pineslog | And I'll use you as a warning sign

Entry tags:

And I'll use you as a warning sign

Who: Okay this turned into a Poe catchall + Various
Where: Various locations/listed in the headings
When: May 1st-31st
What: May Catchall - specific closed prompts, some open threads
Warnings: N/A yet
[Open and Closed]

May 10th - Open

Tequila Mockingbird has Cassian's liquor of choice in the name, which is why Poe picked it. He's not a big drinker, but between the memories, the conversation with Jyn, the... party. Well. He has a few reasons to drink.

The reason he picked for tonight was to pour one out for L'ulo, for Muran, for the pilots whose names and faces he hasn't yet remembered. Not for his mother--it doesn't seem right, to drink for her. She wouldn't want it, her son inebriated and alone at a bar, wallowing in her memory. Poe won't pretend that isn't what he's doing. Wallowing, letting himself feel the grief and pain he tries so hard to outpace.

Jyn is right. He has to stop sometime, and taking the opportunity now to brace himself for future losses is better than breaking under one too many.

His table is in the corner, in a quiet part of the restaurant. Not by any virtue of paranoia. Poe doesn't have the same hardwired need to keep his back to a wall and his eyes on the exits that some veterans do. It was just the most private space he could find while still being around people. Drinking at home where Rey might have seen him would have felt worse than this, but drinking somewhere entirely alone wouldn't have been right either. He might not have squadmates to share a glass with, but having some form of life circulating around him is better than being entirely alone. Plus, there's BB-8, sitting underneath the table, domed head tilted to rest against Poe's leg.

Maker, he's glad to have his droid.

May 12th - Open

Poe is beating up a freestanding punching bag thing. He's been going to Crossbones Boxing in the morning on the days he doesn't work. He'll go stir-crazy if he just hangs around the house, and being grounded for this long is driving him bonkers as it is. He's tried to keep his head down, tried to be good, but man (thump, kick, wham) he going to blow a sensor if he doesn't get some air time.

It doesn't help that beating up things is usually the time he spends talking to BB-8 about whatever's on his mind. Here, where it's public and monitored like everywhere else, they have to keep up the same act. So BB-8 sits, watching, grumbling to himself with a towel draped over his head dome, while Poe tries to kill an inanimate object.

May 13th - Open

Poe is in a tree.

It is a tall tree. A very tall tree, near the edge of town, just inside those woods they aren't technically supposed to enter.

He is very high in this very tall tree.

Fuck gravity to be honest.

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"Oh. Sorry, I'll--" He gestures meaninglessly, the motion apologetic. "I didn't mean to push. I'm not much better off, I should know not to."

BB-8 twitters about meaning well, and Poe just smiles at him. "Meaning well and doing good aren't the same thing, buddy."

"It's..." She waves her hand dismissively. Everything she retained after the accident sucked, everything she has remembered since then also sucks so she shouldn't be getting bent out of shape over questions about a life that is clearly going to continue reminding her how shitty it was.

"Cassian and I we didn't-- we don't--" Ah why don't any of these tenses work! "We haven't known each other long so I'm not about to move in with him." Even though they look at each other like they're in love, that is irrelevant. Even though he is at her house right now, that is also irrelevent, she can always make him leave. "Besides, you don't want your cousin with me. He literally broke me out of prison. Not exactly good roomate material."

Broken--

Poe frowns, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Huh. I think... I've done that, too."

He grins at her. "Not you, obviously, but I'm pretty sure I've broken someone out of prison. Must be a family hobby."

(Technically he's done it... a couple of times.)

You know what else is a family trait? Being incorrigible. Though, to be fair. It wasn't Cassian that broke her out, just her team and his droid. RIP Melshi. That's splitting hairs she doesn't care or know about. Remembering Wobani was enough.

"How do you do it? Nothing fazes you."

What do you know, something that... actually fazes him. He scrubs his hand through his hair, clearly perplexed by the question.

"That's not true."

He can think of one thing off the top of his head: Caroline. Caroline, and their confusing, heated, wonderful, fake shared memories. Other, less pleasant things crowd into his thoughts. All the things that have kept him up or made him flinch from shadows.

He digs his hands into his pockets. "I just... stay ahead."

Outpace the bad feelings until you can't.

"That seems..." Her uninjured shoulder lifts in a shrug as she turns out of the park and on to the street again. Idly she notices that she is heading toward her house. "Inadvisable."

As if Jyn doesn't do the same thing. She compartmentalizes so much that when one tiny figment of her buried past came back it was nearly debilitating. That doesn't mean she doesn't continue down that road -- she's tucked Bodhi and Chirrut and Baze and K2 into their little boxes next to the ones containing memories of her mother and father and Saw. No doubt there are other little boxes tucked away, Jyn just blissfully doesn't remember them right now. The lack of memories has been more of a gift than she realizes, as frustrating as it has been for her.

"You're going to stop sometime."

Three X-wings in the sky over a rocky planet, no A-wing in sight. Another memory, a different place: Everything's easy for Poe Dameron, right?

"We all stop sometime."

Pull up, he thinks. BB-8 chirps a worried question and Poe waves a hand, for all intents and purposes relaxed. "It's nothing, buddy."

The borderline buzzer noise Poe gets in response tells him what BB-8 thinks of that answer, but Poe shrugs it off. Not today, not here, and not with so many interested neighbors. "If I'm supposed to be shocked by your being in prison, by the way. I mean, it matters first of all what you were there for. It matters more what you've done since. Besides, I trust Cassian's judgement, which might be my first mistake."

Edited 2017-05-12 04:05 (UTC)

Jyn is never going to admit the real reason she was in prison, not even to Cassian. Betraying Blue will go with her to her grave.

"Definitely your first mistake," she agrees seriously, as if she doesn't trust Cassian's judgment. As if she hasn't been deferring to it lately. She's joking anyway, even if it's impossible to tell because Jyn is zero fun at all.

He studies her face, trying to see if that's a joke. Trying to determine if there is a tiny, prickly sense of humor under that slightly-less-tiny, prickly exterior. Given how much Poe himself has been hanging around Cassian since his cousin--since his friend--pulled him off the street, and given the kind of humor Cassian seems to employ... it's probably a joke.

His lips twitch into a smile. Not one of his cavalier, it's all fine and so am I smiles, just a tiny expression of amusement.

"Yeah, well. I've been told my judgement's not great either."

"Also genetic." That comes with the faint ghost of a smirk. "You know you live on the opposite side of town from me, your walk home is going to be twice as long if you keep following me."

Following, because she can't just admit they're walking together. Nah.

"BB-8 needs the exercise."

The droid makes a blrrt noise and counters that no, it's Poe who needs the exercise, because his caloric intake exceeds his physical output. ZING.

"Besides, what would Cassian think, me letting a friend of his walk home alone? If the cops were here, I'm sure they'd be concerned for your safety."

"He would think you've seen me fight." She almost gave in and admitted that Cassian was waiting for her back at her house and clearly doesn't stop her from roaming the town in the dead of night, but she can imagine Poe's smug expression at that and she doesn't want to have to punch Poe Dameron.

He is not a storm trooper.

But he is right about the cops, one of them had already approached her with concern when she passed the Sheriff's station. She doesn't need that again. A guest could be useful.

"Please don't beat me up. My walk home will be even longer then."

He doesn't doubt that she could. Lord knows some of the women in his memory could probably kick his ass up and down the apron if they decided he needed it. And then there's General Organa, who he strongly suspects could blow up a star destroyer with a withering look.

Jyn supposes she could just tell Poe to fuck off but she doesn't really care either way and she doesn't relish making BB-8 does those sad little beeping noises again. Instead she rolls her eyes and turns off Main Street.

His easy going manner reminds her of Chirrut's nearly ever-present, knowing smile. The urge to slap it off his face on occasion is the same too. Jyn just can't handle friendly people, it turns out. She thinks she deserves a medal for only threatening (in a fashion) to beat him up until now. Progress.

"Wouldn't want that."

What he wouldn't give to be able to whisk her and Cassian off D'Qar. He already wants to find a way to introduce them to Leia, if they haven't met her yet. They're from her fight, the one she came up through the ranks living.

He's glad to have them, both of them, even if he doesn't known Jyn that well yet. All jokes aside, he does trust Cassian's judgement.

All this to say, unless Jyn tells him to fuck off, she's stuck with him. She would probably still be stuck with him. And she wouldn't want to make BB-8 make sad noises now would she?

He's content to walk in silence for a little while, not wanting to ask her about things she doesn't remember, not when it could get them in trouble anyway. But then something else occurs to him. "You have any of Cassian's 'dead drops' yet?"

Edited 2017-05-13 03:58 (UTC)

"Memories? No." She'd remembered being in Wobani and her nightmares seem to be bits and pieces of the same battle, spread out like torture, making her sleep even worse than usual. The whole reason she's out in the dead of night to begin with.

"I don't remember anything here before I woke up." It's very small clarification. She doesn't remember anything about the town, specifically.

"That's good. They're...."

Confusing.

That's the best word, the only word, that he can apply to what he's been bombarded with. Unless he wants to stop and think about it, and he'd rather not, thanks.

"Not fun."

There.

Something pulls at her, some mingling sense of loss she's incredibly familiar with and something brief and fleeting like gratitude. It must be such a hardship, she thinks with some bitterness, to have a family and a life built in to this insanity, to feel some sense of belonging when everything else is foreign and wrong.

At least she is no stranger to feeling like she doesn't belong.

"Cassian doesn't seem to be particularly fond of it either." It's easier to spill his secrets than hers, her chin tips up when they pass out of the glare of a streetlight. "He also told me there is a pretty blonde woman you don't want to talk about."

~~Never mind, he doesn't trust Cassian's judgement.~~

Jyn Erso, Poe thinks, has an uncomfortable way of tearing through his defenses like they don't even exist. She's like a blunt force trauma human being.

"Yes, there is." And he doesn't want to talk about her.

Jyn has had precious little time to be curious in her life, not since her mother was still alive at least. After that curiosity really could have killed the cat if the cat in question were Jyn herself. Now she finds herself stretching the legs of her curiosity.

And, no offense to Poe, but she knows she pushes people away, no one sticks around, might as well ask all she can before they realize that she's not worth the effort.

"Why don't you want to talk about her?"

Fortunately for them both, Poe is patient. He trusts his instincts. And right now, his instincts are telling him that dodging Jyn's question is a surefire way to alienate her or get written off. Still, that doesn't make it easy. I got caught is enough of an explanation for the General. It's not enough here.

She might start to think he isn't going to answer. He's quiet for long enough.

"Because my memories and my feelings say I love her, and I don't even know her." It occurs to him that admitting this to Jyn may well be admitting it to Cassian, but he's committed now. It takes a few gathered breaths before he says, "I've had someone in my head before. They pulled me apart. Just because remembering Caroline feels good doesn't mean it's any better."

Poe draws himself up, trying to ignore the thousand phantom pains that come with remembering that black-paneled room. Remembering the moment he knew he'd betrayed the Resistance and made himself nothing to the First Order but a loose end to tie off. This, this place, the memories, they're a dressed-up version of the same thing, and the only part that makes it bearable (shamefully bearable) is knowing that he isn't alone in what they've done.

"Your memories and feelings say Cassian is your cousin and you don't seem to mind that." Jyn should presumably stop pushing, but Poe says he's in love with a woman he doesn't even know and maybe there is something there she can relate to, regardless of the fact that she'll never admit to anything.

And yes, he is admitting this to Cassian, but at least Jyn is monumentally less talkative than her ...friend, it may take sometime to come out.

"You don't play around, do you?"

There's the barest edge of defensiveness in it, which is a clear indicator to anyone who knows him how close he is to shutting this conversation down. He looks away, balling his hands up and shoving them in his pockets. BB-8 chirrups concern, and Poe can't even bring himself to say he's fine. "Cassian is family. He's part of the Alliance, the Resistance. He knows my parents."

They're crossing about a half-dozen lines right now, but Poe can't bring himself to care. "I trust him."

"He's still a stranger," she points out calmly. She's had this talk with herself. She doesn't know anything about Cassian, not really, but at least she had the time with him.

Maybe it was growing up with Saw that makes Poe's argument ring false to her ears -- the Alliance wasn't ever something she was part of. She hadn't joined up with them, she'd joined up with Rogue One and a band of rebels who needed to combat their own guilt for what the Alliance had made them do.

Look, she just is never going to be 100% for the Alliance.

"He's part of the same thing you are, I understand that. What makes Caroline different?" Her eyebrows lift in question, knowing full well she should stop pushing. She won't. "She's part of this, just like you."

He finally bridles. "Why does it matter?"

It matters, it matters a lot. And he shouldn't lose his temper with her. He invited this discussion by answering her questions in the first place. Poe forces himself to relax in increments, though he knows he's going to need to work these feelings out later. Probably with a punching bag. He hates using violence to calm down, but it's not like he can jump in a cockpit and go suborbital for an hour. The motorcycle is all right, but not for outdistancing something like this, not when there isn't a road that won't bring him right back around into this tiny fraction of a town.

"Let's go back to pretending nothing fazes me, I liked that."

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