riverviewlogs | everything's on fire

Entry tags:

everything's on fire

who: Everyone!
what: The residential building is on fire
when: ~2am, August 23rd
where: The Residential building
warnings: Fire, destruction of property, injury, general warnings for crisis situations

It's a reasonably quiet night, pleasantly dry with a slight breeze. Almost nice, for those that enjoy the hours after midnight long before dawn starts to creep on the horizon. Right until it isn't, when the air changes, and there's the scent of heat that promises smoke. In most places it starts with a flash of blue light that arcs from floor to floor as energy pulses through the building, and there's a crack of sound that follows. The power dies for a moment, and if you're one of the unlucky ones, the light that follows is a literal spark in the dark, burning to life in bright orange-red, yielding heat and smoke and trouble. The energy surge doesn't just hit the lights, but sparked flames that burst to life, and they catch quickly, spreading.

The worst of it starts on the ninth floor, where the smoke and the beginning of heat starts moments before the surge. The fire spreads faster there, people starting to startle awake and realize what's happening as the flames crackle. Eventually there's an announcement on the Network, both alerting people to what's happening and trying to organize both those that are willing to help and those that need it.

Some areas are untouched, while others are ravaged badly, reduced to ashes and crumbling ceilings, so watch your step. There's chaos, but through it there's people doing what they can to help each other, and the official fire services show up to help control the blaze. After that, it's just a matter of repairing the damage that's been done, rebuilding and putting things back together, seeing what's been lost and what was saved.

Even later, people start putting the pieces together, and there's the official investigation into what might have caused a fire like that in the first place.

[ooc: As promised, the residential building is on fire! OOC plotting post is here if anyone wants to work out some last minute plans before diving in. Plotting post also includes the relevant details. Elsewise, just top level and mingle. Try not to get burned too badly. :) Good luck!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jyn takes the stairs every day, she's used to running up and down them, but she lets Cassian lead to let him set the pass in case whatever healed him doesn't hold she won't be hurrying him along to his detriment.

"Because you haven't got a fancy rug," Jyn reasons, for his lack of Stuff. They banter about their respective rugs for the rest of the stairs, making quick work since no one needs help since they'd both been stopping on their way to find each other. Jyn passes him only to shove the door open and burst into the cool night air, pulling Cassian away from the building only so she can turn and look up at it. She keeps hold of his hand.

From the outside it doesn't look that bad, she supposes, aside from the smoke billowing out of open or broken windows. "Maybe it's not as big as we thought."

Much like she let him lead down, he lets her pull him out of the building, following her until she deems them far enough away to stop. Her fingers are still tangled with his, a fact he is very aware of but pretending it's no big deal. Because it isn't.

Cassian stares up at the smoke, squinting and frowning. "It looks more controlled than it seemed inside. Smoke damage can be just as bad, for the people moreso, but the evacuation happened quickly. Small can still be dangerous - but I don't think it will spread through the whole building."

What if someone bumps one of them and they get dislodged? No, they should keep holding hands. Safety in numbers, the buddy system. Jyn's not distressed or panicking, but now that they're out of the building she can feel the tension and anxiety that had settled in her chest. Keeping hold of Cassian assuages one such anxiety.

"You can stay with me tonight. We can air out your room tomorrow and see what's to be done about it." And if the fire has spread down that far, well, they're fucked and will both have to find some place else to sleep but that is a problem for later.

The buddy system is an absolutely great idea. It's very important to know where your buddy is at all times and holding her hand makes that easier. It calms him too, the press of her hand and the fresh air settling leftover nerves. Cassian prides himself on keeping a cool head, but now that he's out of the building he can recognize how anxious it made him, especially in light of Scarif.

His eyes shift from the fire to her face, both surprised and not. He wants to ask if she's sure, but she wouldn't have offered otherwise. Besides, they slept in the same ship, the room is definitely not much different. "Okay." There, simple agreement. "I imagine any damage will be repaired quickly enough, given how accommodating they are here."

As much as Jyn protects her privacy and solitude, they literally died on the beach in each other's arms, it's not like sleeping can be more personal than that. It's just practical. She would offer Bodhi or Melshi or Sefla or Baze or Chirrut the same.

Maybe not Melshi. Or maybe just to see his face.

The pressure in her chest shifts to grief and she once again shoves it down and away, packing it carefully into the little boxes stacked neatly in the back of her mind, waiting for one wrong move to set the whole mess of them tumbling down. It's not happening now, she refuses to grieve now.

"Making new pillows as we speak."

He doesn't smile, but it's a close thing. Has he ever had a joke like that with another person before? And it's pillows. A luxury turned standard turned laughable running theme, it's bizarre but not unwelcome.

"Flame resistant this time." He squeezes her hand on some instinct, a reaction to the weird wave of tension he can feel in her beside him. He breathes in deeply, like he's clearing his lungs, and the scratchiness of his throat catches up to him. "Maybe we can find some water."

Jyn nods, grateful that he's giving her something to focus one and something to do so she doesn't suffocate by the unsteady and familiar feeling of stumbling out of somewhere with Cassian at her side.

Water.

"Right," she agrees, nodding again. "Yeah, come on." They might have to go into town to get water but. Being away from the building is probably good for them anyway.

With her agreement, Cassian tugs her away from the building, feeling another kind of relief not to be looking at it. It's not even that dangerous in theory, but he would rather not deal with the rush of escape again.

They meander close enough to help stragglers if needed, finding a shop giving out free water bottles to the people fleeing the fire. He only lets go of her hand a few times as the occasion demands, but he always tentatively seeks her fingers out again. Maybe if they just don't bring it up, he doesn't have to let her go!

Eventually the fire is settled and building declared safe to start letting people back inside. They try his room first, but the walls are a little singed and the air too smoky, so they head down towards Jyn's. Part of him wants to ask again if it's okay, but she'd immediately declared his room unfit with a wrinkle of her nose and dragged him out of it, so Cassian is pretty much 100% sure she's fine.

And he's still holding her hand. "Key?"

"Didn't take it." So Jyn just shoves the door open; she hadn't bothered to lock the door behind her because there were other things happening at the time, like the fire and also the strange intangible fear for Cassian.

Once inside she does close and lock the door behind them, however, she has no desire for anyone to just walk into her room, even if she has no material possessions to speak of.

The door clicking closed seems to rid her of some unnamed tension and she lets go of Cassian's hand to drag both her hands down her face, slumping in her desk chair. She's still so tired. When will she not be tired. "I had sort of expected whatever sort of afterlife this is to be less eventful."

Cassian scrunches his face the tiniest bit, because he can't imagine never locking the door to his space, even if he was in a rush. Even if there's nothing of value inside. Spy habits, probably.

She shuts the door, and it feels like they're being sealed off in a way. There's also no more reason to hold her hand, so he doesn't chase after it like he almost wants to when she finally lets him go. He stands awkwardly in the middle of the room when she sits down, not quite sure the least invasive spot for him to take.

He could probably do without the reminder of death though. He nearly says it could be worse, but catches himself because they pretty much already had the worst. Instead, dryly: "Maybe that just means we'll never be bored."

Which is kind of okay, because Cassian doesn't know how to be bored.

He looks silly just standing there but he is both unharmed and standing, which is a novelty that still hasn't worn off, so Jyn doesn't mind. She still gestures to her bed with her foot though, indicating the only other place to sit unless he decides to fold down on the floor.

"I didn't realize Alliance spies got bored." Her eyebrows lift with a half shrug. They aren't exactly alike, but she doubts he'll deal with boredom any better than she will. He'll just be better at hiding it.

Imagine, free time being oppressive.

He takes a few steps towards the bed after the gesture, pausing at the edge. "We don't." He shoots her a very self deprecating smile as he sits down. "It's very new to me."

Even when he had long bouts of downtime, Cassian always found it hard to do nothing. Reading old reports was a good way to mitigate the feeling, but that's not exactly an option here. And there's been a lot of downtime. It's an odd thing to admit it aloud, but he's already realized he behaves oddly around Jyn more often than not.

"What did you do with your down time then?" Because he had to have had it, he couldn't keep going for a full standard day, every day. Even the prisoners on Wobani got breaks -- admittedly, their breaks were solely to sleep, but that's irrelevant.

"You had to have it, there have to be rules." The Alliance was still fighting a gentleman's war on the surface, ignoring what Intelligence did in the shadows. Mon Mothma had too much idealism to work her soldiers until they crumpled, exhausted.

Jyn knows the exhaustion was emotional more than anything, she doesn't forget Cassian's speech cementing himself and his men to Rogue One's cause.

He wrinkles his nose thoughtfully. "Slept," he says with a sigh, because catching extra sleep when he could was always something of a priority.

"I had time off." It's not quite defensive of the Rebellion, but it's close. He knows he was overworked and overtired and maybe also kind of fucked over by said work, but it's not like he hadn't thrown himself headfirst more than he should have too. It was probably not enough time off, but it did exist!

"I read. Sometimes just old reports, but sometimes books and stories on the datapads. I don't like to sit still."

"Reading is sitting still," Jyn points out, shifting the chair so she can drape her arms across the back of it and rest her head on her arms. Reading was also her guilty pleasure and it almost draws a smile, her face relaxes very slightly. Maybe once they have books or datapads they can share.

"When I was with Saw I gave myself an education, he had a datapad and I taught myself what my mother would have taught me." Basically, history is for chumps and english classes are garbage, but she's got math and science and tactics down to, well, down to a science. Government, too, she supposes. "I used to watch the last of the Senate hearings."

"It's different." Ignoring the fact that he has to get up and pace sometimes if he's reading for too long for leisure.

He's pleasantly surprised when she starts talking about Saw. Cassian is finding he likes to hear anything she has to say about herself, all the little pieces she keeps sharing with him.

"I have seen them as well, but not until I was with the Alliance. I did have to teach myself a lot of things before then too. The hearings used to make me so mad. When I was younger, I couldn't understand why no one tried to do more to stop it."

It's the same thing exactly and Jyn lifts her eyebrows at him like okay buddy. Sounds fake.

"So few people were fighting, no one knew there was anything to fight against." It's a sad thought, but Jyn knows it's true. The Republic was too naive and it was such a slow build, they had no way to fight it until it was too late. Mon Mothma and Organa were single voices in a maddening crowd.

She's thought, when she was small, the Bail Organa would have been the Senate support Idryssa mentioned to try to sway Saw to the cause, she thought he'd have the strength to declare war even when she was small and she was right. The Alliance hadn't the strength to do it as one, but it hasn't been so long that she'd forgotten Organa standing up for her desperate pleas to do something about the Death Star. Part of her is still bitter and she doesn't think that feeling will go away any time soon.

If they'd had the support of the Rebellion... maybe they would have survived. Maybe Bodhi or Melshi or Chirrut would have survived, maybe they would have had a chance.

"The Alliance still didn't try to stop it."

It's definitely different, shut up!

"That's why Draven rarely waited for approval before making his decisions. You don't have to tell me how slow the Alliance can be, Jyn, I lived it for most of my life. But it doesn't mean they aren't working to stop it."

Is he still defensive of the Rebellion?? 'Lil bit. Shoot first, sanction later. There are things he's done that he's not sure Mon Mothma or Bail Organa will ever know.

"Standing up to the Empire is the right thing to do, but people are tired and weary and beaten down, even those among the high command. I was a recruiter. Working under the Empire's nose and finding those willing to do the same is exhausting work."

He shakes his head. "I can't stop believing in the Rebellion, Jyn, or I have wasted my life. I don't agree with their choice of inaction against the Death Star either, but the fight has been a long one."

"I'm not asking you to," Jyn assures, voice surprisingly soft. She knows all of this. She was tired and weary and beaten down even before she went to prison. She was tired of the Partisans and the Alliance and the Rebellion itself, giving them all the blame she should have let land squarely on the Empire.

But not wanting Cassian to stop believing in the Rebellion doesn't mean she has to suddenly believe in the counsel that dismissed everything she and Bodhi and Cassian laid at their feet because they were scared.

There's a lot about the Alliance that she still doesn't agree with -- calling Saw an extremist for his actions when they had assassins on their payroll, for one thing -- but she isn't going to have a chance to really work through it because she's dead and can't argue with General Draven and Mon Mothma for the rest of her life.

"But just like you can't stop believing in the Rebellion, I can't suddenly start believing in the Alliance." Which is the difference, really, Jyn still believes in the Rebellion. She simply has monumentally less faith in the institution of the Alliance.

Oh. The tone of her voice is a surprise. He didn't think she was asking him to, but it's far softer than he expected.

He sighs heavily, but it's not at her. "The Alliance is... flawed." He knows it was, he saw it before and after Scarif, but it's a lot easier to admit out loud in the after. It wasn't necessarily the Alliance that held all of Cassian's hope, so much as the Rebellion itself. He just knows there is no wider Rebellion without a massive Alliance to keep it together. "I worked for years to help build it. But the bureaucracy -"

Small mercies about Draven and working in Intelligence, he supposes. Less red tape, more red hands.

"They came to Scarif in the end," he says quietly. "Maybe things will be different now."

Maybe Rogue One will galvanize them, the way news of the Death Star couldn't.

"Maybe."

Jyn struggles with being grateful they'd come when she's seen the wreckage of so many Alliance ships on the beach, too many fires to be just the base in shambles. They'd forced the hand of the Alliance and it was to a suicide mission and Jyn doesn't know how to be grateful for that without being consumed by guilt.

"I doubt we'll ever know what changed, it's not like we can go home." Now they're here with no where else to go, just the two of them.

It could be worse, she supposes. She could be alone.

"I still have to believe."

He can't blame her for the struggle. He's still grappling with it too, the fact that it took a suicide mission to get them to work together, to do something active. But if nothing came of it, he died for nothing.

They can't go home though. He knows that, he's known that since day one. He's already told her he was glad she's here, and that's still true.

"Even if this place is where we are now, nothing says we can't keep for ourselves a little hope."

"Hope?" It's a mirror to Jedha, the same lift of her eyebrows, the same tone of mild disbelief. This time, however, they both know full well that Jyn has hope, that she knows what hope can accomplish.

It just seems pointless now.

"Are you saying it's not just rebellions that are built on hope?"

He thinks of Jedha and finds himself biting back a smile. It's a very strange place in to know the value of hope but ending up dead anyway. Watching Jyn regain her own hope reminded Cassian about things he'd forgotten too.

"Rebellions are nothing without the people in them." People bring the hope. Like Jyn did. "Besides, they can spare us some hope for personal use."

"If you say so," she murmurs, shaking her head. She will take his word for it because he hadn't steered her wrong last time and because, well, she can't just give in so easily.

She unfolds from the chair, reaches out to kick his boots with her bare foot.

"Go shower, you smell." Does he? Maybe a little, like smoke, but not unfamiliar enough to be a problem, especially since getting outside had aired them both out. She wants to set up their sleeping arrangements while he is occupied in the very tiny shower.

everything's on fire

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