shadowglitter | PSL || poe/odin

... Oh.

He gets it, suddenly. The way he pulls back from Owain, disgusted. The way he stands up and leaves and just looks at him. It sends his whole body into shock, like someone's thrown him into the coldest, darkest part of the ocean. He laughs, again, but it's weak this time, the kind of self-deprecating thing that hurts to hear but always comes out of him so easily.

"Okay."

For a moment, it's all he's willing to say. He gets it. He fucking gets it. Poe must know more about Owain's reaction to finding out Finn's name than he thought he did. Your best friend wouldn't have a pretty fucking freak out-- like all the ones he's had, over the past twelve months? All the holes he's punched through walls, whenever he's imagined Finn and Poe together. All the barbed comments he would make without realizing that that's what he was doing. All the crying, the screaming, the way he's made his lungs ache as he's clutched a pillow over his face and just sobbed like a fucking baby. All he's done since Christmas is hurt, and even with another guy in his life, Owain's so covered in thorns he can barely ever even make it through the day. Just one petty freak out after the next.

And Poe's tired of it.

Owain doesn't know what straw he must have set to finally break the camel's back, but if this is Poe's way of telling him he's sick of this, of having to walk on egg shells and pretend to be interested in Owain's boring, boring life - well, it's been a long time coming, and it shouldn't surprise him as much as it does. He thought they were close, but he's an inherently unlikeable person, and he feels like he's treated Poe like shit ever since he turned him down. He looks up to the sky and feels that grief burning up in his throat again, and his voice comes raspy and hoarse when he finds it.

"I - ah - I don't want to go away with him..."

It's out before he can stop it, and he's distant and dead-eyed and so lacking in the light he used to have. He drops his neck and watches, again, the water lap at the walls of the pond. The sound of a bird chirping in the trees is cutting through his head like wire, because he just wants everything to be fucking quiet, for once. Everything, but nothing more than him.

"It's still just you. For me." Poe's done with him, he's done with him, there's no point in keeping shit unsaid, he's always fucking hated keeping shit unsaid. "I wish I had something-- to justify... why I'm with him, or why I'm bringing up such old, old fucking history that you've long since buried, right now, but-- I don't. I'm just kind of..."

He looks back at Poe.

"I just sort of... do things... these days." He tries to smile, but he can't. "Food doesn't really taste good anymore. I can't listen to the music I used to like, because it's just sound. He makes me feel - alive, a little bit - but only in doses. He likes me... and I like him... and he actually wants to be with me. So... we're together. Probably for the long haul, because he's my life, right now, but my life isn't - it's not anything. It's just a life. Days of waiting to sleep. Days of wasting away the hours until I can get away. To the park. With you. For a window into a life you don't want, but that I can pretend you do, for a moment."

He can't look at Poe anymore. Probably can't ever again, now that he's chipping away at the foundation of their distance that he worked so hard to build.

"I'm sorry for making you angry. I know you said I didn't do anything. But. I did. I have done-- a lot of bad things. To us. As friends." He sounds bitter, more than anything, and it's aimed inwards. "I really have tried to keep this shit to myself, dude."

Edited 2018-01-12 02:26 (UTC)

Poe stands there, barely able to hold still, the fuse lit and the fire burning and he just wants to get in his god damn x-wing and blow something up because he shouldn't be so upset about this. And the more that Owain speaks, the more upset he gets, because Owain's taking every word and turning it in on himself and he can't stand it. He can't stand doing this to Owain.

"You're not. Listening." The words are tight, his eyes hot, the impotent anger making every cord of muscle in his neck taut, his hands balled to fists at his sides.

"You haven't-- Owain, I have spent the whole fucking last year lying to you, and lying to myself, and pretending that I'm fine with everything and that I've moved on and that I'm okay with anyone being anywhere god damn near you when it can't be me--"

His fists tighten hard enough that he feels the sharp bite of his nails in his palms. He forces himself to release them, but then uses his hands to gesture widely.

"Look at how you talk about yourself, Owain! I destroyed your entire life and I'm still destroying it and I don't care because if it means I can spend thirty seconds with you and make it thirty less seconds with him then making you feel like shit is apparently worth it!"

He flinches, again, at being told he's not listening, and hides his eyes behind his fists. He concentrates on his breathing, to stop from saying something stupid, or being stupid, because that's all he ever fucking does and he thought he didn't anymore but that obviously isn't-- fuck. He doesn't know what he's doing wrong. Again. He tries to shut the rest of the world out so he can just concentrate on what's happening, and - it doesn't work, exactly, because he's still just thinking of this and of Poe and of that noisy fucking bird, but - at the very least, the man who loves him and is probably right at this moment packing up their shit to head to the mountains, is the furthest thing from his mind.

His brain completely fucking stops, when Poe says he's lying to him, and again, he's racing in an instant through literally every interaction they've had over the past year to figure out what the fuck he's talking about. He can't, with how upset he is, and any other time, he'd crush down the flare up of feelings before they can burn too brightly, but-- but then Poe's talking about how he's destroyed his life, and despite everything, that's what Owain focuses on.

"You haven't destroyed my-- fuck!"

He slams his fists down on the bench, hissing when he hits one hand the wrong way and smacks his knuckle too hard. He rubs it with his other hand and gets to his feet, closing the distance on Poe. If he were just confused, he'd be able to get through this, but he's scared, he thought he and Poe were okay and now they're not and none of this is making any sense--

"I'm gonna punch you in the fucking face!" He's crying, and he angrily wipes the tears away on the heel of his palm. "Are you ready?! Give me consent to punch you in the fucking face!"

Usually, when someone yells that they are going to punch you, while crying, the thing to do would be to either yell back (the bad option) or back away (the good option). Poe has never been good with options. Poe has never really been good with thinking. And it's painfully obvious that he can't say a god damn word that will make any damn sense.

He doesn't think.

Owain stands up and closes the distance and Poe is right there to match it.

He doesn't even let Owain finish the sentence that he's yelling, cutting him off mid-word as he grabs him with both hands, gripping his face tightly as he surged into him and without a word or breath he crashed his lips into Owain's, kissing him hard enough to bruise.

Owain's half way through punch y-- when Poe's lips are on his, and he-- breaks.

There's been so, so much weight on his shoulders, the past twelve months. All he's done is struggle, every day getting harder and getting worse, every second away from Poe dragging out longer and longer, like someone's holding him by the wrists and pulling him along a floor lined with sandpaper. All of it - all of it - sweeps from him in an instant, and he should be making this moment beautiful, making it count, but he just sobs once into Poe's lips and feels his arms shake. He's scared to respond, because he doesn't know what's allowed or what his is, but he finds Poe's sides and twists his fingers in his shirt so he can't go away.

He doesn't respond, other than that. And he's the one to break the kiss.

He looks at the ground, raising his fingertips to his lips and feeling the warmth and the trace of Poe lingering on him, and he struggles to find the expression he's supposed to make. He still just looks dumbstruck, more than anything. He feels his insides twist, and then-- and then--

And he punches Poe in the fucking face.

Well, sort of. It's light. A slow and gentle tap against the chin with absolutely no energy in it, just a tiny brush of soft and careful knuckles that hits lighter than the gust of wind that's sweeping through the leaves above them. Calling it a punch is generous. It's more of a helpless, needy little touch of skin on skin, one that quickly transforms into Owain stretching his fingers out and resting them on Poe's cheek. He meets his eyes, finally.

"I was gonna do that," he mumbles. "I just wanted to yell at you for being stupid before I did."

The anger had doused almost immediately, with Owain's fingers twisting into his shirt. He was still amped up - still full of an energy that he didn't know what to do with - and half of him was waiting for that punch. So his hand came up immediately, but didn't actually catch at Owain's wrist until after he had already connected.

He deserved a lot harder.

With the anger gone, the guilt is growing, the tide rising and gripping at his ankles and then the waves are already in his chest. It twists his face.

"... Yeah, well. You can yell now." He replied, his fingers just barely grasping Owain's wrist next to his face.

"I don't--"

He doesn't want to yell. He lowers his head, resting his forehead on top of Poe's, breathing in the scent of his hair and wondering, with a brief pang of fear, if Finn uses the same shampoo. He eases away.

"You haven't ruined my life." This, at least, he needs to be clear about, before addressing anything else. "You have been-- you have always, always, only ever been-- the best part of my life. The best part of me. I don't know why you never believe me, when I say things like that. Is it-- is it, like, because you've hurt me? Because-- because yeah, I hate that. I hate that it played out that way, but it's not-- defining, I don't just see you as the guy who hurt me, I just--"

He's frustrated, again, more with himself than with Poe. He relies on words so, so much more than Poe does, but he struggles with them, and he never knows how to make what he's trying to say sound real. He brings his other hand to Poe's other cheek and tilts him upwards, leaning down to kiss him softly on the bridge of his nose before pulling back. He doesn't know what he's doing, or what this means-- just that he had to do it.

"I am only ever really happy when I'm with you. Even before - F-Finn - that was true. That's always only ever been true. And I know that that's hard. For you. The pressure. Of having that power over me. But it's-- how things are? If you weren't-- even when we were just friends, before I first fell in love with you, I was just excited to be with you. Not even-- not even for the sex, really, but because you always laughed with me and made me feel good about myself and you were just there, it's--"

He shakes his head, trailing off. It takes a moment for him to collect himself.

"Just-- you're not Poe, the man who hurt me. You're Poe, the man I love. The hurt is secondary. So is... everything else in my life. Everyone. And it will always-- always-- be like that."

The height thing isn't something he thinks about, a lot. But Owain leaning down to kiss him gently between the eyes makes it obviously, suddenly. Poe doesn't fight it - at all - just stands there with the guilt welling up and lapping at his throat and he remembers, now, how close to drowning he felt those first few weeks until he learned to put it aside.

But two minutes tore down every wall he had.

"Happy really isn't how you seem when you see me, Owain." But it's more tired, than anything. "You might be able to ignore the hurt, but I can't."

He finally lets go of Owain's wrist, turning his head to the side and looking off toward the pond. Stupid traitor pond. You were supposed to help him stay calm.

"I can't stand it."

"Yeah, well. You should see how bad I get when I'm away from you, then," he says, voice cracking towards the end. "Whenever I wake up next to him, there's a second where I get - confused, because he's not you. And then... I get out of bed... but the only reason I ever do is because I think, "maybe I'll be able to see Poe for real, at some point, if I get out of the house"... and when I don't... it's not... I don't sleep. Because I think, you must have been with Finn all day, you must have been living the life that you chose, that you want more, while I'm just-- wasting somebody else's so I have somebody warm next to me, and I don't--"

He cuts himself off, knowing, even on the most surface level, that he's just saying things that will make Poe feel worse. He lets his hands fall away, when Poe lets go of his wrist.

He draws on the strength of his father.

"We have two options, Poe." Owain says, and even though he's terrified, his voice is steady. He wraps his arms around Poe's waist, something he thought he'd never, ever be able to do again, and he's startled to find himself still shaking.

"The first-- I could go. Move on. For good. Never leave my city, never find you on the network. It'll-- I'll still hurt. But you won't have to... see it. Anymore. You'll be able to ignore it. If I'm gone."

He's not wrong. Every word hurts worse, blades sliding between his ribs. And the sudden weight of guilt when he realises he hadn't actually thought of Finn for the last few minutes, but now he can't think of anything else. He'd promised. He'd promised--

He swallows. And then when he speaks, his voice is rough, gravel grinding.

"And the second?"

"Or I make you do something really fucking stupid." He puts his hands back on Poe's cheeks, one thumb gently feeling the softness of his lips, the calloused skin of a tiny scar. "If you kiss me like that, I will never - never - be able to let you go again."

His voice is steadier. Louder, again, drowning out the stillness of the pond as he forces himself to be strong through this. This is the last, last, last, very last ounce of willpower he has, and he's using it to give this choice to Poe instead of making it himself. He's seconds away from closing the distance between them again, from pressing their lips together again and kissing him until he cries even harder than he was a moment ago.

Running away with him to the mountains.

"You don't even--" He catches himself sounding like he's begging, which he is, but he can't, he can't make Poe make this decision because he begged for it. He takes a moment. "You don't have to say anything. Nod, or-- or kiss me, and we'll run away. Tomorrow. Tonight. Now. Just us. We'll figure the rest out as it comes."

It isn't really a choice.

It might have been, a year ago, before he knew the levels of self deception he would go to, to be here.

He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he wouldn't be able to leave Odin alone. That even if he rejected him, again, fully, swore they'd never speak again- in a month, or less, he'd be back in this position, with the same choice that wasn't a choice. Pretending he could govern his own heart.

There was no way to win, here. No matter what he did, he was hurting someone he loved.

For a moment there was silence, just a slow, shakey breath between them, Poe almost utterly still. And then- a slight hesitancy - before Poe was leaning in and breaching the gap. The kiss was far gentler, this time. Almost sorrowful. But then he was raising his hands to cup Owain's face, pressing closer as he deepened the kiss.

It was the only real choice there was.

Every other choice was this one, over and over again, until he chose the right one.

For a moment, he does what he thinks might be the right thing to do.

He lets Poe kiss him, and again, he does nothing. He gives him time to back out of this, even after making a decision, if that's what this is. A chance to head home and see Finn and say I almost did something very fucking cruel to you and I'm sorry. Owain would have pushed him to go, six months ago. To work out what he wants and find him and talk to him without making this any more complicated than it already was.

But a year is a long time for a wound to fester. The arrow that killed his father struck faster than that. Magnus had the right idea, about a quick death, but how the fuck are you supposed to drown a love like Owain's when it's so unerringly immortal?

He gives Poe all of three seconds to back out before he's deepening the kiss, gasping in a way that isn't particularly attracting or loving but it's desperate like he's surfacing from waters he's been drowning in for too long. He tangles his fingers in Poe's hair and he's still just shaking as he presses his tongue in deeper, tasting and claiming and taking away every part of Poe he can. He almost loses his balance, when he rocks on his feet and shuts his eyes and leans into this, and he waits until his lungs are constricting and all but on fire before he pulls away. Just for a second, just to breathe, and then he's back.

It lasts for too long, and when he pulls back, finally, there's a ghost of a laugh behind his eyes. But no smile.

"Poe--" He sways, a little, and he rests his forehead against Poe's, just nervously moving his hands over his cheeks and his neck and his throat and his shoulders like he wants to touch Poe but he doesn't know how to, anymore. "Poe, this-- I'm not fucking around on this anymore, okay? This can't-- I won't let this be a mistake you try to take back in a day, I'm not-- I can't not have you anymore, I can't not have you--"

"You were never a mistake, Owain." His own hands fall, just a little, until they are clasped on either side of Owain's throat. Poe looks, unfortunately, miserable. He feels miserable. He can't help it. He knows he's doing the same thing, again, that he's going to hurt Finn even worse than he first hurt Owain because he had promised.

But he means it. Owain had never been a mistake. His mistakes had all been on how he dealt with Owain. How he hurt him, again and again. (And now about to do it to Finn, too.)

His chest was so tight it felt that it might tear itself apart as it continued to constrict.

"Ever. I've made-- I've made a lot of fucking mistakes, Owain, but not you." He swallowed, thickly, his thumbs tight against the man's jaw. "I've spent - I've spent an entire year, pretending that I'm okay with not having you--"

Owain cuts through Poe's sentence with a broken, ugly sob, the sound humiliating and vulnerable and a signal that something's changing. He's letting Poe in again. Believing that this could work, this time, that Poe really means it and that all the desperate, impossible things he's been trying so hard to bury might actually have a chance of survival.

When he kisses Poe again, his lips are shaking like it's snowing, and there's a sudden shot through the heart when he thinks about the guy waiting for him back home. He doesn't mean much - not in the face of Poe - but they were probably going to get married, one day, even if just out of inertia, on Owain's side of things. He feels like a monster, to do to him what Poe did to Owain first.

All he has to do is open his eyes and see Poe and he feels as okay about it as he'll ever feel.

He pulls back and tries not to drown beneath the riptide of he's just going to leave again that threatens to pull him under, and he looks at Poe dead in the eyes, full of the same resolve he felt when he tried to die to save his friends back in Ylisse.

"You've always had me. I've always been yours. Fuck, I've been telling you that for a year, it always comes back to you for me--" He shakes his head, fast, and kisses Poe again, still shocked that he's allowed. "I wanna-- we need to go. We can't go-- home. They'll be there. Where can we--?"

He meets every kiss with a growing desperation, hands falling to grip Owain's clothes, instead. To entangle and ensnare himself and make it impossible to pull away again.

He didn't have a place in mind - didn't have anywhere else to go. He knew his resolve would break under his guilt the moment he saw Finn. Knew he would end up spending a week, utterly shattered, as he tried to pull himself free of the fallout.

He also knew it was inevitable, now. He couldn't live a lie, now that'd he'd seen it, for what it was. It didn't mean it was going to be easy.

Just - just one night, before he tore his life to shreds and had to glue it back together. Just enough to cement in him the rightness of it, in the face of every wrong.

"Anywhere. I don't care. We can't-- we can't run from it, Owain. I can't make this choice and just-- pretend I'm not. But -- a few hours-- just tonight-- I need you, Owain. Fuck, but I need you."

"I know, I know, I'm not saying--" Owain shakes his head, the guilt that hits him now stemming from doing this to Poe rather than doing this to Finn or His. "We both have a lot of roots to uplift. But I can't-- I won't be able to do it right, if I'm just thinking-- if I'm just, like, "I need to get through this as quick as possible so I can see him", I need-- I need a night with you, I need--"

He buries his fingers at the front of Poe's shirt, scared that he's saying the wrong thing. Stupid traitor pond didn't keep him calm, either.

Owain takes a second to go through the options. The mountains, somewhere secluded and far away, seemed like a perfect option, if it wasn't for the connection to someone else. Camping, in nature, somewhere deep in the woods - that had always been really, really important to him, but he knows it's where things with Finn started, too, so he can't suggest that. He bites the inside of his cheek until something makes sense.

"There's a hotel. Maurtia Falls." He rushes this out, because it sounds dirty, running away to a hotel, when this is anything but. "It's where I stayed last year, after I moved out. We can just-- we could just go. Now."

"I know." His fingers twist in time with his heart and he pulls closer. "You don't have to explain it. I get it."

He felt it.

One night, so that he could face the rest without wanting to run to Owain through every second of it.

He nodded, multiple times. "Yeah. Yeah, okay." He kissed him again, as if to give himself courage. "Okay. We'll go there. Right now." He swallowed, meeting Owain's eyes. "Right now."

Owain lingers, before they leave. It's the last time he'll be by this pond with Poe as friends, if that's what they ever even were. He droops down enough to rest his forehead on Poe's collar and just listens, for a moment, to the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. It's still hard to believe this is real.

The trip to the hotel room takes a while, not because Owain is scared of being seen - he's not, and he actually kind of welcomes it, because if he's going to be confronted by him or by Finn, it'll be a lot easier to weather the storm when Poe's standing by his side - but because they walk, just so there'll be a little more time together before these few hours are over and they'll have to handle what they've done.

It feels weird, for Owain, to enter this hotel knowing a year ago he was broken by the isolation of it, clawing at his sheets and struggling just to make it through the night. The room they get is different to the one he stayed in last December, but it's still fancy and lined with red silk sheets and adorned with things that cost too much money, and when Owain closes the door behind Poe and seals them both in, he has no idea what to do with his hands.

He sits on the end of the bed, looks at Poe, breathes in deep, and breathes out.

"I don't even know what I want to do, now that you're here," he admits, and there's a shake of a laugh behind so much anxiety. "I've thought-- I think about you a lot. When I'm with him. I always pretend-- that he's-- but we don't have to do anything physical. I don't know. I don't know if that's... I don't know."

Poe knows what he wants, every atom in him almost humming for it. Words only mean so much, and he needs that connection, needs to feel that bond forged again.

But also?

Also, needs to not fuck this up, right now.

So he flops down on the bed and looks up at the ceiling and tries to pull in all the lose and flying feelings before the tear him apart.

"I just want to be with you," he says finally, a long moment later, turning his head to find Owain's eyes, then sitting upright again. "Just- just for a little while, forget about everyone else in the universe."

I just want to be with you.

It's all he's ever wanted to hear from Poe, and the words alone are enough to fill his chest with the kind of joy he thought he'd never be able to feel again. He moves on the bed, up the silk sheets to be closer to Poe, and he watches him, eyes wide, cheeks pink, throat dry.

"Say--"

He thinks of all those countless, countless fucking nights he spent dreaming that it was Poe's body beneath his, not-- not anyone else's, not his boyfriend's, not those of his friends, not faceless natives, Poe. He can't find his voice, all of a sudden, and it takes effort for him to speak, thick through nerves.

"Say that again."

It breaks his heart, the way that Owain is looking at him.

But for for the first time in over a year, it breaks his heart in a way where the pain feels incredibly good. (Breaking from growing out of it bounds.) He reaches out, thumb brushing that reddened cheek, tracing Owain's cheekbone and brushing back into his hair and across his ear.

"I just want to be with you, Owain."

It's enough. Finally, what he has with Poe is just-- enough.

It takes all his willpower not to cut Poe off, to interrupt what he's saying with a kiss or a hand beneath his clothes. He feels like he's standing over a cliff and looking down, adrenaline pumping through him and fear clutching at his throat, but he also feels safe, and how long has it been since he's felt like that?

He moves closer, so close that he can hear every breath Poe takes, and he leans in to draw his lips along Poe's neck. He presses soft, lingering kisses up to his jawline and stops, bringing his hands to Poe's waist and holding them there.

"Again."

He feels his heart stop, for a fraction of a second, as Owain's lips draw against his throat, before starting again with a deafening lurch, slamming too quickly against his ribs. A year of repressed longing, causing his heart to race at the slightest fucking touch.

He's good, though. He stays still, just letting Owain slide into place, trying to regulate his own breathing and bring his heart back in line. Come on, Dameron. You're not sixteen.

When Owain's hands settled on his hips, he slid his hand further into the man's hair, fingernails scraping at his scalp.

"You going to make me repeat myself a hundred times, or are you going to kiss me?"

"I really like hearing it," Owain confesses, like it's something to be ashamed of. "I've dreamed of hearing you say things like that. Like - literally - like, when I actually manage to fall asleep at night, it's only ever because I'm thinking of you, and then - and then you're in my dreams, saying things like -"

He stumbles over himself, reddening quick until he's shaking his head to clear this. He just wants to touch Poe, to be with Poe, to either hear more things like that or just feel more things like that. He could collapse, right now, just from the electricity shooting from Poe's fingers into his scalp and down his spine, but he uses all the willpower he has to sit up straight and meet Poe's lips with his own.

It starts out easy, soft, chaste. It stays that way for about three seconds, before Owain is pulling on Poe's shirt and breaking the kiss just long enough to tear it over his head. He shrugs off his own shirt, mostly one armed, the other resting on Poe's chest, tracing over a scar with his thumb. He's surprised, that despite how jealous and possessive he's been - despite the awful, awful things he would think when he was alone and jerking off and thinking of Poe, things like is he as good as me or do you ever think of my cock when you're with him - that none of that fills his head right now.

All he can think about is how fucking beautiful Poe looks like this, waiting for him.

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