Jyn's spent, what feels like, her entire life on Coruscant, surrounded by the children of her father's coworkers, but never allowed to really spend time with anyone. At first it was so she could grieve her mother in peace and then it was because Galen planned so many activities, planning out her days to be full to the brim with private lessons and tutoring after school until he was through with work and brought her back to their apartment.
As such, Jyn didn't grow up with friends. It wasn't until she was sixteen that he finally admitted the truth to her: he was working for the Empire because he had to. Jyn was their leverage against him. He didn't want her tied up with the children of Imperials, she wasn't even meant to be with him, she was meant to be far away and safe with Saw.
It was a lot.
But Jyn kept her head down, buried in her studies and following in her parents footsteps on the path to becoming a scientist, though Galen steered her toward Lyra's specialties instead of his own. To protect her. Imperial College is a given, they both know any applications she sends out to off world colleges will never make it and Jyn excels in the university environment, joining sports intramural sports teams to get her energy out, signing up for Imperial ROTC so she could learn to fight. She's the picture of a good Imperial daughter.
Galen taught his daughter to be an accomplished liar, but she still doesn't catch the lie when he tells her that they're housing a grad student coming to finish his studies in the city, too busy being horrified that they're going to have to share their tiny space.
She doesn't say much when Galen brings the boy and his droid home -- and he is not a boy, he is a man, a very handsome man with an accent that makes Jyn's stomach flipflop in her silence. Aside from introducing herself, she doesn't say anything until Galen holes himself up in his office to comm Cassian Andor's foster father, Bail Organa. The senator, former senator. The muffled conversation quickly becomes heated and Jyn's only heard her father raise his voice twice in her entire life.
Glancing at Cassian briefly, she immediately presses her ear to the door, trying to hear the conversation better to no avail. "I thought they were friends..?"
Cassian has been to Coruscant before. It's just never been under his own name. As far as the galaxy is concerned, Cassian Andor is another adopted war orphan of Bail Organa, but he couldn't be kept away from the Rebellion when the Rebellion is what saved his life as a child. Leia was the more public face, the future politician, while Cassian's expectations were more versatile. Official explanations have him traveling the galaxy for leisure, for business, to call on his father's old friends, and he carries out his missions in secret. The attention is all on Leia, which he prefers. It's calculated to be that way.
The planet always feels too busy and too Imperial, but the next few weeks, if not months, of his life are going to be drowning in Imperial nonsense and he hates that Bail successfully put him up to this. It feels like a much more personal that causal mission, but he owes too much to Bail to have dismissed it. She could be an asset, Bail had insisted as if it would offer him more incentive, and he passed along all the files and documents they had on Galen and Jyn Erso.
K2 with him is as much of a comfort as it is a concern, but at least his droid doesn't look out of place in the city. If anything, it adds some credibility, gives Cassian an air of importance and a buffer to keep some potentially nosy people away. He'd received home tutelage on Alderaan alongside learning to fight for the Rebellion, so his journey into academics is not entirely fabricated, even if his thesis is.
He doesn't miss the way both father and daughter take in his appearance during official introductions, and it makes him internally fidget, but he's used to weaponizing his looks sometimes. If he's supposed to try and win Jyn over, it's probably a point in his favor.
He watches her lean against the door and finds it genuinely amusing. Not quite cute, but close. "Perhaps I am not what your father expected."
She stretches up on her tiptoes briefly, like the height will offer her better sound. Nope. She drops back down with a frown, brushing her hair back over her shoulder.
"We were both expecting someone that looks like they haven't left the databank for four years." She gives him a completely blatant once over, studying with a detached sort of air. It becomes more attached when she comes back to his eyes. They're soft, little wrinkles in the corners like he's used to smiling into the sun. She breathes out. "You know the type. Hunched over their datapads, pants always creased about here--" She sweeps a hand across her own thighs, indicating her lap. "--because they never leave their seats, looking at natural light like they've forgotten what it is. Papa has a friend on the lab on Eadu, he's so pale he makes me look tan."
Which is hard considering Jyn is so pale she is practically translucent, especially in her black dress. "Come on, I'll show you where you're staying." She's wearing black because she's mourning her privacy.
Cassian raises an eyebrow perfectly, seemingly ignoring the way she looks him over, even though he makes note of it and the way her expression changes. Every way she reacts to him needs to be cataloged for later use.
"Some academic fields do require fieldwork outside libraries," he says dryly. Honestly, he probably spends more time outside than in, but not because he's studying anything. But then he remembers he's not supposed to sarcasm his way into Jyn's good graces, so he offers the slightest twitch of a smile. "Fresh air is good for thinking. I do know the type. They need to get out more. I hope I'm not a disappointment."
He nods at her politely, gesturing for her to lead him towards his living space for the next - however long. At least he's pretty sure this mission has a bed.
"Some academics aren't allowed fieldwork." Jyn is this close to becoming a geologist and she's not allowed to leave the city, her passes denied every time unless she is going to Eadu with her father and it's not like she can go out in those hideous thunderstorms.
Their apartment is small, especially for a scientist of Galen's standing, but it's always been just the two of them and Krennic had indulged his friend when Galen asked for the home Jyn had grown up in. A consolation for her dead mother. There is a kitchen and a small dining area, a living room that usually doubles as Jyn's personal office with text and work spread across the floor, Galen's bedroom and attached office, and Jyn's room. It's sparse but lived in.
The door to her room opens as she approaches and she steps back to gesture Cassian inside. The room is grey and white, an unmade bed in one corner with a blue stuffed animal poking out from under the pillow and a small pile of clothes piled on the blue duvet. A desk made unusable by the sheer amount of stuff on it -- holochips and disks and broken players, a mess of rocks and a handful of small crystals, her entire duffle bag of gym clothes -- rests a few feet away, half obscured by the curtain hanging from the ceiling.
"That's my side." She gestures to her bed, before turning and gesturing to the perfectly made bed in the opposite corner. "That's your side."
It has a red duvet and a thin white blanket across the foot of the bed, a stack of towels and toiletries perched neatly in the middle, along with a basket of necessary passes and badges to get around the city -- tram and speeder bus passes, lift passes to get in the building's elevators, etc, etc. She moves over to his side and kicks the wall, revealing built in drawers that slide out automatically.
"'fresher's across the hall, Papa bought a load of food Senator Organa said you fancy, you can pull the curtain to cover the whole room so we've each got a side, if you snore I reserve the right to smother you in your sleep." That seems to be all, she clasps her hands together in front of her and looks up at him expectantly.
He wants to argue just because, but he thinks about everything Imperial and isn't surprised to hear some fieldwork is inaccessible. Instead of dragging that conversation on and coming across as too critical of the Empire, he just lets it slip away as they slip into the room.
It looks lived in, is his first thought. Despite growing up with Bail, Cassian never kept much in the way of material possessions, and spies travel light. He's surprised they're sharing a room, even if it explains away some of Galen's irritation now. The curtain is welcome because Cassian is too attached to his privacy, even if he's used to sacrificing it.
He walks towards his side of the room to run his hand over the duvet. It looks comfortable. "I don't snore," he says, to pierce the weird silence while he takes in the rest of the room. There are signs of who Jyn Erso is as a person all over, and though it'll take far more observation, it helps to get an initial impression. Messy. Loved. Her interests strewn out.
Cassian turns to give her a friendly enough smile, with a duck of a his head to show appreciation. "Thank you, for letting me take up half your room. I am quite grateful for your father taking me in. It's surprisingly difficult to find space on this planet on short notice that doesn't leave you at higher risk for theft or murder."
Jyn is trying very hard and she thinks she deserves a medal for this, one of the shiny ones they give out at huge, exhaustively boring ceremonies with all the speakers that drone on about the Empire and how peace reigns because of the glory of Emperor Palpatine. Galen has to attend, Jyn only goes because he bribes her with the food.
Now he's going to have to bribe her with her own damn medal.
She leaves him on his side of the room, turning to perch on the edge of her bed, shoving the pile of clothes further to the center of the bed. "I didn't have a choice. I would have let you get murdered but Papa said that would be rude."
Suffice to say he kind of understands that. If the situations were reversed, he'd be irritated about sharing his room with a complete stranger. If he were truly here to simply complete his studies, he thinks he wouldn't even be spending time in the house except to sleep.
But he is here to spend time with Jyn.
He settles his own things on the floor by his bed, two bags and a smaller backpack, but decides he'll unpack later. "I do rather like being alive," he says idly, unaffected by her apparent carelessness to leave him to death. "Choice or otherwise, I can still be grateful. I do not intend to step on any more toes than I already am."
She frowns at her own decision to sit down. Now she has to stay sitting instead of just walking out, otherwise it would be rude and her father had politely requested she'd not be rude to this stranger. Papa gave her as much as he could, she always tried to be a good girl for him, to keep the lie going. She can be good for this, too.
It's just going to take some effort.
"I met the Organas when I was little, before we left for Lah'mu. There was a little boy with Leia that was rude to me." She squints at him, studying him again, unspoken question plain as day. Did you pull her pigtails, Cassian Andor, because she will bite you again. Though the truth of the matter is more like four year old Jyn was rude to the little boy, as she often is to boys, so any hair pulling was completely fair.
He resists the urge to look down at his own feet. Average sized, he thinks, for someone of his height and gait. He feels off standing while she's sitting, and since she's carrying on the conversation, Cassian deems it proper to sit on his own bed, under the guise of testing it out. He bounces on it twice.
"I seem to recall a little girl who was quite rude to me first." He thinks he was about eight or nine at the time, and he was still hurting from losing his father, no matter how much love Bail offered him. He was a very angry child for a lot of reasons who hadn't quite learned to mask his emotions, and a four year old biting him hadn't helped in the slightest. Of course he pulled her hair! "I hope you've at least grown out of the biting."
It is entirely an innocuous statement. Like 99.9%.
Jyn glances up slowly, eyes clear and cool. "I haven't."
Except now she's a grown adult woman instead of a precocious tiny human so the biting is for a different reason, presumably. What's it to you, Andor? She decides that, since he is in her room for the foreseeable future, she is going to openly study him.
He lets himself look amused, the smallest hint of a grin on his face. It's not hard to fake. "Should I be worried after all these years?"
Well! If she's going to study him, he's going to do the same thing right back. He takes in her posture against her room and the intrusion of a guest and prepares himself for a stream of questions she's sure to have. Once she asks them, he'll have ideas on what to ask her in turn.
His gradwork though is fake fake fake but they did keep it relevant to things he already knows. "Cultural poetry as it relates to migration in the age of Empire. The Coruscant library will be a tremendous help."
He speaks a lot of languages and has recruited so many different species and people, especially those displaced from their homes.
Her shoulders sag, that is a terrible topic of study and sound incredibly useless and Jyn doesn't have time for useless when she's constantly trying to make sure her father won't be murdered for lying to his best friend for seventeen years. She's a little stressed out, it's fine, everyone always thinks it's because of how much of an overachiever she is.
She can't hide looking half horrified at his answer though, forehead wrinkling in mild distaste. So he's that kind of academic. "Why?"
Literally the last thing Jyn wants to do is go to a fancy party. She doesn't want to go to the party, period, but Papa asks and she folds like a wet napkin. She's been avoidant, isolationist, Krennic has noticed. Apparently Jyn hasn't been playing her part as pretty little Imperial daughter adequately enough as of late and Papa doesn't want to make a fuss, but it would be safer if she went to the party. She can't deny him when he puts it like that, when she can see the frisson of fear in his eyes. He only wants to protect her, she knows that.
When he suggests she take Cassian as her date, well. That is just adding salt to the wound.
She's also been avoiding Cassian. He tries, Force bless him he tries to get to know her but Jyn doesn't let him. She throws herself into school, into extracurriculars, into her community service month that she wouldn't mind if she didn't know her subsequent essay must be spent bemoaning the squalor people put themselves in even though she knows full well those people were pushed into the ground and trod on until they had no choice but to live their lives in the shadows. The only time they have a moment to chat is when they're stuck in their shared room and in order to avoid conversation Jyn has taken to stripping with he curtain open, forcing Cassian to close it. The uncomfortable silence while she quietly gets herself off across the room is even better.
But now he is her date to this stupid party and she has to try for her father so when she finally sweeps out of the bathroom she looks beautiful in her quietly spangly dress, hem just brushing her bare knees, dark fabric of the dress and her heels making her look even paler that usual. Which is a feat considering she wears black constantly. She wrinkles her nose against the feeling of the admittedly thin layer of make up, unhappily striding into her room without knocking to grab her bag.
Cassian has been... trying. It'll be much easier to extract her from this planet if they're friendly, but Jyn is not exactly anything close to friendly. He can't even blame her! He's essentially a strange man invading her space, he knew it was going to take a lot of work. She just doesn't seem to be giving him many chances. The fact that she continues to get herself off across the room is an attempted power move he refuses to let win. He knows that's what it is because she always waits for him to be curled up in bed ready to sleep, no matter what time that falls.
The party, however, is too good a chance to miss out on, even if he doesn't befriend Jyn any better it gives him the opportunity to snoop around and see what he can find. He talks to Galen who reluctantly agrees to get his daughter to go with him.
He is dressed in a handsome gray suit by the time she comes back into the room, giving a last minute adjustment to his swooped back hair when he catches sight of her in the mirror. It gives him pause, mouth opening a little in surprise before he turns around and takes her in.
He's never seen her dressed like this, and it is not a fake expression on his face demonstrating how taken aback he is. It's subtle, of course, but he also lets his gaze drop down over the whole ensemble. Even with the grumpy look on her face, he can't help but find her attractive.
"I should have known it would be black." He smiles quietly at her. "You look amazing."
Overboard?? Probably. But still honest, just maybe more than he might have allowed if he was fully himself.
He smiles and Jyn reflexively feels herself frowning. He is being nice to her! But her instinct is to brush it off and be annoyed by it and Jyn knows that is stupid and is making living with him more difficult but she can't help it. This time, at least, she forces her expression to clear.
"Thanks. You look very handsome." She ducks toward her bed to gather her bag and put her earrings in, wanting to avoid looking at him.
Because he looks ridiculously handsome. The suit fits him perfectly, emphasizing his thin, but toned frame; the light color looks amazing against the warmth of his skin; his hair is looks so soft and probably nice smelling that she immediately wants to mess it up.
Force, it's going to be annoying to be faced with how kriffing attractive he looks in that suit all night.
"I don't own anything that isn't black." Her scarf is a beautiful shade of purple, but Jyn isn't wearing it now, nor is she wearing her seemiingly ever-present necklace. She straightens up, carefully putting her delicate earrings in, and turning to look at him. She's going to have to spend the whole evening with him, she might as well get used to how good he looks now. "Your tie is askew."
Cassian chastises himself when she frowns, evidently the smile was again too much. Clearly the best way to win her over is to leave her alone, but he doesn't think that's going to go very far in the getting to know her department.
She looks away and digs around for something, and Cassian frowns himself, turning from the mirror now that he's satisfied with his hair. Maybe she'd be happier if he frowned more, who knows!! It's frustrating.
But she really does look beautiful. He's found her at times both adorable and pretty, depending on what she's doing, and even though she doesn't seem particularly comfortable all dressed up, she's managed to play herself up perfectly. The bare expanse of her shoulders into her arms, highlighting how goddamn jacked they are? He thinks she could probably lift him dead-weight.
He's still frowning a little when she finally looks back at him, and his gaze drops from her arms to his own chest, and he starts fiddling with the tie. He knows how to fix it, but maybe if it looks like he's struggling he can get her to come and do it herself in his incompetence. "Black is a good color."
He resists the urge to add on you at the end, but there is a small implication of it.
He is exactly correct. She sees him struggling with the tie and rolls her eyes, dropping her bag (on his bed this time) and smacking his hands away from tie to take over the tie herself.
"Stop, stop, you're making a mess of it."
She unties it entirely before tying it again carefully, mouth slanted in concentration. "I'd have thought you'd be good at this." She glances up at him and since she's tying his tie, she is very close to him and can see he has a faint scar under his chin and feel the warmth radiating off him. "Living with Senator Organa after all."
It's a tiny success, but he will fucking take it, even if he realizes how unprepared he is when she is suddenly in his space.
She smells like gardenias.
Cassian lets her tie it properly, watching her fingers make quick and nimble work of it, stealing glances at her very intense look of concentration too. He thinks she might be intense about almost everything. A smile teases at his face again, though this time he tries to subdue it. "He has tried many, many times to teach me, but I can never seem to get it quite right."
Sometimes he messes up on purpose anyway, mostly because he thinks Bail likes to fix it. He's a very fashion conscientious man, something Cassian has picked up on himself, even if he doesn't care about it as much personally, just in the sense of knowing whatever a mission needs.
"There." She smooths down the tie, pressing a dimple into it with her ring finger. Her father can't tie a tie to save his life so she's done this on more than one occasion, standing on a chair in front of her Papa and complaining that he can't dress himself.
Little does she know it's also a farce.
"I suppose we should go." But she doesn't want to! She wants to do anything but go to this stupid party and she hates that she has to go. She hates Krennic, she hates this life, she hates everything. "Will K2 be joining us?"
"Thank you," he says easily. He doesn't draw attention to how she hasn't moved away now that his tie is all neat, but maybe part of him doesn't want her to step back. It would be very easy to just settle his hands at her waist right now. She's taller than usual, and it only occurs to him now that she's probably wearing heels, a detail he missed when he was distracted by her arms.
"Not this evening, no. I thought he might draw too much attention." And he wants, like, zero attention, but he also knows Jyn would rather die than go to this party, yet here she is anyway because she would do near anything for her father. The least he could do is avoid giving her extra attention too by having his droid come along. "And he has terrible party manners."
More like everything manners. "But I am ready if you are. I think your father said he was even going to call us a ride."
At least the comment about K2 draws a softest huff of a laugh as she finally steps back, grabbing her bag once more. She feels... odd, about being alone with him for the whole evening.
It's not like they aren't along with each other every night, but they don't talk, she doesn't have to socialize with him, she just masturbates knowing full well he can hear her but he doesn't say a damn word so even that can't count as a conversation. She didn't want him in her life and she didn't ask for him in her life but now, faced with hours alone in the den of people she hates with her whole being... Now Jyn feels the discomfort of knowing that she finds him ridiculously attractive.
He takes one final mental check that he's got everything on his person he might need and can carry undetected while she grabs her bag. It enables him to take another quick cursory glance, because he really cannot get over how pretty she looks tonight.
"I thought about taking him along for that very reason. Break up the monotony of these things. Maybe next time."
He gestures for her to go in front of him, and he'll follow her out of the room, out of the house, to wear presumably the ride Galen called for is already waiting. He feels so fancy, but also very lucky. Hopefully he'll be able to really do some digging tonight.
She doesn't say much as they walk down the hall and take the main elevator down to the right floor, stepping out onto the platform elevated high above the slums of the city, leading him to their waiting speeder. She pauses just outside it, the hum of the engine enough to block their conversation.
Krennic has known she hasn't like him since she was three, this isn't news, but better safe than sorry.
"I'm going to be terrible company tonight and I'm not apologizing for that so don't expect one. I don't want to go, I don't want to be here, so." She shrugs. "Get used to it, I guess."
He lets the quiet take over for their walk downstairs. She seems to appreciate it, and he needs to save most of the talking for later he supposes. He nearly moves to open the door for her before picking up that she has something to say, something she'd rather be kept hushed.
She wants to give him a warning, for her grumpy mood. As though she isn't constantly grumpy with him, always in a terrible mood because of him. But this is different, and Cassian knows it's because of Krennic. It's a similar slump to how she gets whenever the man comes to pay Galen a visit, or even whenever her father talks to the man.
"I would never dream of expecting an apology from you." He means it to be a little teasing, while he resists the urge to reach for her hand in comfort. "If you can tolerate me for the evening, we can make it a team effort to steer clear of him."
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ohnofeelstho2017-06-03 11:16 pm
we don’t meet people by accident. they are meant to cross our path for a reason.
As such, Jyn didn't grow up with friends. It wasn't until she was sixteen that he finally admitted the truth to her: he was working for the Empire because he had to. Jyn was their leverage against him. He didn't want her tied up with the children of Imperials, she wasn't even meant to be with him, she was meant to be far away and safe with Saw.
It was a lot.
But Jyn kept her head down, buried in her studies and following in her parents footsteps on the path to becoming a scientist, though Galen steered her toward Lyra's specialties instead of his own. To protect her. Imperial College is a given, they both know any applications she sends out to off world colleges will never make it and Jyn excels in the university environment, joining sports intramural sports teams to get her energy out, signing up for Imperial ROTC so she could learn to fight. She's the picture of a good Imperial daughter.
Galen taught his daughter to be an accomplished liar, but she still doesn't catch the lie when he tells her that they're housing a grad student coming to finish his studies in the city, too busy being horrified that they're going to have to share their tiny space.
She doesn't say much when Galen brings the boy and his droid home -- and he is not a boy, he is a man, a very handsome man with an accent that makes Jyn's stomach flipflop in her silence. Aside from introducing herself, she doesn't say anything until Galen holes himself up in his office to comm Cassian Andor's foster father, Bail Organa. The senator, former senator. The muffled conversation quickly becomes heated and Jyn's only heard her father raise his voice twice in her entire life.
Glancing at Cassian briefly, she immediately presses her ear to the door, trying to hear the conversation better to no avail. "I thought they were friends..?"
no subject
The planet always feels too busy and too Imperial, but the next few weeks, if not months, of his life are going to be drowning in Imperial nonsense and he hates that Bail successfully put him up to this. It feels like a much more personal that causal mission, but he owes too much to Bail to have dismissed it. She could be an asset, Bail had insisted as if it would offer him more incentive, and he passed along all the files and documents they had on Galen and Jyn Erso.
K2 with him is as much of a comfort as it is a concern, but at least his droid doesn't look out of place in the city. If anything, it adds some credibility, gives Cassian an air of importance and a buffer to keep some potentially nosy people away. He'd received home tutelage on Alderaan alongside learning to fight for the Rebellion, so his journey into academics is not entirely fabricated, even if his thesis is.
He doesn't miss the way both father and daughter take in his appearance during official introductions, and it makes him internally fidget, but he's used to weaponizing his looks sometimes. If he's supposed to try and win Jyn over, it's probably a point in his favor.
He watches her lean against the door and finds it genuinely amusing. Not quite cute, but close. "Perhaps I am not what your father expected."
no subject
"We were both expecting someone that looks like they haven't left the databank for four years." She gives him a completely blatant once over, studying with a detached sort of air. It becomes more attached when she comes back to his eyes. They're soft, little wrinkles in the corners like he's used to smiling into the sun. She breathes out. "You know the type. Hunched over their datapads, pants always creased about here--" She sweeps a hand across her own thighs, indicating her lap. "--because they never leave their seats, looking at natural light like they've forgotten what it is. Papa has a friend on the lab on Eadu, he's so pale he makes me look tan."
Which is hard considering Jyn is so pale she is practically translucent, especially in her black dress. "Come on, I'll show you where you're staying." She's wearing black because she's mourning her privacy.
no subject
"Some academic fields do require fieldwork outside libraries," he says dryly. Honestly, he probably spends more time outside than in, but not because he's studying anything. But then he remembers he's not supposed to sarcasm his way into Jyn's good graces, so he offers the slightest twitch of a smile. "Fresh air is good for thinking. I do know the type. They need to get out more. I hope I'm not a disappointment."
He nods at her politely, gesturing for her to lead him towards his living space for the next - however long. At least he's pretty sure this mission has a bed.
He hopes.
no subject
Their apartment is small, especially for a scientist of Galen's standing, but it's always been just the two of them and Krennic had indulged his friend when Galen asked for the home Jyn had grown up in. A consolation for her dead mother. There is a kitchen and a small dining area, a living room that usually doubles as Jyn's personal office with text and work spread across the floor, Galen's bedroom and attached office, and Jyn's room. It's sparse but lived in.
The door to her room opens as she approaches and she steps back to gesture Cassian inside. The room is grey and white, an unmade bed in one corner with a blue stuffed animal poking out from under the pillow and a small pile of clothes piled on the blue duvet. A desk made unusable by the sheer amount of stuff on it -- holochips and disks and broken players, a mess of rocks and a handful of small crystals, her entire duffle bag of gym clothes -- rests a few feet away, half obscured by the curtain hanging from the ceiling.
"That's my side." She gestures to her bed, before turning and gesturing to the perfectly made bed in the opposite corner. "That's your side."
It has a red duvet and a thin white blanket across the foot of the bed, a stack of towels and toiletries perched neatly in the middle, along with a basket of necessary passes and badges to get around the city -- tram and speeder bus passes, lift passes to get in the building's elevators, etc, etc. She moves over to his side and kicks the wall, revealing built in drawers that slide out automatically.
"'fresher's across the hall, Papa bought a load of food Senator Organa said you fancy, you can pull the curtain to cover the whole room so we've each got a side, if you snore I reserve the right to smother you in your sleep." That seems to be all, she clasps her hands together in front of her and looks up at him expectantly.
no subject
It looks lived in, is his first thought. Despite growing up with Bail, Cassian never kept much in the way of material possessions, and spies travel light. He's surprised they're sharing a room, even if it explains away some of Galen's irritation now. The curtain is welcome because Cassian is too attached to his privacy, even if he's used to sacrificing it.
He walks towards his side of the room to run his hand over the duvet. It looks comfortable. "I don't snore," he says, to pierce the weird silence while he takes in the rest of the room. There are signs of who Jyn Erso is as a person all over, and though it'll take far more observation, it helps to get an initial impression. Messy. Loved. Her interests strewn out.
Cassian turns to give her a friendly enough smile, with a duck of a his head to show appreciation. "Thank you, for letting me take up half your room. I am quite grateful for your father taking me in. It's surprisingly difficult to find space on this planet on short notice that doesn't leave you at higher risk for theft or murder."
no subject
Now he's going to have to bribe her with her own damn medal.
She leaves him on his side of the room, turning to perch on the edge of her bed, shoving the pile of clothes further to the center of the bed. "I didn't have a choice. I would have let you get murdered but Papa said that would be rude."
no subject
But he is here to spend time with Jyn.
He settles his own things on the floor by his bed, two bags and a smaller backpack, but decides he'll unpack later. "I do rather like being alive," he says idly, unaffected by her apparent carelessness to leave him to death. "Choice or otherwise, I can still be grateful. I do not intend to step on any more toes than I already am."
no subject
She frowns at her own decision to sit down. Now she has to stay sitting instead of just walking out, otherwise it would be rude and her father had politely requested she'd not be rude to this stranger. Papa gave her as much as he could, she always tried to be a good girl for him, to keep the lie going. She can be good for this, too.
It's just going to take some effort.
"I met the Organas when I was little, before we left for Lah'mu. There was a little boy with Leia that was rude to me." She squints at him, studying him again, unspoken question plain as day. Did you pull her pigtails, Cassian Andor, because she will bite you again. Though the truth of the matter is more like four year old Jyn was rude to the little boy, as she often is to boys, so any hair pulling was completely fair.
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"I seem to recall a little girl who was quite rude to me first." He thinks he was about eight or nine at the time, and he was still hurting from losing his father, no matter how much love Bail offered him. He was a very angry child for a lot of reasons who hadn't quite learned to mask his emotions, and a four year old biting him hadn't helped in the slightest. Of course he pulled her hair! "I hope you've at least grown out of the biting."
It is entirely an innocuous statement. Like 99.9%.
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Except now she's a grown adult woman instead of a precocious tiny human so the biting is for a different reason, presumably. What's it to you, Andor? She decides that, since he is in her room for the foreseeable future, she is going to openly study him.
And borderline interrogate him.
"What are your studying?"
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Well! If she's going to study him, he's going to do the same thing right back. He takes in her posture against her room and the intrusion of a guest and prepares himself for a stream of questions she's sure to have. Once she asks them, he'll have ideas on what to ask her in turn.
His gradwork though is fake fake fake but they did keep it relevant to things he already knows. "Cultural poetry as it relates to migration in the age of Empire. The Coruscant library will be a tremendous help."
He speaks a lot of languages and has recruited so many different species and people, especially those displaced from their homes.
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She can't hide looking half horrified at his answer though, forehead wrinkling in mild distaste. So he's that kind of academic. "Why?"
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few people when meet first time they feel that meeting each other was the purpose of their life
When he suggests she take Cassian as her date, well. That is just adding salt to the wound.
She's also been avoiding Cassian. He tries, Force bless him he tries to get to know her but Jyn doesn't let him. She throws herself into school, into extracurriculars, into her community service month that she wouldn't mind if she didn't know her subsequent essay must be spent bemoaning the squalor people put themselves in even though she knows full well those people were pushed into the ground and trod on until they had no choice but to live their lives in the shadows. The only time they have a moment to chat is when they're stuck in their shared room and in order to avoid conversation Jyn has taken to stripping with he curtain open, forcing Cassian to close it. The uncomfortable silence while she quietly gets herself off across the room is even better.
But now he is her date to this stupid party and she has to try for her father so when she finally sweeps out of the bathroom she looks beautiful in her quietly spangly dress, hem just brushing her bare knees, dark fabric of the dress and her heels making her look even paler that usual. Which is a feat considering she wears black constantly. She wrinkles her nose against the feeling of the admittedly thin layer of make up, unhappily striding into her room without knocking to grab her bag.
Hopefully Cassian is dressed.
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The party, however, is too good a chance to miss out on, even if he doesn't befriend Jyn any better it gives him the opportunity to snoop around and see what he can find. He talks to Galen who reluctantly agrees to get his daughter to go with him.
He is dressed in a handsome gray suit by the time she comes back into the room, giving a last minute adjustment to his swooped back hair when he catches sight of her in the mirror. It gives him pause, mouth opening a little in surprise before he turns around and takes her in.
He's never seen her dressed like this, and it is not a fake expression on his face demonstrating how taken aback he is. It's subtle, of course, but he also lets his gaze drop down over the whole ensemble. Even with the grumpy look on her face, he can't help but find her attractive.
"I should have known it would be black." He smiles quietly at her. "You look amazing."
Overboard?? Probably. But still honest, just maybe more than he might have allowed if he was fully himself.
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"Thanks. You look very handsome." She ducks toward her bed to gather her bag and put her earrings in, wanting to avoid looking at him.
Because he looks ridiculously handsome. The suit fits him perfectly, emphasizing his thin, but toned frame; the light color looks amazing against the warmth of his skin; his hair is looks so soft and probably nice smelling that she immediately wants to mess it up.
Force, it's going to be annoying to be faced with how kriffing attractive he looks in that suit all night.
"I don't own anything that isn't black." Her scarf is a beautiful shade of purple, but Jyn isn't wearing it now, nor is she wearing her seemiingly ever-present necklace. She straightens up, carefully putting her delicate earrings in, and turning to look at him. She's going to have to spend the whole evening with him, she might as well get used to how good he looks now. "Your tie is askew."
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She looks away and digs around for something, and Cassian frowns himself, turning from the mirror now that he's satisfied with his hair. Maybe she'd be happier if he frowned more, who knows!! It's frustrating.
But she really does look beautiful. He's found her at times both adorable and pretty, depending on what she's doing, and even though she doesn't seem particularly comfortable all dressed up, she's managed to play herself up perfectly. The bare expanse of her shoulders into her arms, highlighting how goddamn jacked they are? He thinks she could probably lift him dead-weight.
He's still frowning a little when she finally looks back at him, and his gaze drops from her arms to his own chest, and he starts fiddling with the tie. He knows how to fix it, but maybe if it looks like he's struggling he can get her to come and do it herself in his incompetence. "Black is a good color."
He resists the urge to add on you at the end, but there is a small implication of it.
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"Stop, stop, you're making a mess of it."
She unties it entirely before tying it again carefully, mouth slanted in concentration. "I'd have thought you'd be good at this." She glances up at him and since she's tying his tie, she is very close to him and can see he has a faint scar under his chin and feel the warmth radiating off him. "Living with Senator Organa after all."
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She smells like gardenias.
Cassian lets her tie it properly, watching her fingers make quick and nimble work of it, stealing glances at her very intense look of concentration too. He thinks she might be intense about almost everything. A smile teases at his face again, though this time he tries to subdue it. "He has tried many, many times to teach me, but I can never seem to get it quite right."
Sometimes he messes up on purpose anyway, mostly because he thinks Bail likes to fix it. He's a very fashion conscientious man, something Cassian has picked up on himself, even if he doesn't care about it as much personally, just in the sense of knowing whatever a mission needs.
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Little does she know it's also a farce.
"I suppose we should go." But she doesn't want to! She wants to do anything but go to this stupid party and she hates that she has to go. She hates Krennic, she hates this life, she hates everything. "Will K2 be joining us?"
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"Not this evening, no. I thought he might draw too much attention." And he wants, like, zero attention, but he also knows Jyn would rather die than go to this party, yet here she is anyway because she would do near anything for her father. The least he could do is avoid giving her extra attention too by having his droid come along. "And he has terrible party manners."
More like everything manners. "But I am ready if you are. I think your father said he was even going to call us a ride."
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It's not like they aren't along with each other every night, but they don't talk, she doesn't have to socialize with him, she just masturbates knowing full well he can hear her but he doesn't say a damn word so even that can't count as a conversation. She didn't want him in her life and she didn't ask for him in her life but now, faced with hours alone in the den of people she hates with her whole being... Now Jyn feels the discomfort of knowing that she finds him ridiculously attractive.
"Pity, it'd be worth the laughs."
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He takes one final mental check that he's got everything on his person he might need and can carry undetected while she grabs her bag. It enables him to take another quick cursory glance, because he really cannot get over how pretty she looks tonight.
"I thought about taking him along for that very reason. Break up the monotony of these things. Maybe next time."
He gestures for her to go in front of him, and he'll follow her out of the room, out of the house, to wear presumably the ride Galen called for is already waiting. He feels so fancy, but also very lucky. Hopefully he'll be able to really do some digging tonight.
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Krennic has known she hasn't like him since she was three, this isn't news, but better safe than sorry.
"I'm going to be terrible company tonight and I'm not apologizing for that so don't expect one. I don't want to go, I don't want to be here, so." She shrugs. "Get used to it, I guess."
As if he is not used to her grumpy moods already.
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She wants to give him a warning, for her grumpy mood. As though she isn't constantly grumpy with him, always in a terrible mood because of him. But this is different, and Cassian knows it's because of Krennic. It's a similar slump to how she gets whenever the man comes to pay Galen a visit, or even whenever her father talks to the man.
"I would never dream of expecting an apology from you." He means it to be a little teasing, while he resists the urge to reach for her hand in comfort. "If you can tolerate me for the evening, we can make it a team effort to steer clear of him."
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