Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Cassian lightly strokes his fingers up and down Jyn's arm while she's curled up against his chest, while their pleasure cools on their skin. He knows better, now, how to ask her for what he wants, how to live enough to take it, but this he isn't sure how to ask at all. He settles at last on the spy voice, as he oh-so-carefully, so casually, as though it doesn't matter at all, broaches the topic of children.

He knows immediately that he has fucked up, as she goes still in his arms. He curses himself, his inner voice still sounding too much like the ghost of a bitingly sarcastic droid, and knows she's going to run.

But all Jyn says, in a flat tone devoid of anything, is: "I can't."

He pulls her in against him immediately, reassuring, kicking himself for being so thoughtless, saying: "Your parents. I'm sorry, Jyn, I didn't--"

She pulls away completely, putting distance between them, not stopping until the vulnerable curve of her spine is glowing in the soft ambient light from the door keypad-- "I can't. They--in Wobani--"

She can hear his horror mounting in the silence at her back but she chokes it out, trying to stay calm, trying to keep her voice even, like it doesn't matter at all, like maybe he was right and she'd never wanted it, because look what it had gotten her parents. "I was too mouthy. They didn't--want my genes in the breeding stock."

She manages at last to get her voice level, arid, empty as the ashes of Jedha.

She pulls on the first shirt her fingers find in the pile on the floor and has slipped out the door before he can respond.

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He twisted his wrist, stroking slow and steady, missing her.

The door opened with a soft whoosh, and he stilled with a curse. Her silence was brief, pregnant, before she murmured in that soft posh accent, “Don't stop on my account.”

A chuckle trembled in her voice, fondly, and he threw his free arm over his eyes, muttering imprecations in Festian, the heat crawling up his neck from more than arousal. His hand twitched reflexively at the tired shuff of her clothes dropping to the floor, and her bitten-off sigh of mingled relief and discomfort sent a tremor through his hips.

He peered beneath the shelter of his arm, watching her take down her hair with a shake of pins that plinked on the plasteel panels, tiny landmines that would catch his forgetful, unwary feet in the morning.

Her abstracted gaze crept back toward him, gauging his progress. “I'm all over filth,” she murmured, still soft, voice respecting the humid intimacy of the moment and filled with faint regret. “Don't--” She glanced away, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “You don't have to wait for me.”

She slipped into the fresher without waiting for his response, her back brindled with fresh bruises and a welt, just the size of a truncheon, laid across her hips. He sucked in a hard breath, taking his hand away and savoring the punishing ache.

She would come to him, damp and fresh and aching, and he would be tender with her, taking care for her hurts and chasing her pleasure before his own. It would be sweeter.

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“You better not have asked him for permission,” Jyn said flatly, eyes narrowed.

He leaned in to kiss her forehead, tucking loose strands of hair back behind her ears. “Never, mi amor. But you know, a man that smart, I have to be careful to stay on his good side. Just in case.”

“Mm.” Her eyes maintained their skepticism, but the brackets beside her lips softened. “Sounds like something a spy would say.”

“Hm,” he hummed back at her noncommittally, a furtive glint in his dark eyes. “I don’t think I know any spies.”

His arms slipped around her, corralling her closer. She put her hands on his shoulders, laughing softly. “Probably because you’re really bad at—mmph—”

He cut her off with a well-placed kiss, swaying her to music that was only in his head. Her smile caught against his lips, traced his mouth, got lost between the corners.

She cupped his face in callused hands and whispered against his mouth: “Are you going to ask me or not?”

He rested his forehead against hers, a sort of taut intimacy stretching between them. “Will you stay with me, Jyn? Will you make a home with me?”

She didn’t know what kinds of words were traditional. But these were their words, tempered in fire and war and loss. They were exactly the words for them.

“Yes. Welcome home.”