Work Text:
If he and Jyn ended up in the War Room at the same time – a rare occurrence, but it happened – they made a point to ignore each other. Most rebels wouldn’t think twice about the subtle glances and half smiles they shared from across the room. Those who knew them, however, were more apt at noticing the small expressions.
General Draven, apparently, fell into the latter category.
“Andor, it would be a hell of a lot easier if you just married that woman.”
Cassian’s eyes shot from the datapad he was holding to General Draven, startled. Jyn had finished a quick debrief on a scouting mission across Hoth, but Cassian had barely given the frosty sergeant half a glance. Jyn had nodded in his direction, but had left without a comment when dismissed. Nothing that should upset Draven. “Sir?”
Draven raised an eyebrow, his eye ready to scold. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Yes, sir,” Cassian replied automatically, struggling to keep his face neutral. “Just… What?”
Draven sighed, as if the answer was incredibly obvious and Cassian was being dense on purpose. “Well, for one thing, your relationship wouldn’t count as fraternization” – Cassian ignored that reason; Force knows the High Command couldn’t afford to court-martial every officer fraternizing with an enlisted soldier – “you’d be labeled as her next of kin, and vice versa, and it might stop everyone in this damn rebellion from gossiping about what might be going on between you two.”
“You know,” K-2 piped up from Cassian’s left. “Those are excellent points.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Cassian muttered to the droid. Why was this conversation happening in a room full of other rebels? If Draven wanted to stop the whispers about Jyn and Cassian, he had an odd way of showing it. He attempted to direct Kay’s attention away from the general. “Don’t you have work to be doing?”
“Think it over, captain,” Draven said, getting up from the table. He sent a knowing look Cassian’s direction. “Focus on the logical reasons, if it helps.”
“Yes, sir.”
The logical reasons. But that didn’t seem right, not to Cassian.
True, he was a soldier of the rebellion – more than that: Cassian was a spy, an assassin for the rebellion. Cassian built his life off logical reasons, and Draven knew this. To sway Cassian’s opinion, shoving a healthy serving of reason in his direction was the first step.
But not with this.
Cassian didn’t consider himself a romantic. His blaster had killed his romantic beliefs – for his life, for the future of the rebellion, for the fate of the galaxy – with each drop of blood he spilled (and Cassian often hesitated to consider just how much blood that was). But, somehow, no matter how illogical it seemed, Cassian believed in marriage, in love. His parents had loved each other deeply, ready to fight through each hellish day back on Fest, fiercely by each other’s side until the very end. How many others had he come across in the galaxy, were fighting beside him in the rebellion, out of love for another and the desire to protect? Even Jyn had mentioned, late at night with only his ears to hear, the depth of devotion Galen and Lyra Erso had for each other: enough to travel across the galaxy to keep the other safe, enough to die for the other.
Somehow, when Cassian considered marrying – or, really, marrying Jyn Erso – he wanted more than logic to be involved. Draven’s reasons made sense, and there were more where those came from. For once in his long, dedicated life, Cassian Andor wanted to give his heart, rather than his brain, the reigns and allow it to dictate his decisions. Too bad his heart often sent his brain into a panic.
Cassian couldn’t make sense of the warring emotional and logical urges inside him, so he shoved the idea to the back of his mind, determined to get on with his job. That task became harder as Draven’s words – “it would be a hell of a lot easier if you just married that woman” – were liable to wander through his mind every time Jyn would so much as glance in his direction. The words were only stronger when her lips would curl into a smile, when she would snuggle into his side at night, when she awoke with her loose hair tangled on the pillow beside him…
Marry that woman.
Marry that woman.
Marry that woman.
Cassian thought the temptation would fade when Jyn took a mission off planet, and the daily sight of her wouldn’t constantly stir up the words inside his head. But as he lay in his bed – it felt too empty, too cold without Jyn to fight the frozen air of Hoth – the idea bounced around his head incessantly, prodding him, taunting him.
By the time Jyn’s transport touched down at Echo Base, Cassian had lost all reasons to fight away the urge. He wanted to marry Jyn Erso, to keep her by his side for however long he was given to live, be that a day or a week. He didn’t want anything loud or public; Cassian only wanted Jyn.
Cassian waited a few steps away from the ship as he waited for Jyn. He snorted as she scowled at the offending environment around her, and smiled as the expression on her face softened at the sight of him. She pulled the hood of her parka over her head as she approached him, channeling her words away from the prying ears of the base and directly towards Cassian.
“What’s got you smiling?” She asked when she was close enough. Cassian only laughed in response; as if she didn’t know his reason.
“I was just thinking about something Draven said to me a few weeks ago.” Cassian’s grin grew at the sight of Jyn’s furrowed brow. He waved her further into base. “Come on, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
As the pair walked side by side towards their quarters, Cassian ran over all his reasons, both logical and emotional, for marriage, determined that one of them would be able to convince Jyn as well.