Cassian Andor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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maskormenacelogs2017-12-11 10:00 am
candor1) wrote in maskormenacelogs2017-12-11 10:00 am
only cloaks after all [OTA + prompt]
Who: Housemates (Cassian Andor, K-2SO, Veronica Sawyer, Bodhi Rook, Jyn Erso SOB, honorary housemate Poe Dameron), and visitors (OTA!)
Where: De Chima
When: late in event
Format: anything. Prose is my default but always happy to action it up.
Summary: Cas stops running from the loss of Jyn. TL;DR prompt for Kay and/or Poe (or both together or in multithreads); open hippyparty prompt for ANYONE
Warnings: PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation/past attempts, drugs (medical and not)
Notes:
• I’ve been thinking about stopping letting psychoactive meds be a blind spot for me in the Star Wars universe, and re: Cas in particular, for a while. Didn't mean to bring my laptop into the city today solely to write this on the train and post it from Au Bon Pain, but dammit, that's what taking a shower in the morning (where ideas spring whether you have time to write or not) gets you.
• Space!term I just made up (though probably not original): “scrips” for prescription medication.
• Have decided not to be explicit whether grief for Bodhi is in here as well in order to leave continuity flexible. …But it totally is.
• lyrics thanks to Britt ^_^
He stands on the back steps and hangs on to the cylinder in his pocket.
do you know why your failure to report was not investigated
if this is because I’ve resisted psych assist I’ll do it to avoid wasting your—
(You might as well be a—)
You are not a stormtrooper
can you make them stop giving me
there are chasms to fall up in
if you turn the walls to smoke
He hated being drugged. He’d join toasts to the fallen for the sake of the living, but a few sips would do. He only substantially drank or got high when he couldn’t get out of it for a cover. Then, still, by necessity, it was as little as possible, less than he pretended, using acting to make up the difference to those around him. Less justifiably: each stint in med wing, he’d fight as hard as he could to get out of palliatives, and when he couldn’t, get off them as quickly as possible.
None of which was why he’d refused the scrips when they’d been suggested.
He wasn’t against them in principle. He’d championed and facilitated getting some of his recruits on them—to the total shock of the med techs who’d assumed his own resistance was due to Rim-thinking aversion.
If he were analyzing himself like he were someone else, he might nudge to see if it was the what I do should make you suffer so don’t treat it phenomenon—where one could take care of anyone except themselves. It wasn’t that either. …Not only that, anyway.
It was the same principle that governed everything else. Keep nothing you couldn’t bear to lose.
(Including your life.)
The safest and wealthiest tiers of this new planet—like many Core worlds; those furthest away from the relevant reality—seemed to have a love of a genre they called ‘postapocalyptic’. Where society and all its safety nets collapsed and people had to see how they fared at a romanticized primitive functionality.
What he’d never seen represented in any of that fantasy—one of many reasons he now avoided it—was any depiction of happened, at later points after the initial catastrophe, when the apparently able-bodied, neurostable, and executively functional people had the last of their meds wear off.
He’d been stationed with agents and soldiers, embedded and stranded with civilians, in whom he’d seen it.
Risk-benefit analysis. If the benefit was low but risk was also low, it was worth it. When both were high…
Didn’t matter how much the bulk of his moments might be improved. He knew the next time he found himself without resources (which happened regularly), in space or planetside; or if the Rebellion's supply was interrupted which was almost certain for any resource let alone things so difficult to synthesize; surviving was hard enough without withdrawal. Forget about finishing any mission.
…But pretty sure the bulk of his moments couldn’t be fundamentally helped with meds anyway. Had to be the right tool for the right job. They were miracles to those with, e.g., a deficiency, chronic or situational. That was assuming, though, the situation could ever stabilize or change.
Like any number of the things Cassian had rejected—and two he’d done. No treatment was inherently good or bad, healthy or un-, on its own. It was all about whether it was the right treatment for the right baseline, the right issue, in the right person. If not, it could just as easily be an abuse.
And there were things that couldn’t be medicated away, not really, without being additionally or otherwise dealt with. Then it was just repression. And though meds could facilitate that work… Cassian wasn’t going to do it.
(He wasn’t going to accept or justify what he did. He was also going to keep doing it.)
The one thing he’d tried were the scrips meant to stave off panic. They just made him tired and unfocused. An unacceptable reaction. But when he tried to use them to sleep, they opened the floodgates, even wider than those were already, to the kind of dreams that made him wake more exhausted. He ditched those too.
He stood now at the door he’d been running from for weeks, fingers working absently along the pocketed bottle.
It wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t going to fix… things for himself.
Left to his own devices, it could be… the always thought-about (twice tried and failed) last assassination.
But what it could help… was making sure he didn’t do that.
‘Cause he was pretty sure, that even in the state he knew he’d fall into the second he went back into that house,
the one Jyn was no longer in
(and would never…?)
…that it would less of a terrible injury, less of a betrayal, to Kaytu, for Cassian to stay alive.
Not that staying alive solely for Kay was doing his partner any favors either. But he could anticipate Kay’s arguments and would respect them enough, even without hearing them aloud, to give it a go.
First try time.
The other never stops being an option.
…though if you believe in the Force…
Jyn’s absence hit him so hard it was like being shot off the datacore. He doubled forward, breaths like sobs, and did all he could to stay still. Not put his fist through a window and use the glass—
Shhhhh. Right tool for right job. Violence wasn’t the solution to grief. It was just… what he knew.
He would never be ready so he stopped waiting to be. He pushed open the door and walked the house, with tunnel-vision, until he found one of them—Poe or Kaytu. (He couldn’t ask Veronica.)
Pulled the cylinder of sedative out of his pocket, a syringe out of the other, and handed them over.
“If I do it myself it’ll be too much.”
* * *
Once when Cassian had been so badly hurt that Kay had had to (/Cassian had let him) carry him back to the ship, Cas hadn't been able to face the confinement of a bunk, so they'd pulled the pallet to the deck and Kay had laid Cassian down in the (relatively) open cabin, before leaving him there to pilot them the hell offplanet.
Cassian's gone back into their house. He can't go back into his and Jyn's bedroom.
But he's also too sedated to go much of anywhere.
So come hang out on the living room floor. Pillows are strewn everywhere for whoever's staying with Cassian and anyone who comes to visit. The TV might be on with some ridiculous [nothing resembling their old lives] content. Bring your own intoxicants if you want. It'd be a great party if it weren't fueled by brain-crushing body-cracking grief.
Where: De Chima
When: late in event
Format: anything. Prose is my default but always happy to action it up.
Summary: Cas stops running from the loss of Jyn. TL;DR prompt for Kay and/or Poe (or both together or in multithreads); open hippyparty prompt for ANYONE
Warnings: PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation/past attempts, drugs (medical and not)
Notes:
• I’ve been thinking about stopping letting psychoactive meds be a blind spot for me in the Star Wars universe, and re: Cas in particular, for a while. Didn't mean to bring my laptop into the city today solely to write this on the train and post it from Au Bon Pain, but dammit, that's what taking a shower in the morning (where ideas spring whether you have time to write or not) gets you.
• Space!term I just made up (though probably not original): “scrips” for prescription medication.
• Have decided not to be explicit whether grief for Bodhi is in here as well in order to leave continuity flexible. …But it totally is.
• lyrics thanks to Britt ^_^
He stands on the back steps and hangs on to the cylinder in his pocket.
do you know why your failure to report was not investigated
if this is because I’ve resisted psych assist I’ll do it to avoid wasting your—
(You might as well be a—)
You are not a stormtrooper
can you make them stop giving me
there are chasms to fall up in
if you turn the walls to smoke
He hated being drugged. He’d join toasts to the fallen for the sake of the living, but a few sips would do. He only substantially drank or got high when he couldn’t get out of it for a cover. Then, still, by necessity, it was as little as possible, less than he pretended, using acting to make up the difference to those around him. Less justifiably: each stint in med wing, he’d fight as hard as he could to get out of palliatives, and when he couldn’t, get off them as quickly as possible.
None of which was why he’d refused the scrips when they’d been suggested.
He wasn’t against them in principle. He’d championed and facilitated getting some of his recruits on them—to the total shock of the med techs who’d assumed his own resistance was due to Rim-thinking aversion.
If he were analyzing himself like he were someone else, he might nudge to see if it was the what I do should make you suffer so don’t treat it phenomenon—where one could take care of anyone except themselves. It wasn’t that either. …Not only that, anyway.
It was the same principle that governed everything else. Keep nothing you couldn’t bear to lose.
(Including your life.)
The safest and wealthiest tiers of this new planet—like many Core worlds; those furthest away from the relevant reality—seemed to have a love of a genre they called ‘postapocalyptic’. Where society and all its safety nets collapsed and people had to see how they fared at a romanticized primitive functionality.
What he’d never seen represented in any of that fantasy—one of many reasons he now avoided it—was any depiction of happened, at later points after the initial catastrophe, when the apparently able-bodied, neurostable, and executively functional people had the last of their meds wear off.
He’d been stationed with agents and soldiers, embedded and stranded with civilians, in whom he’d seen it.
Risk-benefit analysis. If the benefit was low but risk was also low, it was worth it. When both were high…
Didn’t matter how much the bulk of his moments might be improved. He knew the next time he found himself without resources (which happened regularly), in space or planetside; or if the Rebellion's supply was interrupted which was almost certain for any resource let alone things so difficult to synthesize; surviving was hard enough without withdrawal. Forget about finishing any mission.
…But pretty sure the bulk of his moments couldn’t be fundamentally helped with meds anyway. Had to be the right tool for the right job. They were miracles to those with, e.g., a deficiency, chronic or situational. That was assuming, though, the situation could ever stabilize or change.
Like any number of the things Cassian had rejected—and two he’d done. No treatment was inherently good or bad, healthy or un-, on its own. It was all about whether it was the right treatment for the right baseline, the right issue, in the right person. If not, it could just as easily be an abuse.
And there were things that couldn’t be medicated away, not really, without being additionally or otherwise dealt with. Then it was just repression. And though meds could facilitate that work… Cassian wasn’t going to do it.
(He wasn’t going to accept or justify what he did. He was also going to keep doing it.)
The one thing he’d tried were the scrips meant to stave off panic. They just made him tired and unfocused. An unacceptable reaction. But when he tried to use them to sleep, they opened the floodgates, even wider than those were already, to the kind of dreams that made him wake more exhausted. He ditched those too.
He stood now at the door he’d been running from for weeks, fingers working absently along the pocketed bottle.
It wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t going to fix… things for himself.
Left to his own devices, it could be… the always thought-about (twice tried and failed) last assassination.
But what it could help… was making sure he didn’t do that.
‘Cause he was pretty sure, that even in the state he knew he’d fall into the second he went back into that house,
the one Jyn was no longer in
(and would never…?)
…that it would less of a terrible injury, less of a betrayal, to Kaytu, for Cassian to stay alive.
Not that staying alive solely for Kay was doing his partner any favors either. But he could anticipate Kay’s arguments and would respect them enough, even without hearing them aloud, to give it a go.
First try time.
The other never stops being an option.
…though if you believe in the Force…
Jyn’s absence hit him so hard it was like being shot off the datacore. He doubled forward, breaths like sobs, and did all he could to stay still. Not put his fist through a window and use the glass—
Shhhhh. Right tool for right job. Violence wasn’t the solution to grief. It was just… what he knew.
He would never be ready so he stopped waiting to be. He pushed open the door and walked the house, with tunnel-vision, until he found one of them—Poe or Kaytu. (He couldn’t ask Veronica.)
Pulled the cylinder of sedative out of his pocket, a syringe out of the other, and handed them over.
“If I do it myself it’ll be too much.”
Once when Cassian had been so badly hurt that Kay had had to (/Cassian had let him) carry him back to the ship, Cas hadn't been able to face the confinement of a bunk, so they'd pulled the pallet to the deck and Kay had laid Cassian down in the (relatively) open cabin, before leaving him there to pilot them the hell offplanet.
Cassian's gone back into their house. He can't go back into his and Jyn's bedroom.
But he's also too sedated to go much of anywhere.
So come hang out on the living room floor. Pillows are strewn everywhere for whoever's staying with Cassian and anyone who comes to visit. The TV might be on with some ridiculous [nothing resembling their old lives] content. Bring your own intoxicants if you want. It'd be a great party if it weren't fueled by brain-crushing body-cracking grief.
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Though that was as far as the relief went.
He was running himself ragged, trying to take care of his friends as many of them quite literally fell apart. Cassian might not be rotting away physically, but he was definitely a shadow of himself from before. And Poe knew why.
He'd seen it before.
(Kes had become so much less, after his mother died. Even at eight, he could tell.)
It put everything that had happened in the last month into rather harsh perspective, but at the moment he was completely and utterly focused on Cassian. They'd just been sitting up watching something dumb, for a while - or at least, Poe had been sitting up. Cassian had passed out in a ball on the couch about an hour into it, and Poe had just sat there with one hand on Cassian's ankle for a while. When the movie finished, he withdrew carefully enough not to wake him, and then headed out to the grocery store to make sure they were stocked up on supplies. Booze, sure, but also things like pre-cut vegetables (easy to eat, no cooking require, high nutritional value), fruit and granola bars. Things that he could get Cassian to eat without too much fuss.
He took his horse to get there, however, so when he came back, he didn't come back as himself - he came back as herself.
Poe just slipped back into the house as easily as she'd left it, taking the grocery bags to the kitchen and then padding back into the living room with a glass of orange juice and the plate of vegetables, setting them down on the coffee table and trying not to wake Cassian up.
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Which squinted at her. Followed by the hazy, "Se suposa que… en algun lloc? Shara?"
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Until he heard the name.
He was still getting used to the body shift - tending to forget as soon as he was flying. It felt the same (once he'd started wearing a sports bra under his clothes even when he was male), and it wasn't like he could see himself. But the name instantly reminded him of where he was, what he looked like--
Who he looked like.
The grief that had been with her since she was eight flared - far softer now, decades later, but never truly dead - and she gave a sad smile.
"Sorry, bud. She's not here anymore." She didn't know what to say after that, her throat a little tight, so she just pushed past it. "Didn't mean to wake you. You feeling okay? I brought some food."
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"You sound like Poe," Cassian mumbled, before wiping a hand over his eyes and the rest of the words catching up to him.
…She's not here anymore.
Shara. 'She' meant Shara. This was Poe… just with that… thing… Cassian's drugged sight or another malfunction.
But of course it made it feel like the kyber crystal pendant over his heart had just stabbed into it.
It made his abdominal muscles contract and he shook his head at the word 'food'. Wishing he could be more grateful through feeling sick.
He's with it enough to try a pivot. "Was I having a dream… about… quadruped… magical… friendship-centric… something? Or was that…?" Without turning his head, he gesticulated vaguely toward the television.
'Cause if he'd made that up, he should probably tell someone. The writing had been surprisingly good.
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"Little bit of an equipment shift, but still the same pilot."
Her lips thinned, watching him for a moment and then glacing back at the television. "Oh. The Equestrigirls. No, that wasn't a dream, unfortunately. That is just a thing that exists. No where near as good as Disney, though."
She turned her gaze back to his face.
"Did you get any rest, at least?"
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(In a way, all this confirmed how he'd lived his last life. Once allowing himself the comfort of real [vs weaponized] human touch, he'd never again be able to fight his starvation for it.)
(Even if the person he most vitally wanted to be near wasn't…
Equistrigirls. Float back up from, don't get dragged into the gravity of, the yawning gaping hurting hole in him; with how bizarre that name was.)
"Thank Yavá," he muttered. "Would've been… hard to figure out… if I'd made it up."
Funny she asks; his head's already fallen back onto the arm of the sofa, eyes closed, pulse visible in his throat. Even in this state, he seemed to keep bracing himself against the harder, harsher, less comfortable surfaces: sofa arm rather than available pillow.
"I'm not sure," he answered finally. "Either all of this is rest or none of it is."
The corner of his mouth twitched upward. Lucid and helpful, aren't I?
Murmuring last, "You ok?"
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Poe has never been a good liar. Turns out having a different face didn't help much with that.
"Don't you worry about me, alright? Plenty of other people to worry about, if you really want to. I brought you some food, and the deal is you have to eat at least three pieces of it before you push the rest away. Got it? Because I will make you eat it, if you don't do it willingly." The tone is obviously teasing, but the exhaustion that Poe feels is still apparent, and she flops down on the couch, careful not to sit on his feet, but then pats her lap to invite him to put them there, if he wanted.
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"You aren't," he said, voice likewise more present; still fainter and less precise than his standard but closer to it than a moment ago. "And worrying about you would give me something to do other than…"
Feel like he's free-falling between crushing dying giants
"How 'bout I eat without a fight and you talk about whatever you're covering?"
And yes, his feet then moved to her lap. He had socks on but they'd still felt endlessly cold since…
…yeah, this would be one of those moments where he'd have to push his face against the hardest available surface until the wracking sobs passed. But actually, yes, it's a reprieve to be able to focus on Poe's life for a moment instead. (Sad commentary on Cassian as a person, wasn't it, that it always took a friend's tragedy… not their happiness… but self-loathing wasn't a new factor in any of this so nevermind.)
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"Not sure what to say, Cassian. None of my shit seems particularly important, at the moment." She didn't list why. Cassian didn't need her to. Bodhi wasn't the only one of her friends in the hospital.
Jyn wasn't the only one missing.
"I'm just tired. That's all. I'm just - really tired."
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He meant to say, Of course it's important. Of course you're tired. You matter. You count. I've hated being the last one standing so many farking times. It's a terrible place to be. It's not easy just because other things are also hard. Let me earn my keep. It's the one skill I have I liked. I can listen. Might black out but will listen. Not like you're going to remind me of her 'cause nothing stops reminding me of her. Even so, you matter. You're helping me so much, Kay helps me, I've been so selfish I don't always but right now I want at least to try to help back
He manages, faintly: "Of course it's important. Don't havto talk if you don't want. But f'course it's important."
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"Alright, well, you asked for it, I guess." It is mostly because she thinks Cassian is going to pass out, in the next couple of minutes, that Poe is willing to really talk about this at all.
"How much of that kriffing show that I was on did you see?"
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She sighed, pausing in the foot massage to raise a hand to her head and rub at her temples.
"... Look. I am not built for this. For this - place. For any of it. I've always known exactly what I was supposed to do, and exactly how to do it. So I've been -- I'm not ashamed of it, Cassian, but I've definitely been hitting life harder than I probably should have been, just for the lack of... I don't know. Purpose."
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"Here it's just - I don't know what this is, Cassian. Every time I think I figured out how to make sense of it, something shifts and everything goes to hell."
She sighs, looking back at the feet in her lap, and then resumes her massage.
"I thought I was handling it. But I managed to really - I really hurt someone, Cassian. You can find a million versions of it on bluetube, now."
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But it also means weird sleeping schedules.
He's just coming out of his room, when he hears voices. Cassian and Poe talking.
Now, it isn't that he wants to hear everything they're saying, and would prefer to not intrude on the conversation, lest the subject be changed.
So he's just going to stand in the next room, very close doorway but not visible, and listen. Like a creep. Sorry. Spies, am I right?
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"Are you sure you actually want to hear about this?" She complained, lowly, poking her thumbs into the sole of his foot a little harder than she had been.
"He- confessed to me. We were in the middle of fucking space and surrounded by cameras, but - there I am, with one of my best friends pouring his heart out to me, and what the hell do I do? Crush it under the heel of my damn boot. That's what I do."
She looked miserable, lips thinned, but the furrow in her brow was proof enough to how much Poe was worried about this.
"This isn't the place, Cassian. Not for me. It's different for - for you guys. You need every second you can get, and you should get it, but me--
I can't do anything here. What happens if I go home, or worse, go home and then come back and everything's changed?
What the hell would I possibly do then?"
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And he might be hard pressed to formulate thoughts right now, but he can recall things he's said in the past—because oh has this come up so many, very many times…
"How many people," he said quietly, "in the universe, have you seen getting what they should get…? Though… if there is any kind of reward… deserve… system… who knows, maybe you're here for us."
Would he have said that aloud if not for the…?
But still going. "We never knew what would happen at home either. Did we? Could go on a mission and be killed. Or worse, be left out there and everyone else got killed. Or all the rules could change… when Death Star first confirmed, the Alliance almost disbanded and surrendered. Did you know? Why we went on unauthorized mission. If they'd done that, wouldn't just have had no future. Past would have gone, too. Everything I ever did would have been for nothing. Never were any guarantees. Never was any certainty.
"…and… I've felt the same way. Doesn't feel like… I've earned something and can just… stop. I always wonder what I should be doing.
"Maybe we're not done. Or maybe it's all just chaos. I don't know. I guess… if there is a Force… then maybe continuing to learn… improve ourselves… our… is it souls the Jedi…? I don't know. But maybe that doesn't just matter concerning… how we use it alive. Maybe it… transfers… or… I don't know… still does something to… If everyone's connected then maybe working on our souls helps everyone else's too. If we're really all one. With the Force and it with us."
(Was it the drugs in his system, or dying in the kyberlight with Jyn that had brought him to such—as he would once have scoffed—superstitious thinking…)
"…but we should talk to Jedi about that, not…" He gestured in vague dismissiveness of himself.
"I dunno." Out of nowhere, barely turning his face in the direction of the silent and invisible, as if it wasn't a surprising intuition, Cassian said, "Whaddyou think, Kay?"
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"I think you should let me eavesdrop in peace," but fine, he's already caught. No point in not answering. "The Jedi are 'wise' but they aren't therapists. I wouldn't ask them for anything involving life advise, unless it was about how to wield a laser sword."
Kay crosses his arms, and leans against the wall. "If talking to them would make either of you feel better, then why not. But I don't think they'll offer advice that makes sense, or is applicable."
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Having this comversation with Cassian was one thing. The man was loopy, but still- he got it, on levels that Poe didn't. Kaytoo--
Poe was just embarrassed that Kay had to witness any of this weakness in him at all.
"Trust me, I'm not running off to get life advice from a Jedi. Pretty sure it would amount to 'maybe stop being a dumbass, Poe' anyway."
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He held out his hand in Kay's direction to encourage him to join them.
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He understood, mostly, what Cassian was saying. The other was under the influence of drugs, after all. He just can't say he agrees with any of it. Finding any kind of peace, or hope, in the Force, in the Jedi's religion was not something he could ever see himself doing. But, he a year ago he would have also scoffed at the idea of Cassian believing in it either.
He understands as well the idea that 'maybe Poe was here to tell us our future,' or 'maybe we have a further purpose here,' but what really resounds with him more in Cassian's rambling is 'maybe it's all just chaos.' He's known that for a while. He thought everyone knew that already?
Poe doesn't seem very happy for him to be here. He did listen in on their personal conversation, about something Poe obviously feels bad about, and was probably hoping Cassian just wouldn't remember this later.
"Cassian, unless you want me sitting on your legs, you're going to need to move a little." Really, maybe they should invest in bigger couches. This one sits maybe two people comfortably, and he makes three.
yes the pronouns are intentional look this is hard okay
The conversation had stepped fully away from whatever it was that Poe had wanted to say, anyway.
He believed in the Force. He believed in the Force more strongly than perhaps anyone else he knew that couldn't feel it. Sometimes, in the cockpit, he thought he could feel the edges of it - reaching out with his finger tips and getting the faintest sense of pressure on the other end. But he was no Jedi. He wasn't even sure that what he felt wasn't just wishful thinking - growing up on legends and wanting to be part of them. He didn't think so.
Nothing felt like being in his cockpit, when he was fully in the zone. Like he just knew where everything was, around him. When he knew if he just twisted a little to the right his fire would hit another TIE--
But not here.
No X-Wing. No BB-8. No purpose.
No point.
He could almost see what Cassian meant, about that maybe he was here for them and in another mood, he would have been satiated by it, probably. Here, so that they could find peace.
The only problem was, at the moment? He was pretty damn sure he wasn't bringing them any peace.
Instead he felt like he was treading water in the middle of the goddamn ocean and couldn't get a grip on anything. He hated it. He hated feeling adrift and he hated not being in his cockpit and he hated not having his little buddy here and he hated hurting his friends and he hated---
She sighed, rubbing her face, and then lifted Cassian's legs up, gesturing for Kay to slip under them.
"You can take his knees."
quick like 2 second tag then merrys turn!!
Whatever.
Kay ducks under Cassian's legs, and then sits on the couch, letting Cassian's legs sit over him. It's warm, and he's finding he gravitates toward warmth as part of some biological instinct, even if it means looking silly.
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Who made a noise of faux-offense at being handled like a blanket, but also didn't resist even slightly. Even turned to sink more fully into it. Warmth was good. He found himself missing the solidity of Kay's metal form, but trusted touch regardless was still good; and more human contact was also proving a more effective grounding than anything else. Made him feel less like he was falling. Made the pain… not less immediate but less like it was the only thing in existence. Reminded him the point to bearing through this. Being with the others too.
Much as the Jyn-shaped hole through the core of his body suddenly gaped so intensely he could hardly bear it, as if he must cave in on himself or be pulled apart.
He turned his face away a moment to let the tears press out as they did lately, shielding it halfheartedly from Kay's eyes with his forearm. And tried to focus on the other two. Kay. Poe.
Maybe you're here for us
I'll try to be here for you too
If only… like this. So insufficiently. So badly. So…
…but even like this it seems to be the lesser betrayal/injury. So I'll try it and see how long I can.
There's no guarantee of finding her anywhere else.
Stay for Kay. See if I can.
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He still felt like he was standing on a cliff edge, being so close to just spilling everything in his head to Cassian. But instead her lips thinned and her brows furrowed and she sunk deeper into the couch, legs sliding further out in front of her, the top of her head now far below Kay's shoulders.
Like she was melting into her seat.
She kept idly rubbing Cassian's ankles, though.
"Look at all the light and hope I've brought into this house," she added after a moment, thick with sarcasm. "What a brilliant beacon."
no subject
On the other side of him is Poe, sinking into her own depression over her issues, with needing another cause.
Not good.
"Poe, I would like a hug. From you, and Cassian. At the same time. " If Poe was correct about 'hardwired to feel good' about hugs, then that might be what was needed.
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Then he actually laughed (if sounding a bit too much like a sob). With uncharacteristic but drug-appropriate clumsiness, he shifted his legs off the other two and propped himself a bit more upright against the arm of the sofa. He draped his own arm across the back of it and used the other to gesture vaguely in invitation/assent. Come on, then.
As long as Kay was all right leaning in against Cassian. For Cassian to sit upright still felt unmanageable.
Having someone else against his chest might make the fact it wasn't Jyn hurt worse. But it also might dam the breach and keep everything from howling out.
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That was not what she had expected to come out of Kaytoo's mouth, and she was about to say something along the lines of 'I'm not sure that Cassian's really up for that, buddy' when suddenly Cassian was pulling his feet away.
Oh.
Huh.
A small smile pulled at her lips, lopsided, and she gave a small 'well I guess that's what we're doing now' shrug, and then looked at Kaytoo, gesturing at Cassian as if to say: 'After you.'
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It's enough.
He's still not yet totally one hundred percent okay with the sensation of touch, but it's been long enough now that he's doing a lot better with it. And maybe this is going to be a weird hug, given Cassian's position, but he already doesn't feel nervous with it. He feels like, if he is honest with himself, that he's wanted to do this for a long time.
It takes some adjustment, but he finds a way, fitting not like a perfect puzzle piece, but something that could fit there if it was angled just so. His head rests against Cassian's upper shoulder, and he gestures for Poe to try and settle in now, while he listens for whatever heartbeat he can hear.
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…It is odd… as familiar as these people are to him, these forms of them are strangers…
In that, the sedatives again help. He was overtrained to be hyperaware of, exist only in physical reality at the exclusion of interpretation. But physical reality… really wasn't the essence here. Everything feels fuzzier and he can see or feel or know past it to remember what mattered more.
(…He was also trained not to let himself be vulnerable, interreliant, compromised like this. Kark that.)
He bent his head to rest it in the space between Kay's head and the sofaback, filling his senses with these people, his friends, to keep the blast at bay
as he'd filled his senses with Jyn on that karkdamn beach
…and the pain was awful and more saltwater came to his eyes… but the anchor of Kay against him somehow kept his breathing steady.
He was so tired… he couldn't fight it off…
So, fine; the reason he'd been trying to fight it off was now right here… and somehow… that was safety. The pain could rise but Cassian was secured, pinned by them both, so even though he didn't trust himself, he didn't have to. Could let this wave break because he was anchored in place. He wasn't going to ride it somewhere he couldn't come back from. They weighted him without him having to fight the tide.
Arm tightening a bit around this person who was simultaneously near-total stranger and closest family he'd ever had, chest remaining oddly still in order not to jar or overwhelm Kay's unaccustomed senses, Cassian rested his face in that crevasse between Kay's head and the wall and let the tears he couldn't feel fall… a release valve, trying to equalize some of the pressure on either side of his skin and bones… the universe without and the far emptier place inside.
Mi corazón te abrí—desde entonces llevo el cielo dentro de mí
come back come back
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Poe wasn't really the point of this moment.
And he was utterly and completely fine with that.
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At least Cassian's not dead.
Distantly, she's—aware, maybe, that her calm is the sort of calm that's a hair's breadth away from a full breakdown. The past few months haven't exactly been kind, and she's just waiting on the day for this calm to break and the dam to burst, but for now she pins it down because other people have it worse than she does.
She finds Cassian on the couch, and sits down next to him. Wordlessly, she passes him a bottle of water, and just leans into his side, her presence solid and steady and warm—maybe a little warmer than usual.
…how did THAT become the unifying theme…
…anything.
Not comfort. He couldn't let himself experience something he'd then want again forever. So there wouldn't be hugging.
Not pain. He couldn't risk hurting anyone else with his own hurt. So there wouldn't be expression.
Sedated Cassian… or maybe just grieving Cassian…
He fumbled with the bottle before letting it slip gently enough onto the cushion next to him. Which was in stark contrast to the effortlessness with which his arm slipped around her. And his head tilted to press their temples together, his pulse beating in his, as if the pressure of her skull could relieve, equalize the internal pressure of, his.
It was… abruptly intimate, compared to how Cassian had interacted with… everyone except Jyn since he arrived.
But it was also chaste. He wasn't mistaking her for Jyn and he wasn't trying to seduce her. They were… comrades. In something together. And for once he would allow himself to take as much as he gave re: holding one another up.
…evidenced by when he spoke, speech unusually quiet and ever so subtly slurred, what he said was:
"Do you know about the… Equi… alguna cosa… girls?"
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Instead she shifted a little, to get more comfortable. Her magic fingers were on the fritz, so she couldn't simply grab a cup and pour a slushie for herself. Habit made it so that she nearly did, anyway, fingers twitching briefly towards the table.
"Equestrigirls?" She looked at him from underneath her lashes, one eyebrow ticking up. All right, if he didn't feel like talking about everything else, she was willing to oblige it, but of all things to talk about. "Isn't that the one with the talking horses? I thought the season ended."
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He started to sink further back against the arm of the couch, realized he was potentially dragging her down with him, and belatedly (as if surprised to be in the position he'd moved them into) unhooked his arm from around her and… meant to put it against the back of the couch, but it missed the ledge and more slipped into the gap between the couch and her and rested limply there. That… maybe struck the balance between not trying to get away from her but also giving her the freedom to move away if she wanted to.
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Never mind that one day she'd have to redraw them.
She didn't move away. Instead she simply grabbed a pillow, hugged it close and shifted position again until there wasn't much space in terms of space, because she was cold and he was warm and goddammit Veronica was going to leech that warmth off him. Out loud she said, "Hey, where's the remote? There's a Christmas special on."
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Sharing warmth was good. He felt constantly cold too. All his systems had been slowed by the drugs, so circulation and metabolism not helping. Not to mention existential chill.
He squinted, trying to force his eyes into focus, as he scanned around. Remote… Poe had probably had it last (Cassian hadn't been operating machinery of any kind, even stationary). Would he have left it…
…ah, by the food he'd also left. (Which Cassian… had… sort of touched. Sorry, Poe.)
He reached and managed to grab it without dropping it, and didn't have to reach much over himself to hand it to Veronica.
"What's 'Christmas'?"
(He hasn't been on the 'net either.)
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...oh, right. Cassian didn't know what Christmas was, and it fell to Veronica to explain once more.
"It's an Earth holiday," she said. "Originally it was a Christian holiday, meant to celebrate the birth of—of a huge figure in the religion," she didn't want to have to explain Jesus Christ to someone from another galaxy where Jedi existed, "and technically it still is, but it's gotten a lot less religious over the years. Also, a little bit bigger." Considering that the ad now playing was for THE GREAT CHRISTMAS SALE - 70% OFF ON ALMOST EVERY ITEM in some mall, that was an understatement.