Work Text:
Out of all the things Cassian thought he would have to help his new friends adjust to when it came to life with the Rebel Alliance, eating was not on the list.
But there he was, watching the four of them navigate the mess hall like it was their first battle and they didn’t know what side they were on. K2, in his new body that had been salvaged from spare parts, pointed out that Cassian ought to be doing something as the other rebels were staring. But Cassian couldn’t wrap his head around what he was seeing.
Jyn piled her plate with whatever was being served, and only because he was an intelligence officer used to watching people did Cassian see the bread vanish into her pockets. How many pockets did she have? How did anyone that slight not look like a badly packed space suit with that much bread in their pockets? She must have tucked away no less than five pieces as he stood there, stunned.
Once she had served herself, Jyn ate like she expected someone to take it away from her or she might have to abandon it at any moment. Cassian felt something in his chest ache when he realized that had probably happened to her before, more times than he wanted to think about. Much like how it had happened to him.
Bodhi on the other hand didn’t seem like he knew he was supposed to eat at all. He held his tray and looked around blankly at all the others serving themselves. The line to pick out food seemed to intimidate him and it wasn’t until Jyn, tray cleaned to spotless, got up and got him food herself that he finally sat down.
Although the process of sitting somewhere seemed to make Bodhi nervous too, so he sat as close to Jyn as possible and began wolfing down his food mechanically as he were being timed. Something on the plate wasn’t to his taste and he gulped it with a pinched look on his face, and he looked a little green around the edges after he finished. Automatically he stacked his and Jyn’s trays together with all the utensils lined up and then swayed, holding a hand to his mouth.
Cassian turned to find Baze and Chirrut, hoping they at least were managing, but his hopes fell when he saw that they had barely put food on their plates in the first place.
They had taken half as much as any other person, and as Cassian watched in horror, Chirrut cheerfully offered up a piece of his bread to the young man sitting next to him who had run out of crusts to mop his plate with.
Never mind the Empire; his friends were going to get killed by their eating habits.
The next day, he put himself in line for lunch right beside Jyn. When she reached out to snag an extra piece of bread in an almost automatic way, Cassian covered her hand with his to stop her. She jerked away, looking at him with a haunted look in her eyes like she expected him to yell at her, so Cassian just put another piece on her plate and handed her her tray.
“We may not always have much, but we will always share.” He told her, watching her face for any sign that she understood.
She looked at him without any change in expression though, warily taking her tray and sitting down at an unoccupied corner of a table. Same as the day before she began to shovel her food down, with the muscles in her neck and arms tensed. Cassian slid into the seat next to her, and after a moment he bumped one of her shoulders with his.
“Haven’t you heard of tasting your food?” He asked, and the briefest smile flitted across Jyn’s face.
He wasn’t exactly used to dawdling over a meal himself, but Cassian ate with excessive slowness as he covertly kept an eye on Jyn. As he had hoped, she began to match her speed to that of his own; slowing down more and more the longer the meal went on. By the time they finished, Cassian was feeling reasonably confident she had actually chewed most of her food rather than inhaling it.
At dinner time he caught up with her again and settled her at a table after she had served herself, this time without trying to fill her pockets more than her plate. They were almost finished, Cassian again eating as slowly as he could and keeping her engaged in conversation, when Bodhi walked into the mess hall.
Bodhi looked around nervously for a full minute and then his eyes settled on Jyn with a pleading look. With a gentle hand on her shoulder Cassian kept Jyn from getting up when she caught Bodhi’s look, and got up himself instead. Bodhi looked like he was being led to his execution when Cassian steered him into the line up to get food, his hands shaking so much the utensils on the tray rattled.
“What do you want?” Cassian asked him, gesturing to the few steaming pots of stews and slops that were the usual dinner fare.
“I don’t know? I mean care. Just whatever there’s the most of,” Bodhi said as he eyed the spoon Cassian held out as if it were a blaster being pointed at him.
Sighing, Cassian took the spoon, dunked it into one of the pots, and held it out to Bodhi.
“Here, taste it.”
“What?”
“Taste it.” Cassian frowned when Bodhi continued to act like it was somehow a trap. “Look, there’s not a lot of choice but at the very least no one wants you to throw up because you don’t like the flavour.”
As if he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, Bodhi took the spoon and swallowed the mouthful of stew at lightning speed. His face immediately took on a slight touch of the greenish tinge Cassian had seen the day before, so he took a clean spoon and scooped some slop out of the next pot. Bodhi didn’t argue about it this time, although he only took a cautious sip rather than the whole spoonful. But he nearly smiled when he did, so Cassian filled Bodhi’s plate from that pot and steered him over to where Jyn was still sitting.
Most of the room was done eating by that point, and when Bodhi sat down he started in on his plate with more urgency than even Jyn had. Cassian almost wondered if he’d lose a finger if he put his hand too close, before he pulled the plate out from under Bodhi’s nose.
There was an audible ping as Bodhi’s spoon bounced off the table, the pilot having failed to notice that Cassian had removed his food.
“Bodhi. Do you have somewhere to be?” Cassian asked, trying not to let the way Bodhi looked so unsure bother him.
“N-no?”
“Then slow down. It’s fine if you finish later than everyone else.”
Cassian had to get up when Bodhi gaped at him like it was a shocking concept. He stormed off, his anger at the Empire bubbling up in him and making him grit his teeth. When he saw that Baze and Chirrut were sitting at the other side of the hall, again with next to nothing to eat in front of them, Cassian nearly bit through his tongue.
He filled a tray with food and stomped over to their table, barely managing to not slam it down. As it was he put it down hard enough that the utensils bounced and one started rolling away. Chirrut caught it with ease, setting it down and smiling at Cassian. Before Chirrut could say anything though, Baze sighed and kicked him in the leg.
“Don’t tell him you can see he’s upset because of the Force. A deaf man could have heard the way people scrambled out of his way.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Chirrut complained unconvincingly, and it was Cassian’s turn to sigh.
“Look,” he said to the two of them, “I realize maybe you’re used to having less but would you just eat a proper amount? If we go on half rations, we all go on half rations. Everyone needs their strength.”
“Habit,” Baze said, shrugging. When Cassian glared at him he smiled a little and divided the food between Chirrut and himself. “But we’ll work on it.”
“Good.”
It took a week for Jyn to voluntarily stop eating to talk to Cassian before he talked to her, and another two before she stopped hunching her shoulders when she ate. It took the same amount of time for Bodhi to stop rushing through his meals based on how far along everyone else was, and a week more before he was comfortable asking what was for dinner and choosing something without questionable lumps in it. Chirrut and Baze had a less severe habit to break, and Cassian was pleased to see them eating more within a few days.
But he didn’t realize how far they’d come until a couple months later when he said something that made Jyn roll her eyes, and she bounced a small piece of bread off his nose. Bodhi started laughing so hard he pushed his plate away so he wouldn’t choke, and Chirrut helped himself to a piece of Bodhi’s unguarded veg-meat to share with Baze.
It was K2 who mentioned that Cassian was smiling more than was necessary. Cassian didn’t care though; he just picked up the piece of bread to flick back at Jyn to surprise a laugh from her.