Cassian flew across the continent for university, and even though sometimes he misses Mexico a lot, he's just as overall happy where he ended up now in New York. Sure, he shares a shitty two bedroom apartment with Kay in the Bronx, and his friend pays most of the rent right now while Cassian continues the 'job in his field' struggle, but he likes the city and he likes the network of people he's come to know. Shara and Kay are both in different fields, but he's known them both for years, and they're all still here. Shara's even married! A lovely little ceremony in the spring, their families flew in for the weekend and Kes started his job at the museum on Monday.
Among his friends, apparently he picked the wrong trajectory, going for civil engineering over computer or aeronautical.
Tonight, however, Kes and Shara have managed to drag him out to a bar a few blocks from their apartment called the Falcon they've been insisting he check out. And with Kay out of town for a conference, they argued he didn't have a choice. So here he is, with Shara, Kes, and their friends Din and Fennec. Din rarely gets out since he adopted his son, and Fennec is freshly healed from abdominal surgery after a work wound. They're nice enough, but Cassian doesn't know them very well.
It's busy. Busier than he might normally choose on his own, but it's not terrible. The bartenders are a very tall man everyone keeps calling Chewy and his less tall companion whose name still escapes him, but he keeps arguing with all the patrons. He sees him having a very heated argument with a smaller woman clutching a half empty class, though she looks ready to throw it at him.
The next time he sees this woman, she's slamming a kick directly into the balls of a skeevy looking man who spills his drink all over. Her own companions are the ones presumably cheering, but even Kes lets out a "WHOOP!!"
The belligerent bartender comes out to smooth it over, though he just ends up getting punched in the eye himself, and the woman full on body slams the man to the ground. Her friends cheer all over again.
"I love this girl!" Kes yells, already pretty drunk and loud enough for the compliment to carry.
Clutching between his legs, the drunk man stumbles and crashes right into Cassian. It's instinct to shove him away, though he slurs something unintelligible but rude in the process. Kes takes care of it. "Hey! Girl! Come get your asshole!"
Jyn is all pink cheeks and a somber mouth curved in a vicious grin when Kes calls her over but when she's about to launch herself at the guy again, arms wrap around her middle and bodily haul her up and away. Her feet kick a little in the air before she is set down again, though his arms stay around her.
"Let me go, Bodhi!" Her British accent cracks sharply through the din of excited bar patrons watching all this unfold. Bodhi whispers something in her ear and Jyn wrenches herself out of his arms and whirls on him. For a second it looks like she is going to punch him too but she just points at him, finger mere centimeters from his face. He doesn't so much as flinch, staring at her placidly, even having witnessed her kick a man so hard he threw up and then punching another man and then tackling the first man.
While Bodhi and Jyn are having a stare down, Chewy lumbers past them, picks up the offensive man in question and deposits him outside, closing the door. As he passes back to the bar he pats Jyn's head like she is a particularly charming, if bothersome, dog.
(He's not wrong. She suffers from small dog syndrome.)
Eventually Bodhi steers her to the bar but a few minutes later, Jyn is standing by Cassian's table, looking a little less furious and a little more flushed with victory as she holds out a beer, knuckles already bruising. "My brother said I technically spilled your beer."
Well, the asshole did, but Bodhi told her to be nice.
Cassian is almost annoyed when the woman is restrained, when Chewy physically removes the problem from the room, if only because part of him is very curious what she would have done next. There's a lot of strength in that little body.
"You're stupid," Shara says to Kes, kissing him on the cheek after he boos the end of the fight. "Get me another drink. Don't start anything, Cassian."
He gives her A Look, because since when was he the kind of person to start a fight?? No, Cassian much prefers quieter battles rather than outright brawls. His married friends slip over to the bar, Fennec is flirting with a woman across the room, and Din is off on his phone, probably texting the babysitter, so when the heavyweight champion comes up to him, he is alone.
His first thought is she looks very cute with that flushed look on her face, and he reaches out for the drink on instinct, mindful of her bruised knuckles. "Honestly, I lost track of how he got over here in the first place, but I think the fault is still his." A beat, and he holds up the bottle. "Thank you anyway."
But nooooooo, Bodhi (correctly) was like 'Jyn you threw him into that man, replace his drink' and here she is. They guy is cute, he has a nice smile, eyes that make Jyn feel all warm and soft like butter sliding across toast.
She glances at his table. "Where have all your friends gone?"
Even in the heat of the moment, she had situational awareness. It is her job, after all, to know where people are in relation to her own body at all times. That doesn't mean she pays attention to them when they have scattered to the wind. (Except for the one fella with the mustache on his phone, she wonders if they're cousins and then wonders if that's racist. Probably it is a little bit.)
He cracks a little grin, because even from the minimal understanding he has of her already, he suspects she said something similar in sentiment but maybe with far more profanity. "I'll bet."
Cassian does another cursory scan of the room, just to make sure he hasn't accidentally lost anyone he came with.
"We seem to have scattered." He takes a sip of the beer, eyes back on the woman and not particularly interested in finding his friends again. He's distracted enough by her that he forgets that Din and Fennec are more like acquaintances (or so he keeps telling himself). "I assume looking for drinks or women, depending on marital status."
"So they won't be totally gutted if you disappear with a strange girl you've just met, right?"
She's tipsy enough to just shoot her shot, adrenaline pumping, nerves alight like a million fireflies under her skin. Fighting (like fucking) makes her feel loose and languid but also like she wants to go for a run or eat an entire chocolate cake or steal something. Bodhi doesn't particularly care for that last option, always afraid he is going to need to bail Jyn out of jail but she hasn't been caught since she was 16 and those records are sealed.
And British.
She takes a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim and the foam, bright eyes sparkling in the bar lights.
The laugh that bubbles out of him is a surprise, but he doesn't try to mute it. He doesn't even know her name yet and here she is, propositioning him after she just punched a man more than once. He's kind of into it. Her button down shirt is a little loose, and her hair is messy in the drunk and fighty kind of way. It's a cute look. She's cute. He is not opposed to flirting and even the possibility of leaving with her.
"I think they would be pleasantly surprised and supportive." Which is probably more than he should admit about himself, which is basically that he has become something of a homebody since leaving college behind. As long Shara gets a heads up, he can't imagine any of them will care.
The collar is hanging down over her shoulder, and Cassian reaches out to fix it. She just hit on him, he's pretty sure that's allowed. If he lets his fingers brush idly over her skin as he pulls it back up, oh well!
"But only if they knew who wants to steal me away."
"Your hands are warm. I'm Jyn Erso, no middle name, dunno my social. If they want my first pet's name or my mum's maiden name to steal my identity, they can ask my brother."
She doesn't gesture to where Bodhi and Luke are perched at the bar shooting the shit with Han, so it isn't like he will know who her brother is. Most people assume it's Han because neither of them can go two minutes without getting into an argument with each other and they do, unfortunately, share a similar coloring and drunk people don't realize that Han is American and Jyn is British.
"It was Winnie the Poodle, our dog. I'll give you that fun fact for free."
"Cassian Andor." He has a middle name, but that feels like second date material - as though they've even had a first date yet. He's trying to figure out if what she's asked him counts as a date. "Maybe your hands are just cold."
And he holds up his hand. You know. If she wants to take his and maybe compare.
"Winnie the Poodle seals the deal. They will be satisfied when I say the pretty girl named Jyn Erso who beat someone up at the bar asked me to keep her company for a while. Don't worry, her childhood dog was a poodle." A beat. "I did not have any childhood pets. Makes all those security questions much more difficult."
"I'm gonna need to know your middle name if we're gonna bang," Jyn muses, but seems slightly distracted by reaching out to press her hand against his. It is warm, but also huge against her much smaller hand.
"Your hands are big."
She's only capable of single, childish adjectives apparently.
"That did not seem to matter much before," he says, but it's teasing. "Maybe I do not have one either." He winds their fingers together when she reaches out. She is not wrong. His hands engulf hers a little more than expected, but they also fit pretty nicely together.
"And your hands are cold." He scoops his other hand up, wrapping hers between both of his. "I could warm you up."
"Hmm... Liar." She grins at him though, humming when he gathers both her hands in his. He probably can warm her up. Hopefully all of her. Before she can say as much, a thin girl with the stereotypical ballerina bun grabs Jyn's shoulder.
It doesn't move her much, but she blinks dumbly.
"You are grossing me out, Jyn. Go get a room," she orders, accent thick and clearly some kind of Eastern European.
Jyn makes a face. "This is a room, Dominika."
The woman, Dominika, makes a face right back before sweeping away to where Bodhi is sitting at the bar, whispering in his ear. Jyn has a feeling the message came from her brother and not her coworker. She looks back up at Cassian.
"My apartment is two blocks away. Wanna get a room?"
He is saved from the middle name reveal by what Cassian presumes is a friend of hers, he thinks Russian (he is pretty decent with accents), yelling at them to get a room. There is no actual yelling involved, but he will take it that way. Honestly, he doesn't even mind. He isn't a fan of bars, he can keep talking to Jyn elsewhere, and then - fuck, he guesses. That's apparently on the menu.
So when Jyn offers up her apartment, Cassian offers her a warm, agreeable smile. "Much closer than mine." His is a subway stop away. He likes the idea of walking with her those two blocks. He lets go of her hand, but not before giving it a solid squeeze. "Meet you by the door? I want to tell Shara I am leaving."
She can't argue with him for leaving the bar when he is leaving with a person. That thing she is always trying to get him to do!
"Great." Her smile is utterly delighted and she lets him go to flounce over to Bodhi. She shoves both her brother and Dominika, kisses Luke on the cheek, high fives Chewie behind the bar — she has to climb half up the bar to do so — before she lopes gracefully back to the door, slipping outside to breathe in the chill of the air.
It smells like rain and Jyn closes her eyes as she lifts her face to the sky, as if daring the clouds to open up and rain down on her.
He wanders through the bar until he finds his friends, and Kes smacks Shara in the shoulder. "Look at his face! Look! I bet he finally picked up a girl!"
"Or a guy," Shara corrects, but her piercing eyes are immediately on Cassian. He hurries to explain that yes, it's a girl, yes she invited him back to her place, please let him be, and don't worry he'll be fine.
"It's Jyn. The girl we saw fighting that asshole," he says for a final argument; Kes immediately howls with laughter, but Shara shoves him, and Cassian doesn't speak another word to his stupid friends, grabbing his coat and hurrying out the door. Din will be fine if he doesn't bail soon too, and he's pretty sure Fennec already left with someone herself.
He stumbles out, pulling the sleeves on once the chilly air hits him, and he catches sight of her looking at the sky. One thing he misses about living outside the city? Stars. He's by her side in only a few seconds. "Hey." He pauses a moment, then takes her hand. She was forward, he can be too! "I do not want to get lost along the way."
She's tugged a sweater on, Bodhi's based on the size, and the too big sleeve slides over their clasped hands in a way that makes Jyn grin before she gives his hand a tugs and leads him down the sidewalk.
The flat is literally two blocks down the road so there isn't much time for small talk but Jyn figures they can do a speedrun of getting to know you before they bang on some surface in her small apartment. Any surface will do, she isn't picky.
"Your friends satisfied you're not being kidnapped then?"
He will delight in holding her hand for those whole two blocks, as though he isn't about to get his hands on other parts of her. He's happy to be tugged along.
"Very. They were especially satisfied when they learned just who I was leaving with." Not that they knew much about her except her ability to handle a quality bar fight, but they encouraged him nonetheless. Honestly they'd probably have encouraged him regardless of who it was, even if it was a kidnapping, but he he's not about to share that with Jyn. "They were impressed with your right hook."
If they come back they might even figure out that she's left handed so while her right hook is impeccable (thanks, Saw,) her left jab has made more than one man spew beer when she's punched the wind out of him.
She really shouldn't have hit anyone though, her knuckles are going to bruise like an end of season peach.
"I will be sure to pass it along," he says, mildly amused, even if he's dreading the teasing conversation that's sure to follow from at the very least Kes. Shara might take pity on him, it's a toss up.
He snorts quietly at the way she does not drop the middle name thing - but honestly, it's not really a secret. It was mostly a silly game, and he's walking home with her now, so he's probably already won.
"Jeron," he says, squeezing her hand. "Satisfied now?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
realists) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ohnofeelstho2020-12-01 11:21 pm
if a man doesn't know how to dance he doesn't know how to make love, there i said it!
Among his friends, apparently he picked the wrong trajectory, going for civil engineering over computer or aeronautical.
Tonight, however, Kes and Shara have managed to drag him out to a bar a few blocks from their apartment called the Falcon they've been insisting he check out. And with Kay out of town for a conference, they argued he didn't have a choice. So here he is, with Shara, Kes, and their friends Din and Fennec. Din rarely gets out since he adopted his son, and Fennec is freshly healed from abdominal surgery after a work wound. They're nice enough, but Cassian doesn't know them very well.
It's busy. Busier than he might normally choose on his own, but it's not terrible. The bartenders are a very tall man everyone keeps calling Chewy and his less tall companion whose name still escapes him, but he keeps arguing with all the patrons. He sees him having a very heated argument with a smaller woman clutching a half empty class, though she looks ready to throw it at him.
The next time he sees this woman, she's slamming a kick directly into the balls of a skeevy looking man who spills his drink all over. Her own companions are the ones presumably cheering, but even Kes lets out a "WHOOP!!"
The belligerent bartender comes out to smooth it over, though he just ends up getting punched in the eye himself, and the woman full on body slams the man to the ground. Her friends cheer all over again.
"I love this girl!" Kes yells, already pretty drunk and loud enough for the compliment to carry.
Clutching between his legs, the drunk man stumbles and crashes right into Cassian. It's instinct to shove him away, though he slurs something unintelligible but rude in the process. Kes takes care of it. "Hey! Girl! Come get your asshole!"
no subject
"Let me go, Bodhi!" Her British accent cracks sharply through the din of excited bar patrons watching all this unfold. Bodhi whispers something in her ear and Jyn wrenches herself out of his arms and whirls on him. For a second it looks like she is going to punch him too but she just points at him, finger mere centimeters from his face. He doesn't so much as flinch, staring at her placidly, even having witnessed her kick a man so hard he threw up and then punching another man and then tackling the first man.
While Bodhi and Jyn are having a stare down, Chewy lumbers past them, picks up the offensive man in question and deposits him outside, closing the door. As he passes back to the bar he pats Jyn's head like she is a particularly charming, if bothersome, dog.
(He's not wrong. She suffers from small dog syndrome.)
Eventually Bodhi steers her to the bar but a few minutes later, Jyn is standing by Cassian's table, looking a little less furious and a little more flushed with victory as she holds out a beer, knuckles already bruising. "My brother said I technically spilled your beer."
Well, the asshole did, but Bodhi told her to be nice.
no subject
"You're stupid," Shara says to Kes, kissing him on the cheek after he boos the end of the fight. "Get me another drink. Don't start anything, Cassian."
He gives her A Look, because since when was he the kind of person to start a fight?? No, Cassian much prefers quieter battles rather than outright brawls. His married friends slip over to the bar, Fennec is flirting with a woman across the room, and Din is off on his phone, probably texting the babysitter, so when the heavyweight champion comes up to him, he is alone.
His first thought is she looks very cute with that flushed look on her face, and he reaches out for the drink on instinct, mindful of her bruised knuckles. "Honestly, I lost track of how he got over here in the first place, but I think the fault is still his." A beat, and he holds up the bottle. "Thank you anyway."
no subject
But nooooooo, Bodhi (correctly) was like 'Jyn you threw him into that man, replace his drink' and here she is. They guy is cute, he has a nice smile, eyes that make Jyn feel all warm and soft like butter sliding across toast.
She glances at his table. "Where have all your friends gone?"
Even in the heat of the moment, she had situational awareness. It is her job, after all, to know where people are in relation to her own body at all times. That doesn't mean she pays attention to them when they have scattered to the wind. (Except for the one fella with the mustache on his phone, she wonders if they're cousins and then wonders if that's racist. Probably it is a little bit.)
no subject
Cassian does another cursory scan of the room, just to make sure he hasn't accidentally lost anyone he came with.
"We seem to have scattered." He takes a sip of the beer, eyes back on the woman and not particularly interested in finding his friends again. He's distracted enough by her that he forgets that Din and Fennec are more like acquaintances (or so he keeps telling himself). "I assume looking for drinks or women, depending on marital status."
no subject
She's tipsy enough to just shoot her shot, adrenaline pumping, nerves alight like a million fireflies under her skin. Fighting (like fucking) makes her feel loose and languid but also like she wants to go for a run or eat an entire chocolate cake or steal something. Bodhi doesn't particularly care for that last option, always afraid he is going to need to bail Jyn out of jail but she hasn't been caught since she was 16 and those records are sealed.
And British.
She takes a sip of her drink, looking at him over the rim and the foam, bright eyes sparkling in the bar lights.
no subject
"I think they would be pleasantly surprised and supportive." Which is probably more than he should admit about himself, which is basically that he has become something of a homebody since leaving college behind. As long Shara gets a heads up, he can't imagine any of them will care.
The collar is hanging down over her shoulder, and Cassian reaches out to fix it. She just hit on him, he's pretty sure that's allowed. If he lets his fingers brush idly over her skin as he pulls it back up, oh well!
"But only if they knew who wants to steal me away."
no subject
She doesn't gesture to where Bodhi and Luke are perched at the bar shooting the shit with Han, so it isn't like he will know who her brother is. Most people assume it's Han because neither of them can go two minutes without getting into an argument with each other and they do, unfortunately, share a similar coloring and drunk people don't realize that Han is American and Jyn is British.
"It was Winnie the Poodle, our dog. I'll give you that fun fact for free."
no subject
And he holds up his hand. You know. If she wants to take his and maybe compare.
"Winnie the Poodle seals the deal. They will be satisfied when I say the pretty girl named Jyn Erso who beat someone up at the bar asked me to keep her company for a while. Don't worry, her childhood dog was a poodle." A beat. "I did not have any childhood pets. Makes all those security questions much more difficult."
no subject
"Your hands are big."
She's only capable of single, childish adjectives apparently.
no subject
"And your hands are cold." He scoops his other hand up, wrapping hers between both of his. "I could warm you up."
no subject
It doesn't move her much, but she blinks dumbly.
"You are grossing me out, Jyn. Go get a room," she orders, accent thick and clearly some kind of Eastern European.
Jyn makes a face. "This is a room, Dominika."
The woman, Dominika, makes a face right back before sweeping away to where Bodhi is sitting at the bar, whispering in his ear. Jyn has a feeling the message came from her brother and not her coworker. She looks back up at Cassian.
"My apartment is two blocks away. Wanna get a room?"
no subject
So when Jyn offers up her apartment, Cassian offers her a warm, agreeable smile. "Much closer than mine." His is a subway stop away. He likes the idea of walking with her those two blocks. He lets go of her hand, but not before giving it a solid squeeze. "Meet you by the door? I want to tell Shara I am leaving."
She can't argue with him for leaving the bar when he is leaving with a person. That thing she is always trying to get him to do!
no subject
It smells like rain and Jyn closes her eyes as she lifts her face to the sky, as if daring the clouds to open up and rain down on her.
no subject
"Or a guy," Shara corrects, but her piercing eyes are immediately on Cassian. He hurries to explain that yes, it's a girl, yes she invited him back to her place, please let him be, and don't worry he'll be fine.
"It's Jyn. The girl we saw fighting that asshole," he says for a final argument; Kes immediately howls with laughter, but Shara shoves him, and Cassian doesn't speak another word to his stupid friends, grabbing his coat and hurrying out the door. Din will be fine if he doesn't bail soon too, and he's pretty sure Fennec already left with someone herself.
He stumbles out, pulling the sleeves on once the chilly air hits him, and he catches sight of her looking at the sky. One thing he misses about living outside the city? Stars. He's by her side in only a few seconds. "Hey." He pauses a moment, then takes her hand. She was forward, he can be too! "I do not want to get lost along the way."
no subject
She's tugged a sweater on, Bodhi's based on the size, and the too big sleeve slides over their clasped hands in a way that makes Jyn grin before she gives his hand a tugs and leads him down the sidewalk.
The flat is literally two blocks down the road so there isn't much time for small talk but Jyn figures they can do a speedrun of getting to know you before they bang on some surface in her small apartment. Any surface will do, she isn't picky.
"Your friends satisfied you're not being kidnapped then?"
no subject
"Very. They were especially satisfied when they learned just who I was leaving with." Not that they knew much about her except her ability to handle a quality bar fight, but they encouraged him nonetheless. Honestly they'd probably have encouraged him regardless of who it was, even if it was a kidnapping, but he he's not about to share that with Jyn. "They were impressed with your right hook."
no subject
If they come back they might even figure out that she's left handed so while her right hook is impeccable (thanks, Saw,) her left jab has made more than one man spew beer when she's punched the wind out of him.
She really shouldn't have hit anyone though, her knuckles are going to bruise like an end of season peach.
"So? Middle name?"
no subject
He snorts quietly at the way she does not drop the middle name thing - but honestly, it's not really a secret. It was mostly a silly game, and he's walking home with her now, so he's probably already won.
"Jeron," he says, squeezing her hand. "Satisfied now?"