Chapter Text
It smells like it’s going to rain.
Cassian’s breath is hard in his lungs, the shambles of concrete uneven under his boots as he tears down the narrowing labyrinth of Lythos’ streets.
The steps are close and fast behind him, close enough that if it were him he’d take the shot. Cassian dodges to the street on the right just as the blaster catches the wall behind him.
They’re not shouting. That’s good. If they had backup they’d call for it, if they were imperial they’d radio. Quiet. Quiet, because they don’t want the attention, they want a bounty. And fast, fast enough to have knocked his blaster out of his hand before he even drew it, fast enough that he feels now, with that cold certainty at the back of his stomach, that they’re gaining on him.
Cassian catches the next corner, spins around it. Not fast enough.
The blaster bolt tears past his shoulder, red and sharp in the dull green twilight. Cassian spins, thrown off balance, bouncing off one wall then another, staggering to keep his footing. He grabs at the crates stacked along the side of the alley to pull himself up and tugs them down after him. They clatter into the alley with a rush of sound. Cassian picks up his pace with a hiss of a swear, forcing himself to focus on the end of the alley through the sharp-toothed pain lacing down his shoulder.
There’s a burst of sound in the alley behind him. Something like an air canister or an engine, something like a built-in boot booster giving someone the extra force needed to clear a pile of crates in an alley like it’s nothing. Cassian doesn’t turn around to be sure.
His hand scrambles to his side. Something. He’s got to have something. Comms unit, recharge cells for a blaster he doesn’t have, his knife, a small cylinder beside it—
The blaster fires again. Cassian throws himself down the nearest side street. He trips, rolls, the bolt bouncing off the metal door at his back, the catwalk over head before vanishing up into the sky.
Cassian scrambles to his feet, chucking a glance over his shoulder. A shadow turns the corner into the alley. He grabs at the cylinder inside his jacket. The shadow raises its arm. Cassian throws the flare.
It bursts to life mid-arc, violent and red in the green-granite alley. The bounty hunter’s shot goes wide, burying into the nearest wall with a hot glow as the shadow falls back, arm flying up to shield their eyes.
Cassian gets his footing, pulls himself up, starts to run— There’s only one turn at the end of the alley. He takes it. And smashes directly into something soft and warm and unexpectedly solid.
“The fuck—?” a voice swears.
Cassian struggles to get around them, but it’s hard in the narrow space. It’s even harder when whoever it is is holding onto his arm.
“Keef?”
Cassian looks up.
An impossible face looks back at him.
Blue. His eyes are still blue. Because of course they are. Why would that have changed?
A blaster shot hits the wall just over Cassian’ head.
Cassian swears; Kino pulls him out of the way, deeper into the alley.
“What’s—” Kino starts, but it’s too late. The shadow is turning the corner, raising the blaster, and—
Kino grabs their arm. He slams it into the wall so hard a modulated scream echoes out of the black helmet, blaster shot bouncing off the wall just behind them.
Cassian doesn’t hesitate. He gets a hand on the helmet, angles it up, and buries his knife into what he hopes is a neck.
A gurgling, airy sort of sound fills the alleyway.
Cassian twists the knife. The sound stops. His hand feels wet.
The hand Kino’s got against the wall goes still. Kino eases the blaster out of it.
He steps back, letting the arm fall limp. Cassian tugs the knife free. The body collapses. He shakes his hand off, stepping clear of the crumpled form.
He looks at Kino. His breath still feels bright and painful in his lungs and his shoulder is smoking a bit where the shot’s burnt the fabric. Somewhere a few blocks away, some machinery switches modes, sending a new hum into the gloom of the night.
“Are you alright?” Cassian asks.
Kino just stares back at him. And it really is him, isn’t it? He’s wearing a little knit cap that covers his hair and a heavy cargo jacket that swallows his posture and Cassian feels himself cracking a smile. Because it’s a stupid question, because he’s been shot and they’re standing over the body of a bounty hunter in a back alley of a rim world. But it’s Kino. It’s Kino.
Cassian lifts his arm to grasp his shoulder. Pain washes over him suddenly, making knees buckle. Kino catches him under an arm.
“Come on,” he mutters, taking enough of Cassian’s weight to keep him up and start him moving. “Let’s get out of here.”
Cassian isn’t sure you could properly call this sort of place a bar. More a corridor, buried behind a defunct factory and littered with dingy alcoves populated only in the loosest sense. He lets himself be put where Kino leaves him, biting his tongue to try and avoid wincing as he adjusts on the well-used metal bench.
Kino’s back a moment later. He’s carrying a tall, thick ceramic bottle with two stout cups made of the same material. He places them down on the tiny table jammed into this corner seat with a solid sound, filling one and pushing it right into Cassian’ hands before pouring himself another.
He sits down on the opposite bench. He frowns in Cassian’ direction. “What?”
“What?” Cassian repeats.
“You’re smiling.”
And he is, isn't he? But of course he is. There’s nothing else he could be doing.
“You’re alive,” Cassian says, smile growing.
Kino huffs, half a laugh half a sneer, looking down into his drink. “Yeah. There is that.”
Under the table Cassian knows Kino’s boots are close to his own. He really can’t stop looking at him, at every one of his edges, at every angle and shape that’s so different yet so familiar. His posture’s changed; might just be the heft of the coat over his shoulders, but Cassian isn’t used to seeing him without strength clear on his shoulders, line of his spine strict, presence easily filling every space he enters.
His eyes are the same. Even if they seem more tired than ever before.
Cassian wonders if his hair is longer.
Kino picks up his drink. He takes a sip and nods towards Cassian’ shoulder. “Should get that seen to.”
“It’s alright.” Cassian pushes forward, leaning heavier on the table. “What are you doing here? What happened? How did you get out?”
Kino looks into his eyes before dropping them back to his cup. “There were ships in the guard hangers, and more than a few pilots and techs on the floors. There weren’t enough ships for everyone who couldn’t make it on their own.”
His thick fingers adjust around the blue stain on the bumpy edges of the little ceramic cup. His hands look the same.
“The alarm had gone out to the Empire once we started the break. Of course. So we didn’t have a lot of time.”
His voice is gruff as ever but softer, quieter. Quiet. He seems like a quiet man here. Just a quiet man having a drink at the end of the day in a shit bar. It’s strange, and not entirely in a bad way.
“We set up a triage system,” Kino says, “the weak first, and the pilots to fly them out, then everyone agreed, drawing straws for the rest of the seats.”
His voice falls away. He isn’t looking at Cassian. He’s looking at his hand on the cup. There’s something almost like disgust curled up at the edges of his expression.
Cassian reaches out. He squeezes a hand around Kino’s arm firmly. “I’m glad then. I’m glad you made it.”
Kino looks up at him. His eyes are wide and lost, but he’s looking at him, from under an absurd knit cap in the corner of some backwater bar, he’s looking at him because he’s alive and he’s here, and Cassian can’t help the way his smile grows all over again.
He squeezes Kino’s arm once more before letting him go. “Why did you come here, then? Did you have people? From before?”
Something complicated happens to Kino’s face again.
He answers after a moment. “I worked here. Before. Most of my life. It was a good job. Still was. For a while, until… well, you know.” He takes another sip, sets the cup down again. “I had a family. A wife, a daughter.”
Cassian doesn’t say anything. He knows how this story goes. He adjusts his grip on his mug, twisting it in a silent circle on the worn metal table.
“She’s dead,” Kino says. He pushes ahead before Cassian gets a chance to say anything. “She and the others — friends. My brother. They tried to push back, after I— they didn’t know what had happened to me. Me and the others they took when the empire cracked down on the worker’s collective.”
Kino waits, watching his hands on the table.
“They put them down when they tried to get into the magistrate building. I might have even still been there. In some cell, buried deeper in that building… Not sure. I didn’t hear much where they kept me, and no one’s left who remembers exactly when it happened. Not since the factory changed over.”
A few alcoves away someone stumbles out of a booth, just managing to catch themselves on a wall as they make their way to the door.
Cassian’ shoulder still hurts. The booze is helping, though.
“They got my daughter off world after all of it. What was left of the collective. Someone’s relative, someplace more rural, a place they thought she’d have a chance for something good, something peaceful. But no one’s left around here who remembers where.”
Cassian adjusts, cheating his shoulder back so it might not ache as much. “There will be a lead,” he says. “There always is. Even if no one remembers where she went, there must be someone who knows at least where some of the collective scattered to. A thread. There’s always a thread to pull at.”
Kino’s attention suddenly lands on him entirely. It’s a hard thing, cemented with rough-edged determination, and all at once, he doesn’t look different at all. “Yeah?”
Cassian holds his looks. “Yeah.”
“Well,” Kino says after a moment, “what’re you doing getting hunted down back alleys on shit worlds like this, then? Not that I’m surprised. Always were good at being a nuisance.”
Cassian smirks, running a finger along the edge of his cup. “Then I’m doing what I’m good at.”
Kino’s attention narrows on him. “Finding threads?”
“Pulling at them.”
There’s a dozen questions under Kino’s expression, teeming and muddled, but he still has that determined set to his jaw, and Cassian can’t help pushing. Because Kino’s always made him push, because he feels such a fragile, scintillating luck suspended in the air between them. He’s lucky to have found Kino. He’s lucky to have wound up just here, just now, and he’s been learning that luck isn’t the kind of thing you can’t afford to let go. You have to grab it, hold on, and pull it after you, and Cassian doesn’t plan on leaving him behind twice.
He leans further over the table, voice close. “Do you have a job here? A place to stay?”
Kino lets out half a laugh. Cassian sees his jaw tighten. He shakes his head.
“Come back with me tonight,” Cassian says, voice quiet in the space between them, “and I’ll tell you about pulling at threads.”
It’s raining properly by the time they get to the hotel.
A silver droid with maroon chest plates takes Cassian’s credits at a front desk drenched in cheap, purple light.
“Extras?” the voice asks, managing an edge of suggestion despite the clipped, mechanical edges.
“No,” Cassian says.
Kino’s hanging a few feet back. The light catches on his profile as he watches rain track down the windows.
“Here’s your key.” The droid slides it over. “Check-out time is a rigid requirement.”
“Fine.” Cassian pulls the chip off the counter, nudging Kino’s arm briefly. “Let’s go.”
It’s not a busy place — the hallways are sterile, all lit in the same cool purple. He’d be surprised if there were more than four other people staying in the whole damn place. The entire town has the feel of an emptied nutshell; with the Empire automating the workshops and the majority of the old factory workers forced off world, there’s nothing much left. Works for Cassian. They might not even find where he and Kino stashed the body until tomorrow. Maybe even longer. If they stay lucky.
By the time they get to the room, Kino’s frowning at Cassian’ shoulder all over again.
“Take that off,” he says, “let’s have a look.”
Funny, the way authority still folds around his voice, even in this strange new shape, this quiet, anonymous man in a sweater with holes and boots that don’t fit quite right. It’s a different sort of authority, but it’s one he’s always had. The other side to that hard voice and posture stubborn as a brick. Softer. Closer. Kindness — Cassian remembers when he first realized it was kindness. It worked back then, often better than any hard-edged command. It still works now.
Cassian begins to shrug off his jacket. He can’t stop himself from wincing. Kino makes a soft scolding sound, moving behind him to work it off his shoulders instead. He manages it carefully, efficiently…
A daughter. He had a daughter. Has a daughter.
Visions flit past Cassian — Kino helping her with her jacket, Kino kneeling down to do up her shoes, Kino looking up to ask her something soft and kind. The pictures come together so easily.
“Sit.” Kino nods towards the edge of the bed. And Cassian is tired and the buzzing thrill of seeing a face he never thought he would again is melding with that bubbling joy of still being alive when hours ago you weren’t so sure you would be, so he simply does as he’s told.
Kino moves around him, gingerly pushing the short sleeve of Cassian’ under-layer up his shoulder. Cassian doesn’t twitch, but it’s a near thing. Kino touches him carefully. He never used to be careful with him. They used to push at each other like planets in opposing gravity. Well. Until that last day, and then—
Cassian hisses suddenly, snapping to look as Kino pulls the burn back with his thumb to get a better look. He just gives Cassian half a smile. “Sorry.”
“I’ve got a bit of extra bacta. In one of the pockets,” Cassian says, nodding at his jacket. “An inner one, I think. The chest, maybe.”
“A bit” turns out to be a generous description, but it’s cool and bright as Kino eases it over the burn and Cassian grunts his thanks.
Kino finishes up, pulling Cassian’ sleeve back down, walking towards the window and leaving Cassian to add back whatever layers he wants. He tugs off the knit cap, leaving it on the table by the window as he looks out at the rain. He runs a hand through his hair, which is different after all, not much longer but… bigger. Fuller. Livelier.
“We could use you,” Cassian says before he realizes it. “The rebellion. Your help, your skills. You’d make a difference. Even more than you already have.”
Kino turns. He looks at him for a moment before sitting at the chair by the small table next to the window. He leans forward onto his knees. He smiles at his hands as he knits them together, but it’s a cruel cut of a thing. “Could you?”
His tone is hard to parse. Cassian isn’t sure if it’s meant as a question or not.
He answers all the same.
“We could,” he says, and it’s true so it’s easy to put all the strength into it he feels. “I could.”
Kino looks back at him — his eyes are still honest, clear in a way that has always felt like a challenge.
“The rebellion would be lucky to have you,” Cassian continues.
Kino looks at him for a long moment before dropping his head. “Yeah. Well. It has me. It has for long enough now...”
Cassian doesn’t stop himself from grinning. He reaches out, just able to get a hand on Kino’s knee to give it a squeeze. “You’ll come with me, then? You’ll join us?”
Kino’s gaze tears away from his, falling back to his own hands joined between his knees. He nods. Short. Twice. His cheek twitches as he tightens his jaw.
“Good,” Cassian beams. He pulls himself up to his feet. He grips the back of Kino’s neck firmly, warmly. “Good.”
Kino twists his head, enough to look up at him. Cassian’ fingers press into his hair with the movement. Not much, but some.
“We’ll find your daughter,” Cassian hears himself say. He lets go of Kino’s neck. “They can help. I can. Nearly all of the rebellion is looking for someone.”
“Even you?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“My sister.” Cassian only realizes he’s said it after he has. But it doesn’t feel strange, not here, with rain at the windows and purple light catching at the edges of Kino’s face. Cassian smiles. “And you.”
Something shifts in Kino’s face. His gaze falters, falls.
“I told myself I’d never see you again,” Kino says after a moment.
His voice is soft. Soft and worn like the jacket on his shoulders that’s far too big for him.
“I didn’t think I’d ever leave that place…” he continues. “I’ve wondered, since then… I’ve wondered, sometimes, if I really ever left at all.”
Cassian looks down at him, at the line of his neck in the purple light. Outside the rain has started to ease. It still tracks down the window in lazy rivulets.
“But I knew you got out. Knew it. I think I always knew you would. Even at the beginning. You were always the wrong shape for that place. We all were. But it was different with you... somehow.”
Kino’s hand drifts, just enough for the back of two knuckles to graze the edge of Cassian’s pants, just below his knee. Cautiously, slowly. Like someone checking if a surface is warm, pushing just close enough to sense the weight of a limb under the cloth.
“Your future never lived inside that place,” Kino says. “So if I am here, if I am with you, then… maybe I really am out after all.”
Cassian moves before questioning if he should. He nudges closer, close enough that Kino’s hand has to bump against his leg, close enough that he can put a hand on Kino’s jaw, close enough to tilt him up to face him.
Kino lets him. Readily. So much more readily than Cassian would have expected.
The weight of Kino’s head rests in his hand, blue eyes locking onto him like he’s the only truth in the world, neck arching back to bare his throat. Like it’s nothing, like he never was a man made up of only immovable edges, and for a moment Cassian can’t say a thing.
He makes himself refocus, makes himself tighten his grip. “We’re not done yet. Yeah?” He slaps Kino’s cheek lightly, forcing a smile. “More work to do.”
He lets him go. Kino’s head falls back into place.
“Sure,” Kino says. He smiles back at Cassian. It’s tight and tired, but real and Cassian will take it. “More work to do.”
Cassian offers Kino the shower and he takes it. He offers Kino the bed and Kino refuses, leaving Cassian leaning back on the bed himself, watching him settle onto the ground.
He’s still fascinated by all the things about Kino that are suddenly familiar. He sits the same: easily over his heels, feet tucked up under his body, taking up so little space. It always felt at odds with the rest of him in a way Cassian thinks was far more telling than Kino ever realized. His hair’s still baffling. Cassian never would have guessed this is what it would become left entirely to its own devices: big and messy, curls scattered with black and gray like some untended monochrome garden.
“Come on, Kino,” Cassian tries again. “You look exhausted. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No,” Kino says with a harder edge than Cassian was expecting. He frowns down at where his hands fold his jacket into a pillow with short, practiced motions. “I can’t,” Kino starts again. “I haven’t been able to sleep on anything that soft.”
He adjusts the jacket, laying down and letting out a breath as he settles onto his back, looking up at the ceiling.
“I haven’t been able to sleep much at all, actually... Have you had that?”
Cassian looks away, letting his injured arm rest over his chest, the other bent behind his head. The purple reflection of the rain tracking down the windows draws a pattern across the ceiling. “Sometimes,” he says.
“It’s easier when people are around,” Kino says after a moment. His voice feels different. In this soft space just between the two of them. “Transports, shuttles… Bars. Sometimes. When it’s been bad. But it’s not proper sleep. It’s not—”
“I know,” Cassian says. Because he does know. He remembers all too well. Unconsciousness hitting you like a brick to the head: all those hours of labor shutting you down, switching you off like you were just some droid, put away until you were needed all over again tomorrow.
The rain is just audible, drumming quietly against the window. He remembers the first time he’d felt rain after Narkina too. He’d stood, leaning against the back of some bar between worlds, face tilted up, hood down, and stayed, just there, until the cold was so deep in his hands it hurt.
“Funny, isn’t it?” Kino’s voice says. “I used to dream of being alone… Now I don’t know if I even remember how.”
“You will,” Cassian says without thinking. Kino snorts, rough and self-deprecating and Cassian rolls over. His shoulder twinges but it doesn’t matter. He looks down at Kino. “They don’t get to keep everything they take.”
Kino doesn’t move, but his eyes glance back, shifting up to find Cassian’s. They’re still bright. No matter how tired they seem.
“Sleeping on the ship’s been easier,” Cassian continues. “It’s always felt like home.”
“Ship?” Kino’s brow furrows. “What ship?”
“Mine.” Cassian feels himself smiling again. “I’m a pilot.”
Kino lets out another one of those huffed laughs. “Of course you are. And a rebel, and a spy, and—”
“—A nuisance.”
Kino laughs properly at that. It’s soft and close in the dark and Cassian smiles as he leans back into the bed. “I’ll show you,” he says. “Tomorrow.”
Kino’s quiet for a long moment. “Alright,” he says finally. “Tomorrow.”
Cassian looks at him for another moment before shifting his weight. He rolls away from the light coming in the window, settling into the bed deeper as he closes his eyes with a sigh. He wants to say “Goodnight, Kino” but suddenly, he realizes that’s not right at all.
“Cassian,” he says instead. “That’s my name. It’s Cassian.”
It’s quiet for a long moment. Then, “Alright.”
There’s a gentle shift of fabric. An exhale. The sound of a body shifting over. It’s so suddenly, sharply familiar that Cassian knows just how Kino’s back has turned, how his knees have curled in just a bit towards his chest, the angle his neck has come to rest at.
“Goodnight, Cassian,” Kino says.
Cassian stares at the opposite wall. The rain drums gently against the window. The purple light spills over the line of his injured shoulder.
There’s a tight feeling in his chest. Something warm and so full it nudges at the back of his throat.
Cassian forces the feeling away. He shuts his eyes and falls asleep far faster than he expects to.