[ open ] well I've got thick skin and an elastic heart

[volitaunt]

who: Poe Dameron AND YOOOOU
what: catchall log
when: mid-to-end-of December
where: here, there, every--that's a lie, it's mostly in the hospital and a bar
warnings: References to spinal injuries, general fight-accrued damage. Some drinking. Will add as necessary. This post is SPOILER FREE unless the comments themselves are labeled otherwise. Any character details not previously known from TFA are sourced from the TLJ visual dictionary and are not mentioned in the film.



i. general hospital - closed to existing CR/hospital staff

[ He was wrong about his back not being hurt. It's fractured, to be precise, three vertebrae cracked from where he hit that tree. The ribs, as suspected, are just out-and-out broken. He has internal bleeding, though nothing too terribly severe. Enough to explain the blood in his mouth.

"Blunt force trauma," he says to one of the nurses before he's put under for treatment. "Not the most fun way to go."

The first night in the hospital he refuses visitors.

He needs space. Time to think. The only one he lets in is BB-8, and then only because he couldn't stand the thought of the droid rolling around the communal housing building alone, fussing to himself in a language only Rey can understand.

Human company is too much. He almost says no to visitors in the morning, too, but by then he doesn't have the excuse of exhaustion from treatment to hide behind. It's the fact that he's hiding, more than anything else, that gets him to open the figurative door.

He's too tired to pretend to be all right. Instead, he's just laying in his bed in a hospital gown, rolling his mother's ring between his fingers on the end of the chain around his neck. ]


ii. barrrr idk titles man - open

[ Poe is at what can only be called His Usual Place at this point. He is not, however, at his Usual Stool.

Instead he's at a table near the back, having a stare down with a glass of whiskey.

Anyone who knows Poe well enough to have gone out for a drink with him knows that he adheres pretty strictly to tonic and lime. Anyone who's asked knows it's not because he's a teetotaler. It's habit, plain and simple, the determination to be sober should the need for emergency action arise.

It's finally hitting him after almost a month that there's no emergency action to deal with here, not that the Perimeter Guard can't handle without him.

And after what he's learned about Kylo Ren, about his relationship with Leia--nope bye not thinking about it, it's all he's done the past few days.

Poe knocks back the drink in one go and gags. ] Oh, kriffing--

[ A tiny, watery-eyed wheeze. ] Holy Savior Unborn.


iii. it's oscar isaac this was going to happen eventually - open

[ Up on the communal housing rooftop, Poe is giving BB-8 an oil bath the old-fashioned way. Meaning he has a big plastic tub. That is full of oil. And BB-8 is in it. Also, there is a sponge, that a gloved Poe keeps dipping in the oil to scrub over the surface of his droid.

BB-8 has several maintenance arms deployed, and yeah, sorta seems to be splashing around in the oil like a two year old in a bubble bath.

Poe is singing to him. The song of choice is All My Loving by the Beatles. ENJOY. ]


iv. why this - open

[ There are seven of them. Seven holocubes of the most embarrassing image ever to bear Poe Dameron's face, and before the Hosnian Cataclysm there were a lot of pictures of Poe Dameron doing stupid shit in his Academy days.

But no, this is worse, and they dumped seven of these things on him. They didn't even give him something to carry them in. He just has to walk back to the communal building juggling seven goddamn holocubes programmed with Yolo Ziff's gag poster, the thing that finally benched him from running any more "undercover" missions for Leia. At least until Jakku.

He keeps dropping them, all the way back to the communal building, and every time he does, the damn things turn on. ]


v. wildcarddddd

[ HMU aw yeah. ]

Comments

[volitaunt]

[ The slightest of smiles. Poe wishes he was just bored. He wishes he could take his focus off the ring or the edge of the bed or the pattern of his hospital gown without the risk of losing himself to that other place.

It's like when he was with Finn, on the Perimeter Guard's training grounds, that moment when he felt like the whole world was coming apart around them. Like he was breathing the recycled air of a ship in another universe.

At least it won't be weeks. It can't be weeks, or he really will go crazy. ]

This was my mom's. [ He lifts one finger, the ring draped over its end. ] My dad gave it to me when I left for the Academy. When she died....

[ He's eight, he's there, in that moment, reading Leia's message for the third or fourth or fifth time. He's so deep in the memory that he forgets what he was saying, at least until he blinks and the pattern of his hospital gown is back. ]

General Organa wrote my father and me the condolence letter herself. She was Senator Organa then. She didn't have to, my mother apparently asked her not to when they were on a mission together back in the day, but she did it anyway. She wrote it to both of us. She didn't have any reason to write it to an eight-year-old kid, but she wrote it to both of us. Kept that message until the data file got corrupted. I could repeat the whole thing to you right here.

[ And Kylo Ren knows that, now. He knows just how much that message meant. He knows just how long Poe Dameron has loved the idea of Leia Organa, long before the pilot ever knew the person and learned to love her, too.

Mystified: ] Her son tried to kill me. Leia Organa's son.

[winscenario]

[ It was more than just that, but much like Poe, Jim isn't exactly eager to get too much into the details. The experience of dying and being brought back to life comes with a whole set of unpleasant and mildly traumatic memories that he didn't really like to think about, but when he was alone in that hospital room, not even a doctor or nurse that he could talk to so he could at least keep himself distracted, his mind wandered too often. He couldn't sleep without those memories sneaking up on him in his dreams, couldn't wake up without feeling as though he couldn't take air into his lungs.

Feels like so long ago, now. Jim's worked through it, at least, but he did so on his own. Even when he knew he didn't have to, when he knew he had people who would help and support him through it all, if only he'd asked.

He smiles faintly, even if he has a feeling the story is going to take an unpleasant turn. No reason for Poe to be talking about the General if what happened to him had nothing to do with her. ]

She really must be a remarkable person.

[ And Jim can recognize that tone anywhere. He can recognize the fondness in those words. Jim was never lucky enough to have someone like that while growing up, but he did have Pike. It doesn't matter that he was an adult by the time they met. The man meant no less to him because of that.

His smile bleeds away at the admission, and he frowns in concern. ]

Why? [ It's not disbelief, not really; Jim's seen some screwed up family relationships. Admiral Marcus comes to mind, and if a father can treat his daughter the way he had Carol, then honestly, very little would surprise him. ] Is he here?

[volitaunt]

[ He started in the wrong place. Poe realizes that now. He feels like there's nothing but wrong places to start, too much to think through, too many caverns in his head with too many echoes. So he closes his eyes, tries to find the thread that ended in that story, trace it back to the first thought. ]

He's here. He did this.

[ It takes him another few seconds to find where he should have started, or close to the point he should have started. ]

I thought her son was dead. That's the story she--that's the story.

[ By now, Jim has heard about Kylo Ren from Poe. Not about what the man did to Poe himself, nothing that has to do with Poe's own capture. But the slaughter at Tuanul, the murder of Lor San Tekka, the powers Poe had seen firsthand, those Jim knows. Poe will have told him all about the First Order and their leader's Force-sensitive attack dog. ]

Her son is Kylo Ren.

[winscenario]

[ Jim thinks he started just at the right place. There's no easy way to share something like this, but this sort of information is important, and Jim appreciates that Poe shares it with him. It's not like he's going to do something stupid about it, after all. He's certainly not going to try to take the guy on by himself.

He will, however, keep an eye on him, provided Poe will tell him his name. Luckily, it's a question he doesn't need to ask, because Poe provides that information soon after, as he keeps talking. ]

He is. [ Jim frowns, trying to piece it together and make sense of it all. To reconcile the image he has of General Organa and Kylo Ren, based on what Poe's told him about both so far. ]

Do you think he'll try to hurt you again? [ The concerns over what he might do while he's here are a little more immediate than who he is, or why he's doing these things to begin with. The Quarantine is a very small place, and to know such an individual is stuck in here with them is downright frightening, to say the least. ] Do you think he'll go after Rey, too?

[volitaunt]

I don't know. [ It answers both questions, really. Poe knows he's nothing to Ren. He knows Rey is probably a lot more important, a lot more interesting. A lot more worthy. She's a Force-user, a target. She's been Ren's victim before, too.

Poe is terrified for her, if he's honest with himself. ] I don't know what he wants from her yet.

[ He presses his knuckles against his closed eyes. ] He kept asking me about her. About Leia, I mean. I wouldn't tell him what he wanted, I didn't... know. I didn't know why he cared.

[winscenario]

[ Jim nods. Honestly, just hearing about it makes Jim worried for Rey's sake already, and he hasn't even met the guy. Seeing what he's done to Poe is more than enough to frighten him about what he's capable of doing to anyone else who might be in his path, wittingly or otherwise.

And without knowing what he might want from Rey, well... the uncertainty only makes it more worrying. Jim may be closer to Poe, but he cares about Rey too. And even if he barely knew her, he still wouldn't want her getting hurt. Or anyone else in the Quarantine, really. ]

I'm sorry, Poe. [ He reaches out and settles his hand on Poe's arm, a light touch so he won't upset any injury or bruise. ] You know you can count on me, no matter what you need. We'll keep tabs on him, if we have to. See if he tries to hurt anyone else. I promise— we'll do what we must to make sure he won't do anything like this again.

[volitaunt]

[ That brings Poe out of it, a little bit. It draws him back toward the present. The thought of action. The thought of watching Kylo Ren, keeping tabs, flagging any dangerous activity.

He's not clear-headed, not by any means--the drugs would be enough to keep him afloat, even without the mental interference, but he can hang on to that one thought: He won't do anything like this again.

Poe puts a hand over Jim's, nodding slowly, even that sending a prickle down his spine. ]

Good--good. [ He tries to sit up a little straighter and sighs out a noise of pain. ] ...Bad. That was bad.

[winscenario]

[ Jim's never been much one for sitting around overthinking things, or talking rather than doing. It's through actions that issues get worked out. This is a problem, and a complicated one at that, but it's not a problem that Jim sees as completely impossible to solve, or at least keep some sort of grip on.

It doesn't mean he'll act all reckless and do something stupid. If anything he'll keep an eye on Poe and make sure he won't go out and do something stupid himself, and possibly end up in an even worse state than he's in right now. ]

Poe— [ He nearly gets to his feet, chuckling faintly as he shakes his head. ] Yeah, that was very bad. Seriously, these beds have controls for a reason. Do you want me to lift the back a little more?

[volitaunt]

[ It's a fair concern, where Poe is concerned. Going out and doing something stupid is a decent chunk of his MO. ]

I can do it.

[ Which is such a childish thing to say, really, but he's helpless enough without someone else adjusting the damn bed for him. It takes him a second to find the proper apparatus but once he does, he raises the thing just fine. ]

I fly starfighters for a living, I can figure out a bed.

[winscenario]

[ Jim lifts his hands up in a placating gesture even before he tries to reach for the controls, shaking his head. ]

I know you can.

[ It has nothing to do with doubting his ability or his current state. He's not exactly calling Poe an invalid here, for the record. ]

There's nothing wrong with accepting help from a friend, you know. Doesn't make you any weaker.

[volitaunt]

[ On some level, Poe knows that. It's just... his hate of inactivity. His frustration at being trapped here. The thought that he can do something, anything, even if it's just make himself more comfortable. The thought that in some small way he can feel okay when he mostly feels like he's coming apart.

There's something startled in the way he looks at Jim. He almost just says I know that. Again, on some level, he does. He's got his squadrons; he's not a solo act, never could be. But there's a difference between having a team that knows their job and having someone he trusts to see him hurting without judgement.

How long has it been is a question he's asked himself too often on this moon. He has Finn, here. He has Leia at home.

For the rest, he's a leader. He has to be unbreakable. Quietly: ]

I know. [ He knows. He just doesn't let himself believe it. ]

[winscenario]

[ Jim can't fault Poe for that much, honestly. He'd be the same were he in his situation, restless and impatient and a little unwilling to accept anyone's pity or help. Add to that the kind of injury that landed him in this situation, it can only be more frustrating and, to an extent, embarrassing for Poe to find himself here.

So that's why he tries not to be that upset, even if he had meant only to help, and if there's one thing Poe doesn't have to worry about is that Jim's just taking pity on him. It's not that, really. ]

Well, good. Because that's all I'm trying to do— helping you. [ He leans back on his chair and tilts his head at Poe. ] That alright?

[volitaunt]

Yeah.

[ Poe rubs his face with both hands, gently, because he's not terribly keen on the pain that would come from making the action quick.

He lets his hands drop. For a few seconds that feel longer, he can't think of anything to say. Anything to do. When he speaks he takes himself by surprise. ]

I don't understand why she wouldn't tell me.

[winscenario]

[ Jim's quiet for a while, gaze downcast. It's a little difficult to know what to say to that, particularly since Jim knows how Poe feels about the general, and he doesn't want to hurt him. ]

Maybe it's just... a very personal matter to her.

[ Maybe she was hoping to save him somehow, to get him back. Maybe she just felt like she was in part to blame, or that she'd keep everyone safer like this. Or maybe it was just personal and she didn't want to talk to anyone about it.

Jim can't say, of course. He's not personally involved, he doesn't even know her. He can only make wild guesses, from a less emotional perspective than Poe's. ]