realists | open ✧ the time to fight is now

The water's only a little above his knees, so it doesn't feel like they're in very deep yet. It's a strange support on his leg, one half sturdy and one half uncertain, because water is unpredictable.

Cassian makes a (sarcastic) shocked face when she says she doesn't work well in groups, but he's fascinated despite himself by the brief dip into her childhood. He can picture her behaving exactly as she says.

"None of that surprises me. Though I would say that you're still feisty, only it manifests in far different impulsive ways now." He pauses, trying to think of a comparable story but: "I mostly just remember being angry, all the time. I used to throw rocks at Clone Troopers."

Cassian that is not a heartwarming childhood story to match. At least he doesn't sound bitter, just his own version of semi-nostalgic matter of fact.

Rare as the necklace still hung around her neck, Jyn smiles at the story, however brief. Maybe she's pleased with the commiseration of a childhood full of anger. Sure, she hasn't grown out of that, yet, but she's softening with time.

She's a lot like her father, but she wants to fight everything, all the time, like her mother.

"I imagine you were quite the menace." Jyn doesn't remember the Clone Wars, too young, but she half remembers a story from her childhood, a bedtime tale that made her mother frown at her father's retelling. Or maybe that was a dream. She can't tell the difference anymore.

"I certainly tried to be, but I like to think I was successful."

The Clone Wars feel so far away in the face of the Rebellion. It was such a short conflict compared to how long the Rebellion has been fighting the end results. War has been his whole life.

"Though it sounds like you were quite the handful too. How many other kids did you beat up?"

Cassian doesn't usually like thinking about his childhood, mostly because it doesn't feel like a what a proper youth should be. But it made him who he is, and it's... nice, to share with Jyn. They survived it all to be here now.

He urges her a little further into the water, still keep hold of her hands.

As she creeps backward at his urging, her toes brush a row of rocks and she drops off her tiptoes, losing a couple inches in the process as she continues her walk.

"Enough," she admits on the breath of a laugh, "that Mama had to make Papa discipline me. That's when I knew I was in trouble." She was too young to realize that he couldn't say no to her unless Lyra was forcing it, but she'd also lost however many months to him drowning himself in his work and her time with Lyra on Alpinn.

She stops abruptly, freeing one hand from his to press flat against his chest. "There's a drop off, right here. We can't walk any further."

Sometimes he's reminded how much taller than her he is, like now for example. "Something tells me the discipline did not always go well."

It doesn't even go well now, why would it then??

Cassian stops instantly before she puts a hand on his chest. It feels warm, even through his shirt, even though it's wet from the water. His leg makes him feel weak, but Jyn in front of him helps. "I'm going to see how well I can float."

He figures a warning is probably nice to have before he just falls over on her. He still hesitates, because he's not used to needing to rely on people, and it's a little nerve-wracking to contend with the idea that his leg prevents him from doing something as simple as floating but - they're here to recover. This is part of it. "In a second," he adds, keeping his voice even.

"I told you I won't let you drown." She releases his other hand and tips backwards as she steps back, letting the water catch her. It's strangely gentle, she doesn't make much of a splash and catches herself quickly enough that her hair doesn't even get wet. It's odd, made all the more odd by the darkness of the water seeming to swallow up her pale body.

She treads water slowly, keeping her eyes on Cassian.

"Turn around, I'll catch you." A beat, her head tipping to the side as her eyebrows creep up. "You trust me, don't you?" She's not going to make a fuss about his hesitance, she's going to turn it into a challenge instead.

"I know you won't," he says quickly. "I do trust you."

He does. Absolutely. Which feels more terrifying than his leg not working right in the water. It galvanizes him, so maybe the challenge did work out, somehow.

Cassian turns around slowly, counting the seconds in his head. He runs his hands through the water and takes a breath, before letting himself finally fall backwards, his clothes soaking through instantly. He really should have taken some of them off, if only to be lighter.

There's an immediate sense that he won't be able to properly swim, but that isn't what he's setting out to do right now. He thinks about Jyn behind him. Relaxes. His leg cannot support him, but his arms don't have that issue. "I cannot kick with it," he admits, finally. His tone is is quiet but no less matter of fact.

Jyn swims up behind him immediately, not reaching out to hold him but close enough that when her legs kick as she treads water, they brush against his. The water is so thick with whatever it is that makes the water dangerous to drink that she barely has to kick. Usually she keeps herself up with just her arms, but she's too close to Cassian right now for that.

"You've got arms, they can do all the work." She's not going to offer him pity now. Eventually his leg will be strong enough to kick, but he doesn't need it to be, not right now.

She twists around like a space mermaid to bob in front of him, reaching up to push her hair back from her face. There's an ease to Jyn in the water that isn't there anywhere else. She's a brawler, lacking any of the graceful movements that Chirrut had when he fought, but in the water she's a fish.

"You climbed all the way up the radio tower half dead, you can tread water."

He snorts. It helps. He'd probably be irritated if she gave him pity.

"Adrenaline is almost like magic," he says dryly. The climb up the tower probably only added to how much he fucked up his leg. He knows he did it, but even now he's still impressed with himself for doing so.

It's different watching her in the water, like her body reacts in an entirely different way. It's strange, but interesting, another new fact he's discovered about her tonight. It's almost graceful, which is a word he would have never even considered in her direction.

The longer he floats, the better he feels. It'd be useful, he thinks, to come out into the water more often, rebuild his muscle strength. Get Jyn to come with him. He likes that last bit most. But first, time to be an adult. "Are you sure you don't have gills?"

She's impressed with him, too. She'd taken the same path at full power and she'd barely made it. Of course, she'd also just watched Krennic kill Cassian the same way he'd killed her mother and warred with her own urge to let go and give up, so maybe her emotional distress had more of an impact on her than she'd like to admit.

God, she'd never been so happy to be wrong when he'd just appeared from the shadows and finally ended her nightmare that had started here all those years ago.

"Nothing can survive in this water so you better hope not," she tells him instead of maybe finally thanking him. Nothing can survive in the water they're currently in. I'm sure that's not mildly distressing to hear.

She kicks back a little so she can tread water with her arms, feeling the exhaustion from her earlier foray in the water creeping up her spine now that she'd achieved her objective of getting Cassian in the water. "Is it weird, being here?"

Scarif as a whole felt like one impossibility after another, and they should probably be very impressed by themselves for being here now. But Cassian doesn't like to think about that much, because then he has to think about everyone who isn't here.

If you could give suspicious looks to water, Cassian would. "Should I be relieved I won't be bitten by any creatures or worried it's going to poison me?"

He moves through the water slowly, testing how well his arms can hold him up. The water lets him practically float. If it didn't, he's not sure he would trust himself with it. Whatever minerals are in here are useful on that end.

"The only weird part is how quiet it is." Okay, that's not the only weirdness. "I feel like I should be doing more. The planet itself is not strange."

"Maybe don't drink the water."

She's silent for a long while after that, swishing this way and that restlessly, never getting too far from Cassian that she wouldn't be able to drag him to the surface if his head went under the dark water. She's hovering without realizing, which was one of the less emotionally charged reasons she forced herself out of the house every morning. She can't stand the sight of him injured and being impotent to help him.

"You can help me with the condenser if you need something to do," she offers, knowing full well that isn't the more he wants to be doing. He is safe here and she is, at her very core, selfish. She's not going to call Mon Mothma and ask to be assigned back to Base One because she's not going to put Cassian in danger.

She can't.

"I wasn't planning on it."

He isn't sure what he expected her to say, but maybe the silence isn't much of a surprise either. They've been talking a lot, but they don't always have to. Cassian finds it's just as easy to sit in the quiet with Jyn as it is to talk to her (usually).

As much as he would rather be back on base, he also knows it'd be detrimental. He would feel as useless there as he does here, and at least here there is Jyn and time to recover. He isn't used to either being such a blessing.

"Is that what you get up to all day?"

She leaves the house a lot, okay. He's noticed. Just like he's noticed she isn't going too far from him, but he quietly appreciates it, should his strength give out and the water suddenly not support him.

She needed a reasonable excuse to ignore him.

She's a terrible person.

Her breath comes out on a sigh, shoulders lifting in a silent shrug she doesn't know if he even sees because she's avoiding looking at him again. "Sometimes."

He doesn't see it, but the water ripples with the movement and he can see her shrugging in his head as she sighs. He turns himself in the water, looking to catch her face at a better angle.

There's something cagey in her posture again. She's not looking at him.

"And the rest of the time?"

"Walking, farming, visiting my mother. Avoiding you." Like now, when she ducks under the water like a startled mermaid, feet kicking at the surface before they too disappear. She pops up like a buoy a moment later, hair plastered to her cheeks before she shoves it back with wet fingers.

"You make me nervous," she blurts out like she's expelling sea water after CPR. The water is apparently better at getting her to open up than expensive therapy. "Not you, but the idea of you? I lose everything I care about so I wanted to keep you-- away. So if you decided to leave, it wouldn't. Hurt. And I thought if we were on Lah'mu when you decided to wash your hands of all this, it would just be one less planet I'd try to avoid."

He's not surprised she was avoiding him, but he is surprised she admits it, even if she literally dives underwater two seconds after.

Cassian keeps his eyes on her while she continues. It's not a heavy stare, but it is an understanding one. He wants to take her hand to keep her from running - or swimming - away again, but he also needs both his to stay afloat.

So instead he just swims himself closer to her. Jyn's life is full of abandonment, and he knows that. It doesn't mean he agreed with her views on the Rebellion at all, but he does understand it. "Any desire or want to leave this planet is not because of you. You being here makes it easier to stay."

It feels like the water is keeping his emotions afloat as much as his body. "I found myself wanting to follow you far more than I was comfortable with. You are not the only one made nervous by ideas. I have spent a lot of time here worried you were going to leave without a word, that you would not come back one day." He's been just as afraid of her leaving, if he's being honest. "It would be nice if you could stop avoiding me now, if we are going to try - this."

Whatever this is. They still haven't really clarified.

"I can try." She's not going to promise she will immediately be better because that is just a huge lie. Which doesn't seem useful right now. A frown settles more firmly on her stubborn mouth, how was he worried about her leaving? Honestly. She doesn't have anyone or anything left in the galaxy, just him.

"What... is this?"

He smiles. "Thank you."

Jyn likes to run, okay? If she saw him and was scared of what they could be, Cassian wouldn't be surprised if she left to avoid dealing with it.

Or at least, he would have been afraid of it yesterday. Today feels better.

He opens his mouth, closes it. "I think it is just... us. Together." He makes a face, because that feels like too little, but on the other hand he's worried about making it sound like too much. Cassian feels nervous, like no matter what he says is going to make her dive underwater again. "I want you. I want to be with you. If that makes it a relationship, I'm willing to try one."

Phrases and words he'd never thought he'd use, right there.

"Okay."

Her mother, her father, Saw, Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze, everyone she's ever loved has left her. And time and time again, Cassian has come back for her. On Jedha, on Eadu, on Yavin, on Scarif; he was always coming back for her. Knowing that doesn't lessen the fear that he's going to change his mind and even her acquiescence sounds like hedging. Agreeing for the sake of agreeing. But it's threaded through with the truth:

She'll try.

But more importantly, "You want me, Cassian Andor?"

It feels like something presses out a little more of the tension, every 'okay' another sign that Jyn isn't going to leave. It's a promise she'll try, and that's all he could ask for, since all he can do in return is try just as much. If he didn't know her, it would sound like a lackluster response.

"Okay," he says too. What a big, brave new world out there. A tiny shift, but the first hurdle feels like it's been jumped. It still worries him, a little bit, but the chances feel higher. "Maybe we can get to a yes."

He wonders what K2 would be saying right now.

His lips twitch, fighting a grin. Cassian swims himself a little closer. "Is that a problem for you, Jyn Erso?"

"No."

Which is kind of a yes in it's own right and a little scowl flickers across her expression though her eyes are alight with giddy amusement, she refuses to give in.

"Look at you, swimming." Maybe she can divert the subject before she finds herself in trouble.

Cassian rolls his eyes. At least he's finding himself more amused than annoyed when she's difficult now.

He stops swimming. "Look at you, trying to change the conversation you started." He hovers in the water, like he's afraid to get closer, even if she still looks like she's in a good mood. "I'm not here to try and make you uncomfortable if that's it."

Too much too soon?? Internal flailing?? It's probably not it but he's worried anyway.

She's not uncomfortable, per se, beyond being uncomfortable with emotions and conversation in the first place. She didn't bother with either for a very long time and before it had a point, it wasn't just a meandering conversation with no predetermined end when she got what she wanted out of it.

She finds the idea of possibilities stretching endless before her to be daunting, to say the least.

"I'm not uncomfortable," she assures him, lifting a hand to splash a bit of water at him as a physical reminder that right now she is wonderfully chill. "Keep swimming and I'll keep talking." Her decision is quick and oddly reasonable. It's probably a trap. Or else just a very fair give and take: physical therapy in exchange for Jyn's voice like a strange retelling of the Little Mermaid.

He grins when she splashes him, feeling the unnecessary tension slip from his shoulders when she does that and reassures him. Jyn's a terrible liar, or maybe he can just read her well - either way, he feels better when she says so out loud, even if he never really thought so in the first place.

Feelings are weird. But he does start to swim again, if it could be called that. His arms are gonna be in even better shape if he keeps this up, the easy cut through the water as he lets his legs float mostly uselessly under him. His movements aren't as fast as hers, but they work.

Cassian doesn't need her to talk to enjoy spending time with her, but he does like the sound of her voice. And her good mood, he likes that too.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject