#cornholius

It had started the day she moved in - and subsequently gotten her too-large couch stuck in her too-small doorway. No amount of fighting with it would get it to budge, and she and Bodhi had given up all hope … until Cassian had stepped from the elevator, and he wasn’t alone. He couldn’t leave them to struggle with it by themselves, though, and he quickly asked for a raincheck, even though his date gave the pouting performance of a lifetime in order to try to change his mind. That day had ended with all three of them sprawled out on the couch and floor, too exhausted to do much else than to order a pizza as a reward for managing to finagle the couch inside with a minimum of curses uttered.

And then there was the time in which Jyn locked herself out of her apartment, clad in just a towel after a shower, shivering violently as she knocked at his door. Of course he happened to be in the midst of a date, as evidenced by messy hair and kiss-swollen lips and his hastily buttoned shirt as he opened the door, letting her in without a second thought. It was an awkward wait for the locksmith, wedged onto the couch between Cassian and his date, clearly disgruntled by the interruption. Jyn hadn’t seen much of that particular woman afterwards.

And then there was the grease-fire incident …

And the smoke alarm that wouldn’t turn off episode …

And the unfortunate paint can bouncing down the staircase leading into their building and almost causing a concussion to his date affair …

Cassian hadn’t brought a date back to his apartment in a while, and Jyn cringed internally every time she wondered if it was because of her. She could hardly decide whether she was the cursed party in all of this, or if he was!

So when she caught sight of Cassian wandering the vendor’s stalls at the annual Holiday Farmer’s Market spanning two whole city blocks, she thought it was only fair to pay his kindness back. She purchased two of the largest hot chocolates she could find, and wove her way through the crowd until she sidled next to him at the makeshift ice skating rink that had been set up.

“Jyn - “, he started, his lips curling up into a smile once he noticed the steaming cup in her hand. “Want me to take that off of your hands for you?”

The glint in his eyes suggested that he was teasing a bit, too, because apparently, she shouldn’t be trusted with hot liquids, lest she spill it … all over one or the both of them. She snorted softly and rolled her eyes, but eventually handed it over, sighing as she warmed both of her hands on her own cup.

“Thought you looked like you could use it”, she answered, shrugging nonchalantly, looking out at the skaters with interest, even though she’d never been very good at it herself. The last thing she wanted was for Cassian to bear witness to the way she’d inevitably end up flat on her ass in the middle of the rink. So sexy, right?

Not that she wanted him to find her sexy! They were just friends, and hardly even that, she thought, more than she found herself an unwitting damsel in distress, and he unfailingly came to her rescue, as close to a knight in shining armor as was humanly possible.

“C’mon”, he urged, gesturing out at the other booths and the crowd as they wandered, “If you’re not busy, we should go and see what else this place has to offer.”

Jyn was grateful for the frigid winter air, and how it could be assumed that the pink in her cheeks was due to that, rather than the seemingly innocuous suggestion. While she hoped that it wasn’t just that Cassian was trying to be neighborly and polite, she hardly thought that he saw her as anything more than his bumbling neighbor who always seemed to need his assistance with something or other.

She’d been so busy at work recently that she hardly had any time for herself - the best part of the day was coming home to her cozy apartment to collapse in bed. It was nice to have a little breather, even though it was Christmas, which meant that anywhere she went, she was assaulted by crowds.

But unlike some, Jyn didn’t much mind the explosion of decorations and overabundance of holiday tunes everywhere she turned.

And she said as much as they stopped to enjoy a rousing rendition of ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’, performed by a local band, Cassian shaking his head vehemently as she raised an eyebrow as if to gauge if he’d be interested in dancing. Instead, they kept walking, visiting every booth in turn.

Cassian shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets, letting slip the tidbit that he didn’t really celebrate the holiday. She asked why as they sampled actual roasted chestnuts, and he explained that he didn’t have any family to celebrate with, and it just didn’t make sense to make a go of it alone. And taking part in the Secret Santa gift exchange at work didn’t count, he insisted, Jyn nodding along seriously, he only participated in that because everybody did, and if he didn’t, someone would be bereft a gift. And he’d look like a Scrooge, and he’s not a Scrooge, Christmas was just a thing that he didn’t really get.

After she accidentally pinned Rudolph’s red nose to his rump, and after Cassian had finished laughing so hard he ended up wheezing, Jyn explained that this was the first year that she’d lived by herself, so while she’d done all the preliminary decorations, she wasn’t really planning on doing much celebration, since she wasn’t able to get home and visit her parents like she wanted to.

She didn’t really let on how lonely the thought of a solo Christmas made her, but anyone with eyes could see some of the light in her eyes fade as she considered spending her first Christmas alone. She knew Cassian knew, too, as he offered the softest little smile (so pretty - he could be so pretty, and probably without the slightest clue that her heart was going haywire in her chest) and gently nudged her shoulder with his own.

“Well”, he started, sighing as he shrugged, “I’ll be alone, you’ll be alone, maybe we could be alone together?”

Things were starting to look up, she thought, nodding her agreement to the unexpected suggestion. “Yeah … yeah, okay. We could have dinner, maybe? I mean, you’ve watched the Grinch, right?”

He shook his head no, and she frowned, shaking her head. “Okay, we’re fixing that, then. We don’t have to watch every Christmas movie ever made, but there are a few that you have to see, and the Grinch is one of them.”

She chanced a glance at Cassian, surprised to notice that his expression had shifted into something more fond than amused, although there was a familiar glint in his eyes as he snorted softly. “My only caveat is that you let me cook”, he stated, his lips pulling his smile ever higher. “We both know that you trying to use that stove is only going to end in disaster.”

Jyn might have huffed out an offended breath, but it wasn’t as though Cassian wasn’t right. It was a small concession to make, and she didn’t mind making it. And for as much as she wanted to play it cool, there was no helping looking ridiculously eager at the thought of spending Christmas Eve together, and all without an actual emergency to bring them back into each other’s orbit. “I suppose that’s an acceptable condition, Cassian. You’ve got a deal.”

She hardly hesitated at all to take his offered hand to shake, officially accepting the terms and conditions they’d set - and if she squinted just a bit, she could pretend that they were actually holding hands, and not for the first time, she was glad for the cold winter air and the way it obscured a blush that hadn’t faded the entire time they’d been walking around.

“Great”, Cassian said, frowning softly for a long, quiet moment, at least until he bent down to quickly brush a kiss to Jyn’s cheek, catching her so off-guard that all she could do was stare. “I’ll see you later, then?”

All Jyn could do was nod dumbly as she watched Cassian smile wider, and then wheel around to stride purposefully toward the exit, the new spring in his step more than enough to set her nerves fluttering all the more. Okay. This was a thing that was happening, and she had things to do in order to make sure that it wouldn’t turn into a complete disaster - which was, of course, just her luck.

But later that evening, when a knock at the door announced Cassian’s arrival, no metaphorical or literal fires needed to be put out, for once. Jyn’s apartment was clean and warm, and her little (fake) tree was already lit up and sparkling in the low light of the living room. And far from all the times that he’d seen her distressed and just this side of panicking, she was calm enough, comfortably barefoot, easily allowing Cassian entrance. She even managed to stay patient and wait, even though she was dying to know what he’d brought for dinner in a little covered container.

“You said you’d bring dinner”, she casually commented, following along as he headed toward the small kitchen. “So I took it upon myself to provide the wine.”

She’d already been a good host, too, in setting out plates, silverware, and napkins, so that all Cassian had to do was serve the food, which he diligently set to doing, the smell that permeated the kitchen once he’d removed the foil enough to cause Jyn to groan pleasantly. “That smells amazing. What’d you make?”

“Chilaquiles”, he answered, glancing at her with a smile, “I like to cook when I can, and it’s my best dish. I hope you like it.”

Jyn reassured Cassian that she most likely would, since it smelled amazing, thanking him once he was finished dishing it out and occupying himself with pulling out her chair for her before pouring the wine and taking his seat, too. They conversed some in between bites, but for the most part, the kitchen was filled by very pleased noises, mostly courtesy of Jyn.

Once they were finished, Cassian shooed Jyn out of the kitchen so that he could take care of the few dirty dishes before they settled on the couch to watch a few ‘Christmas Classics’, as she’d called them. “Alright”, he sighed, sitting close, but not too close, “I put myself in your all too capable hands. What are we watching?”

“Frosty, Rudolph, and the Grinch, of course”, Jyn answered, rolling her eyes as though it was the most obvious answer in the world. “I mean, there are a ton of other Christmas movies you should watch, but we’d kind of be stuck here for a week if we tried to watch them all.”

Cassian considered for a moment, and then shrugged, the hint of a smile on his lips. “Okay, so we’ll have to make a tradition of this, at least until I’ve watched them all.”

Jyn glanced down, unable to hide the size of the grin that suddenly almost split her face, nodding gently. A tradition. It was only an idea, and who knew where they’d be in a year, but the thought of it was more than enough to set her heart to beating all the harder. “We can definitely do that”, she answered, biting her bottom lip gently as she glanced at Cassian from the corner of her eye. “I just won’t be satisfied until you watch all the classics - It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, A Christmas Story, we’ve got enough to last us a while.”

“Good”, he answers, glancing at Jyn from the corner of his eye, his lips pulled up into a hopeful smile.

And maybe … this was a little less innocent than she’d originally thought it was supposed to be … especially after she started the movies, Frosty first, and eventually noticed that they were both scooting incrementally closer to each other on the couch when their shoulders touched, and neither shied away from the other. Her smile widened and she curled up all the closer still as Frosty ended and Rudolph began, pleased to note that Cassian hardly hesitated in extending an arm along the back of her couch, as if allowing her all the access she could ever need should she want to … nuzzle even closer.

Which she did want to do, if she was being perfectly honest. Cassian was warm, and he smelled amazing, and just sitting with him watching movies made her feel more comfortable than she thought she’d felt in ages. And even though she was pulled from her thoughts as he skeptically raised an eyebrow and scoffed at the thought of Hermie wanting to be a dentist, she hardly found reason to mind. There was something incredibly endearing about sharing these movies with Cassian for the very first time.

“Shut up”, she teased, elbowing him in the side gently. “Who said that elves have to be toymakers, anyway? Let the man have his dreams.”

Cassian rolled his eyes as fondly as he could manage, sighing a very put upon sigh. “Alright, fine, I’m watching. I guess dentistry as a career does make a modicum of sense - after all, look at all the candy canes and shit they have to eat … “

Jyn tried not to sing along, she really did, but there was no ignoring the urge. It was Christmas! She only watched these movies once a year! And she didn’t think that her voice was that bad, anyway. Cassian might’ve stifled his laughter, but he didn’t cringe, either, and that had to count for something.

By the time the Grinch came on, Jyn was resting her head comfortably against Cassian’s shoulder, dozing off intermittently, although his short, barking bouts of laughter bring her right back to consciousness every time - especially when he practically doubles over at one point. “I honestly didn’t know what I was missing out on … “

When the movies finally came to an end, Jyn switched the television off, and stood up to stretch, fiddling with her phone until she’d pulled up some holiday playlist or another, smirking when the first song that started playing was the ubiquitous ‘All I Want for Christmas is You’, cheekily offering Cassian a hand. “Wanna dance?”, she asked, her smirk shifting and growing into a wide smile as he readily accepted, gasping as she was pulled close, and the pair of them began moving, albeit a little too slow as compared to the tempo of the song.

… Not that she cared.

One song turned into three, and neither of them attempted to pull away from each other. Even though their dancing slowly faded until they were barely moving back and forth, just content to hold each other and sway bathed in the glow from her Christmas lights, only pulling apart in surprise when her clock chimed, announcing that it was midnight, much later than either of them had expected to still be together.

“Merry Christmas, Cassian”, Jyn murmured, tilting her head up to meet his eyes, taken off guard in the best possible ways when he suddenly bent down to capture her lips in a soft, sweet kiss, her arms tightening around his neck, keeping him close.

Cassian pulled away, resting his forehead against Jyn’s, grinning so brightly that she thought he totally outshone the lights she’d put up, huffing out a chuckle that made her heart skip a beat.