#and also just the hysterical image of them sobbing on the floor while casual plays

[symbiotic-slime]

Venom 2 alternate universe where the only thing that’s changed is the year the film is set in so Venom could’ve sung along to Chappel Roan songs at the gay club. who’s with me

[rxbxlcaptain]

Hiraeth (Acts of Intimacy #4)

Author’s Note:  And the Nonsexual Acts of Intimacy Prompts continue!  Today's prompt, given to me by another lovely anon:  For the intimacy meme: reacting to the other crying, please :)

How could I say no to that please? I’m just kidding, I can’t say no to any of you. 

This is slightly AU in the fact that Jyn grabbed her father's holograph before escaping Jedha (Probably because I was yelling loud enough for her to hear me)

Other stories in the series: Previous Work // Next Work

Words: 2015 

AO3 / FF.net / Below the Cut!

Hiraeth (n.) – A homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.

 The Death Star is gone and the Rebellion is celebrating.

Jyn should be with them.

She was with them, in fact, up until the loud noises of celebratory cheers and the smell of cheap booze being passed from rebel to rebel became too much. The overwhelming presence suffocated her, pushing in on all sides until claustrophobia set in.

So Jyn did what she does best: she ran and hid.

Of course, she’s hiding in the room assigned to her by the Rebellion, close enough to the celebrations that she can hear music and dancing, so if anyone put half an effort into finding her, they could. So far, no one has. Jyn isn’t sure if she’s thankful for the space or beginning to feel isolated.

It doesn’t matter, because, in all honesty, there’s one person she truly wants to be with right now, but the only way to see him is through a hologram. The one Jyn currently has gripped between her fingers.

By a stroke of luck, some underlying section of her distraught brain had realized to grab the hologram as Cassian pulled her away from the soon-to-be ruins of Jedha City. Not for the tactical advantage — though being able to show Draven and the Council members the original message turned out to be useful — but to keep her father’s face, her father’s voice. The only piece of her father she has left.

The first time Jyn watched the message Saw stood right behind her; the second time, the message played for the whole Rebellion. Now, only Jyn greets her father’s glowing blue image. Only she hears the message addressed to his Stardust.

As it should be. The message is deeply personal, draws on emotions Jyn hasn’t allowed herself to feel since her mother died fifteen years ago. They’re emotions Saw discouraged, seeing them as nothing more than a tactical disadvantage; they’re emotions the Alliance doesn’t need to know she has, since they would be nothing more than a chip in her durasteel exterior, a weapon they can use against her.

All alone in the room that’s barely larger than a closet, by herself for the first time in Force knows how long, Jyn feels them. She allows them to wash over her, bathing her soul and flowing out of her eyes. Her sobs are silent, tears merely escaping her eyes of their own accord, stealthy and inconspicuous. Ever since hiding in her hatch on Lah’mu, it’s the only way Jyn has known how to cry.

After Saw abandoned her, Jyn can count on one hand the times she’s cried. Once was that first day, that sickening, smothering feeling of abandonment the sixteen-year-old had felt too many times. The second when her credits were low but her aggressiveness was high, ending with a dislocated shoulder she needed to set herself. Again when she became so desperate for food that she began exchanging nights in her bed for credits.

And now.

Now with her father looking down at her, filling the fifteen-year gap between them, bridging the space between the living and the dead. Father and daughter, reunited in the small, dark room of Alliance Base One.

A soft knock at the door punctuates her father’s words about the Death Star, and Jyn steadfastly ignores it. The triumphant rebel can leave her alone; she refuses to admit another weakness, the one spelled out in tear tracks across her cheeks, to the Alliance.

But the knock only rests for a few seconds before repeating. Words crawl under her door, their owner obviously hopeful they’ll have more success than the knocks.

“Jyn?” It’s Cassian’s voice. “I know you’re in there.”

She doesn’t respond. Her father’s message flickers for a second – almost, Jyn thinks with a half hysterical laugh, like Galen wants her to put him behind her and instead focus on the future, focus on Cassian.

But Galen Erso is dead – doesn’t have an opinion about what Jyn should do with her life – and his message replays, just like the machine is programed to do.

Cassian remains silent on the other side of her door, allowing the stillness of the room to be filled with her father again, until Jyn thinks he’s given up, gone away. Just like everyone else.

But, no, there’s another knock. “Jyn, let me in. Please.” His accent is rough on the last word, in a way she hasn’t heard since the flight to Eadu, when the prospect of assassination sat roughly on his chest. She waits.

“I’m not leaving, Jyn.”

She knows he won’t. Even if he willingly joined her on a rogue mission to Scarif, Cassian remains, at his core, a spy. And no spy lasts without an unending source of patience.

With a huff, Jyn stands. She hits the button that will open her door and returns to her spot on the floor without acknowledging Cassian at all.

“Thank you,” he says, softly now that his voice isn’t muffled by the door.

She hears him enter, the whoosh of the door closing behind him, but refuses to turn and face him. Briefly, she wonders what he sees when he looks about the room. The hologram, coming from a projector sitting atop a small, standard issue desk, provides the room’s only light. It’s more than sufficient to light up the tear tracks snaking down her face or to give her red-rimmed eyes a purple hue.

She silently begs him to comment on the former – both the projector and the data stick the hologram is saved on were stolen from Draven’s office after she was discharged from medbay – rather than the latter.

Cassian does neither. Instead, he sits down next to her, completely silent, his eyes, like hers, trained on Galen Erso’s glowing form.

They sit, only a few inches away, as message repeats again. At this point – how many times had this message just played? – the words are losing meaning to Jyn’s overwhelmed brain. The voice, so comforting an hour ago, loses its emotional draw, fading into white noise in the background. The sounds of the Rebellion’s celebration drift back under the door as Jyn sighs, leaning back against the wall.

For the first time since he entered the room, Jyn chances a glance at Cassian. Feeling her eyes on him, he turns his head to hers, meeting her gaze steadily. She watches as he maps her drying tears with his eyes.

“He would be proud of you, Jyn,” Cassian repeats his words from the beach with confidence.

“You can’t know that,” Jyn retorts, desperate to lash the pain in her chest out at someone else.

“Why?” His voice doesn’t rise to the bait, remaining even and calm in the face of her anger.

“Because I don’t know that. I didn’t know him.”

And that’s the first time Jyn admits, either out loud or to herself, what’s really truly been bothering her.

The thing that hits even harder than Galen’s death – because she had, for most of her life, imagined him dead, that he had died right along with her mother – is the idea that the man in this hologram isn’t the Papa she loved as a child. Her memories of her father are clouded by childhood innocence and ignorance. She remembers him picking her up, spinning her around, both in their apartment in Coruscant and on the fields of their farm in Lah’mu; she also remembers late night fights between her parents while she pretended to sleep. The man in the hologram spent a decade and a half entrenched in the hierarchy of Imperial life; who’s to say he’s anything like the man she remembers?

What kind of man was Galen Erso? If she had known him, if he had raised her, would she love him?

Jyn would never know.

“I’m being ridiculous,” she scoffed, more to herself than to Cassian. “I’m mourning an idea, not a person.”

Cassian stays silent for a moment, his eyes searching her face as it hardens into defiance. “Jyn,” he begins, his voice full of more understanding than she’s heard before, “Feeling the pain helps it to heal. Hiding behind anger won’t work very long.”

Jyn snorts. “I’m sure that’s advice you follow frequently.”

Cassian shrugs and lets out a small puff of air. It could almost be a laugh, if it wasn’t Cassian, if the situation wasn’t so serious. “I wouldn’t suggest following my habits of dealing with grief.”

They fall into silence again. Cassian appears casual, leaning against her wall, one leg bent to his chest and the other stretched out, but Jyn knows he’s waiting, observing. Keeping an eye on her.

The oddity of having someone watching out for her, having someone care, rushes over her. Is she grateful? Is she uncomfortable?

Vulnerable, Jyn finally decides on. What Jyn’s feeling is vulnerability. She feels peeled back, peeled open by both his words and his actions, so much so that when her father’s voice – the message repeating again – addresses her directly – Jyn, my Stardust – tears prickle her eyes again. Her attempts to stop them falling are halfhearted at best and soon the dried tear stains on her face have been recoated.

Out of her peripheral vision, she sees Cassian’s arm inch away from his side toward her shoulders. He moves like one would approach a wild animal, expecting her to bite or hiss at him.

Honestly, she can’t blame him.

Certain she’ll regret the move later, Jyn folds herself into Cassian’s chest, her face pressed into his shoulder. Hot tears still flow down her face, now soaking the collar of his shirt. He shifts away and for a second Jyn panics, sure she’s crossed a line. The room grows dark and silent around her before Cassian settled back into her embrace, his arms tight around her shoulders, his chin resting on the top of her head. He moved to turn off the hologram, not to get away from her, she realizes with a start.

How long they sit in the dark, Jyn doesn’t know, but Cassian never complains. She takes comfort in the loud, steady beat of his heart under her ear, times the speed of her breathing to the rise and fall of his chest.

Noises of the rebel’s celebration, sometimes growing louder as a drunk soldier wanders down the corridor back to their room, slip in, telling Jyn that time passes, that the world hasn’t stopped around her and Cassian.

Long after her tears dry, Cassian continues to rub circles onto her back, and she continues to cling to him. He presses his lips to her forehead, not quite a kiss, before breaking their silence. “I’m going to turn on a light, okay?”

She nods, releasing her hold on his back to let him up. When he returns, she expects him to stay a few inches away, like he did when he first came in the room, but, instead, he pulls her close, his arm back around her shoulder. His throat moves briefly, like he intends to say something, but stays quiet in the end.

“Maybe we should join the others,” Jyn murmurs into his chest after a few more moments.

Cassian nods. “Bodhi will be looking for us.”

“I just need a minute to freshen up,” Jyn says, picturing the horrific state her eye makeup must be in. Walking into the Rebellion’s biggest party of the year with red eyes doesn’t sound like a good idea to her.

“I’ll meet you out there then. Save you a drink.”

“I’ll be amazed if there’s any alcohol left on this planet,” Jyn huffs, getting to her feet.

“Jyn?” Cassian stops her, reaching his hand to her face and rubbing his thumb along her cheek bone. His voice drops several levels, his words only for her. “I do know. Your father would be proud of you.”

With that, he smiled, his eyes soft and crinkling around the edges, and Jyn, the fight drained out of her, can’t help but return it.

Just maybe, she’ll admit – silently, only to herself – that there are two people she wanted to be with tonight.