#just like it was very jyn and cassian to connect so profoundly over one small gesture that neither are used to in this fic

[astromechs]

What's one line/small section of your work that you are incredibly proud of/the most proud of and why? <3

this was actually really tough, but since i did reread it last night, i'll give you the following excerpt from this fic (which is titled in my docs as "kestrel and keef lol", aka the au where cassian and jyn had a different first meeting, five years prior to rogue one):

It’s there, in that moment she can finally inhabit, that she notices a bruise on his face for the first time, just above the swell of his cheek. By the look of it, it isn’t fresh; it’s several days old at least, or a week, or maybe more. Whatever had done that wouldn’t have been worse than getting shot, no, but it had to have been painful. She thinks: he’s like her, isn’t he? Taking pain on top of pain, gritting teeth through it, shouldering it all alone, because in this fucking galaxy, that’s the only choice available to anyone who isn’t privileged, lucky, or selling away pieces of their soul. That’s just the way it fucking is. But maybe, for a moment — Almost as if it’s acting on its own, without her brain’s involvement, her hand reaches out, lightly ghosting fingers over the purpling skin of the bruise. The sharp breath he sucks in is audible, and for a second, he visibly tenses — but then his exhale is slow, and he relaxes, markedly more than she’s seen him do in the short time that she’s known him. (If she can, really, call this knowing.) Her touch, then, becomes more certain, with her whole palm flattening, gently, against his face and resting there, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw. That one simple motion locks them into a space, an orbit that neither are making a move to escape. Her heart is racing now, and her breath is caught, but she’s hardly paying attention to any of that; it’s as if the man in front of her is the center of her own personal universe, holding it all steadier than she’d ever thought possible. She doesn’t know who first definitively closes what’s left of the distance between them — or if it’s both of them, or if it’s neither, tethered along by gravity — but their lips meet in the middle, a soft collision.

and, like... i probably have passages that are better written than this on a technical level, but i remember when i was writing this, and it was this specific part that took the whole story to a place i wasn't really expecting? but i really liked the tentative but profound tenderness of this, how such a small thing meant so much to two isolated people who both hadn't had much in the way of meaningful connections in a while, and it's like... idk man. i really liked that story a lot.