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.
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Rebellions are built on hope 