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At precisely 2330 Draven’s door chimes. He calls, “Enter,” from where he sits at the small console in his quarters, and watches the door slide open to reveal Cassian Andor standing at parade rest with fur framing his face, his hands clasped behind his back.Draven nods. Cassian crosses to him in four long strides and sinks elegantly to his knees, hands still clasped all the while. The door hisses shut in the silence, and Draven sits for a moment longer, looking down at the gleam on Cassian’s dark hair, before he nods again.Cassian rises, dropping his parka, then disrobes with swift efficiency, dropping each item on or beside the parka until he’s naked but for socks, his breath coming in little white puffs in the cold Hoth air. Draven looks up at his lanky frame, scars slashed and curled and dotted across warm expanses of skin, for another long moment before he glances to his bed and Cassian strides over to climb onto the center, knees drawn up beneath him, head resting on his crossed hands.Draven undresses rather more slowly, laying his clothes on his chair. As he strips he surveys the sleek angles of Cassian on his bed, the long eloquent line of his scarred back and the swells of strength beneath his skin. Little licks of steam curl off his warm flesh, but Cassian doesn’t shift or shiver. He just waits for his superior. The air coldly slaps Draven’s skin but it’s only fair to undress down to his socks as well. As he climbs onto the bed beside Cassian he drags a fingertip up the sole of Cassian’s near foot, and Cassian’s breathing hitches a brief second. The air is its own punishment, raising icy prickles across Draven’s body and surely Cassian’s as well, the better to underscore a message written in heat.“We haven’t had time,” he begins mildly, “to discuss certain aspects,” as he sets his hand on the small of Cassian’s back, “of your involvement in the Battle of Scarif.” Because Cassian returned with a back full of torn muscles and broken ribs and went straight into a tank of bacta, and then because of the evacuation from Yavin IV to Hoth, and then because of a thousand other things, including Draven’s own sentimentality. He strokes up the length of Cassian’s spine, cupping Cassian’s nape in his palm, and tugs gently. Cassian pushes up onto his elbows, his neck curving in Draven’s hold. “Which aspects, Sir?” he asks, soft and clear, nose pointing straight down, eyes hooded.Start with a hard stroke. “The loss of the droid.” Draven feels Cassian’s sharp indrawn breath, his minute shudder as his eyes flare wide and clamp shut. “A reprogrammed Imperial droid is a rare and valuable asset, which you squandered.”Cassian’s newly healed ribs are shaking, tremors rattling down his thighs. Draven wonders if he’ll have to remind Cassian to breathe, for the first time in years, but even as he thinks so Cassian stills under his hand, inhales smoothly, and exhales, “Yes, Sir.”Slowly, Draven strokes down Cassian’s neck, over the knobs of vertebrae, between his broad shoulder blades, cool skin tight and dense beneath his touch. “Elaborate.” And up again, even more slowly, as Cassian’s chest rises and falls, as he gathers himself.“K-2SO,” Cassian murmurs, “was invaluable in retrieving the plans. He was invaluable so many times, over and over…” Cassian trails off, runs his lower lip beneath his teeth and out again, inhales to resume speaking. “One time on Carin’ha he found me sitting on a rock, weeping, my blaster in hand. I had… you know what I did there.” Draven doesn’t actually remember which particular terrible tasks he had Cassian carry out on that particular successful mission, but he grunts affirmatively anyway, as the chill swirls around them everywhere except where his palm shelters Cassian’s nape. “He offered to delete his own memory to ensure my optimal functioning.” Cassian’s mouth draws up at the corner, a brief grimace. “Sometimes I wish I could delete mine.”Draven often wishes so, for all of his prized operatives, for so many of his fellow Rebels, for himself. He squeezes the back of Cassian’s neck and trails his eyes down Cassian’s back once more. The scars stand out lividly on chill-paled skin: linear slashes and jagged cuts acquired in his years as an Alliance agent, long whip-slashes Draven laid on him during pain tolerance training, shiny blaster-burns he already carried under his uniform when Draven first met him, a gangly boy with huge round eyes and steady aim, and recruited him into the Intelligence branch. If they were other people, Draven would kiss each one of those scars, but neither of them are, and besides he knows who is. Instead he asks, voice low and even, “How many strikes, then?”Cassian’s lips move for several moments before he finally speaks. “What total can I choose? K2 was priceless.” The admission deflates him, his head hanging lower, his shoulders shaking again for a few heartbeats.“Twenty,” Draven pulls from the cold air, as he lets go to shift off the bed and stand behind Cassian. His skin prickles as he moves but his muscles slide and stretch easily enough, and beneath taut cool skin Cassian’s buttocks are springy-firm and warm under Draven’s hand. Neither of them are chilled dangerously, not yet.Even so his hand stings at the first blow, bouncing back like recoil as the crack echoes off the walls. Holding still, Cassian says, clear and soft, “One,” unmoved on his elbows and knees, and Draven shakes out his fingers.Then he lays the next blow, and the next, and the next, while Cassian counts and the ache rises in his hand. It takes until Six for Cassian’s voice to quaver, Nine for him to begin rocking beneath the blows, Thirteen for his long fingers to crimp into the blanket, Eighteen for him to sob, just once. “Twenty,” he announces, voice only slightly thickened though he shivers all over; another few moments and Cassian stills himself, and pride blooms as hot in Draven’s chest as the arousal curling beneath his belly.Still, they both know what’s required of them. Keeping his face impassive, Draven shakes his hand out again, and breathes, and modulates his own voice. “There are also the losses in personnel to consider.” Cassian nods stiffly, his throat bobbing with a deep swallow. “Forty-seven left on Rogue One and eleven returned.” Draven knows Cassian knows these numbers, each and every name. “Not counting Admiral Raddus’s forces, but you are not responsible for his decisions.”Cassian’s lips twist, not stretching as wide as a smirk.“You have enough responsibility for your own.” Draven turns towards his discarded clothes for a moment, reaches for his belt and yanks it free. Cassian flinches minutely at the whistle and smack of moving leather. Draven tightens his half-numb fingers into a secure grip, the buckle already chilled enough to brand his palm, and as he tucks the end into the buckle, doubling the belt into a loop, he looks Cassian over again, because he can. Head down, fingers still curled into the blanket, that lingering edge of warm tint to his skin no matter how pale the chill makes him, his ass glowing pink like the sunrise in a warmer climate, Cassian waits and Draven watches him.The air is cold, though, and the night isn’t so long. “I’ll count this time,” he tells Cassian, considers asking him to repeat his safe word, then discards the thought. He doesn’t intend to go nearly that far, not tonight.Just enough for heat, as he swings the belt and it cracks, differently than living skin, against Cassian’s flesh. “One,” Draven says, watching the blow shudder through Cassian, listening to him suck air through his teeth. “Two, Three, Four.” as Cassian rocks forward a mere inch, his lips pressed tight. “Five, Six, Seven, Eight.” Broad red stripes across each buttock, chill sweat glittering under Cassian’s dangling bangs. “Nine, Ten.”Draven pauses. Cassian gasps, once, jarred out of his rhythm, lifting his head as if he’s about to look back. Draven rubs his free hand across Cassian’s lower back, right to the line of redness, and waits for Cassian to take a deeper breath, to drop his head again, to shudder down to stillness.Then he resumes, swinging harder, the shock of each blow echoing up his arm. “Eleven, Twelve…” Cassian gasps with each, and for eight more blows there’s just the rhythm, just the brightening red across the backs of Cassian’s thighs, just how he trembles and takes each blow, absorbing it as if he deserved it.Draven knows he believes he does.Cassian is ready for the pause after Twenty, holding himself steady though he’s still gasping. Between his thighs his balls have tightened. Draven deliberately avoided them with his blows, and strokes them now as he brushes his hand up from Cassian’s striped thighs over his coal-red ass. He could ask if Cassian can keep going, but they’re too far from anything that would allow Cassian to say ‘no’. So Draven watches Cassian’s ribs heave like bellows, and draws a deliberately loud breath, and resumes the beating.At Twenty-Three Cassian’s gasps expand into cries, at first barely exhaled, but rising and deepening with each blow. Draven keeps going past Thirty as if he never thought of stopping, and Cassian chokes, his next cry strangled, the next streaming out unbroken, crashing into the next and the next and the next until Draven reaches Thirty-Six. Instead of Thirty-Seven he tosses the belt back towards his clothes. His numb fingers struggle to uncrimp, spoiling his aim, but Draven lets the belt tumble to the floor. There are much more important matters to attend to.Cassian’s eyes are pressed tightly, gleaming wet lashes fanned out across his cheekbones, as he sobs little clouds into the harsh air. Draven slides onto the bed beside him, pressing their flanks together, curling his stiff fingers over Cassian’s nape again. “Finally,” he continues, holding his voice steady against every tremble propagating from Cassian’s body into his, against the hot rush of blood in his ears and into his cock, “There are the matters of how you risked your own life, in defiance of direct orders, and how you allowed Jyn Erso to suborn you.”Cassian huffs at the sound of her name. “I apologize, Sir,” he says, parceling out each syllable as his voice hitches, “for risking your agent, but not, not for listening to her. She was right.”“Yes, she was,” Draven says, and enjoys, far too much, Cassian’s shocked shudder of surprise. ”Move up.” Cassian shuffles forwards, gritting out a low pained noise between his clenched teeth. “Put your head down.” Draven shifts back, the air swirling icy across his erection, and reaches for the sachet of lube he tucked into his sock. It’s reasonably tepid, but he presses it between his palms, willing more heat into it. “She was right, and you made the right call.”Cassian moans, sounding more pained than ever. Draven breaks the packet and drizzles the lube down between Cassian’s reddened buttocks, and Cassian shivers at the touch, and keeps shivering. “You were right,” Draven repeats, draping himself over Cassian’s back, feeling stubborn warmth rising between their skins. “Because of you,” as he gently presses forward, and Cassian breathes and groans, presses to meet him and effortfully opens to him, “because of Rogue One,” as his cockhead pops inside, “we achieved our greatest victory in decades. Because of you,” as Cassian sobs, thrashing his head, as Draven slides evenly into the heat of him, his own voice trembling and breathy, “we have a chance.” Leaning on his numb hand, he rubs the other up Cassian’s spine, down his heaving flank, beneath his tensed belly, wrapping around his scalding-hot cock. “You make the right calls,” Draven murmurs, pulling back, sliding forward, smacking flush, and Cassian sobs raggedly, shaking his head against the pillow. “You excel.” Again, a little faster, and Cassian hides his face, and Draven lets him. “I’m proud of you,” he murmurs, dropping his mouth to Cassian’s spine, kissing the line of a whip-mark. “I’m proud of you,” as he speeds up, stroking Cassian’s cock in his rhythm, and Cassian’s shoulders shake. “Proud of you.”Draven gasps before he can say more, saves his breath, and fucks Cassian with the deepest strokes his hips can maintain, keeping a measured pace, thrust and back and thrust. Cassian sobs beneath him, pulling tenser and tenser until he chokes off into a keen and comes, clenching into tight pulses, spilling over Draven’s hand. Draven kisses his back again, drops that hand to the chilly blanket, and chases his own orgasm. But he holds himself in check the whole time, as Cassian unspools beneath him, shuddering and lax, and keeps his thrusts even until the pressure of impending orgasm breaks his control, driving his hips into wild rotations, breaking his voice into jagged groans as his own pleasure overflows.Afterwards, Draven teeters on wobbly arms over Cassian’s back until he can steady himself, and every draught of cold air burns his throat like alcohol. Cassian lies beneath him, splayed flat, trembling but quiet but for the occasional snuffle. As soon and as slowly as he can, Draven pulls back and out, When he pops free Cassian makes a short sharp noise, and Draven reaches forward to pet his back, murmuring, “Shh, hold on.”Draven’s legs shake beneath him as he stands up and swipes at himself with the blanket’s edge; the air feels icier than ever, chilling every drop of sweat and the remaining lube, driving all the blood from his cock right back up into his body. Smiling to himself as he crosses to the corner, he opens a repurposed beverage chest and pulls out the blankets he left there with an activated hand-warmer, brings them back and drapes them one by one over Cassian, who groans appreciatively, then belatedly croaks, “I should —““Lie still.” Draven unfolds another blanket.“I’m messing up your sheets,” Cassian continues, slumping sideways, the start of a roll to standing.“Technically, I’m messing up the sheets.” Draven lays the second blanket over Cassian as he snorts and subsides. After all three blankets are laid down Draven climbs in beneath their welcome warmth, and waits. Soon enough Cassian hauls his face out of hiding, red cheeks fading fast in the cold, and Draven pulls out the pillow, flips it dry side up, and presses Cassian’s head back down again. His fingers prickle, and if they were different people he’d sink them into Cassian’s soft hair. But they’re not. Cassian faces him, more or less, eyelids reddened but smooth, cheek sunk in the pillow, their knees pressed together beneath the blankets. It’s time. “I’m not changing my codes beyond schedule,” Draven begins, and watches Cassian’s eyebrows tilt and sharpen, “My door is always open to you.” Cassian’s eyes open, slowly but alert. “But I won’t …” Draven thought of what to say, at length, and still it takes several moments for the words to return. “I won’t summon you for… assignations, anymore.”Cassian lifts his head and meets Draven’s gaze for the first time tonight. “Am I being dismissed? Sir.” His eyes glint keenly in the dull overhead light, his mouth a tight wary crimp. A stiff muscle creaks in Draven’s cheek as for the first time in a very long time he helplessly smiles. “No, Captain Andor,” he answers, and flexes his fingers beneath the blankets, and doesn’t reach for Cassian. “As if we could spare you,” which statement relaxes Cassian’s eyebrows and pushes the smile from Draven’s face. “But I do intend to reorient the nature of your missions, if possible.” Cassian’s eyes widen as he frowns, white all around dark infinity, so Draven bluntly enlightens him. “You’ve lost the droid and gained a will to live.”Cassian’s eyebrows arch up, his shoulder shifting. “General, I am not— I have no death wish!”Draven was playing the eyebrow game before Cassian’s lost parents were married. “Perhaps not anymore,” he says coolly, steadily holding Cassian’s deep gaze, and adds more gently, “wanting to live is not a disqualification. It’s preferable, in fact. We’ve invested a lot in you.”As hoped, Cassian smirks at that. “I wouldn’t want to cheat you of my full value, Sir.” But then he looks down, long lashes veiling his eyes. “I’m not always… certain I deserve to.”“As you superior officer,” Draven says lightly around the lump in his throat, “I would say you do, and I know another who has good reason to have reached the same conclusion.”Casssian glances up again even as he lets his cheek sink back into the pillow. “You mean Jyn? I thought you didn’t like her. ”Draven still finds her unpredictable, chaotic, ungovernable except by a very select few. “Liking is immaterial, Andor,” he reminds Cassian, whose cheek pulls up into a dimpled smile. “I value her. And I value you.”Cassian blinks at that, and shifts onto his side, wincing, pain-lines bordering his bottomless eyes. “General, this is more praise than I’ve earned in the last two years. It feels disturbingly like being eased into an interrogation.”A laugh blooms and collapses in Draven’s chest, miles below surfacing. “An assessment, rather,” he tells Cassian, who nods, swinging down his long lashes. He must be dizzy with endorphins, and if they were other people there are absolutely questions Draven would ask in this moment. But this is his agent Cassian Andor, so Draven already knows he knows the answers.A few minutes pass, slow and warm beneath the blankets. Draven flexes his crampish hand and considers switching off the lights. Then Cassian murmurs, “Sir, permission to speak freely?”“Of course,” Draven says, just a touch surprised. “Will celibacy suit you?” Cassian opens his eyes halfway, looking deceptively sleepy. Draven wants, suddenly and irrationally, to pull Cassian against his chest, into his arms. Instead he breathes, and thinks, and eventually says, “It takes a very particular sort of person to catch my eye.” Cassian’s eyes crinkle at that. “I have my work to keep me occupied until the potential day I might meet another.” Cassian nods, but continues. “Even so. Do I get a say?”“Do you want one?” Draven presses his hand flat to the blanket beneath them, rather than reach forward.Cassian looks downwards, inwards. “I don’t know.” His eyes are huge beneath their fine-textured lids. “This has been a… beneficial arrangement,” he murmurs, “but Jyn deserves… all my attention. At least,” as he looks up again, crinkles framing his warm eyes, “as much as I can give.”“As well you should,” Draven tells Cassian, and reminds himself. He’s going to miss disassembling and reconstructing this beautiful man in his bed, but it’s time. ”I’m entrusting you to her, and her to you.” “Thank you, Sir.” Cassian smiles, small and true. Draven lets himself reach forward, curling his hand behind Cassian’s nape once more, and Cassian closes those eyes, still smiling. “What’s your safe word?” Draven asks.Cassian’s lids shiver as he whispers the answer. “Ciudadfest.”“Good,” Draven rumbles, pushing up on his elbow to lean forward. Cassian blinks open wide eyes and leans in the rest of the distance, and Draven shuts his as they meet in a soft beard-brushed kiss, their first and their last.
* * *** * *
Cassian palms open his door to the welcome sight of 20% lights illuminating a Jyn-shaped lump beneath his blankets. “Hey,” she mutters, still completely swathed, and he hums in answer, concentrating on staggering into the room, his joints still loose. It feels warmer in here than in General Draven’s quarters, possibly just because she’s here. Probably. He can still see his breath.“Bodhi commed, says hi.” Jyn reports as she pokes her head out. “He’s got a firm date for the leg prosthesis… you’re limping.”“Somewhat.” Cassian makes himself shrug off his parka without wincing, but it’s a near thing. Jyn sits up. The blankets slide down to reveal she’s wearing his shirt over her halter and leggings, left open at her throat where the kyber crystal shines. “What happened?” Cassian sets his holster aside and shrugs, more to draw out her response than for any other reason, and her eyes flash a glare, her tender mouth presses narrow and fierce. “Tell me, or I’m knocking you down, sitting on your ass, and cutting your clothes off to see the damage.”Helplessly, Cassian smiles. “Please don’t sit on my ass,” he answers as he pulls off his boots. “It’s a little sore.”Jyn growls as she leaps out of bed, and Cassian, hazy and slow and astonished, watches her stride up to him, forgets to decide to block, lets her unfasten his trousers. She plunges her hot little hand down over his backside, winning his unmuffled hiss of pain; he sways in her grip and she wraps her other arm behind his ribs as she glares up at him. “Your ass is on fire.”Cassian sets his hands on Jyn’s shoulders, warm through his stolen shirt, and rests in her hold. “Goodbye spanking.”Her intent eyes go round as moons. “Are you being cashiered? Because of —?” “No, no.” Her hand slides up to the small of his back, his ass throbs after her touch, he cups her smooth cheeks in his palms. “That was my first question too. The General said no, ‘as if we could spare you’.”“Huh.” Jyn pushes Cassian’s thigh with hers, a deliberate step towards the ‘fresher, and frowns beautifully when he plants his feet.“Jyn, I’m —“ She lets go, pulling her hands away, her face and her body away, and fine dies on his tongue. She turns from him, a stab through his heart —-- but just to grab the porta-heater, before she grips his waist and shoves him backwards, a step, two, determination creasing a line between her luminous eyes. “Move,” she orders, and Cassian spreads his hands in surrender and obeys.Jyn kicks the ‘fresher door shut behind them and slaps the heater’s on-switch, and Cassian, thinking of K2, has to point out, “That’s for emergencies—““Shut up,” Jyn informs him, dragging his trousers and trunks down around his ankles. “Step out and turn around.”Cassian should master his expression, should quell the grin spreading across his face, at least before Jyn thinks he’s laughing at her. He obeys, and she hisses between her teeth as she pushes his shirts up over his head and down his arms, leaving him naked in the indulgently water-warm air. “Your ass looks like a ripe fruit,” she says. “Your thighs are striped. I should smack you for letting him do this to you.”“I’ve had worse,” Cassian murmurs, standing with his hands at his sides as Jyn flutters the lightest touch over his bruised skin. Then he hears the click and rustle, and turns on reflex, catching Jyn’s wrist before she can waste the bacta patch. “I don’t —“She shakes her head, hair flying out. “You should see —““I can feel. I know. I’m all right.” Jyn looks up, bacta patch packet caught between her bright teeth, her eyebrows drawn down, and Cassian can’t breathe for the tenderness swelling in his chest. “I’m all right.”“No you’re not,” Jyn mutters, but drops the packet back into the kit. “And you won’t be tomorrow.” Her eyes ask more questions, alight with worry as she stares up at him, and he tries to smile reassuringly.How can he tell her how it feels, measured pain doled out by a trusted hand, interwoven with pleasure until all sensation melts together into catharsis? How can he describe being washed clean by tears, swathed in endorphins, floating with every step? The words won’t reach his voice. Cassian raises Jyn’s hand to his lips, kissing her wrist, and she curves her fingers to his cheek. “I’ll be okay,” he murmurs into the skin lining her pulse. “Trust me.”Jyn grumbles wordlessly, pressing her cheek to his chest, stroking down his chin and throat. “A spanking,” she echoes. “A goodbye spanking — what does the General intend to do with you now?” Her voice drips rich sarcasm; Jyn and General Draven have never got along from their first meeting.Cassian wants to hide his smile in Jyn’s hair. He folds his arms around her, her clothed warmth pressed to his nakedness, her cheek over his heart. “Send me on the right missions. The most appropriate ones for my skills.”“And meanwhile he can just — let you go.” Her arms tighten around him, her hands spread out on his shoulder and back. “Just like that.”Cassian blinks, and then hears her unsaid, just abandon you. The understanding softens his, “I thought you’d be pleased,” into a mild question.“I couldn’t ever let —“ Jyn chokes off, smearing her mouth fiercely over his heart. Cassian doesn’t point out so many realities he knows she knows just as well as he does. “He sent me to you,” he says instead, and she looks up, blinking in surprise. “Oh,” Jyn says, slow and drawn out, and rests her chin on Cassian’s breastbone. “Oh. Maybe I owe him thanks, then.”“I don’t think that’s necessary.” Cassian hugs her tighter, then lets his tired arms drop. “May I have my clothes back? Can we go to bed?”“I suppose.” Jyn pulls his trunks out of his trousers for him, frowning as she watches his face as he pulls them on. Cassian wants to tease her, say something to tuck a smile into the corner of her mouth, but his brain’s still sloshing, he aches pleasantly from hips to knees, and more than anything he wants to curl up around her in bed, so he just pulls his undershirt back on, then reaches for the heater to turn it off. Jyn grumbles, gathering the rest of his clothes, and curls her hand around his wrist, fingers wrapped tightly as she pulls him into the main room. “Ugh, cold,” she says as the air hits them, making the word a curse in itself.Cassian just follows her, still smiling stupidly, and shuts the ‘fresher door to hold in the heat.While Cassian climbs into the bed she warmed, Jyn lays his clothes over the chair more carefully than she ever does her own. Blankets pulled up to his nose, he curls on his side and watches hazily as she reaches under the bed and pulls out yet another blanket, which she drapes over the rest before climbing in. “You should wear more,” she grumps, draping her fuzzy legs over his calves.Cassian smiles, enjoying Jyn’s fussing far more than he should let himself. “You’re here,” he says, reaching to brush Jyn’s hair back from her face, to curve his fingers to her cheek again. “I’m warm.”Jyn rolls her bright eyes, but under the heel of his hand he feels her smile curve, for just a moment. She leans in, tucking her head beneath his chin, carefully wrapping her arm around his shoulders rather than her usual spot across his lower back. “And you’re all right?” she asks into his skin. “With losing your General’s favor?”Cassian bares his teeth into a grin, rarely used muscles shifting in his cheeks. “I haven’t lost it,” he says slowly, thinking out loud into her listening ears. “The arrangement was beneficial to my… performance.” Jyn snorts, and Cassian could almost laugh, settling his cheek on her sleek hair. “But I’m still his agent.”“Well that’s a relief,” Jyn mutters, and Cassian does puff a chuckle. “As long as he keeps risking your ass you’re okay even if he’s not paddling it.” Cassian can’t not laugh at Jyn’s summation, and it vibrates through every part of him, a sparkling lightness even where it becomes little flares through his aching bruises. His heart lifts and swells inside him as Jyn presses her hidden smile to his throat. “I’m just relieved,” he says eventually, still puffing a little, “you don’t disapprove.”Jyn stills, and Cassian wonders sharply if he’s overdosed on freedom, let his mouth run much too far. “I’m the newcomer,” she says, her voice roughened beyond the nonchalance he knows she’s attempting, and he presses his lips tighter and doesn’t interrupt as she breathes and continues. “Besides, people in this business have all sorts of fucked up relationships, with or without sex.” She shifts back a little, and even if she didn’t touch his cheek he’d meet her eyes, because he can. “Do you want, I mean, do you need me to do this to you?”She looks, as K2 might say, distinctly disinclined. Cassian turns his head just enough to kiss her wrist, and smiles, and says, “No,” and Jyn lets him see her relax all over. “But if I can have what I want,” he continues, sliding his hand down the curved line of her back, “I want you to kick my ass next time we spar.” She smiles like a moonrise, slow and wide and bright with teeth. “You’d better work for it or, or else.”“Of course.” Of course he’ll give her his best. She pets his cheek, and he folds his fingers around her wrist, thin raised lines of scars under his fingertips, buoyed all the more by her trust in letting him hold her like this. Jyn brushes her lips across his and tucks her head back beneath his chin, and that should end Cassian’s day, warm between Jyn in his arms and the banked glow of welcome bruises.It should, as quiet settles around them and his blood settles to calm, as Jyn breathes tidally over his throat and the endorphins filter from his system, leaving behind a semblance of serenity. Except, Cassian finds himself deservedly haunted by a sardonic robotic voice, a repeated phrase, as sleep dangles just out of reach.He should let Jyn sleep. He intends to let Jyn sleep, until she mutters, “What is it already.” He shushes her reflexively and she pinches his side, a sharp kiss of pain, and he has to chuckle again. “All right,” Cassian whispers back, under air as heavy as their blankets. “All right. I just… General Draven reprimanded me.” Jyn catches her breath. “Not officially.” She nods once, hair softly brushing his throat. “But he punished me. For the fighters lost on Scarif. For squandering K-2SO.”“I’m sorry,” Jyn murmurs, her hand soothing on his side, her breath between his collarbones.“I’m not,” Cassian tells her, and himself. “He told me…” the words that finally broke him open. “He told me we made the right call. He told me he’s proud of me.” His voice hitches beneath the weight of the words, and Jyn hears everything in it, she wraps her arms around his ribs and squeezes him beautifully tight.A memory flashes through Cassian, the first time General Draven took him to bed, the first time he returned from a successful assassination and nearly broke down in Draven’s office. The General coolly set a time for them to meet, beat him till welcome pain washed him away, anchored him again with a heavy cock in his mouth and a heavy hand on his nape. Now he wraps his arms around Jyn, her soft cheek and breasts and belly pressed to him, her sturdy strength firm beneath his hands. Holding on tight, breathing inside her reinforcing hug, Cassian continues, “He asked me for my safe word,” and she makes a questioning noise. “Ciudadfest.”“Ciudadfest,” Jyn repeats slowly, rolling the syllables on her tongue. “But what’s it for?”Ah, that. “It’s a word to say ’enough, I can’t take more’.”“Huh.” Jyn presses her hands into Cassian’s back. “Then he stops?” And eases her grip.Cassian nods, easing his in turn. “When life doesn’t.”Jyn hums, tipping onto her back where she can look up at Cassian’s face again. His hand’s caught beneath her, warm between her back and the bed. “Lah’mu didn’t have cities.”“It doesn’t have to be a city, it can be anything.” Now the evening catches up to Cassian, pushing up a yawn. Jyn catches him suppressing it and narrows her eyes at him, and he smiles at her even as his eyelids droop. “If you need one you’ll choose it.”Jyn nods a little, clearly more interested in his yawn. “Right now you need —?”“Rest,” Cassian admits, because to her he can, and she pushes her fingers into his hair, over his scalp, warmly cradling his head.“Then rest,” she tells him, and he settles, his head on her shoulder, his arm across her middle, as she tugs the blankets up to his ears. Cassian closes his eyes, tucked warmly to Jyn, sore and exhausted and possibly even happy, at ease.