words against her and discredit her reaction. So she spits out her acid, she aims straight for his heart, for his core, for his essence, and is unapologetic about it. She lets him get close, can feel the breath on her face, and resists the urge to slam skull against skull and do something with the black hole she has inside. She crawls away, into the cargo hold, and - finally alone (again, always alone) - begins to cry.

Jyn remembers feeling drunk on the sound of her Papa's voice. It's been years since she's last heard it, and she's always wondered if her memory of his face, the vibration of his vocal chords, the tension of his mouth is as accurate as she recalls. He looks so tired. He looks so empty. He looks like a man who's lost everything and more, who's only been fueled and driven by the revenge into which he's placed all faith he still carries, all memories of his wife and daughter, all memories of the life he'd never been able to have. The life he had stolen away from him as much as she had had. She remembers the sharp pain of her knees hitting the stone ground, no longer able to support her sinking weight, pulled down first by the pit in her stomach and her heart close behind. She remembers a hand at her wrist, looking up and expecting to see Papa or Saw, the way she'd hoped and dreamed in both of those kriffing bunkers, years apart. But finding Cassian's face instead. Somehow saved and pulled by the desperation in his tone, his pull. Unable to drag herself out of the darkness, but willing to go to follow his light.

Jyn remembers the spark of recognition and familiarity, the glow of the lightboards casting him in a pallid color that could never do him justice. Unable to place the connection, unable to draw the line from the clean-shaven man with the closely cropped hair, struggling against a beast who wasn't going down without a fight, from whom she'd stolen the next week's meals straight out of his pocket to the hardened, broken man before her who looks well beyond his 26 years of age, from a lifetime of war and fighting and death and fallen comrades and fortified defenses; instead, sees flickers of the boy she once loved with dark, endless eyes and long tendrils of coal-black hair that she loved to run her fingers through. She wonders, silently and somewhere out of her consciousness, what it might be like to do the same to Cassian.

Jyn remembers the darkness. She remembers the bursting flame of adrenaline and its almost-immediate extinction, aware of every bone and vessel and ligament being broken torn destroyed shattered under their fists. Orbital bones and zygomatic bones go first, a sound that rattles her teeth and breaks their knuckles. Mandible displaced, broken; masseter muscles torn. Nasal fracture, most likely causing long-term damage. Teeth loosened. Platysma over-stretched and mostly likely torn. Calculated injuries, torn ligaments and tendons, ruptured vessels, shattered bones; easier to focus on and easier to measure than the hole where her heart had been, the bleeding and bloody fragments of whatever might've been left still oozing, dripping with the blood rushing from both nostrils, split lips, lacerated skin. She remembers nothing except the gentle embrace of a bed. Sharp stings of something being applied to the cuts in her skin, wondering if there's any skin left. In and out of consciousness, of awareness, thinking maybe Hadder had shown up after all and found her and would be there when she woke. If she woke. Waking up to an empty room, eye still swollen but still intact and still where it should be; fuzziness, motion where they shouldn't be, lurching nausea and pain and fried up nerves from too much damage. Faint whiff of sterilization, not only from her injuries but - from something else. She knows the smell. Knows the scent of Imperial uniforms and cleaning standards. Remembers the mix of it with her Papa's clove aftershave. Had he found her? Had he found her and left? Could he have done such a thing? Staring into an empty room, no trace of whomever had been there, whomever had saved her, except the lingering smell of antiseptic and the heat of her skin where he'd touched her.]

I love you. [Her voice rings out clear, purposeful. Still coated in the throes of pleasure and passion, arms and limbs still clinging to him as though it might keep her from disintegrating like back on Scarif, but still cutting through the air - words she will never say without clear intent behind them. She repeats.] I love you, Cassian. [Make no mistake of who she is talking about; make it clear that it's him. It's them. No matter of what they couldn't change or who they couldn't be. They are here now, together, despite (in spite?) of it all.]

Edited 2017-06-10 22:31 (UTC)

[The side of his face presses in hers. Soft and weathered skin, abrasive shadow, sharp bones, yielding hollows; cheek to cheek but his face slightly turned toward her, eyes closed at her skin and hair, breathing her, too…
His arms vicegrip around her, but also shield her, taking any jolting of their bodies against the wall, so she only feels the vibration, not the cold, not the strike.
His feet and legs are braced as hard as if he were putting his shoulder to a stalled tank… and the motion of his core in hers is… digging. Laboring, plunging them both to some… expanse…

Her words, the reverberation of her throat against his throat, both their chests, her lips on his skin…
He doesn't come, but… he… stills.

Not an ending. Not a withdrawal. A… moment of… suspension.

Full weight and force of his body keep pressing her to the wall. Muscles quavering with the strength of his grip on her. Sharp cliffs of breaths pressing his chest to hers, heartbeat thudding louder. As hard and deep in her as solid bodies could be, without molecules permeating magnetic fields.
Yet for all of that… the sudden stillness isn't itself violent, or resistant, or angry, or surrendered, or… anything in of itself… it's…

…he'd been clawing, fighting, to get himself back to her.

She just threw him a tether and pulled him to her the rest of the way.

He's reached her. At last.

He slowly, slowly, shifts his weight, sliding legs and feet, turning just slightly in her silken flesh. His arms don't release a breath of her, but his fingers uncurl from white-knuckled grip of her shirt, to pressing, smooth, full against her. Not hanging on for dear life. Feeling her.
And after a moment, head bowed beside hers, struggling for breath, for life, for now, them, this, he lifts his face
(wet with perspiration and possibly more)
to meet her eyes
just as they had in a different turbolift
at the end of a different life

And the axis of their planet has shifted
just a little
from all that they had known in that moment they would never have
to…

…returning to that moment, somehow, as a start, not an end. Letting the timeline split there.

From I wish I could know you
I wish we could have time

to…

…there you are

It'll be the first time he fails to say it back… his throat's too tight for words… but it brings him back, in his eyes on hers, his body no less hard, not ready to stop, but… able to… take a moment. Just experience the full reality of her. Relish it, let the stillness give him every quiver and ripple and flex of her body, until it moved his again. His forehead ducking for him to kiss her clavicles and throat, an attitude of weeping though he isn't, and in thrall to her; fealty and gratitude and relief. It's not restraint, he's not holding back, and won't necessarily shift gears to subservience now. No need to force anything, not gentleness either; roughness can be loving too. But something… the desperate fury… falls away. Here you are. I love you too.]

Edited 2017-06-11 05:19 (UTC)

[Jyn's begun to learn to not immediately leap to thoughts and feelings of fear whenever there's stagnation in Cassian's movements. There's still a tiny tremor in her lip, in the tips of her fingers, but it doesn't toss her around like a doll in an earthquake anymore. She's learnt to trust, understand, learn, know his reactions, his processes.

She remembers, then, how short of a time they've really been in each other's lives - how so much of it had been so hyperfocused - like a light beam through a crystal, setting the world on fire - on the mission, on the Rebellion, on Jedha, then Eadu, then the Council, then Scarif.

The time they've shared like this - outside of war, outside of death, outside of destruction - is barely a breath in the grand scheme. They've explored the insides of each other's minds, wandered the labyrinths of grey matters and folds to exhaustion, and yet -

There's so much still to learn.

And where it might have frightened her once, it exhilarates her now.

So when he pauses, when he shifts and pulls away, she doesn't begin to shrink back into herself the way she had the first time they'd shed their clothes like second skins and used their bodies like flint to set their demons aflame. Instead, she waits; she listens; she breathes; she trusts. Her galaxies repeat, reverberate the words still echoing on her tongue - again and again until she's certain he's not only heard them, but is starting to learn to trust them, too.

And when he returns, she welcomes him back, welcomes and basks in the scrape of stubble against her chest, her neck - allows his lips to trace invisible patterns along her skin she'll remember for the rest of her days. Hand again sowing the fields of his hair, the other snaked under his shirt to press assuredly against his back. Allows the pinhole focus of her attention to blur its edges, spread out and feel every part of him against, in every part of her.

Even the Force couldn't keep me away.]

Edited 2017-06-11 07:27 (UTC)

[… the first time they'd shed their clothes like second skins and used their bodies like flint to set their demons aflame …

That was why he changed his coat so often in the U-wing, you know… yes, adapting to different temperatures… switching wet for dry… range of movement for carrying vs. fighting vs. piloting…

But really it was to force himself out of the last moment into the next. Shed that skin. That being. Be who he needed to be now, not dwell on who he'd been just before. Someone he almost invariably deplored.

Curious. He's still fully clothed, right now.

…He doesn't think of this consciously. But… in the stillness—her allowance of it, her priceless trust—he cranes back his head again to meet her eyes. His face is expressionless—not hiding anything; the opposite, not putting anything on to fool her, not feigning to project—but his eyes are hers once more. And he shifts them, gently now, no less decisively, so the framework of his legs holds her up without also needing his arms; and he keeps them fully locked below, but deliberately disentangles his arms, arches back from the waist, so he can strip off his jacket. Give her access to what's below.

Then, eyes still fixed on hers, slides his hands up beneath her remaining clothes, shifting them loose, doesn't matter whether they stay on or come off, but he's replacing them most closely against her now with the flowing warmth of his hands on her skin, her ribs, breasts, everything.

And begins to move in her again; longer, slower, more deliberate strokes. That roll and propel her higher up and back against the wall. But unhurried now, and no danger of her hitting painfully against it.

He's with her now. Freed from anguish and need. So he knows what he wants next.]

Edited 2017-06-11 08:17 (UTC)

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