I can’t un-f*ck it up; you, probably, can’t un-f*ck it up

[volitaunt]

Who: Cassian and Poe
Where: Casa de Murder Ice Cream
When: RIGHT AFTER THAT NIFTY ANNOUNCEMENT ON THE NETWORK
What: What the f*ck, basically.
Warnings: None at the moment.
[Closed]



Poe is on the phone in the living room. Cassian is on the phone in the kitchen. Poe knows Cassian is on the phone in the kitchen because when they both hear a thousand years, Poe also hears a glass break.

Much of the rest of what this doctor says washes over him in a haze. He'll have to go back and read the report, he thinks, get the facts straight before--

Before what?

He keeps cycling back around to a thousand years, cryo for a thousand years on this dirtball planet for a thousand years never even seen it on a map.

Ah. The doctor has stopped talking. Poe sets the phone in its cradle and slides to his feet, walking into the kitchen.

"Please tell me you didn't... that they didn't say...." He can't even finish the sentence. The look on Cassian's face tells him that yes, they did say.

Comments

[ouzel]

Cassian has no idea what, exactly, his facial expression is. He has had, officially a day - Jyn has died, Poe was nearly dead, Poe's friend - girlfriend, probably - Caroline was in a coma for all intents and purposes, and he'd been toying with the idea of getting drunk for at least an hour before now.

Before, before, before.

So Poe comes in and Cassian already feels numb - maybe he doesn't need a drink? But then he blinks and dismisses the idea of remaining sober. This is a goddamn wreck. This is a poorly mitigated disaster.

"A thousand years." His voice sounds hollow, and he recognizes that point between angry and empty. He snorts, opening cabinets.

[volitaunt]

"That can't be true."

These people don't even have spaceflight technology. How can they freeze someone for a thousand years?

It's a lie. Another lie. A new lie. Except he can't shake how real the rest of what they said seemed.

He wants someone else to reaffirm his denial. "What are you looking for?"

[ouzel]

Cassian raises one shoulder in a shrug. "They don't know how that aspect got started, I'll bet. A thousand years and this program has only been active for four. I want to know how she got here."

He doesn't turn around to look at Poe, however. He knows that figuring out how to put the body in stasis isn't nearly as difficult as figuring out how to get out of your own solar system.

"Alcohol. The soju is Junyoung's, I don't want to drink it all while he's not here."

[volitaunt]

He feels a spark of something, an anger that he can't justify at the fact that Cassian is looking for a drink. Like wanting booze is somehow an acceptance of what they've been told. Cassian can't just accept it. None of them can just accept it. That makes it real.

(That isn't how the truth works, Poe knows that isn't how the truth works, and right now he doesn't care.)

"We can't have been here a thousand years, Cass."

[ouzel]

"I don't know what we can or can't have had happen to us. I don't know. I know this: Jyn and I died. That is record, even BB-8 can confirm it, and anything that happened after that leading up to the day I woke up in the hospital here is completely outside of my current knowledge base.

We've never heard of this planet, and this planet has probably never heard of us, but there is obviously some passage of time happening because -" and then Cassian gestures at Poe, somewhere between angry and tired enough to lay on the floor and refuse to move - "I'm pretty sure Shara wasn't giving Kes the time of day last time I was on Yavin IV and last I remembered of Leia Organa her father was alive and her home planet was hale and whole."

[volitaunt]

Shara and Kes. Their names take the fight out of him like a proton blast to an unguarded wing.

It can't be true, because that means my father is dead.

His father is dead.

Did they win? Did they bring down the First Order, did they destroy Starkiller base?

A thousand years. How many wars, worlds, empires, can rise and fall in a thousand years.

Poe walks blindly past Cassian and braces his hands against the sides of the sink, not quite trusting himself to keep from throwing up.

[ouzel]

Cassian doesn't want it to be true but he also doesn't know what is the reality in the truth's stead, here. He also doesn't want to fight or argue with Poe because he feels like he's been on the edge of picking a fight all day and he'd rather just. Not.

He'd rather not feel anything, not even anger, not even sadness, but he knows that doesn't tend to end well for him.

He reaches out and puts his hand against the back of Poe's neck and lets it linger there. "We'll find out." Whatever the fuck has happened, they'll find out.

[volitaunt]

It's what he needs to hear. He needs something to do, he's always better off with something to do. It's not an immediate action, but it's a reminder that they can't afford the luxury of emotional collapse.

(He's selfish, he thinks, making Cassian take the lead here--a man who died at the beginning of his own war, who had to wonder if what he'd done made a difference. Poe doesn't get to fall apart over the prospect when Cassian had to live with it for months.)

Poe grips Cassian's wrist lightly, a motion of solidarity.

"Hey, on the bright side, we won't have to wave at the cameras any more when we pee. Or was that just me?"

[ouzel]

There's a scoff, and Cassian keeps his hand there for a moment before letting it drop. "I doubt it was just you." Cassian, however, did not wave. He did flip them off or stare straight at them, however, because he is more confrontational than Poe usually. Somehow. Despite being a spy.

"It'll be nice to be completely honest." Vaguely he's worried about some people (like, for instance, Pietro) who might not want to be completely honest. People who were more comfortable with the lie. It's something they'll have to deal with as it comes up, he guesses.

[volitaunt]

Poe looks to where the cameras are then, a bad habit developed over the past month and a half of telegraphing when he's going to talk about something he probably shouldn't be talking about.

"So we're staying. For now. Helping rebuild."

He turns to lean his back against the counter. "I'll work with them to help the innocent people here, but I won't work for them. Not after everything they've done."

Their system, as far as Poe is concerned, is corrupt. Its enforcers are corrupt. They can tell themselves whatever they want, give whatever excuses they want, but kidnapping people looking for the truth and doing god-knows-what behind closed doors? Trying to brainwash people, manipulate them like the First Order brainwashes its troops--no. He won't be a part of something like that. He won't answer to people like that.

[ouzel]

Cassian shrugs, having finally located tequila and mescal, but setting the former aside. He doesn't think Jyn really likes alcohol, but he's keeping it in case she does, and comes back, and wants to promptly get hammered.

He would, honestly.

"You say that as if it's been posited as a real choice. To go outside they have 'screen' us, and we had no options about coming here in the first place. 'Everything started four years ago' but if this entire planet is an evolutionary wasteland I'm curious to know what the hell was happening before. Who built the town, who built the technology, who hired the woman who informed us of all this?"

[volitaunt]

"How likely are they to answer any of those questions," he adds. How likely are any of them to trust the answers they're given.

A thousand years.

"Where are the rest of the people in stasis? Why haven't they been woken up? Limited resources, maybe, but I'd like to know for sure."

He drums his fists against the cupboards and turns to find glasses. He knows where they are by now. "And are there more places like this, more people being lied to and manipulated and locked up for asking why?"

A thousand--

He sets the glasses down hard, like the sound of impact can drive off that one insurmountable thought.

"...We need to talk to the General."

[ouzel]

Is this a thing? Are they breaking glasses tonight? Because Cassian is not strictly opposed to the idea, seeing as how he'd already broken one himself.

"Do you want to call her?" He's not up for it. He suspects he is up for getting drunk, sleeping, waking up tomorrow and going back to sleep.

When Pietro and Poe went missing - died, at least in Pietro's case - Cassian kept working and presenting as someone functional because, as he told Jyn, if he stopped he wasn't sure he'd be able to pick back up again.

It's interesting how that presents itself now. Disseminating information all while internally screaming that he just wants Jyn here and the rest of it - the details, the lies, whatever the fuck is actually happening here - can go die in a fire. Except it can't, because he's here, and Poe's here, and Pietro's here, and he should probably check in with Elsa and...fuck.

[volitaunt]

He got three cups down.

Poe stares at the third for several seconds, the one that now has a fine line running up the side, and he thinks that the universe is perhaps a little too on the nose, there. It's a little bit like being mocked by some greater power and if he believed in a deity instead of the Force he might be demanding answers right about now.

As it is, he's remembering duties beyond the diversion of action.

Not everyone grieves by staying on the move.

"I will." The later is implied. Once Cassian has a drink or five in his system, once this night has played out however it's going to play out. Then he will. And he'll explain why he didn't call sooner.

Of all the reasons he could give, this is one she'll understand.

[ouzel]

"Yeah," Cassian replies, and swallows, moving to set one of the cups back in the cupboard without further comment.

He's tired, and this is all insane, and he's not sure that there's much to be had in evaluating their situation any closer than that right now.

Instead he doesn't look at Poe but looks at his own hands (steady - will they ever not be?) as he pours clear alcohol into each cup and hands one over to Poe.