Cassian (andor) wrote in incompletedata, @ 2018-01-12 10:46:00 |
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Cassian sat at the table, leaned back with the grip of one boot holding his weight against the seat of another cafeteria chair. The lighting in this room was lovely. It was brighter than the library and between meals, it was mostly abandoned. More than once, he'd met an interesting person or two in this place, and the room was large enough that no one invaded on anyone else's space no matter how many people were or weren't filtering through it. These communal spaces were becoming of more and more interest to Andor because, with the creation of the squads and the increasing block-loyalty he'd seen in Hotel block, these places for everyone seemed less like meeting points. They'd become liminal spaces, between the locations where people really wanted to be. But, even so, it was here that he'd unloaded several pieces of the machine he was building onto the table in front of him. Currently, however, he was far more interested in wiping grease from the grooves between his fingers than he was on continuing the build. The fight, as it was, had left him. At a certain point, it was hard to ignore that what these 'mutants' had packaged the idea that that powers being withheld was a kind of discrimination, was nothing short of an act of pure selfishness on their part. They only cared about what they wanted, without interest in the personal cost to their fellow specimens and that -- as far as Andor was concerned -- was a reason not to trust them. Which wasn't much of a stretch for Cassian anyway: as a general rule, it was always the people who held or craved power that didn't deserve and shouldn't be trusted with it. Dressing superior abilities as a right left him unsettled. He was personally even a bit happy that the work on his section of the machine had stalled. The only reason he was making a show of tinkering it now was because he worried what might fall on Hotel block's head if they resisted the build. Not only from Hotel the Scientist, but from those power-denied specimens themselves. He leaned forward, scraping the chair where his foot rested on the floor as he reached past the gears and wires for his mug. Tea wasn't something that he could admit to drinking a lot of before Bodhi had enthusiastically introduced him to it here. It was still a ritual that escaped him. The temperature of the water, the size of the cup and the length of the soak all seemed of great importance. Any difference in taste in correlation to the method was lost on him, really. The mystery for Cassian was simply finding the right balance between having enough tea in his cup to drink without so much that it would get cold before he had the chance to finish. He imagined since ratio, timing, and the process were so measure in other aspects of tea drinking that there had to be some precise formula for amount and need as well. Perhaps, he mused as he swirled the bag in his mug that he'd neglected to remove, that kind of knowledge was reserved for some later level in his tea-training. Before coming to this place, he hadn't had all that much time to get to know Bodhi. Or Jyn or -- anyone, really, for that matter. He'd done his best to keep all the barriers that he'd so depending on firmly in place on that final mission the way that he'd done with all others. Something had changed in those final moments on the beach, in the light and the heat and the death and it was something that he carried with him to this place. He had remained changed, but he wasn't always sure how to navigate that gradual erosion of who he used to be. Cassian didn't always like it, preferring to retreat to the quiet and the isolated. Certainly, the response that the mutants had had to the mere suggestions of companionship and comradery had reinforced his belief that even now it was better to not bother with other people he couldn't trust and couldn't depend on. The machine, at least, gave him something to do. Whatever happened when it was finished, he knew, he would be as responsible for as the rest of his block, but regardless of who it helped or who it didn't, for the time being, it kept his mind away from examining his self-retreat into isolation too closely. He could think instead about tea and about Bodhi who, Andor supposed, was still far more of a mystery to him then he realized. Rook was so friendly and seemingly willing to put himself out there that it wasn't always immediately clear how much of himself he kept back. Cassian hadn't given this all that much thought, and he imagined that had something to do with the fact he hadn't been told or required to pull any information out of Rook for any reason. A person's secrets used to be the currency that the Rebellion and Cassian himself dealt in, with all of that gone Andor found that he didn't reach out as readily. It wasn't that he wasn't interested in Bodhi, he just wasn't sure how to approach an interest that was genuine and not backed by some need to excavate information. Cassian tilted his head to the side when he saw Rook wander into the cafeteria, and then he straightened in his chair. It almost added to Bodhi's mystery, the fact that he's somehow showed up while he was being thought about. Perhaps it was a sign that Andor should reach out and find out more about the friend that he barely knew. He took his foot down and reached over to brush any dust from the chair before he raised a hand to gesture Bodhi over it. Once he caught the other man's attention, as subtly as possible he picked up his disgraceful mug down on the floor and slid it under his chair out of sight. |