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yavemiel · 7 years

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Sfumato

May the Fourth be with you! This is my gift fic for @baenakinskywalker who gave me the prompt ‘nude model + art student au’ for the the @therebelcaptainnetwork May 4th gift exchange. Happy Star Wars Day to you my friend, I hope you like your gift! A massive thank you as well to @rapidashpatronus who beta’d this and provided excellent advice and support, it wouldn’t have been written without her, gracias amiga!

Summary: Sfumato (n): the technique of allowing tones and colours to shade gradually into one another, producing softened outlines or hazy forms. Or, Jyn and Cassian go undercover.

Read on AO3 here.

Present Day

Jyn could feel her arms starting to tremble. Her foot, pointed elegantly downwards, was definitely cramped, and she could feel a bead of sweat trickling ever so slowly down the side of her face. She was trying to keep her breath deep and even, but it was starting to speed up and felt intrusively loud in the muted atmosphere of the room.

Finally the loud buzzer sounded to signal the end of drawing time, and she blew out a deep breath, relaxing gratefully and shaking out her aching muscles, grabbing the robe from the chair beside her and putting it on as fast as she possibly could. If someone had told her three months ago that she would be getting used to posing nude in front of a room full of art students, one of whom was the son of a high-ranking Imperial officer, and one of whom was her own commanding officer, she would have laughed. Well, she probably would have punched them first, but she would definitely have laughed.

** Eight Weeks Ago

“You’re joking.”

“Erso, I haven’t knowingly made a joke in over seven years.”

Cassian coughed in the background, clearly hiding a laugh, the traitor, as Jyn examined Draven’s face for the slightest hint of a smile. There was nothing. Either he had the best sabaac face in the Rebellion or he wasn’t joking.

“Okay, so assuming you’re not joking,” she said skeptically, “I have a few issues with the assignment.”

Draven’s eye twitched a millimetre. “Do enlighten us.”

Jyn smothered her smirk, although she could still feel the disapproval radiating from Cassian’s corner behind her. “Well aside from the obvious insanity of trying to run an undercover mission on Coruscant with the Empire on high alert – “

“The data archive is on Coruscant, we can’t control that.”

“ – and aside from the fact that we’d be radio silent with no back up – “

“You just said it yourself, the Empire is on high alert.”

“ – not even Kay –“

“An Imperial droid that old and that scarred would stick out like a sore thumb in high society in Coruscant.”

“ – you’re hinging the entire mission on skills that I don’t have!”

Draven’s eye twitched a little more. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Jyn smiled triumphantly. “I can’t draw.”

There was complete silence for a few seconds and then Draven did the last thing she expected. He smiled. Her heart sank.

“You misunderstand me Sergeant Erso,” he said with exaggerated politeness. “When I said that you and Captain Andor would be going undercover as model and artist, I meant that he would be the artist, and you the model.”

Jyn’s jaw dropped. “You want me to be a model? Are you out of your mind? I have no experience and I’m hardly the type to…wait,” she cut herself off as another thought occurred to her and she spun to face Cassian. “If you’re going undercover as an artist, does that mean you can draw?”

Cassian looked mildly embarrassed, but Jyn had become familiar with his facial expressions in the year they’d known each other since their miraculous second escape from the Death Star, and she knew that mildly embarrassed on Cassian was mortified to the point of spontaneous combustion for anyone else.

Draven cut across their staring contest, saving Cassian from answering as a slight flush started to creep across his cheeks. “Captain Andor is an accomplished artist, certainly well enough to sit in on the art class and provide inconspicuous back up. The fact that the teacher is a friend to the Rebellion means that he won’t be called on it either way.”

Jyn tore her fascinated gaze away from Cassian’s blush with difficulty. “Ok, so Cassian sits in the class making beautiful works of art, and I, what, lounge around and hope that I catch the eye of some Imperial idiot’s son? What kind of honeypot is that?”

“More like Imperial’s idiot son,” Cassian spoke up, the flush faded from his cheeks as though it were never there. Spy, Jyn thought, caught halfway between admiration and fondness. “Our intel suggests that Nestor’s son ought to be easily swayed. He has a weakness for beautiful women, and a reputation for grandiose gestures to impress them. Say for example, proving exactly how important his father is in the Empire by giving them a demonstration of his security clearance.”

“For example,” Jyn said dryly. Cassian flashed her a bright grin, at odds with his usual grave demeanour in briefings and she felt the warmth of it down to the tips of her fingers.

“For example”, he agreed. “And if the woman were savvy enough, she might be able to take advantage of this to get us information on the Empire’s shipyards: their location, the types of battleship being built, blueprints that would allow us to make a tactical pre-emptive strike and cripple their armada before they can build it back up to the strength they had at the Battle of Yavin.”

Jyn mulled it over briefly. “So model, charm the guy, steal his father’s clearance, get the information, get out. Sounds simple.”

Draven snorted. “If anyone could complicate it, it would be you Erso. Captain Andor has the full details of the mission brief, which he’ll share with you. Dismissed.”

** Present Day

Jyn wound her way through the easels set up a short distance from her modelling perch, casting an idle eye over the many iterations of her cast in charcoal and graphite. The level of skill and style varied wildly, some almost holorealistic studies of her face intermixed with quick sketches of body parts almost in isolation somehow coming together to form a whole figure. She was fascinated by the different forms, more intrigued by the process of artistic creation than she had expected to be, but she kept her gaze over the work light and nonspecific, trying to move quickly towards her mark without making it look like a targeted approach.

This was the fifth session she’d modeled for, and as predicted, Tantun Nestor had shown interest in her from the moment she’d removed her robe for the class to begin drawing. She forced her mouth not to curve disdainfully as she moved absently to look at Tantun’s easel. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Cassian slowly moving to put away his equipment, though his canvas had already vanished. He was very careful not to let her catch a glimpse of his work in progress, much to her frustration.

Tantun came up behind her and stepped directly into her personal space without pause, so close that she could feel his breath stirring the hairs at the back of her neck. She forced down the instinctive reaction to elbow him in the abdomen and follow it up with a swift punch to the nose and made her body relax slightly.

He leaned forward slightly, the better to whisper into her ear. “How do you like it?”

She repressed her shudder and forced herself to consider the sheet in front of her. Honestly, she didn’t think it was that great a likeness. Her face was too angular, the expression almost haughty, and the lines seemed rushed, as though the artist had sketched her face in a hurry, dashing on to other parts of her form. Speaking of which, she thought wryly, noting that her two-dimensional counterpart was definitely better endowed than she herself was. It was clear where most of Tantun’s interest lay.

She giggled breathily, a sound she’d already noted provoked a very positive response from him. “It’s beautiful, you’re obviously a very talented artist.”

His chest puffed up slightly and she rolled her eyes, safe in the knowledge that he couldn’t see.

“Ah, but a work of art is only as beautiful as its subject,” he said, though she could hear the smug undertone. “You have become a great muse for me, Maia, and I have a great favour to ask of you.”

She spun around to face him, thanking the Force as it gave her an excuse to step out of his arms. “A favour, Mr. Nestor? What could someone like me possibly have to offer a man so well-positioned as yourself?”

He flashed her a brilliant smile (too many teeth, she thought, and all of them unnaturally white). “Ah Maia, how many times must I tell you, call me Tantun! As for the favour: I find myself drawn to you irresistibly, your beauty, your grace. Would you sit for me in private, outside of these classes? I think we could make beautiful art together.”

In her peripheral vision over Nestor’s shoulder she could see Cassian’s neutral face, and though she could have sworn that not a muscle moved, she could sense his mixed amusement and revulsion at the grandiose proposal. She forced herself to smile shyly. “Mr. Nestor…Tantun, I’m flattered, you’re too kind. I’d be honoured to model for an artist as accomplished as you.”

His face lit up with a smug smile and Jyn gritted her teeth in return, dreaming of the moment when she would be able to drop the act and hopefully punch Tantun Nestor right in his obsequious face. She allowed none of it to show in her eyes however, and he produced a small square of card from his pocket with a flourish, holding it up so that she could see the embossed symbols on the front.

“My number,” he said, taking her hand and pressing the card into it, but holding fast to her when she tried to draw her arm back. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there while staring deeply into her eyes. “Call me.”

Jyn blushed and slipped the card into the pocket of her robe, glancing at him over her shoulder as she walked away and successfully resisting the urge to wipe her hand on her robe. She couldn’t wait until this damn assignment was over.

** Six Weeks Ago

“Cassian!”

He didn’t even flinch as she burst into his quarters, just turned to her with a raised eyebrow. She resented that eyebrow, with its judgemental arch.

“What the fark is this?” she demanded, waving the mission brief dossier in his face?

“It appears to be the Coruscant mission briefing. The briefing which I left on the desk in your quarters?” She could sense the smirk behind the words, and ground her teeth.

“I’m not a farking idiot, Cassian, I know it’s the mission briefing.” She rifled through the documents and eventually produced the page she was looking for, slamming it down on his table and jabbing viciously at one sentence in particular. “I meant, what the fark is this?”

He maintained eye contact for a few seconds, before carefully peering down and the words she was indicating. His brow furrowed slightly in confusion. “Jyn, this is just details of our undercover roles, you knew this already.”

“It says nude!” Cassian’s gaze snapped back to her and Jyn was suddenly uncomfortably aware of exactly how shrill her voice had become. She cleared her throat, and repeated herself at a more normal pitch. “It says nude, Cassian. Nowhere in that meeting was it mentioned that the modelling would be nude modelling. That is the kind of detail that I would definitely have remembered.”

He looked slightly uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Jyn, I…it’s…I didn’t know you hadn’t realised…look, if it helps, it’s nothing sexual, it’s very common practice for models to be nude for life drawings.”

“We’re going on a honeypot mission so that I can seduce the son of an Imperial officer, I’m going to be nude in front of the mark, and you’re saying there’s nothing sexual about it?” She could hear the skepticism in her own voice, and by his wince it was obvious Cassian could as well.

“I take your point,” he said. “Jyn, if you’re uncomfortable with this, you don’t have to to do it. There are other people, other Intelligence officers with the experience to take on this mission, please don’t feel like you have no choice here.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, “if there are other people with the experience to take on this mission, why the hell would Draven want me?”

Cassian looked as uncomfortable as Jyn had ever seen him, and as alarmed as that made her, it also gave her a little glow of satisfaction inside, that he would allow her to see that much of his emotion. She knew how rare it was for him to let his neutral mask slip.

He cleared his throat, no longer holding her gaze now as his eyes drifted to a spot behind her on the wall. “Draven didn’t request you for this mission, I did.”

Jyn’s jaw didn’t quite drop, but she knew her face was betraying her surprise. “You requested me?”

Cassian nodded stiffly, and she felt the glow inside her grow a little.

“Why Captain Andor, I had no idea you were so keen to see me nude.”

Cassian jolted as though shocked, and his eyes jumped back to hers as he flushed deeply, his entire face a dull red colour. “Wha- Jyn no, that’s not what I…I would never…I mean-“

She took pity on him and laughed, even if she could have done without such vehement opposition to seeing her naked. “Cassian, stop, you’re tying yourself in knots. I know you wouldn’t take advantage like that, I’m just surprised that you requested me for the mission when there are so many people who would be better qualified than me.”

“I requested you because I trust you.” His statement was quiet and heartfelt, even though his face was still slightly red with embarrassment. “Scarif was farked up from the start, but we worked together like we’d been doing it for years, and we’ve only gotten better since then. I’m about to go into the heart of Imperial territory with no backup except for my partner. I would like that partner to be someone that I trust without reservation.”

Jyn could feel herself blushing now, uncomfortable under such bald praise. “Well, what sort of partner would I be if I left you in the lurch?”

Cassian’s gaze warmed as he looked at her, one side of his mouth curling into a grin. She shifted, uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment, and trying to quell the urge to say something stupid to break it.

“So, do you have nude drawings hidden around here somewhere?”

She resisted the urge to bang her head off the desk as Cassian’s grin vanished into a look of exasperation.

“Jyn, for fark sake!”

“Oh come on,” she said belligerently, “you seem to know a lot about nude modelling and ‘life drawing’, what am I supposed to think?”

He was turned away from her now, muttering to himself almost inaudibly in Festian, and she could see that the tips of his ears were turning red again. She’d never known him to blush so much before, and she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself.

She grabbed her briefing packet and made for the door, ignoring the continued stream of what she was pretty certain was swearing. “Thanks for all your help Captain Andor,” she said in the sweetest tone she could manage, smiling wickedly as the swearing only increased.

She opened the door, but hesitated before leaving. “Cassian?”

He turned to her, a trace of irritation still on his face. “What?”

“I trust you too.”

And then she turned and fled from the room before she could see the slightly stunned look on his face and the sweet smile that followed it.

** Present Day

Jyn gritted her teeth as Tantun’s hand landed squarely on her ass for the fifth time that evening, barely thirty minutes into their ‘date’. She had barely set foot in the door of the Nestor residence before Tantun had declared that he needed food before there was any hope of artistic creation. Jyn had smiled with feigned delight and declared herself ‘absolutely famished’ and so here they were, being led to a table in a restaurant so exclusive that Jyn was beginning to suspect it was members only, especially as she was fairly certain that the card Tantun had just flashed had a picture of Nestor senior on it, not his son.

Nearly an hour later she was seriously considering stabbing herself ‘accidentally’ with a fork to engineer an escape. Tantun was even more egotistical and boring than she could have imagined from their brief chats at art class and Jyn was certain that if she had to listen to one more thinly veiled account of his sexual escapades, someone was going to get stabbed, and Tantun was odds-on favourite to be at the end of her knife.

As though sensing her murderous thoughts, Cassian broke silence for the first time since she had greeted Tantun. The earpiece she was wearing was completely invisible to the naked eye, small enough that it should be difficult to spot even if one was looking, but the sound quality was excellent and she just barely avoided flinching when Cassian’s whisper sounded as clearly as though he was standing directly behind her. “Patience, Jyn, just a little longer. He’s on his fourth glass of wine, and his tongue is getting looser. Don’t stab him.”

Damn the man, he always knew what she was thinking. Jyn forced her smile a little wider and tuned back in to Tantun’s monologue just in time to catch the end of an anecdote which seemed to involve a girl who had only been interested in him for his access to his father’s security clearance. She widened her eyes in feigned shock, and latched on to her chance. “Oh no, how awful! She tried to deceive you?”

“Well, yes, but naturally I wasn’t fooled for a moment,” he said, “I simply allowed her to get far enough into her foolish plan to incriminate herself, and then had her arrested.”

“How clever,” Jyn said, leaning her chin on her hand in fascination. “How did you catch her?”

Tantun paused to drain his glass and signal impatiently to the waiter for a refill before leaning close enough to Jyn that she could smell the alcoholic fumes on his breath. “Well, between you and me, it wasn’t that hard. I mean, she said she was fascinated by the archives!” He scoffed scornfully. “Who the fark would be interested in them?”

“I had no idea that you had access to the archives, your father must be greatly trusted by the Empire,” Jyn said, “Sith sake, most people don’t even know where they are.”

“Ah, the location’s a bit of an open secret in certain circles,” he said, although she could hear the smug pride underlying it; no secret that he considered himself to move in those circles. “There’s only so many times you can see the highest ranking officers on Coruscant gathering in a ‘minor outpost’ in the Industrial District.”

Jyn could practically hear Cassian searching for the outpost although he remained silent in her earpiece. However much of an ‘open secret’ it was in certain circles, the location of the archive was a closely guarded secret outside of the Imperial hierarchy and for all their searching, they hadn’t managed to uncover it. Tantun paused to take a gulp out of his newly refilled glass and she raised an eyebrow. At this rate she was going to have to carry him out of the restaurant.

“But it wassa pointless plan anyway,” he continued, slurring slightly now as the wine took hold, “I mean it’s not just th’access card y’need.” He patted his breast pocket clumsily and Jyn’s heart leapt as she realised that the card Tantun had used to get them in wasn’t just a membership for the restaurant.

“Well of course not,” she agreed, “How stupid could she be?”

“’Xactly! I mean, s’a top secret kinda thing,” he said, and fark, she needed to get the information out of him fast and stop him drinking before he passed out in the restaurant. “S’not jus’ gonna need a card, y’gotta have DNA from someone with access.”

“That’s so clever,” she said, mentally cursing. How the hell were they going to get a sample of Nestor’s DNA?

Tantun gave her a broad grin, licking his finger and holding it up so that she could see the saliva shining on it. “Mos’ valuable spit inna city.”

Jyn couldn’t hide her confusion completely. “But I thought you said it worked on DNA, surely you need some from your father?” Maybe a bit too curious, but Tantun was smashed enough at this point that she was hoping he wouldn’t notice.

Sure enough, he waved a dismissive hand, seemingly unphased by her pointed questioning. “M’father trusts me to carry messages for him,” he said, chest puffed up with pride, “So I c’n use his card when he’s busy, he set it up w’one of th’guards. S’very important stuff y’know!”

She could hear Cassian’s sharp intake of breath in her ear and felt a sharp stab of victory suffuse her, though she tried to make sure it wasn’t reflected in her face. They were in.

Tantun reached for his glass again and she quickly reached across the table to grasp his hand in hers, which he regarded with a level of confusion only seen in the truly drunk when their drink has vanished.

“Tantun, why don’t we head back,” she said as seductively as she could manage. “This restaurant is getting a little dull, and I was promised the chance to make…art with you.”

She ignored the choked noise that Cassian made in her ear in favour of maintaining eye contact with Tantun so that there was no way he could mistake her intentions, despite the four and a half glasses of wine.

His eyes lit up greedily and she repressed a shudder as he pressed a sloppy open-mouthed kiss to her hand. “Y’r wish s’my command my love.”

** Four Weeks Ago

“Cassian!”

He didn’t even raise an eyebrow at her this time, and she paused briefly to consider that maybe she spent too much time bursting into his quarters unannounced if he didn’t even react anymore. Then she remembered what had driven her to burst in this time and her panic resurfaced. “Cassian, you have to help me.”

“Of course,” he said, looking concerned, “what’s the matter?”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“Do what?”

“The modelling!”

He frowned. “Jyn, I thought you were okay with it, what’s changed?”

“I’ll have to be naked. In front of people!”

Now he looked completely bewildered. “Yes, that is what nude modelling means…Jyn, haven’t we already had this conversation?”

She waved her hands, trying to find the words to explain. “I know, I know, but…I don’t know, I knew that I’d have to be naked, I just forgot about the people.”

“Ah…alright,” he said, somewhat helplessly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Fix it,” she hissed through her teeth, aware that she was being irrational and utterly uncaring.

Cassian looked harried, but nonetheless, he attempted to reassure her. “Jyn, I can replace you on the mission if you can’t do th-“

“No,” she cut him off before he could finish the thought, frustrated with her own insecurity. “No, I said I’m with you, and I meant it. I just…Cassian, what about the scars?”

“What scars?”

“My scars,” she said desperately, yanking the neckline of her shirt down to expose one of them, a livid streak across her collarbone from a chance encounter with a bounty hunter’s blade.

He stared, transfixed, and she could feel the panic rising in her throat.

“That’s not even the worst of them,” she continued, “Saw kept me safe, but he was a harsh teacher. I’m grateful for his lessons, but I still have the marks to remind me of when I failed, and Wobani was worse. They don’t waste bacta on prisoners.”

Cassian’s face grew thunderous and his gaze shifted from her exposed collarbone to her face. He stepped closer and she stilled as he reached out a hand hesitantly to press two fingers to the mark, before realising what he was doing and pulling them back. Her skin felt branded where his touch lingered, and she drew in a sharp breath to steady herself.

“It’s a Core World, Cassian. They’re not going to be expecting a model to show up with all these ugly scars.” Her voice came out as a whisper, dropping the words into the scant space between them like a secret.

He swallowed, and she could hear it, could see his throat move as she realised that he was close enough now that she could almost feel his breath on her face as she turned it up to watch him watch her.

“Jyn,” he said quietly and for a second she thought that was all he was going to say, but then he continued. “If you want, we can arrange for a bacta tank before we leave. It won’t erase the scars completely, they’re too old, but it will make them almost invisible. But Jyn, your scars, they’re proof that you made it, that you’ve survived everything that life has thrown at you and come out the other side, not unmarked, but unbeaten. If you want them gone, I completely understand, and we can do that, but…they’re not ugly, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

There was dead silence. Jyn’s mind blanked, nothing but a buzzing noise as she tried to process Cassian’s words, his earnest tone.

“Jyn?” He sounded worried now, concerned that he had overstepped.

She cleared her throat, and tried to form a coherent thought. “What…what about the cover? The scars could blow it.”

He shook his head. “Your cover story gives you a background in the Outer Rim remember? These Core Worlders know nothing about life in that part of the galaxy, save that it’s savage. They won’t be surprised to see your scars. Your accent might actually be more of a problem.”

She nodded slowly, thinking it through.

“You don’t have to make the decision now,” he added. “There’s another week before we have to leave, and an hour or two in bacta would do the trick.”

“No,” she said, “there’s no need. The scars stay.”

Cassian looked slightly surprised even as his lips curled into a small smile which she returned somewhat shakily.

“You’re still with me,” she said, half a statement, half a question.

He nodded, never looking away from her. “All the way.”

** Present Day

Jyn swore internally as she half-supported Tantun up the opulent staircase that apparently led to his bedchamber. His hands were wandering as much as his feet, and she resisted the urge to dump him on the ground and break a few of his fingers.

Eventually they made it up the stairs, and into a bedchamber that was as ridiculously over the top as the rest of the house might have suggested. Jyn half dragged Tantun to the bed, gratefully shifting his weight to the mattress. He was more aware than she gave him credit for however, and grasped her arm suddenly as she deposited him, pulling her down with him and mashing his lips against hers.

She forced herself not to jerk back quickly even as she felt her dinner rise at the back of her throat, instead searching quickly for the hypospray concealed inside the folds of her dress. She found it and quickly jabbed it into Tantun’s neck under the pretence of bringing her arm up to draw him closer. He never felt it and slumped unconscious in seconds.

Jyn yanked herself out of his lax grip, frantically wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, still suppressing her instinct to vomit. She took a moment to compose herself, taking one or two deep breaths before she felt well enough to reach out.

“Cassian?”

“I’m here,” he responded immediately. “What’s going on?”

“Tantun had some amorous inclinations,” she said, forcing her voice wry instead of disgusted and willing it not to shake.

Cassian’s growl was low enough through the earpiece that it felt almost like a vibration in her ear rather than a sound and she let his anger on her behalf sweep through her like a cleansing wave.

“It’s fine, he’s out now. I barely even needed the hypospray.” She took another deep breath, feeling more balanced, and prepared herself for step two.

She reached into Tantun’s pocket and slid out the card inside, tucking it carefully into the hidden pocket in her dress. She put her hands on her hips and regarded him with trepidation.

“Cassian, how the fark am I going to get a sample of his DNA without contaminating it? It’s not like I have a swab handy.”

There was a pause as both of them considered the options.

Cassian broke the silence first. “Do you still have the hypospray?”

She glanced down at it still clenched in her fist. “Yes of course. What are you thinking?”

“That model is newer, it’s designed to be reusable. You should be able to open it and get to the vial inside -”

“- which I can use to collect some of his saliva, assuming I can pry it open. Okay, that might work.”

She examined the hypospray more closely, searching for the seam Cassian had mentioned. It was a fine line, but visible, and she ran her finger along it searching for the switch that would open it. The switch was a barely perceptible bump, so it took her longer than she expected, but once opened it was an easy matter to matter to remove the vial, which had a seal at both ends that was porous when subjected to the high air pressure of the spray. One of the seals doubled as a lid that was clearly designed to be popped off and refilled.

Jyn spared a moment to be grateful for the Rebellion’s ‘waste not want not’ attitude to equipment as she glanced around the room searching for something to use as leverage to open it, her gaze eventually falling on what appeared to be a ceremonial dagger.

With the lid removed, she pulled Tantun’s mouth open with more care than she would have liked (Cassian was explicitly clear about ‘no unnecessary marks, Jyn. We want him to think he passed out drunk with a pretty girl and woke up to find her gone.’ Spoilsport.) and carefully used the small vial to collect as much saliva as she could before replacing the cap, wiping the vial dry on Tantun’s sheet and putting it into her inner pocket as well.

That done, she looked around carefully to make sure there were no traces of her left, before replacing the dagger and slipping out the door without a backwards glance at where Tantun lay drooling into his bedcovers.

“Cassian? It’s done.”

** Two Weeks Ago

“Cassian, I’m bored.”

She waited at least ten seconds before deeming his lack of response reason enough to jab him in the side with her foot. “Cassian…Cassian…Cassian!”

She could see his lips starting to curl even as he remained staring determinedly at the datapad in front of him. He sat at the other end of the couch in the tiny living space of the quarters they were renting on Coruscant. Jyn both hated and loved it: it was minuscule, a kitchenette in the tiny living space, a bedroom with only one bunk, which was…interesting (he offered to take the couch, but she refused immediately without thinking too closely about why. Now she had discovered: his body pressed warm against hers, lax in slumber in a way that it never was in his waking hours, his trust shown in unconsciousness a burning warmth within her, making it easier than ever before to slip a little closer and drift off into sleep herself. She can’t recall the last time she slept so well night after night), but it was just the two of them and they performed extensive surveillance sweeps daily, so it was a refuge from Maia and Joreth, a place where they could be themselves and not their covers.

It was also the longest uninterrupted period of time she’d spent with Cassian since their recuperation after Scarif. He was still a valuable intelligence officer, on missions more often than not, and while she accompanied him on occasion, her rank wasn’t nearly as high, and she had a lot more to prove to command. She spent nearly as much time away from base as him, but on a variety of missions: scouting, special ops with Pathfinders, security for a transport of bacta. She treasured the missions she got to spend with Cassian, because the number of times they had been on home base at the same time for more than twenty-four hours were few enough that she could count them on the fingers of both hands, and the long gaps between meetings gnawed at her: the Rebellion had become a home of sorts, but it was only with Cassian that she felt truly at ease.

This mission was almost like a vacation in some ways. The pressure of the mission and the ever-present threat of imminent discovery aside, they didn’t have a lot to do: go to art class, flirt with Tantun, wait for him to make his move. In the meantime, they were searching for possible locations for the data archive, and honing their plan for taking down Tantun when the time came, but that left a lot of downtime, and Jyn was learning things about Cassian that could only be discovered by spending prolonged periods of time together with not a lot to do.

She discovered that he tugged on his left earlobe whenever he was thinking deeply, and that when he was worried, the tiniest wrinkle appeared in the dip between his brows no matter how neutral the rest of his face remained. She learned that he took longer in the fresher than she did, that he shaved carefully and methodically. She’d never seen a man shave before, but their tiny quarters left little privacy and he bore her fascinated gaze with good-humoured resignation. She learned that his face relaxed in sleep to make him look closer to his age for once, the years added artificially by stress smoothing away into slumber. She learned the noises he made when the nightmares took hold, and she discovered to her amazement that her voice would make him settle, the frown fading as he drew her closer to his body (he liked to cuddle: she didn’t allow herself to think about whether or not that was specific to her).

She drifted back to the present to find that her silence had been long enough to make Cassian look up from his datapad and he was now regarding her with a mixture of fondness and mild concern.

“Credit for your thoughts?”

She just managed to stop herself blurting out ‘Just thinking about you in bed’, but her body reacted as though she had and she flushed deeply. He grinned at her, delighted, and really, it should have been illegal for someone who smiled so rarely to have such deep dimples when he did.

“I’m thinking about how bored I am,” she said belligerently, ignoring his smile as it got wider. “Entertain me.”

He actually laughed, and she watched, delighted, unable to remember a time when he had looked so at ease.

“Your wish is my command, Ms. Radik.”

“No,” she blurted, knee-jerk fast, “Don’t call me that. In here, I’m not her. I’m just Jyn.”

His smile softened, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Jyn. Well, how do you feel about some food?”

She made a face, remembering many many failed attempts at cooking down through the years. “As long as I’m not the one making it, I could eat.”

He smiled again, patting her foot before removing it from his lap. “Come on, it’s not that hard, I’ll teach you.”

She followed him with partially feigned reluctance. “I have to warn you, better men than you have tried and failed.”

“Better men than me, eh?””

“Well, no,” she admitted, unable to lie about that even as a joke. “Never any better than you.”

He ducked his head, and she could see him flush slightly, although he looked pleased underneath it.

“Alright,” he said, “We don’t have much here, but there should be enough to make an omelette, even you can’t fark that up.”

“Hey,” she said with mock irritation, and he held his hands up in a pretence of fear, though his eyes betrayed his amusement.

He put her to chopping vegetables while he made the egg mixture, which she did with enthusiasm if no real skill. He observed her efforts out of the corner of his eye, and she glared at him, daring the twitching corners of his mouth to turn up into a full grin. “What?”

“Nothing,” he replied quickly, “We’ll just call it a rustic chop.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but allowed it slide by, and then her vegetables were tipped into a hot skillet with bubbling oil and sauteed briskly by Cassian, using a spatula to push them around efficiently so that they cooked evenly. He tipped them onto a plate and then grabbed the egg mixture, glancing up at her to make sure she was still watching.

“Ok, I’ll make one first, and then you can give it a shot, ok?”

She nodded and watched as he tipped half the egg mixture into the skillet, allowing it to sit for a few seconds before gently starting to push cooked pieces of egg towards the centre of the skillet, narrating his actions as he went.

“…so you push all the cooked bits towards the centre and let the uncooked bits reached the hot part of the pan, and then when it doesn’t look liquid anymore, you get your filling -” he paused and added half the cooked vegetables to one half of the skillet “- and add it in, and then you press it in half and flip it -” he matched his words to his actions deftly “- and then you let it cook for one more minute and it’s done.”

He slid his perfect omelette onto the waiting plate and gestured for Jyn to take over the cooking implements, which she did vary warily.

“Alright, your turn.”

She took a deep breath and grabbed the bowl, dumping in the remainder of the egg mixture and waited before trying to push the cooked parts to the centre as she had seen him do. Trying being the operative word. “This is harder than you made it look,” she complained, staring viciously at the pan full of what was beginning to resemble scrambled eggs and nothing more.

To his credit, he didn’t laugh, though she could hear the amusement in his voice as he said “You’re just using a little too much force, you have to careful with it, like…here, let me show you.”

Instead of taking the spatula out of her hand as she expected, he stepped in behind her, placing his hand over hers, and slowing her movements, gently guiding cooked egg around the pan. She was frozen, all her focus on the warmth of his chest behind her, the breath she could feel teasing her ear as he quietly murmured words of encouragement, the feel of his hand over hers.

There was an expectant pause in his chatter and she dragged herself back to the moment with difficulty, his proximity a constant distraction. “Sorry what?” Her voice sounded husky and she cleared her throat, hoping against hope he hadn’t noticed.

He paused himself and she could have sworn his voice was lower than before when he repeated “It’s time to add the other stuff in.”

“Other stu- oh the vegetables!” She leaned forward to grab them and the spell was broken, the oxygen returned to the room as she tipped them clumsily into the pan and flipped the omelette with less skill than Cassian had, but not without success. She slid it onto the plate and turned to beam proudly at him, her heart speeding slightly as he smiled back indulgently.

“Congratulations, now you can say that you can cook at least one thing,” he said.

“I guess I can,” she said, marveling slightly at the rough but recognisable omelette on her plate. “Thanks.”

“De nada,” he responded, and she had heard enough Festian from him in their time together to know what he meant.

They migrated to the couch to eat, as it was the only seating in the tiny room, but he left his datapad on the chair arm and they chatted idly as they ate, about the mission, but also about the two students in class that Jyn was sure were having an affair, and the binka fruit that Cassian was certain he had spotted in the market.

She slumped down on her side of the couch once the omelettes were gone, belly full and slightly drowsy. Her eyes slid closed as she tucked her feet back into Cassian’s lap. She felt more than heard his quiet snort of amusement, but she couldn’t be bothered to move, particularly as she felt one of his hands settle on her ankle, thumb stroking absently back and forth as he worked on his datapad. She was in the middle of one of the riskiest missions she’d ever been involved in, and she’d never felt so content.

** Present Day

She had never been so glad to see Cassian in her life, except maybe that one time when he’d come back from the dead for her on Scarif, but this was running a close second, his presence a balm to her after spending an entire evening dealing with Tantun’s particularly unpleasant brand of sexist egotism. He gave her a concerned once over as she leaned against him with less subtlety than she would have liked, but she shook her head at his unvoiced question and straightened up, shaking off the moment of vulnerability to focus on the mission.

She reached into her pocket, producing the access card and the vial of saliva, and he gave her an approving nod as he slipped them into his own pocket before rummaging through the bag at his feet to provide her with an outfit more conducive to espionage. She took it gratefully, and started to unfasten the tiny buttons holding her into the dress, watching in amusement as Cassian politely looked the other way, as though he hadn’t been sleeping in the same bed as her and staring at her nude body for hours at a time while she was modelling.

She tapped him when she was ready to go, and he handed her a small bag of her own.

“I’ve found the building that Tantun was talking about. They’ve tried to conceal it, and they did a pretty good job, which is why we didn’t find it on the initial sweeps, but if you know what you’re looking for, there are entrances that lead to nowhere, the walls are too thick for an outpost, and it draws too much power.”

“Ok,” she said, “Do we have an in?”

He produced his datapad, calling up a set of blueprints, and zooming in on a section that seemed to be an entrance from a side alley. “This entrance should be unmanned. As far as I can tell, it’s a maintenance entrance to access the heating vents. Once we’re in, we can move to the main data storage archive. Hopefully they have a guide to their file storage so we can access the correct ones quickly.”

“Hopefully?”

He gave her a quick glance and she could see the flash of amusement. “Yeah, haven’t you heard? Rebellions are built on hope.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ok, but luck favours the prepared and all that: do we have a backup plan if they don’t have a handy map lying around? We don’t have Kay to extract it from the a droid this time.”

“We have four hours to search. After that, we have to leave: the full staff complement arrives in an hour after that and we don’t want to have to shoot our way out.”

She heard the unspoken truth that shooting their way out of an Imperial garrison on Coruscant would be akin to signing their own death warrants, and nodded.

He held up a datakey. “Courtesy of Kay, a virus that will corrupt their data gradually enough that they shouldn’t notice until it’s too late to salvage it. We’ll plant it after we find the plans to conceal what we’ve taken, or when we run out of time. Either way, the mission won’t be a complete loss, some of these records aren’t stored anywhere else that we can find.”

She snorted. “You’d think they’d have learned their lesson with that.”

He slipped the datapad back into his pack, swinging it up onto his back. “I’ve logged a flight plan to get off planet in six hours time for Maia Radik and Joreth Sward. We’ll drop the access key off at that restaurant on our way, say we found it in the street outside and guessed that it came from one of their clients. Hopefully that will keep suspicion off you long enough for us to get off planet.”

She grinned vindictively. “We’ll be gone before they even know to look.”

He smiled back, every bit as vicious. “That’s the plan.”

Three hours later, they were on their way back to the club. Jyn was hesitant to even think it, but everything seemed to have gone perfectly. They had found the entrance unguarded as promised, and needed only the access key at the outer point to gain entry. Once inside, they followed Cassian’s blueprints to one of the doors that led to nowhere and used Tantun’s saliva to get them in. Egotistical he may have been, but he wasn’t lying about his access on his father’s keycard. Jyn was fairly certain that that access was about to be revoked. Assuming he and his father weren’t both executed.

Despite her dire warnings about depending on hope, they had located a guide to the data files with relative ease. She had thrown a somewhat incredulous look at Cassian and he had shrugged. “I guess they feel safe in the heart of Coruscant?”

Whatever their reasoning, Jyn was grateful. Trawling through the jargon had been the longest part of the mission, even with her and Cassian splitting the task. They had eventually found the correct file pathway, and downloaded the plans to a datakey in half the time it had taken them to find the files themselves. Cassian uploaded Kay’s virus to the system and they slipped out the way they had come, barely able to believe the ease with which the mission had been accomplished.

As they came up to the restaurant where she had dined only eight hours previously, Jyn hung back. They had agreed that despite her greatly altered appearance, it would be better if Cassian handed over the card, just in case an eagle-eyed attendant managed to recognise her from before. She could see him talking to the greeter at the door, handing over the card. The man took it and she could see his eyes widen as he took in the name on the card before he looked back at Cassian and clearly said something threatening.

Cassian cringed back, and even though she knew it was an act, Jyn couldn’t help her fists clenching against her sides as she quashed the urge to rush in. Cassian moved quickly away and the greeter vanished inside. As he approached her, Cassian’s demeanour changed, the scared mask falling away into his usual confident competence.

“No trouble?” She asked, more to hear him speak than out of a genuine need for reassurance.

He shook his head. “None, he bought it.”

They stared at each other for a moment, their shared relief warming the crisp coolness of the night around them.

Eventually Cassian broke the silence. “Well Ms. Radik, it seems our work here is completed. Would you care to get an early start on our trip to Naboo?” Cassian proffered his elbow, and Jyn took it, feeling a small burst of glee bubble up in her throat.

“Why Mr. Sward, nothing would please me more.”

** Two Weeks Later

Jyn was not grumpy, no matter what the Pathfinder recruits might have muttered behind their hands. Or insane, or sadistic, or any of the other things they thought her hearing wasn’t sharp enough to pick out. She was just sleep deprived was all. It had been a busy two weeks.

After their successful mission, they had barely had twenty-four hours to recuperate before they were out in the field again, Cassian off to keep his ear to the ground among his Imperial informants to make sure no alarms had been raised and they had time to interpret the blueprints and plan an attack on the Imperial shipyards, and Jyn alternately involved in strategic planning and helping train the new Pathfinders.

She was finding it difficult to adjust to his absence, harder this time than it had ever been before. She kept turning to make an observation to him, or crack a joke to see if she could coax out his dimples, only to find him absent, and usually a strange look on the face of the person she’d just spoken to.

Though she was loath to admit it, the sleep deprivation might also have been Cassian related. Her bed seemed too large and too cold at night, no soft snuffling noises at the nape of her neck or broad warmth at her back, stealing the blankets, but making up for it with his own body heat. She’d not slept more than two hours consecutively since they had made it back to home base, and she was definitely blaming him.

She considered going to the mess for food, but the thought of trying to interact with other people after the long day of correcting idiots on stupid mistakes was too much, and she resigned herself to scarfing down a ration bar in her bunk before trying for another fruitless night of rest. She was making her way to her quarters when something caught the edge of her peripheral vision and she turned sharply to see a hulking metal outline move down a corridor to her left.

She froze for brief seconds before her legs were moving almost without thought, sprinting down the corridor as she yelled after him. “Kay!”

She barrelled round a corner almost straight into him as he glared down at her with what she was certain was a disapproving gaze, no matter how often he told her that he was incapable of human expressions. “Jyn Erso. How terrible to see you.”

She grinned, for once happy to hear his distinctive brand of snark. “Kay, I missed you too. Is Cassian back?”

“No, I left without him,” he replied snippily. “Of course he’s back. I believe he went to his quarters to ‘freshen up’ before his debrief.”

Jyn was already moving, her feet treading the familiar path to Cassian’s quarters. “Thanks, Kay!”

She found herself hesitating outside Cassian’s quarters instead of bursting in as was her usual wont. She felt as though something had changed between them during their time on Coruscant, or maybe not changed, but shifted slightly, revealing a dynamic for which the groundwork had already been laid. She just didn’t know if Cassian felt the same.

She squared her shoulders, and knocked perfunctorily before letting herself in. “Cassian?”

He was sat on the bed, clearly newly showered, his damp hair falling into his eyes as he stared down at his datapad. He looked up as she entered, and she could see her own tiredness mirrored in every line of his face, in the purple shadows under his eyes. He smiled as soon as her eyes met his, and something inside her eased as she saw it, the smile that he had graced her with so often during their three week mission.

“Jyn.”

She waited, but that seemed to be all he had to say, and she went and sat next to him on the bed, savouring his closeness. His body shifted towards her too, and she could feel some of the tension drain out of him.

“How was your mission?” She murmured.

He shrugged. “All seems quiet. There’s no word of any data breach, so I think we can safely assume that they either didn’t notice or they kept everything hushed up. There’s no word of any changes to operations at the shipyards either, so I’m going to recommend that we go ahead with the strike.”

She nodded, and they fell back into silence. She could feel herself almost drifting off to sleep, comfortable in a way she hadn’t been in two weeks, when a thought suddenly occurred to her and she shifted back.

“Cassian?”

He looked down at her, question written in his raised eyebrow.

“When we were in the art class…did you draw me?”

He stiffened, and she could feel his discomfort, as telling as any answer he could have given.

“Can I see it?”

He remained silent for a few seconds. “Why?”

Jyn thought about it, trying to order her thoughts so that she could say what she really wanted to say. “When we were in that class, I got to see myself in so many different ways, all these different versions of me, drawn through the filter of how they perceived me. But you were the only person in that class who really knows me, maybe the person who knows me best in the galaxy. I just wanted to know how you see me.”

He considered this, then moved slowly off the bed and to his cupboard. He retrieved a tube from which he extracted a piece of canvas. He unrolled it and stared at it for a second before handing it to Jyn with all the enthusiasm of a man facing his own execution.

Jyn took it, slightly apprehensive after Cassian’s reaction, and looked. She gasped and almost dropped the roll. Cassian flinched, but she barely even noticed, reaching out to touch her own face. He was a talented artist, that much was clear, all graceful lines and confident strokes, but Jyn just couldn’t get over one aspect.

“You made me look beautiful.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off the painting, her own face proud but with a hint of vulnerability, one arm outstretched as though pleading, her scars, faithfully drawn but with a level of care and affection that made them almost artistic in their own right. There was so much love in every line that she could hardly stand it. She eventually dragged her eyes from it to meet Cassian’s, surprised to notice that he had become watery in her vision. She hadn’t noticed her eyes filling with tears, but they started to spill down her cheeks.

Cassian looked a mixture of terrified and bewildered. “Jyn…you are beautiful. I just drew you as I see you.”

She laughed slightly through her tears, certain now. “You love me.”

Now it was sheer terror in Cassian’s eyes, though to his credit, he met her eyes without flinching. “Yes.”

She put down the canvas carefully, unwilling to wrinkle a single inch, and stood up, moving towards him with purpose. He swayed, obviously torn between beating a retreat and being drawn to her.

“That’s good,” she said, holding his gaze firmly. “It would be terribly inconvenient if I were the only one.”

He blinked, and it crossed her mind, somewhat hysterically, that she’d never seen him so stunned. “You…?”

“Yes.”

“And we…?”

“Yes.”

His eyes focussed finally. “You don’t even know what I was asking.”

She laughed, still a little teary. “I don’t have to know. For you, the answer is always yes.”

He smiled suddenly and it took her breath away. This was a smile she’d never seen from him before, pure joy.

He took a step forward into her space and caught her face in his hands, tipping it up gently. She brought her hands up to cover his, and for a moment they just stood, foreheads pressed gently together, breathing, until she could stand it no longer and leaned up on the tips of her toes to press a kiss to his lips.

They were soft and chapped, his beard slightly rough against her skin. It was the most perfect thing she’d ever felt. He slipped one arm around her waist to pull her slightly closer, and they kissed until they had no breath left and had to break away, each pressing back for small kisses to half open mouths as they drew in deep breaths, unwilling to be separated even for that small period of time.

A thought occurred to her, and she pulled back slightly, ignoring his small noise of complaint and waiting until he opened his eyes to look back at her.

“Cassian? I love you too.”

He smiled again, his new smile just for her, and she smiled back, so full of joy she thought she might burst. The war would rumble on, battles to be fought and won and lost, but at that moment, none of it mattered.

Jyn Erso was home.

Fin

#baenakinskywalker #therebelcaptainnetwork #rebelcaptainmay4 #may the fourth be with you #rebelcaptain #may the 4th exchange #my writing #fanfiction #rogue one

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madness-rains · 7 years

Text

Beast vs. Caldwell

Vishous: *It was my night off of rotation and I was damn sure going to make good use of it. I was on the phone, making arrangements, before the shutters were even up. Everything was in place for a night of release that was sorely needed. Some things were just necessary. I dematted directly to the balcony of my Penthouse, a location that I was becoming increasingly familiar with. The glass door slid open with only a thought. Dozens of candles flared to life as I made my way directly to well stocked supply of goose. I poured myself a drink and sat down to wait for my prey to come to me. It didn't take long. She knew what I liked, knew that I didn't like to be kept waiting. I told her exactly what I wanted, which hood to wear, how many clothes to take off, and where to stand. I finished my drink and poured another as I watched her. The need was strong. This would be a long night.*

*Long strips of red welts decorated her back in a beautiful display. My own personal canvas. I wasn't anywhere near done, I was only getting started. I hadn't even broken a sweat yet. She could take a lot. I'd made sure of that when I called this particular one. Across the room the phone in my leather jacket let me know that this session was going to be far too short. I growled out a curse and went to answer the call. The ID told me that it was from Phury, which meant that something happened on patrol tonight. This could be good. Fighting was just another way to exorcise my demons. I hit the button to pick up the call.* Yes? *My tone was carefully flat, devoid of any emotion. Phury launched into a concise version of what was going down. The noise in the background gave away the fact that Rhage's Beast was lose. I heard the word Bastards and knew that this was a show that I didn't want to miss.* On my way. *I hung up the phone and slung the leather over my shoulders. Looking over at the female dangling on the wall, I half considered making her wait like that for my return. Something told me that I would be longer than that. I removed her binds and sent Fritz the standard text to take her home. The doggen would take care of her. I stepped out on the balcony and dematted directly to the location that Phury told me of. It was like dropping off in the middle of a war zone. The dragon was full on pissed. The first order of business was easy, and came almost as an instinct now, I laid down the mhis thick and large. There was no sense in the humans catching wind of this mess. My phone chimed to tell me that I had a text message. It was from Fritz. He was worried about Mary because she hadn't returned home.* Shiiiiitttt!!! *I cursed loud enough for Phury to hear me over the chaos. He ran over and gave me a questioning look. I leaned in close, hoping that Rhage wouldn't hear me.* Mary is missing…

Rhage:

{I was full on Dragon mode, and although a part of me was always there, he had taken over complete control. He cleared that alley like a hungry kid at a bar mitzvah buffet. Biting down each lesser and swallowing them whole. Bright flashes lit up the walls of the alleyway. I could see Phury scrambling to catch his balance and high tail it out. The taste of those nasty fuckers settle in the back of my throat and let me tell you, they taste like shit. The black oily substance laid low in the pit of the Dragons belly, which also meant it was in mine. I could feel the presence of Vishous and knew he would keep the situation under control as much as he could. I had great hearing, but let me tell you about the beast who had cursed me so long ago, his hearing was far more superior than mine and when V spoke the words “Mary is missing” well, there was no coming back from the state I was in. The beast would now take matters in his own way, he was partial to my Mary, and it would be death to whoever took her.}

Vishous: *Phury's eyes were as big as mine as we looked up at the chaos that three little words had caused. I cursed myself for being ten kinds of an idiot. Of course the Beast heard me. And now we were about to be host to our own little Godzilla movie. I grabbed Phury and swung him out of the way of the rampaging dragon.* Get a car! *I yelled over the noise.* Follow after us. I have to keep this contained. *How the hell I was going to do that, I had no idea. This would be testing my mhis like nothing else. We were already on the move and there wasn't a damn thing that I could do about the damage that was left behind. The Beast didn't give a shit if something was in it's way. He would run over, tear it down, smash it to bits. Everyone thought that a bonded male was bad news but they had never met Rhage's other half. He would leave the city in ruins all to find Mary. I threw the mhis out far in front of us to cover as much ground as I possibly could. It was late at night. There weren't a lot of people out and about. It was the one saving grace. I couldn't even stop to worry about how many innocents were going to end up in the hospital. The only thing that hit my radar was keeping the image of a dragon off of the airwaves. Racing along behind a huge dragon was actually easier than I thought it would be. Was he fast? Oh hell yeah. But he also had a lot in way that slowed him down. Damage control. My mind was jogging through all of my options. This would have to be fast and dirty. I pulled out my phone and went to work. The division of attention would likely cost me but I needed to get an earthquake called in ASAP. It had to come from the right sources or no one would believe it. Good thing I was a frickin genius.*

Barney:

{I continued fighting to regain control, but to no avail, the beast had won. His senses were heightened. His eyes, keen, hearing, well, he would hear a flea bite a dog, his smell. That is what he would use to find who had Mary. I felt the street crumbling under his massive claw like feet. The heat was building and I knew the fire was going to blow soon. He would burn this motherfucker down before the night was over with. In the depths of his mind, I could hear the crashing of cold hard steel being bent and mutilated. He was headed to the place Mary worked. The Beast would sniff out the poor asshole who had her and this would be the last night he took breath into his lungs.}

Vishous: *Was an earthquake really going to explain everything that the Beast was ripping through? I didn't know but it was the best I could come up with on short notice. I was so busy making the needle bounce on the appropriate seismic machines that I didn't see Barney take a sharp left. I skidded to a halt when I realized I wasn't following the path of destruction anymore. With a curse I tucked my phone away and brought all my attention to the scene in front of me. He'd managed to move beyond my mhis if the screaming was any indicator. He was a bloodhound on a mission. There was no one better equipped to find Mary, that was the sad truth of it. That was his mate, the Beast as well as the male beneath there. I moved the mhis to cover the new area of effect which created a few very confused humans to wonder what in the hell was going on. They at least had the sense to get the hell out of the way. Whatever it was, wasn't good. I spied one amateur photographer who was about to have a very nasty fall. I ran into him full force with my shoulder down. Didn't even see me coming. Sure as hell didn't see me grind my shitkicker into his fallen phone. Oops, my bad. I didn't even pause for so much as a 'sorry'. The Beast was already past the place that Mary volunteered at. He paused for maybe a heartbeat to sniff at what looked like a purse on the ground and then he was off again. Someone had picked the wrong female to snatch up, that much was for damn sure. I snagged the purse and kept running behind the force of nature that I was following.*

T-REX:

{The scent of the dumbass who had my Mary was so strong through the beast. I felt the anger building and knew that the male human had no chance of coming out of this alive. I felt a burst of heat power out in front and knew that he was spitting fire. The ground began to quake beneath us. Right then I knew he had found his quest. Explosions happened, and I feared that the anger that I was cursed with one day would go out of control and hurt the ones I cared about, although I didn’t worry about Mary. Mary calmed the beast, his love and desire for her were like no other I had ever felt. As a bonded male it made me jealous. I could hear screams in the background. I was frustrated that I couldn’t gain enough control to overcome my curse and hold Mary close to my chest. I had to rely on my alter to bring her into safety….. I was watching the outcome through some filtered movie screen. My senses were heightened, and I could sniff out where the asshole was held up. He had his hands on my Mary, and the beast lost it. He plucked him out like a delicate flower not hurting her and flung him against the wall. Out of pure and enraged anger fire consumed the room and the now kidnapper was engulfed in flames. Blood-curdling screams were filling the room. The last I remember, the heavenly smell of my Mary calmed me into a deep sleep and with most certainty that he had rescued her out of the inferno without a single hair harmed.}

Vishous: *The scene before me was nothing that I could have anticipated. The whole bonded male thing was not something to be messed with but nothing topped a fully bonded dragon. I had a split second to take in the scene before all hell broke loose. Some idiot decided that it was great idea to kidnap Mary. She was tied to a chair in the corner of the large room. Her head was slumped forward, it was obvious that she'd been roughed up. The extent was hard to see from here but the dumbass responsible was still right there. Of course I was trying to see her across a battlefield as well. If it could be called that. More like a slaughter. The guy had exactly two seconds to regret his decisions. Blood drained from his face and could see Mary laughing. Her mouth moved and I strained to hear what she was saying. Something like, "I told you my husband would come for me." He was dead the moment he even thought to touch that female. The Beast wanted him to suffer in the most brutal of ways. He was torn limb from limb, screaming the entire time, literally washing the place in the blood of the kidnapper. Thank goodness Mary was made of strong stuff because most any other females would be losing it right now too. When the screams finally died down Mary was able to quiet the Beast. Even tied up, she still managed to bring him back down to earth. It wasn't something that any of us would have been able to do. I didn't even think of approaching the female until the Beast had left the building and we were left with a very tired and groggy Rhage. I went right back into damage control mode. The mhis still held strong but now I was dealing with a dead body. There was one sure way of wiping that slate clean. I got Mary untied just before Phury arrived on the scene with the Escalade. Together we bundled up Warrior and Female and he left with them, leaving me to deal with the aftermath. I looked around the gory interior and casually plucked the fingers of my glove free. I tucked the black leather into my back pocket and knelt to the ground. My blazing hand touched the floor in front of me and that was all that it took. In a few minutes nothing was left but a field of glass.*

#BDB-MR

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