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The First Night
Jyn has never known peace. Not the shape of it, not the weight of it in her hand; not the slowness of it, the calm, the space and time and will to sit back and simply breathe. But lying next to Cassian, in his bunk no larger than her own, with his thin scratch of a blanket against her back, she recognizes the stillness that comes over her. Gentle, soft. A sense of ease, of waiting.
He sleeps lightly beside her, his breathing uneven, almost on the verge of consciousness; Cassian is a man nearly impossible to surprise. He knows every sound that every inch of his floor can make, can sense the very shift of air in the quiet of the room. His door was far from silent, anyway; the lock, the slide, the movement of the metal—he traced her every step without effort, watching her with his eyes closed, his body tense.
Jyn had held her breath, afraid to run, afraid to speak, her single, nearly threadbare blanket bunched tightly against her chest. She’d had a second just that morning, and with one of Cassian’s folded neatly on her bed, a third, but she’d managed only a single moment beneath them before throwing them back in open despair. The warmth had felt false, the safety and comfort a liability, an unfairness. She hadn’t been able to bear it.
But Bodhi would be warmer, at least; between his coat and two extra blankets, she imagined him waking up in a near sweat, the chill of Hoth cooling his forehead and neck. It wasn’t likely, with the frozen weight of the air pressing up from the floors, but Jyn had let the image calm her, and the steady beat of her heart had brought her confidence.
But there was no sneaking up on Cassian, no way to return the favour he had showed her so casually, so selflessly. (And so recklessly, too, she reminded herself.) After all, during the long nights on Hoth, that single layer of cloth could be the difference between an hour of sleep or three, a morning of relative movement or stiffness; it could be the difference between patience and anger, ease or distress. Despite her own needs, she’d refused to rob Cassian of that—of a chance at peace, even if only a moment’s.
And maybe he’d known that, recognized that, and that was why he let her in, why he let her slip into his room and into his bed. She certainly hopes so, because she has no other way of explaining why she’s here. She has no other defense, and she has can’t pin down the reason behind the tightness in her hands, the weariness around her mouth. And in the morning, she knows she’ll have even less to say, too conscious of the depth of Cassian’s eyes, questioning and curious. At least, here, on the other side of his bunk, his back pressing against her shoulder blades, the heels of his feet against the arches of hers, they’re equal. No debt, no thanks; just presence.
But then Cassian turns in the middle of the night, suddenly and unexpected, and it takes Jyn everything she has ever stored in her bones, every year of training ever beaten into her body, to keep from running. She wants to flinch against the change, against the friction, but she concentrates on her breathing, on the quiet, steady push of air over her lips and onto the pillow. She’s sleeping so close to the edge of the mattress that even the slightest shift of her weight would send her onto the floor. But Cassian doesn’t push her, doesn’t reach for her. Instead, he turns, and carefully drapes their blankets a little further over her body, higher up on her arms covered with the fleece of her coat. His gloved fingers brush her own, where they’re open and exposed in front of her chest, and she watches the contact, watches his hand pull away. The moment is over before it begins.
He settles quietly behind her, after that, in the same place he was before. He’s like a ghost against her back, his touch as feather-light as a shadow. When he stills again, Jyn closes her eyes, the tiny flush of colour against her cheeks disappearing into the darkness.
She doesn’t sleep another minute all night long.
The Second Night
Bodhi returns the extra blankets just before he heads to bed, his concern marked easily and boldly around the edges of his face. “Why did you give me both of yours?” he asks quietly, eyeing Jyn’s stiff, uncomfortable bed, empty save for the thin, under-stuffed pillow on the corner of the mattress. “You hate the cold here more than anyone.”
Jyn shrugs, dropping her eyes back to the table where her A180 blaster is laid out in several dozen pieces. She’s been watching him all day, waiting for his curiousity to boil over, for the accusations to rise against his teeth, the assumptions to colour his face. But Bodhi’s softness surprises her, and forces her to remember he isn’t like the others she’s known, the strangers who would demand something from her, who would question her every move. This is Bodhi, and he’s just worried about her.
“I saw you shivering yesterday, that’s all,” she says, looking up. “I thought maybe you were getting sick. Figured I could make it one or two nights with just my coat.”
Bodhi steps into her room, hesitant, waiting for her to shoo him back into the hall. But she doesn’t; she watches him from her stool, the third leg just a touch shorter than the others, waiting for him to come closer. He does, but only just.
“It’s hard to do anything but shiver around here,” he says, and in an instant Jyn knows that he knows. But when he doesn’t push the issue, she can’t tell if she’s relieved or slightly irritated.
“Are you giving them back?” Jyn asks.
Bodhi unconsciously pulls the blankets closer against his chest. He would never admit it, not to her face, not at the thought of her freezing in here without anything but her coat on her shoulders—but he knows the truth of it, anyway, Jyn thinks. And she’s right; a moment later, Bodhi colours a little around his ears and neck.
"Will you need them tonight?” he asks.
Jyn isn’t sure, and hasn’t been all day. Yes, she'll admit she's not just tired (she's exhausted), and if she plans to sleep on her own, the air inside the base is too thick and too cold to survive with nothing but her jacket. Still, she can't quite summon the energy to say yes, either.
In the end, she settles on looking up at Bodhi, her hands loose on the table, and tries to keep things simple; tries not to imply that she’ll spend the night wrapped tightly in Cassian’s arms (because it’s not true, but saying that won’t stop Bodhi from thinking it is). She keeps her face as neutral as she can, schooling her expression. "I think I’ll be okay,” she says.
Bodhi nods, unable to keep her gaze, before hurrying from the room.
His reaction sits with her for a while, not painful, but awkward, in the way sitting in the sand can be. She puts her blaster back together to distract her mind, to focus her energy, but once it's back in its holster she's afraid to look at the time, knowing she'll try to judge if Cassian has gone to bed yet, if he's asleep. If it's late enough...could she go back? Would he let her?
The decision tonight is worse than the one from before, when all she was trying to do was settle something, or even something out. Tonight, she can think of only one excuse: that when she'd left that morning, just before dawn, just before Cassian was due in a meeting or three, she'd left her only blanket around his body, curved against his back and arms and chest. She knew she'd need it, but still, she'd left it; now, Jyn forces herself not to think about why.
When she eventually finds the courage (and without checking her datapad first, or the hallway for signs of life), Jyn presses the button on the panel beside her door, closing it behind her. The steel seems final, the barrier insurmountable; she would either find the will to sleep in Cassian's bed, or she would be spending the night not sleeping at all.
To Jyn's surprise, she actually finds the door to Cassian's room unlocked, which it hadn't been the night before. A part of her had expected him to change the code, to keep her out; a part of her is suspicious, first of his forgetfulness, then of his intention. But whatever the truth, she’s here now, and his door slides open quietly, offering less than no resistance.
There's no sound in the darkness, no indication he's even here; his bed is cast in darkness around the corner of the room, placed as if to starve away the light creeping in from down the hallway. There's a beat, a pause, a single hesitation left undisturbed, before Jyn can finally make out the movement of his breath, almost steady again, his mind slipping back into sleep.
She makes it to his side, close enough to touch him, before she stops again, trying to gauge the shape of him in the dark. She finds the space he left for her, and beyond it, his body on its side, his cheek cradled on his arm and his face angled towards the wall. Her fingers are light in their exploration, but she knows she lingers just a heartbeat too long, her knuckles brushing through his hair. The gesture is soft and gentle, fragile in a way she's never known herself to be.
But it's enough, enough for now, enough for one night, and she finds the courage to slowly pull back the covers and ease herself onto the mattress. It protests, but quiets, like it can hear her thoughts and her pleas for silence.
She sleeps with her back to him again, and discovers how much she hates feeling like she's cut him off, like she's shielding herself by looking away, her body language untrusting and afraid. Because, in truth, she's neither of those things, and she wants to share that with him.
Just before dawn, then, after sleeping more than the night before, an hour here, an hour there, she turns her body, her movement slow and rehearsed—a little bit at a time, calculated to avoid waking him. She shifts her arm under the blankets, edging them over his back, over the curve of his chest. She raises her knees, slotting them gently against the back of his, her chest inching forward, mirroring the contact. She wonders where to leave her hand, how to rest it, but without her gloves everything feels too intimate, too close. Maybe she should pull away?
She considers it, knowing she's only half a presence, a moment's touch in the night, gone in an instant. But it's as if he can sense it, her thoughts, her doubts, her recalculations, and knows just what to do. He meets her halfway, her searching hand with his, and curls their fingers together, easing them again his chest.
Nothing else about him has changed. Nothing else about him is different. But Jyn knows he's frozen in place, just as much as she is. And it makes her smile, if only against the back of his coat.
The Third Night
In the morning, Cassian can't decide what's worse: waking up without her, without her presence at his back, or having to wonder if he'll ever see her again with her cheeks flushed from warmth and sleep. He would never push her, never keep her, but he's surprised by how much he wants this, this tender, unguided understanding forming in the dark, taking a shape he doesn't know and doesn't recognize. He wishes he could anticipate when she'd come, so he could time it, so he could set a convenient alert on his datapad to light up the room, so he could roll over onto his side just late enough that her half of the bed would still be warm when she slipped in.
But there's no way to know, and there's never been; Jyn is notoriously hard to predict, hard to pin down, and maybe that's why her comings and goings these past two nights have always surprised him. Sometimes it takes a moment, a split second, even two, for him to realize she's moving, either toward him or away from him, bringing all the warmth to be found on Hoth either into his bed or out into the night. He tries to tell himself he shouldn't mind, but the thought of missing her touch, even a heartbeat's worth of it, of waking up to simply find her beside him, or the bed cold and empty behind him, is a thought that unsettles him. He wants every second of it to imprint in his mind, like it might shield him from the harsh, unforgiving landscape of Hoth.
For now, he just tries not to think of her, of the shape of her legs against the back of his own, of the press of her chest below his shoulder blades. He concentrates on his work, on the snow, on the development of the base. He concentrates on what he can control.
But time passes too quickly and too slowly at the same time. While he'd managed to avoid letting his anticipation build the day before, it's harder to do the same now, when her actions suggest a pattern, a re-occurrence, a repeat performance. At least, he hopes she'll be back, but he's ready for the reality of things, for things to return to normal. They'd grown closer since Scarif, but perhaps not close enough to survive three nights together in the same bed.
During dinner that night, K-2SO turns to him, looking unimpressed in a way only a completely expressionless face can manage.
"You're not sleeping," he announces, halfway through a report on inventory numbers. "And you're not paying attention."
"I am, Kay," Cassian replies, biting into a re-hydrated biscuit that tastes very nearly like dust. "And I'm sleeping fine."
K-2SO does not sound convinced, any more than he usually does. "Then perhaps you'd like to know that Jyn Erso is also not sleeping well. Combined, your performance outputs have dropped almost 38%."
Cassian raises his head, knowing he's trained his face to reveal nothing, or next to nothing, about his thoughts, and praying that remains the truth. "What are you suggesting?" he asks.
"Since this base depends on your leadership, and her...general assistance on the projects you assign her, I would suggest you revert to your former sleeping habits."
Cassian realizes, all at once, that he doesn't want to know if K-2 knows that Jyn has been sleeping with him. Something about it just isn't right.
"I'll try my best," he replies, his response noncommittal, hoping it'll still appease his friend. It doesn't.
"Your body temperature has been higher in the morning for the past two days," K-2SO says, as if Cassian hadn't spoken. "My recommendation is to return to sleeping in the previous amount of cold your body has become accustomed to. Maybe consider asking Jyn—"
"I'll figure it out, Kay," Cassian mumbles, his reply half sigh, half cough. He doesn't want to hear K-2 suggest he ask Jyn anything about his warmer-than-normal mornings.
And yet, as he waits on the edge of his bed, late into the night, he begins to wonder if he'll ever have to. He wants to—at least, he thinks he does. Anything is better than just sitting here, in the thick, ever-freezing darkness, holding his breath for the sound of her footsteps, for the sound of her fingers on the door pad outside of his room. Anything is better than trying to guess why she wouldn't come, and whether or not this quiet thing between them is already over.
He moves into bed. He can't help it now, shifting towards the edge, leaving room for her. He faces her side, tracing her spot with his finger as he relaxes, as his body tries to ease into sleep. He hopes she's found more blankets somewhere—the thought of her without any pains him—but suddenly he's too tired to worry about it, too exhausted to even move his hand away from her side, or turn his back towards the door.
So she finds him there, and when he stirs enough to see her, to sense her body in the dark, to sense the way her eyes are searching for him, her fingers just beginning to reach out and explore, there's no time to pull away. Her hand all but guides itself to his face, resting on his cheek, and from her soft intake of breath he knows she's surprised. She stills, and he knows she'll run if he makes a mistake; she'll turn around on her heel and slip away, as if she was ripped from him by the night itself. So he moves slowly, raising his hand to gently rest against the back of hers, pulling it down toward his mouth. He kisses her palm, and tastes the hesitation in her body, the tension. She begins to pull away, but he holds her lightly, kissing each of fingertips one by one.
"Stay with me," he whispers, not towards her, but around her, to the space in the bed beside him, to the space in the room she can and should always occupy. He isn't sure what else he can say.
"Cassian," Jyn whispers, almost mouths, the sound half-formed and delicate, fragile around the edges like a thin sheet of glass. She takes back her hand, but rests it on the blankets, on the roughness of the material stretched over the mattress. She unzips her coat.
"You're not wearing one either," she says, moving in beside him. They aren't touching, but they're facing each other, their knees and hands closer than before, teasing in the shadows.
"K-2 says I'll sleep better if I'm colder," he replies, and immediately wishes it sounded less like he wants her to leave, like he needs her absence in order to sleep.
"We could test that," she says, deep into the pillow, deep into the crux of his arm as it reaches around to rest just above her head.
"I'd rather not," he whispers, his other hand lingering in the space between them, open and willing, hopeful and nervous. He steels himself, and manages to muffle his reaction when she takes it, her fingers pulling him close, his palm against her ribs, his knuckles against the soft rise of her breast. It takes everything he's made of not to want more.
She kisses his forehead, quickly, in a movement that jerks her body back and forth, clumsy and hurried. "Goodnight," she says, and after a few short minutes it's impossible for Cassian to tell if she's really sleeping, or if she simply plans to pretend like she is all night long.
The Fourth Night
Cassian has never dreaded a mission as much as he's dreaded this one. It may be simple and straightforward, granted things go smoothly, but it's the length of time he'll be away from Hoth that disquiets him. Three days, at best; a week, at most, or two weeks, according to K-2. "There's a 42% chance the source of this information is false," he explains. "If it's a trap, and we lose the ship we arrive in—as we're likely to; I don't know why they wouldn't take it or blow it up—it could take as long as two weeks to hijack enough ships to lose any trailing imperial troops before returning here."
"Thank you, K-2," Cassian says, reading over the mission details on his datapad. Two weeks. It's never seemed so daunting before.
His one relief comes later that day, when Chirrut seemingly appears out of nowhere and follows him into the hanger bay. "You'll need us," he says, but won't elaborate. An hour later, him and Baze have packed the ship Cassian's been assigned with enough rations for the entirety of Rogue One.
"We can't all go," Cassian says, his arms crossed tightly against his chest, as if hoping the simple gesture can trap more of his body heat inside his jacket. "There's a reason we were assigned here. It'll hurt the base of we all leave now."
"Then maybe you should stay," Baze says, carrying a crate up the ship's ramp that likely contains food stuffs or weapons. He pauses only long enough to watch Chirrut sit down on another crate, and seemingly unperturbed by the sudden lack of help, he shrugs. "We can handle it."
Sensing the futility of arguing, Cassian leaves to find Jyn. She was the one he'd left for last; the one he knew would insist on coming from the start, to watch his back. But this is different now; it feels different, anyway, and the thought of asking her to stay behind sits rotten and sticky on his tongue. Maybe she'll have something to do; maybe she won't fight it, knowing he's already had to fight tooth and nail to get a ship that fits three, and that asking that same ship to fit six is beyond him. But that's wishful thinking, and he knows it the moment he sees her face.
"I can just bunk with you," she says easily, but she won't meet his eyes. There's tension in her hands, but her shoulders are relaxed; she shifts her weight, but her voice is even and clear. "Chirrut and Baze will bunk, and that leaves the third for Bodhi. We should all fit, without too much trouble."
Cassian isn't sure what to feel. Concern, confusion, irritation; with six people, his simple mission stops being simple, his straightforward plans stop being straightforward. But he's in less danger now, and he senses that. Three guns at his back, and a ship with a pilot; it cuts his workload into fifths, easing every task he's been asked to accomplish. He just...
Cassian realizes too late that Jyn's been waiting for him, her eyes slowly climbing from his elbows to his shoulders, and finally to his face. There's pain behind her eyes that wasn't there before, a flicker and a flash, hot and intense while also being almost invisible. He wants to touch her, to pull her closer against him, towhisper into her hair that everything will be all right. But he can't, and she wouldn't want him to.
"I want you to come," he says instead, wondering if he's made things better or worse. "But I won't ask you to."
Jyn looks away, considering something. "I'm really starting to hate Hoth," she says, trying to sound like that was where the conversation was leading all along. "Anywhere is better than here, yeah?"
But it's an awkward reply, and it hovers between them for the next little while, as they move back and forth across the ship, as they eat in the tiny, overly-cramped mess hall, and sit beside each other on the small, unbelievably-uncomfortable couch just outside the cargo bay. It's late so much sooner than it should have been, and suddenly the ship goes from much too small to much too large, every inch between them magnified by something Cassian would hate to put into words.
"I'm going to try to sleep," he says softly to her, after leaving Bodhi at the controls with K-2. "I only have a few hours."
"Yeah," she says, her hands hidden between and behind the movement of a rag, his blaster in pieces on the floor in front of her. "I'll sleep in a bit. Don't wait up."
Cassian nods, but lingers just beyond the doorway, wondering if this announcement, this public way of sharing how comfortable they are sleeping in the same bed, has hurt what they've grown. He can't be disappointed by the loss of something he never really had, but already he misses the closeness of her, the smell of her hair when he closes his eyes, the press of her body heat against his clothes. Sometimes, in the hour or two before dawn, before she slips away and closes the door behind her, Cassian remembers the feeling of having her in his arms, the beach on Scarif a backdrop as beautiful as it was terrifying and final. Holding her was going to be the last thing he ever did, and knowing she'd let him, knowing she'd turned him away from the blast, away from the explosion, has stayed with him. He closes his eyes now, and rests them on the humming metal wall of the ship. She would have been his last memory, and he knows, even still, that he couldn't have asked for better.
As he slips away, his eyes on his hand, the ghost of her body on his knuckles, he hears a door open from the other end of the ship. Without needing to turn around, he can just imagine the look on Chirrut's face.
"You should get some rest," he says, but there's laughter in his voice, easy and bright.
"You too," Jyn says, and there's a sound like something small, a tool maybe, or a cylinder, hitting the ground. "You and Baze fit in there okay?"
"No," Chirrut replies, and immediately Cassian envisions Jyn pressed up against his body, with nowhere else to go. Their torsos flush, his arms around her, her fingers in his hair. He realizes then how badly he wants to hold her again.
But Jyn is laughing now, and the echo in the tiny ship is just enough for Cassian to mask his exit, his footfalls as silent as falling snow.
He knows better than to wait for her, and he doesn't; he strips off his shirt and pants, and pulls on something loose, the temperature in his room almost too warm to be comfortable. He leaves the sheets turned down—a strange thing, after the necessity of keeping the blankets pulled up to his chin on Hoth—and tries to sleep, knowing there's really no room on this bed for Jyn, and trying really hard not to wonder how they'd ever get both of their bodies on this tiny mattress.
"Move over," she seems to whisper to him, and he's so confident it's a dream that he mumbles something incoherent instead of shifting against the bed. He's only aware of her, truly aware of her, when she pushes him gently back, rolling him from his stomach onto his side. "Is that all?" She asks.
Cassian isn't sure what to say, so he says nothing, trying instead to blink the sleep from his eyes. But his body feels heavy, and his vision is clouded with dreams and darkness. There's a rustling sound, and Cassian knows Jyn is getting out of her clothes. But he's shocked when he feels her body against him, her back to his chest, her bare legs against his thin pants, an undershirt the only thing between his hands and her ribs.
"Can you sleep like this?" She whispers, and shifts her lower body, trying to cradle herself against him, drawing his knees up and pushing his pelvis back. And the contact is cruel, and sharp, and he knows the bed is small but not that small. The soft grinding of her body against him is almost beyond his ability to ignore.
"I'll be fine," he whispers back, hoping his voice doesn't sound too thick, hoping she writes it off as a side-effect of being dragged back from the edge of exhaustion. "Can you?"
Jyn hesitates, leaning against him even more, before finally reaching around for his hand and guiding him to a safe spot over her stomach. "Just don't let me fall," she says, and he responds by tightening his grip, if only a little.
"I won't," he says, but not to her. He says it into her hair, into the soft, warm skin of her neck, where his mouth moves against her, making her shiver. "I've got you."
"I know you do," she says, and her voice is airy, not quite breathless, but less sound than movement and intention, like she's forming the words on her tongue without speaking. "I trust you."
He almost misses those three words, and when they register, a powerful feeling settles inside him. It's brighter and hotter than anything he's experienced before, and when it finally cools enough to be seen, to be touched, Cassian realizes Jyn's undershirt has pulled up just enough for his fingers to brush her skin, to feel the warmth of his body against his hand with nothing between them. He can't help it; he traces endless, lazy lines against her, his breath still warm against her neck, her body arching just a little, just enough, when the beginnings of the beard on his face brushes along her shoulders.
"Jyn," he mouths against her neck, seeking something, asking, wanting.
"Mhmm," she breathes, tilting her head, calling him closer. Her fingers tangle loosely in the sheets, like she needs something to ground herself from the way he's touching her, his hand moving slowly, ever so slowly, up and under her shirt.
The slow crawl almost breaks him, but Cassian refuses to hurt her, to startle her. If she wants him, or needs him, to stop, he wants to be a moment too soon, not a moment too late. She's strong and vulnerable beneath his hand, and he would never risk that, risk her. He wouldn't survive having to face her, knowing he'd betrayed her trust.
"Please," she whispers then, his fingers on the bottom edge of her breast, circling against the soft skin there, just above a scar that races along the side of her body. "Please."
Her sense of need overwhelms him, and Cassian moves his hand over her, teasing and relieving her, knowing his own need is hardening against her back. He wants to keep going slowly, but her sounds are truly breathless now, and she's guiding his other hand, pulling at it from behind her. He slides it under her body and curls over her hip, letting her take him where she needs him, to the dampness between her legs. He brushes against her and she moans, soft and desperate.
"Don't tease me," she says, and Cassian agrees, promising without words that he would rather do anything else. He's careful with her underwear, careful as he slips under the band and touches her, slipping between her, repeating the same circles he'd been drawing before.
He takes his time, relishing in the way her hips jerk against him, in the way her head falls back and her body shivers. She's so quiet, her sounds more exhales than anything, slight and easy to miss, but wanting and powerful. When he hits just the right spot, she nearly cries out, the pleasure coming from the back of her throat and hiding there, trembling out of her in breaths that shake her entire being.
He slips a finger inside her, gentle, as if to ask if it's too much, too soon, as if to ask if she likes it, if it's what she wants. She touches his wrist and he stills, but she almost whimpers in response.
"Please," she whispers, and it feels amazing, knowing he's the one she's asking, he's the one she's trusting. "Don't stop, Cassian."
And he doesn't, not for another second, and suddenly time begins to move around them, weightless and unsubstantial. All that matters are the little cries in Jyn's throat, the sound of hands gripping the sheets, the drag of her nails against his arms. All that matters is the way she gasps out his name when she finishes, her pleasure shivering through her entire body, as if rushing to fill every inch of her.
She collapses almost unnoticeably, her body resting heavily against the bed, her head against the pillow. Her every breath carries relief and contentment, the sound almost a hum. The satisfaction runs deeply between the two of them, and Cassian kisses her everywhere he can reach without pulling away from her in his arms.
"Jyn," he says, and it's half a question, half a statement.
"Yes," she says, and it's half an answer, half a promise.
The Fifth Night
Jyn wonders if she carries her memories of the night before on her face, if her tiny moment of vulnerability has moved something behind her eyes that anyone looking closely can see. It definitely feels that way, and she buzzes with the energy, even as it worries away at her insides, reminding her how unprepared she was. Is. Will always be?
She can't name the feeling, but between her and Cassian, it feels good—it feels safe. She can't remember even the last time she slept in the same room as another person without panicking, without keeping one of eyes open and one of her hands on her blaster. Four days ago, even the thought of facing Cassian in her sleep had shaken her; now, what she dreads is the sight of his back as he turns away from her in a bed large enough to comfortably fit them both. But for now, she likes this; she likes it here. She'd stay forever, she decides, if she could.
But the memory of his need lingers with her, and she remembers the press of Cassian against her back, the ache of his own desire evident everywhere, in the hungry drag of his lips on her skin to the cracks around the edges of his voice. He hadn't asked her to help him, and he wouldn't; she sensed the truth of that, and wondered if she would ever see the same kind of vulnerability on his face as she knew had been on hers. After some thought, she knows she wants that; she wants to drag her hand through his hair, keeping his eyes on her as he reaches his own satisfaction.
But waiting until their next rotation is torturous, and she can’t shake the images from her mind. She wants to know what he sounds like, how he looks with his body moving almost outside of his control. She wants to feel the relief move through him, the weight of him, spent and relaxed, against her chest and against her hands. It has never been like this, not for her; she struggles with it, with the strangeness of it.
"Are you doing okay?" He asks her, over their bowls of something that might have looked appetizing once but survived poorly in a vacuum bag.
"Are you doing okay?" She asks instead, dodging the question. She looks at her food, then back up into his eyes, into the warmth and tenderness he lets her see only now and again, when his smile is open and his expression is genuine.
"I'm fine," he says, but he whispers it softly, like it's a secret, like he's sent it across the galaxy just to reach her where she's sitting just then. "I can't stop thinking about you, though."
Jyn stops chewing and belatedly swallows, wondering where he finds words like this, why it comes so easily to him. She has no idea what to say, and is captured by the effort, overwhelmed by it.
She settles on returning his sentiment, so at least she can breathe again. "Me too," she says, but she doesn't smile; instead, she lets the happiness tease the edge of her mouth. Whatever this is, she decides, it's hers, and she likes being able to keep it close to her.
She gets up and walks around the table, leaning close over Cassian's shoulder. It's bold, but maybe she can come to like this too, this courage, this recklessness. "How long can we keep it a secret?" She asks.
Cassian turns to her very slowly, like she's luring him in with something too good to be true. "It depends on how quiet you can be," he answers.
Jyn raises her eyebrow and accepts the challenge, reaching around Cassian with the excuse of taking his bowl. With her mouth near his ear, she whispers, "Or you."
Cassian doesn't speak right away, and Jyn knows what he's thinking, can imagine it just as he can, just as vividly, just as clearly. Her hips in his hands, her legs on either side of his body, the sheets on the floor.
“How long can we keep it a secret?” Jyn asks again.
Cassian swallows thickly, and his silence is answer enough.