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 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.

He straightens, feeling as battered as he did right after it happened, the tingle of nerve damage prickling in his palms, arms, neck, legs. "Better than I was a minute ago, that's for damn sure."

Poe tries to make it a joke. He gets about half way to humor. Not even Black Squadron knows what happened to him on the Finalizer, though he's pretty sure at least some of them have guessed.

This time it's his turn to touch her face lightly, brush her hair back again. "So, now that we've both lied about being okay."

Back to business. Back to why they're here in the first place. It's better than dwelling on what can't be changed. "What didn't you want to say in front of the cameras?"

She smiles softly, sadly when he makes his joke about them both lying about being okay, when he touches her hair. It's true, she knows he's not okay and he probably knows she isn't either. She's not sure anything will ever be completely okay again, if she's honest. But life is manageable.

She wants to ask him what that was, what happened but she brought him here for a reason and for once, Caroline doesn't pry, she realizes that he might need a break from how confusing his life is at the moment.

Not that what she's about to say is going to make things any better.

"I..." she glances down, trying to figure out where to start. "When I was seventeen, I was murdered." It sounds like the beginning of an interesting novel. "Before that, I'd been in a car accident that almost killed me and... I didn't realize it at the time but the reason I survived was because a vampire fed me his blood and it healed me." Her arms stay wrapped around herself. "That's what vampire blood can do. It can heal people but the catch is... if you die with it in your system... you become a vampire yourself. And while I was at the hospital... another vampire killed me to send a message to my friends."

Tell the Salvatores I said 'game on'

The first part is the hardest to get his head around. I was murdered. Dead. She died. She said it once already, but having it reiterated and explained somehow doesn't make it easier to comprehend. Nothing brings back the dead, not even the Force--

Except here. Cassian, Jyn, who else? Death isn't what it used to be in his mind, now a nebulous question instead of the end of one part of existence and the beginning of something else.

Maybe that's the way to look at it. Her life ended, terribly, and she woke to the start of a new one. He doesn't say he's sorry for what happened to her. He's heard so many people say I'm sorry for your loss, pain, experience that the phrase means very little to him now. Instead he just reaches out a curled hand, brushes his knuckles against her arm.

Still there. Still not running for the jungle.

He may still be there, he may be touching her now but she was bracing herself for the backlash that might come soon. She didn't want his pity and she's grateful when he doesn't give it to her, he just listens and she knows she has to press forward, to work her way up to the bad things.

"Because I'm a vampire... I have enhanced reflexes and senses. I can move faster, hear better, my emotions are heightened and... it's very hard to kill me." Sort of. "I'm not invulnerable. There are things that can hurt me but for the most part... well, unless I am killed by any those things that can hurt me then I'll live forever." She lets her arms drop before she spreads them out a little, as if to present herself. "I won't age. I won't get old. I just stay like this. Forever."

"Forever."

Humans aren't meant to live forever. He can't help thinking of his father and of Leia, carrying the weight of history on their shoulders. Sure, Wookies live some four hundred years. The Jedi Master Yoda supposedly lived a thousand years. But forever. He exhales quietly, nods. "Okay."

That's going to take some mental adjustments. But he can tell she isn't finished. It's hard to imagine what else there could be after that, but he's willing to find out.

She reaches up to tuck her hair back behind her ears, unnecessarily, her teeth dragging over her bottom lip before she takes a few steps back (so she doesn't have to watch him do it instead). It would be so much easier if he just knew what a vampire was but he doesn't and she has to show him.

Taking in a slow breath, she lets herself think of blood, the consuming lust for it that lays deep within her. She's in control but she lets the veins beneath her eyes darken and shift. And then she lets her fangs descend for a moment before she closes her eyes, not wanting to see his reaction.

One of his best friends in the New Republic Navy had blue skin, fangs, and spit acid. It's odd to see the change, but it's the class of oddity that gets filed under 'never seen that before,' catalogued, accepted. He doesn't come toward her; he doesn't want to startle her, or make her run away.

"My friend Suralinda had a pair of those. Always thought it must hurt like hell to bite your tongue."

His response has her eyes opening just in time for her to let out a nervous laugh, the veins fading and the fangs clicking back. "It does," she says, breathless in her quiet astonishment. "Every time I've told someone about this... they freak out and..." Her mouth twists. "That's the other thing I can do... I can compel people. Manipulate their thoughts and memories, make them do things. And most of the time, I have to make people forget they know what I am."

Edited 2017-05-27 00:28 (UTC)

"I hope you don't take it bad if I say that is a little bit scary."

He's going to hug her, if she'll let him. Hug her, step back, take her hands. "But considering we're already in my head, not as scary as it could be."

She looks at him, shaking her head when he says he hopes she won't take it poorly. She can't blame him for that, the idea of having your agency taken away from you...

He hugs her and then takes her hands, a soft smile forming on her lips for a brief moment. "I wouldn't ever use it on you, not unless you asked me to. I... I've had it done to me and... it was used on me for... really bad stuff. So I would never do that to anyone. Ever."

Another hug. This one more fierce than comforting, protective rather than gentle. She's being honest with him, totally honest, and he owes her the same in return.

"The First Order got inside my head when torture didn't work." He pulls back to press a hand to her cheek. This time, the motion is meant to comfort. A platonic gesture. "Bad people aren't very creative, are they."

For a moment, the world around them flickers. It's quick and he may not notice but when his arms wrap around her like that, for a moment, she forgets herself. She forgets and wants to get lost in that comfort. It's only a moment, one that only lasts as long as he hold her, then he's pulling back to look at her.

And she looks at him, her brow furrowing when tells her the truth and well, explains what she thinks she saw. "No, they are not." She lifts a hand to touch his at her cheek. "Is that what I saw? Before? Was that what was going to happen?"

He closes his eyes, gathering himself a moment before he nods. Thinking about it makes him want to be sick. He remembers now, at least, that he didn't doom the Resistance, only because the interrogator was too careless to ask the right questions. He still lost them control of BB-8, and it's a miracle of the Force and the goodness of people that they got him back. What he could have given away, all the things he could have accidentally given up--

Poe swallows, feeling like he's going to puke even though he knows this is a dream. Do people puke in dreams?

"Yeah. They kept after me for... I don't know, a long time. Then they brought in their big gun."

She swears she can taste vomit in her mouth and she wonders if that's coming from him or not. She strokes his hand before moving her other hand to touch his shoulder, to try and soothe him. "That last guy..." She nods a little before looking up at him. "He's not here and he can't get you here. None of them can. This is your head, you get to control it."

He thinks I couldn't control it then.

That's too close to self-pity for his tastes. Instead, he smiles, falsely at first and then more genuinely as a thought strikes him: "Are you up for flying?"

No, he couldn't control it then but that was before. And that moment has already passed, just like when Damon did the things he did to her had happened before. They couldn't change what their pasts held.

For moment, his question takes her by surprise. The confusion on her face may tell him that much. Still, she catches on quick enough, her eyes flitting towards the ship next to them, lips curving just a little. "You mean...?"

"Oh yeah." He grins. "I mean, we can take something bigger-- A-wings aren't exactly made for two adult passengers." He looks around them, but the farm isn't rife with possibilities.

D'Qar, though. All it takes is the thought of the base and they're there, the misty hills and mountains rising in the distance, the apron thick with parked ships of every shape and size. Everywhere, activity. Uniforms. Mixed urgency and casual camaraderie.

A cadre of pilots in orange jog by, and Poe watches them go, briefly and intensely homesick.

"We can take one of the small transports. Not the fastest out there by any means, but they've got room."

Edited 2017-05-27 08:14 (UTC)

Whatever urge Caroline has to make a joke about sitting in his lap is gone because suddenly they're lurched into a new place, a new memory. She lets out a breath, a little surprised at the sudden change of scenery but one she gets her bearings, she's fine, looking around at the memory he has of this place.

None of the people can see them or hear them, unless he targets some specific memory but even then, it'd just be like watching a movie.

"What is a small transport?"

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