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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BB-8 needs a polishing. He's picked up some oil streaks and, in the oil streaks, bits of dirt and hay.

He trundles along next to Poe, who looks very much the same. Engine grease, dirt, a coating of sweat tacking down his tank top and his hair. His jeans are filthy, he's got a plaid shirt knotted around his waist, and he feels--dangerously, maybe stupidly--happy. There's something about spending a day at work and seeing tangible results at the end of it. Fixing primitive farming machinery is both a puzzle and a pleasure. It's so simple that the simplicity itself starts to be complex.

More than a good day's work, though, Poe remembers. He remembers Kes Dameron. Kes the rancher, the tracker, the father, not the file he's had BB-8 recite to him a half-dozen times. He remembers his dad's face.

So there's a bounce in his step and an obliviousness in his attitude when he walks into Go Ask Alice to get a coffee. Until he catches sight of a familiar blonde head and freezes.

BB-8 rolls a few more feet before halting, looking back, and chirping a question.

Shit.

Seeing Poe wasn't something she'd expected to do today. But she also knew this town was tiny and that they wouldn't be able to avoid each other for very long. It had only been a few days since their awkward reunion/meeting and she'd had some time to clear her head.

Kind of.

But that was a story for another time.

As I said, she didn't expect to see him exactly, so when he came into the coffee shop just as she'd grabbed her coffee (it was helping to curve certain cravings) and turned towards the door just in time to spot Poe freezing and looking a little... well, he didn't look like he wanted to see her.

And she can't really blame him. She isn't sure how she felt about seeing him and she takes in a breath to center herself, her eyes fluttering only a bit. Determined to keep her pride intact and to show him that she wasn't... well, she wasn't the insecure mess she'd been a few days ago, she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. She's the better version of Caroline Forbes and she isn't that other girl anymore, the girl she was before she was turned.

"Hey," she says with a warm smile, activating her inner Cool Girl.

That smile pinches at his heart in places that it shouldn't. Places no one should be.

BB-8 beeps another question, this time asking if he can say hello. Poe nods, and the droid gives a happy whistle and rolls his way across room, tootling a greeting and leaving oil streaks all over the floor.

Poe's going to owe Cassian for those, probably, he thinks, and tries to think of something to say that isn't some variation of an apology. He can practically hear his father's voice telling him this is something he can't run away from and that he'd better not try.

He starts to run a hand through his hair, gets his fingers caught in a knot, and realizes he's been quiet for entirely too long.

"Hey," he finally says. His glance strays to Cassian behind the counter, not quite glaring at the man. So much for not telling his not-cousin about Caroline, specifically.

He has to extricate his hand from his hair before he can look her in the face again. "How're you doing?"

Okay, so it's not exactly easy to see him even with days to process. But it's not as confusing, it's easier to separate the memories from reality, now that they aren't crashing into her at a sonic rate. They come to her more naturally even if they are anything but.

BB-8 rolls over to her and she smiles down at him. "Hi BB-8," she says with a curious smile curving her lips, her hand hovering just above the droid's head like she might pet him before she realizes he's not a dog. She laughs softly at herself and just waves at the droid.

At Poe's question, she shrugs a little. "I'm okay." She wants to tell him about Elena, she wants to explain how crazy the past two days have been, she wants confess every little thing to him. It's an urge she finds easier to ignore now.

"Looks like you guys got into..." She looks up at Poe questioningly before giving him a little longer to snap out of it. "Something? Mud-wrestling?"

"Farm."

BB-8 chimes about fixing tractors, breaking away from Caroline to roll behind the counter and talk to Cassian. Poe watches him go, relieved that the little droid is distracted, relieved also that maybe BB-8 will distract Cassian.

It's a small hope, but it's a hope.

"We're working out there for now." He rubs the back of his neck, collecting more sweat and dirt on his fingertips. He doesn't like this self-consciousness. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like him. "Their machinery needs a lot of attention."

Her smile is genuine now as he explains how he's helping out at the farm. The false memory of being a hometown cheerleader and darling makes her feel pride whenever she sees someone trying to help out their town. It's a feeling that feels too similar to how she feels about Mystic Falls, her actual hometown, that she can't really separate it.

"That's great," she says it and means it. "Farmer looks good on you." She almost winces because she shouldn't say stuff like that to him. Not after... She recovers from her stumble quickly. "I'm glad you're getting settled."

She glances towards Cassian before she steps in a little closer, lowering her voice, "About the other day... I'm sorry. For everything. I mean... you were there, you know how it felt and it was just... a lot."

"Me too. It-- I had no idea what it could be like." It was a lot. Even now, as limited as his memories are, it's a lot. He can feel the tug of instincts that shouldn't exist. The (familiar, no it's not) desire to twirl and dip and kiss her, make a joke of his griminess.

Beyond that is the feeling that he owes her apologies for the fights he never caused, choices he never made, and he won't submit to that thinking.

Maker, being close to her is like dancing at the edge of an ion mine and hoping it won't short out his impulse control.

Poe gestures to a table, one close to the window and far from the counter. "So. That coffee?"

She ignores the urge to reach out and wipe the smudge from his cheek, she has the urge to nurture him. Smiling softly, she nods when he seems to accept her apology and give one of his own. And when he asks her for their coffee date, right now, she nods.

"Yeah, actually. I'd like that." She moves to take a seat at the table he indicates, tucking herself into the chair closest to the window.

Poe, you're an idiot, he thinks, and it sounds like someone whose voice he doesn't recognize. It's not like they can talk here, even if he wants to share what he remembers about his dad and where he grew up. At best, they can circle the truth and try to act like the strangers they are.

It doesn't occur to him that maybe he should shower first. Remembered or not, sitting with friends in the mess, filthy from work, feels more right then he would excusing himself to get cleaned up.

Mercifully, he didn't work with manure today.

Poe gets himself coffee and a brownie to share without thinking, giving Cassian a look that he hopes says This is nothing, there is nothing happening, don't-- just don't. Then he sits down opposite Caroline, his back half-turned toward the counter. The brownie, he sets between them, complete with forks. He shouldn't touch shared food right now, probably.

"How've you really been?"

He's good at reading people. Always has been. And I'm okay is like a red signal flag that says I'm not.

Caroline would like to hear about the things he's remembered, it would matter to her if she knew that he'd gone through that. For as much as a mess as her feelings are about him, she does care, no matter what they are to each other.

At his question, she gives him a look that he should remember, maybe. It says Not now, which here means she can't really tell him everything because someone is always listen and she glances at the camera she knows to be in the corner. "Elena's been staying with me." Elena, her best friend, she wonders if Poe would remember that fact from their false past. That Elena was married to Stefan, a guy Poe might have had a reason to be a little jealous of, considering his tight friendship with Caroline. But Caroline didn't know what Poe did or didn't know.

The thing she couldn't share, not even if they weren't be watched by whoever brought them here, was that Elena was human, which wasn't... right. "I guess I'm still a little... disoriented from my head injury." Which is code for her telling him that this place is freaking her out.

She wonders if he'd freak out if she just took his hand and pulled him into a dream state. Probably. It wasn't a good idea. The Salvatores would freak out.

She takes a sip of her coffee. "Things have been better." That's an honest answer.

Elena. He knows the name. There's a misty face associated with it, memories lurking in shadow.

They'll come, he's sure, the way the memories of Cassian have crept in. Maybe all at once. Part of him hopes for that--get it over with, take it like a punch and separate the real from the fake. It's hard not to think of Cassian as someone he's known for years. Not someone he grew up with, though those inklings are there. Now he's got pieces of his own childhood to balance against the lies. But the feelings of trust are harder to fight than the memories.

Poe stabs a chunk of brownie with his fork, dips it in his coffee like a heathen, and sticks it in his mouth.

All this talking in code makes him want to try and drown himself in his coffee mug. But he gets the message, more or less.

"When things could be better, I either take something apart, put something together, or go as fast and as high as I can." He takes a sip of his coffee. "Can't go high, but I do have a motorcycle."

Not that he knew what a motorcycle was before a few days ago, but he's got one, and it's got a decent engine for something land-bound.

It's not like he does much to hide his frustration, she almost flinches when he stabs the brownie the way he does, instead, she blinks a little before looking at him. She gets it, it's frustrating. It's annoying and suffocating to have to dance around what you really want to say, to speak in code or not at all.

"Something sparks in her mind when he mentions a motorcycle, it excites her. Of course, it will come to her later that the memory, as foggy as it is, will be of Stefan and his motorcycle. But for now, she looks interested, although, she resists the urge to say something about how good he'd look on one.

"I'd like to see it some time. The motorcycle." She glances out the window for a moment before she looks at him again. "When things can be better for me, I tend to throw myself into some kind of project, obsessively. I just haven't thought of a project yet. Maybe trying my hand at gardening or something equally mind-numbing." She gives the camera nearest them a pointed glance because if they are going to mess with her, she's going to be as boring as possible.

Poe laughs. There's a connection made between the person he remembers and the person he's just meeting: a rebellious streak, a sense of humor. He shouldn't be so happy to find the consistency. He should want more division between memory and reality, not less.

"That's a good idea." Or it would be if he was good at doing things he finds mind-numbing. An anecdote about botched chores and his own impatience springs to mind, blessedly real, but he has to stop himself before he says it. If he framed it like a memory of this life, would it still count as breaking their idiot rules?

Might as well find out.

"I lived on a ranch as a kid. We had livestock, but we grew produce too. One day there was somewhere I wanted to be, but my chores weren't done, so I messed with the engine on one of our melon pickers and almost set the whole patch on fire." He wriggles another bite of brownie onto the end of the fork. "Got the melons picked fast, though."

Around a mouthful of brownie, he adds, "Then there was the time I built a noisemaker to try and get the whole herd in to their spring enclosure quicker and got my arm broken by some very unhappy animals. I'm not great at mind-numbing."

Edited 2017-05-08 03:58 (UTC)

She's enthralled, she sets her coffee down in favor of resting her chin in her palm, her elbow on the table as he speaks about what it was like for him growing up. They aren't stories she remembers hearing from him, she thinks they might be real or at least ring true in some way because the way he speaks... she smiles to herself thinking that he's definitely a natural born story teller.

At his last story, she lets out a laugh, both amused and empathetic at the same time, somehow. And she steals the bite of brownie he just cut for himself, for herself, popping it into her mouth with two fingers. "Sounds like mind-numbing and you don't mix well, probably best if you keep to challenging yourself."

Caroline was at her best when she was doing something that challenged her. It was rare that she let anyone tell her she couldn't do something, that was when she excelled. This place was killing her in that regard, where she was forced not to be noticed or do something extraordinary. Ever since she turned, normal hadn't been an option for her and despite all the tragedy and heartache that came with that fact, she didn't want to go back to normal. Human Caroline Forbes had been insecure, shallow and... well, a little bit awful.

"And maybe avoid shortcuts."

"That I learned. My dad says if you're going to commit to doing something, you do it well and you do it all the way."

A step too far. Poe winces, his father's advice running up hard against the memories of his fights with Caroline. It's uncomfortable and strange to think your parent would be disappointed by something that never happened.

He doesn't like the man of his memories.

Which is a thought that leads him down darker roads, to the belly of a First Order battleship and a windowless room and a stranger who turned him into a traitor. Poe sets his fork down carefully so he doesn't drop it and picks up his coffee instead, focusing on keeping it steady enough to drink. He feels a little better after a few mouthfuls of scorching liquid, the smell reminding him of mornings on the ranch in pre-dawn light, companionable silence with his father. A safe place, a memory untouched by whatever the First Order interrogator did.

"What challenges you?" It's an abrupt question, born from the desire to keep himself out of that room, but he wants to know, too.

Jyn doesn't know it, but she's always been something of a night owl. It's not just insomnia and nightmares that keep her from sleep, it's a natural inclination to stay up in front of a screen. It used to be her drawing pad, then a data pad, then an unfortunate cell mate keeping her too scared to sleep. It's for the best that she doesn't remember that.

It does make the nightmares of an oppressively humid beach and Cassian so hurt in her arms and then nothing before she wakes up panting and shaking, sheets soaked through with sweat, a little bit harder to handle.

Which is what finds her outside at 2 in the morning, running a circuit around the town to shake herself out of her nightmare and exhaust her to the point that she can fall back into a dreamless sleep when she's done. It's been working and she doesn't always run alone, but tonight she is alone and seemingly more wired than ever. Her run turns into pacing around the town's park, more of a town green really. Her fingers worry around the hem of Cassian's stolen tee shirt, trying to push out her excess energy when she spots a familiar bobble of orange and white.

"Morning BB-8."

Caroline doesn't have to be a psychic or empath or Force sensitive to see that, suddenly, Poe is uncomfortable, that some dark thought or memory has crossed his mind, in the span of a few seconds. He drinks his coffee and she fights the urge to ask him what's wrong, in order to save his pride but also because he may not be able to tell her even if she asked.

Still, she reaches out then, just before he asks his question, to touch his arm in support, giving it a gentle squeeze before she sets her hands back on the table, answering his question. "That... is a good question." Her eyebrows lift for a moment before furrowing once more as she tries to think of the answer, or at least, an answer she feels like she can give to him.

"My friends tell me I'm a control freak so... if you mean that in, like, a emotional/mental way, then it would be giving up control. Letting myself just... let things go." There's a flash of their last fight that comes to her mind, she remembers how she yelled at him, told him that if he walked away this time, there was no coming back for them.

He'd walked away and she forces the memory away, changing the subject with a laugh.

"In a less... depressing, Dr. Phil type answer... I would say I suck at being handy. Not, like, do-it-yourself but with, you know, mechanical stuff and that kind of thing."

Poe remembered the day he got the scar on his hand. It's a straight line, small, narrower on the back of his hand than it is on his palm. Some tidy perforation from, he figured, a blade.

Getting the injury itself wasn't the part of the memory that kept him awake. Coming out of the cave where he got it and seeing three out of four of his squadmates in the air. Knowing which ship was missing. Knowing he would be going home to a galaxy without L'ulo in it, without one of the people who raised him. That's what's been keeping him up. That he can't even risk telling BB-8 what he remembered makes him want to punch the cameras (and yeah, there are more of them now than there were before).

He's taken his motorcycle apart by the time midnight rolls around, and putting it back together would probably wake Rey. He's lucky he hasn't woken her already.

It's nice, it's great, having someone else in the house. Part of him wants to go sit outside of her bedroom door and just see if he can hear her breathing, but he doesn't want the questions that would raise if she caught him at it.

So he tells BB-8 he's going out and, unsurprisingly, the droid insists on going with. An hour and a half later, he's worked his way through most of the occupied streets and out into the park. He's considering heading for the woods, trying to find that wall of Cassian's, but then BB-8 makes a greeting noise and rolls away up the path.

Poe slows, following BB-8 at a walk to cool down. He recognized that voice. "Morning, Not Hungry."

Edited 2017-05-08 05:03 (UTC)

The touch surprises him. It's so familiar, and not just because of the memories he has of her. (He doesn't remember the casual embraces of his fellow pilots, the clasped hands, the steady communication of solidarity and grief through touch.)

At her first answer, he returns the motion, giving her hand a tiny squeeze. They might not be what this place says they were, but he can still care about the way she feels.

There's a sparkle of amusement in his eyes at her second answer. "I could try and help you with that."

She cares about him too, despite the knowledge that whatever history that exists between them isn't real. He may be a stranger but he doesn't feel that way and she cares about him. Compassion isn't something Caroline struggles with, it's something she has an overabundance of.

When he basically offers to help her with her mechanical needs, she laughs. "Oh, careful now, I might be calling you in the dead of night asking you to come fix my oven or something. And then you'll regret that offer." She takes a sip of her coffee before another smile parts her lips and she opens her mouth to ask if they even use ovens in space but her eyes flicker to the camera and she walks back her curiosity, just a little.

"Have you ever even used an oven?"

Jyn doesn't deal in apologies, but she crouches down to smooth her hand softly across the droid's dome when he is close enough, thumb brushing next to his projector gently. She is sorry for snapping at him, offering a small, fleeting smile before she straightens up.

The smile vanishes as she rolls her eyes immediately at Poe.

"I told you my name." She told him her name specifically so he wouldn't call her 'Not Hungry' and yet here they are. She should have asked Cassian if everyone in his family was impossible. Stubborn seems kind of obvious now.

"Isn't it a little late for you to be out?" Aren't you younger than him, Jyn, shouldn't he be asking you this? Jyn's the youth in comparison.

Poe puts on what one might call a 'shit-eating grin'. He's good at this pantomime, at being okay. At least most of the time, he is.

"Did you? I forgot. That's going around, I hear." BB-8 makes a worried noise and Poe's smile turns a little more real. "I'm kidding, Bee. Don't fuss."

He quirks an eyebrow at Jyn. "You're out."

He'd picked up the fork again, and now he makes a little defensive gesture with it, like he's warding off the question.

"I cook! I can cook." A few things, very well. Only a few things. And none of them with ingredients he's able to approximate here. He cuts himself a bite of brownie, picks it up, and balances the little morsel against his lower lip before he pops it into his mouth. "I'm just used to the Navy's kitchens."

There. He's getting a little better at code.

She catches his meaning easily and her lips curve into a teasing smile as she reaches for her own piece of brownie while saying, "Try not to burn down your house. It's a nice house. And you'll never get a roommate if you've scorched the kitchen." She takes her bite of brownie and glances at BB-8. "Can he cook?"

She would stick her tongue out at him but she has some self-control. It's occupied with keeping her tongue in her mouth so it doesn't stop her from rolling her eyes, fingers back to worrying the edge of her borrowed shirt.

"I'm very small, the cops are more preoccupied with my safety than wondering if I am looking to nick something from the local shops. The same can't be said for you, can it?" He is a grown adult man, far more of a threat than Jyn who is the size of a teenage boy. One that hasn't hit puberty yet.

Percy is definitely taller than her. Everyone is taller than her.

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And I'll use you as a warning sign

May 6th - Closed to Caroline

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may 8 - look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness

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