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Despite the layers Cassian’s wearing, he still finds himself shivering and unable to get warm.
He sits at his desk with his parka hood up, fur tickling his nose as he tries to focus on his datapad, but his head is pounding and he can barely read any of the words on the screen.
“Cassian? You okay?”
“’m fine, Jyn,” he mumbles, stubbornly keeping his eyes on his work. His hands shake with the effort of holding up the datapad. “Just gotta get…get some work done.”
Suddenly, Jyn’s at his side, plucking his work from his fingers and tossing it onto the bed. Cassian groans, leaning back in his chair as Jyn hops up to sit on his desk. “Jyn–”
“You’re sick,” she observes dryly, tilting her head to the side. Cassian can’t help but admire how cute she looks when she does that. “Get back into bed, Cassian. You’re not going to get anything done like this.”
“I’m not sick,” he replies stubbornly. At her raised eyebrow and her look of utter disbelief, he admits crossly, “Fine. I might have a cold. But that doesn’t mean I get to take a break.”
“At the very least you can work in bed,” she argues, sliding off the desk to hoist him out of the chair. He goes with little resistance. “C’mon. Let’s go.”
She gets him into bed and bundles him up tighter, wrapping blankets around his shivering form. He’ll never admit it out loud–he’s too prideful for that–but he does feel a lot better sitting in bed.
But when Jyn leans in to give him a kiss goodbye, he leans away from her despite the disappointment flashing across her face.
“I don’t want to get you sick,” Cassian tries, trying to placate her as she sits at the edge of the bed in a huff.
“I thought you said you weren’t sick,” she teases, leaning it again even with Cassian pushing her away. The last thing he wants is for Jyn to suffer alongside him.
“Jyn–”
“I don’t get sick,” she argues hotly. “One kiss isn’t going to give me whatever the hell you have.”
At her very blatant lie –– because who doesn’t get sick every once in a while? –– he only has to look at her for a few seconds before she cracks.
“Okay, fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I got sick once when I was with Saw. I was sparring with someone and I sneezed so hard I fell back on my ass. And even though I said I was fine, my partner made me go lie down,” she complains, throwing her hands up in the air. “Can you believe it? Saw's best soldier, forced to go rest. Force, I got made fun of for that for weeks after.”
He frowns, reaching across the bed to take her hands. Even though he cherishes each part of her past she chooses to share with him, it still pains him to hear the worst parts of it. But Jyn doesn't seem to register his distress at how she'd been treated. “And how old were you, exactly?”
Jyn doesn’t meet his eyes. “Eleven,” she mutters, as if that's way too old to be babied when sick, then turns back to him. “But that’s not the point. In the last twelve years, I’ve only gotten fevers from infection. It’s one kiss. I’ll be fine.”
When she gets like this, Cassian knows there’s no point in arguing. Jyn’s always been the most stubborn person he knows. So he nods and lets her kiss him.
It’s soft and tender, but she slips her hands through the hair at the nape of his neck to deepen it. Just as he leans forward to bring her closer to him, she dances out of his grip with a teasing grin.
“I’ll see you soon, Cassian,” she says lightly. “Feel better, okay?” And with that, she’s out the door.
Slightly stunned, all Cassian can do is touch his gloved fingers to his lips and lean back onto the pillows with a small smile. Even in the haze of his fever, he's not sure he can remember being happier than this.
“This is all your fault,” Jyn complains from somewhere on the floor. She hadn’t quite made it to the bed when they had stumbled in here earlier, though, in her defense, he hadn’t either.
Cassian lets out an incredulous huff and leans his head up against the mattress. The cold seeps up from the floor and through his clothes, and he knows that he should muster up enough strength to get the two of them into bed, but it’s just so hard. “It’s my fault that you kissed me?”
“You got me sick,” comes her mumbled reply, and it sounds so pitiful and sad that he can’t help but shift to try and get a better look at her. She’s curled up in a ball at the foot of the bed, cheek pressed into the snowy floor. If she’s as hot as he is right now, he can imagine that it feels pretty nice. Still – her lips are tinged blue and the last thing the two of them need right now is hypothermia.
“We need to get into bed,” he says firmly, or, at least, he tries to. The rasp in his throat doesn’t make him sound even remotely commanding.
Jyn groans softly, which he chooses to believe is a sign of her agreement. (Realistically, he has no idea. His head is spinning so fast that it’s hard to think about something for too long.)
“Come on,” he tries to push himself off the ground but stops when a cough erupts out of his lungs. His breath rasps in his throat. “Come on, Jyn.”
She’s not moving anymore and he would be concerned if he didn’t see the breath puffing out in front of her mouth. In all honesty, he doesn’t want to move either. “We should… Force …get up.”
“Don’t wanna,” she whispers, tucking her fingers underneath her chin to warm them up. “’s fine, Cass.”
“Jyn…” he responds with more than a little frustration but closes his eyes anyway. He just needs a little rest. A quick break. Then he’ll get them into bed.
Or a minute or two. Or maybe a little longer than that. When he opens his eyes again, his fingers ache so badly that it feels as if a strong wind would break them off.
But his lap is warm. Warmer than it was before he fell asleep.
Blearily, he blinks the sleep out of his eyes and looks down. Jyn somehow managed to drag herself over where he was sitting and curled up next to him, her head pillowed on his legs. He lets out a laugh that sounds more like a wheeze and brushes the hair out of her eyes gently.
“I’m dying,” Jyn rasps, curling her fingers tighter around the material of his shirt. She tugs him closer. “This is not a – “ she coughs wetly, “not a kriffing cold. ”
His thumb rubs circles on her exposed cheekbone. “The 2-1B’s said we’d feel better in a couple of days,” he replies, trying to be comforting but failing miserably.
“Once I can move I’m going to reprogram them,” she mutters. The heat in her voice would surprise him if he didn’t know her better. “So that they can accurately – “ she pauses, shifts, “accurately diagnose their patients.”
Remembering the amount of effort it took Bodhi to convince her to go to the med bay in the first place (he would have helped if he hadn’t felt like he was going to pass out), he’s inclined to agree with her. There’s no arguing with Jyn when she’s like this (or really, any other time, either).
“All right,” he murmurs. “I’ll help you.” There’s a part of him that agrees with her – it does feel an awful like his head is going to cave in any second now.
“I knew there was a reason I loved you,” she responds with a hint of satisfaction in her voice, turning up to offer him a smile that looks more like a grimace.
Cassian smiles at that, leaning down to press a kiss on her forehead. He laughs when she tries to turn away, though that quickly turns into a wheezing cough that makes his lungs rattle.
“You’re going to get me sicker,” she protests, pressing her face into his coat. “Cass-ian!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he chuckles weakly, letting his head fall back against the bed again. It feels as if all of the strength has been sapped out of him. “We should…”
They should move, that’s for sure. But all Jyn does is tug him closer and he lets her. “Too tired,” she mumbles, and he agrees.
The sound of the door opening is what wakes him. He squints as light suddenly floods the room and he can barely make out Bodhi’s frame standing in the doorway.
Bodhi takes one look at them curled up together on the floor and sighs, exasperated. “You stubborn nerfherders ,” he says, moving to help the two of them up off the ground.
Cassian tries to explain himself. “We almost made it.”
Bodhi snorts, crouching down to wake Jyn up. “ Almost. ”
And even though his teeth are chattering and the cold feels stuck in his bones, Cassian hadn’t really minded napping on the floor. And by the sheer resistance Jyn is putting up right now, he doesn’t think she had minded either.
(though, if he's being honest, the bed is probably the best place for them right now. he'll have to thank bodhi once he can think straight again.)