I don't understand at best, and cannot speak for all the rest

[ouzel]

Who: Cassian Andor (¿y ustedes?)
Where: ALL AROUND TOWN. Seriously. Pick a spot, I'll come up with a reason for him to be there.
When: May 7th - May 14th
What: This is an open catchall, y'all. There will be starters in threads as they come to me, but feel free to make your own! Come meet the man, the myth, the Go Ask Alice employee.
Warnings: None, yet. Will put specific warnings in comment headers.
[Open]

Comments

( for jyn, may 7th )

[ouzel]

[ He's spent most of his evenings at Jyn's, actually, once she'd shown up. Once she'd invited him over. Making dinner, watching movies, walking together or actually sleeping, (not together, for the record) at least for a few hours at a time. It's probably weird, that he's holed up in her guest room like he doesn't have a place of his own, but he doesn't mind.

The scattered nights he does try to sleep in his own bed are exercises in insomniac futility.

This afternoon, he's in French's, peering at the beer offerings before he decides to give her a call (might as well put that cell phone to use, right?) and once she picks up: ]

What kind of beer do you like?

[realists]

[ it takes jyn a moment to get the phone if only because it's over there and she is outside exercising so she has to run into the house to catch the phone before it goes to the answerphone. ]

I can't remember my own middle name and you expect me to know what kind of beer I fancy? [ she puffs out a breath. cassian, please. ] I don't know, something strong probably.

[ouzel]

I'm not sure you have a middle name...

[ Maybe he shouldn't have said that, though. Besides, 'something strong probably' is better information than he had when he started, and allows him to narrow things down a bit. ]

Preferences can be easier to suss out than details.

[realists]

[ that's a weird fact she files away. makes sense why it was blank on the id she found shoved in a side table in her flat though. sticky from working out she forgoes the couch and sits on the floor next to the same side table where the phone is. ]

I take it that we haven't gone out for drinks before.

[ouzel]

No, we didn't.

[ Cassian waffles between being honest and being...careful. In the meantime, he picks out two six packs of beer and places them in the cart, along with the rest of his ideas for dinner. Plus chocolate. (He doesn't care if it's for Mother's Day, it doesn't say mom on it anyway, it's assorted chocolate. He's buying it.) ]

A lot happened in a very short time. Not a lot of downtime in between.

[realists]

[ that's what she thought so it's nice to have it confirmed even though it is a little... sad. she supposed that matches the rest of what she knows about her life. jyn erso, not allowed to have nice things. ]

I thought so. Why do you want to know what kind of beer I like?

( for sharon, crossbones boxing, time is a component quantity )

[ouzel]

[ Cassian works out early, since it seems to be the time of day the gym is the least occupied. With the influx of hospital patients however there's been a subtle shift in the ebb and flow of people in town; Cassian notices how the people who have been there longer than he has adjust to this with few obvious hiccups. Like a living thing, Wayward Pines' society simply...adjusts.

It would be more fascinating than terrifying if Cassian weren't observing it from the inside.

So there are a few more souls than he's expecting around, and that's fine. It has to be, right? He can even make eye contact and a nod to the faces he recognizes.

Like Sharon. ]

[postpartor]

[ She's good at this. That was her first realization, when she tested herself against the equipment in her house. Punches, kicks, combination moves come naturally.

If it comes naturally to her, then maybe it comes naturally to others. And a boxing gym is as good a place as any to scope out who can fight and who's trying to learn. Out here, she holds herself back, lets her punches fly wild and land weakly, paying equal parts attention to those around her and on her act.

Until she spots Mr. Dead Drops. She braces her punching bag to stop it from swinging, grinning at him. ]

Hey, Cupcake. Here to work off the bake sale?

[ouzel]

Something like that.

[ More like day off, can't sleep, arm hurts, needs distraction but. You know. Details.

He can hear Kay's voice in his head that woman called you 'cupcake', and boy howdy, he's probably going to hear about it randomly at some inopportune moment if Nyx is within earshot. ]

How are you doing?

[postpartor]

[ Something like that. She raises an eyebrow, deciding to keep a mental count of how many times he answers questions with placeholders and evasions. Like a drinking game! But for lying! ] Oh, y'know. Hanging in there.

[ Her smile says volumes more than the words: I saw what you did, I can play too. ] You come here a lot?

[ouzel]

[ It's probably a good thing for her liver that it's not really a drinking game. Probably.

Definitely. ]

Like that poster, with the cat? Hang in there, buddy?

[ That cat looks upset and the entire poster annoys him on a visceral level, yet he couldn't somehow avoid mentioning it. ]

I bring coffee in the morning to the owner, Brock, and Nyx who works here. Brock is my boss' landlord, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the coffee.

[ Jeff would outlaw the stuff in a fit of pique if not for Cassian.

Also that only says how often he brings coffee, not how often he works out. ]

( for poe, casa del dameron, week of the 14th )

[ouzel]

[ One of the rainier afternoons finds Cassian flipping through the high school's World History textbook, armed with a highlighter and Post-It Notes, frowning at himself as he finds particular passages to mark.

This project is not, for the record, for Pietro (he'd probably scoff all the air out of the room at the very idea of needing Cassian's help with homework)...nope, this is for Jyn.

If he ever needed an example of whatever is affecting their minds being very imperfect, it lies in the contradictions of Jyn's basic grasp of the culture while having no details, no false memories, nothing.

He wonders how many other people are caught up like that, completely unable to express their bafflement at what everyone else remembers about them.

He smells it before he hears it before he sees it, the flames suddenly erupting from the oven door, but Cassian is on his feet immediately, going for the fire extinguisher he knows to be tucked away behind a cabinet. ]

Poe!

[ Because he's not in his own kitchen. ]

Re: ( for poe, casa del dameron, week of the 14th )

[volitaunt]

[ Okay, when anyone yells for him like that, it's not a good thing. Poe hits his head trying to get out from under his bike (yes, he's fiddling with it again), rolls to his feet swearing to himself, and pelts into the house.

Only to come skidding to a halt in the kitchen at the sight of Cassian attacking his flaming dinner with a fire extinguisher, and BB-8 blasting it with suppressant smoke alongside him.

He's pretty sure getting involved directly would just get someone hurt, at this point, and the fire seems to be dying down. ]

...What happened? [ Did the supposedly pre-cooked only-needs-to-be-reheated lasagna thing explode? ]

[ouzel]

[ Cassian's gotten the oven door open by that point; he's not sure how usable the oven itself will be, unfortunately, and part of his brain is already running over what'll have to happen next, calling a repair person versus purchasing a new stove if that will even be necessary. ]

You turned your lasagna into charcoal. How long have you left this running?

[volitaunt]

It doesn't stop on its own?

[ How does anyone get anything done if they have to hover over their food? He already almost exploded the microwave putting metal in it (really, what a stupid design), and now...

Now he has a very dead-looking stove. He feels like he should apologize to it, but it's not like it has any level of sentience. Which is weird. This whole place is weird. And dinner is now a foam-splattered lump of tin foil and char. ]

[ouzel]

None of the things stop on their own, Poe.

Unless it has a timer. [ Like the microwave. Speaking of, Cassian's eyes glance up that way once the fire is put out and he can set the extinguisher down. ]

We'll order a new one tomorrow. Salad? Pasta? [ Yes? Cassian can cook those things on the stovetop, thankfully. Well. Salad doesn't need cooking but one catches the drift, here. ]

( for junyoung, may 9th )

[ouzel]

[ Their schedules have been at odds, in the last month or so, but Cassian simply took to leaving notes on the fridge or cupboards to get information across to his roommate: most recently this has included the number to his cell phone and the explanation that a. his cousin Poe arrived in town and b. so did Jyn. He doesn't clarify who Jyn is or what their relationship details, because that would just be...way too difficult for a Post-It.

Not saying something was just as good as saying something, right? (No, not really, but Cassian could avoid questions from anyone other than Jyn as much as he wanted to, thanks.)

Either way, this afternoon Cassian is actually in his own house, poking through the freezer, when he comes across a container of rum raisin ice cream. He has no idea what rum raisin might taste like, but honestly? The idea of getting at least slightly buzzed on ice cream is an appealing one.

He opens the carton, grabs a spoon and a mug (he doesn't need a bowl for this!) and starts scooping ice cream out. At least, that was the intention; the reality was one scoop of ice cream and he hit something weird, and since Cassian is a deeply nosy person and this is "his" house, he dug whatever it was out.

Five minutes later, he hears Junyoung come in the front door, and Cassian hasn't moved his forehead from where it's resting against the freezer door. He's tempted to hit it again one more time, for good measure; the resounding thunk is oddly satisfying.

(He's probably overreacting. Maybe a little.) ]

[naneunyulyeongibnida]

[ Junyoung has learned, in his studies, now being applied in real life, the fine art of not pushing for information. There has to be a certain level of trust between doctor and patient for the patient to be forthcoming about their background or their issues. He's applied much the same thinking to this odd friendship--they're genuinely friends by now, he thinks, now that they're past the disorienting feeling of remembering someone they've only just met.

So he's weathered the small tide of post-it notes, and even scrawled a few responses in return here and there. He doesn't ask who Jyn is to Cassian, makes note of the cell phone number.

Work has been crazy. He was given extra shifts and watched (he assumes) extra carefully following the adventure of the body that wound up in the bathtub. He'd managed to smuggle the tissue samples in and out of the hospital, and put them in the freezer for safekeeping.

In the tub of rum raisin ice cream.

He does not connect this information with the sight that greets him when, for the first time in weeks, with the extra scrutiny gone and the extra traffic through the emergency room with the flooding abated, he walks into his house at a reasonable hour. There's a plastic bag full of takeout containers from one of the Chinese restaurants dangling from one hand; under his other arm he has tucked three large bottles that look like bottled water, though a closer look will reveal the labels aren't in English.

He stops short when he steps into the kitchen, blinking a few times at the sight before him.

Okay, then. ]

So, uh.

If you need to ice your head, it probably works better to not have the freezer door between your head and the ice. Just saying.

[ouzel]

[ Cassian huffs out a laugh and...okay, he definitely hasn't gotten enough sleep, never has really, and maybe that's part of why this is so hysterical to him, suddenly. Enough to have him huff out one more laugh, and then another, not really straying far into the sort of laughter that might make someone step back but still.

More than one laugh. Kind of a bit much for Cassian, honestly. ]

No, it's...it's fine.

You wouldn't have happened to have brought home any ice cream, would you?

[[ A sigh, and he finally straightens himself up off the fridge, pushing away from the appliance and giving Junyoung a shrug. ]

This is the part where I ask how was work. [ This is the part where Cassian pretends to be a functioning human being is really what this is. ]

[naneunyulyeongibnida]

[ Junyoung's eyebrows, meanwhile, have begun a slow climb toward his bangs. ]

Work was fine. Crazy as ever. Actually--a little less crazy since I'm actually home more or less on time for once.

[ He moves to the table, unloading the bottles he has tucked under his arm, then setting down the takeout. ]

I picked up dinner, but no, no ice--

[ Ice cream. It's only then that it hits him, that he realizes what must've happened. ]

Oh-- you didn't. That old container of ice cream at the back of the freezer.

[ That he hid the tissue samples from the gross corpse from the water in. Not that he can say any of that out loud, what with all the surveillance. ]

My bad. I didn't think anyone would eat it. I should've said something.

replies a fucking month later go me

[ouzel]

It's... [ Cassian sighs, shaking his head. ] That stuff is much more disgusting than I ever would have imagined, and now I feel cheated out of finding out if rum raisin ice cream gets you drunk.

[ Speaking of drunks, Cassian gestures at the bottles on the table. ]

What have you brought?

13th

[corenundrum]

[After tagging along on the little debris expedition, Sissel has been out looking for Cassian. If only to chat with him a little more. Being a kitten that few could hear can get a little boring, and there's a lot to talk about in this town.

Finding Cassian in Go Ask Alice, the small kitten waits for someone to open the door before slipping inside, hopping up on the counter with a soft mew to catch his attention. The voice of a young man, contrary to the age his physical form indicates, ringing out in Cassian's head.]

How's it going?

[ouzel]

[ Yeah, okay, that hasn't gotten any less weird, but Cassian at least gives Sissel a nod and a bit of a smile. ]

New month. New accidents, I guess. [ New people, is what he means, and some...not so new, actually.

He's got a few cans of tuna stored somewhere, give him a minute to track them down. ]

Anything new for you?

[ The great thing about one-sided appearing conversations was that they didn't tend to record well. ]

[corenundrum]

[Sissel would smile back but cats aren't generally very expressive. He'll just translate it into the tone of his voice.]

Not since the... plane, was it? [Humans have built so many strange items]

[ouzel]

Probably. [ Meaning: probably a plane. Also, Cassian has found the canned tuna, and starts poking around for a can opener next. ]

You met Jyn, at the bakesale. [ Because everyone she talked to, including selectively telepathic cats, were noticed by him while he was away from the table. ] She just got here.