( open ) slow i'm getting up

[evasives]

who: Cassian Andor + open!
what: rebel spy poorly adjusts to civilian life
when: mid september?? whatever is convenient
where: various! multi-choice.
warnings: will edit as necessary!



i. perimeter guard

[cassian has gone beyond the wall a handful of times by now, but he has yet to stay more than one night. when he's at the headquarters, he hangs out in the hangar, poking around at the transit, or with the maps, pouring over them very meticulously. sometimes he's hunched over his own map, adding details or working on a copy to keep. survey work is easy enough, because surveillance is key to being a spy. he's got a very good memory.]

[other times he's sorting through a haul of old scraps and pieces of technology he managed to pull in, figuring out what can be fixed, what needs to be tossed, and what can be reused. it's all sorted into three distinct piles, and once in a while he tinkers with some of it, trying to make it work again.]

K2, what do you - [oh. no. wait. it's instinct to just ask his droid for technical opinions, but he cuts himself off and his entire expression darkens while he turns his screwdriver a little too aggressively.]

ii. perimeter guard redux

[he's very prepared for monsters in the sense of combat experience. most of his life, however, has been spent fighting people not beasts. cassian is meant for stealth; he's a sniper, an assassin, an informant, and his kills tend to happen quickly and quietly.]

[of course this one happens when he's alone, having separated for about an hour from jyn to cover more ground, though he hasn't gone too far from the wall. he'd shot it from afar and knocked it out, but it hadn't been alone; the companion zeroes in on cassian's location as he switches his blaster from stun to kill, any sense of invisibility lost when he fired the gun the first time. great good monster times all around.]

iii. how do you food

[grocery shopping is bizarre. cassian has lived essentially his whole life off rations or basic levels of food (sometimes even whatever he could snag on the streets). he was fed appropriately enough, but the Rebellion hadn't exactly been brimming with fine cuisine. the stores here sometime feel like too many options. he spends more time staring at the choices before picking the least flashy, unable to break the habit. he also piles his basket with enough food for two people, a habit he's picked up in the month or so he's been here.]

[he's keeping a very cool and collected facade, but there are probably little signs of uncertainty that should not belong to someone who's just browsing through a grocery store. frowning at perishable packages and the rainbow of juices, squinting at labels warily. he may also have an obscene amount of water bottles. you can never have too much!]

[he's perpetually grumpy at nearly every box he picks up to read over ingredients.] These percentages are far too precise. How is this necessary?

iv. how do you escape hypercompetency

[the perimeter guard keeps him busy, but cassian hasn't stopped reflecting on what jyn said weeks ago, how he doesn't have to be a spy here anymore. there is no one to report to, no war on his heels, but the habits don't die out even when he tries to remind himself otherwise.]

[he goes to the library and tries to find books for leisure, but ends up looking between the shelves to see who else is there, skimming the titles belonging to the person sitting next to him. he takes out too many because this is a luxury at least he can share, and some of the books he picks aren't really leisure.]

[every time he turns a corner inside a building or out on the street, he looks around in a very calculative way. he steps around people and weaves through crowds too easily, turning over his shoulder to make sure none of them noticed him. paranoia doesn't sit well with civilian life.]

[he often goes for a run in the mornings, stretching it further each day to keep testing the strength of his leg and spine. sometimes it becomes too much and he has to rest on a bench, practically chugging his water as he watches the people slip by him. he catalogues them without realizing, huffing out a sigh.]

[he really doesn't know how to turn it off.]

Maybe I need a hobby. [muttering to himself is not a good hobby.]

v. wildcard!

[make up your own or hit me up: communism @ plurk, romanitas#5368 @ discord, pm this journal.]

Comments

[evasives]

[Z E R O DIFFERENCE.]

[he opens his mouth, closes it, and continues to be surprised by the way there is someone who worries after him.]

We always leave around the same time anyway.

[the only reason he doesn't suggest they run together is because she can go for much longer than him right now. he doesn't want her to feel stuck lagging. completely ignoring the internal admission that he would not mind running with her, cool beans.]

[realists]

Okay.

[ so they are agreed, they're running together now. when he takes a break jyn will simply keep going or take a break with him, she'll decide when it happens. that's it, she doesn't want to have feelings to she takes his water bottle again and takes a couple gulps so she doesn't have to say anything else. ]

[evasives]

[oh. okay. that's... easy. they'll run together now! like, with acknowledgment of it, even though they've more or less been on the same schedule so far. it'll be nice to maybe even talk about it.]

[w e i r d.]

Okay.

[agreement! feels good man.]

Will you move your arm now?

[realists]

[ jyn moves her arm, but only because she doesn't want him to keep complaining. she glances away, squinting into the sunlight, so he won't see the way relief floods across her expression. after a while it hadn't hurt in the position she'd jammed it into, but it still feels good to drop it down by her side.

eventually she passes the water bottle back. ]

It's so green, isn't it?

[evasives]

[he's pleased when she finally moves her arm, and even if he can't see her face for it, he can see the relief in her posture. he could comment on being Right, but he's just glad for the shift and the ease it brings her. it relaxes him a bit.]

[he takes it and takes another sip.]

The color seems to be the theme more than any particular architectural style. It's a nice backdrop, for the runs.

[realists]

It reminds me of Takodana, the green trying to overrun the castle, creeping up the steps.

[ the trees and plants here seem built around the buildings, sheltering them. and now cassian knows one single thing about jyn erso. ]

[evasives]

[he looks over at her, surprised in a good way at the admission she's been to takodana. he has too, and it's strange to consider. he tries not to smile, knowing this about her.]

The castles here are missing giant statues, or maybe just the woman to build them after. [and now she knows that thing about him too.] Which do you think is greener?

[realists]

Takodana, no contest. [ there's no more green in the galaxy than takodana. ]

There's a planet, Outer Rim, I think. Called Lokori. It's not a green, I don't think, more bright colors and flowers. The buildings were built to look like flowers, farms to look like leaves, the streets their stems. [ there's a odd, dreamy quality to her tone, not quite nostalgic but like a story from her childhood that she remembered fondly. even if, ] I don't actually remember it, but I had many drawings of it when I was a little gil.

[evasives]

[he is completely drawn in by the way her voice sounds. he's never heard her speak like that before, but... he likes it, weirdly. it makes him want to smile, but he suspects if he smiles she might stop. it softens his face anyway.]

I know of it. It's near Ryloth. I've not been to that one, but the images always looked very bright.

[she liked to draw when she was a child. cassian tucks that away, a nice fact about jyn erso.]

I was born in the Outer Rim. On Fest.

[realists]

So was I. [ a beat. ] Not Fest, obviously. The Outer Rim.

[ "my father was in prison and my mother was effectively held captive when i was born" just doesn't roll off the tongue and so jyn doesn't say that. ]

But that was probably in my file, wasn't it?

[evasives]

[his mouth opens a little, but he closes it. there were basic facts on her file, but very little gave him a picture of who jyn erso actually was. he doesn't really want to turn the conversation south.]

Vallt, right? I have not been there either, but I've heard it's very cold. Though not as snowy as Fest.

[realists]

I don't remember. We left when I was still a baby. [ smuggled out by krennic, a frown slants on to her features. ] What was Fest like, beyond snowy.

[evasives]

[talking about fest is weird. he's not used to people asking, but he's not used to people knowing either.] Busy, despite the snow. The people adapted to it. It was a Separatist sympathetic planet.

[realists]

So was Vallt. [ as much as her self-imposed studying taught her at least. they hadn't started out that way. ]

Hindsight.

[ turned out to be the wrong side, but who knew that going in, they were fighting against tyranny. ]

[evasives]

There were a lot of Separatists in the Outer Rim. What good was the Republic that far away from the Core Worlds?

[a beat.] I used to throw rocks at clonetroopers. They were not popular on Fest.

[realists]

[ that's adorable

not a word she usually applies to cassian "the alliance's finest intelligence operative and actual assassin" andor, but. adorable. sweet, almost, a child's small way of being involved. she shoves her smile down. ]

Quite the menace.

[evasives]

[he ducks his head to the side and bites on his cheek, almost like he's trying to stop himself from smiling too. it's very odd, to be in an almost good mood when it comes to his youth.]

I certainly tried to be. I am not sure if it was more or less dangerous than running messages.

[realists]

Less, [ jyn supplies easily. ] If you'd been caught with rocks you'd just have been caught with rocks. Caught with messages though...

[ rut roh. ]

[evasives]

The whole point to using children was their easy feign of ignorance. [a beat.] Some of us were.

[not him. not with both his parents heavily involved. but some of the kids didn't know any better.]

But rocks are far easier to discard.

[realists]

Saw didn't like using children.

[ admittedly, he'd let her go on missions when she was twelve, so child is maybe in the eye of the beholder, but as much as he was happy to train her when she was a little girl, he'd tried to keep her out far more often. ]

I think he didn't want them to turn out like me, like him.

[evasives]

Most cells did not like using children. But we ended up there anyway.

[especially all the ones without parents. when you're angry at the empire, or even the republic before that, it's easy to fall into when there's no real adult authority left.]

Everything I did felt so important at the time.

[realists]

It was.

[ it was small work, of course, but the reason they used children was because they could slip in and out of places without notice, tiny little innocent faces that would never commit the crime of treason. ]

Did you ever think you'd grow up to be a spy?

[evasives]

[by technicality, she's probably right. all rebel work is important work, no matter how menial.]

[he lets out a tiny sigh.] No. But I don't think anyone does. I fell into it over the years, and apparently it suited me.

[realists]

It used to, [ jyn corrects quietly, before she shoves to her feet, turning to look at him with hands on her hips. ]

Come on, enough rest. Let's go.

[evasives]

[she doesn't give him time to respond (see: argue), but that was probably on purpose. he climbs to his feet, and even though there's no soreness, he sighs a little.]

How demanding.

[but he starts to jog again anyway without warning, not that it takes more than two seconds for jyn to catch up and they run off again, together this time.]