Poe "Fite Me" Dameron (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flightforfreedom) wrote2017-07-06 04:53 pm
flightforfreedom) wrote2017-07-06 04:53 pm
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You've reached Poe Dameron. I'm off flying something or trying not to get killed, so go ahead and leave a message and I'll get back to you eventually.
no subject
So basically?
100% self-sacrificing soldier bullshit.
Not that he was self aware enough to admit that.]
[He doesn't interrupt. He waits as Odin tries to get it out, even as the tears in Odin's eyes just twisted the tendons in his chest. But he waited. Step one of being a good friend and not being a dick? Listening. Fully. He could do that.
He can't help but smile as Odin slips into his melodramatic speak. Not because it was funny, but because he actually figured it out. For once. Maybe. This wasn't just melodrama for the sake of it. This was a tactic, and Poe understood tactics.
Even endearing ones.
So he lets him finish.]
If I can't deal with it, I'll leave.
[His voice is gentle, but it's firm. And for a few seconds that sounds like all he's going to say, but eventually his lips thin a little, and he gives Odin a serious look.]
Caring about you isn't a burden. And anything that would force me to cut out the people I care about?
It isn't worth it.
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He looks down, in silence, if only for a moment. And then -
He puts his hands on the side of Poe's neck, strong, calloused hands so gentle on his skin. He brushes his thumb gently across Poe's cheek, peering down at his pilot, a thousand words on his lips, lacking the will or the energy or the cruelty to give them voice. He wants to take another chance, maybe, to kiss Poe and confess again and say he doesn't care, if there's someone else, he doesn't care if he only has to be second best, he doesn't care because he just wants this, he wants Poe, and it's written all over his face, how much he wants this, how much he'd give up for this--
But he places a kiss to the top of Poe's head and lets go.
It's not much, but it's goodbye. He'll keep everything he feels inside, from now on. ]
I'll go back to being myself soon. M'sorry. Goofiness is what I wear best, and I've been dragging everyone in the shuttle down. I just need to find a way to get some sleep, somehow, and it'll even out. I think.
no subject
[For a split second he thinks Odin is going to kiss him. He looks like he's going to - he's got that expression that seems more like ten expressions at once, all the tiny movement in his face building up to a very big, overwhelming picture. And it is overwhelming. He doesn't usually notice how much taller Odin is than him - and in space it shouldn't matter, as he could float at his eye level - but he's hyper aware of it now. Every single moment of Odin looking at him like this flashes in front of his eyes and suddenly he gets it.
He had no defences against this to start with.
His heart stutters, his eyes locked on Odin's face and he realises that he really is only one gentle push from the edge of losing this war forever and --
Odin's lips press to his forehead and the breath leaves him not exactly as a sigh, but as if he'd been holding it for too long.
It had only been a fraction of a second.
He offered a smile, lopsided and weary, a bittersweet relief flooding him. Not today, Dameron. Still got some fight in you left. He reached up and ruffled Odin's hair fondly.]
You don't have to be the ship jester all the time. Give Riptide a fair shot at it, at least.
But - yeah. I get you on the sleep thing. Maybe we should just do gravity lifts until we pass out from exhaustion.
no subject
When Poe reaches up and roughs his hair like-- like Owain's just some kid, just some stupid kid, Owain laughs like it's the funniest thing in the world and blinks back the moisture in his eyes, pulling the wings off the butterflies in his stomach and crushing the step in his heart that threatened to tear him open.
The first time he's had to do that. ]
Or Peter. Peter's whole strategy going into this was being the funny guy, I think. Maybe we'll get a surprise win for the Ship Jester Crown by the end of it? Like, oh shit! Turns out Edd was the jokester harlequin supreme all along. Mindblowing.
[ He laughs again, and it's-- so, so, realistic, so obviously practiced, now, no different to the laughter Poe's heard countless times before today.
Owain's slipping away. ]
I don't know what gravity lifts are? Maybe I'll refuel my jetpack and do a couple of laps around the shuttle, or something. Should tire me out pretty quick.
no subject
[Odin laughs. And Poe goes quiet.
He doesn't react as fast as he should. It's like time has slowed down and he's in a training simulator, angrily throwing himself into the cockpit chair as yellow text flashes before him: MISSION FAILED.
He knows Odin's laugh.
And he knows Owain's laugh.
And this doesn't suit either of them. This is damage control.
He wonders how many of the people who confessed to him when he was younger - when he was Owain's age, or even younger than that - he wonders how many of them survived until now.
None of them. He doesn't think. Not a single one. Most still in the fleet when the concentrated energy of an entire star blasted every piece of it into oblivion. He doesn't know why he's thinking about it. A laugh is a laugh, no matter how faked and pained it sounded. It wasn't the same.
... Except it was. They were both soldiers. Even if they came from different wars. And it clicked with a sudden forceful intensity: this was the last time he was going to see Owain.
Not Odin. Odin would still be around, just like everyone else knew him, without the raw painful honesty he knew was there, just below the surface, wearing another man's name. Without the unswerving loyalty and the incredible thoughtfulness and the firm, solemn promises to help him figure out if his dream of a daughter was even real. All that was Owain.
And he was pretty sure the next chapter in this story was that either Poe or Owain ended up dead.]
The exercise machines.
[He's still smiling. It's automatic. It means less than nothing. Just like Odin's laugh. It broadens, a reflex, a decade and a half of training. Couldn't go into a suicide mission with a frown. Even if you knew everyone was going to die. The team needed to believe you'd bring them out of it alive.
And that was it. That was the smile.
Goodbye, Owain. Maybe we'll be lucky, and meet again if we survive.]
But laps sound good too. I think I'll leave you to it. Probably should try to eat something. My schedules been thrown so out of whack. I'll leave something for you to eat in the kitchen when you get back in, alright?
don't challenge me again you fool old man
Oh man, would you mind? That'd be great.
[ He chuckles a little, puts his hands in his pocket, catches a glimpse of his smoothed down hair in the skylight. He thinks of his parents, as he always does, when things are hard. ]
I think Peter's still got some candy left, stashed away somewhere in the kitchen.
[ He thinks of their blood, running through his veins. He thinks of how much he loved them, and how everything he's done in his life - every step he's taken, every mountain he's climbed, every trial he's overcome - ]
You can eat some of that, if you want? I won't tell.
[ - has been for them. He thinks of how proud he is, to be a part of them, to have them be a part of him in turn. He thinks of the tenets they tried to instill in him - his mother's bravery, his father's patience. ]
And hey, if you find any, leave some out for me -- I can't deal with this space paste bullshit anymore.
[ He pulls a face, exaggerated and silly, tongue out like he's gonna throw up. What kind of face did his mother wear when she was killed, he wonders? He found her broken body only after she had been-- ]
Everyone'll probably be up pretty soon, so we can make it a whole, like--
[ -- but he saw his dad, because he'd pushed him to the ground to protect him, and when he was taken down his teeth were bared and his eyes were furious and he wouldn't stop bleeding, collapsed on top of his sword and shielding Owain with his body and telling him to go, to run, to survive -- ]
--friend, thing--
[ -- an arrow through his spine, piercing his ribs, shredding him from the inside -- ]
--and make a night of it.
[ -- blood fell from his mouth, sputtered on his son, and Owain screamed, knowing this was his fault, that he did this, that he was the reason why his father, so much more deserving of life than he ever could be, died so much earlier than he should have -- ]
I bet the cameras have missed us all hanging out as bros with all this drama that just went down, hahaha.
[ -- and dad told me to run, to run, to run and survive and be strong and value myself and i don't and i don't and i don't. He thinks of how fucking disgusted his parents would be, the two heroes he was born from, if they could see him right now. His father would be ashamed of the coward he is, so broken by something as simple as rejection, unworthy of being called his son, unworthy of being left alive in his stead. His mother would be embarrassed by the sight of him - she who was always so proud of him no matter what he did would finally see him as the weak, needy worm he's always been, a parasite who needs the love and affection of others to survive and can barely make it through the day without it. They wanted him to live up to his actions and his heritage, as a man born from nobility who would go on to save so many and do so much, ]
Man, maybe I should actually hit the kitchen with you before I head out there?
[ but all he is is unlovable, unwanted, not good enough, not good enough. A child in an adult's body who struggled with the value of his life and struggles still, now knowing the one person who he thought actually wanted the parts of him he detested in himself never really did.
This isn't fair, this isn't fair. He's supposed to be stronger, he's supposed to be someone people want, Poe's supposed to want him, Poe's supposed to want him.
There are no arrows in Owain's back. No elegance or bravery or worth in his death. Just a casualty in a bigger, better person's story.
Poe will never love him. ]
Oh! [ His eyes are bright, again, like he thought of something exciting that he has to share with Poe, even though all he can see is his father's death. ] I'm gonna take Riptide out to play outside at some point - he wanted to play ice tag? Which is a kind of -
[ stop talking, stop talking, you're just annoying him, he's just trying to be kind to you, that's all he's ever been, kind and putting up with you, he doesn't mean any of it, he doesn't mean it when he says he doesn't want to lose you, this is just to make things easier while you're both stuck up here, you'll never see him again when you're back on earth, he's already gone, this is pointless ]
-- well, it doesn't matter. I'll just let you know, if I remember, and I'll invite you out. Yeah?
[ Still smiling, still smiling, still smiling. Distant, distant, distant. He kicks off the wall and heads out, one hand waving cheerfully above him. ]
I'll seeya later, dude. Have a good one.