[this always seems to happen no matter the intention: they just get distracted by the press of each other and kiss senselessly. not that he minds, but he supposes she has a point with her whining. they did have a plan! it's not his fault she's so distracting when they're in this close.]
[he doesn't make her say please though, his hands sliding down her skin to grip her thighs, fingers digging in to make sure his hold is solid. after another few seconds of almost desperate kissing, he lifts her up, her back sliding along the wall. he manages to balance her there, sandwiched between him and the wall with her legs winding around him.]
[he pauses, looking at her from this angle, smiling widely and lasciviously and super incredibly into it already, and all he's doing is holding her pressed against the wall. he ducks in to steal another kiss, lingering against her mouth.]
she doesn't have to crane her neck to reach him, her arms can wind loosely around his shoulders without having to pull herself up to reach him, everything is easier from here. is this what tall people feel like all the time? fuck them.
she puffs out a little breath, making a faint noise when he presses her harder against the wall. ]
[truly, it is one of the best angles. she's right there, they're not on top of each other, they're just evenly pressed in, and she's right. it was a great idea.]
[his mouth curls into a smile against hers while he kisses her, pleased she likes it just as much as he does.] Good thing we have more walls. We will have to test them all out, just in case.
[he shifts his grip on her legs, because he want to keep kissing her but he also really wants to fuck her, so he maneuvers them around to get into the right place and then -]
[then there's a pinch in his lower back, from the way his arms bend, from the weight on his hips, from whatever effort he's exerting. it's two seconds of warning before it shoots up his spine and his back is on fire. he can't hold her up anymore, and they tumble over in a pile of naked limbs. he lands on his ass, tilting sideways immediately with jyn on top of him, grimacing the whole way down and eyes squeezed shut even after the fall comes to a standstill.]
[ there's a little yelp of surprise as they go down, jyn unable to stop all her weight from crashing down on cassian with a thud of bodies hitting the floor. downside of being against the wall is that she had further to fall than usual, but it wasn't so bad, he knees are going to sting.
she pushes herself off him with a soft laugh before she glances at his face and the laugh abruptly dies, cut off entirely as she takes in his closed eyes and his body splayed across the floor.
again. ]
Cassian... [ shoving everything down deep in some impenetrable cavern, jyn crawls up next to him, slipping her hand under the back of his head to cradle it (and check for blood) as her other presses gingerly to his chest, feeling his rabbit fast heartbeat under her fingertips. ] What's wrong?
[cassian wishes he could have held her on the way down and softened the blow, especially when her entire weight lands on him too. it's not as fun to be between a person and a flat surface this time around.]
[he doesn't want to open his eyes, not even just because he's in pain, but because he feels so weak right now. not that jyn would care, not that she thinks anything less or would take advantage of it. it's not the worst his back has felt, but it's a little more than the usual soreness that comes from too much exertion. he just... dropped her. he dropped both of them because his strength disappeared unexpectedly.]
[her touch is so gentle, and he moves one hand up to curl on top of the one on his chest.]
I guess I cannot hold you like I wanted to. [there's an apology in it and he sounds almost self-deprecating.] My back flared up.
it made no logical sense for him to be dead, of course, but panic didn't conform to the rules of logic and for a moment she felt like she was in the data vault again, watching his body, still and broken, at the bottom of the tower. he hadn't moved then and jyn honestly doesn't know how she went on to the top of the tower. now he moves and jyn exhales a shaky, relieved breath, curling over to press her forehead next to their clasped hands. ]
Do you need anything? [ if he thinks she is ignoring his unspoken apology it is because she is. she doesn't care that they fell, she cares that he could be hurt again, that is far more important to her. ]
[she's always a comfort to have in close, and he tries to focus on the soft sounds of jyn breathing rather than the ache making its way up and down his spine. it's duller now compared to the flare up, at least that much is familiar.]
I will... need help sitting up. In a moment. [he doesn't want to move yet, not until the pain settles, not until he can stop feeling weirdly ashamed and just open his goddamn eyes.]
Are you okay? [because she took a fall too and it's much easier to take a moment to ask after her than acknowledge the fact that this is kind of a new low in the history of his back injury, other than the initial fall itself.]
and it's not a lie! physically she is fine, her knees are going to be sore tomorrow but that isn't being hurt. he'd taken the brunt of her fall anyway and she feels stupidly guilty that her existence was enough to further his pain. how dare she take up space and matter in the universe and have weight.
emotionally it's a year ago again and that fear is so present and real still and she doesn't have an impossible climb to focus on anymore, she doesn't have a galaxy to save and a mission to finish. nothing to push aside that fear. ]
[it's the noncommittal noise that finally has him opening his eyes. not that he thinks she's physically hurt, but he can only imagine what her brain is helpfully supplying her with.]
Stop. Stop feeling guilty. [he wriggles his hand around until he can wind their fingers together, squeezing.]
[his grip is tight, both for his comfort and hers as the pain in his back ebbs and flows, like it's trying to figure out what to do. the worst is over, he just needs a bit more before he trusts himself to move.]
I overestimated how much I could hold. It's going to pass soon.
I don't feel guilty, [ she protests, even though that is exactly how she was feeling. but it was tempered, by the fear that made her feel like she could throw up, vertigo that brought her right back to the vault. her own shoulder twinges as if in sympathetic pain, as if reminding her of how bad it had been.
as if she could forget.
she clutches his hand, taking another shakey breath. ]
[he wants to gather her up in his arms but he can't, and that quickly becomes one of the more frustrating parts about this. it's fine when his limitations are on himself, but the more they seem to effect other people too, the more he hates it.]
[i've seen you fall before.]
[he squeezes her hand and tries not to think about the fall that caused all this in the first place. the blaster shot to his side, the air whipping by him, the crush of the metal beam, the collapse on the ground. he knows jyn sees it sometimes, just like they both know bits and pieces of all of each other's nightmares.]
This is our house. This is not a data vault. [he might be reminding himself too.]
I am going to get up in a moment. I pushed myself into something too strenuous.
[ he'd died. she'd fought her way up that tower, dragged herself up the catwalk, stood in front of the man in white, all thinking cassian had died. there are few things burned indelibly into her memory and cassian crumpled on the bottom of the vault is one of them.
it's too much all at once and she wrenches her hand free, rocking back on her heels and straightening up.
it's cowardly, he can't follow or even stop her, but she's never claimed to be brave. ] I'll go make the bed.
[ she skitters off to do just that, making sure the path to their bedroom is clear, scooping up her underwear and tank top and dragging them on as she tries to outrun her own trauma. even the busy work of pushing back cassian's side of the blankets and clearing the path to the bed does little to put her mind at ease, seeing his broken body out of the corner of her eye, hearing the crunch of body against metal when even a second of silence reaches her ears.
it's too much.
it's too much and the next thing she knows, she is throwing up in the waste basket. whatever was left of the mood is now officially dead.]
[she leaves. she yanks her hand away and runs away and he's just stuck there on the floor. he's laying naked and he feels so weak, so vulnerable, and he hates that it's the only thing he can think about now that she fled.]
[rather than being swallowed up by any sort of sadness, cassian feels a rush of frustration crawl over him. anger pricks him and he clenches his teeth and then before he can think about it, he slams his fist into the floor beside him and is momentarily grateful for the pain that spikes up from his fingers instead of the dull agony in his spine.]
[it's pure spite and anger that has him shifting after another minute, because he's tired of seething on the ground. he scowls and bites back a groan while he tries to roll over, putting as much weight as he can on his arms because at least those aren't broken. it's much sooner than he probably should have moved, evident by the way his spine rejects it but he refuses to stop. he just... wants to at least put his underwear back on. he is not going to cry, he refuses that too.]
[he manages to grab his boxers, but when he tries to put them on, it doesn't work. he can't bend enough to get them over his feet. jyn tries to outrun the fall, but cassian can't; it just encloses around him and in his spine and bodily limitations, and he lets his ire out without a cage because it's the only thing left for him to do right now. she told him he doesn't have to hide how he feels, so he won't.]
[cassian gets himself upright against the wall, but his head drops back and he squeezes his eyes shut because he definitely moved too quick and too soon. his chest is tight and he might be crying from pain, but he ignores it and tries again to lean over to pull his boxers on again.]
[he still can't. he bursts out a frustrated sound and hurls them across the room.]
[ jyn ignores the sound of him hitting the floor because he is already on the floor so it isn't like he's fallen again. she should have stopped to get him a blanket but she didn't and now her body is trying to expel her repressed trauma and fear through her stomach. she isn't the one that is hurt so she should be fine. she should be perfectly fine because to be otherwise is dangerous.
but ahe is not okay.
still, she pushes to her feet, shaking wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and hefts up the waste basket to carry to the master bath. toothbrush scrubbing at her yucky mouth, she's in the middle of brushing when she hears his frustrated howl and her heart breaks. she spits, letting the toothbrush clatter in the sink as she sweeps her blanket off the bed and moves back into the house proper to find cassian. except he isn't laying down anymore.
she swears under her breath and darts over to him, holding up the blanket to maneuver around his shoulders like a cape if she is able. her stomach turns over again but she swallows back the discomfort, ignoring the streaks of tears on his cheeks. ]
I'm sorry, come here, we'll get you to bed and I'll get the ice.
[there is a long familiar instinct that keeps telling him to box up his anger, because emotion is weakness. but he's already feeling weak, trapped here on the floor while he waits for his back to let him stand up, what difference does letting himself be mad make?]
[he doesn't budge when she comes back in, his jaw set in a tight line, his hands curled into fists. there are a lot of reasons cassian has been angry over the years, but he's never allowed any of it to be mad for the sake of himself. and he is. he's mad at his body, he's mad at what the galaxy did to him, he's mad he can't even pull his own clothes on right now. the war wasn't satisfied picking apart his humanity, it had to take from his physical capabilities too. he's angry on his own behalf and that's a very new sensation.]
I hate this. [there's no quiet hesitation in his voice, not like when he usually talks about whatever he's feeling. he spits it out.]
I know, [ jyn says, settling on draping the blanket across his lap and sitting next to him. there's no pity in her tone, there isn't even sympathy in it, it's flat and plain. he hates this and he fucking should. they'd sacrificed enough for the war, for the galaxy, they were casualties for force sake and yet they are still suffering. ]
You should. It's not fair. You didn't sacrifice everything to keep making sacrifices.
[ being able to move the way they want to shouldn't be seemingly impossible to achieve. ]
[he stiffens when she sits beside him, though it's not directly related to her. he's just... mad and hurting and he doesn't want to move because part of him feels like a time bomb. he doesn't even know if he wants to be touched right now.]
[he used to think he deserved this. but he's suffered enough, hasn't he? he died. nothing is supposed to top that.]
I want it to stop. I do not want to live like this.
I cannot even pull on my own kriffing pants.
[and that doesn't even touch on the reminders and flashes of the fall every time he does get a flare up. much like jyn, he's very good usually about boxing up trauma.]
[ jyn suspects she is about to piss him off more, so she carefully keeps her hands to herself as she shifts on to her knees to face him, expression steeled for backlash, but maybe he needs to be pissed off. ]
Do something about it. If you hate it then fix it.
[ GO TO PHYSICAL THERAPY LIKE SHE SUGGESTED SIX MONTHS AGO. jyn knows cassian hates medical as much as she does but there comes a point where it isn't feasible to ignore it anymore. ]
It sucks, yeah. We died so we shouldn't be in pain anymore but we are. It's absolute huttshit that you are stilll suffering and I know you hate it. Do something about it.
[it does set him off more! he doesn't like how trapped it makes him feel, unable to move from the wall with jyn right in front of him like she's boxing him in. there are approximately zero things he can control in this current situation and it just makes him madder.]
Do not try to tell me I told you so.
[he knows it should have been sooner. he knows he should have listened to her sooner. it should have been easy but it wasn't, for a lot of reasons. even as he sits here tired of it, he's still struggling against his need to fix it.]
If it was that easy, you would have done something about your own pain before now too. I can only do this one step at a time.
There is no reason you cannot fix it anyway. [her shoulder is not the subject at hand, but as always, it's easier to pretend to focus on something else than himself.]
I know that. [maybe she is tired of taking care of him in those situations too. it probably puts too much on her. he feels safe enough to trust her with it, but maybe it's becoming tedious. tiring. as exhausting for her as it is for him. she did flee.]
[he looks away to glare at the floor.] I thought I deserved it. That it was a price to this second chance I had to manage.
[the biggest block to fixing himself: feeling like he had to just suffer through it. a physical consequence.] But I died. Why should that not be enough? What else could any galaxy possibly want from me?
[ jyn outright ignores his comment about her shoulder. she could fix it -- she could probably get a whole new joint put in, minimally invasive, and be done with it. but jyn's shoulder is a hassle, not something the really affects her quality of life.
it's the rest of what he say that has her moving. she was going to give him his space but not anymore. she climbs right into his lap, sitting on his thighs over the blanket and puts a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look up at her. ]
The galaxy can go fuck itself. And the Force, as well. You do not deserve this kind of pain or self-loathing, you do not deserve the guilt you carry. [ the force, the galaxy, it doesn't just get to give them each other and think that will make everything better. it did, it does, but it doesn't erase the pain. ]
Death was enough. Now we get to live. And maybe that means taking time off to recover finally, maybe it means a break to fix ourselves. But do not ever think you deserve any of this hurt.
[he stiffens immediately when she crawls on him, not because it hurts, but because he's still in such an incredibly distracted and despairing state that he isn't sure he wants to be touched yet - but he doesn't push her away. as much as he's still simmering, cassian never shies away from her touch.]
[his jaw is tight while he takes everything she says in. it's easy to say, easy to hear, but it's another to implement. if anyone would be honest with him, it's jyn, but he has a whole lifetime of guilt that can't be erased just because she tells him he doesn't deserve it. he wants to believe her.]
[he just doesn't know how.]
I cannot just stop feeling it. It does not work that way. [and she should know.] I have hated myself for so long it was just a fact I told myself.
I don't - I don't want any of this, but it does not mean it isn't there. I cannot turn it off because you say I do not deserve.
I know. It is going to take longer to heal than any physical injury.
[ she does know. they hate themselves, but cassian has more guilt and grief walled up inside him that it is a wonder it hasn't burst out before now. a good, solid defense mechanism that is finally cracking. ]
You know I would love to ignore all of this, but it's not tenable anymore. Especially if it keeps us from taking care of ourselves. [ she huffs out a breath like a sigh, shoulders slumping slightly because this is a problem she doesn't know how to fix and she doesn't want cassian to hurt anymore but she can't do anything about it and it sucks. but it's not about her, so she packs those feelings away like a hypocrite. ]
[ it's like his fall cracked him wide open, and not just physically. he just assumed he wouldn't live long enough to have to deal with his feelings, and in some ways he was right, but then - this. this second chance, where he gets to love jyn and maybe learn to if not love himself maybe forgive himself. ]
If I am going to try, you need to try too. [ he knows this is all brought about by his injury, but they're so tangled together in this he can't ignore it. she said so herself, it's not tenable. for either of them. ]
[ his whole body is still tense, but he suspects it's going to take a while to settle - partly because he doesn't want to quell his frustration right now. ]
I do not - I do not know how to start. I do not want to ignore it anymore, but what else is there? Yell into a pillow?
[ his tone is very sarcastic on that last note. ] How are we supposed to fix ourselves, Jyn?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[he doesn't make her say please though, his hands sliding down her skin to grip her thighs, fingers digging in to make sure his hold is solid. after another few seconds of almost desperate kissing, he lifts her up, her back sliding along the wall. he manages to balance her there, sandwiched between him and the wall with her legs winding around him.]
[he pauses, looking at her from this angle, smiling widely and lasciviously and super incredibly into it already, and all he's doing is holding her pressed against the wall. he ducks in to steal another kiss, lingering against her mouth.]
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the best angle to kiss him.
she doesn't have to crane her neck to reach him, her arms can wind loosely around his shoulders without having to pull herself up to reach him, everything is easier from here. is this what tall people feel like all the time? fuck them.
she puffs out a little breath, making a faint noise when he presses her harder against the wall. ]
Good idea. This was a great idea.
[ in case he was wondering. ]
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[his mouth curls into a smile against hers while he kisses her, pleased she likes it just as much as he does.] Good thing we have more walls. We will have to test them all out, just in case.
[he shifts his grip on her legs, because he want to keep kissing her but he also really wants to fuck her, so he maneuvers them around to get into the right place and then -]
[then there's a pinch in his lower back, from the way his arms bend, from the weight on his hips, from whatever effort he's exerting. it's two seconds of warning before it shoots up his spine and his back is on fire. he can't hold her up anymore, and they tumble over in a pile of naked limbs. he lands on his ass, tilting sideways immediately with jyn on top of him, grimacing the whole way down and eyes squeezed shut even after the fall comes to a standstill.]
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she pushes herself off him with a soft laugh before she glances at his face and the laugh abruptly dies, cut off entirely as she takes in his closed eyes and his body splayed across the floor.
again. ]
Cassian... [ shoving everything down deep in some impenetrable cavern, jyn crawls up next to him, slipping her hand under the back of his head to cradle it (and check for blood) as her other presses gingerly to his chest, feeling his rabbit fast heartbeat under her fingertips. ] What's wrong?
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[he doesn't want to open his eyes, not even just because he's in pain, but because he feels so weak right now. not that jyn would care, not that she thinks anything less or would take advantage of it. it's not the worst his back has felt, but it's a little more than the usual soreness that comes from too much exertion. he just... dropped her. he dropped both of them because his strength disappeared unexpectedly.]
[her touch is so gentle, and he moves one hand up to curl on top of the one on his chest.]
I guess I cannot hold you like I wanted to. [there's an apology in it and he sounds almost self-deprecating.] My back flared up.
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it made no logical sense for him to be dead, of course, but panic didn't conform to the rules of logic and for a moment she felt like she was in the data vault again, watching his body, still and broken, at the bottom of the tower. he hadn't moved then and jyn honestly doesn't know how she went on to the top of the tower. now he moves and jyn exhales a shaky, relieved breath, curling over to press her forehead next to their clasped hands. ]
Do you need anything? [ if he thinks she is ignoring his unspoken apology it is because she is. she doesn't care that they fell, she cares that he could be hurt again, that is far more important to her. ]
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I will... need help sitting up. In a moment. [he doesn't want to move yet, not until the pain settles, not until he can stop feeling weirdly ashamed and just open his goddamn eyes.]
Are you okay? [because she took a fall too and it's much easier to take a moment to ask after her than acknowledge the fact that this is kind of a new low in the history of his back injury, other than the initial fall itself.]
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[ it's not lying if it's just a noise.
and it's not a lie! physically she is fine, her knees are going to be sore tomorrow but that isn't being hurt. he'd taken the brunt of her fall anyway and she feels stupidly guilty that her existence was enough to further his pain. how dare she take up space and matter in the universe and have weight.
emotionally it's a year ago again and that fear is so present and real still and she doesn't have an impossible climb to focus on anymore, she doesn't have a galaxy to save and a mission to finish. nothing to push aside that fear. ]
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Stop. Stop feeling guilty. [he wriggles his hand around until he can wind their fingers together, squeezing.]
[his grip is tight, both for his comfort and hers as the pain in his back ebbs and flows, like it's trying to figure out what to do. the worst is over, he just needs a bit more before he trusts himself to move.]
I overestimated how much I could hold. It's going to pass soon.
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as if she could forget.
she clutches his hand, taking another shakey breath. ]
I've seen you fall before.
[ one day he might not get up again. ]
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[i've seen you fall before.]
[he squeezes her hand and tries not to think about the fall that caused all this in the first place. the blaster shot to his side, the air whipping by him, the crush of the metal beam, the collapse on the ground. he knows jyn sees it sometimes, just like they both know bits and pieces of all of each other's nightmares.]
This is our house. This is not a data vault. [he might be reminding himself too.]
I am going to get up in a moment. I pushed myself into something too strenuous.
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it's too much all at once and she wrenches her hand free, rocking back on her heels and straightening up.
it's cowardly, he can't follow or even stop her, but she's never claimed to be brave. ] I'll go make the bed.
[ she skitters off to do just that, making sure the path to their bedroom is clear, scooping up her underwear and tank top and dragging them on as she tries to outrun her own trauma. even the busy work of pushing back cassian's side of the blankets and clearing the path to the bed does little to put her mind at ease, seeing his broken body out of the corner of her eye, hearing the crunch of body against metal when even a second of silence reaches her ears.
it's too much.
it's too much and the next thing she knows, she is throwing up in the waste basket. whatever was left of the mood is now officially dead.]
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[rather than being swallowed up by any sort of sadness, cassian feels a rush of frustration crawl over him. anger pricks him and he clenches his teeth and then before he can think about it, he slams his fist into the floor beside him and is momentarily grateful for the pain that spikes up from his fingers instead of the dull agony in his spine.]
[it's pure spite and anger that has him shifting after another minute, because he's tired of seething on the ground. he scowls and bites back a groan while he tries to roll over, putting as much weight as he can on his arms because at least those aren't broken. it's much sooner than he probably should have moved, evident by the way his spine rejects it but he refuses to stop. he just... wants to at least put his underwear back on. he is not going to cry, he refuses that too.]
[he manages to grab his boxers, but when he tries to put them on, it doesn't work. he can't bend enough to get them over his feet. jyn tries to outrun the fall, but cassian can't; it just encloses around him and in his spine and bodily limitations, and he lets his ire out without a cage because it's the only thing left for him to do right now. she told him he doesn't have to hide how he feels, so he won't.]
[cassian gets himself upright against the wall, but his head drops back and he squeezes his eyes shut because he definitely moved too quick and too soon. his chest is tight and he might be crying from pain, but he ignores it and tries again to lean over to pull his boxers on again.]
[he still can't. he bursts out a frustrated sound and hurls them across the room.]
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but ahe is not okay.
still, she pushes to her feet, shaking wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and hefts up the waste basket to carry to the master bath. toothbrush scrubbing at her yucky mouth, she's in the middle of brushing when she hears his frustrated howl and her heart breaks. she spits, letting the toothbrush clatter in the sink as she sweeps her blanket off the bed and moves back into the house proper to find cassian. except he isn't laying down anymore.
she swears under her breath and darts over to him, holding up the blanket to maneuver around his shoulders like a cape if she is able. her stomach turns over again but she swallows back the discomfort, ignoring the streaks of tears on his cheeks. ]
I'm sorry, come here, we'll get you to bed and I'll get the ice.
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[he doesn't budge when she comes back in, his jaw set in a tight line, his hands curled into fists. there are a lot of reasons cassian has been angry over the years, but he's never allowed any of it to be mad for the sake of himself. and he is. he's mad at his body, he's mad at what the galaxy did to him, he's mad he can't even pull his own clothes on right now. the war wasn't satisfied picking apart his humanity, it had to take from his physical capabilities too. he's angry on his own behalf and that's a very new sensation.]
I hate this. [there's no quiet hesitation in his voice, not like when he usually talks about whatever he's feeling. he spits it out.]
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You should. It's not fair. You didn't sacrifice everything to keep making sacrifices.
[ being able to move the way they want to shouldn't be seemingly impossible to achieve. ]
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[he used to think he deserved this. but he's suffered enough, hasn't he? he died. nothing is supposed to top that.]
I want it to stop. I do not want to live like this.
I cannot even pull on my own kriffing pants.
[and that doesn't even touch on the reminders and flashes of the fall every time he does get a flare up. much like jyn, he's very good usually about boxing up trauma.]
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Do something about it. If you hate it then fix it.
[ GO TO PHYSICAL THERAPY LIKE SHE SUGGESTED SIX MONTHS AGO. jyn knows cassian hates medical as much as she does but there comes a point where it isn't feasible to ignore it anymore. ]
It sucks, yeah. We died so we shouldn't be in pain anymore but we are. It's absolute huttshit that you are stilll suffering and I know you hate it. Do something about it.
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Do not try to tell me I told you so.
[he knows it should have been sooner. he knows he should have listened to her sooner. it should have been easy but it wasn't, for a lot of reasons. even as he sits here tired of it, he's still struggling against his need to fix it.]
If it was that easy, you would have done something about your own pain before now too. I can only do this one step at a time.
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I don't want you to hurt anymore but there is nothing else I can do to make it better.
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I know that. [maybe she is tired of taking care of him in those situations too. it probably puts too much on her. he feels safe enough to trust her with it, but maybe it's becoming tedious. tiring. as exhausting for her as it is for him. she did flee.]
[he looks away to glare at the floor.] I thought I deserved it. That it was a price to this second chance I had to manage.
[the biggest block to fixing himself: feeling like he had to just suffer through it. a physical consequence.] But I died. Why should that not be enough? What else could any galaxy possibly want from me?
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it's the rest of what he say that has her moving. she was going to give him his space but not anymore. she climbs right into his lap, sitting on his thighs over the blanket and puts a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look up at her. ]
The galaxy can go fuck itself. And the Force, as well. You do not deserve this kind of pain or self-loathing, you do not deserve the guilt you carry. [ the force, the galaxy, it doesn't just get to give them each other and think that will make everything better. it did, it does, but it doesn't erase the pain. ]
Death was enough. Now we get to live. And maybe that means taking time off to recover finally, maybe it means a break to fix ourselves. But do not ever think you deserve any of this hurt.
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[his jaw is tight while he takes everything she says in. it's easy to say, easy to hear, but it's another to implement. if anyone would be honest with him, it's jyn, but he has a whole lifetime of guilt that can't be erased just because she tells him he doesn't deserve it. he wants to believe her.]
[he just doesn't know how.]
I cannot just stop feeling it. It does not work that way. [and she should know.] I have hated myself for so long it was just a fact I told myself.
I don't - I don't want any of this, but it does not mean it isn't there. I cannot turn it off because you say I do not deserve.
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[ she does know. they hate themselves, but cassian has more guilt and grief walled up inside him that it is a wonder it hasn't burst out before now. a good, solid defense mechanism that is finally cracking. ]
You know I would love to ignore all of this, but it's not tenable anymore. Especially if it keeps us from taking care of ourselves. [ she huffs out a breath like a sigh, shoulders slumping slightly because this is a problem she doesn't know how to fix and she doesn't want cassian to hurt anymore but she can't do anything about it and it sucks. but it's not about her, so she packs those feelings away like a hypocrite. ]
Just try.
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If I am going to try, you need to try too. [ he knows this is all brought about by his injury, but they're so tangled together in this he can't ignore it. she said so herself, it's not tenable. for either of them. ]
[ his whole body is still tense, but he suspects it's going to take a while to settle - partly because he doesn't want to quell his frustration right now. ]
I do not - I do not know how to start. I do not want to ignore it anymore, but what else is there? Yell into a pillow?
[ his tone is very sarcastic on that last note. ] How are we supposed to fix ourselves, Jyn?
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