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He finds himself, once again, outside of her door.
It’s just like every door on the damned Ice planet they’d been banished to along with the rest of the rebellion. Her quarters are nestled between Bodhi’s and Baze and Chirrut’s. The only change since the last time he’d been in front of her door was the lieutenants in charge of minutia had finally gotten around to plastering names to the doors. Which made it easier for Cassian to find her door, although if he was being honest he’d be able to find her door blindfolded at this point.
He punched in the code, his moves were quick and efficient, just like always. The door slid open to reveal an empty room, a narrow cot with the blankets twisted towards the bottom, and a spare uniform hung over a tiny divider that split the room from the refresher it held.
No Jyn.
He could, if he wanted to, make the long trek back to the bay where Kaytu is puttering around on his ship. Or he could go looking for Jyn- it wouldn’t take him long to find her. She’d either be in the mess hall, eating and glaring at everyone, or in the command center, carrying out her tactical work.
Or he could just lay down on the cot and go to sleep.
His mother had always told him to take off his boots before laying in bed, but it’s a rule he hasn’t followed often in his adult life, but he doesn’t want to lay down on her bed with his shoes on. It feels somehow odd to strip down and crawl under her covers without her there, so he straightened out the blankets, smoothing them upward before checking to make sure that none of the persistent ice and snow is clinging to his uniform. He’d hate for a stray lump of ice to sink into her cot, probably causing a perpetual frozen spot in her bed.
It’s a testament to how sleep deprived he is that it makes him smile, the thought of her having to avoid a bit of black ice in her cot.
He crumpled onto the bed, careful to keep his boots hanging over the edge, he’s tall enough that he can make it work. He prefers to sleep on his side but that’s not going to happen, but luckily enough he can sleep anywhere.
What he can’t do is sleep through someone opening a door.
He doesn’t know if it’s been minutes or hours, but when the door hisses open he’s launched upright, his blaster extended and ready to shoot.
“Nice to see you too, Cassian.” Jyn is grinning in the low light, and the last few horrible days melt away.
He groaned in response, sinking back down onto the cot, he mumbles something like an apology, but she’s still grinning so it must be a moot point.
“When are you going to stop doing this?” Jyn asked as she shrugged off her coat, hanging it on the hook behind the door.
“Stop doing what?” Cassian rubbed his eyes, tucking his blaster away as Jyn started to tug on his boots. It felt oddly intimate, which was a weird thought, considering that Jyn officially had more contact with his intimate everything more than any person he’d ever met in his life.
“You pass out, fully clothed, on top of the covers. Every Time.” her hands go to the belt buckle next, and he slaps at her hand, intentionally missing by a mile, which just makes her grin wider, “let me guess, too cold?”
“I hate this planet,” he propped himself up on his elbows, as she sat on the edge of the bed, undoing her own shoes.
“Don’t we all. That’s why it’s a perfect hiding space, come on now, off with the coat.” Jyn watched as Cassian dropped back down to the bed, and awkwardly shrugged off his coat. It absolutely and definitely does not make Cassian’s heart flutter the way she draped it over her own coat before lifting the edge of the blanket.
Getting into bed in the same clothes you went outside in is another thing his mother abhorred. They hadn’t been poor exactly, but they weren’t exactly swimming in wealth either. She took it to be a point of pride that her children would be well washed and changed into specific clothes for sleeping in time for bed. Cassian can’t remember what her favorite song was, or what color her eyes were, but he can remember how every night she’d scrub behind his ears and sing softly, until he was old enough to scrub behind his own ears. It still gives him a pang of regret and misery whenever he showers. A small stab of mourning that had never quite faded away.
Still, he liked to think that his mother would look the other way on Hoth. Their thick white pants were the only pants worth wearing in the hostile environment. The thin fabric they’d wore on Yavin IV were presumably packed away under the bed, along with all the other clothes for reasonable environments.
It took them a minute of awkward elbowing and shifting, but they’re both under the blanket. It’s a blanket that Cassian abused his privilege to get his hands on, a wide thick blanket that can cover the both of them. He’d surrendered both of their single sized blankets for it, and he hadn’t regretted it once. There was nothing he could do about the bed, standard sized or floor were the only options in the entire complex. Not even Han Solo could convince anyone to change that.
They’d come to an understanding about the small beds, they had two sleeping positions in place. The main one, was always the first one they’d go to. He’d have his back to the wall (so he could watch the door) and he’d get to use the pillow. She’d use his arm as a pillow, and keep her hands tucked between them, her hands clenched in his shirt to stay warm. They’d always lay there, for just a moment, and bask. He always found it odd when people said things like “bask in the glow” until he laid in his first bed with Jyn. He always wanted to bask in her.
“I think Hoth is the worst planet I’ve ever been on,” Cassian announced into the silence, mostly into Jyn’s hair.
She shifted to look up at him, her eyes glittering in the low light, taking it as a challenge “Saw once had a base on this underwater planet, like the Gungan, everything was underwater. Supposedly it was habitable to humans but everything was damp.”
“That does sound quite bad,” Cassian agreed, scraping his mind for something more unique than the fair share of shady outer rim settlements he’d been to.
“I was twelve and Saw had to sit me down to talk to me about the cycle of life, the whole time I was staring at this small octopus out of the thick windows, wishing for death. I was very happy when we left there,” Jyn’s smile tilted slightly downwards, and Cassian tried to imagine missing someone like Saw Gerrera. Then again, Jyn spent most of her time with an intelligence officer with a long list of dirty deeds tied to his belt. Maybe she could just see the best in everyone.
“I never got the talk,” he had definitely heard things, witnessed far too much far too early. But no one had ever sat him down to talk to him about the facts of life. He’d never had a Saw Gerrera. Suddenly he could understand her frown just a tad bit better.
“Would you like me to give it to you?” No longer reminiscing, her tone was full of suggestion, he didn’t need the low light to see her grin turn wicked, he had the imagery burned into his brain.
“I know perfectly well where babies come from, thank you very much.” He waited a beat, “Droids deliver them to married couples after they’ve been married for eight months.”
Jyn gripped his shirt harder as she chuckled, tugging him down for a kiss, it was quick and innocent, and he could feel his heart flutter in his chest, “you were gone too long this time.”
It’s a novelty, having someone miss him when he’s away. He’s not sure if it terrifies or delights him, most days it’s a mixture of both.
“It was important to the rebellion,” he says, like he always does. She just pouts in his arms, somehow making the pout seem stern rather than petulant. It’s a skill of hers.
She doesn’t say what she’s thinking, because despite their short amount of time together, he already knows. The next mission he goes on he’ll have a partner, even though Mon Mothma has made it extremely clear how she feels about couples going on intelligence missions. Kaytu will be the long suffering chaperone, and Cassian will have to figure out how to keep Jyn out of trouble, just as she endeavors to keep him alive. Instead she just pouts a little more, and he shifts closer, ready to bite her lower lip at the first chance he gets.
“Well, I still missed you,” she lifts a hand between them, two fingers outstretched, “I had to take care of things myself, and my fingers aren’t as long as yours.”
“Oh no,” his arm is still trapped under her head, but his other hand is free to move towards her belt, “how ever shall I make it up to you?”
Her grin is his reward, and he finally is able to swoop down, and nip at her lip before kissing her again, using his arm to cradle her head closer.
Jyn’s hands waste no time going towards his belt, he doesn’t smack her hands away this time, because he’s too busy trying to get his hand down her pants. He knows he has hit his mark when she gasps into his mouth, and her hands go slack on his underclothes. He moves quickly and roughly, the way he’s discovered she likes it. Always a quick and rough one to take the edge off, or else she gets too impatient. It makes him feel wanted, how her hands become clumsy or rushed like they can’t get enough of him, if he doesn’t give her everything immediately. Once in awhile, when he’s been landed for a few days, he’ll torture her a little bit, draw out any step in the process for as long as he possibly can. He once spent an hour with his head between her legs, bringing her just to the brink before slowing down. Someday, when they have days of leisure at their hands, he’s going to try tying her up, but for now he gives her what she wants.
She shifted in his arms, trying to give him the best angle possible, she shimmied out of her pants and he feels (just a tiny bit) sorry that she always have to take off her pants for them to do this. They tried it once, with her pants around her thighs, and him bent over her, as she braced herself on her knees and palms, when they first got to Hoth. She didn’t like it, it felt too much like the other times She offered by way of explanation, and he decided not to ask more.
Once her pants are shoved to the bottom of the bed, his hand has the freedom to move where it can do the most work, his fingers as deep inside of her as possible, searching, as his thumb keeps on her clit.
She always tried to keep kissing him during this part, which he admires, it’s probably hard to kiss him when he’s grinning so smugly but she’s never complained.
He can almost time it to the second that her back arches, and she gasps into his mouth, wordless as her free hand spasms in his hair. He gives her a moment, to let her come down, she’s trying to do as much justice by him as she can, her warm hand stroking him under the covers, but her finesse is affected by the afterglow. He can never bring himself to mind.
On Yavin IV, they had free range to do or try a slew of positions and motions. On Hoth they were limited, he missed seeing her entirely naked, but not as much as he liked having all of their limbs frostbite free. They occasionally shuffled into the Refresher- where temperatures stayed high enough to prevent frostbite and encourage proper bathing- but it was always fraught with peril. Mainly that he was almost a full head taller, and she’d been given a room with a smaller refresher. For the most part they stuck with the warmest position they could figure. Jyn shifted under the covers, straddling him as she made sure to keep the blankets over her legs.
“I’m sure you love Hoth though,” he said with a wide grin, his hands moving under the blankets to her hips, his fingers digging in, ready to assist. He couldn’t quite see where they were about to be joined- which was another thing he missed- because the blankets were carefully wrapped around her waist.
“If you make that lame joke about me loving being on top, I swear I’ll stop,” her motions made her a liar as she sunk down, wrapping him in a far greater warmth than a blanket could ever provide.
“I would never,” he groaned, as she set the pace. She surprised him with a slow and tender shift of her hips, instead of her usual race to the finish line. He was rubbing off on her, and not just in the current literal way.
He wanted to slide his hand up her thick sweater, but he knows that doing that means surrendering more of her skin to the cold, instead he planted his feet so he could meet her pace, doing his best not to just lie there and let her use him like the toy she often jokingly implied he was.
After a minute, he shook his head, frowning.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, breathless still, and obviously still enjoying herself far too much.
“You’re too far away,” Cassian said in response, although it means surrendering his lower back to the cold air, he moves, sitting up with her in his lap. Always the considerate lover, she drapes the blanket around both of their shoulders.
“Better?” She asks, with a little gasp as he shifted slightly.
He doesn’t bother to respond, instead he lets his hands do the work, one sliding up her shirt as the other one drifts down to where they’re joined.
Before Jyn he didn’t think he liked kissing. He’d done it with a fair number of appealing and interested women, both while on base, and while undercover. After while he avoided it altogether. But Jyn? Jyn he could kiss all day. It sickens him that he’s in the first real relationship of his life and he finds himself fantasizing about kissing her gently more than anything else he fantasizes about. Probably because she was far more willing to trying anything and everything but getting her to sit still to make out for a couple of hours was neigh impossible. She was always eager, very eager, to get everything of him she could. Still, every chance he got, he’d lean in to kiss her. Now was no different.
He leaned in close to kiss her again, and she got the hint. She wrapped her fingers in his hair, pulling him into a filthy but uncoordinated kiss, all of their focus is on what’s going on below the blankets but he likes it nonetheless. Jyn returns the bite he’d given her earlier, and damn if that doesn’t get him just a few steps closer to the edge.
“I’m not going to last-” Cassian started saying, but she cut him off, nipping his lip again.
“Good, don’t. Give it to me,” her eyes burned into his own as she shifted her hips, eliciting a moan from him. There she went again, demanding the universe of him, and him all too eager to throw it at her feet.
He moved his hand from under her shirt, back down to her hip, helping her keep the pace steady as they moved with increasing efficiency. One of her hands abandoned his hair to scrabble at the wall, rare words tumbling out of her mouth. Broken pleas and rushed demands that he did his best to meet, she spoke into his hair as she clutched his head to her neck. He tried to lavish attention to the skin there, pressing kisses to where her neck met her jaw, but he lost his finesse, and instead chose to mumble responses into her skin.
She let out one more ragged and broken gasp, her hand clenching into a fist and pounding the wall, causing a chunk of ice to slide into the bed, he only lets go of her for a second, to grab the ice chunk and fling it across the room, he feels momentarily cheated, by the stupid planet and the stupid snow stealing even this from him, but Jyn shoved him down, and set a fast and punishing pace she knows he likes, and for once he’s the one begging her for the world. She doesn’t even hesitate to give it to him.
She slumps down onto his chest. Which promptly lead them to sleeping position number two; Jyn laying on top of him like he has absolutely no right to breathe. Which might honestly be his favorite sleeping position.
If he were ever to do a study, or write an academic paper, it’d be on why basking in the afterglow somehow feels exactly the same as basking in Jyn’s presence. It’d be a paper that only he’d read and he’d have to scrub it’s existence off the face of the planet- lest Kaytu discover it and never let him live it down.
“It’s your quarters too you know,” Jyn mumbles into his chest, he only catches it because the afterglow heightens all his senses, or at least that’s what it feels like.
“I saw, your new name is on the door,” Cassian responded, ERSO-ANDOR in big blocky letters. Reverse alphabetical she'd said as they filled out the paperwork, he rolled his eyes and went with it.
“It’s our name, it’s our room. We’re the worst kept secret in the rebellion,” Jyn shifted, folding her hands on his chest, and smiling at him, one of those wide smiles that she only seems to give him in quiet moments.
“Wait, I was supposed to keep it a secret? I told everyone in my sabacc group,” which is a joke on many levels, because his sabacc group is just Bodhi kicking his ass.
“If you get back before I do, you should just get into bed, you don’t have to wait for me to show up-” She frowned as he shook his head, “what?”
“That’s just how I sleep when you’re not around. I was taught never to sleep under the blankets fully clothed, and I almost never actually wear pajamas because of late night emergencies,” it’d been twenty years since he buried his mother, and twenty years of passing out fully clothed on top of fully made beds, because the ritual of getting ready for bed is just too much sometimes. He’s spent twenty years of fully clothed sleep, and rushed showers where he screwed his eyes shut to wash behind his ears, before Jyn Erso strode into his life. Now bedtime is much more than just a horrible reminder of what he lost, and a bed was no longer a place for him to lay awake tossing and turning in memories.
Jyn nodded for a moment, contemplating, “but on Yavin IV you slept naked all the time.”
“Again, just because you were there, and you seem to hate it when I put on clothes,” he grinned widely, “speaking of which, although I do love your legs, you should probably put your pants back on.”
She rolled her eyes at that, standing up and letting the blankets drop back down into the bed so she can stroll into the refresher. He followed, both because the refresher is warm and because she’s in it.
Their nighttime ritual is different from the one he’d spent the last twenty years perfecting. The shower is short- mainly because of water rations- but with Jyn there no demons or memories come to haunt him. He ignores his reflection in the mirror because he’s too busy smiling at Jyn, with a toothbrush in his mouth as she recounts a story of something that happened earlier that day.
She pulled on her spare outfit before venturing into the colder room to grab his spare out of a box, he mentally resolved to make her sacrifice up to her first thing in the morning, by seeing how long he could stay under the covers with his head between her legs before she threatened him with violence. He was secretly betting no more than five minutes.
They’re quick to crawl back into bed, Cassian folded his arms under his head, as Jyn settled back on his chest. The stories have given away to yawns, and the days of travel without sleep are finally catching up to Cassian.
“Droids huh?” Jyn said with a yawn, Cassian replied with what he considered was the grunting version of a question mark, “Droids bring babies.”
“Hm, eight months,” he shifted one arm to wrap around her waist.
“We’d be getting a baby in a month if that was true,” Jyn was still trying to find a place for her arm to drape comfortably. She settled for jamming her hand between his back and the cot, as if he was actually just a giant pillow, just like she did every night. It was more reassuring than uncomfortable, so he never complained.
The thought of getting a baby in a month made him pause, ever so slightly. They weren't anywhere close to having a child, his sexual education had been from a bevy of uncredible sources, but he was confident they were about as close to having a baby as they were to going for a midday stroll on Hoth in their undergarments. They weren’t exactly trying to have a baby in the middle of a war. But for the first time in his life, he could see a future, some distant maybe, where a droid would bring them a baby.
“Let’s hope whatever Saw told you was more accurate,” he said, mostly to match her own joke. But he felt like she had nudged a door open, a door to a room where they’d talk about things like the possibility of them having a chubby cheeked baby who would probably be born distrusting the empire and wielding a blaster, “but maybe someday.”
“Maybe someday,” Jyn said, either in response or in agreement, before slipping into sleep. He followed her quickly, just like he always did.