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English
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Published:
2020-01-17
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1,322
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1/1
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Extraction

Summary:

Cassian is usually a master of the smooth self-extraction after a job, but this time he's caught by an outlaw crew that wants to party and won't accept no for an answer. It's okay, though. Jyn is on it.

Notes:

guineapiggie asked for the dialogue prompts, “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you.” and “Are you drunk?”

The prompts may be angsty but my mood is not! Some lighthearted silliness just for you.

Work Text:

“Cassian,” Bodhi hissed in his ear. “You need to leave.”

“Yeah,” Jyn added, “what’s the hold-up? We’re going to miss the rendezvous.”

He felt the knot between his shoulder blades loosen slightly at her voice. She was back safe, at least. But he couldn’t relax quite all the way because - “Look,” he murmured into the comm. “I can’t. Every time I try to slip away, they reel me back in.” Behind him, glass shattered and raucous laughter broke out. 

Through her black-market contacts, Jyn had caught wind of a heist on an Imperial supply warehouse, and it had turned out to be the perfect cover for her lifting some security codes that the Pathfinders badly needed. 

Cassian had talked his way into the crew performing the heist to make sure that it succeeded and didn’t bring the Imperials down on them at an inconvenient time. He’d also ensured that none of them noticed there was another heist going on, so that whenever they were caught (and they would be caught eventually, no subtlety whatsoever), they wouldn’t have any beans to spill on Jyn.

The whole business was almost wrapped up, but he’d reckoned without the crew’s exuberant celebration, and their surprising insistence on sharing that celebration with their new pal, Jeron.

“Do you think they suspect?” Bodhi asked.

“I don’t know. But you need to make the rendezvous with the security codes. If you have to, leave without me.”

Jyn made a rude noise. “Kriff that. I’m on my way.”

“Wait, what - ” He clamped his lips shut before her name escaped. “Stay where you are.”

“Too late,” Bodhi said. “Already gone.”

“What is she doing?” he asked with a certain sense of foreboding.

“Who knows,” the pilot said, sounding much more cheerful than he had a moment ago. 

“Get her to come back.”

“Oh please, as if I could. Or wanted to. You have to stop defaulting to ‘leave me behind, it’s for the good of the Rebellion’ every time you run into trouble. We’re here for you, you know.”

A hand clamped on his shoulder. “Jeron,” a voice bellowed. “What are you doing huddling in the corner with your comm all night? It’s a party! We got the goods! Time to celebrate!”

“It, I, uh,” he said to the head of the crew, and the man who’d insisted he join them for the celebration of their ill-gotten gains. “It’s just my - bedtime.”

Bodhi snorted in his ear so loudly he almost lost his train of thought.

“Bedtime,” Ignack said skeptically, and took a drink.

“My … children’s bedtime. Yes.”

“You have children? I didn’t know that.” He frowned. It hadn’t taken Cassian long to realize that Ignack liked to think of his crew as young, sexy, devil-may-care outlaws thumbing their noses at any and all authority or responsibility.

“I’m not likely to talk about them to this crowd, am I?” Cassian said. “They don’t like to go to sleep before I come home.”

“Well, that’s what a nurse droid is for. Tell the little brats to pipe down and get to bed or they’ll get what’s coming to them.” He leaned over to the comm. “Hear that, brats? Papa’s going to wallop - ”

Cassian flicked the comm off. “Please don’t terrify my children,” he said calmly. “Is there any spotchka left?”

Ignack lost interest in Cassian’s fictitious offspring and dragged him back to the bar. “Spotchka!” he shouted. “For our new friend!”

Cassian was trying to choke down some of the noxious local brew when a voice called out, “Jeron!”

He froze. No. 

Well, of course.

“Jeron, I know that’s you, you son of a bitch!”

He turned to find Jyn shouldering her way through the crowd, staggering every few steps. Her eye makeup was thick and smeared, her clothes rumpled. She looked like a hot mess, and he drank in the sight of her.

“Jeron,” she said, grabbing his arm. “I’m so - hic - so sorry.”

He had no idea where she was going with this, but hopefully out the door was included. 

She leaned into him, slouching like a boiled noodle, somehow putting one hundred and fifty percent of her weight on his arm. “So sorry,” she blubbered again. 

“Are you drunk?”

She sniffed loudly. “Jus’ little bit. You don’t know how hard it is, being away from you. Since you kicked me out.” She shoved him. “You son of a bitch.”

“It was your own choice,” he said, aware of the eyes they were drawing, the glances being exchanged between the other members of the crew. Apparently Jeron was having some drama in his personal life, those glances said.

But clearly, none of them felt called to intervene, just to watch with varying levels of amusement and discomfort. 

Jyn grabbed him again, tipping her face up to his. “You have to let me come back. Please. I’m - I’m dying without you.”

“Liana, please, not here  …”

“Youuuuuuuu - you think I’m 'zaggerating,” she cried. “I can’t do it, Jeron. I miss you so much. I can’t keep kissing strangers pretending they’re you.” She buried her face in his shirt, sobbing.

“You didn’t have a problem with it before you left,” he said.

Her head popped up like a jack-in-the-box, eyes narrowed. “Before you kicked me out! Bastard. Well, I regret it. Is that what you want to hear? I do, I regret it. Now can I come back ho-ho-hoooooooommmme …” She burst into loud howls that had everybody around them cringing into their drinks. "I swear," she blubbered. "I swear I'll do better."

"You expect me to believe that?" He stared stony-faced down at her. “You haven’t even asked about the babies.”

It caught her flat footed, her mouth gaping for a split second. But she recovered brilliantly, wailing, “The babies. Do they miss their mummy?” She snorfled. “Their mummy misses them, so so much - ”

He looked over her head to Ignack. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s just - we broke up.” He looked down at the messy bun in her hair and patted her shaking shoulders with a grimace. “I should get her somewhere to dry out."  

"Yeah,” Ignack said, looking uncomfortable at the domestic holonovel playing out in front of him. “Good idea.”

“I’ll try to come back, but I’ve seen her like this before. It could take quite some time to get her settled. I’m sorry to miss the party.”

“Won’t be the same without you,” Ignack lied, clearly desperately to get the bawling, drunken woman out of his celebration. 

“You have my contact info, right?” He patted his pockets as if looking for his comm, or a bit of flimsi he could scribble his information down upon. “Any more jobs I can help with - I’ve got four children to support, you know - " 

Jyn snorted into his shirt.

Ignack just looked dismayed. A man with brats at home and a hot mess of an ex wasn’t exactly how he pictured his crew. "Yes, yes, just um - ” He frowned as Jyn grabbed a bottle off the bar. “I’m not paying for that.”

Cassian pried it out of her fingers. “You don’t need that. Let’s go.”

“Go? Where are we going? Are we going home? I’m not going anywhere with you, you bastard - ”

They staggered through the crowd and out onto the street. Jyn, no rookie, kept up a stream of pleas, threats, and drunken ramblings until they’d turned two corners. Then she elbowed him hard enough to steal his breath. “Babies?”

He staggered a step or two away, laughing in spite of himself. “Our sweet babies,” he said, righting himself and putting his arm around her shoulders. “Whom you abandoned, you degenerate, leaving me no choice but to turn to a life of crime so as to put food on the table.”

“Ugh, kriff you.” She leaned into him, giggling. 

“Shame on you, Liana,” he said merrily. “Such language for a mother.”

She elbowed him again. “Come on, Jeron. Let’s go home.”

FINIS