And I'll use you as a warning sign

[volitaunt]

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.

Comments

[volitaunt]

Poe tries not to smile. He does, he really does.

He tries, unsuccessfully, and chooses instead to move out of Jyn's immediate punching zone.

"Hey." It's just one word, but you can hear the smile in it. He sidles another half-step out of Jyn's reach. "She didn't lock you out, did she?"

[realists]

"Oh shut up." Jyn cannot roll her eyes hard enough to correctly display her annoyance, but she certainly tries. Quickening her pace, she lopes up the front steps, grumbling about how she's going to move the chair from the porch to the back deck, and shoves the (unlocked) door open, stomping inside.

She leaves it open behind her for Cassian and Poe, but whirls halfway through the living room and points at them both. "Whatever you're thinking, don't."

[ouzel]

Why is Cassian being pointed at, he would really like to know. He said nothing when she blamed the chair for her current woes (beyond a slight shake of his head at Poe's question - he's a spy, he could pick these simple locks anyway) and only holds up his hands in the universal I'm unarmed gesture when she rounds on them.

Granted, said gesture is a straight up lie when taken literally, but he hasn't done anything!

"Do you want tea?" Is this an attempt to change the topic from things they aren't talking about to something safe?

[volitaunt]

Poe raises his hands in surrender at almost the same moment, which does absolutely nothing to stem the tide of his amusement. Hands still up, he says, "I would love tea."

He's not much of a tea drinker when it comes right down to it, but he doesn't dislike the stuff. Plus it gives him a chance to try and get a better read on whatever Jyn and Cassian are to each other.

BB-8 finishing bumping his way up the stairs and rolls between Cassian and Poe into the house, twittering a greeting to Cassian before he rolls off to do his scans and map the space and its cameras.

[realists]

How are people being invited for tea in her home! She makes a disgruntled noise as she throws herself on the couch, which keeps Cassian and Poe in her line of sight while they're still in the kitchen. She doesn't answer because she knows Cassian will make her a cup of tea anyway.

"Don't go in my room, BB-8!" she calls after the droid.

The house itself is sparse, with only parts of it looking lived in. The couch is covered in a blanket and pillows from the first night Cassian stayed over and Jyn fell asleep watching TV. She hasn't bothered to clean up. The kitchen is obviously used, a pile of mugs and spoons in the sink she hasn't washed yet, a box of chocolates on the counter. A plastic teddy bear container of honey sits next to the stove. There's a tee shirt flung across the top of the dining table, hair elastics scattered on every flat surface. It looks very much like someone has just moved in.

Which, she has.

[ouzel]

Cassian knows that Jyn would have no problem with having Poe stay outside, but only one of them is really feral, so he'll just continue on in the vein of going into the house, through to the kitchen, casting her a short but fond look before turning to the stove and fussing with the kettle.

"Green, black, fruit?" This is to Poe. Jyn is getting something in a yellow box, with a bear in pajamas drawn on it.

For that matter, Cassian will have the same. And wash up the dishes while waiting for the water to get hot.

[volitaunt]

"Fruit."

Poe likes fruit. There is probably a disproportionate amount of fruit in his house for the number of people who live there.

BB-8 calls out that he doesn't know which one is Jyn's bedroom and won't until he finds it and Poe tries to hide a laugh, badly, by coughing into his fist.

"I feel like I should find out if Rey's awake, and we can have a party. If Jyn doesn't mind hosting."

[realists]

"It's the middle of the night, Jyn minds hosting."

She shoves herself off the couch and sprints after BB-8 to cut him off before he gets to her room. She literally hurdles the droid to slam the door shut before quietly scolding him and shooing him away from her door, back down the hall with a semi-fond: "You're worse than Kay. Oh don't look at me like that, that's a compliment."

[ouzel]

Cassian gives Poe a look, because that was a silly suggestion - though it's immediately negated by the consideration that Poe's suggestion presents. "Rey doesn't sleep well either?"

She can communicate with BB-8, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume she's connected to all of them somehow. Cassian hasn't asked the droid. He's waiting until he can be honest with the answers he's given (and the questions he's sure he'll be asked in return.)

Fruit tea, then (blueberry) is also set aside from the cabinet that appears to be nothing but tea. The ones Jyn has been 'eh' about are higher up.

[volitaunt]

Poe crosses his arms, leaning against the wall between great room and kitchen. "Hard to say. Could be the new environment, new situation. I've known plenty of recruits who take some time adjusting. She was asleep when I left, anyway."

BB-8 rolls back into the great room, complaining about not getting to make a complete scan of the house. Poe reaches over to pat the droid. "It's not our house, buddy. You don't need a complete scan."

[realists]

Jyn's eyebrows knit together as she strides back into the kitchen, pulling on a long sleeve shift over her borrowed tee shirt. "She's not a recruit, is she? She's practically a child still."

It's either tremendously sad or ironically funny that the protest comes from Jyn, one of the two actual child soldiers in the room and the one closest in age to Rey, even if the girl is taller than her. Jyn was eight when she started fighting with Saw, Cassian was six -- oh! she remembers that! -- neither of them had actually have much of a childhood.

But maybe that is why the idea of Rey being in their fight, still ignorant that it's a different one decades later, sits so uncomfortably with her.

[ouzel]

Wisely, in his opinion, Cassian does not comment on the lack of a great age difference between Jyn and Rey; nor does he mention how old either of them were when other people's wars became their business.

"I don't know," is what he settles on instead. "I haven't had a chance to ask."

And he hasn't particularly wanted to, either. The war continues on, and they're stuck here, somehow.

Cassian rolls his shoulders and waits for the kettle to start whistling.

[volitaunt]

"I don't remember. But she knows-- There's a guy we both know. Finn." Poe smiles, a little wistfully. He still doesn't remember everything, but he does remember Finn. "Guy saved my life, and he definitely joined us. She might have come with him. Memory's still spotty for us both."

Poe, too, doesn't remark on Rey's age relative to the pair of them. There's age, and then there's age, and Cassian and Jyn are both older than their years. "If she wants to fight I'm not going to stop her."

[realists]

Jyn frowns, thinking of the cupcake that died when Rey ran into her. RIP Cupcake, gone too soon. Rey's too... If she's honest, Poe strikes Jyn as too sweet for war but she knows better than to say it. Bodhi was too sweet for war.

The familiar, unidentifiable sadness settles in her chest again and Jyn shoves any thoughts of Bodhi Rook away until a rug, safely out of sight until she knows how to deal with it.

Which is to say, never.

"Finn." That's all she has to say.

[ouzel]

You're wistfully smiling, Poe, which means Cassian is intrigued. Problem is, without Finn present and with Poe's memory questionable, there aren't a lot of questions readily available to be answered.

"I think he's part of the newer crew." A bit more delicate than the phrase 'after our time'. "He's not anyone I know."

[volitaunt]

"No." That's about when Poe realizes that Jyn has no idea about the difference in their timelines. His eyes widen, for a second, but he manages what is (for him) a quick recovery. "Finn...."

Poe stops, realizing also that in telling them about his friend, he'll be admitting to more of what happened to him before this place.

It's all in a report somewhere, Poe thinks, jamming his fingers into his hair and ruffling it. Just get it over with.

"He was a stormtrooper. Turned on them during his first battle. Couldn't--" The screaming. "Couldn't kill civilians. He broke me out of the belly of a Resurgent-class Battlecruiser."

He frowns then, looking first at Cassian then at Jyn. "He's a good man."

[realists]

He's a good man and he's a stormtrooper have a small battle in her mind, unable to apply the past tense. She trusts Poe, insomuch as Cassian trusts Poe and that can tide her over until her own foundations of trust are stabilized but, even without all her memories, it is hard to turn off thirteen years of conditioning that stormtroopers equal bad.

Even with Bodhi and her father

Her eyes dart to Cassian briefly, somber mouth pursed. "Alright." Finn is a good man, Poe decreed it and Jyn is willing to go with it for now. Maybe solely because he's not here.

[ouzel]

Resurgent-class Battlecruiser gets an eyebrow raise out of Cassian because that? Sounds like Poe was about to be executed, honestly, and now he has questions. Questions which, fortunately, can wait.

Besides: "There are worse things than being a stormtrooper," says the man who died in an Imperial uniform, the remnants of which remain in a box beneath his bed. He suspects that stormtroopers believe, or are coerced into believing. So Cassian shrugs. It's accepted.

For now, anyway.

[volitaunt]

"Yeah."

Poe, prepared as he was to fight for Finn's virtue, relaxes at Cassian's words. It's good enough, for now, when he can't remember all of the reasons he has to believe in Finn. He knows the younger man is exceptional, and he knows he's decked someone who said otherwise, and that plus the rescue is enough for now.

The part of him that wants to prove his point wishes for a moment that Finn was here. The wiser part of him lets it go.

Conveniently, the kettle starts to whistle before he has to think of something to say.

[realists]

He could have been a death trooper. Jyn isn't sure she could look the other way if that were the case, but Poe said he couldn't kill civilians so Jyn can't believe this Finn person would be accomplished enough to be one of the elite death troopers. Not unless he was fully prepared to kill a young mother in front of her husband.

She jerks forward when the kettle blows, automatically shifting it to a cold burner and snapping the knob to off. Even though Cassian is right there, close enough for her elbow to brush against as she sets tea bags into tea cups. She doesn't protest the tea meant to put her to sleep, but she does look up and make a face at him, before turning her attention back to Poe.

"How old were you when you joined?" It's a weird concept to her still, joining the Rebellion. She was raised into it, Saw had it land on his home planet. Purposefully choosing that life is... hard to imagine.

[volitaunt]

"Eighteen."

Which is... not exactly true, and his expression reflects the fact that it's not exactly true, but it's as true as he can get right now. "Four years training before I got in a live fighter again for anything but target practice."

Then a good eight or so years of increasing frustration with the New Republic's political morass before the mission that brought him to General Organa's attention. For a moment he's distant, remembering that meeting, the disorientation of it. He'd gone in expecting to be courtmartialed, not recruited.

He's certainly seen more action in the past few years than he did for ninety percent of his Navy career.

[ouzel]

Jyn makes a face and Cassian's eyebrows raise just a little; it's late for black tea, after all, and they may not sleep well but that doesn't mean they should be helping the insomnia along.

"His parents were involved," Cassian offers, because it helps explain some of the incongruence with...that. To say 'I knew his mother' would possibly be worthy of scrutiny, questioning, or at least Jyn's displeased expression, so Cassian leaves that well enough alone.

Not really related to any of that directly, Cassian slides alongside of Jyn in order to pour the hot water for tea and get honey out of the cabinet. "Being planetbound is probably driving you nuts, huh?" It's driving Cassian a little nuts, and he's far from a fighter pilot. "Do you want lemon?" To Jyn.

[realists]

Four years training to be a pilot sounds horrible to Jyn, as if Saw hadn't trained her for something like seven years before he let her go on a mission. She doesn't remember all those details yet, but she knows in some foggy way that Saw was intense in his training.

"Honey." If she can't have caffeine, she's having sugar. Fight her.

She doesn't get the appeal of flying. Escape wise, it's a brilliant thing, but the excitement and joy of it doesn't connect with her anymore. Ever since her parents died, she likes her feet on the ground. She feels safer that way.

[volitaunt]

Poe laughs, though it's a breathy, humorless thing. It's the closest he's gotten to downright angry around either of them, but the lapse is brief. "I've been in the air since I was three, so. You might say it's getting under my skin."

He misses the sky-side view of the stars. Poe rubs his face with both hands, shaking off the darkness that gathers in his thoughts at being grounded for so long. It can't be easy for Cassian or Jyn either. (He takes for granted the fact that they must miss it, because who wouldn't?)

[ouzel]

Of course, honey; it wasn't even a question. Cassian hasn't even put the bear down.

And then the narrative realized that could be read as Jyn having the pet name honey and couldn't bear to delete anything before this point.

So. Moving on. Cassian continues preparing their teas, glancing in Poe's direction and giving a nod. At least he has BB-8 but Cassian is not about to be the one to point that out. "Imagine everyone here waking up on some mid-rim world." Cassian's lips quirk. "It brings me occasional amusement."