@therebelcaptainnetwork Secret Santa gift for @callioope, who requested “I’ll be home for Christmas, established relationship”. Happy holidays and good tidings in the new year!
Cream room temperature butter and sugar; stir in vanilla and water. Toast pecans, add to flour, mix until blended. Cover and chill.
Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit; coat in powdered sugar immediately after and once again when cooled.
Jyn tucks the recipe card back in, before huffing a sigh and tugging it out of the spiralbound notebook. This cookie recipe wasn’t particularly difficult—shortbread was really just flour, butter, and sugar—but with her head where it’s at, starting from the beginning is proving difficult.
She’s had the ingredients and parchment paper and sheet pans out on the counter for hours, but she can’t bring herself to start. Today is the day that Cassian is flying home and her stomach is knotted in nerves. They had spoken on the phone last night via video call which helped soothe her worries, and while they avoided talking about the flight it still lingered in those moments of silence where she could only stare at his face on the tiny display of her phone anxiously.
You’re still going to bake the cookies though, aren’t you? Even if I won’t be there to snack on the pecans.
Of course, she had laughed, and his smile warmed her heart. Don’t worry, I’ll save some for you when you get back.
this coda marks my first multichapter fic wrapped up and completed!!! so here’s some more related ramblings as a way for me to commemorate this milestone n___n
with the nonlinear narrative I thought I’d include a linked timeline for the chapters in case anyone (like me lol) wants to read the story in chronological order. then there’s some further explanation of what I’ve dubbed ~the jeron’s death conspiracy~ and notes from characterization I wasn’t able to include directly in the story, but were still important regardless...
furthermore, I want to thank @ninelanterns, @atthelamppost, and @sadieandor for following along with this story, as well as anyone else who came along for the adventure. this is definitely a darkfic as far as rebelcaptain goes but I hope that both endings were satisfying in their own ways !!
◆ = chapters that are about trauma concurrent to most of the story, and loosely placed chronologically
2. the Jeron conspiracy
I decided to do a summary for this because I changed my plan slightly after posting day 8: “don’t say goodbye”/abandoned due to some inspiration from @ninelanterns; originally I was going to have snow have cassian brainwashed into genuinely believing that irga and his father were killed by someone with a grudge against them and the capitol (aka someone closely related to a tribute who died under their mentorship) in order to use him as a mouthpiece against those plotting against the capitol; the angst would’ve been from him finding out the truth and hating that his dad’s suicide was used for the capitol’s means. but then I got the idea to have snow brainwash cassian into believing that the “accident” his father and irga died in was actually his fault, because he told jeron the truth of what snow was doing to him in the capitol:
Snow sells Cassian “under the table” until he turns 19, which is when he has Cassian adopt a new persona that can be better capitalized on. Jeron realizes that Cassian’s faking it, suspects that Cassian has been hiding his victimhood this entire time, and when he confirms it realizes there’s no other way to get Cassian out of it; Snow certainly won’t let him sub in to mentor. Suicide is his solution to both Cassian’s problem and his guilt over not being able to protect his son.
Snow has Irga killed in the same way that Jeron kills himself to let Cassian and Lila know that Snow knows it was a suicide. Suicide is the ultimate refutation of Snow’s power—as well as the complete antithesis to any victor’s innate clinging to survival—so Snow has it covered up: Cassian, as one of two people to know the truth about Jeron’s suicide and Irga’s death, is tortured and brainwashed into believing that Jeron and Irga were killed in a power plant explosion as retribution for him disobeying Snow. Doing so serves two purposes: installing the cover-up and guarantees Cassian’s submission.
Before his death Jeron wrote a suicide note, knowing that he couldn’t kill himself and leave Cassian without an explanation. He knows that Snow will have their house stripped and searched, so he hides the note in what was designated to be Cassian’s house. He couldn’t have known it would be the one thing that would break through the brainwashing; if Cassian hadn’t found it, he would have continued to believe that it was all his fault.
Draven does his own investigation into Jeron and Irga’s deaths after witnessing the whiplash that was Cassian’s first three years as an unwilling victor whore, his outrageous personality flip after turning ninteen, and how his demeanor changed after undergoing “therapy” to cope with Jeron’s death. He finds out that Jeron’s death was a suicide, Irga’s death was retribution, and that Snow has an entire program to monetize and exploit victors after their Games.
3. getting from day 1 to 31?!
when I originally thought of this AU it was more about the angst that growing up in the limelight of the capitol as the son of a victor would be like, with constant camera crews as cassian was growing up, betting pools on when he was going to be reaped, etc. and more of an emphasis on the issues that cassian (as part of the pseudo-celebrity class that victors occupy in the capitol) would have trying to promote this fake relationship with jyn during the games to save her. there was also going to be a straight downer ending, with the closing scene being cassian telling jyn that they have to fake a relationship now in front of the cameras and jyn having a “what have you done?” moment
I deliberately did not go in depth with what jeron’s life as a victor was like, partly because plotting both jyn and cassian’s hunger games was already a Lot (I found out pretty quickly that you have to start with planning the arena first, in order to plan tribute deaths and sponsor gifts...) but jeron was an underdog winner, as are most of the victors from non-career districts. lila was pregnant around the time that jeron was reaped and esperanza, their first child, was born some time before jeron’s victory tour. snow had their daughter killed because of something jeron did/didn’t do on the tour; even though jeron and lila are shaken from the loss they agree to be open to having another child, provided that jeron doesn’t do anything to put the child at risk ever again.... but cassian would’ve gotten reaped regardless because there is no way snow wouldn’t have exploited the family drama!!! but cassian’s reaping creates a rift that is referenced in day 15: accidents. and even though jeron is successful in saving cassian that isn’t the end of it; while lila isn’t privy to what cassian is going through she can feel a marked difference each year he comes back in the way that mothers do, as well as the tension between father and son (cassian’s fear of jeron finding out as he’s dragged deeper and deeper vs. jeron’s suspicion that something wrong is happening that has to do with cassian), which all culminates in the year that cassian turns nineteen with jeron’s death. when her husband arrived in district 5 before cassian did he didn’t tell lila about their son being a horndog in the capitol, but lila seeing cassian after he finally gets back five weeks later confirms her worst fears. then she’s the one that discovers jeron’s body and is present when the peacekeepers come to take cassian back to the capitol. her son is gone for a month....... then when he comes back he’s spouting lies about jeron’s death even though both of them saw the body??? yeah, that’s why she nopes on out of victors’ village. after jeron’s death her and cassian don’t see each other for four years until cassian brings jyn home from the games
jyn’s backstory came together quickly but I had considered having bodhi be one of the tributes who died under cassian’s mentorship. bodhi and jyn would’ve been close friends so jyn would have already had that vendetta against cassian; it would’ve made hitting that original ending easier but having jyn be against cassian from the very start would’ve made it less plausible that they could earn each other’s trust before the start of jyn’s games............. while I wanted this story to be dark and depressing I still wanted it to have a reciprocated rebelcaptain end game, so :’)
it wasn’t until day 28 (the cassian/finnick noncon) that I got an idea for a not-so-horrible ending, and I blame the completely depressingly hopeless whump in that chapter for making me think “hmm maybe this shouldn’t end terribly” :’D btw, if anyone noticed I forgot annie cresta is in canon the 70th hunger games victor. for someone who’s neurotic about looking up details I have no idea how this fact escaped me because I didn’t notice until at least halfway through whumptober, so we’ll just say in this AU she’s the 71st victor. this weaves in nicely with my headcanon that after snow saw how easily cassian was manipulated when someone he loved was on the line, he had annie reaped to exert more control over finnick (which happens to be my favorite kind of odesta fic tbh). anyway after writing 3k of depressing andair (andor/odair ship name? ok i’m shutting up) cassian/finnick I had a lovely mental image of cassian and jyn cuddling on the train back home to district 5, relieved and alive, and thought that would be a more uplifting note to end on. then I remembered that I was writing this for whumptober, and decided to write the terrible ending too :’)
4. some chapter commentary because why not
[ETA later!]
5. is there no escape?
yes!!! yes they do escape:
in a pyrrhic victory, post-day 31, draven succeeds in absconding with cassian and meeting up with jyn, saw, lyra, and the rest of their resistance cell (an underground, pan-panem organization fittingly called.... the alliance). draven has to cut out cassian’s implant before they rendezvous with the group, which he ropes a medical professional into doing (he may or may not kill them afterwards); it’s the only mark cassian bears on his body until he starts getting freckles from being in the sun again. similar to mockingjay in how peeta’s hijacking was treated with therapy in district 13, cassian undergoes actual, legitimate therapy after he and draven settle in with the alliance HQ. draven hovers anxiously for the first several sessions because “therapy” in the capitol has a stigma, even before he read the term “extensive in-patient therapy” in cassian’s intendance records, and it does take a good while before they make any remarkable progress. but unlike katniss and peeta cassian is alright in jyn’s presence, and in fact prefers it. they’re almost always seen together, and while jyn has a good amount of guilt for leaving him behind the first time her motivation for staying with him is out of a genuine desire to help him get better so they can be with each other the same way they were in an elpidian daydream again.
in happily ever after!an elpidian daydream, cassian and jyn are able to escape together in between arriving home in district 5 and what was supposed to be jyn’s victory tour. jyn was never aware of what snow did with desirable victors because it’s really only the top 1% of panem and the victors who know about it; she and cassian escape after he tells her that he wants to leave with her, but he doesn’t tell her the real reason why he wants to escape until much later and jyn never sees the recording of cassian and finnick (but he does tell her it exists when he’s explaining the details of how snow exerts his control over the victors). their relationship progresses steadily, but the secret doesn’t come out until jyn points out that cassian is extremely passive in bed and only mirrors her desires. there’s varying attitudes towards sex in the districts vs. the libertine views in the capitol but cassian’s shame stems from his powerlessness in what he had to do Before. he receives therapy for it but jyn is patient and firm with reminding him that he had absolutely zero choice in the matter, and that she could never hate or be disgusted with him for it. there’s a lot to work through there as a result of cassian having to lie to himself about it for the first couple of years of it happening and then willingly choosing to engage with it when he was trying to save jyn, but their relationship comes out all the more stronger for it. as for what happens to draven?.... because this is the happily ever after ending I like to think he’s able to stay in the capitol and work as an agent codenamed fulcrum 🤪🤙 and that after his extraction when things get too dangerous for him in the capitol he and cassian are able to reunite again as part of the alliance/rebellion !!
chapter 1 ₪ chapter 2 ₪ chapter 3 ₪ chapter 4 ₪ chapter 5 ₪ chapters 5.5 and 6: reach your crown forward [explicit] + exhale and fold (~2k)
Jyn Erso’s best friend is worried that as a 22-year-old college student in a mess of upper division courses, Jyn doesn’t de-stress as often or as well as she should—so Jyn agrees to try out some yoga classes at the local community yoga studio, Root + Grow. The time slot she picks out of convenience turns out to be taught by a fairly attractive man named Cassian. What can possibly happen with him?
IN THIS CHAPTER: After hooking up with Cassian the night before, Jyn wakes up feeling cold in his bed.
@fulcrumstardust : @miaouerie yes please write the summer fling
okay !!! (from this wonderful picset of diego luna which inspired these tags: #diego luna#his HAIR#ah yknow just gonna toss around ideas for beach bum AU#jyn going camping with her parents by a beach renowned for good surf#cassian is a local surfer#who used to teach surfing to tourists but doesn't bc reasons#anyway jyn's there for a week and they have a nice time together#cassian takes her to a secluded beach that's locals only#may or may not also be a nude beach. uh anyway#a nice summer fling :)c#tag ramble
“So how long are you in town for?”
Cassian asks the question as they recline on the beach, the late afternoon sun drying the saltwater in Jyn’s hair. The seagulls call to each other over the sound of waves crashing onto the shore as Jyn rolls off her stomach and onto her side. She blinks away the drowsiness that had crept up as she reposed; they had staggered back to the shoreline after spending what felt like hours laughing and jumping and diving past the waves. An afternoon spent with Cassian, a local surfer boy whose smile Jyn had followed even as they made it out into the calmer, deeper water where her toes couldn’t reach the sandy floor. He had taught her how to float on her back then—out there, there was nothing but the sun high and hot above her, the ocean's cool touch beneath her, and Cassian’s palms between her shoulder blades and on her lower back... and then, his hand tucked into hers as he tugged her closer to shore.
Jyn tucks one arm under her head, the other searching for her phone. Two missed calls from Lyra. Shit, she was expected to meet up with her parents for dinner; still, she tucks the phone back under her towel anyway. “Until Sunday. Why, are you going to teach me how to surf?”
Cassian rolls onto his side to face her briefly before pulling himself into a sitting position, adjusting his sunglasses on his face. “Five days? Plenty of time to do that, if you want.” He raises his eyebrows at her. “I used to give surfing lessons to tourists like you.”
“Why’d you stop?” Jyn can easily recall Cassian’s patient voice and encouraging smile from when they were out in the water.
“Spending time with these good-looking visitors… I kept falling in love with people who always leave in the end.” Cassian’s looking out at the waves, but when he feels Jyn’s gaze on him he tosses her a teasing smile over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I won’t fall in love with you. I think.”
