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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It's better he doesn't know, right? Safer? And here comes Caroline Forbes, the horrible liar. But she has to try, so she shakes her head. "It's nothing. It's noth-- I'm fine. Just worried about you."

Now he takes both of her hands, pulling gently, hoping to get her to come closer. "Fake memories or no fake memories, I can tell you're a worse liar than I am."

She lets him tug her closer, too bewildered by how nonchalant he is, to do anything else. Matt's words of rejection echo in her head more clearly than ever and she looks at him as he calls her out for lying.

She should have known it wouldn't work with him. He's probably trained to see lies and she's a horrible liar for the most part. "I caught you, Poe. I was down the block and then... I was here. I caught you. You weigh more than me, no offense. And you're taller than me." By an inch but still. "And you don't... think that's weird?" Why is she pointing it out to him? Why?

"...Caroline." He tries not to smile. He really, really, really tries not to smile. It shows in the quiver of his lips, the way the corners of his mouth twitch, and when he speaks the smile wins. "You remember the part where I'm from another galaxy, right? A very big, very busy galaxy. That's not even-- it's not even top ten on my list of strangest things I've seen. Maybe top twenty-five."

Edited 2017-05-26 05:12 (UTC)

He isn't recoiling in fear... he's holding her hands and smiling. He isn't begging her to tell him what's going on, what the hell she is, he's telling her that what just happened to him isn't all that weird. And she's standing there feeling like she almost crashed her car and caught the brake just in time.

He's so casual and she feels like she might cry. And she kind of does, she lets out a sound that's half laughter and half a sob. She pulls one of her hands from his to hold her face, to cover her eyes, shoulders shaking a little with how overwhelmed she feels.

Uh oh. He screwed up, somehow? It was the smile, probably. He reaches out with his free hand to brush her hair back from her face, the gesture tender and familiar and hard to separate from the history this place has fabricated for them.

It's jarring, somehow frightening to realize he's falling for this woman in increments so small he hadn't felt the shift until this moment. (Falling for her again, his mind says, and he dismisses the thought.) There's a part of him wondering if this would work, how it would work, how he can convince her to come home with him when the time comes.

He steps on that. He has to. He's not going to drag her away from everything familiar and into a war.

"It's all right. It's okay."

He doesn't know what she is yet, not completely. But it's the fact that he doesn't step back in horror, he doesn't shy away from what he just saw, what she did... It's the acceptance from a man she loved(?), wants to be loved by? A man she barely knows but she feels drawn to in ways that are both familiar and strange...

When he reaches up to brush her hair back from her face, he'll see her smile then. "I'm sorry," she laughs, tearfully, astonished, relieved, grateful. "I just..." Slow down, Caroline. He doesn't know what you are, there's still time for him to freak out.

She holds more confidence in herself than she used to but here, she's found her footing shaky from the start and how he sees her, how he feels about her matters. It matters as much as Steve, as much as Stefan, as much as Elena or Bonnie. "Back home... when people... when I got exposed as what I am... People would freak out, even the people who loved me. I'm not normal back home.

I'm not human. Not anymore. Have you even heard of a vampire before?"

Edited 2017-05-26 05:39 (UTC)

A little weird, yeah. Not human any more raises questions. Of course it does. But the way she talks makes him hurt for her. Got exposed. I'm not normal. Even the people who loved me.

He won't be another of those people.

Shit, he thinks. I just thought it.

And he does. He does love her, though it's a confusing and conflicted sort of love. It's one-half the love of a friend, one-half something else. Maybe a few thirds confusion. But still. At bottom it's one simple fact, no matter the pieces that make up the whole. He loves Caroline. What form that takes in the end remains to be seen.

"I feel like I've heard the word." He can't say where, what context, or what it was describing. But he's heard it.

Poe gives her hand a little squeeze, reassurance that he's there and steady and not running for the jungle. Metaphorically speaking. "Humans aren't the be-all end-all of anything, y'know. Just gonna put that on the table."

Edited 2017-05-26 05:57 (UTC)

There's no question that she cares about Poe, even if she can't define those feelings exactly. But the devastation she'd been prepared to feel when/if he'd rejected her is proof of that. And it's a lot, she almost feels dizzy with it. He goes on to say that humans aren't the be-all end-all of anything and she opens her mouth to say more, to explain with delicacy what it means to be a vampire before she remembers herself.

Her eyes flicker to where she thinks a camera sits. Her voice raises a little, "We should go inside. Maybe you need to lay down for a bit." She wonders how much she might get punished for exposing herself already but... if she can just talk to him for a little while, without worrying about what's being said. She hopes and assumes, he'll catch her meeting and she doesn't care if whoever is watching on the camera does too. They can't see what happens in their minds.

Also, despite taking these few selfish moments to sort her shit out, she is a little worried as to why he just fell backwards.

Edited 2017-05-26 06:04 (UTC)

There's a moment of confusion, clear on his face, but then the cloud lifts. "You're right. You're probably right."

Caroline is not the only terrible liar in this scenario. It's all Poe can do not to look at the cameras as he leads the way into the house. BB-8 rolls out from the kitchen, starting to ask Poe what the noise outside was-- and then chirps a greeting to Caroline instead of finishing the question. Poe reaches down to pat the little droid on the way to the bedroom.

He sits down on the bed, then lays down on it, barefoot as he already was. Easier to climb that way. "Why don't you come lay with me?"

This is the least awkward setup for a thing ever.

If Caroline weren't in the middle of this situation, she might actually laugh at how awful the two of them are at being covert, how stilted they both sound. And she wonders if she'll ever get better at this. Probably not until her life is truly at risk or the lives of those she cares about...

Either way, she follows him inside, she greets BB-8 with genuine affection at this point, although she leaves the head pat to Poe before they make their way into his bedroom.

There's a prickle of anticipation that hits her, as she realizes she's in his room and they're about to lay on his bed. "Yeah, I'd like that." It sounds more natural because, well, she means it on some level.

She slips out of her jacket and shoes before she moves to join him. There are butterflies in her stomach as she moves to lay down on her side, facing him, reaching out for his hands to hold. "Are you okay?" She means it in every sense. There's a lot that needs to be said but it'll be easier if he's asleep. "Why did you fall?"

Poe rolls onto his side facing her, so she can take his hands and he can speak to her more easily. "It was just dizziness. Hit me all at once."

Which doesn't begin to describe the total sensory disorientation. That he's troubled by it is obvious enough. The last thing he needs is to get sick, or have more internal damage, beyond what he's had since he showed up. "I'll be fine."

She can't help the way she extracts her hand from one of his to brush some of the curls from his forehead back, letting her fingers slide over his temple and along his cheek for a moment as she looks at him, her voice lowering. Cameras can still probably hear here but she doesn't care. "Is it because of where you were? Did they hurt you?"

He closes his eyes at the touch, soaking up the comfort of it. It makes the next thing he says a little easier to get out. "I don't know. I don't remember."

A week. Gone. Poof. Better or worse than remembering every excruciating hour of torture? Up until that morning he would have said better, but at least in the First Order's cells he could recall what they ripped from his mind. That someone might have done something like that and he doesn't remember it is more frightening by far.

Compulsion is her first thought. That's what it sounds like. He doesn't know, he doesn't remember. How many times has she had to do that to someone? To keep herself and others safe? To keep that person's sanity intact? Her brow furrows and she lets her thumb slowly slide over the bridge of his nose, her other hand tightening around his.

"Okay," she says calmly. "Just... relax. I'm not going to let anything happen to you." She speaks soothingly but she means it, she's going to protect him. "Rest awhile, okay?" And then she can get into his head with him.

She starts to hum a song softly, shifting and inching her way closer to him, tangling their legs together a little more.

When he has the tune, he hums along, for a little while. Legs overlapped, one hand in hers. Part of him wants to fight sleep, an instinctive rebellion against returning to darkness. But it's been a long day. He's genuinely tired, worn out from others' worry, from the news of the murders, from uneasiness over his own disappearance.

Laying with her like this is like an early morning on Yavin, when the jungle goes quiet and the ranch animals haven't properly woken up. Peaceful.

It takes a bit, but finally, he falls asleep.

Edited 2017-05-26 06:51 (UTC)

She smiles to herself, at him despite his eyes being closed, when he starts to hum with her and for a moment, they harmonize.
Stilling her hand at his cheek, she lets her forehead rest against his until he drifts off. She gives him a few moments to start dreaming and maybe because he looks so peaceful, finally.

But that's not why they came inside and she centers herself, her mind after a moment, dipping into his mind and wading into whatever dream he's having at the moment, hoping that she can direct it towards some place peaceful.

He dreams of the Finalizer.

Stormtroopers. Men and women in dark uniforms. Dark, angular hallways, built on a scale that captivated and horrified him all at once. He dreams of the interrogators, the droids, the humans. The restraints of the interrogation table squeeze his wrists and ankles. The neuroshock spokes brush his temples, spark, crackle to life.

What did you do with the map? The question thunders in the halls, asked by a faceless human in uniform.

In his dream, he screams without making a sound.

It's not anything like the place they'd been before. His home. It's dark. There's no jungle, no sounds except of mechanical things and the whirring of machines and computers.

No.

This isn't right. Her stomach lurches immediately as she's thrust into the middle of torture, for a moment, she is him. And she is lost in the fear and pain before she steps out of it, reminds herself this isn't real, this is his dream and she moves towards him in a rush.

"Poe," she says his name, clearly and loudly, her hands move to snap the restraints from his ankles then his wrists. The thing that's torturing him, the person, doesn't move to stop her. It can't. "Poe, listen to me." Her hands find his face and she tilts his head up towards her own. "Listen. I'm right here. It's me, Caroline. This is just a dream. I need you to focus." She leans in to press a kiss to his forehead, almost tasting the sweat that's formed there. "This isn't real. I need you to think about Yavin, think about somewhere safe. Poe?"

Edited 2017-05-26 07:21 (UTC)

She has to get out of there. She has to get out. The First Order's masked thug is coming next, Poe knows how this goes, he knows how it ends, he's lived it what feels like a hundred times.

"You gotta get out of here," he says, voice ragged. What she's saying barely registers at first. There's a shadow gathering in the corner of the room, building upward from the floor, shaping itself into something human.

"You need to get out of here," he says again, his eyes on the shadow.

It's just a dream. This isn't real. Think about somewhere--

"Safe?"

He can't think of somewhere safe. Not if he doesn't want it ripped out of him, taken, used.

Somewhere safe--

A shiver in the air, and the interrogation table is briefly in the center of a space that looks like a barracks.

Poe closes his eyes. Opens them again. The barracks is there, then gone, replaced by the Finalizer again. But...

"Caroline?"

"Poe, Poe. They can't hurt you. I'm going to protect you," she says it evenly, without fear in her voice because she has the benefit of knowing that this isn't real, that those shadows, as terrifying as they seem, can't cause her any harm. Nor can they truly hurt him.

It only works for a moment, her encouragement, her reassurances before they are back on the ship. Her hands grab his and she holds them tight as the barracks fade away. Okay, time to change tactics. If she can't get him to think of somewhere safe, she'll drag him there.

She closes her eyes and thinks of the Falls. The darkness of the ship is replaced by the evening light of Virginia. The lights on the Finalizer are replaced by the soft, twinkling lights that hang above the bridge.

She won't be able to keep it up too long, this is his mind and she can't force him to see a place he's never been for long. "Poe," she urges him softly, without urgency. "Open you eyes. We're safe. Look. We're safe." But his brain has the power to pull them back to the nightmare if it won't accept her vision of peace and tranquility.

He's standing. Not held down. They're on a bridge, the sound of water in his ears. It's incredibly disorienting (he can almost taste blood in his mouth, the salt of sweat, he's rattled and hollow and exhausted), but there's Caroline.

"We're..." He looks around then, looks around properly, and realization of where they are and what's happening rolling over him in a wave of relief so powerful he sags against the railing of the bridge. "Oh."

For a second that's all he can say. Poe wipes his forehead with one wrist, trying to pull himself together. He inspects his wrist, expecting to find blood smeared across it, but there's nothing. "You shouldn't've had to see that."

Caroline is careful not to crowd him or overwhelm him further, when he slumps, she reaches out to steady him, moving to grasp his hand. "It's okay, I'm... sorry that happened. You're okay now. I won't let it happen to you again." She looks at him, uncertain what else to say. "Being tortured is..." The way her voice tremors for a moment probably speaks to the fact that she's been tortured before.

"Do you want to stay here or go to Yavin?" His brain will decide for them as soon as she says it, she knows.

The bridge he's leaning against becomes the A-wing parked by his father's house. There's the back yard, the gently glowing Force tree, the melon orchard, the animal pens. Familiar sounds pour in, and he finally relaxes.

He squeezes her hand lightly. "It's something."

The understatement carries an empathy that's impossible to put into words. It's apology, understanding, regret. He runs his hand over the smooth curve of the A-wing's side, remembering his return to Yavin to pick up Black One after Jakku. He slept in the cockpit of this ship. His father caught him there in the morning, just looked at him until he broke under that steady gaze and told Kes Dameron everything.

"You okay?"

It's almost dizzying, the change of scenery. A part of her heart breaks when the bridge fades from view and they're in his world. It's better this way but seeing home makes her homesick, suddenly. Maybe it's that and the combination of feeling his torture, being reminded of her own. It makes her miss the comfort of home more than ever before.

"Yeah, are you?" She lets go of him for now, moving to wrap her arms around herself. Now's the time to tell him basically everything. And already, she feels her cowardice creeping in.

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