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Lt. Col. John Sheppard ([personal profile] deploy) wrote2017-11-11 05:50 pm

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volitaunt: (095 - fpuhc9h)

[personal profile] volitaunt 2018-01-17 07:47 am (UTC)(link)
[ Drawing Poe's attention to the ring is a brief but solid defense. He eases a step back, taking the little ring between his fingers and turning it gently. ]

My mom's engagement ring.

[ For a second he's a universe away, the night before leaving for the Hosnian Naval Academy. His dad is giving him a little box, presenting it wordlessly. Poe didn't need to be told what was inside it. He'd seen it on his mother's finger often enough as a child, seen it on his father's dresser in that same little box for years after. He'd just never expected to be given it to keep.

He doesn't want to think about that. He doesn't want to miss his father and his mother both right now. It's too much. With Paige, with the fleet. He doesn't want to think about any of it.

(It doesn't occur to him that what he's doing is another way of escaping, just another bad coping method checked out from a library of them that he's never visited before.)

He lets go of the ring, steps forward again, and wraps one arm around John's waist, pulling them tight enough against each other that he can feel John's arousal. The corner of his lip twitches upward, his eyes hooded as he looks up the short inches into John's face. ]


You don't have to salute me, Lieutenant Colonel.
volitaunt: (pic#12002254)

[personal profile] volitaunt 2018-01-17 08:22 am (UTC)(link)
[ Poe makes a noise in his throat, a rumbling dismissal of John's words. His lips are just close enough to John's neck to brush the skin as he speaks. ] Tell me to stop and I'll stop.

[ His free hand comes up, snakes around the back of John's neck, barely touching the skin until Poe digs in his nails. It's accompanied by a tug at John's waist, pinning the two of them tighter together. He exhales quietly against John's throat, runs the tip of his nose up the line of skin over his jugular. ]

That's all you have to do.
Edited 2018-01-17 08:31 (UTC)
volitaunt: (Default)

[personal profile] volitaunt 2018-01-17 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)
[ John is telling him to stop.

He's looking Poe right in the face, kindness in his own, and telling him to stop.

Poe's eyes fill. He closes them, which doesn't so much hide the tears as force them to fall. He pulls away from John's grip, rests his forehead on John's shoulder, and tries not to let solitary tears become weeping. He already cried on Leia's shoulder. He already broke the one time.

He wants to say please. He wants to say please, let me have this.

He doesn't want to do that to a friend.

Even drunk, even this drunk, Poe doesn't want to do that to John. He said that's all you have to do. He doesn't make promises he can't keep.

This is not the man his mother would want him to be. ]


I'm sorry.

[ To her, to John, to Paige, to every gunner and pilot and bombardier whose lives he lost. He hates himself for apologizing, he hates himself for having to. It's like every weeping soldier his father held on their living room couch with its little woven blanket tossed over the back. The scars of war laid bare, ugly and twisted and all at odds with the domesticity of Kes Dameron's home.

There it is: a promise he didn't keep. He told himself he'd never be one of those men.

He lets John go. ]
volitaunt: (090 - UeKjYNw)

[personal profile] volitaunt 2018-01-17 08:10 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Deep breath. Exhale. Poe puts his arms back around John, this time in an embrace. ] Okay.

[ He doesn't know how to express what it means, that he tried to back away and John held on. He doesn't know how to say thank you for love he feels like he doesn't deserve, right now. Kindness he hasn't earned.

Poe turns his head so he's resting his temple against John's shoulder. Loosens his hug until he can back up a step and look over at John's bed.

Does he want someone at close quarters?

Yes. Yes, he does. He doesn't want the dreams that might come from sleeping alone. ]


Together. [ God, he's tired. He's more tired than he was in that alley, when all he wanted was to lay down beside his own vomit and drop into the black.

That wasn't the man his mother would want him to be.

One who asks for help, one who accepts it--that's the man his father would want him to be. Tears or no tears, liquor or none. Someone who gives love and receives it with equal grace.

Poe touches his mother's ring lightly. Then he leans forward and kisses John on the cheek. ]
Edited 2018-01-17 20:18 (UTC)
volitaunt: (251)

[personal profile] volitaunt 2018-01-17 09:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Poe rests his hand over John's, feeling another rush of gratitude, one that carries him toward the safety of sleep.

He makes a noise, an affirmative response, muscles going slack, eyes drifting shut.

All it takes this time is letting go.

The darkness this time isn't an enemy. ]