ohnofeelstho | Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out!

"I'm not going to thank you every time I have a soda." She still drinks it more than him, she should definitely be thanking Bodhi. Their little smuggle ring is useful, especially because it's not only soda Bodhi brings back sometimes, but Cassian will never ever admit it out loud - at least to Jyn.

He looks down briefly at himself and frowns. "I'm not that skinny," he mumbles. He's definitely slim, more lean muscle than bulk, but he still sounds affronted. He doesn't need to bulk up like an Ares kid to be strong. "I'm not afraid of him. I just don't want my feet in the water right now."

As if to prove his point, he leans back on his hands with a huff, keeping his legs crossed.

She snags her soda back from between them and settles it between her thighs. No more soda for him. She briefly wonders if she could convince Bodhi to withhold sweets from Cassian to prove a point.

He says he's not afraid but Jyn doesn't believe him one bit. "Gerald, go home, you're going to catch a cold if you stay here too long anyway. Say hi to dad for me." The shark gives her a mournful look and twists around her ankles again before he swims off, fin skating through the sound before it dips under the water and disappears.

Leaning over a little, she nudges his knee. "You know I only meant too skinny literally in the context of being dinner, yeah? You're proper fit, Andor."

That's so rude!! But he expects rude from Jyn because she is made of rudeness. They're lucky to have Bodhi to offset how grumpy they both are.

"You didn't have to make him leave." Cassian doesn't mind, but Jyn is clearly annoyed about something, and she likes when the sharks come around to keep her company. He would have dealt with the shark for that.

He nudges her back without thinking. "I could probably bench press you, Erso, I know I am." Because it's easier than thinking about Jyn thinking him fit, even though basically everyone at the camp is in excellent shape, or at least gets there eventually. "But I wouldn't put it passed you otherwise."

They give each other so much shit all the time, okay. "Bodhi's the skinniest."

Sometimes Jyn is tremendously glad that a handful of her British-isms are lost on Cassian if only because he doesn't realize she called him pretty. She's also glad Bodhi isn't around because he would have called her out immediately, fucking traitor that he is.

"He is the skinniest. Could you really bench press me?" She turns her head fully enough that her messy waterfall of mermaid hair flairs out around her shoulders. A smile flickers across her face. "Could you bicep curl me?"

That is important!

Too many of her British-isms go over his head, and he doesn't like it. He definitely doesn't watch the way her hair moves. But he does turn to meet her gaze and give her a similar smile as he shrugs. "I can already lift you up when you're dead weight. I'm sure I could do it laying down too." Jyn is so tiny. She's strong and powerful, but still very tiny, and Cassian has been building his own strength for over a decade.

As for the curls, he wrinkles his nose. "I'd have to try it."

"I was only a dead weight because I was mostly dead at the time!" Her own defense is immediate but at the same time entirely absent-minded because she doesn't actually care, it's just instinctive.

She doesn't say he can try, but she asked so it seems sort of implied that he sure can give it a shot.

"Baze says you're cross and he warned me to be nice to you." She still doesn't move her soda back for him to share. She's just noting what Baze had noted to her when he was also noting that she was cross but she isn't going to note that to him because she disagrees with Baze. She is not cross as all. She's just... prickly.

He's not surprised she gets defensive, however idle, and it reminds of his own grumpiness. "You say that like it's only happened once."

He will try. He's gonna. Not now, but maybe later. His sheer stubbornness will push him to it. He is a little curious what he can lift.

Cassian huffs and bristles - not at her, at Baze, wherever he is. "He said you were in a mood too, but I didn't need him to tell me that." It's partially why he came to find her in the first place, to see what was wrong. Jyn being cross is a lot more obvious than him being cross. He's annoyed and he knows it, but he likes to think it's a little more subtle.

To be perfectly honest... She wouldn't have noticed if Baze hadn't pointed it out. All the more reason for him to point it out probably.

"I'm not in a mood." She's in a mood. "I'm just--!" Her nose scrunches up, mouth twisting to the side. She's in a mood, definitely, especially obvious considering she can't think of anything else to call her mood. "We're not talking about me, we're taking about you. Why are you pretending to be a cactus?"

He gives her a look that says you are definitely in a mood. She can't even give him a good argument against it.

When she draws attention to his own prickliness though, he pinches his brows and frowns. "I never agreed to talk about me. I'm not pretending to be a cactus. I just wanted to see if you were okay."

They are the most mature teenagers in the world. He wanted to check up on her, she doesn't get to turn it around on him! Especially because he is, definitely, prickly about her. He snorts out a sound of annoyance.

"It's -" he huffs again. Jyn can do what she wants, and if she wants to join the Hunters, can he really stop her? It's probably better to just find out before he drives himself crazy with uncertainty. "I have a question. But you'll have to tell me what's got you being a cactus too."

He can go first, but she's gotta go next.

"Alright." This is weird? She's not used to trading off questions like this (because she is usually just manhandling people into talking to her and by people, it's clearly Bodhi) but she is willing to give it a try? Maybe.

She's reserving the right to just dive off the dock if she doesn't like the question.

"Sure."

He takes a few seconds to consider what the best way to ask this is. They're right by the water, and she could very well just jump off. She's done it before. It's an annoying habit.

Cassian settles for looking away from her and schooling his face into something he hopes is casual, but there's an underlay of worry in his jaw anyway.

"I didn't know if Artemis -" he stops, not really liking the way it sounds so far, but he doesn't want to give her too much time to twist his words or jump off the dock, so the question that follows is far more direct than he might have intended initially. "Are you joining the Hunters?"

He braces himself for the worst: a yes.

Oh. Her forehead wrinkles in confusion because she wasn't expecting that. She's not sure what she was expecting to be quite honest, but she doesn't think it was that. Maybe like why the fuck don't you clean your cabin you absolute slob.

"No."

Her shoulders slump, frown slanting down her mouth in defeat. "She didn't ask me."

He waits for her to answer with an idle nervousness, and even though she looks and sounds upset by the 'no' when it comes, Cassian feels some of the tension slipping out of his shoulders. No. She's not joining them, she's staying. Except -

"What?" He sounds so offended, like he wasn't just moping over the idea of her leaving. But it makes no sense that Artemis wouldn't even ask, unless it's because Jyn is already a few years older than the average physical age of the Hunters. "Are you too old?"

"I don't know!" She kicks her feet in annoyance before shifting to face him because they bicker all the time and sometimes she thinks she literally lives to fight with him, but he is also always the first person she wants to talk to when she is grumpy -- or sad, or happy, or anything really.

"Tatiana talked to me when they first got here and she's older that me and my birthday's not for three more months and she said that if Artemis thinks you're the right fit it doesn't even matter!" She frowns, shoving her bangs back from her face again. "And she said that even though my dad is the godly equivalent of a garbage fire--" She pauses to glance at the water. "--You know it's true. Anyway, even though Dad's Dad, I could be super useful to the Hunters because I can always find water! But then... nothing. She asked Leia and everyone on the planet knows she would never leave her brother, like, ever."

It's not fair!

When she turns towards him, Cassian finds himself shifting too, rotating to face her at more of a slant. It really shouldn't make him feel better - but he does feel lighter the more it settles in that Jyn is staying at the Camp, even as she gets more irritated.

He understands her frustrations because it would suck to not even be asked for something so huge. "I don't think Leia would ever want to leave the camp itself either." She's too dedicated, maybe even more than he is.

Still, the way Jyn's so grumpy about it suggests she'd at least been interested in joining, which means his own prickliness hasn't totally dissipated. He listens to her complaints anyway, because no matter how much they pick fights with each other, he always seems to come to her first. Jyn is his friend, one of his first real ones, and he'd always listen, just like he knows she'd listen to him.

"Maybe she thought you wouldn't want to?"

It's half a question, mostly because he wants to know if she really wanted to join, or if she's just annoyed she was never given the chance. It'd be easier to ask flat out, but when has Cassian ever made things easy for himself like that when it comes to Jyn?

"She doesn't get to make that choice for me, I do. It's not fair she didn't ask." She huffs an annoyed breath, grabbing the soda only so she can drink the rest and push it down against the dock to crumple the can and get some of her frustrated energy out.

"Our parents give us all this rubbish about how they can't see us and can't interfere because we're meant to make our own choices and lead our own lives but then they take those choices away from us." She frowns at the can, turning it over in her hands. "I don't want to be a Hunter, but I wanted the choice."

Jyn's bitterness about the gods doesn't even come from her own relationship with Poseidon, he gave her both her parents and did all he could to protect her father after her mother was murdered. Jyn is bitter solely because stupid Athena has never come to visit her son.

Edited 2017-04-04 01:26 (UTC)

He really, really should not keep feeling lighter the longer she goes off about it, but there's so much relief that she was never going to join. Cassian thought she might have, more out of fear than logic. He even looks happier, despite trying to keep it under wraps, and the words bubble out before he thinks about it. Jyn has that annoying effect on him.

"I'm glad." Wait. "I mean, I'm not glad she didn't ask -" He huffs a little and blinks out at the water instead of her. "I just would have missed you. If you did want to join."

He keeps his tone cool and nonchalant, like it's absolutely no big deal and totally normal. Which it is! They spend a lot of time together. He would miss her. Because they are friends. He coughs a little. "But she should have asked anyway. I don't know why she wouldn't. We don't have much in the way of choices if they keep taking them from us."

He also cannot imagine why Artemis did not ask, so at least they're in the same boat there.

He's too happy. He looks light and it makes Jyn's eyes narrow briefly before he explains it away and the simplicity of it makes a smile touch her expression, soft and small.

Reaching out, she shoves his shoulder lightly. Not nearly hard enough to shove him off the dock, even though that is commonly her first choice. "I'd miss you, too. But I'm not going anywhere. Unless Chirrut tells me I'm going somewhere, and then you're going with me."

By all rights, children of Athena and Poseidon shouldn't get along as well as she and Cassian do and they'd had a rocky start, but there's no one else she'd rather be on a quest with.

Oh. She's smiling. It makes him smile, even smaller than hers but maybe the same kind of soft. He moves with the shove instead of fighting it after he realizes she's not going to push him off the dock this time; once he bounces back he elbows her in return.

It's stupid how quickly his entire mood has turned around. "You'd get far too many concussions if I didn't."

It used to be just him and K2, but Jyn is a different kind of trust. K2 found him because Cassian was a demigod and it was his job, and the satyr stuck around from there. Jyn sticks around and finds him because she wants to. Because they became friends against whatever odds were stacked against it. They make a good team, and he's - glad.

Edited 2017-04-04 04:02 (UTC)

She makes a face at him before leaning back until she's laying down on the dock, closing her eyes against the sunlight and idly swishing her feet back and forth in the water. Sometimes she thinks she could just sleep here, but curfew and blah blah blah. She doesn't like her lonely cabin.

"Is that why you were being a cactus? 'cause you'd thought I was leaving?" Which is mind-boggling, honestly. Not the idea that she'd leave because she can see the appeal of the Hunters, obviously, they're just not for her. But the idea that her leaving might have upset Cassian enough to being in such a mood that Baze felt the need to point it out to her... that's a marvel. She's not used to being cared for that much.

She knows Bodhi would care and Galen would care, but that's different. They're her family. Cassian is something else entirely. A friend but more. Shit, more? No. Just a very good friend. A dear, dear friend.

Oh dear.

He doesn't lay down next to her because that would be weird, but it is very tempting.

"I was not being a cactus." Yes he was. He leans back on his hands more comfortably and squints out over towards the camp instead of looking at her.

"You're my - friend." Yes. Friendship. His face scrunches on the word, like it's not enough. "It seemed like you might like the Hunters. You were excited by them -" He bristles. "It would have been weird without you." SO THERE.

In retrospect, Cassian can't believe how bothered he was by this. How attached he is to Jyn and her friendship. Best friendship. She's important to him and he clearly cannot imagine not having her in his life to the point where it's a call out offense.

That is definitely how friendship works. If his brain uses the word friendship one more time, it's going to sound fake, in both English and Spanish.

Edited 2017-04-04 05:09 (UTC)

"You were here for, like, ten years before you found me," she points out, head tilting to sort of face him even if her eyes stay closed. She understands completely, her life would be equally weird without him, he'd become such an integral part of it so quickly and he'd been one of the few people that had continued to come back for her.

He'd said 'welcome home' at her first bonfire and she knew then that it wasn't the camp that was really her home.

She decides not to dwell on that, changing topics entirely. "Papa wants me to go back to the city for the weekend. Do you want to come with?" She seems to realize that's an odd request or could be and her eyes open, looking up at him as she hurries to add: "He still treats me like I'm six so it's still a bit weird when it's just the two of us, but he's got free passes to all the museums from the college and there's new exhibits on mummies and whales and the one about vaccines eradicating disease is closing soon. We can go while he's working."

Please say yes.

Cassian would do just about anything for the Camp. It's been his home for more than half his life, but he didn't quite realize what was lacking till Jyn showed up. He knows he would have been fine in reality had she joined the hunters - but it doesn't mean he would have liked it. He's glad she immediately changes the topic and allows him to skip out on replying, because he doesn't know what to say there.

He steals a glance at her on the dock, her eyes gratefully still closed so she can't see the surprised and quietly pleased look on his face at the rambling invitation. There are traces of it still there by the time she does open them though.

He tries to pretend mummies and whales doesn't sound like the perfect mix for the two of them, before he nods at her and gives her the simplest acquiescence in the world. "Okay." Cassian has been outside of camp more than most, but very rarely has it been for recreational reasons. He might be a little excited, not that he's being too obvious about it. "Will he mind if I'm there too?"

Once he's said yes, Jyn's eyes close again, faint happy smile playing across her lips. "No, he wants to meet you."

She doesn't intend to leave it just hanging there, ominously. It does not occur to her than it could be interpreted as strange or foreboding that some girl's dad wants to meet her friend who is very much a handsome, capable boy with a pretty smile and dimples that make her stomach do all sorts of weird fluttery things. She also straight up doesn't know how to deal with a parent anymore so the idea that Galen might want to vet Cassian doesn't occur to her either.

He waits for her to expand on that - only she doesn't. There are good reasons and bad reasons and neutral reasons and it makes him wonder what Jyn has told her father about him.

Cassian blinks down at her, Unimpressed even though she can't see it. "He wants to meet me." It's half a question. He wants to know what Galen might have ever said about him so far for starters. She's smiling about it, so he hopes it's not a bad reason, but there's some sense of butterflies in his gut that makes him feel nervous anyway. Which is dumb, because why should he feel worried about what Jyn's dad thinks of him? It won't change anything about his being friends with her.

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