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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

Poe being grumpy at her doesn't even make her bat an eyelash. She's seen Saw's temper at it's peak, a man raising his voice even a little bit to her doesn't make her flinch anymore. It's not worse than wearing down at Cassian's temper enough to make him snap at her.

She'll give him his reprieve, for now, but only after she answers his question that she is sure was rhetorical. "If what we feel here doesn't matter, what's the point?"

"Family isn't complicated for me," he says. The implication being Love is.

It leaves the door to that conversation open a crack, but it's better than ignoring her question. She's right, and he knows she's right, and he's not too proud to admit it. He'll just admit it silently, right now.

There's a moment of quiet, then BB-8 butts in, scolding Jyn, and Poe ducks his head to hide a smile. "Buddy. Buddy, it's fine. I'm fine."

Edited 2017-05-13 21:42 (UTC)

Family is the most complicated to Jyn. There is nothing more complicated to Jyn than family, which is reasonable considering. Also why she finally makes no comment: family guaranteed to shut her the hell up.

She glances down at BB-8 and it's probably just a trick of the light but she might smile the tiniest bit, no one can be sure. Her tone is nothing but wry when she comments, "Well, he's not excited to see me anymore."

"But he still likes you, or the arc welder would have come out."

BB-8 chirrups a grudging confirmation. Poe, meanwhile, studies her face like maybe it will tell him something that her questions don't, that her attitude doesn't. He knows the patterns of the lives that exist behind personalities like hers. He knows that questions--even if she remembered--would be met either with hostility or retreat.

Rogue One. The heroes, the legends, one of them standing here younger than he is. He wishes he could remember more about them, wonders if he knows anything beyond the fact that they were responsible for the destruction of the first Death Star. Given the way Cassian reacted to the mention of 'Fulcrum', he thinks maybe not.

It's a good thing she remembers so little, right now. It's a good thing he knows she remembers so little. He's not going to ask, not her or BB-8. It wouldn't be right to learn from the droid what she wouldn't share herself.

"I appreciate that, BB-8." Weird little basketball droid, but she does feel fond of him. He's sweet, like Bodhi in droid form. He'd puffed up defensively when the Council had made less than kind comments about her and her father in much the same way BB-8 does when she is probably not nice to Poe.

Jyn pulls a face when she looks up to realize that Poe is staring at her and very easily, lifts her hand to palm his face away from her. It's not anything like a slap, she literally just pushes her palm against his cheek so he will look back toward the road.

"Don't be weird."

Edited 2017-05-13 23:44 (UTC)

It surprises a laugh out of him, and he risks death to try and ruffle her hair.

"What if I'm just like that? Tell her, BB-8."

The droid replies that he has no other context to determine Poe's level of weirdness, but that it's probably pretty high.

"See. He says I'm weird."

OKAY.

This time she slaps his hand away, fast and quick. There is a no touching bubble around her, only Cassian gets away with that. Or dogs and droids. The nurse that tried to shoo her into bed again also got smacked away because Jyn is just a spectacular people person.

No messing up her messy hair.

"He might be slightly biased and you could be lying." It's not like Jyn can understand his little beeps and bleeps and blips. She does understand his little coo of hello, that's she's got down.

Poe holds both hands up, grinning like the little shit he is. He lets his hands drop, smile relaxing as well. They feel on safe ground again, at least for the moment.

"He might be biased, but I'm not lying." More seriously, he adds, "I won't lie to you. You or Cassian."

Part of her appreciates the sentiment, but because she doesn't know Poe very well, she doesn't know if that's even something to be promising. Jyn doesn't lie very often and only in part because she's absolute rubbish at it. There is little point to lying anymore, especially when they truth is usually far more damaging.

"I'll keep that in mind." She looks down the road to her house nestled on the end of the street, lights on, soft and welcoming. "You don't have to walk me all the way back."

"You should know, I finish what I start."

He says it teasingly, though, so even if it's true it's mostly Poe being difficult.

Sorry Jyn.

UGH. That shit eating grin is going to get all the wider, she can feel it and she grimaces in response to his teasing and stubbornness. The reason for this becomes clear as they approach the house and Cassian is waiting on the porch where she left him.

She'd expected nothing less but she was hoping he'd slipped inside for a drink and she could avoid what she can only imagine will be Poe's glorious gloating to find Cassian at home at her home, clearly spending the night.

Her mouth twists into a wry frown.

Edited 2017-05-14 03:10 (UTC)

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