#rcss 2025

[sashamini]

RebelCaptain Solstice Swap gift for @clefairymoon

[zingsthings]

(like a crazed flower) it buds in the dark

Jyn Erso/Cassian Andor - T - Chapter 1/2 Pre-Canon, Alternate First Meeting, however, Not NOT Canon-Compliant, Heist fic, Disguise, Hacking, Reluctantly In Cahoots, Unresolved Sexual Tension, in which our lonely angry intrepid ex-child soldiers circle each other like wary lothcats, and are in no way horny about it. no sir

And with a sharp, nearly imperceptible inhale, the man froze. That bastard. He wasn’t bloody supposed to be here either! Jyn nearly said so aloud, and if she had, it would have come out admiring despite herself. But there were more important things to do. Like, for example, ducking under his barely-loosened blade arm, giving a vicious kick to his left insole, and darting back into the shadows, leaving the lanky fucker to the lothwolves.

or, a thief and a grifter walk into a vault.

HELLO wonderful @incognitajones, it's me, your RCSS!

Life has Lifed, as it is wont to do, so this is only Chapter One—keep a look out for Cassian's chapter and the conclusion of the shenanigans hopefully in the next week. It's been a real treat to work on this fic, especially as it's a gift for someone who's given so much to this fandom (and whose encouragement has meant so much to me!). Also a treat to hear about your baking adventures! I love fic exchanges!! Happy Winter!

Also, every single thanks to @brynnmclean, beta reader extraordinaire, for all their support and appropriately-timed cackling. Thank you also to the @therebelcaptainnetwork RCSS mods for making my first gift exchange a genuine delight. And thank you to this fandom who has welcomed me so warmly! Happy Gregorian New Year!

[diana-jannah]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

@scruffyhappaboreherder happy solstice and new year!!!

I give you... the opera AU.

I know this is a gift for you but let me just say YOU are the one who has given ME the gift in the form of free rein to write the goofiest, most domain-specific-knowledge fic of my life. I hope you have a wonderful start to 2026 and please enjoy!

thank you to @therebelcaptainnetwork for organizing, this was my first year of writing fic and my first fandom event ever and it was a blast!

[fulcrumstardust]

and war I know

There was a reason Rebel Command had refused to send in operatives.

Hello dear @diana-jannah, it is I, your rc solstice swapper! 🎁‧₊˚🎄✩ ₊˚🦌⊹♡ You requested post canon/grievous injury/competence kink and I hope I did good on that! I had a blast writing this piece for you, I love a good h/c and angsty rescue. I wish you happy holidays and a happy new year!

@therebelcaptainnetwork ♡

[romanitas]

but you could wake my heart

hello @luciechat ! i'm your gifter this year! happy rcss! i'm so sorry for the last minute arrival of your gift. i have had a very trying month irl, but writing it has been a helpful and welcome distraction for me, even if it was very slow going. <3 the hurt/comfort goes both ways.

summary: Cassian, Jyn, and a bomb. A mission to blow up a quarry ends with injury and a conversation about importance.

rating/word count: t / 5054

She sits in front of him and crosses her arms. "I think we should blow up the munitions factory too." He blinks, bringing his thoughts back to the moment, and spends a few seconds putting it all together. "I don't disagree," he says, leaning back and crossing his own arms with an absent instinct of a mirror. He’s curious where she’s going with this, if she’s thinking like he is. "They're just going to raid the factory and take out the town the second the quarry goes up in flames. I'm assuming you told them this already too." "I did," he says. "They are worried about the civilians." "So am I," Jyn snaps. "So whether these people agree or not, I think you and I should make our own plan." Cassian finds himself smiling, faintly. "I might already have some ideas." Now it's Jyn's turn to grin. "I knew it."

( read the entire work on ao3 )

[woahpip]

taken hold

happy rcss 2025 @romanitas!

Draven sat at his desk like a headmaster, talking down to his naughty students. Cassian grated at the idea that he didn’t do things the way he was supposed to do them. One might think Scarif had knocked all training out of him, but he wasn’t fully wild yet.

Jyn, on the other hand.

Draven turned to her first, head tilted in that way that meant he wanted to be condescending, to scold.

“Did you get yourself into this much trouble when you worked for Gerrera?”

Her eye twitched and Cassian saw her right hand ball into a fist at the mention of her father figure. So many men in her life, so many fathers. Draven worked the father angle with some of the Intelligence Corp., orphans like Cassian, but he wasn’t dumb enough to think Jyn would fall for that.

Truth was the only thing that could corral Jyn Erso. 

(read the rest here on ao3!)

[dilf-din]

Even When the Sky Is Falling Down

For Rebelcaptain Solstice Swap 2025 @therebelcaptainnetwork

Merry giftmas @jemmasimmons !! I hope you enjoy post-war Cassian and Jyn and their little home together!

Read on AO3

Some days it was easy, breathless laughter and hushed whispers framed in the golden light of their escape. The edges of those memories were gilded in bravery and luck, not the oxidized blood of her friends. If she allowed herself to pretend, there had been softness and relief in the victory, a life worth living.

When she thought about it logically, recited back the numbers that K2 had calculated, they knew there would be casualties. Jyn knew that people she loved would become wreckage, indistinguishable from the smoldering machinery that littered the beaches on Scarif and the forests of Endor. That she could make sense of. She was no stranger to war.

But some days, the smallest thing could set her off, send her hurtling through the dark like she had missed a step and leave her gasping for air, laid out flat on the ground below. Fire in her rib cage smoking out her lungs. A blue sky bleeding black from the crumbling citadel tower. Hope fading.

The green shoot of a weed poking through the wet dirt of their garden was somehow the Death Star beam finding her no matter how hidden she thought they were. The red of the peppers swelling was overzealous rebel blood, spilled before it knew what for. A kaleidoscope of suffering twisted her vision sometimes, the sky spun above her and she felt like she was hurtling towards the end. Funny how innocence could always be asphyxiated by the fist of Vader even years after his demise.

Today, it was a child at the market, no older than three, babbling to his mother about the sweet bun he had tightly grasped between his chubby fingers. His mother brushed a frizzed lock of hair back from his forehead, and suddenly Jyn was in the square on Jedha. A child was crying for her mother, and sometimes Jyn couldn’t place if it was her or the little girl she pulled from the fray.

Cassian must’ve noticed the far off look in her eyes, because the warmth of his hand cradled the underside of her arm, and she drew in a quiet breath. His eyebrows knit together in a flash asking a wordless question, to which she nodded and attempted to smile, though it came out a grimace.

“I’m fine,” she said through barely parted lips, and he nodded. The corners of his eyes softening while he assessed her for a millisecond more. He turned to finish chatting with the vendor, laughing deeply in his throat and returning a quip in huttese. All that took place in the span of a moment, but to Jyn it felt like hours crawling by, bleeding out in front of the entire bustling bazaar with everyone stopping to point and gawk at her misery.

Jyn’s gaze followed the child once more, and her chest tightened as she glimpsed into the future. Would the suffering ever end? Were the tendrils of the beast gaining power in the darkness still? Could they ever do anything but buy time?

She forced herself to focus on Cassian. The russet of his eyes the tan of his skin the ebony of his hair all becoming the solid ground beneath her. The thing she could tether herself to to make the sky stop spinning. He was sand and earth and wholeness when she felt herself tilting off her axis.

They strolled through the crowd with no sense of urgency. Cassian’s hand sat anchored loosely on her hip, his arm resting around the small of her back while their other limbs balanced overflowing sacks of food, laundry soap, and a socket wrench for Cassian. Here, they had become locals. While they walked against the crowd, they exchanged quick smiles with a few familiar faces as families began to retreat into their homes for the evening meal. In the shadow of the city wall, it was just the two of them climbing into their speeder and heading to the outskirts of town. There was no sound between them but the whining hum of the engine as the stars took their place in the fading light of dusk. In the sandy hills to either side of them, pairs of yellow eyes caught the passing light and called out to each other, chittering and croaking the opening notes of their twilight song.

Wordlessly, they gathered their groceries and shuffled inside, wiping the dust from their boots on the faded mat in front of the door. Lights flicked on in the corridor leading them to the small kitchen where B2 powered on and stuttered out a greeting.

“N-n-n-nice to see you, Jyn and Cassian,” he chirped cheerfully.

“Hi, Bee,” Jyn smiled as she used her hip to hoist her bags onto the counter. She swallowed down another pang of guilt each time they came home to him and he tried his best to be helpful. Jyn couldn’t help but wish K2-SO had made it off that blasted planet with them, that the four of them had found sanctuary in the outer rim together.

“Hey, where are you right now?” Cassian asked, pulling her into his warmth. She snaked her hands under the back of his shirt to feel the press of his skin, paying no mind to the layer of sweat they always seemed to carry here. At least it wasn’t blood.

Jyn shrugged her shoulders against him while he rubbed gently down her spine. “Not here. Scarif. Endor. Yavin,” she mumbled into his chest.

The expanse of his lungs as he breathed deeply helped to quiet some of the noise in her mind. He nodded his head down slightly to press a kiss to the crown of hers. They had minced all words at this point. Scrubbed each other of guilt and blame, rinsed clean in absolution and tenderness time and time again.

“You can’t stay there forever. We’ve gotta keep moving,” he said softly.

Jyn knew he was right. She had a tendency to re-open the same wounds for a decade or more if left to her own devices. Replaying the things she could’ve done differently, bailing out the ocean of grief that poured into her lifeboat with no more than a teacup. Cassian had pulled her to shore, helped build a shelter from the fragments of her past. He turned the wreckage into something whole again.

“Let’s get dinner going,” she pulled herself back to look him in the eyes with a real smile this time, soft and thankful.

He pressed a slow kiss to her lips, pinching her hip as she drew away so her mouth turned into a smile against his own.

Jyn looked lighter as she flicked on the sink and began to scrub her hands before washing the vegetables for their meal. Cassian flushed across his cheeks as he watched her— hair falling across her eyes, the tip of her tongue sticking out from between her lips as she concentrated. The warmth that came over him wasn’t from the climate this time, but the affection that stirred in his belly whenever they were close, which was always.

“Bee, turn on the radio,” Cassian called to the droid, turning his attention back to sorting the bags of supplies, stowing them in the appropriate cabinets while music crackled from Bee’s speakers.

Candlelight flickered across the walls of their bungalow while Cassian pulled the shutters tight. All the daylight was spent, and the new moon tonight did no help to illuminate the hills they were tucked behind.

“Roz said there would be a sandstorm tonight,” he remarked.

“Guess you’re stuck with me,” Jyn flashed her eyes at him from where she stood at the stove, a quirk of a smile on her plush lips.

Cassian crossed the living area to her like his body was magnetized to hers. There was an inexplicable draw between them that never faded, even after years of it being just the two of them. His arms wrapped around her waist, and he nuzzled her neck with his nose sending a wave of goosebumps down her arms.

“I can think of much worse company to wait out a storm with.”

“I thought you were cooking tonight,” she remarked, lifting a hand to cradle his jaw and fluff the hair behind his ears.

“Hmm, I like watching you do it,” he hummed into the crook of her shoulder, pressing a kiss there.

“You say that about everything,” she laughed, ducking her head as he chased it with scruffy kisses. Her hands were busy browning meat and sprinkling it with spices while it sizzled in the cast iron pan.

“It’s always true,” he smiled all the way to his eyes. They crinkled at the corners now and gleamed with a mischief that Jyn loved.

She rotated in his arms to face him and pressed the wooden spatula to his chest, “But it tastes better when you do it.”

Cassian stole another lingering kiss, the kind that made Jyn’s head spin. She caught herself sighing into his mouth before she broke out of his arms and stepped to the side of the stove.

Cassian cast her a sidelong glance, a mischievous smile still coloring his face.

She smoothed out her hair and the front of her shirt with a stuttering cough, “We can’t burn dinner again.”

Cassian threw his head back in a laugh, and Jyn felt drunk on the sound, on the little life they had built, and on the thought of having him all to herself after dinner.

[luciechat]

Hiiiiiii @mosylufanfic 🎄

Happy Rebelcaptain Solstice Swap! I am your failure of a gifter who nonetheless hopes you enjoy this offering! Based on the prompt: second chance romance. I hope you enjoy!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

And because we are almost there, HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎊