Tag: (and a Captain to share it with)

estherlyon:

Thank you for the prompt! Caretaking is my jam and I was inspired by what I was eating for dessert. Hope you like it. 🙂

–

Jyn dragged the metal chair towards his bed with a purposeful screech, aware that he was actually awake. She knew by now the pattern of his breaths and the loose curve of his jaw whenever he was sleeping. He knew she knew. So he didn’t even bother pretending and just turned his eyes towards her, like this was just another boring afternoon in the Yavin IV medward.

She was fine. Two weeks of bonesetters and bacta had healed cracked ribs and smoothed over burned skin. He, of course, had almost died.

And he wasn’t eating.

So she brought the bundle she had dragged in with her to her lap and spread the cloth apart, showing the bright orange fruits she had found in crates in a corner of the hangar. The citric smell filled her nostrils and made her mouth water as she took one in her hand and started peeling it using her blunt nails. Cassian watched her, silently, nostrils flaring whenever he caught a whiff of their fragrance.

“These were my favorite,” she started saying, “whenever Saw brought me here as a kid.”

She had already admitted to him that her being brought over from Wobani hadn’t been her first time at the Massassi Great Temple. He had been shocked, had wracked his brain for any memory of her but not found any.

“I like them, too,” he offered, voice still raspy from the tubes that had been shoved down his throat so he could breathe in those hazy days before the Death Star was destroyed.

She used her legs to bring the chair closer, to make sure he smelled the oil that would spray minutely into the air every time she ripped into the fruit’s skin. She tossed the peels aside and pulled apart a small section, shoving it into her mouth.

“Force, it’s been ages since I’ve had them,” Jyn sighed, chewing around the words as she spoke them.

She let juice dribble onto her chin on purpose and made quick work of the first one of the Yavin tangerines. Cassian’s eyes were on her mouth and she felt just a teensy bit smug, nails digging into the peel of the second fruit. She ate it in silence, spitting out whatever seeds there were, rubbing her hands together, making sure the smell lingered in the air.

He huffed a laugh. And then winced because it hurt his ribs.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“I never thought you didn’t.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, a fleeting thing.

“Come here,” he said.

Jyn got up, holding on to the tangerines, and sat on the bed.  She reached out and brushed his hair away from his forehead, feeling for his temperature in a way that made him roll his eyes. He stopped her hand, took it in his and tugged her down to him.

His lips tasted like bacta. Hers, of tangerine juice.

“I’ll have one if you’ll take the seeds out,” he whispered against her mouth.

“Very well, Captain.”