Chapter Text
Fluorescent lights feel different during the day.
It’s jarring to come inside from the not-bright-but-still-there November sunshine into a store without any windows, just aisles and aisles of fluorescent lights. It makes Cassian feel like he’s entered another dimension or tripped onto a movie set, something unreal enough about it to keep his distracted hands steady in his coat pockets.
It’s an old coat and it’s itchy, but it’s cold outside and it’s been two days since Jyn asked him to visit her on her break. So here he is, in a drugstore with artificial lights and a heavy wool coat, scanning the line of cash registers for a girl that’s been in his life for less than a week, but has somehow wormed her way into the majority of his thoughts.
Cassian finally spots her at the end of the makeup aisle. She’s kneeling on the grey carpeted floor with a blue smock on. In her hand is a price gun, and she appears to be mindlessly stacking little bottles of flesh toned makeup under the Maybelline sign.
It’s interesting how, for a moment, she's unaware of his presence. He lets himself watch how she moves, how she bites her bottom lip in concentration, the way she makes a small, frustrated sound when one of the price stickers gets caught in the gun.
“Well, you look familiar,” he says, approaching her. She shakes her head to one side, and her bangs fall free from where they were brushing over her eyes. When she looks up, she smiles like it’s the easiest thing in the world, and he feels it, he does, he knows exactly how that smile feels.
“Hey, that’s my line,” she says, and she stands up, smoothing out the front of her smock. It’s cute because it’s a little too big on her, and they’re standing close enough that she has to tilt her head back to look at him. All he sees is the reflection of the fluorescent lights in her green eyes, and the moment feels bigger than it should.
“Well I said it, didn't I?” he says. “So it’s our line now.”
She pouts, stepping back to put the price gun down. “Stop trying to be cute.” Her voice is sulky as she pushes the boxes of product aside with her foot.
“Look who’s talking,” he says, and he watches the way her face changes incrementally, trying to figure out if it’s okay to go there. “I like the uniform.”
Jyn glances down before exhaling a small laugh.
“Right,” she says. “It’s quite glamorous, isn’t it? I think I’d quit if it wasn't for this lovely little outfit.”
“They must really improve job performance.”
“Absolutely. Nothing says let me help you find overpriced cough medicine like a blue apron.”
“And what does your name tag say?” he asks.
“Jane,” she says, holding out the name tag so she can see it. “It’s another reason to love the job. Honestly, I’m just going with it.”
Cassian smiles to himself, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the drugstore. There aren’t many people in here, which is probably typical for a Thursday afternoon. The lights are still humming above them, and the automatic door squeaks when it opens. “So this is it then? The famous job that’s going to get you out of here?”
“Don’t mock it, it will.”
“I wasn’t mocking it, I think it’s great.” He looks to the rest of the store. “Are you going to show me around?”
She rolls her eyes but motions for him to follow her down the aisle towards the back of the store. “You know, I should technically be on my break right now; yet I’m choosing to stay here with you.”
“And I’m grateful for it. What do you usually do on your break?”
She shrugs. “Read. Eat. Ignore my coworkers.”
They walk along the back wall of the store, where the pharmacy counter sits with a few sad looking chairs next to it. He follows her, his eyes moving between the aisles and then back to her, watching her hair brush along her shoulders.
“That's about it for the tour,” she says. “Anything you could possibly need in eight thousand square feet.”
She gestures to the aisle next to them and lets her hand fall with a small sound against her leg. She smiles at him, but there’s something defeated about it, like she’s accepted that this is her life and that it’s not going to change despite her determination to leave. It opens a hollow feeling in Cassian’s stomach, seeing that expression on her face. It makes him feel a certain emptiness that echoes into the lonely aisles of the store.
“Anything I need?” he questions.
“Anything,” she repeats. “Although I’m guessing all you really need is a pack of cigarettes and index cards.”
Cassian laughs. “Why index cards?”
“College students always need index cards, right?” she says, and he follows her down one of the aisles, turning right at the end and down another. It’s funny how she’s so small but her presence is so large. She walks with slight determination in every step, guiding him confidently to the school supplies. “It’s like studying is hard or something.”
She grabs a five hundred pack of neon pink, yellow, and orange index cards and holds it out for him to take.
“These won’t burn my eyes when I’m studying, will they?” he asks.
She laughs before she makes a thoughtful face, as though she’s seriously considering the question. “Only one way to find out.”
Cassian grabs the pack of cards with a defeated sigh. He gestures behind him. “Anything else?”
“You forgot the cigarettes.”
“You don’t like cigarettes.”
That’s when her face turns grim, like she’s thought of the worst thing in the world and though she tries, she can’t fully hide the way it makes her expression go sour. Like she’s pissed off or checking out all together. It’s something in between, something Cassian can’t quite place.
“No,” she says, “no not at all, but I won't stop you.”
Cassian doesn’t know what to say to that. He feels colder. Their usual spark and energy burns low and dull and he looks down at the index cards in his hand. “Nah, forget it. Could you ring these up for me? I want to see you in action.”
She raises a brow but takes the cards back from his hand and gestures towards the cash registers at the front of the store, lonely and empty under the fluorescent lights.
“Get ready,” she says, “this should be thrilling.”
He walks behind her, but she turns her head and smiles at him, and any tension there dissipates. Something finds its way back to normal and just like that, the sinking feeling in Cassian’s chest dislodges and fades into an echo of what it was.
It turns out that buying the index cards isn’t exciting, but it’s kind of funny being on the other side of the counter and watching her work the computer. He laughs a little, pulling out his wallet and handing her his neatly pressed cash, and she just rolls her eyes and the register drawer clinks open with a bang.
She puts the cards in a small bag but doesn’t hand it to him right away, instead she looks down at it in her hands, pausing for a moment before she glances up at him. “What are you doing after this?”
He checks the time on his phone. “I’m heading to class, actually. Starts in like fifteen minutes.”
“Do you want some company?” she asks. “I mean, I haven’t taken my break yet and I kind of want to get out of here.”
“Sure,” he says, and he watches her lift the blue smock over head, his eyes dare to flick down to where her shirt rides up, exposing a line of pale skin. He glances away quickly when she pushes her hair out of her eyes and turns her attention back to him, his heart picking up embarrassingly.
“Come on,” she says.
She comes around the side of the counter, coat in hand, and she waves goodbye to a guy with a nametag that says Luke, who seems familiar but he can’t fully remember—he’s still working on knowing who’s who in town. Jyn hands him the bag and they walk out of the store together, from fluorescent lights to weak, watery sunlight streaming through the half-filled trees; the branches and yellow brown leaves shake and scatter the light.
The branches and yellow brown leaves make Cassian feel a little warmer, if that’s possible.
“So, I have a question for you,” Jyn asks, and they walk closely without really thinking about it. They walk closely and Cassian only notices when he looks over at her and realizes that their shoulders brush slightly, their elbows push against each other a little with how they both have their hands shoved in their coat pockets.
He bites down a smile. “What?”
“If we were living in a game, you know, like the Sims or something, would you want to know? Or do you think you’d be better off unaware?”
Cassian laughs, and he can’t help it, he knocks his shoulder purposefully against hers. “That’s not what I was expecting.”
“Do you ever get what you’re expecting with me?”
“No,” he answers automatically. It’s true, she’s always something else. Every time he thinks he understands her, she does something that proves otherwise. “And to answer your question, I don’t think I’d want to know. It wouldn’t make enough of a difference in my life to justify it, I’d just be upset that nothing was real or in my control. The illusion is nice.”
She hums to herself, and Cassian isn’t going to even try and guess what that means. “I actually agree with you."
“Is that such a surprise?” he asks.
“No, but it’s interesting. Life is kind of vague and unsatisfying, but to know that it’s completely pointless would be too much. I’d never be motivated to do anything.”
He thinks about that for a long moment, and they cross the street behind the building they just cut around. It’s between classes so most people are out and switching between buildings before two o’clock.
“But what motivates you now?” he asks.
She shrugs, and he can feel it against his shoulder. He bites his lip to stop himself from smiling.
“Being self sufficient, I suppose. You know me, I just want to travel, and see and do things that I can’t do here.”
Cassian hesitates. “Is that all you want?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I think I’m scared that once I get out of here I’ll be disappointed. Like, I’m working so hard for one goal, and what if I get there and realize that it’s not what I really wanted, or that it won’t make me happy. Does that make sense?”
“I think that’s really honest,” Cassian says, and her gaze tilts up towards his, and just like that, proximity is a real concern. He watches her eyes and he begs himself not to let his gaze fall to her lips. He focuses on the conversation instead, turning his attention back to the concrete path ahead of them that cuts across the main quad.
“I don’t think that traveling could disappoint you,” he continues. “Not that I’ve traveled much, myself, but I think it's what gets you there that's important. I mean, if you want to see the world, then go see the world. If you're doing it to distract yourself from life, then yeah...maybe it'll be disappointing.”
She hums again and doesn’t answer until they’re nearly at his building.
“Where would you go?” she asks. “If someone offered to completely pay for you to go anywhere in the world, what’s the first place you’d think of?”
“That’s a hard question,” he says, buying himself a little time. “I hate feeling like a tourist, so probably not any of the obvious choices. I don’t know, where would you go?”
She pauses as he holds the door open for her. She glares at him and he follows behind her, from the sun like water to warm yellow lights and dry air. “I just want you to know I’m disappointed in that answer. And for your information, I would go to New York.”
“You’ve mentioned New York before” he says, recalling a conversation in a slow moving car, all dark spaces and light that rushed over them only to fall away again. He nods to their right. “Up these stairs.”
They fall into step, there’s a few people coming down but the staircase is wide enough that they can still walk side by side. She breathes out a slow breath. “It just seems like a good place to start. It’s still the US, so you don’t have to exchange your money, it’s close enough to home so it won't take too long to get there, and I think there’s a certain vibrancy to it that I’ve never experienced before. I’d like to see what it’s like.”
She pauses for a moment. “Have you ever been?”
“No, I haven’t,” he answers, and he slows to a stop next to the door of his classroom. Jyn follows, a half step behind, until they face each other while the door swings open and closed behind them, all his classmates going to class.
Jyn seems to accept that answer, glancing behind her at the door before looking up at him. “And what class is this?”
“Accounting,” he says, and he shrugs. “It’s not the best, but it’s not the worst, either.”
She nods, and then she smiles at him, genuine and soft. “Listen, my friend gave me two tickets to a local band that’s playing a few towns over tomorrow night, I thought you might want to come with me?”
It takes Cassian a half second to let that run through his mind. Is she asking him as friend or as a date? And why can’t he open his mouth to ask? He doesn’t want to push or scare her off. He bites his lip for a second before he considers a third reason. “You’re not just asking because I have a car, are you?”
He keeps his voice light enough to sound like a joke, but she must pick up on his concern because she rolls her eyes. “I was actually thinking we could take the train, but you know, there’s that, too.”
“Okay,” he agrees, and he tilts his head slightly closer to hers for some reason, doesn’t even understand the draw between them. “What time?”
“Here,” she says, and she reaches into her back pocket for her phone. She hands it to him, open to add a new contact, which he inputs quickly because class starts in a minute, judging by the time on her phone.
He hands it back to her, and they’re standing under fluorescent lights again, different fluorescent lights, but they’re all the same, aren’t they? They stand under the lights and it washes her out, but it makes her eyes seem lighter, more of a pale green and it’s beautiful. He’s so drawn to her, so absolutely taken with the way she speaks, the way her eyes watch him, how pretty her features are.
With some effort, he forces himself to look at the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then."
She nods. “Thanks for coming to see me.”
And there’s that look again, the one she gives him when they’re about to part and Cassian has to wonder how many times he can say goodbye without kissing her.
Instead, he opens his arms and she comes in easily for a hug, fitting right under his chin. He rests his lips against her hair but he doesn’t kiss her. Somehow, it feels more intimate like this. Somehow, it’s the most comforted Cassian’s felt in a while.
They stay like that for a moment before pulling apart, and there’s a happy grin on her lips as she gives him a small wave goodbye.
Once again, he has to watch her walk away.
It’s so strange to go into the classroom, as though his world hadn’t just shifted and changed back and forth between this space occupied by Jyn, and the other occupied by school.
There has to be less than twenty students in the class, and he walks up the far row of desks to sit in his usual seat next to Leia. When he glances over at her, she has a slight smirk on her lips and she raises a brow.
“So you and Jyn?” she suggests.
Cassian rolls his eyes. “So you and Han?"
“You know it’s not like that with us.”
He looks at her like do you get my point now? but she just shrugs and says, “When did you guys meet?”
“Halloween, shortly after you abandoned me.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, but then the professor walks into the room. Most of the class goes quiet but some carry on conversation as he moves towards his desk at the front and takes off his coat. Cassian uses the distraction to focus his attention forward, pulling a notebook out of his backpack and onto his desk.
When he glances over, Leia watches him like she can see straight through him. He refuses to allow it to unnerve him, writing the date down on the top of the page, and his phone buzzes once in his pocket.
He looks over to make sure the professor is still busy before he fishes his phone out.
Unknown Number: It’s Jyn.
And if he smiles at that text, well, that’s embarrassing. He locks his phone and puts it away, daring one more look at Leia.
“This isn’t over,” she mouths at him.
And yeah, he kind of hopes so.
—
The late afternoon sun angles low into Cassian’s windshield as he drives home. The streets are long and relatively empty, and he can’t help it, his mind drifts in and out of half conversations and missed opportunities. He thinks about Jyn and he thinks about walking side by side in the cold, the way that their coat-covered shoulders knocked against each other. He thinks about her half shadowed body next to his in the car, with street lights pushing over their faces and drawing away, leaving them in the dark.
In the dark, in the light, all the words passed between them.
These things sit together in his mind, and he knows there’s more to come.
I thought you might want to come with me.
There’s a certain warmth that rushes through his chest at the thought. And what’s so wrong about that? Jyn is beautiful and funny and they get along well. He doesn’t know why he’s holding back, why he won’t make a move when she’s the one offering to play the game.
But is she?
Nothing has been romantic between them aside from a parting kiss on the cheek. They haven’t even talked about relationships or what they want. He thinks about the way she looks at him and it doesn’t help, he doesn’t know what she sees when she watches him a half second too long. What is she studying? What makes her stay?
He thinks about Bodhi saying be careful and he wants to ask what’s changed and how could she be so different now?
These thoughts collide and jumble together in his head as he blinks away the sunlight and walks up the front steps to their apartment. It’s not until he’s flipping through his keys for the right one that he hears a soft sound and glances down.
There’s a small grey cat behind him.
Cassian stands there, relatively helpless, as the cat comes closer and presses up against his leg, nuzzling the side of its face against the front of his jeans.
“Hello,” he says, and the cat pauses, sits down—half on his foot, half on the well worn concrete step—and looks up at him with wide blue eyes. Cassian slowly extracts his foot from underneath the small weight on top of it, but the cat makes a low sound and moves to his other side.
It takes him a minute to realize he’s going to have to pick up the cat if he wants to get inside without accidentally letting it in. He winces a little as he bends down. For whatever reason, he half expects it to leap at him and claw his face off, but the little thing just blinks up at him when he gets a hand under its belly and lifts it off of his foot.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says to it, and it goes easily against his chest as he unlocks the front door.
However, putting it down seems to be the real problem.
Once he’s inside, he tries to set it back on the concrete step, but the cat refuses. It squirms and clings to him and after a long effort to make it stay on the ground, it seems to have some sort of understanding. Eventually it leaps down onto the step, but as soon as Cassian goes to close the door, the cat is sitting in the opening, blinking up at him with those stupidly adorable wide eyes.
Reminds him of someone else, actually.
Cassian hums to himself, glancing behind him at the stairs that lead up to their apartment and back down at the cat. It meows quietly, just a quiet little sound, and he’s helpless to pick it up again. He figures that if it belongs to someone, he could make it easier for them to find it, and he’s not going to leave it alone if it’s hungry or thirsty.
It makes a (what Cassian’s translates as) happy sound, and with his free hand, he lets them into his and Bodhi’s apartment.
Bodhi, who’s currently in his usual position at the kitchen table with an open textbook and notebook. Music softly plays from his phone next to him, but he looks up at the sound of the door opening, and his eyes immediately move from Cassian to the cat in his hand.
“What is that?” he asks.
Cassian’s already heading into the kitchen. “We have a cat. For now.”
He hears the chair push against the table as he fishes out a shallow dish. Still cradling the cat, he fills it with water.
“Okay, I have a lot of questions, so I think starting at the beginning would be good, yeah?” Bodhi asks, leaning against the refrigerator.
Cassian glances up at him through his hair that’s fallen in his eyes. He sits next to the cat on the floor, nudging the dish close to it. Those wide blue eyes watch him for a moment before it hesitantly sniffs the dish.
Deeming it safe, the cat happily licks at the water and Cassian smiles at it and then back up at Bodhi. “It just showed up at the front door, it wouldn’t let me go inside without it.”
“‘It?’” Bodhi questions. “You didn’t check to see if it’s a boy or girl?”
Cassian tilts his head. “Okay, he showed up at the front door. I don’t think he’s a stray, though, I figured we could try and see if anyone’s missing a cat.”
“That makes sense,” Bodhi says, nodding, and he sits down next to Cassian. They stay like that for a while, just watching him drink his water.
“You aren’t allergic, are you?” he asks Bodhi eventually, as the cat decides he’s had enough water and backs up and away from the dish.
“No,” Bodhi says, and the cat comes closer to him, sniffing at Bodhi’s knee and glancing back at Cassian, almost like he’s checking to see if he’s still there. “He seems to like you.”
Cassian smiles at the cat, who comes closer. “I know, I’m already attached. Do you think we should give him a name? I feel bad just referring to him as cat.”
Bodhi makes a cute little clicking noise with his mouth and the cat looks up at him immediately, wiggling his tail in interest.
“Maybe a nickname?” he suggests. “We really should call to see if anyone’s lost him.”
They’re both quiet for a moment, watching the cat bat at Cassian’s hands, which move in a circle around his little furry head.
“Thomas?” he suggests, and Bodhi gives him a look like are you kidding me? “It was the first name that came to mind."
“You can’t give animals people names, it’s weird,” he says, laughing to himself.
Cassian is decidedly not pouting, dropping his hand only for the cat to nudge it with his head, forcing Cassian to pet him. “Well what do you think, then?”
“K2?”
“What?”
“It’s the second tallest mountain in the world,” he says. “I don’t know, I’m doing my geography homework and we were talking about it in class today. He’s kind of like a little mountain.”
Cassian likes the mental image even if, no, he does not look like a mountain at all. But still, K2 sits happily in his mind, and he agrees with Bodhi. It’s funny, the two of them sitting on the kitchen floor like this, with the cat between them and the slowly darkening sky. It makes the lights of their apartment brighter, it makes Bodhi look a little brighter.
He looks loose and happy, his hair sits against his shoulders and though he’s watching K2, he still looks up and smiles easily at Cassian.
It’s nice, he thinks to himself, this is a nice place to be.
—
Later that night, Cassian blinks slowly at the television. The lights are all off, and that’s probably not healthy for his eyes, but it’s late and he’s half asleep. Of course, this is when he remembers that he has Jyn’s number. It takes a few seconds in the blue and white echoes of the TV screen for him to make a decision.
He eyes K2, who’s sleeping on the other side of the couch, and pulls out his phone.
Cassian: You’re the expert on whitebridge, would you happen to know anyone who’s missing a cat?
Anxiously, he clicks off his phone and tries to focus back on the TV. Maybe it wasn’t his best decision to text her this late at night. It’s past one in the morning and now he’s trying not to stare at his phone, trying not to think about what she’s doing.
Luckily, it’s only minutes later that his phone buzzes on the pillow next to him. The white light of his background ignites the room around him and he pointedly ignores how fast he reaches for it.
Jyn: I resent that statement
Jyn: also: did you find a cat?
Cassian glances up at K2, still passed out on one of the sofa cushions. The light of the TV plays off of his gray hair, making him look blue where his little belly rises up and down in long, even breaths.
Cassian: Why? It’s true. And yes.
It’s only a minute before she texts back.
Jyn: lol good luck w that. Why are you awake right now?
Cassian laughs to himself.
Cassian: I don’t know. Should probably go to bed tho, I’m so tired.
Jyn: Get some sleep!! I’ll see you tomorrow :)
There’s a smile on his face as he turns his phone off, and he stays there for a long minute before dragging himself off of the couch and quietly past Bodhi’s door into his own room at the end of the hall. It’s the same smile that never really seems to leave him when he thinks about Jyn.
He half collapses on his bed, curling up in the dark of his room and listening to the quiet sounds of their apartment. As he closes his eyes, he takes a moment to let himself be excited for tomorrow.