Thank you anon!!
♥: How they show affection.
I have this unshakable headcanon that Cassian, while super (emotionally) reserved and detached (well, sorta – he’s really empathetic and uses that as a tool, but also has to cut himself off or it affects him too much) for what he has to do, is actually really really affectionate with the people he loves.
Mainly due to his upbringing, which I imagine him just being the darling of all the adults around. As the youngest kid in the neighbourhood he’s witnessed and been the subject of great fondness. Pats on the head, cheek squishes, lots and lots of hugs of course.
He’s also touchy and up in people’s personal space on the job. See how he interacts with Tivik, and even with Jyn at the start he’s already got a hand on her back and guides her way.
After all this, when he really likes someone he’s almost hesitant to express anything, verbally or physically. He’s said and done all these things before but he never meant it then. So how can he be sure they know he means it now? How can he be sure he means it now?
He can’t.
I ship him with both Jyn and Bodhi and you didn’t even specify romance or not, so how he gets past that mental block varies depending on context.
Jyn, equally reserved, not touchy feely but manages to hug him even in the end – they fumble through it together. Bodhi, I feel though he’s lost so much he hasn’t had to suppress himself in the same ways the other two have, as in while he’s had to suffer under the Empire, I doubt that lower level Imperial cargo pilots don’t share the jovial relationship that Rebel pilots do – he makes up the distance and lets Cassian inch forward.
Cassian’s bad with words, because he can paint the most beautiful pictures when he needs to, for the mission, for the cover, but they all seem to fail when it really matters.
He’s so painfully aware when people are in his personal space. They could kill him from a farther distance. His nerves are on fire. He can’t reach out.
He does things, instead. For them.
Actions, not words. Little favours they might not notice until they pile up, the realization smacking them in the face like you did all that for me?
(This is incidentally a theme for a fic update, wink wink)
Stealthy, silent, like the spy that he is. Right when and where he’s needed, but never noticed.
A cleaned blaster, if she doesn’t mind him touching it. Rewiring and the controls so he can fly more smoothly. Rearranging training schedules, rooms, supplies just so; so the Guardians have somewhere to pray, to practise. Knowing when supplies ship and when that fruit or this meat in stock, letting the right person know so that homeworld festival can be celebrated on time.
Most of it he’d learned with Kay. Tweaking his processors, offering the necessary but sometimes awkward knowledge the droid had needed to manuver a human world. Asking if he wants to power down for the night, so he can fix him, for the flight. Arranging oil baths, neatly filling in scratches, rapping him lightly on the chassis even though, as Kay reminds him, he has no tactical sensors. Cassian does it all, anyways.
Kay only said thank you the first few times, eventually learned to rebuke Cassian’s offerings with what he could’ve done better. Statistically speaking… Cassian would only smile in response.
Cassian shows affection with favours; but he doesn’t expect anything in return.
(Not because he doubts he’ll live to ask, even though that’s true, but because he frankly doesn’t care. You do things because that’s what you’re supposed to do. What he wants to do. Not out of expectation, never out of expectation. How else could he be in the Rebellion?)
Once they figure it out, though… he receives much.
Bodhi blinks and uhms before offering a wide grin and a hesitant hug, and Jyn leaves her thanks in forms of a plate scraped clean and a warm gaze when he stumbles home after a mission. Leia is always just what he needs, stubborn enough to spit out what he’d love to say (kriff that dim witted nerfherder, you’re right and they know it) but can’t. Baze is affectionate in the exact same way (cleaning weapons and mending clothes and offering a shoulder to rest on), their relationship is beyond speaking, honestly, but they know. They’re too similar, that way. Painfully so, but they bond because Cassian always loved languages, and between Jyn and Bodhi and the Guardians he’s now fluent in four major languages once spoke on Jedha. Chirrut knows all, sees all, is the first to translate Cassian’s love language but keeps the secret under lock and key. His appreciation is shown in his words of advice, and slowly Cassian learns to translate those as well.
He finds out Jyn’s prone to hugging almost as much as Bodhi is, only when nobody’s looking, and that is when the dam inside Cassian breaks.
He remembers his father’s touch in his hair, the aunties pinching his cheeks, his mother’s lips on his forehead. All of it comes rushing back.
So he gives, gives, gives it all away.
His dearest is lucky then; will always know they’re loved. Cassian’s hands are never far, always ready to reassure and to hold, be held, in the worst of it. His shoulders are to nap on. Pecks on the cheek and the forehead and the knuckles and the parting of hair; cuts and bruises and scars and insecurities. He loves tenderly, gently, reverently.
Passionately as well, there’s no doubts to the fervent depths of his love, as an empath the emotion builds between them like a wildfire and he could really lose himself in all that emotion – but it isn’t about being fire, all the time. This is a war, after all, they’re caught between extremes. It’s so much easier, nicer, special, to be gentle.
Cassian loves by loving.
Tag: forestpenguin
Would you be down with a Rogue one trilogy? What could the other two movies have covered?
AHHH I saw this anon right when it was sent and I was like ooh I’ll have to give them a good response and then. Forgot.
I really love the Rogue One movie as it is, there’s a great depth and tragedy with that whole tale unfolding in the span of two-ish hours. But there’s always the craving for more, and honestly I wouldn’t mind prequels? We basically have a firm grasp on Jyn’s backstory, as we get what’s important in the movie and Catalyst and Rebel Rising fill in the details and the rest is up to fanfiction, but just… Cassian. Bodhi. You could do a whole film on each of them.
Bodhi…. Bodhi’s life is the life of any member of the diaspora. The film opens to a not idyllic but comparatively peaceful (loud and bright and colourful, but peaceful) world, heavy with faith and layers and layers of ancient history. So many languages, cultures, small conflicts and great architecture, so much history. You stand at the heart of Jedha and at once feel like a tiny pinprick in the ocean of the Force, a small insignificant point in the grand sprawl of galactic history. But you also feel at home, loved. These people are kind, the children playing football in the alleys call you older brother when they ask you to pass the ball back to them. Sure, there are pickpockets and tricksters looking to swipe credits from starry-eyed offworld tourists, but this is life. Jedha is Life itself.
Bodhi is born into a loving family. Three faces peer into his cradle: his mother, father, older sister. And then the barrage of aunts and uncles and grandparents coming to gift treats and trinkets and blessings. His life is gold and brown and red and orange and yellow; warm even in the cold, well fed even while experiencing no great Coruscanti luxury. His father sinks in and out of the picture. War is brewing, the Force has a metallic taste to it, but it’s like the clouds on a sunny day. Offering shade, almost. Something that can be ignored.
a nugget of a treat for @sniperpilot-prompts: 3: My cute neighbor goes all out with the Halloween decorations. It’s going to look great if he doesn’t kill himself first.
Bodhi is on his roof.
Cassian is not surprised.
Bodhi is not wearing a harness.
Cassian pinches his nose. Safety hazard! his mind screams. Not that people around here don’t regularly sit on the rooftops, especially while drunk.
Still. Nobody’s holding the ladder resting precariously on the edge of Bodhi’s front steps, either. It’s all a disaster waiting to happen right outside his window.
Naturally, Cassian’s response is to shut his laptop, shrug on a jacket over his worn green hoodie, slip on his boots, and head outside.
The chill nips at him immediately. October’s end is showing it’s ugly fangs, and Cassian shoves his hands into the depths of his pockets. The jacket is sort of overkill for the season, but Cassian has always preferred being too warm over being slightly cold. The socks Jyn attempted to knit him are a proof of that – for all their wretched appearance he wears them regularly every day after the first 0-degree night.
“Do you need any help?”
@dasakuryo requested Bodhi + Dust floating in golden sunlight
Behind his eyelids eternity dances, sparkling.
His curtains still swaying after his mother yanks them to the side, letting Jedha’s early morning engulf his room in golden flames.
The ray of golden afternoon light teasing him as glare on his datapad’s screen. He scratches away at his homework, the tape holding his stylus together rubbing against his middle finger.
His sister leaving him to do all the housework, his mind wandering as he sweeps up the dust that settles on every free surface. It’s the construction, they all say, but his mother believes he’s just being lazy.
In the pilot’s seat, the setting star renders the scratches and dents of his viewport in painful clarity. Riddled with imperfections, but the speeder is good enough to win. Flying over sand dunes, the shoddy appearance doesn’t matter, only the love he pours into its parts.
Red and gold and yellow and orange and a thousand different shades of brown all brought alive by starlight. On Jedha even a measly fleck of dust looks ethereal. Glitter. Like stardust.
Here the Force lives, thrives, sings, touching every thing.
The Empire is black, white, grey. Pristine, no room for golden air. Just ventilation that leaves a metallic taste in Bodhi’s mouth. Like blood.
He hurtles through the vaccum of space. Fumes and grease that he scrubs and sweeps but never leaves. Chilly but not like home. No light, just warnings that blink on and off. Unnatural, erratic, like his breathing.
Then, Jedha again, so changed with a coating of something that settles everywhere. He’s lazy. It’s his fault. His fault. In the cell, catching in his eyelashes. Then sparks, real ones, not motes caught by the sun.
Jedha again, only for it to be swallowed by light. Caving in, dust becomes dirt becomes sand becomes soil becomes the whole entire moon.
Bodhi opens his eyes, and Jedha is gone.
Stardust. Bloodied, burnt, stardust.
He can’t shake the image out of his head. He can close his eyes and pretend he’s still warm in bed, sunlight orange against the back of his eyelids. Mother pulling the curtains back. Dust motes trapped by sunlight. Stardust made from flecks of stars, lit by stars.
It’s all gone. Now, nothing. Become nothing. Is nothing once again.
The Force touches everything on Jedha, has touched him, bound him into it. So he follows its call, soon after, and is stardust.
Bright, glittering, caught in the Force like his cocoon of blankets.
It’s all gone, yet here once again. Tiny, insignificant Bodhi, set aflame, grows, becomes, a star.
@dasakuryo requested Cassian + trying to walk on ice.
Frigid air seeps through his parka. After this many hours his carefully selected layers are as useful as scrap flimsi. He bites back a shiver, muscles tensing. He’s tempted to flex his fingers, coax blood back into them, but he’s afraid even the slightest movement will cost him everything.
Then, suddenly; his goal, his target, is within reach.
Gaze steady, breath measured, his world shrinks to a pinprick of focus.
He pulls the trigger.
The body falls with a thud into fresh snow, sending a puff of flakes up into the night air. Cassian slides off the roof, scampering down the stairs; and is already dashing down the icy walkways by the time he hears the first sirens.
4 or 9 or 32 – bassian 🙏
I did 32 with rebelcaptain already! Also I’m feeling generous (or ambitious lol) so I’m going to do both 4 and 9 😀 (also I’m assuming this is from the most recent prompt list I reblogged which was a while ago now oops)
*throws sniperpilot on a mission together* you’re welcome
“There you are,” Bodhi hisses. “What took you so long?”
“I realize I make this look easy, but this whole espionage thing isn’t a walk in the park,” Cassian replies with a grunt.
Bodhi grumbles something about cramping from hiding in the bushes so long. Cassian pats him on the shoulder. “You can complain when we’re back on the ship.”
Bodhi nods, putting away his network scrambling gear. “Yeah, I think they’re going to notice your disappearance pretty soon.”
“I hope not,” Cassian mutters as they trudge back in the direction of the ship.
Bodhi leads the way, and Cassian can’t help but notice something stuck in Bodhi’s hair, fluttering about in the wind.
“Bodhi,” he calls.
“Yeah?” Bodhi doesn’t turn to look at him, and keeps moving towards the ship waiting for them on the platform.
“There’s a leaf in your hair.”
“Oh.” Bodhi stops and swats at his hair. “Is it gone?”
“Nope.”
Bodhi drops the bag of gadgets with a thunk beside the ship’s loading ramp, and tugs at his hair elastic, letting his hair go loose. He runs a hand through it, attempting to shake off the offending leaf. Cassian watches him, mystified.
“Is it gone now?”
Cassian snaps out of his reverie. “Uh, nope.” He moves to pull the leaf out but Bodhi’s hair but he keeps shaking it to no prevail.
“Will you just hold still?” Cassian says sternly. Bodhi lets his hands drop to his sides. “Now turn around.” Bodhi didn’t really need to turn around, but Cassian was on a mission and he couldn’t let himself get distracted by Bodhi’s face.
He gently disentangles the leaf from Bodhi’s hair, trying not to let his hands linger too long. He does pause longer than he needs to before speaking, trying to get his nerves back in working order. He’s so close!
“There,” he says, showing the leaf to Bodhi before flicking it away.
“Thanks.” Bodhi begins to gather his hair up in a ponytail and Cassian has to force himself to turn away, almost missing the sounds of people headed in their direction.
“We’ve got company!”
Bodhi looks up, swears, and bolts towards the cockpit. “I’ll get ready for takeoff, keep me covered for one minute!”
Cassian sighs, pulling out his blaster. He’d have to leave the daydreams for later. Duty calls.
sniperpilot, 19 (and in case you’re in the mood for one more: 10)
ah you always love picking ones where I can Up the Angst 😀 Here’s 19! 🙂
I feel like I havent written from Bodhi’s perspective in a while…
“Are you avoiding me?”
Cassian corners Bodhi when he’s about to leave the dining hall, eyes full of an emotion that locks Bodhi in place, but also grabbing his arm to keep him there.
“Ummm… no?” Bodhi shakes his head, convincing himself more than Cassian. “No. Not at all. Why would I be running away from you?”
Cassian’s expression shifts to grim skepticism. “Really? So you weren’t trying to dart away just now.”
Bodhi begins to shake his head, then sighs. “I don’t want to do this here, not now, Cass.” He mentally pleads with Cassian, and feels him let go of his arm. He doesn’t take his arm back, a twinge of guilt fluttering at the base of his stomach.
“Will you just tell me the truth?” Cassian’s face lacks the emotion it had earlier, but there’s something in his voice that threatens to break Bodhi’s resolve. Hurt. Disappointment.
Why was he doing this? Bodhi wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the second looks they’d been getting. Are getting. Anxiety barges into his heart like an unwelcome guest. He has a choice to make. Stay and talk to Cassian, and feel the many eyes boring into the back of his head, or walk away and be weighted with guilt.
Bodhi’s hands are trembling again. He can feel it, but can’t do anything to stop them. Cassian’s eyes drop from his face to his hands, and his gaze softens as he grips them.
This is what Bodhi was running away from. That look. That concern. He didn’t want to be a burden, bursting into Cassian’s room late at night, haunted by traumas; letting his name and reputation become entangled with Bodhi’s; subjecting him to the same taunting eyes that dug into Bodhi like daggers (captain andor? with an imperial?…)
“Bodhi. Bodhi!” He snaps out of his thoughts. Concern is written all over Cassian’s face. “I’m sorry. You need time. You need to be away from me. I’m sorry, I should’ve realized that earlier.” Cassian moves to let go of Bodhi’s hands but Bodhi clenches them tighter, closer.
Bodhi’s shaking his head, for real this time. “N-no. It was my mistake. I didn’t want to bother you. Distract you. But I think-I think it’s doing us more harm than good.”
He can see Cassian visibly swallowing a sarcastic retort (you THINK?) and he almost grins, because snarkiness was a trait he’d picked up from Bodhi. Instead Cassian squeezes Bodhi’s hands and says, “Okay. But take your time.”
“I already have,” he replies. Cassian smiles at him and daggers’ edges begin to dull.
@basada-en-la-esperanza requested: The smell of freshly baked bread + sniperpilot
Maroon curtains dance lazily, their intermittent swaying allowing Jedha’s star to set the golden stitches of his mother’s kameez aflame. Her bangles catch the same sparkle as she pulls the tray from the oven.
These new fangled nanowave ovens are more finnicky than the stone ones we used when I was your age, she laments. His sister rolls her eyes; being the elder child she’s heard every complaint to cross their mother’s lips a thousand times at least, or so she claims.
Bodhi, however, ignores their troubles and is preoccupied with the aroma wafting from the tray. The sweet warmth fills the air, his nose, his every thought. Already he can taste the syrupy sunburst dates, the soft flavoured dough melting in his mouth.
So far ahead of yourself, beta, his mother chides, shooing him away from the piping hot tray and imminent burns. What did I tell you? Patience. All good things come to those who wait.
Bodhi nods, soundlessly stepping away. She prods the loaf with a fork. He doesn’t bother to catalogue every minute detail, as he will later in life; because now he thinks there will be many more loaves to slice and cashews to roast and cold almond milk to wash it all down with.
He’s forgotten the scent of the oils in his sister’s braids and the pattern of his mother’s dishcloth. He can’t remember what their kitchen even looked like; nor can he recall his mother’s voice. He only recalls her hacking coughs and delirious rambles; the hoot of watchful birds and the crackle of stormtroopers’ commands.
Bodhi does remember the recipe, and as he pulls the tray out of the oven he thanks the almighty for granting him that sole mercy. God-willing it will taste just right, or close enough.
Close enough is just as valuable as perfection, these days.
The scent wafts up to his nose, and the mere hint of cardamom manages to clear away years and years of stale cockpits and musty quarters.
“That smells fantastic,” Cassian says, leaning over Bodhi’s shoulder.
Bodhi sets the loaf down to cool and turns to regard his companion with a slight smirk. “You’ll have to wait for it to cool,” he says, brushing flour off the bridge of Cassian’s nose. “Good things come to those who wait.”
Cassian cracks a smile at that, one of his not-as-rare-anymore ones that reaches his eyes and makes them twinkle.
Then his expression shifts, the dark brown of his eyes growing mischevious, and Bodhi has half a second before Cassian’s arms are around his waist and face burrowed against his neck. He thinks about playfully swatting him away, but the loaf has to cool and they have time, so much time, so he sighs, shifting his weight to rest against Cassian.
Cassian’s stubble brushes against Bodhi’s pulse.
“I know a thing or two about waiting for good things.”
“Oh?”
Bodhi grins, the heat spreading to his face; and he’s soon reminded Cassian’s lips are capable of a sweetness outshining measly sunbursts.
@basada-en-la-esperanza requested:
The smell of blood + sniperpilot
Blood, death, like a ritual pig sent for slaughter. Fire, flesh, one consuming the other. Bodhi’s hands trembling, but no sister to hold them tight. Only the blaster and his knuckles turning white.
Then:
Cassian, at his side, smelling of scorched fibre and familiarity. A hush in his ears, the warmth over his hand, pulling away the blaster and pulling him away from the causalities. Like Jedha, so like Jedha, with blood and bodies and screams. So like Jedha, the horrifying hours forever memorialized in his dreams. So like Jedha, with Cassian there to push him further away, to the ship, to safety, to home.
Home isn’t Jedha, not anymore. Home is:
Cassian holding and soothing him until the trembles stop, until his ragged breathing grows steady. Until Bodhi can hunt the ghosts in Cassian’s own eyes, and remind him that he chose this life, not (just) for Cassian, not (just) because of him, but because he was ready.
97 for sniperpilot? I hope it’s an inspiring one ;)
Thank you so much!! Will definitely be inspired for my first non-anon request 😀
(Altered the prompt slightly, it got angsty, so I added a fluffy scene with the actual prompt)
Bodhi’s eyebrows are furrowed in concentration.
“Steady now,” Cassian says softly, readjusting Bodhi’s grip on the blaster – leaning in too close. He steps away. “Now… watch out for the kickback… and… fire!”
Bodhi pulls the trigger and hears the now-familiar sound of the laserbolt missing the target and hitting ferrocrete.
“I think it was closer that time,” Bodhi says, more to reassure Cassian than anything else.
Cassian rests a hand on his shoulder. “It was! Just keep practicing.”
They had been at this all day. Cassian had been insisting that, as an addition to Bodhi’s training to become an X-Wing pilot, he learn to fire a blaster. But the grip of the blaster was not the same as the controls of a ship, and Bodhi had been missing all day.
“I feel like I’d do better with my eyes closed,” Bodhi grumbles.
Cassian grins. “I don’t think even I could hit the target with my eyes closed.”
A mischievous smile blossoms on Bodhi’s face. “I bet you could.” He hands Cassian the blaster.
Rebellions are built on hope 