#this has nothing to do with prompts i wrote still being unfilled

[backofthebookshelf]

Apropos of nothing, your reminder that this prompt fest still exists for ace-themed TMA fics (both SFW and NSFW)

[mosylufanfic]

The Only Exception by Paramore - CassJyn

Back in April I asked people to send me a song and a ship and I would write a fic to go with one of the lyrics.

Holy shite folks, that’s hard. I still have several unfilled prompts in my inbox, taunting me with their lack of inspiration. I do not recommend it unless you’re really, really up for a challenge. But if you are, more power to ya.

Anyway, here’s one. Because I’m a glutton for punishment apparently, I went high-concept with this one and another music prompt that came in almost at the same time and wrote a duology, telling the same story from two different sides. Jyn’s side can be found here

I’m on My Way to Believing

Cassian Andor had waited for any number of transports in his time. He’d stood just like this in the hangar bay, waiting on a map, on a name, on a fellow intelligence officer he needed to rendezvous with in order to continue or begin a mission.

Until now, he’d never waited on a person, one he wanted to see just for the pleasure of seeing them, holding them, kissing them -

He swallowed hard and shifted his weight.

Until now.

He swallowed again, lecturing himself to be calm and collected. She’d been gone three weeks and four days, after all. A lot could have changed. It wasn’t as if they’d actually talked about anything that last night.

Maybe the only reason she’d come to his bunk the night before she’d left had been pre-mission jitters.

It was certainly why he’d opened the door and let her in. Although jitters seemed too small and silly of a word to apply to the sudden raw terror that she would leave and never come back. He would never know what it was like to kiss her, hold her, sleep with her in his arms - 

It had seemed so easy on Scarif. So simple to fall into step, to work in tandem, to turn to each other at what they believed was the end of the road.

But ever since they’d woken up in the hospital wing, she’d pulled away, or he had pulled away, or they had pulled away from each other. He spent his days electrifyingly aware of her and the distance between them, waiting for the smallest sign that he could come close again, and wondered if she was waiting for a sign too.

Two weeks after her departure, K-2 had said to him, “Would you like to know the statistical probability that Sergeant Jyn Erso will return safely? It is excellent.”

Paradoxically, the comment had made his stomach sink. “When has Jyn ever fit one of your algorithms, Kay?”

“My algorithm is evolving,” the droid had huffed.

Cassian wanted her to return, of course, although somehow it had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t. She’d made it off Scarif - one little Pathfinders mission wouldn’t do her in.

He wanted to her to return, but more, he wanted her to return to him, and settle the question that lingered unanswered ever since she’d left, like a visible cloud around him.

Her alarm had gone off early, waking them both. She’d groaned and buried her face in the pillow a moment, then crawled over him muttering, “It’s fine, it’s me, go back to sleep - ”

He hadn’t, of course. He’d lain and watched her pull her clothes on, yawning, her hair falling around her face in the dimness of his room, a sick apprehension in the pit of his stomach that she would leave for her mission without a backward glance.

He should understand. He’d never been someone who could afford backward glances, or assignations any longer than one night. He’d lived with vague regret over that, until he was on the other end, and then the regret had sharpened like a tooth.

She’d twisted her hair back into its usual bun, holding it anchored with one hand, scowling slightly as she looked around for her hair tie. Her eyes had landed on him, and she’d gone still. It was very hard to read her expression.

He’d said, “Jyn,” just to be able to say her name to her one more time.

She’d gone to her knees next to his bunk and put both hands on his face, letting her hair fall down again as she kissed him.

That kiss had stayed on his mind all these weeks, throughout the business of the Rebellion. Even when he was on a brief mission of his own, headed out alone to perform recon on an Imperial outpost, she’d haunted his brief snatches of downtime. He’d hoped she would have come back while he was away but when he arrived and found only Bodhi waiting, a mixture of disappointment and relief spilled through him.

His friend had said right away, “She’s not back yet, but the last report is all good. No casualties.”

He hadn’t even pretended he didn’t know who Bodhi was talking about. For a spy, he felt that he was blindingly obvious, all his feelings writ large on his face when he looked at her. It was a terrifying thing, knowing himself to be this open and not being able to close himself up again.

Not that he was trying too hard. Waiting for her transport to land like a lovesick fool. He told himself, Even if the answer is no, it’s still an answer, and I’ll be content with that.

He knew himself to be a liar.

The transport thumped down and steam billowed from the hydraulics for a second. He let himself be bumped and shoved toward the back of the waiting group, watching the disembarking soldiers.

She came down the gangplank in the midst of the Pathfinders, quiet and self-contained in the midst of their boisterous homecoming. His heart lurched at the scrape along her hairline, but he catalogued the way she moved, her stride loose and easy, her arms swinging with no apparent hitches to indicate a bruised shoulder or cracked ribs.

She looked around the hangar, her eyes passing over the spot where he stood, and he felt his stomach sink with dread and confusion. Because they were friends and comrades at least, even if nothing more, and why was she looking past him?

No, he realized suddenly. She wasn’t looking past him deliberately. She didn’t see him. He hadn’t realized how far back he’d drifted, a spy’s habit of blending into the background.

He started to move forward, but checked himself. He was so wrapped up in all the huge things he felt, but he had no idea what she felt.

He was a spy, wasn’t he? It was his job to work out what other people missed, to peel back the layers of the obvious, to assemble the facts from his targets’ myriad tiny tells.

So he spied on her, setting his own thoughts aside to take her in and see what his observations told him.

She was healthy, she’d been successful, all that much was obvious. But what was she looking for as she looked around the hangar?

Whatever it was, she didn’t see it. Her shoulders slumped infinitesimally, her mouth folded down at the corners, her lips pressing together. Her step fell heavier as she continued down the gangplank.

Two women were kissing hello a few feet away. She looked at them, then looked away, down. She hooked her hand on her opposite elbow, as if hugging herself.

She looked small, and lonely, and as if she’d very much wanted someone to meet her and kiss her hello.

Anyone?

Or him?

He took a few steps forward, into the light, and saw her turn toward him.

Her eyes went big, and her lips parted, and then she was looking at him like she had once before, on the top of the data tower on Scarif, when he’d shot Krennic in the back.

You’re here, that look said. I didn’t think you would be but you are, and you’re the person I most want to see.

His heart stuttered in his chest.

For months he’d been telling himself that it was the intensity of the moment that made her expression so meaningful in his memory. The life or death stakes, the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance -

But this right now was a nothing moment, a few Pathfinders coming home from a mission that had gotten something small and quiet done on a planet far away, something whose ripples might not be felt for a long time. He hadn’t risked death and she was perfectly fine and yet -

You’re here, her eyes said. It’s you and you’re here.

She had come home, and she’d come home to him.

He smiled at her, because she was here too, and walked toward the base of the gangplank. Her smile wobbled, and it hit him that she was nervous. Jyn, nervous to see him.

For the first time in three weeks and four days, he remembered that If she hadn’t said anything that night, then he certainly hadn’t either.

He didn’t know what to say, so when she stood before him, he did something very uncharacteristic and said the first thing that came to mind. “Welcome home.”

She reached out, took him by the lapels and pressed her mouth to his, finally answering all his questions, and the answer was yes.

FINIS

[ripdumpy]

...i wrote 1,300 words of sfw omega!jack fic in an hour at about 3:30 this morning, because i kind of dared myself to make a go of a/b/o and intended for it to just be like 100 words and this was. really a catastrophic failure on multiple levels. BUT HEY, if you want to read that, HERE IT IS.

rhys is jack’s PA! very little is actually explained! ganbatte!

Rhys senses something off about Jack’s office the second he’s through the doors, with such ferocity that it makes his temples ache. He scans the room, steps halted - Jack certainly gets enough attempts on his life to make it a viable possibility, and he’d rather not put his own life so directly in his own butterfingers if he can help it - but after a thorough twice-over with his ECHO eye, and nothing immediately jumping out at him as being out of place, his posture settles slightly.

He’s still tense enough to jerk to attention when Jack calls, “hey, pumpkin, I’m really not paying you to stand there and look pretty!”

Rhys scurries down the center path to Jack’s desk with no more fanfare than that, offering a pallid nod to the side of Jack’s head and fumbling a pair of ECHOs onto his desk, careful not to knock over any of his open drinks where they litter the desk in a halo around his keyboard.

He hadn’t realized he’d been rubbing at his forehead again - and Jack suddenly snapping his fingers catches him off guard.

“Uh,” he manages, eloquently.

Jack doesn’t look happy - but at least he’s looking at him now, so Rhys rushes to gather up his thoughts from before he’d felt the pounding ache in his skull. God, it isn’t going away, either, stripping his brain like a migraine, and he makes a mental note to run diagnostics on his kit once he gets to his desk.

“I’m listening,” Jack drawls, flat and irritable. Rhys doesn’t know what he did, but he knows better than to ask, having familiarized himself fairly quickly with his boss’s moods.

He gestures to the ECHOs. “The, um, the one on top is that call log from Torgue and Tediore,” he explains. “I went through it last night, I sent the report to your private server.” He licks his dry lips, trying to be obliging. “Um - you might want to make sure it didn’t get sorted - “

“Rhys,” Jack nearly growls, and Rhys flinches - but nothing follows the warning, no clever threat. After a beat of silence filled only by the hum of Jack’s desk computer, he merely says, “I got it. Continue.”

Right. Just impatient then. “Sorry, sir,” Rhys offers dutifully. He nudges the second ECHO with his knuckle. “This one was supposed to be the witness reports off the guys in AD, but I listened to it and recognized the voice - Denver, it’s, Denver is the head of AD - so I, uh, - ” Rhys swallows convulsively, cutting himself off and jumbling his thoughts again. He’s starting to feel a little unwell, and not unlike they aren’t alone in the office, the hairs on the back of his neck pricking up uncomfortably.

Jack glances down to where his finger is still touching the ECHO, then cuts his gaze back up to his face. “You…” he prompts.

Rhys shakes his head. “S - sorry - I um, I went through some other incident reports, I just - I had a hunch, and it turns out this is the guy who posed as maintenance in R&D four months ago, back when we had the. Um, the weird, slag, the spore guys - back when they all disappeared. Remember? It was like someone - “

“ - had access to the airlock who shouldn’t have, right,” Jack finishes. He puts his head in one of his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose, and Rhys watches the pull of his synthetic skin, still mildly fascinated to see it up close. “Just what I needed,” he grouses.

Rhys shifts his weight. “It looks like he changed his name, so, I sent you his two employee files so you could… figure out how to deal with him,” he finishes, lips a tight line.

He doesn’t understand - sure, Jack is intimidating, but Rhys has been working directly under him for over a month now. There’s no reason for his (admittedly cavernous) office to be causing him so much anxiety out of the blue like this. He really needs to run those diagnostics.

“What I should do is just revoke access to those controls for all the fucks in maintenance, watch ‘em squirm. And run this… sabotaging jerkoff through a grinder for trying to fuck ol’ Jack over a second time.” He sighs, sounding too bone-tired to dredge up any excitement about the murder, then turns back to his computer - Rhys would take it as a dismissal, but he adds, a little more softly, “good work, Rhysie.”

Rhys can’t help it, he blushes - and then winces when the added heat just make his head feel more out of sorts.

Now that he’s paying attention, Rhys doesn’t think Jack looks too hot either - he looks almost curled in on himself, his whole body a tight line, tweaked into an arch like a taut violin string. Rhys wonders if he’s slept yet, or left his office in the last three days, and feels a touch of guilt for not checking in with him any sooner.

“Um,” he hazards, “something… feels weird in here.” He thumbs over his temple - the one without the port - trying to dispel the tension, but it hardly helps. “Like it’s - I don’t know, I feel like I’m being… watched.” That sounds a bit paranoid, even for him, so he tacks on, “or like you left rotting food in here again. That could be it.”

He’s hoping for some solidarity, if not an explanation, but Jack doesn’t look amused in the slightest. “If you want to open a window, I’d be happy to direct you to the bookcase,” he warns, clipped.

Rhys purses his lips. Cranky, he thinks, but clearly Jack isn’t in any kind of mood to humor him - he has no idea what’s causing it, this sudden spike in his stress level, but it doesn’t seem like Jack is faring any better.

“Jack,” he pleads, though he tries to remain as neutral as he can, “have you left this office recently? You sound like you’ve been cooped up in here for a week.”

Jack snorts, but he quits scrolling through his message feed, so he hasn’t dismissed Rhys outright.

“…I think I might be coming down with something,” he presents tersely. He rolls his head on his shoulders, looking antsy. “Maybe I got a fever, or somethin’. I dunno. You know sick people always smell like burnt ass.”

“Oh,” Rhys allows, prepared to leave it at that - but something in his brain clicks. Oh.

He leans a little closer to Jack’s head, conspiratorial, concern overwhelming. “Jack - do you mean - um. Like, a fever, or - “

“Rhysie.”

His tone makes something in Rhys’ blood go cold, and he straightens up immediately. “Jack, sir?”

Jack’s expression is unreadable, but his eyes are clear - he looks like he’s a step away from killing Rhys, closer than he’d been in all the time he’s worked for him. Oh, god. What the hell.

Jack gestures to the chair on the opposite side of his desk, making a show of leaning back in his own chair - though Rhys doesn’t miss the way his body twinges, like he’s got a cramp.

Either way, he’s not going to deny Jack now. He folds himself primly into the seat, waiting.

“We’re gonna have a little chit-chat,” Jack says, like he’s polishing an old knife. Rhys forces down a shudder, not wanting to give him any reason to goad him further with his sudden mood.

“A - about?”

“About how I am not,” Jack spits, looking almost feral - Rhys can spot his unfiled canines, and his pupil dilates - “anyone’s simpering omega.”

Rhys gulps, petrified.

“Is. that. clear.”

“...yes sir.”