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notasapleasure · 9 months

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Sneak peek: Brassian (Andor) saga AU

Soooo. I thought I'd post the first three chapters here and let everyone just have a say, if they want? I will answer questions on whatever you like, no really, you want an essay, I can give you an essay.

I think probably the key thing is like...in this setting the essential community aspect of Ferrix can't be the Icelandic community as a whole, because to make it a story just about the Norwegian 'empire' coming in would mean either making it the usual 'noble viking pagan vs. xian creep missionaries' story (YAWN) or setting it later, like, several centuries later, which takes it away from the genre I'm playing with most, which can still include monsters and zombies and far-flung adventures at foreign courts. So Brasso and Cassian are outsiders in the Icelandic farming community, as are all the people you'd associate with them in terms of the good guys on Ferrix - Salman and his family (smiths), Bix and her family (wise-women), Maarva and Clem (well. you'll see.). The Ferrix community is the group of weirdos who don't quite fit in. <3

In terms of the kinds of weirdos they are, well, I'm building a lot of it on specific examples from the sagas and tweaking details here and there. Ask me about any of it that piques your curiosity, please!

Thanks to @notfromcold for tagging me in the last sentence meme. This is somewhat more than a last sentence, but hey!

Also - it's first person, because Brasso decided it was going to be first person. And probably needs CW for period/setting typical bigotry and abusive parenting at the least - the trope of the coal-biter (a lazy son who disappoints his good viking parents before growing into a hero in his teens) is a common saga trope, but I've combined it with the 'son of the slave woman' trope (in a way that isn't 'wow I'm secretly a prince'), so Brasso's family isn't the nicest. It's emerged from various collective fanons I think, around his dad maybe/probably being a jerk and him having approximately a million sisters. Also from the saga stuff you can ask about if you want.

The Saga of the Coal-biter and the Skraeling

1. Coal-Biter

I was born the year they discovered Vinland the Good. My father was pleased - at long last he had a son to take his name. He had such high hopes for trade with the new land, and for me. His wife would have liked me more if I'd been hers, but she agreed to raise me alongside her brood of daughters nonetheless, and she was not unkind.

My sisters doted on me and scolded me by turns like the seething flock of geese in the yard - I would be their beloved plaything one moment and a hassle, a cuckoo to be resented, the next. Of course, I didn't know what a cuckoo was as a child, and my mother grew up far beyond the lands where they are found, so I only learned about these birds whose oversized young take over a nest and transplant the sitting chicks when I first travelled to Norway. But it was the same for me, nonetheless - I was disproportionate in that little house filled with fine, willowy people. I grew strong and broad, tall and dark, and my step-mother said I was of the people of Thrall, not like her children, born to the line of Snoer and Erna. Bearing that in mind, I could have done worse than be named as I am - Brastr, from my size and manner, became the more familiar Brasso.

At least, this is what my sisters liked to call me - my father found it babyish and inappropriate. I was still too young to know when his pride turned into scorn, but as I grew and grew, and remained perplexed by his obsession with 'going viking' or great deeds of a 'manly' ilk, he began to curse me and say I would never amount to anything. He would have disowned me, I'm sure, only he had paid handsomely for Sigurd, the priest of Thor, to confirm I was his when I was born, and then he had shown me off to all his peers at the public assembly, as my step-mother later told me. It would have been embarrassing for him to have gone back on such a confident announcement, I suppose.

So he called me Coal-biter. He came in from the yard one morning and, with frost-cold hands, claimed he was trying to wipe the dirt off my cheeks.

"I asked you to sharpen those knives for me boy, and you've spent the morning rolling about in the ash instead!"

I was sitting by the central hearth, away from the draught of the door, close to the good light so I could see what I was doing as I worked. He was right, I had not sharpened his knives. Truth be told, I did one and then realised how good it would be for whittling the small piece of driftwood I'd salvaged from the beach. I used the beautifully clean new blade to follow the contours of the wood, feeling the layers of it soften when I peeled then back as the callus on my thumb hardened. I still didn't know what shape lay within the salvage - something twisty and cunning. A fox, maybe? - but my father stopped me from finding out. He slapped it from my hands into the fire, and the knife landed in amongst the embers too - its bone handle was engulfed by clean new flames.

My cheeks burning - from the cold of his fingers, from the shame I felt whenever he wiped my face like that, from the anger at losing my project - I glared into the features of this old man who had once been a fearsome pirate and warrior. He didn't scare me, not even then, and I think that's why he came to hate me so much.

"Ash-boy! Coal-biter!" he barked, pinching my cheek and slapping my forehead. "You sit here in the dust all day with the women, getting under their feet while they do the work they need to do. Your skin is filthy with it, your hair is black as soot!"

I made some meagre complaint - "That's just its colour. You liked my mother's black hair!"

Naturally it got me another slap to the face.

"Pick it up," my father seethed, pointing to the metal blade glowing among the flames.

I shook my head and set my jaw. He loved to make impossible demands and I had learned to just ignore them.

He repeated himself, his green eyes bulging, his beard yellow from fire smoke, his mouth stinking from his rotten teeth.

"I already sharpened that one," I told him, reaching for the next knife and the whetstone.

I don't know how the stalemate might have ended - with him forcing my hand into the flames, with me stabbing him with the blunt old blade? - had my eldest sister not stepped in with the tongs and plucked the blade from the fire. She said nothing to either of us, but dropped the ember-red knife onto one of the flat stones they used for kneading bread and walked back to her weaving with a sigh.

Oh, our father would bawl and hollar at her too, but he wouldn't lay a hand on her, not when he hoped to find her a husband at the next local assembly. He left me to sharpen the knives, but he only ever called me Coal-biter after that.

A nickname like that spreads - he didn't spread it himself, that would be too shameful as well, but the serving men and women knew that gossip like that could get them an extra measure of cheese or milk or meat when they were on an errand to the nearby farms.

Have you heard about old Ásbjörn's son? He's a Coal-biter they say, yes - slow to speak, disobedient, spends his whole time lazing about the hearth, never does the jobs he's asked to do. No doubt it's down to his mother - what did Ásbjörn expect from such a creature? He might as well have fucked his horse.

I've heard them say it - I've pointed out that it takes a certain kind of imagination to come up with fucking a horse as an alternative to a serving woman, and asked them how they came to know so much about it. There's not much point picking on the servants though - I can let them take their entertainment where they find it.

So what if I was called Coal-biter? I preferred working at the fire to working out in the fields with Ásbjörn - the fire transforms things, it takes matter and makes it something else, turning wood to charcoal and rock to metal. In the fields it's damp and windy. You have to ride to get there, and I outgrew these little horses before I reached my teens. I feel top heavy on them, exposed and awkward.

I started spending time at Pakkur's forge whenever possible - he taught me how the fire worked, but I didn't really want its mysteries explaining. Instead I made myself useful scavenging old iron for Pakkur to reforge: I pulled the clinkers from wrecked boats and scoured the assembly grounds for lost items. It's amazing what the great and good leave behind after their courts are done and the silver has been exchanged - I've found brooches and pins, coins and buckles. Even a sword knop once - it had a little gold on it, Pakkur said, so we pierced it and looped a thong of leather through the back and I gave it to my step-mother to wear around her neck.

Maybe I should have given it to my birth mother, but I didn't think she'd be allowed to keep it. We don't have slaves anymore in Iceland - you hear that a lot. But when, like my mother, that's what you were before you were brought here, the freedom doesn't mean much. She's a servant, she could maybe be a servant in another household, but even now she doesn't like to speak the language - unless it's to complain about the cold - and she doesn't socialise with the others. I know so little about her - only that she was brought to this place that is so far from her home and so different to it, and the anger she holds in her heart about this isn't dimmed even when we exchange brief, shy smiles across the yard.

What could I do? It's my step-mother who was equipped to deflect my father's attention away from my work at Pakkur's, it's my step-mother who made sure I was dressed well and fed well. I knew she would appreciate the necklace, too - she learned that her position was in no way threatened by me or my mother now, and it meant she felt able to pity me somewhat. So when my father threatened to hand the farm over to his son-in-law she persuaded him to wait.

It was a kind gesture, though I didn't want the farm - I didn't really want any of it. I dreamed of worlds beyond my homeland where there were other things to do, things that weren't farming or feuding. Where I could go to the places called towns and see new faces on every turn, not the same old cast of petty smallholders.

2. Skraeling

Speaking of new faces, I was a teen when Maarva and Clem returned from Greenland with their curious cargo. It gave the whole island something new to talk about.

How should I describe Maarva and Clem? I hadn't known them terribly well before, they left Iceland first when I was young, excited by the prospects of the new land Leif Eiríksson had discovered.

As a kid I heard the rumour that Maarva had been a chieftain's daughter - somewhere remote and peculiar and filled with giants, like Gotland - and she'd certainly been married before Clem, but I imagine she'd have been terribly young. She'd travelled, so probably her first husband had been a trader in the east. At the summer assembly she used to tell us stories of elephants and lions, giant gold-hoarding ants and men with dogs' heads. She said she'd seen it all.

At some point she must have been widowed and left reliant on the mercy of a Norse colony far away, east and south, down near the centre of the known world. It was here she'd met Clem.

With his deep black skin, Clem was an enigma to most of us - he spoke Norse well, but saved his words for Maarva by and large. He was handy with the law, which he memorised as soon as he got here, and a fast friend of Pakkur's. He valued the old and the new equally, because in our society all was novel to him. He found our gods quaint and never tried to explain his own. He wasn't quick to violence, but the first guy who called him blámaðr to his face lost his leg below the knee in the duel that followed. After that, everyone was just happy to call him Clem.

Clem didn't tell stories of exotic animals or ferocious gladiators, but sometimes, in a wistful moment, he would describe stranger wonders: great round buildings shining inside beneath gold ceilings, like each one had a sun captured in the rafters. Lands where sweet fruit grew to the size of your fist, not like the fingernail-sized blueberries we foraged for, and where the air was as warm as our hot springs but scented with exotic flowers and perfumes rather than sulphur. Regular days and nights, good weather and plentiful food - it all sounded as absurd as Maarva's cynocephali and Blemmyes. I don't know that any of us believed Clem and Maarva's stories - few of the adults took this odd couple entirely seriously, and we tacitly picked up on that. But I've since seen those things Clem described, and I've ridden an elephant just as Maarva told me was possible. There was more of the world on their little farm, it turned out, than on the whole of my island home.

And there was even more of it when they came back from Greenland.

The stories had been coming back about skraelings for years, and we all knew them and repeated them and embellished them:

Don't play at the harbour, I heard a skraeling stowed away and it lives in the rocks and eats children!

They have one giant foot and they hop from stone to stone! They use them to crush grapes as big as your head and make wine that doesn't give you a hangover!

Their eyes are big and black like a seal's and if you look into them you'll fall under their spell!

Well. That last one might have been true.

Maarva and Clem brought back a skraeling child, or so we all supposed. When he finally chose to tell his story it went beyond the borders of even our knowledge of the world and our imaginative capacities. But for the first while, he was a skraeling to us, a boy rescued from his own land following some kind of disagreement at a trading meet.

Maarva's version of the story was all breeze and bluster; Clem's was cagey and lacking in detail. But what I first heard from our servants when they came back with timber bought and cut from Maarva's woodland, was this:

Our settlers had travelled from Greenland to Leif's trading outpost in Vinland. The skraelingar came with cloth, hide and food to swap for iron. On the occasion Maarva and Clem went with a party to trade, someone had resolved to swindle someone and soon blows were exchanged - no two people agreed on which side started it. The locals used flying rocks and sharp stone arrows with deadly precision, but they had no swords, and even those who weren't proud of it didn't deny that the Norse colonists had the upper hand.

In the telling, our servants claimed it was a blood-bath - the children who heard the story had nightmares for weeks. With relish, the servants described a boy abandoned amidst the carnage, sitting bewildered among dead bodies, too astonished to flee or fight back. Maarva had taken pity on him and adopted the child rather than leave him to starve in the forests of Vinland.

Later, when I was cynical enough to reconsider the context for Maarva's pity, I also heard a version where she single-handedly drove the skraelingar out of the camp. Something about beating a sword against her bare breasts, advancing upon the enemy and nearly tripping over the boy who had been knocked unconscious by one of the flying weapons. I was never brave enough to ask her about that take on events.

They called the boy Andar, claiming he stopped breathing when they found him and that Clem returned his breath, andar, to him. The boy soon made it clear he already had a name and it was Cassian. The nickname Kass - locked box - was a compromise he made with reluctant Norse tongues, but Clem was careful always to articulate the full word, and Maarva did try, when she remembered.

Cassian brought trouble to the Norse settlement in Greenland. He had not asked to be adopted or rescued, and presumably saw his new situation in a rather different light to how it was intended. Apparently, he made such a noise with his screaming and fighting that livestock miscarried and milk turned. The other colonists said he was a curse and he was the source of skraeling magic that was going to bring about their ruin. Maarva and Clem stood by him, but when, in an inarticulate fury, the boy smashed up a boat and an outhouse, they had no choice but to move away - or face the harsh vengeance of their neighbours.

So Maarva, Clem and Kass the skraeling came back to Iceland, and the unwary among us fell under a spell.

3. Tern

As a teen I'd grown tall, but hadn't yet fully broadened out, and I felt like there was nowhere on the island I could hide - I towered over most of the scrubby birch trees and spindly rowans, and no matter how poor the summer weather was, my skin darkened like roasted rye under the long hours of daylight. I was still a Coal-biter to the other boys, to my father and his friends, but when my sisters had visitors the women would gather behind their looms and giggle at me, whispering things behind their long white fingers. It made me uneasy, and I didn't know why, so despite the weather I resigned myself to staying in the outfields with the sheep, or I combed the rocky river beds for lost fish hooks I could take to Pakkur.

Pakkur was dark, maybe like me, though he claimed not to know where his family came from before settling in Iceland. He preferred to say that black was the colour of the forge: it was fitting that his hair and beard should be charcoal black and steely silver, and of course his skin tanned like leather in the blast of the furnace. He said it was a sign I should learn the craft too, but I never did respond well to anyone suggesting a path for me.

I was capable of all I had been tasked with, but it all somehow felt hopeless. I didn't understand where it was meant to lead. Wandering the riverbeds took me away from future concerns - farms and families and all sorts of distasteful responsibilities - where all I did was let my eyes comb over the different coloured rocks, seeking a tell-tale anomaly in the texture or tone that would bring my attention to a lost twist of iron.

During one such meditation I had wandered far from my father's lands, meandering inland through the lava-fields that ringed Clem and Maarva's farm. Maarva Kerski had a great big wolfhound called Bí, and when I heard barking I flinched, assuming I was about to be scolded for trespassing.

I knew Bí couldn't outrun me anymore - he'd been an old dog when they'd left for Greenland with him, and no one had expected him to return with them. But he still had a bark that could cause landslides - and maybe I had finally learned a guilty conscience from my father's strict lessons. I stood still as a tree in the middle of the stony beach and scanned the grey, craggy landscape for a grey, craggy dog.

When I finally spotted him, Bí wasn't even looking at me. I saw his long tail wag urgently by his shaky legs. He was poised at the edge of the lava field, facing into the uneven terrain with single-minded intent. Again he barked, and I saw when he did that a bird rose up from the rocks with a scream. It hovered momentarily and Bí barked again, and then the bird dove with fury and the small yell that followed was muffled by the breeze.

Without hesitation, I struck out towards Bí, eyeing up the furious bird as cautiously as he did. It was summer, and the terns had been nesting along the river. I knew the spots they used and I knew how to deflect their attention when I was egg-hunting. I also knew when it was better to avoid these areas because the eggs had hatched and the adults would defend their chicks like a hail of spearheads.

Someone in the lava field had not known about this, apparently. The tern dived again, and again I heard a miserable cry.

By now I think I'd guessed who it was, and I pitied the stranger who had come to this land full of murderous birds and abrasive, treacherous rocks. Until then I hadn't seen the boy. I'd heard all the stories and listened with weary exasperation - at least they'd found someone more peculiar than me or my mother to gossip about. I wasn't introspective enough to draw a deliberate parallel between this abducted boy and my mother's own past, but maybe I linked them subconsciously.

"Where is he, Bí?" I stumbled over the crumbly boulders until I could see what Bí could see. Curled in a crevasse, arms over his head, was the boy I had heard called Kass. It was too far to see if he was injured or trapped, but the tern attacked him so relentlessly I could see he wasn't going to get up even if he could.

I pulled my sheepskin vest up over my head and shoulders, thinking of Maarva's story about the Blemmyes whose faces were in the middle of their chests. Had she told the story to the boy? Is that what he'd make of this tall, brown-skinned stranger stumbling headlessly towards him?

Slowly, carefully, I picked my way over the rocks, taking care not to step on fresh moss that would slip away under my weight, or to rely on thin, brittle spires of lava that would disintegrate if touched. No one in their right mind came out in a lava field, ever - where had Kass even been going?

As I drew near, I proved a more alarming prospect for the tern, and it changed tack to dive at me. I cursed as I felt its weight on my vest, its beak plucking at the sheep's wool, wings battering my hands and head. I shook it off and it came again, catching the skin of my hands with its claws or its beak.

"Bugger off!" I snarled, and when I was next able to concentrate I saw the boy Kass staring up at me with those dangerous big eyes the stories had warned us about. He was a handful of years younger than me I guessed, with sallow skin like mine and round, deep irises of a brown so dark it seemed black when I first looked. There was blood on his face, but the cuts were on his arms. His trousers had torn and his knees and palms were grazed, but he still looked like he might run rather than go anywhere I told him to. One small hand tightened on a fistful of gravel and stones and I stood still and shrugged beneath my ridiculous shield. Getting a handful of grit in the face for my heroics wasn't exactly what I'd bargained on. The tern battered me again, and again I flapped around to drive it off.

To my surprise, the boy's distant, fearful expression shifted slightly - like a glacier in the weeks before it calves, when something is about to slip. His lips twitched and he laughed. He pointed to his neck and said something in a strange, melodious language and laughed again.

"No, I don't have a neck," I said, with less good humour than I should have. "The terns pecked it away. Are you coming, or not?"

His eyes narrowed mistrustfully again, and to my surprise he repeated some of my words: "Coming? Not with you." He shook his head.

"Back to your home," I said in exasperation, expecting another collision with an angry bird at any moment. "To Maarva and Clem." There was a bark from behind, and I belatedly added, "To Bí!"

He winced, and I knew to expect the tern again, so I mostly deflected its blow this time. Kass studied me with more seriousness than I think anyone in my life had shown me to that point.

"Home," he said gloomily, and then reeled off a list of words that might have been synonyms - or curses. "Coming to Bí, ok," he finally stood up and brushed the dirt from his clothes, and I slipped off my vest and held it out to him, squinting up at the sky nervously as I did.

"Wear it - it's thick, their beak doesn't go through the leather."

His skinny arm dipped with the weight of it when he took it, but he held on and looked up at me piercingly. "Me..." he swung it over his head as I'd worn it. "But you?"

I shrugged again and waved my arms for good measure as the tern circled. It gave an angry shriek and swooped close to my hand, but not close enough for me to knock it away.

Kass watched and then beckoned me down to his level with a gesture.

I didn't follow at first, but when I finally crouched down, trying to explain that the bird would attack anyway, he put his foot on my leg without asking and scaled me like I was one of my father's horses, wrapping his wiry limbs about my neck and chest and making sure the sheepskin covered both our heads.

"Hup!" he laughed in my ear, and I had to laugh too as I got to my feet. He didn't weigh much back then and I was already strong, so I hooked my arms under his knees and hoisted him to a more comfortable position before beginning to pick a way back to Bí at the edge of the lava field.

That was my first lesson in how he got away with so much - he'd do what he wanted without asking, and be so utterly charming (not to mention right) that you couldn't be mad about it after the fact.

When we reached Bí the boy made no effort to get down but laughed delightedly as the old dog barked and bounced stiffly about my feet. He shouted "Hup!" again and I had to indulge him like I indulged my nieces and nephews - I broke into a lumbering run across the riverbed, moving quickly enough to make Kass shriek with happiness but not so quickly that Bí was left behind. We staggered and giggled our way like that back to Maarva and Clem's homefield, and I set him down to check the cuts the tern had given him. Bí circled around and then flopped in a dusty patch of earth in the doorway, his pink tongue lolling and his tail patting happily against the ground.

A house-keeper came out with a paste to clean the scratches and grazes Kass had suffered, and he turned sullen and wooden-faced until I took the stuff from her and she went inside with a sigh. He was a stoic patient, watching me flick grit out of the frayed skin of his knees and palms and not flinching at all (I noticed his eyes well up, but pretended not have seen it). By way of distraction, I gestured to myself with the rag. "Brasso. That's me. I live over there," I flailed an arm in an unhelpful manner. "Ásbjörn's farm," I added, out of grudging, cultivated habit.

His eyes flicked to the horizon and then he tried the word out: "Brasso." It was refreshing to hear my name spoken without reprimand or warning, and the pronunciation gave him no trouble.

I wasn't as cosmopolitan as this young thing, though. He pulled his grazed hand from my grip and pointed firmly at his sternum, holding my eyes with determination. "Cassian," he said.

It had an unfamiliar cadence, and it took me a few tries - "Kass-een. Kassa-en. Kass. Í. An. Cassian."

It was worth the embarrassment of getting my tongue tangled when he beamed and nodded at my eventual success.

Clem rode into the homefield while the boy was still laughing at my pronunciation, and the first I knew of this was the way Cassian's face stilled again and he turned silent and watchful. It didn't have the same sullenness as when the house-keeper had come out, though, rather it seemed a silence of waiting, of respectful curiosity.

"Hullo, made a friend have you, Cassian?" Clem dismounted and wandered over to us, his horse trailing after. He was tall, but he nevertheless always looked regal on the little horses. "You're Ásbjörn's son, aren't you?"

I stood and blurted out, "That's what he paid the priest to say, yes sir." I wasn't always so good at keeping my mouth shut in my teenage years - I was too accustomed to winding up my father, because it was so easy to do.

Clem just blinked politely. "Brastr, isn't it?"

To both our surprise, Cassian got up and stood between us. "Brasso," he corrected Clem.

Before I could explain that it was just a nickname, Clem opened his palms in apology. "Brasso. Of Harkastadur."

I nodded, wary of Clem's gentle expression and his scrupulously polite accent. I supposed he expected me to explain myself, so I shuffled and glanced at Cassian. "The terns were attacking him. I heard Bí barking and went to help."

Clem did not ask me how I came to be on his land, he just looked at Cassian and sighed. "Did you try to run away across the lava field again?"

The boy dipped his chin and scowled. Something possessed me to intervene, and I said quickly: "He was just by the river. The nests are well hidden this year. I guess...they don't have terns in Vinland?"

Clem smiled generously at my clumsy attempt to cover for a boy who probably didn't even realise that's what was happening. "They do have terns in Vinland. Leif's 'lucky' camp was plagued with them in the first year. Some artisan made a bunting of their corpses and we had to endure the smell of wind-dried sea-bird all summer."

I did what I did with my father and doubled down on a stubborn expression that defied the reality presenting itself to me. Unlike my father, it made Clem laugh and shake his head ruefully. "Look, as you're here and you helped Cassian out, I have some scrap iron you can take for Pakkur."

I glanced at Cassian, who studied me with renewed curiosity, perhaps wondering how I had managed to deflect a scolding he figured he was due.

"At least I know if he makes it across the lava field next time he'll find someone who'll take care of him," Clem said softly, noticing some frisson of hesitation.

I nodded dumbly, offered Cassian a little wave and followed Clem to the back of the longhouse. I was halfway home before I realised I'd left my sheepskin vest behind.

#brassian saga au #brassian #andor fic #andor au #au fic #my fics #my writing #saga au #wip: brassian saga fic #wtf am i doing 🙃#i am a medievalisn't #my wips #draft fic #brasso x cassian #cassian x brasso #sunday six #replacement for sunday six anyway

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insertmeaningfulusername · 1 year

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Brasso’s never done it before. Cassian accepts the challenge.

My entry for the "AUs - First Time" square of @sw-andor's Andor Bingo.

#brasso #cassian andor #brassian #cassian x brasso #andor #Andor Bingo #fanfic #my writing #insertmeaningfulusername

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grissomesque · 1 year

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Cassian x Brasso, pass it on.

#Cassian x brasso #Andor

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roguesones · 9 months

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HOLD ME LIKE A GRUDGE - CHAPTER SIX

by k2cassian Pairing: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso Fandom: Rogue One

Chapter SIX Summary:

"Why did you leave that night?" She asked quietly. Guess she was starting this, then.

#star wars #rogue one #cassian andor #rebelcaptain #jyn erso #andor series #cassian x jyn #jyn x cassian #star wars au #Maarva Andor #Bix Caleen #Brasso #star wars andor #bodhi rook #k2so #chirrut imwe #doctor who #baze malbus #Rogue One AU

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idkbishsss · 1 year

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candyfloss5000 · 4 months

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Syril Karn is such an underrated babygirl

LOOK AT HIM

#Star wars #andor series #Cassian andor #Syril karn #Mon Mothma #Bix caleen #Brasso #luthen rael #Star wars x reader #Syril karn x reader #Cassian andor x reader

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hyperfanpod · 1 year

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The gang chats about the prison arch and Cork makes the case that everyone is in their own prison, including all of Ferrix. Listen to "Andor: The Prison Arch" at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1371367/12231200-andor-the-prison-arch

#star wars #star wars andor #andor #cassian x melshi #cassian andor #mon mothma #bix caleen #brasso #vel x cinta #deigo luna #fiona shaw

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rotzaprachim · 1 year

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one of the most interesting aspects of andor to me is how i think it didn’t decision to alter character timelines so much as make the decision to alter- or rather, cut open and interrogate- the entire timeline of the rebellion, in ways that have fascinating implications for the entire worldbuilding of the starry wars. one of the lingering uncertainties of “andor” comes from the refusal to play any of the cards of the Rebel Alliance as the plucky good-guy army, for whom Joining the Rebellion is as straightforward as enlisting and getting a uniform, who can show up and do army things at any moment. as the episodes build and build and build and the tension and power of the imperial army grows higher, the Rebel Alliance just.... doesn’t appear. there is no Secret Base for Luthen to take Cassian too, only a tiny group of guerillas in the highlands. there is none of the famous iconography of the Rebellion- no orange flight suits (though boy does andor give a new cast to that color choice), no rebel armed rebel bases, no x-wings go swoop in at the last moment. as I watched Andor I felt the lingering stone-drop realisation: the Rebellion, as we know it, simply does not exist. what we get is a hyper-isolated, fragmented rebellion in its infancy, tiny groups and intellligence operations so low on cash that the theft of a single sector’s payroll or access to a single wealthy woman’s family funds. Cassian can’t join the rebel alliance, because it doesn’t exist yet.

And that’s one story. that’s a far, far more complicated story, and a more difficult story to exist within, than the plucky rebel army versus big empire narrative star wars has been living in. how do you join something like that? it really isn’t that easy. BUT! here’s the thing. BUT BUT BUT. andor complicates that further by showing, over and over again, that even if that rebel alliance can’t swoop in and save the day, that even if the number of *official* Rebellion members is a tiny fraction down to their last resources, organised rebellion is, in fact, possible. and it already exists. it exists everywhere, in numerous forms. it is both non violent and violent, and it is often the work of *civillians,* because the fundamental conditions of war, occupation, and totalitarianism make, politicise, designate everyone as a soldier. looking back on andor, there isn’t a single arc that isn’t made possible by some form of organised, collective rebellion. cassian couldn’t have escaped from ferrix if ferrix didn’t already have a system of pounding metal in order to spread the word, if salman and wilmon paak didn’t get set to banging metal, and brasso didn’t weld weights to the police squad car. the rebels couldn’t have pulled off the aldhani heist if hundreds of local aldhani hadn’t continued their cultural rites and kept coming on that pilgrimage even as local imperial agents actively worked to prevent it- because existence can be rebellion, because the continuation of cultural and religious traditions under oppression can be rebellion. the crowning point of the season, for me, is the prison break at narkina five, the five thousand prisoners knowing that there’s only one way out, and that’s by running, shooting, killing, by climbing out together. the series ends on an entire local uprising as a town’s funeral march turns into a riot against armed, shielded cops.

And it all leads into these much more nuanced things that Andor is saying about the natures of both oppression and resistance. Because it isn’t giving the (individualist, and somewhat defeatest, but sure damn repeated) narrative that rebellion against authoritarianism is about a few Englightened individuals - the luthen’s, the aldhani rebels- versus the mass of Sheeple who just take it. Are thankful for it. That there’s just the Special ones who see the light, and those that.. Haven’t. Nor are there the essentialistly Good Pure Rebels who have all the Right Ideas in a nice Color Coded Format, who have fought Purely and Totally for the Rebellion From the Start, versus the bad guys The structures of empire don’t work like that- they make huge numbers of people complicit because of the way they stack and tier and turn subjugated people against each other when so few individuals, actually are in charge, and they make the alternative to complicity be nothing but death, in horrific ways. The people in Andor have dirt on their hands. It’s about what they do now. The X-wings can’t come to save Cassian from Narkina. The prisoners have to climb their way out. No one can give the Aldhani rebels backup. Only Luthen and Cinta and Vel can come to Maarva’s wake, and when the fighting comes, it isn’t even about them, anyway. Andor asks what happens when there isn’t the golden saviour, the Good Guy army coming in for us, and makes the case for rebellion as something intensely collectivist and intensely local, that rebellion and rebels exist before our very eyes, in more complicated ways. It’s what makes the show both brutal and brutally hopeful - for one of the first times, watching star wars, i get the sense viscerally that better worlds and forms of existence are possible within the star wars world.

As for cassian, the arc I hope they’re going for, and i really do think are going for, is not that he joined the rebellion as we see it in rogue one. It’s that that rebellion as we know didn’t exist yet, and that his arc will be about helping to stitch together the various forms of rebellion that already exist, everywhere. I think we’ll walk into Rogue One now not seeing Cassian as Mon and Draven’s hand- already fascinating - but as one of the rebellion’s quiet powerbrokers and kingmakers whose a big part of why they’re there to begin with.

#andor #screaming crying vomiting blood over this show forever and ever #cassian andor

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writingdumpster · 1 year

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girlfriend

pairing: Cassian Andor x reader

warnings: language i think

summary: Cassian introduces you as his friend instead of his girlfriend prompting a fight.

word count: 1.4k

You were enjoying a night out with Cassian. He had taken you to a nice restaurant and you had just ordered your food when a woman you’d never met came up to your table.

“Cassian! How are you? I haven’t seen you in a while,” the woman said.

“Hello, Elaine,” Cassian greeted. “It’s nice to see you,” he said.

“Who is this?” The woman asked, referencing you.

“This is my friend, y/n,” Cassian said. You frowned sharply. Friend? You thought. You weren’t his friend. You were his girlfriend. You had been together almost three months.

You made some polite small talk with the woman. Cassian reached across the table for your hand when she walked away, but you drew your hands back into your lap. He frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Cassian asked immediately.

“I just don’t think ‘friends’ should hold hands,” you said.

“What are you talking about?” Cassian asked.

“You introduced me to her as your friend,” you said.

“So?” He questioned. You pursed your lips and took a deep breath.

“So, we’ve been dating for three months. I’ve slept at your house almost every night for the last three weeks. I was under the impression that I was your girlfriend,” you said.

“We haven’t talked about it before,” Cassian said weakly.

“Is that how you think of me? Your friend?” You questioned.

“Do we have to do this now?” Cassian asked. Your expression tightened.

“No, we don’t,” you said shortly. You stood up and grabbed your coat.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“Leaving.” You walked out of the restaurant leaving Cassian seated there. He was left dumbfounded and alone as he watched the door close behind you.

When he got back to his house you weren’t there. Your things were, but it was clear you hadn’t stopped there after leaving your date. Cassian stayed up past midnight in the hopes that you might return to him. He had a lot of trouble sleeping alone after he’d spent so much time with you. He wasn’t used to the bed being so cold.

The next day Cassian was helping Brasso with some work.

“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Brasso asked after Cassian snapped at him for the third time that morning. Cassian sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Y/N and I are fighting.”

“What’d you do?” Brasso asked.

“How do you know I did something?” Cassian asked angrily.

“I just assumed,” Brasso said with a smirk. Cassian grumbled quietly in response.

“I introduced her as my ‘friend,’” Cassian told Brasso.

“But she’s your girlfriend,” Brasso said.

“We never discussed it!” Cassian snapped, already hearing the same argument you had used with him last night.

“Hasn’t she been sleeping at your place for the last month?” Brasso asked.

“But we have never said it before!” Cassian was raising his voice, stuck in the same place he had been with you.

“Well, what did you think she was?” Brasso prodded.

“I know! I know!” Cassian shouted, more angry with himself than Brasso. “I messed up.”

“What did you tell her?” Brasso asked.

“I did not know what to say,” Cassian answered. “She left before I could figure it out.”

“Have you gone to see her?” Brasso asked.

“Not yet. She’s working tonight, but I was going to visit her,” Cassian said.

“Might want to bring flowers,” Brasso suggested.

Cassian walked into the cantina where you worked. You were standing behind the bar making a drink for a man who was seated alone. Cassian approached the bar, choosing a seat one away from the man. You noticed Cassian as he took a seat and scowled harshly in his direction.

“Here you go, sir,” you said sweetly as you placed the man’s drink on the counter. The man smiled at you brightly and his eyes moved down to your cleavage, clearly displayed in your work uniform.

“Thank you, sweetheart, ” The man said. Cassian’s expression hardened at the nickname. You were not this man’s sweetheart. You were Cassian’s sweetheart.

“Don’t call her that,” Cassian snapped at the man.

“Cassian, don’t,” you warned. The man turned to look over at Cassian.

“And why do you care what I call her?” The man taunted.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Cassian spit. You couldn’t help the smile that rose over your lips.

“You? With a girl as pretty as her?” The man asked incredulously.

“I know. I got lucky, didn’t I? You will not if you do not walk away,” Cassian threatened. The man glanced down at the blaster on Cassian’s hip. The man grumbled and took his drink, going to find another seat in the cantina. Cassian turned to you. You had a small smile on your face.

“Can we talk?” He asked. You nodded before letting your boss know you were taking a break and taking Cassian to the empty office in the back of the Cantina. You closed the door and the music turned to a low hum. You turned back to look at him. You stood in front of him, taking his hands in yours.

“You called me your girlfriend,” you said with a smile.

“You are my girlfriend, are you not?” Cassian teased.

“I thought so,” you said pointedly. Cassian sighed.

“I know and I’m sorry,” he said. “I have never cared for someone the way I care about you and I got scared.”

“Are you sure? You actually feel like I’m your girlfriend, not just your friend?” You asked.

“Of course I do. I was just afraid,” Cassian said. “If we are a couple, then it means I can lose you.” You smiled softly.

“You’re not going to lose me, Cass,” you comforted him.

“I know. I just worry,” he said.

“Don’t. You have me. All you have to do is keep me,” you said. Cassian’s lips tipped upwards at your soft voice.

“I brought you something,” he said. You chuckled.

“Are you bribing me to stop being mad at you?” You asked.

“Not a bribe,” he told you. “An apology.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small envelope. “Sorry it’s not wrapped better.” You took the envelope in your hands. It had something heavy in it. You opened the envelope, turning it over to empty the contents into your hand.

A small flat square stone pendant fell into your hand. The stone was blue and had gold lining the edges of it. The pendant was hung on a chain matching the gold lining. There was one small detail that made it special. Laid onto the front of the tile was a gold “C.”

“Cassian,” you gasped softly. “It’s beautiful.” Your eyes were bright and he knew the pendant was the best thing he had ever bought.

“You like it?” He asked as you looked down at the pendant. You lifted your head to look at Cassian with a warm smile.

“I love it,” you said. “Help me put it on?” You requested. Cassian smiled. He took the necklace from your hand and you turned around lifting your hair off your neck. He wrapped the chain around your neck, locking the clasp carefully. He pressed a kiss to the back of your neck before leaning back. You let your hair fall back down as you turned around. You looked down and held the pendant in your hand. You could feel the outline out the ‘C’ as your fingers ran over the pendant.

“I like that,” Cassian said as he looked at his initial hanging around your neck. “Maybe the assholes here won’t bother you so much if they know you’re mine.”

“I’ve got to get you something that’ll keep all the ladies’ eyes off you then,” you said with a smile.

“There’s never any eyes on me,” Cassian said.

“Oh, please. You’re my handsome scrapper who can fly any ship. Every woman’s eyes are on you.”

“Well, I’ve only got eyes for you,” Cassian replied with a smile. You leaned up on your toes and pressed a tender kiss to his lips. His fingers tangled themselves in your hair, pulling your head back and earning a light moan from you. He pushed his tongue into your mouth, moving it against yours slowly. You were losing yourself in Cassian’s affection when the door banged open behind you. You pulled away from Cassian to see your boss standing in the doorway.

“Oi! Stop kissing your boyfriend and get back to work! There’s four tables waiting out there!” Your boss turned out of the room and back towards the bar.

“Yes, sir!” You called. Cassian’s hands were still on your hips. He leaned down and stole another kiss.

“You’ll come back home tonight, won’t you, baby?” Cassian asked. You smiled softly at the idea that Cassian considered you a part of his home. You nodded.

“Yeah, I’ll come home.”

#cassian andor angst #cassian andor x reader #cassian andor fluff #cassian andor x reader fluff #star wars x reader #andor x reader

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chaos-monkeyy · 8 months

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Onward, into the August fic updates! Had too many feelings about Cassian Andor and Brasso the Ferrixian and Brasso the Ferrixian's chest ahem, had to write lighthearted FWB pre-canon hookup about it 💖

Cassian x Brasso smut: Both Ways (on AO3)

“Come on. You really didn’t know I’m gay?”

Shrugging, Cassian bit his lip and slowly spun his half-empty glass in place on the scuffed tabletop, holding his friend’s gaze. “Well, I wondered. I mean, I was pretty sure. But then I thought, what if it’s just wishful thinking, y’know?”

Brasso’s eyebrows lifted and he sat back, eyeing Cassian thoughtfully over his refilled drink.

“‘Wishful thinking’?” he echoed. “Really. You do know you have something of a reputation, right? Around women, specifically.”

Cassian shrugged again, a crooked smirk tugging at his mouth as he raised his glass again.

“I go both ways, you know,” he said blithely. “All the ways, really. When the mood strikes me.”

“Uh huh,” Brasso said with a tiny smile, gaze fixed on Cassian and his drink seemingly forgotten. “And what’s the mood right now, then?”

“Maybe you should take me home and find out.”

Brasso’s eyes flicked down and back up again, that tiny smile widening. “Should I, now.”

“Yes, because I’m also hitting on you right now,” Cassian offered helpfully. “In case you weren’t sure.”

#chaosfic #cassian x brasso #brassian #brasso #cassian andor #star wars #star wars andor #smut

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notasapleasure · 1 year

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Only ever just one night

Andor (TV series), Cassian Andor/Brasso, M, post-season 1, hurt/comfort, FWB with a smidge of regretful angst. 5-6,000 words.

Sometime after season 1. No, I can't remember if they say where they're escaping to at the end of Rix Road, so I just landed everyone in a refugee camp on an unnamed planet.

Cassian's just left a bad job behind, and he needs the kind of rocksure familiarity and comfort that Luthen just doesn't deal in. He knows his handler will track him down, but for just one night he has to snatch hold of the most reliable love left to him.

Author's note: the hug that launched a thousand ships, take two! I kept seeing people talk about how Cass and Brasso have definitely hooked up at some point, and I agree wholeheartedly. I understand there is An Audience for E fic rather than M fic. If the brain worms persist then I'm sure that can be arranged.

"I love him more than anything he could ever do wrong"

- Brasso, quoting Maarva Andor.

Midnight is getting nearer

I see you clearer

Now that you’re gone

The smoke towers rise all in a row

Shifting in the afterglow

I see the light I hear the sound

But I’m always on the wrong side of town

(John Boden - Wrong Side of Town)

---

There isn't really a knock at the make-shift door. More a scuffing of barked knuckles against durasteel, a quiet sigh that seems weighty enough to push the metal sheet aside. Two stumbling, shuffling steps in the dirt -

Brasso's on his feet beside his cot. He's unarmed, but most of the opportunistic thieves the refugee camp harbours don't need more than a quick look at him - and his empty shack - to know it isn't worth it. Still, he's tired, it's kriffing late, and his boiler suit hangs around his waist, half-undone in readiness for sleep, leaving his chest and arms chilled in nothing but a vest.

He holds his breath, a weary retort on his tongue ready for launch - and then he sees half of a shadow appear in the gap between durasteel panels. It's only a shoulder, a bowed head, one leg shaking with effort, one hand clutching the metal for support, but Brasso knows that half-shadow like he knows how to find the flaws in salvaged Beskar. He'd know any fraction of that shadow, and he doesn't hesitate to rush forwards now, his arms opening to catch his guest.

Cassian is shivering and doesn't even look up as he tumbles into Brasso's hold. He buries his face against vest and skin and Brasso feels the cool, damp air of night on Cassian's face and hair and clothes.

"Cass..." the syllable is squeezed from Brasso's lungs by the grip around his body. Cassian may be the worse for wear, but his strength hasn't ebbed. Brasso never could work out where he stored it all in that wirey little frame, but once again, just as it always was, he feels like he's caught in a vice when he's in Cassian's arms - his heart aches and breathing has become difficult.

"I shouldn't be here," Cassian says softly. His head is still pressed to Brasso's chest and his words tickle in the hairs of Brasso's body.

"No..." Brasso agrees. "You should have been on that transport with us. Where did you go?"

Cassian's hands are locked together behind Brasso's shoulders, desperate, honest in a way the rest of him so rarely is. He shifts at last, raising his chin above Brasso's shoulder and leaning his head into Brasso's as he sighs again. "I..." his throat moves against Brasso's collarbone. "I had a debt to pay. I can't stay long. I have to go back."

There's gravel in his voice, it's sandblasted and wind-beaten. The soft Kenari accent - Brasso's known for years it wasn't Festian, and Cass has probably forgotten the time he told him that story - is more pronounced, the way it is when he's tired or hurt or afraid. Brasso tightens his own hold and massages the neck of Cassian's jacket with his big hand. He leans back against Cassian's head, breathes in the familiar and the unfamiliar - there's a smell about a person's hair that's just them, no matter what ointments or perfumes they use after the sonic shower, no matter the remnants of the forge or the scrapyard caught in it. But mingled with that scent, the scent of Brasso's dear friend, there's something sinister. It reminds him of ozone and blood, of the strange sterile odour of fresh-laundered Imperial uniforms.

"You should stay," Brasso says automatically, emphatically, though he understands that Cassian won't. Can't. If he was here to stay, Brasso would have known it already.

Cassian lets out a dry laugh and his body judders in Brasso's arms, so Brasso has an illusory moment of victory, where it feels like he's able to squeeze Cass even closer. "I've brought you guys enough trouble," Cassian murmurs. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."

"Cass..." Brasso repeats his name with all the gentleness he knows and tries to pry their bodies apart, to get a good look at his friend in the dim glow of the camp light.

It's like trying to get into a clamfruit with his bare hands - Cassian just clings to him for dear life. Whatever he says about the fact he shouldn't have come, he doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave.

The ache in Brasso's heart is starting to feel like something piercing now, starting to spread through him and mutate into something as near to panic as he's ever felt. What's he worried about? Where Cass has been? Why he's back? What Brasso's going to feel all over again while he's here? He's trapped in Cassian's arms and he can't do anything except hold onto him just as tightly in return.

"Cass, Bix is just next door. Bee is with her. You should see how well she's doing. They're both doing. Wilmon's been helping, he's found a way to juice Bee's charger -" he's babbling and he knows it. Too long like this and he always starts to feel out of his depth, ready to do any rash thing he needs to do to keep Cass with him, to keep him close and talking and to get him to smile up at Brasso with that guarded, mischievous twinkle in his eyes. This is all too much, when - before tonight - Brasso had so little hope of ever seeing him again. But this is how it always is with Cass - he materialises from the dark night when he needs Brasso, and disappears again before he can admit to it.

"Come on Cass, Bix'll want to see you. She'll want to thank you," he tries to extricate himself from the hug once more, and this time Cassian allows him a measure of success.

Cassian steps back a little and looks up at Brasso: ever the thin-lipped, wary-eyed boy, his face gaunt with shadows. He blinks and the shutters he wears over his feelings seem to fall open for a breath - Brasso sees the longing, the thirst for company and for friendship, for love and connection. He also sees the red in his eyes and the blood at his hairline; the bruised cheekbone and the high collar that doesn't quite hide further damage.

"I can't," Cassian murmurs. He holds Brasso's gaze, and all the words they've never needed to say out loud underscore his point. "I don't want to...remind her. Especially if she's doing well."

"Remind her?" Brasso feels the words between his teeth, wavering with horror and protectiveness. One hand is still on Cassian's arm and it grips Cass with contrary force - though Brasso swears his brain is trying to send it signals to let go.

Cassian's lips all but disappear in his grimace.

"What have they done to you? Who did this?" Brasso jogs him a little by that one arm. He doesn't know what he'd do with an honest answer, but he knows he's got to ask nonetheless.

Cassian shakes his head - that funny, rolling movement of his neck where it's like he's nodding and saying no all at once. "Can't..." he begins.

Brasso dips his chin and raises his brows. "Can't tell me? Ok. What can I do?"

Cassian's mouth moves again, a puckered argument between emotions tying up his words. "I know he's going to find me here. It won't take him long," he says hoarsely.

"No Cass, we'll hide you, we'll -"

What else is Brasso meant to say? He's no idea what this is about - the same trouble as before? It's more trouble than a few Ferrixian refugees can do anything about. But he's got to offer anyway.

"No. He'll come and I'll go with him. He won't touch the rest of you. But I just...before I go back, I just wanted to remember what it was like," his voice has gone even quieter.

Brasso frowns kindly at him. His thumb moves reassuringly over Cass's shoulder, his fingers grip his arm and offer strength. "What's that, then?"

Cassian snorts again, no humour in it. But there's that glint in his dark eyes that Brasso's been dreaming about, and his vibroblade-sharp mouth quirks up at the corner. "You remember the nights Maarva and I would row."

The pain in Brasso's heart has become a burning furnace, a roaring white heat inside him. He stares down into Cass's rich brown eyes and gives a brave nod. "I remember. Remember the night Bix kicked you out. And the other one, what's her name -"

"Yeah," Cassian licks his lips nervously and finally breaks Brasso's gaze. "Yeah, that too."

"I'm here, Cass. What do you need?"

Brasso hears his own voice too loud in his ears, too gruff, too ruffled by emotion. His cheeks feel hot, so does the skin above the neckline of his vest.

"Just one night," Cassian says hollowly. He blinks up at Brasso, his eyes unexpectedly glassy.

Brasso merely nods - it's only ever just one night. The first time it happened he believed those words and afterwards, ablaze with memories of that one night, he had come to regret agreeing to it - he'd burned through the long sleepless hours between the first time and the second, convinced that he'd just learned what it was he truly wanted only to be denied any repeat of it. Then there had been a second 'just one night'. A third. Brasso had begun to understand that just one night actually meant something else when Cassian said it. It meant I trust you. I need you too much to ruin it by staying longer. I'll be back. I'll always need to come back.

Brasso brings him close again and Cassian sighs in his hold. They lean their cheeks together and Brasso closes his eyes and tries to concentrate on what he remembers of Cassian from before the job that changed it all: his tense, slim body and his silken hair, the urgency with which he cleaves to Brasso. Not the lingering damage that's been done to him, not the sense that there's some kind of...ownership there never used to be, tugging like a leash round Cass's neck the whole time.

Gently, slowly, Brasso leads him to the bedside and by the glow of the lamp he peels Cass's greatcoat back from his shoulders.

Cass winces but shrugs the heavy, dark cloth back. Here, Brasso can see the waxy darkness beneath his eyes, the subcutaneous blood in the bruises on his hands.

Cass doesn't want to remind Bix of what she went through. Torture. Brasso names it in his mind. That's what she went through and that's what's been done to Cass, too.

Brasso is hot as a forge with anger - if he had the people who did this within reach he's confident he could break them apart with his own two hands.

Cass knows it too and doesn't meet Brasso's eyes as he tugs at the fastenings of his tunic. He flinches and takes a sudden gasp of air when Brasso's patience gives in and he reaches for Cass, taking his biceps in his big hands, bending intently to look in his eyes before he kisses him.

There's no hesitation or surprise in Cass's response - this is what he came for. He's silent, but he leans back into the kiss, all sharpness gone from his lips, tension fading selectively from his muscles.

His fists press against Brasso's chest and then his fingers twine round the straps of his vest. The fabric just stretches when Cass tries to pull Brasso near by it, so Cass has to step into him again, craning up into the kiss, his mouth open, his urgent breath the only sound he makes.

Brasso's not as good at being quiet - never has been, not under these circumstances. He draws Cass into his arms and murmurs sounds of appreciation at the feel of their bodies warming up together. He's firm but gentle with his hands, conscious of the bruising he saw hints of, needing, even so, to let Cass know how much he's loved and wanted.

And he is so very loved.

Brasso's known there's no other word for it since the beginning, really. There's never been anyone else like Cass in his life - anyone he could communicate wordlessly with, anyone he could repeatedly offer everything to, and know that they'd never abuse that offer. He knows Cass has no one else like him either, no one else who can do this and ask no more of him.

They don't speak now - there's nothing to say. When the rest of Cass's injuries are laid bare, Brasso runs delicate fingertips over the bruises, his expression heartbroken. Cass just lifts his hand away, kisses the palm, and replaces Brasso's touch elsewhere on his body. They carry on as before, and Brasso tries, once more, to think of what hasn't changed instead of what has.

Cass still kisses like it's his last night in the universe - fierce and hungry, his beard catching in Brasso's stubble, his moustache tickling his nose. He's still scrawny and still strong - a stitch cracks in protest when he tugs on Brasso's vest again and Brasso lets out a grunt of surprise at the force with which Cass's hand on his arse pulls him close. His fingers are clever, rubbing circles in the hollows of Brasso's spine, in the thick hair at the nape of his neck.

Cass steps back and squirms his arms free of his dark tunic. He holds Brasso's gaze, daring him to look away, to go searching his body for the damage that's been done to it.

Brasso just clenches his jaw, presses his lips together, and waits. Lets Cassian unbutton his own trousers, kick off his own boots, finish this striptease as quickly as he can. Cass's legs shake a little again when he has to put his whole weight on one and then the other.

Cass knows Brasso can see this weakness; he knows Brasso would sweep him off his feet if Cass's pride allowed it.

Brasso's too familiar with this routine to try it - Cass's guard comes down when Cass allows it to, and no sooner. They'll get to that point. Brasso presses his lips together and runs his tongue over them in anticipation of it. For now, he allows himself the softest touch on Cassian's arm, runs his fingers and palm against the grain of dark hairs, up past his elbow. Brasso encourages Cass to come back to him and Cass does, his expression still a mask, still a warning against any attempts to breach his defenses.

Brasso knows that'll change. That's another memory he can bring up: Cass at peace, happy in his arms. Brasso kisses him again, tasting blood and the staleness of deprivation - hunger, thirst, asphyxiation. He's going to kiss him until those flavours are banished, he's going to kiss him until Cassian forgets how they - no point asking who they are, when it comes down to it there's only ever one answer to that - starved him and isolated him and...and whatever else they did. Brasso cups his chin in his hands and feels Cass's body lean into the kiss, into Brasso's hold, drawn in like a wreck in a tractor beam.

Cass's fingers work beneath the hem of Brasso's vest, into the warm waistline of his boiler suit. He pulls the cloth up and Brasso feels that momentary tremor of doubt at the exposure - can Cass really want this? Want him?

It might not be clear from his expression yet; his eyes are low, watching his hands work away at the last fastenings of Brasso's clothes. His mouth is pinched again, but his breathing has picked up speed. Brasso can see that skinny, bruised chest rise and fall in the dim light, can see the hue of Cass's cheeks and tight lips - even if he couldn't see the more obvious sign of Cass's arousal he'd still know.

Only when they're both naked does Cass really come close, really let Brasso hold him like they've both been longing for. Brasso's touch sweeps down Cass's back and then he grips him under the arse and lifts him into his arms. Cass comes eagerly, his tired legs wrapping round Brasso's hips. He squeezes Brasso's body until his exhausted muscles shake with the effort, but Brasso's got him, his slight form is weightless in Brasso's arms.

Cass leans down to kiss him, their heights reversed, Cass's fingers making a mess of Brasso's short, sensible haircut. Brasso can barely taste the blood in his mouth anymore and he makes another tender sound as he lays Cass down on his tiny bed.

The thaw is starting in earnest now - Cass knots his hands in Brasso's hair, leans up into their kisses, pulls at Brasso's lower lip with his teeth and breathes with a ragged sound deep in his throat.

Brasso's worried about his battered body and holds himself above Cass, propped up on his thick arms, his hips slotted neatly between Cass's, though he doesn't let himself push down on the body beneath him.

Eventually, Cass is forced to let out a hoarse whisper: "Closer. Come closer, Brasso..."

The sound of his name on Cass's lips is almost enough to make him obey, but Brasso squeezes his eyes shut and nuzzles Cass's nose between kisses. "I don't want to hurt you, Cass..."

"You won't hurt me." There's no hesitation. Brasso can hear the need in Cass's voice now and he opens his eyes to drink in the expression Cass is wearing. His whole face seems to soften when he's here in Brasso's bed - there's new colour in his warm brown eyes, his cheeks look fuller, there's even the rumour of a dimple by the corner of his mouth. "You won't hurt me," he repeats, smiling.

Ok then - Brasso nods, he knows he looks dazed, like someone's dropped a kriffing anvil on his head. It's always a surprise to him that Cass wants to be here, it's always a wonder.

Cass lies back and pulls Brasso down on top of him and even moans a little when Brasso kisses him and nestles down against Cass's hips. Then that's that - no more dithering for Brasso. He has the lube in a chest beneath the bed and he fishes for it one-handed as he rocks against Cass and Cass arches up into him.

He's as gentle as he can be to begin with and Cass is a whole other person in his arms - all sharp edges gone, all barriers lowered, all disguises dropped. His hands seem to be everywhere at once, covering the territory of Brasso's broad back, squeezing the flesh of his thighs and his flanks, urging him faster, harder, closer.

Gentleness comes naturally but so does the frenzy Cass drives him to - Brasso responds to the open palm that strikes his arse, to Cass's short nails scoring down his shoulder-blades, Cass's teeth on his lip, his earlobe, his jaw. Brasso's sweating like he's been welding parts all day, his blood is pumping faster than its done since the funeral, he can't taste any of the recent hurt on Cassian's mouth anymore - it's just him, stripped of pretence and others' expectations.

He tries to slip a hand between their bodies, to make sure Cass is really getting all the pleasure he deserves from this, but Cass pushes him arm aside. "I don't need it, just you. Just...keep going. Harder." His voice is rough as his beard against Brasso's ear, but he leans his cheek against Brasso's with tenderness even as their bodies move recklessly together.

Brasso used to wonder what Cass was punishing himself for when he asked him to go harder, used to worry that Cass fantasised about Brasso without the gentleness he'd cultivated and nurtured and wore with such dignity and pride. But somewhere along the way he'd realised it wasn't like that at all - it was about Cass's trust in him, about Cass needing Brasso to insist he deserved this love, about Cass feeling it, feeling good, because Brasso could scale his defenses and keep him in a place where he let himself feel it. And it's hard to deny that, for all his prided gentleness, it feels good to know he can push himself with Cassian, to enjoy his body's strength and power in a place that isn't the scrapyard. It makes him ecstatic - the only feeling that's come close was when he'd heeded Maarva's command and kicked that Imp in the chest, smacked that other one in the chops with Maarva's funerary brick. That had felt good. Satisfying. But it wasn't as satisfying as this - Brasso prefers to use his body's power to bring Cassian pleasure rather than to bring pain, even where it's justified.

Cass is silent as ever when he comes, his face in Brasso's neck, his hands clasped behind Brasso's back. He just shudders, his legs tangled round Brasso's body, soft but clinging determinedly to him.

Brasso tries - he always tries - to be as quiet as Cass, but a grunt of effort so easily becomes a whine of release, and he presses his mouth to Cassian's skin to try to stifle the sound. Cass is holding the back of his head and arching into him with a gasp and Brasso feels his own body tremble, feels himself turn to liquid in the heat of the forge, ready to be remade, ready to remake.

They kiss, they're in no hurry to move apart. Brasso rocks his hips gently against Cass and Cass strokes over the scratches on his back and the stinging red skin on his arse. They don't need words for this part either - they'll clean up when they're ready, and then they'll make this narrow cot as comfortable as they can.

This is how it started, Brasso recalls as Cass tucks the thin blanket around them and reaches out to switch the camp light off. He'd needed a place to go when he'd made a fuss at home - he hadn't been letting himself mourn Clem and Force knows, Maarva hadn't been coping well either. He'd needed tenderness, not judgement, kindness without a lecture. He'd needed to sleep without the aid of nog or anything else, and Brasso's big arms were where he found what he needed. It had only been in the morning, when he'd turned to face Brasso beneath the covers and they'd both been blindsided by desire, that this ritual of just one night had really begun.

Now Brasso feels the cold durasteel wall at his back, but Cass's body is warm and vital in his arms, fitting snugly with his shoulder blades to Brasso's chest. Brasso snuggles his face into Cass's soft hair and into the crook of his shoulder, breathes him in, and Cass holds Brasso's arms closed tight around his body.

By the time Brasso murmurs, "Sleep well, Cass," he realises Cass has already dropped off. His breathing is soft and his head is a dead weight on Brasso's bicep, but for now there's no sign of the trauma he must have fled to come here. He's at peace, and that means Brasso can relax too.

The camp is never really quiet, but you get used to the nighttime sounds fairly quickly - none of them interfere with Brasso's sleep anymore. So he's not really clear on what wakes him to the purple darkness of the shack, long before morning comes.

Cass is still there in his arms, still sleeping heavily. So heavily that Brasso's fingers have gone dead and the nerve endings in his arm are tingling in protest. Oh well. It's worth it, Brasso thinks, gazing blearily at the spot where the shadows suggest Cass's cheek is. He plants a gentle kiss there and only then notices that the durasteel sheet he uses as a door was never put back properly. It's not open much, but there's enough of a gap that he can see the cold glow from the distant airbase's flood lights.

His pulse spikes so suddenly and so violently that he's sure Cass will feel his heart like a hammer in his back, but Cass is asleep and doesn't notice the figure at the doorway. Brasso's arm is trapped and he has no weapons anyway - what does this pervert want?

Brasso can't see much - the man (he thinks) is a silhouette, with a scarf drawn up over the lower half of his face. He turns a little to glance down the street and when he does Brasso can see his eyes, and they make him shudder. A spy's eyes. Hooded and expressionless, coldly assessing. Like Cass's were before he came to Brasso's bed.

He swallows bravely and waits to make sure the man knows he's awake, knows he's seen him. Then he says, as quietly as he can, "He's coming back to you tomorrow. He told me he was going back."

The silhouette is still and silent, and Brasso can't see his response. Cass sleeps on, oblivious in a deep rest he rarely allows himself.

Finally: "I know," says the silhouette. "Tell him to come to landing pad 4R-1."

He leaves, and pulls the durasteel across as he goes.

Brasso can hear his blood rush and he begins to doubt himself - what if this man is the one who tortured Cassian? Whose game has Brasso just agreed to play? Scenarios he can't possibly predict run through his mind with futile urgency until he drops off into a shallow, uneasy sleep, and by the time he wakes again it's light and he still has no idea what to say about the figure at the door. It can't have been a dream because the durasteel has definitely been closed with more care than Cass had been capable of last night.

Cass is sitting on the bed, tousled and sleepy-looking. The blanket is drawn round his slight shoulders and he's holding a mug of kaf - in the one mug Brasso owns.

"Are you checking the locks?" Cass asks, amusement making his voice warm, that Kenari lisp now smooth and sweet, polished clean of exhaustion.

Brasso turns from the door and folds his arms. He's wearing his underclothes in a concession to the cold bite in the morning air, and he contemplates saying nothing about the man who was there in the night. Cass seems so carefree right now - his smile is mischievous and his eyes glitter with wit. Maybe Brasso should just let him sort his own affairs out - he comes to Brasso to get away from them, doesn't he? Not because he wants a messenger?

Brasso doesn't give himself a chance to take this thought seriously though - honesty is as crucial to their friendship as anything else Cass comes here for.

"There was someone here last night. I was awake and I saw them."

Cassian's expression clouds over immediately. "What do you mean?" he tries to keep his voice light, but Brasso can already see him rebuilding the walls, bricking himself back into the suspicious, uneasy persona that keeps him safe. "A thief?"

Brasso shakes his head. "One of yours, I think." Whatever 'yours' means.

Cassian's brows rise. His expression briefly echoes Brasso's unspoken aside, but then he tucks his chin inwards indignantly. "Excuse me?"

Brasso sighs. "You said he'd find you. I'm guessing that's what happened. But that's all it is, Cass - a guess. If you don't tell me -"

Cassian tilts his head and gives Brasso a look that says: really? But he doesn't stand or rush to get dressed and leave. He clutches the mug of kaf and frowns.

"What did you see? What did he say?"

Brasso describes what little he saw and what little the silhouette in the doorway said. He describes his voice and his accent, and Cass is already nodding at his kaf.

"That's him, yeah. He can wait a while this morning."

The response surprises Brasso, who finally returns to the bed and sits down next to Cass. Carefully, he reaches over and plucks the mug from Cass's fingers and turns it so he can hold the handle, each gesture gentle and measured. "Want to tell me who he is? What all this is about?" He takes a sip of kaf, trying to act casual about it all.

Cass sighs and leans into Brasso's arm, though he doesn't look at him. "No... it's better if you don't know. I work for him, that's all. He wants a report on the last job."

Brasso glances at him, takes in the indiscriminate bruising on his body. "Hm. The job that you got those from." There's no point making it a question.

Cass snorts and gives a rolling shake of his head. "Of course. It's ok, I did what he needed me to do. The debrief isn't time sensitive. That's why..." he chuckles again at his own expense and looks at his marked hands. "That's why I came. Sorry, Brasso. I know it's not fair."

This really sends a chill down Brasso's spine - he's not used to quite this level of honesty from Cass, definitely not on the morning after. He hesitates, studying the greasy black surface of the kaf, and then he hands it back to Cass and wraps an arm around his skinny shoulders. "Fair? Fark that, Cass. I'm just glad to know you're still alive," Brasso sighs - there was more truth in that than he'd intended, too. "And...and I just want to remind you that if you need help, any sort of help, us Ferrixians won't hesitate, we won't -"

Cass snorts mid-gulp of kaf. "You can't help me, Brasso. And I don't want you to. I want you and Bee and Bix and Wilmon to stay far away from the guy you saw last night. It's not safe to know him."

Brasso notices the phrasing - not to know who he is. Just to know him.

Brasso works his jaw. He knows all about Cass's secrets - they're necessary because they keep his friends safe. But this knowledge is built on an unspoken acknowledgement that Brasso's here to keep Cass safe. Safe from himself, more often than not.

"Cass - you know..." Brasso sighs again. It's meant to be an unspoken knowledge. But something about this time, something about the man in the doorway...it really feels like this might be the last time. Best to be clear about these things, then. "You know I'd do anything for you, Cass?" there's a plaintive note in his voice that he tries to hold back, but there it hangs, needy and desperate as the way Cass holds onto him in bed.

Cassian puts the mug of kaf down next to the lamp. He turns a little and doesn't try to shrug off Brasso's arm, but he grips one broad knee and squeezes it meaningfully. He's not fully retreated into the defensive, closed persona he wears outside Brasso's quarters and there's a care in his eyes that makes Brasso's chest tighten. "I know. I know you would," Cass shakes his head, lifts a hand and cups Brasso's cheek in his palm. "That's why you've got to forget about it, Brasso. He"d take that and he'd use it. It's what he does. All your good intentions, all your kindness - they're his tools."

Brasso covers Cass's hand with his large palm. "What about your good intentions? Your kindness?"

Cass shivers, Brasso can feel him consider pulling away. But he stays, and laughs mirthlessly again, and bows his forehead to Brasso's. "Irrelevant. Long gone. It's all about the bigger picture, Brasso."

Brasso runs his thumb over Cass's hand and the arm over Cass's back tightens to draw him near. "Not long gone. Not irrelevant. Not to me. You wouldn't have come here if that was true, would you?"

Cass's body trembles again and he pinches his lips. He's starting to look haggard and troubled, like last night's spell is wearing off. "I just...I just needed to know if I could still..."

"I know," Brasso murmurs. "I understand, Cass." It's all he's allowed to offer, and he offers it in abundance, arms wide with generosity.

Cass presses their foreheads together and shifts his hand beneath Brasso's, grasping the back of his head and pulling him into a kiss - unexpected, forceful, an assault on Brasso's raw emotions.

He breaks the kiss and stands, looking down at Brasso with the nearest thing to regret in his eyes. "Just one night, remember?"

Brasso nods. He doesn't trust himself to speak, but he watches in glum, thoughtful silence as Cass dresses.

He doesn't look as unsteady on his feet today, that's certain. He's well-rested. Hopefully he's remembered he's more than the husk he needs to be for the jobs he's stuck doing.

As for Brasso - he'll go back to the routine, he supposes. Drinking tea with the other Ferrixians and reminiscing about their old lives. Negotiating to find a way out of this refugee camp and into work that's useful. They've all heard that rebellion is brewing and they're itching to play a part in it - even Bix is fired up by the idea, fuelled by Maarva's message, by her legacy. The hope that the connection she once had on Ferrix - distant, intangible - is evolving into some sort of coherent fight back against the people who since took everything from her is like a rope she uses daily to pull herself back from the horror of what happened. And they all have skills, they all spent their lives working - stagnating here in the camp forever is simply unimaginable, unconscionable.

Brasso looks up suddenly. "Should I tell the others you were here?"

Cassian straightens his belt over his narrow hips and glances sharply at him.

Brasso shrugs and spreads his hands. "I can lie to them, but not about everything, Cass..."

Cassian considers this and then steps over to Brasso, leans down and kisses him again. He lingers, and it makes Brasso want to grab him and keep him there, pull him back down to the bed and hide him from the man he works for. Instead he just grips the edges of the thin mattress and lets out a mournful sound when Cass pulls away.

Cass looks down, breathing hard and acting like it's not showing. "Tell them what you need. I won't be back, Brasso. Keep them safe."

"What about Bee -" he's on his feet. He didn't mean to be, but Cassian's already on the way to the door.

Cassian looks mortified - just for a moment, and then he shuts it down. "I'm sorry, Brasso. I don't have time for goodbyes. You explained to Bee before - you'll have to do it again."

And then he's gone, slipping through the durasteel sheets like they're a curtain he just has to brush aside. Like he's a gas, ephemeral, a spirit conjured from Brasso's dreams.

He stands there for a moment, sore and stunned, and then he takes a deep breath. He's done this before. He can do it again. There's precious little certainty in this galaxy anymore, and Cassian can close all the doors he wants - but Brasso has to believe that Cassian will always continue to find him when he needs him.

#*kicks down door to star wars fandom* HI BITCHES #*throws Cassian/Brasso smut in like a grenade and runs* BYE BITCHES #cassian x brasso #brasso x cassian #cassian/brasso #andor for ts #andor series #delusions of grandeur #cassian andor #my fic #my writing #not yet on ao3 but it will be

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insertmeaningfulusername · 1 year

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Cassian's always running away and getting himself into trouble. This time isn't much different, except that the trouble in question might just cost him more than a few scrapes and bruises. Lucky for Cassian, Brasso always knows where to look for him.

My submission for day 20 of @sintember with the prompt “That’ll teach you where to put your fucking fingers” - Consequences, a touch unwanted, a thief, a rebellion. Teach them better. Thank you for keeping the challenge open till July 💙 Warnings in the tags.

#brasso #cassian andor #brassian #brasso x cassian #cassian x brasso #andor #star wars #my writing #sintember 2022

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heartofwritiing · 1 year

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Never meant to make you bleed.

paring: cassian andor x fem!reader

summary: after the events of 1x6 Cassian comes back to you with the chance at a better life together, but you’re still mad at him for all the secrets and leaving constantly, it will take more for him to apologize. based off I’ll be good by Jaymes young.

authors note: I can’t believe this show is done. It has gotten me through some stuff ngl I'm so sad it's over for now but I'm so happy that they're already filming season two!

warnings: angst, mentions of the events of 1x1 & 1x6, andor spoilers, slight fluff, mentions of spice (fictional drugs) some suggestive dialogue, arguments, lots of uses of cass idk i just really like his nickname lol, super unedited! (like fr I really need a beta reader..)

Coming home from a 12-hour shift at the junkyard, you were covered in oil and filth and stars know what else. You couldn’t wait to hop in the refresher, slip in your favorite nightwear and climb into bed.

You went to check on Marrvea before you made your way home to see if she was doing well, knowing she had been very sick the past couple of days. You, Brasso, and Bee had been taking care of her since Cassian left after the whole Corpos incident. She had been like a mother to you growing up so you only deemed it right to take care of her. Sometimes the woman could vex you with how stubborn she was. Refusing help when it was given to her, and the fuss you, Brasso, and Bee had given her.

You had walked through the entrance of your home and were greeted with darkness, the only light being from the small kitchen lantern you had left on for this reason.

You threw your bag next to the door and unbuttoned your jacket. Most days were hard to get through with all the labor and demand from Mora your boss. Especially with the empire patrolling the city more, everyone was on edge with how much it was getting overrun by Imperials. Getting things done recently had been more challenging since that day Cassian had left and what had happened.

You didn’t expect a knock at your door before you could even get it off. You groaned, wanting whoever it was to go away so you could relax for the rest of the night.

Strutting over to the door, your boots echoing off the walls, you pressed the panel button and the door opened to reveal Cassian Andor. He was clean shaven, dressed in a blue coat and his hair looked shorter than when you last saw him.

“Cass?!” you whisper shout. “what are you doing here, come in before someone sees you.”

You grip his jacket and pull him through the door way before you shut and lock it behind him. You had so many questions, like why he was here so late in the night and where had he been for almost three days. He looked on guard but placid as you shrugged your jacket off and placed it on the hook by the door.

You looked at him through the dimly lit white light from the kitchen as it glowed on the left side of his face making his eyes shine and skin glow. Cassian had always been attractive growing up but now he was even more handsome and rugged, especially in low light and when your half hooded eyes were scanning over his face and you hadn’t seen him in days it was doing things to you. You were still angry with him, but did miss him a lot while he was gone.

You noticed when his lips turned right into a smirk that his eye grew darker as you focused on him. He moved closer till your chests were closer to touching and you could feel his breath fan across your cheeks. His eyes glint when they meet yours, he knows precisely what you’re thinking. You shook your head from side to side, composing yourself, keeping your eyes hard on him.

“what are you doing here?” you asked.

“not happy to see me?”

You rolled your eyes at his comment. Of course, you were happy to see him that should be a given. You lowered your voice as you spoke.

“the Corpos are searching for you, they’re holding Marrva in her home, there have been rumors that you..” you trail off.

Not bringing yourself to say the word’s you don’t want to be true. You didn’t want to believe town gossip, you wanted to hear the truth from Cassian. His eyes searched yours frantically trying to figure it out before your lips could say it.

“what?” his eye brows scrunched down.

“you killed two corpos on Morlana One,” Your voice goes quiet as you finish your sentence.

Cassian sighs and swears under his breath as he turns away from you. You felt sick when you first heard the news from Brasso who informed you and he didn’t believe it either. Cassian wouldn’t have done that, not unless he had a reason. How would you know you barely see Cassian anymore? He returns after being away every few weeks, doing hell knows what. He comes back for you and Maarva as he always does. You sometimes feel he perceives it as an obligation to return to you. AZ

He says he loves you, he shows it in more ways than one, but you haven’t felt it recently. All the secrets made you worried for him, If he loved you why would he leave all the time?

You move towards him and slide up to his side, he felt tense and cold as you touched his jacket clad shoulder.

“It’s true,” he spoke, his eyes trained on the floor. He’s too scared to look at you, too afraid to see the look on your face. What you must think of him right now. No words are shared between you two as you stare at the side of his face in disbelief, he can feel your eyes on him not judging but just staring.

“What happened Cass?” you inquired, bringing your hand up to the base of his neck in comfort.

Cassian had explained why he went to Morlana One in the first place, he was going to find information on his sister. That shocked you greatly. He hadn’t told you much about his childhood, only that Marvea took him in when he was fourteen and had brought him to Ferrix and he told you very little about his childhood. You understood it was difficult for him to discuss it.

You and Cassian grew up together on Ferrix, your father was very good friends with Clem, Cass’s adopted father, and you both would consistently play together since you were only a year or two younger than him. throughout the town making mischief as you went. But as you got older something had sparked between you two other than friendship.

Cassian was always handsome but as he got older he became somehow more rugged and handsome in your eyes. You became more beautiful as time went on in his eyes. You both never liked the idea of love and marriage as kids, but when puberty came around everything changed.

He kept going on, he told you two Corpos had instigated him at the brothel where he was tracking his sister, then they proceeded to follow and corner him in an ally. There had been an accident, one of the men had fallen and hit his head rendering him to pass from the blow.

The other Corpo had begged him to go in and say it was an accident and there wouldn’t be any trouble, Cassian couldn’t bare to tell you the next part. What you were thinking of him now was driving him mad, when he finally looked at you he could see the discerned expression in your eyes.

You were glad he told you the truth, you could only guess how he was feeling right now. You felt a mix of emotions that you couldn’t quite place.

“I want you to come with me,” he says.

You blink at him.

“What?”

Cassian turns to you and shifts closer.

“I want us to go somewhere and be together like you’ve always wanted,”

That was a fantasy when you were kids, always talking about leaving and traveling the galaxy with each other. It was escapism, imagination, he didn't honestly think you would actually leave one day?

“Where would we go?” you asked.

“Anywhere,” he breaths. “everywhere,”

Your lips parted in shock, you couldn’t believe he was dropping this all on you. Did he expect you to leave everyone and everything behind?

You bite your bottom lip in uncertainty. You did love Cassian, with all your heart always have, and will. when he was always leaving and keeping all these secrets from you now, it was getting harder to trust him. He felt distant, and unsympathetic towards your feelings of loneliness when you would wait for him.

Uneasinesses consume you as Cassian looms over you with his broad shoulders. He places his hands over your biceps and you feel his thumbs rub circles through your shirt sleeves. His warm breath fans across your forehead, and you pause to meet his eyes, keeping them trained on his shirt under his jacket.

“I don’t know Cass,” you trailed off.

Bringing his hands up to your face he tries to get you to meet his eyes.

"If you're worried about money, I have the credits," he says.

You frowned.

"How did you get money?" you asked, worry lacing your tongue.

Cassian sighs annoyed that the conversation has taken a turn.

"It's not important, I just have it,"

"Don't do that,"

"What?"

The atmosphere has shifted around you both as you get more restless with his reservedness. You can't stand for the secrets anymore.

"Just tell me where you got the money Cass," you implore. "Are you trading spice?"

You wished your mind hadn't gone there but with everything that had been going on lately, you couldn't help it. He knew how you felt about that trade though, how your uncle had gotten mixed up in all that and then vanished, and now the same was happening with Cassian, this is how that happen last time. the people around you always suffer the most.

"kriffing- no! how could you think that?" he scowls.

Your eyes brim with tears, how could you have thought that, of course, he wouldn't get mixed up in that, not your Cass.

"I'm sorry, it's just I don't understand why you all the sudden just come back with all this money and expect me to think anything but bad,"

Exhaling through his nose Cassian just felt right about just telling you. He trusted you more than anyone. He told you everything, well almost, leaving out parts he didn’t want you to know that he knew would upset you. Aldhani was a mess to say the least, You could tell he was leaving out some details with the way he hesitated with every breath between pauses of speech.

You were happy he was opening up more with you but you still felt wrong about just leaving out of know where.

“But think about it,” you speak. “you can’t just expect me to leave everything and everyone I love?”

“no, but-“

“what about my father? Marrvea? Bix? Brasso?!” you retorted.

“Just because you leave doesn’t mean that you can just come back and pick up the pieces of those you left behind!”

Cassian looked a little wounded at your words but he noticed how worked up you had gotten. You were right, he had been inconsiderate in not telling you anything, and asking you to drop everything and run away with him was unfair.

You notice how he looked with a pained expression and his eyes trailed down in shame, you felt bad for snapping at him like that. You took a deep breath and placed your palms on Cassian's chest.

“im sorry,” you apologized. “I didn’t mean to get so cross,”

You tried to level your head as Cassian pulled you closer and pressed a kiss to your forehead tenderly as he whispered against your skin.

"don't apologize, I'm the one who should be sorry,"

You wrapped your arms around his middle and you could feel his warm hands follow up your spine, he perceives that you might melt away in his arms if he doesn't hold you tight enough. That you will fall if he doesn't catch you now.

“You just make it hard sometimes, I can’t keep feeling empty when you’re not here, then happy when you’re here, and then dread when you’re gonna leave again. It’s torture but I carry on, get things done, and I can’t keep doing it Cass.” his nickname trembles off your lips. You feel a weight lift off your chest as you tell him, you slump into his shoulder and cry softly as he holds you close.

He had no idea this was how you'd been feeling, if he had known then maybe he would've done things differently. Instead of just leaving all the time he could've stayed with you, worked at the yard until he made enough credits to get a place for just you and him, somewhere close enough to Marvea and your father so you could keep eyes on them. Somewhere you could grow a little family together. But instead, he was searching for his sister who might not even be alive anymore but still held onto hope that she was still out there.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" he asks.

You didn't know why you waited so long to tell him, maybe it was the fact he came over tonight and everything was finally boiling over in your mind and you just wanted closure.

It wasn't essential right now. All that mattered now was that he was holding you. Silence passed between you, though it didn't leave you feeling dread. You thought hard for a moment, knowing another chance like this might not come again. An opportunity for you both to be together, and have a life.

"I'll come with you," You say.

"You will?"

You nod into his chest and inhaled getting the scent of his musk that brought you serenity. Cassian was relieved that you had made up your mind, you were glad that he was. You could feel the tension slipping away from you both from the conversation.

"Can we wait a day or two while I get my affairs in order?" you ask.

It would take you a day to pack and say goodbye to everyone. You don't know what you'll tell your father despite knowing he will understand more than anyone why you are leaving. Your father always did use to joke about how you and Cassian were fated to be married. He used to say there was no one else he could see you settling with than Cassian.

"of course," Cassian nods.

You pull back from him and see his face light up when he looks at you sincerely, which makes your heartbeat skip. Cassian presses his lips to yours in a gentle kiss that causes you to moan softly at his lips' softness. He cradles the back of your head as the kiss becomes more fervent and desperate.

You reach a hand up to stroke his jaw with the pad of your thumb, the stubble growing there pricks at your skin. You disconnect your lips when you feel a knot form in your belly, and your breaths mix as you stare into each other's eyes currently clouded with desire.

You wished he still had his full beard, the hairs used to tickle when you kissed but it suited him very well.

“You shaved,” you giggle, tension slipping away for a moment.

Cassian chuckles under his breath as he gazes at you cheekily.

“You miss my facial hair?”

You shrug nonchalantly pushing up onto your toes you kiss his cheek tenderly and lean into his ear.

“Can’t blame a girl, especially when it tickles in a good way, in more places than one..” your voice trails off.

Cassian's face goes bright red and he clears his throat as he leans forward.

“Don’t,” he warns.

“But it's so fun,” you tilt your head, grinning like a cat.

Cassian shakes his head and gives you a smile. Suddenly you're squealing as he picks you up and you circle your legs around his waist. He carries you to your bed and sinks down until you're both laying on your sides. You lean your foreheads together as his hands caress your back ever so softly. Anger is forgotten as he touches you and somehow you mostly hate the way he makes you feel half the time.

Love, annoyance, pain, dread, compassion, and sometimes resentment. Never the less you never could hate him for that.

"I'm still mad at you," You hum, eyelids shutting as you cuddle close to him.

"I know," Cassian murmurs. "Just get some sleep,"

*~*

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dameronscopilot · 1 year

Text

Pretending (or not)

Cassian Andor x reader

Summary: Given Cassian's perpetual distaste for all things merry and festive, his offer to be your fake date for your company's holiday party is surprising, to say the least.

Word Count: 1.3k

Content: modern au, fluff, fake dating, first kiss

Prompt: Fake dating for a work holiday party + confessing feelings

DECK THE HALLS MASTERLIST

Cassian Andor is not a fan of Christmas.

He hates the commercialized commodification of it all.

He hates the bustling madness of the city in the weeks leading up to the holiday.

He hates the soul-crushing anxiety of gift shopping and the unrealistic expectations that accompany it.

He hates the explosion of glitzy decor that decks every hall and the endlessly cheery music that he can’t seem to escape.

And it’s this knowledge that makes his presence at your side now at your work’s holiday party completely and utterly baffling.

–

Last week, Cassian, Bix, and Brasso were gathered in your living room with several boxes of pizza spread out across your coffee table and a movie playing in the background. After peeling away a stray mushroom that had found its way onto the slice in your hands, you’d groaned as your phone screen lit up with an email reminder about the party in question.

“I thought you said Luthen throws great parties, aren’t you usually excited?” Bix had asked.

At that, you’d told them all about your coworker that, as of late, is utterly incapable of taking the hint that you simply aren’t interested in conversing with him, much less spending time with him outside of work. You’ve yet to find a moment to inform your boss of what a bother the man has become, and thus you weren’t keen on subjecting yourself to an entire extracurricular evening in his vicinity. You’d resigned yourself to the only surefire avoidance tactic: skipping the event entirely.

And then Cassian had suddenly spoken four words that left the room's occupants silent for a beat—

“I’ll come with you.”

Brasso had choked on his drink mid-sip, and Bix turned down the volume on the television as she gaped at him.

Despite the fact that everyone in the room was entirely certain that Cassian would never be caught dead at a Christmas party, much less any other festive gathering, he had the gall to shrug as he took in the surprise on the faces surrounding him.

Snatching the abandoned piece of crust on your plate as he often did, he'd taken a bite and shrugged, swallowing before adding, “Well, you need a fake date, right?”

–

The sounds of partygoers animatedly talking and laughing bounce off of the museum’s high ceilings, which are strung to and fro with an exorbitant amount of garland, bows, and soft white lights. You steal a glance over at Cassian, who’s ignoring the assortment of alcohol-fueled, holiday-themed games in the boardroom that the rest of the guests are flocking to in favor of observing a new exhibit that was installed earlier in the month.

Given that he’s far too absorbed reading the placard for the antique biplane roped off in front of him, you let your gaze linger longer than usual on his form for once. You’ve always appreciated Cassian’s rugged winter look—his hair long with rogue, wayward strands and a full, glorious beard adorning his face. After you assured him that he by no means needed to dress up this evening, he’d opted for a dark green flannel shirt that you’d given him for his birthday last year. Paired with black pants that hug his thighs far too well and his brown leather boots that you hardly ever see him without, Cassian just looks really fucking good.

And well, he always looks good.

It’s something that you can’t help but notice, regardless of how desperately hard you try to tamper down the way you feel about him. They’re feelings that fizz out of control like a shaken bottle of soda at times like these, threatening to come pouring out—gravity be damned—should you lose your precarious grip on the lid.

Distracted by your own thoughts, you nearly jump at the feeling of a hand wrapping snugly around your waist. And though you begin to relax when you realize it’s just Cassian, you immediately tense up again at the warmth that crawls up your spine in reaction to the way his fingertips press into your hip bone through the fabric of your dress.

“That’s him, right?”

Your breath hitches in your throat when Cassian brings his lips to the shell of your ear to ask you the question, his breath hot against your skin. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot Syril Karn, who’s predictably overdressed as he begins to make his way over to you.

“Yep,” you groan quietly, tone laced with dread.

“Look at me,” Cassian murmurs, letting his fingers skate across the curve of your jaw.

Silent warning bells echo in your head as you turn to him, heart leaping at his close proximity when his nose brushes against yours. It would be far too easy to ki—

Cassian beats you to the punch, his mouth seeking yours out in a slow, tender kiss that sets your insides alight, your nerve endings tingling as his hand slides down the side of your neck, his thumb brushing over your skin in a gentle caress.

Your hand finds its way to one of the pockets on the front of his shirt, your fingertips pressing into the cool metal button holding down the flap. Momentarily forgetting that this is all a festive ruse, your mind reels at the feeling of Cassian’s tongue darting out to meet the seam of your lips, and you fist your hand in the material, pulling him closer. He cups the back of your head in return, his soft lips sliding against yours for another moment before you’re interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat, followed by your name.

The two of you break apart, and you will the erratic beating of your heart to slow as you turn to glance at Syril, though your face heats up as you feel Cassian take one of your hands, threading his fingers into yours.

"Syril," you acknowledge him evenly.

“I’m pleased you could make it, I know last week you said you weren’t certain about your plans for the evening,” Syril observes, straightening his collar, though it’s already ironed stiffly enough to poke someone’s eye out.

“Oh. Yeah, it ended up working out. This is Cassian, by the way.” You awkwardly gesture to Cassian, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Syril nods in his direction. “Ah, are you a friend?”

Cassian stiffens beside you. “Boyfriend, actually.”

He tries to hide it, but Syril blanches for a split second, though he quickly composes himself, clasping his hands together. “How lovely. Is this...new?”

On the drive over, you’d come up with a vague story about getting together recently, if anyone were to ask. But just as you go to open your mouth to tell Syril exactly that, Cassian interrupts, “Not at all. It’s been a few years, actually.”

Syril’s clearly deflated at this point, shoulders drooping, and after another few minutes of failed small talk, he mumbles an excuse to make himself scarce, ambling away in the opposite direction.

You turn to Cassian, almost annoyed by how easily it had been to ward off Syril in comparison to every other overbearing interaction you’ve ever had with him—as if your lack of interest alone wasn’t enough of a valid reason without the addition of a fake relationship. Crossing your arms, you’re on the verge of griping about it, but the words die on your lips when you catch the odd look on his face.

“I can’t pretend anymore,” he breathes out.

Your heart sinks. “I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, we can go—”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Cassian takes your hand, running his thumb over your knuckles, and he continues, “I can’t keep lying to myself about the way I feel about you.”

You sway slightly on your feet. Carefully, you ask, “And…how do you feel about me?”

He leans in, his chest brushing against yours as he brings a tentative hand up to the side of your face. “I want to kiss you when nobody’s watching, too. I want this to be real.”

His mouth hovers near yours, a breath away. Waiting.

“It is,” you whisper, a tidal wave of emotions thrumming in your chest as you close the distance between your lips and his.

—

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