the world ender

[leralynne]

Happy Star Wars Day!

[jynandor]

She wanted to laugh at the heavens, at the fleet and the Death Star, but she lacked the strength for that, too. Instead she turned to Cassian, who still waited in the smoke.  She stumbled to him, smiling like a child, and did not speak.

-

Jyn had turned to him from the control panel looking like the last survivor of a war, and she’d smiled in a way he’d never seen before. It hadn’t been a smile predicated on anticipation or courage, or one touched by sadness or doubt; just a smile so ordinary it seemed to change Jyn from a hero out of myth into a woman he might have known and understood. He hadn’t known her, didn’t know her, of course. There wasn’t the time.

[rogerdeakinsdp]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Dir: Gareth Edwards, DP: Greig Fraser “What is this? It’s a chance for you to make a fresh start.”

[ofandor]

macabrynn

“you really think you could do that?” brynn asked. it was something she genuinely wondered. she knew that cassian had been fighting since he was a child; she had no personal knowledge of what that kind of life could do to a person, but she couldn’t assume that it would be anything good. “what? she’s not what?” brynn sighed and crossed her arms adamantly. if cassian wouldn’t open up, she’d make him, even behind the glass wall. “one of these days, you’re going to appreciate me and my ‘vanity’, cassian andor. we’ve been fighting on the same side so long i think i’ve earned that respect.” then, hearing about the status of the cure team made her drop her arms and swallow in fear. “you better find something, or else when i die, i’ll come back to life to kill you myself.” the sarcasm: her preferred defense mechanism. “i’ll do my best. you… you hang in there too.”

“yes,” he retorted flatly. cassian had never had much tolerance for foolishness in his youth, but his willingness to deal with pranking and playful banter had decreased as he’d risen in both age and rank. brynn was a thorn in his side. no matter how he grew, or how seriously he took himself, she would never let him forget the ill advised things he’d done early on in his training. still, somewhere along the line, he’d become somewhat fond of her. cassian crossed his arms over his chest, as if to protect himself, and shook his head stubbornly. he had no interest in telling brynn about what he and jyn had been through. to retell what had happened, how she’d asked him to leave, would be too much for cassian to deal with right now. he set his jaw, and seemed stubbornly hellbent against telling her anything of use. at least, until she’d started to talk about the cure. somehow, brynn’s lighthearted taunting made him relax a bit. “don’t think you’d be the only ghost haunting me,” he murmured, shaking his head, “or the scariest.” brynn hardly struck him as murderous, not even after death. “yeah i...” no, he wouldn’t. he’d scarcely been sleeping. “i’ll try.” 

[ofandor]

starveiins

no matter how hard she tried, her thoughts always began to wander back to the people that she cared about in quarantine. she could see their faces in her mind. fighters with sunken eyes and raspy voices. it made her heart hurt. it was hard to avoid the daydreaming when she was searching for something that could have been right in front of her eyes but she would never know because she didn’t know what the hell they were even searching for to begin with. a goddamn cure. it was far too vague. they didn’t have any leads, any information, they were going in blind. despite basically failing cassian’s training, she knew that life-or-death missions had more leads than this. 

“yeah…” orion couldn’t help but let out a sigh. just when she thought there was some small break through, it just wasn’t enough. “it could be,” she spoke, a hopeful tone in her voice. she hadn’t heard herself say something with that much inflection in days. it felt foreign. “or maybe, if there are any known cures for these poisons…” orion spoke out loud as she examined the vials once more. these were common poisons. if i pilot like her knew what they were, others probably knew more. “maybe their cures can help us?” she suggested, looking at cassian with wide eyes.

cassian was well suited to cope with conflict. his earliest trainers had taught him to put his own personal motivations and emotions aside when on a mission, and to focus only on what he had to do in order to succeed. in truth, detachment had always come fairly easily to him. as a child who’d lost his father early on, who’d joined the war well before the age of ten, cassian had learned to remove himself from difficult situations in order to survive. this mission, however, was entirely different. as desperately as cassian wanted to remove himself, to act objectively, he was unable to do so. 

jyn had demanded that he leave, but he was still hellbent on finding a cure for her. perhaps if he found one, maybe, just maybe... 

he tried to shove the thought from his head. he hated this. his fists balled until his knuckles turned white and his nails dug into his hardened palms. cassian pressed his lips together, considering what she’d said with the utmost care. if a virus had, somehow, been infused with poison, perhaps finding the cure for the poison would slow it down. cure it entirely? he couldn’t be sure, but even a temporary cure would permit them a bit more time to heal those who’d been infected. “what poisons did you find?” he asked, motioning orion to come toward him. spies dealt in poison more often than he’d like to admit and cures were often used as a bartering chip. he’d likely know them. “we’ll have to check in with the palace inventory.” they’d likely have cures, if only to save the queen from imminent death or risk.

[ofandor]

rebelfugitive

theed was more maze-like than what jyn remembered, though that might be because she could barely remain standing without using the wall for assistance. where was she, exactly? the outskirts of the city, maybe, though she wasn’t sure––the streets were shifting and winding underneath her gaze, and she was stumbling through a part of town she didn’t recognize. she sagged against the wall, tugging her scarf up higher over her mouth to hide the way her breath rattled in her lungs. the face mask she had stolen from the medics was already soaked in her blood, and even though she could barely work up the strength to keep pulling up her disguise, she knew that if anyone figured out that she was infected, they’d lock her back up in quarantine quicker than she could process their realization. she had to get out of town before that happened, and with that thought in mind, she pushed herself up and stumbled forward, trying to act drunk instead of dying.

she needed to get out of here––there was nothing left on this damn rock for her now that cassian left her. she was going to die, but she was going to do it on her own terms. if she was going to go down, she was going to go down fighting––and there were plenty of first order operatives in naboo right now. the medics had taken her weapons away from her when she had first entered quarantine, but she didn’t need her blaster to wring someone’s neck.

homesick. the word had reverberated through cassian’s consciousness for the better part of the day and clouded any rational, logical thought. his fingers flitted skillfully through file after file, but his mind remained fixed on the strange word. in the darkness of the laboratory, it had taken on a shape, a meaning of its own, until it taunted him. cassian knew that he couldn’t possibly be homesick for fest. he scarcely remembered the little ice ball, and he certainly didn’t remember it fondly. he’d spent longer on yavin four than he had on any other planet, but it was no more a home to him than coruscant or even scarif. cassian had never had a home to miss. and then it struck him, perhaps the homesickness he felt was not for a place, but a person. 

this, he thought, this was what sleep deprivation did to a man. he’d become nonsensical. 

cassian focused his attention downward, studying the ugly brown patterns on his boots left behind by the mud, and he scowled at them. another day in the laboratory and they’d accomplished nothing. cassian wasn’t sure how many hours he’d spent in the bunker beneath naboo’s swamps, but it had taken a toll on his wellbeing. it was worth it if only they could find a cure for the blue shadow virus. perhaps jyn didn’t want him around anymore, but he’d be damned if he didn’t ensure that she would live to fight another day.

he glanced upward, a strange shape catching his attention out of the corner of his eye, and cassian froze. her face was shrouded almost entirely by a scarf, but he would have known jyn anywhere. “jyn?” he asked, a note of hope in his voice. cassian studied her for a moment, then two, and before he could stop himself cassian marched toward her. at last, he’d remembered himself. “jyn!” he hissed. “what are you doing?” he asked, his words were made jagged by his clenched teeth.

[jynandor]

(insp)

[jynandor]

[ofandor]

what are you going to do if jyn dies?

“i don’t want to leave you.” jyn’s words echoed through his mind again, and cassian felt as though he couldn’t catch his breath. he and jyn had died together on scarif, he could face death if he was by her side, but the thought of jyn dying alone? of those harsh last words? it felt as though he would choke. cassian drew in a sharp breath, summoning his strength, and shook his head. “jyn is a fighter,” he murmured, “she’s not going to die.” he couldn’t, wouldn’t, consider any other outcome. 

[ofandor]

are you worried about getting sick? how are you feeling?

“no, i’m not.” it was as simple as that. in fact, cassian found himself wishing that he’d been infected along with jyn. they’d died in one another’s arms on scarif, he thought it fitting that they die in one another’s arms on naboo, but it was not meant to be. his expression became more solemn. “but i’ll be less useful to the cause if i get sick.” he added, as if that was enough reason to remain healthy. 

[ofandor]

what do you love about jyn, if you even still love her anymore?

“she’s a fighter.” he murmured, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. a faint smile pulled at the corners of his lips as he considered jyn, he strength in battle and her ferocious loyalty. “she’s stubborn, temperamental, loyal, kriffing infuriating, and selfless, and i...” he paused, the latter part of the question finally weighing on his mind. “i still love her more than anything.” all of jyn, every fault and fracture, cassian adored her but he wasn’t sure that it mattered anymore. 

[ofandor]

are you close to finding a cure?

"we have a few leads,” his mind flitted to the strange blue plant and the notes on the strange files in the storage room. both were promising, but it wasn’t what they needed to make the cure, not just yet anyway. “but no cure yet.” the very utterance of those words hurt. he thought of jyn, of brynn, and even of gael trapped in the quarantined area. there had to be something in the kriffing laboratory that would heal them. cassian couldn’t bear the thought of failure. 

[ofandor]

macabrynn

for a moment, brynn wondered if she had struck a nerve. she’d only barely met jyn, and that short meeting hadn’t given her all the information. but it was in her nature to take something and run with it, and that was no different with cassian. she always tried to push him, both for her own amusement and because she cared. she knew that one of these days, she might push him too far. but if it meant chipping away at some of his walls in the process? it was worth it. thus, it was a relief when he didn’t close up when she mentioned jyn. “someone here has to. who knows what you’d do without me?” she smirked. “i prefer self-assured,” she countered. she’d mellowed out slightly after the injury and the initial gloom that followed, but her obsession with how she appeared, both physically and as a person, stayed. “i know. and i believe in you.” he’d always had her back before. this time should be no different.

“live in peace,” he retorted with a frown. his girl. cassian wanted desperately for that to be the case, but he knew that it was not true anymore. jyn had demanded that he leave, and though it had damn near killed him to do so, he’d kept his promise. “she’s not...” he hesitated, and then shut up. it wasn’t worth explaining, not to someone like brynn, it wasn’t likely that she would understand. cassian wasn’t sure that he wanted her to understand. “vain. self-assured.” he shrugged a shoulder, his eyes flitting over her shoulder and into the quarantined area once more. “it’s all the same. you were fond of yourself.” he finished, and by the look of it, she still was. it was what came next, when she mentioned that she believed in him, that cassian paused. it was nice to hear, a reminder that he’d needed, and he met her eye once more. “we haven’t made much progress,” he confessed, “but i’m not giving up until we find something.” a pause. “hang in there, alright?”

[ofandor]

rebelfugitive

at least the two of them had something in common. jyn couldn’t sleep either, no matter how much she tried or how tired she felt. she hadn’t realized how much she depended on cassian for sleep until he’d been taken away from her––not to mention that she wouldn’t be able to let her guard down in a room full of enemies. still, she needed cassian to take care of himself because she wouldn’t let the disease take both of them. “i don’t want…to leave you,” she wheezed, leaning her forehead up against the glass and closing her eyes. the cool glass felt good against her fevered skin. “but you have to…prepare for what would happen…if you can’t find a cure.” if they couldn’t find a cure in time, then there would be no hope for any of them. in a day or two, she’d be coughing up blood and then it was pretty much all over by then. there was little to no hope for her survival, but he wasn’t sick yet––however, if he didn’t sleep or eat, and spent all of his time looking for the cure and worrying about her, then that only increased his chances of getting sick. “i’ll be fine, cass,” she said hoarsely, reaching a hand up to grip her kyber crystal. if she could convince him that she would be okay, even though all evidence was pointing to the contrary, then maybe he’d go back to their room and start taking care of himself. “what happens…if you get sick too?” she clenched her jaw, letting her head slide down the glass before picking it up with a groan. if she cut him off, push him away and get him to leave, then maybe he would forget about her for a little while and start taking care of himself. he would come back, though. he wouldn’t leave her forever, wouldn’t abandon her. she could apologize and explain her motivations the next time he came to visit. 

she barely registered his next words, her stomach churning both from the anxiety of her decision and the nausea that came with the illness. “what’s the point,” she snapped, her voice sounding weaker than what she would have liked, but her anger still shone through her words. “i don’t have…t’do anythin’.” the medics couldn’t do anything except make her even more miserable, and if she was being forced to spend her last hours in quarantine, then she was going to damn well do it how she pleased. knowing that her next words were going to take all of her strength, she straightened, trying to make herself look more imposing––as if that was going to help what was going to come. “i want you to––to leave,” she ground out, closing her eyes because she couldn’t look him in the face. she wanted him to leave and get some rest, but she knew she couldn’t say that because he would only deny he needed it. if she made it about herself instead of him, then maybe he would listen to her. his ‘i love you’ brought tears to her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall, couldn’t show weakness if she wanted him to listen to her. kriff, she loved him too, so much––which is why he needed to leave. “go, cassian. leave. i––” she coughed, her breath hacking in her lungs and she doubled over with the force of trying to keep in her chest. something metallic and coppery filled her mouth and coated the back of her throat. stars, she knew what that taste was, but if he knew the truth, then he would never leave. “you said, you would––” she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to hide the evidence of her worsening condition, “that you would…leave, if i told you to, and i…” kriff, this hurt so fucking bad, “i want you to go. leave.”

cassian’s expression shifted at once. he had scarcely managed to maintain his emotional control over the last few moments, but he could do so no more. at last, his expression gave way and morphed into something akin to confusion and panic. i don’t want to leave you. this was precisely the reality that cassian had tried to avoid. ever since the medical staff had taken jyn away from him, he’d tried to remain positive. they would find a cure, they had to find a cure. he wouldn’t allow himself to imagine a future in which she was not by his side, but here, at last, was the time to face reality. there was more than a dozen people working on a cure for the blue shadow virus, and they’d worked tirelessly, but they were no closer to finding an answer than they’d been at the start. with each passing hour, jyn grew closer to death. "please...” he started. it was all that cassian could do not to beg jyn to stay with him, so instead he forced his gaze downward to the floor and tightened his jaw. please don’t leave me. though he’d only managed to utter the first word, he had a feeling that she would understand what he meant. “... i’m sorry.” he muttered, shaking his head. cassian wanted desperately to stay strong for jyn, to keep himself from breaking down before her for fear that she would lose hope, but it became harder with each passing day. exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him, his control was frayed, and he felt ready to crumble. cassian clenched his jaw tightly, digging his blunt nails into his palms, and forced himself to be strong for her. “we are going to find a cure,” he replied plainly. “you’re not going anywhere.” at least, she wasn’t going to leave him as a result of sickness, not if he had any say in the matter. 

“sick?” he shook his head. the blue shadow virus had been trapped in the quarantined area. so far, there had been no further infections on the outside, so it seemed rather unlikely that he would catch what she had. “worst i’ll get is a cold. it’s nothing to worry about.” he’d survived worse, they both had. 

i want you to leave. for a long moment, cassian could only stare. his dark eyes went wide with surprise, dismay, hurt, and his lips parted as though he thought to respond. no words came, however. the resolve he had gathered just moments before, fell away just as quickly as he had conjured it. she couldn’t possibly mean that. he shook his head slightly, a silent refusal to go, all the while his expression remained dumbfounded. leave? he couldn’t leave. she was terribly ill, losing weight rapidly, and it seemed that she would start to cough up blood at any moment. “i-i can’t.” he replied quietly. “i don’t want to.” there was a note of anger in his voice, as if she had just said something blasphemous. in reality, he felt hurt, but he held onto hope that he had misunderstood. when she repeated it, however, when she reminded him of his promise, cassian was left with no choice. he had promised jyn that he would only leave her if she asked him to, that the only reason that he would ever abandon her as saw or her parents had, would be because she told him that she didn’t want him anymore. it was all cassian could do to keep his mouth shut. he wanted desperately to argue with her, to tell her that she was only telling him to leave because she thought that he would take better care of himself if he wasn’t constantly visiting her, but he didn’t. instead, cassian bit his tongue until it hurt, until he tasted blood in his mouth, and only then did he meet her eye. for just a moment he studied her, silently challenging her resolve, but she didn’t budge. a short, sharp hiss escaped him and cassian turned on his heels and started for the door. he was angry, hurt by her decision, and tremendously heartbroken. in these last hours, she didn’t want him by her side. she had demanded that he leave, and he was bound by the promise that he’d made. 

[ofandor]

do you really have anyone left besides k-2 and orion, now that jyn and you are separated and the rest of rogue one is basically MIA?

cassian’s expression wavered briefly, before he forced the emotion off of his face once more. he had lost jyn and kaytoo was still nowhere to be found on naboo. the two most important people (and droid) in his life were gone. "i have orion and brynn...” he shrugged a shoulder. “relationships just make matters more complicated. i’m better off without.”

[ofandor]

did you even think about what you leaving would do to jyn? homegirl has abandonment issues bro

“i didn’t want to leave.” he hissed. cassian’s body became tense, his chin lifted defiantly, and the corners of his jaw flared outward as if he was in a heated argument. there was nothing that he could do, no way that he could position his body, that could possibly protect him from the pain he felt now. he missed her. "i promised jyn that i would... would leave if she asked.” he shrugged a shoulder, forcing his mask into place in the hopes of hiding his despair. “she asked.” no matter how he hadn’t wanted to listen, nor how he wanted to fight her, he held true to his promise. 

[ofandor]

fmk: jyn, brynn, leia

fuck: jyn leia 

marry: jyn

kill: brynn