shadowglitter | PSL || poe/odin

PSL || poe/odin

WAY TO REJECT ME YOU FLIGHTY AIRBORN PIECE OF SHIT! WAY TO FUCK EVERYTHING UP FOR ME AND MY HEART, FOREVER AND EVER, ALWAYS UNTIL FOREVER

HEY YO YOU TOLD ME TO WRITE A LIST SO GUESS WHAT!!!!!! IT'S TIME FOR US TO GET FUNKY AS FUUUUUUCKKKKKKKK

god i am not going to bother formatting this

TO DO LIST:
1. SEXTING FROM BOOT CAMP ringverse AU
2. prince/concubine AU - owain's the prince, poe's a concubine to the king, paranoia and political assassination ensues, etc etc etc etc etc
3. vampire hooker AU?? owain gonna get his gothic goth goth dick wet in that spooky vampire butt
4. HAHA BOOM WE'RE DOING IT I LINKED THE POST DOWN THERE
5. enemies of war AU - owain's a good guy on the bad guy side who almost loses his life trying to save poe even though he's an enemy soldier, poes like What, Shit, Damn, gay shit ensues
6. HNENENGH
7. ANGELS AND DEMONSSSSSSsss
8. 20s AU///?? YES. YES ALRIGHT
9. WW1 AU WHATS Up
10. ?? there was something that was supposed to go here from the kink meme
11. samurai champloo AU what up. chon'sin. Shit
12. bBODYSWAPPpappapp

long-term AU posts:

⚔⛉☆ PLEDGED

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Poe laughs, the sound immediately shut off as he slides a hand over his mouth to stifle it. Almost blew their cover, woops.

"Let's save the hostile action for if it becomes necessary, Black Two," he replied in a teasing lilt, the carpet curving down toward the enclosure in a much tighter dive than he would usually take, with someone else riding with him. But he keeps a hand on Odin's back, gripping the bag, and the all make the descent unscathed.

"Alright, we good? He out of sight?"

In all his APPARENTLY ILLEGAL CUTENESS, Owain frowns and shakes his head, dragging his nose over the carpet and sniffling when it tickles. The security guard is just some old dude reading a newspaper and talking on the phone about the show his friend used to watch - back before she was ported out. The reminder of her doesn't make him sad, and that surprises him. It sends a weird, swooping warmth through him, to remember someone that's gone.

He never used to react to things like this with thoughts like those, and when he nervously looks up at Poe from the corner of his eye, he realizes that this god damn guy is the reason why he's so much more at peace with so many difficult things in his life. Poe's his fucking soulmate, it's right there on his skin, as real as the hand on his back. No matter what happens - who he loses - he'll always have that. The only thing he's ever wanted. The only person he's ever wanted.

The security guard just stays on the bench he was sitting on while he and Poe fly over him towards the tigers, and Owain sits back up on his knees, again scrubbing his nose to get rid of some of the shaggy, carpet-y itchiness.

"We're good." He nudges Poe in the side. "You're a good pilot. Breaking news, I know."

"I'm the best Pilot," Poe reminds him with a smirk, reaching out to twerk the tip of Odin's nose between his fingers as they come up to the building. There's a ledge where the window is, and Poe angles the carpet until it's basically sitting on it. He keeps it flying, though.

He shuffles over to the window on his knees, leaning forward and pressing his hands against the glass.

He doesn't notice the way his jacket is causing his shirt to ride up, just a hint of skin above his belt. A dark black tip of a blade just visible on the line of his spine.

"Alriiight, hey, one of them is even awake--"

Owain reacts at a hundred like he always does, flailing his arms and laughing and going pink when Poe grabs at his nose. He watches Poe shuffle to the window wanting to just fucking forget the date (if that's what this is) and go home and pin him to the bed and just kiss him and kiss him and kiss him -

But he's distracted by how fuckin' cute the tigers are, so.

In his haste to lean over Poe to see them, he misses the tattoo. He puts his hand on the small of Poe's back, on his bare spine, on the tip of that blade, and he watches the one restless tiger sleepily prowl around its enclosure. He stays like that for a while, grinning, until he leans back to get a drink, and--

And then he sees it.

He should be-- excited, maybe, because one way or another, there'll be closure here. He'll know if his tattoo is one sided, definitively, if he just asks Poe to take off his shirt so he can get a better look and see if he sees himself in Poe's brand. His own tattoo-- he knew it was for Poe, he knew Poe was his soulmate before he even had it, but he doesn't-- he doesn't know what Poe feels, and--

"Hey," he says, and his voice is dark and serious and heavy. His tongue feels too big for his mouth, suddenly, and--

And he takes off his hoodie, now just in a sleeveless black tank, his tattoo still covered by the bandage.

"Poe?"

Poe's still basically plastered to the glass, both hands on it watching the tiger below. He doesn't even turn his head at his name, instead just saying, "Yeah?" to the air.

But something in Owain's tone gets to him, after a second, and he pushes himself back and turns to look at him.

"What's up?"

Owain looks at Poe like he's a monster, fangs and teeth and claws ready to tear Owain apart if he makes the wrong move. All that joy, all that certainty, all the security he found in knowing Poe is his Poe even if that might only ever be the limit of what they have - it's gone, swept away with the breath in his lungs. Whatever they have might come to an end if he pushes this any further. He might break this.

"Ah..."

He thinks of Poe with someone else, in a way other than just-- taking them to bed, when he's not with Owain, in a way that he wrongfully suspects must happen because they never said anything about exclusivity. He puts his hand on the bandage and squeezes it tight, and he thinks of how many times he had to hide his Brand of the Exalt to avoid a painful death. His hand grips the end, ready to tug the bandage away, to just show Poe, because actions mean so much more than words to the pilot, and if he can just-- if he can just do this--

He thinks of his father, and he tries to be brave--

"Nevermind."

--but he doesn't have it in him, after so many months of having so much more than he's ever deserved.

Poe's brow arches, because that was not a reaction he was expecting. He could almost see the nerves trace across Owain's face, but he can't think of a single damn thing that could have possibly triggered them. He sits back on his ankles and turns a bit more to face him.

"You alright?"

His cheeks are red and his eyes are wide, and his fist digs tight into the bandage like he's scared it'll accidentally fall off if he doesn't. The movement drags the bandage down without Owian noticing, and the tiniest, tiniest peak of black shows from under the edge of the fabric.

"I almost did something stupid?" He says, like it's a question, and then he's shaking his head. "I nearly - just - sorry. Hold on. Give me a second."

Maybe this can't be solved with-- grand gestures, or playing his hand all at once. Maybe he needs to be careful through this - maybe he needs to find out how Poe feels without the pressure of a tattoo bearing down on him. Maybe this is where he should just - open up, gently, and see if Poe might want to make this more than it is before--

Or maybe he's being selfish. He's making this all about him, scared he's going to ruin what they have even at the cost of Poe knowing something really god damn important about himself. He can't do that - he can't keep the tattoo a secret, even if it breaks things between them. He can't take Poe's life away from him, even if it's a life he might not be a part of. He just... has to pull away from this. Not make it about himself.

He takes a deep breath.

"I think - you have a tattoo - maybe." He hesitates. "On... your back."

He didn't catch the hint of black on Owain's arms. It was a little too dark, and he was a little to concerned, his eyes on Owain's face.

For a second he looked taken about, and confused, and he tilted his head a little as if he misheard.

"What? No I don't." He reflexively turned around and looked down his back, which-- did absolutely nothing, of course, because he was wearing all his clothes. He looked back at Owain.

"I checked. Not a single drop of ink."

"On your back," Owain repeats, and it comes with a laugh, one mostly ruled by nerves. Fuck, Poe's cute.

He curls his hands like he's going to tug on Poe's shirt and just get this over with, but he hesitates, and at the last second he reaches for his comm. He takes a photo of the bare bit of skin that shows the tiniest, tiniest trace of that tattoo - leaving the flash on to make it a good one, which is totally not cohesive towards being on a sneaky stealth zoo break in mission, but whatever - and he holds the phone out to Poe.

There it is. That tiny, tiny patch of inked skin, the start of something still hidden completely under his shirt.

"What... ah." He puts his comm down. "What... do you want to do? Should we--"

He takes a breath. Here we go.

"I... have one. I woke up with it. This morning. So..."

Owain was just about through the words 'do you want to' when Poe was already pulling off his jacket in one smooth motion, then crossing his arms in front of him, grabbing the opposite sides of his shirt and pulling it up, over his head, and off.

He was good at stripping in short order.

He only caught the rest of Owain's words once he was arching his back and trying to look down at his spine, which - even without his clothes - was of course really not possible. He stopped what he was doing and looked up at Owain.

"What, really? I thought they were supposed to just - be there. From the beginning."

Again, Owain laughs, but for the first time in their relationship, he finds he's not sure if he wants to look at Poe's half-naked body or not. The tiger that was still awake has curled up and gone to sleep, too - poor dude doesn't get to give anyone a show.

"No - what? Why would you think that?" He's looking off into the distance, eyes unfocused and mind racing. "They've been breaking out all over the place - growing, too. Mine's just... starting, it could get even bigger as time goes on. It, uh--"

He hesitates. May as well go all in, if he's this far gone.

"It will. I think. If that's supposed to be representative of-- like, importance. How big the feelings are. Or whatever."

"Oh."

He still looks confused, his brows furrowed. For the first time, he notices the bandage on Owain's arm. He gives it a look, then gives Owain a look, but without saying anything he twists around again, trying to get a glimpse of what's on his back - and he almost can. In flashes. There's definitely something on his skin. Damn. How the hell had that gotten there?

"That's--- How the hell is this helpful, I can't even see it--"

Owain risks a glance back at Poe, still avoiding his back - he's too scared, and it's not his place, and he's nervous - and when he sees him turning around like an idiot trying to look at his own spine, he breaks out into another laugh.

"Dude, you're like a dog chasing your own tail, stop it." He roughs his hand through Poe's hair, barely even noticing when it just bedheads back into place. "Which is kind of funny, because chasing tail is kind of your whole-- you know what? Nevermind."

He draws his thumb over his bandage, trying not to read into the fact that Poe barely even looked at it.

"Do you want me to take a better photo? We might have to go somewhere brighter." He pauses. "Wanna break into the tiger enclosure?"

Edited 2018-01-19 05:07 (UTC)

"Just take a picture here," He says, and there's an impatient edge to his voice as he says it. "Or just tell me what it looks like."

It's not that he wasn't interested in Owain's. Quite the opposite. But he'd been so sure that he didn't have one that the shock of it hadn't worn off yet, and he needed to see it.

Because if he was supposed to be here, if he was meant to stay--

He turned so that his back was facing Owain, but was still catching some of the faint light from the window.

"Just describe it to me."

"Are-- you sure? It's-- private, right? I don't know if I should--"

He's too slow to look away, but he tries. He catches the shape of a hilt between Poe's shoulderblades as he turns his head to face the distance, and his heart skips a beat as he looks back. His eyes widen, and-- and without even asking, he's right there, war-weathered and calloused hands pressing onto Poe's back, tracing over skin spent too long buried in sheets.

He's seen that hilt thousands of times before - held a replica of it in his hand as he charged into battle against the men and women who wanted to burn Ylisse. It's real, though, it's the real Mystletainn, the unattainable sword he spent years and years trying to find but never could, long and silver with cuts of gold down the blade. He traces his finger down Poe's spine, over each ridge, following one of the vines that blooms until his hand is pressed flat against the end of it.

"It's--"

It's his sword, the sword he dedicated his life towards trying to find and to own and to have, and it's here. He panics, knows that he needs to put a thousand different feelings into words, but he stumbles and he bites his tongue when he tries to speak. There's too much in him trying to get out all at once, and he just--

"-- for me."

"How private can it really be if it's in a place I can't even see?" He complained, but he fell silent as Owain's hands touched his skin. He could almost feel it, the outline of it, but the touch was too vague to really make out whatever Owain was tracing.

That was when the nerves hit.

He'd been too focused, until that moment, on the tattoo existing at all, that he hadn't really fully thought about what the tattoo was for. But in those few seconds, a very real and heavy panic hit him.

Who was it even supposed to be?

What the hell was he going to do if it wasn't Owain?

It was the second thought that made his brain stutter and his brow furrow. He didn't even really know where it had come from, that brief flash of panic at the idea of fate stepping in and choosing for him. But he didn't want anyone else. He hadn't admitted that to himself, at all, until that moment, but the idea that a mark on his skin might suddenly wrench Owain completely away from him--?

"Actually I'm not sure that you should--"

But it was too late, Owain was already speaking, the pause in the air heavy and laden and Poe was about to grab his jacket and pull it back on and tell him to forget about it, no fucking tattoo was going to tell him who he should be with, screw all this fate bullshit, let's just go ho--

Oh.

A heat rose very suddenly under his skin, but he didn't look back.

"... What is it?"

"I--"

He can feel the heat rise in Poe's skin, hear the panic in his voice. It's hard, for him, to put everything he wants to say in order, as it always is - he knows where this is going to go, he knows he's going to snowball and get emotional and cry, and he does his best to steady himself before he does.

"There's this sword, back home," Owain starts, speaking very slowly, very deliberately. "My sword. In a way. My personal-- but this isn't--"

His fingers draw a slow, slow line from the tip of the sword to the very end of the hilt, showing Poe, quietly, how big the tattoo is. Letting him know that he knows, if the size of it means anything.

"It's called Mystletainn," he says, the word sounding heavy and foreign in his mouth after going so many years without holding it. "A weapon lost to history. Inherited, long ago, by those with holy blood. I thought-- if I could find it, I'd be worth something? It became this huge, huge symbol of all the things I wanted, like-- like if I could wield this amazing, perfect, mythical sword, I'd be able to save everyone, I'd be able to win the war, I'd be able to make my father proud, I'd be able stop all the pain and the suffering I saw. It was-- it would give me the strength that the cause I fought for deserved. And I found-- a replica, and it was cheap and it slipped through my hands like butter, and it was dull like sea-glass, but it was mine, and everyone knew it was mine. It's the sword everyone knows me by, and this is-- real, this is real, this isn't a replica, I can tell that it's the real one, and I found it, and it's on you, and I'm--"

He's red, and his fingers are trembling, nails scratching down Poe's back.

"And I'm-- I'm worth-- something."

As Owain traces the length of the sword, Poe does finally get a sense of the size of it, and it causes a shiver to run all the way down his spine. The flush under his skin only darkens as Owain continues, and every nerve ending in his body is becoming hyper aware. He had a sudden and intense urge to turn around and pull the bandage off of Owain's arm, but it was tempered by the shock. So he didn't. But his hands twitched on the edge of the carpet, gripping it.

"I--"

But what did someone say in the face of that?

There were a lot of things he wanted to do, but right here...?

"I think we should go home. I- I want to see your arm."

Owain's lost in the tattoo, tracing the vines that coil around the sword again, thumb stroking short, soothing motions over skin. His heart is racing and his mouth is dry and he feels like he might be dying, and his breath catches in his throat when he realizes that the scars on Poe's back - the leaves cover the worst of them.

"Okay... but, like."

He laughs, and it's watery and happy and far too clear that his arm belongs to Poe.

"Leave your shirt off. On the fly back. I'll-- pay. For. The indecent exposure fines. If we get any."

He can't really argue that, and he doesn't want to. Instead he stuffs his shirt into the backpack and thrusts his jacket into Owain's arms.

"Don't lose my jacket. I like this jacket. And hold on."

He hooked the strap of the backpack over his shoulder, grabbed the edge of the carpet, and they hurtled into the sky far faster than they'd arrived.

Owain considers just folding the jacket up and holding onto it alongside the hoodie he's got balled up in his lap, but his innate and ever fucking constant need to be as close to Poe as possible takes over, and he slips the jacket on. It's a little small, thanks to their height difference, but it fits pretty well and he feels warmer wearing it than he can ever remember being.

They hurtle through the sky and Owain shouts something loud and happy at the top of his lungs, startling the security guard and waking up at least two or three kinds of animals. It feels good, burning off the energy, but once they're among the stars and things are coasting a little steadier he shuffles closer to put his hands back on Poe's back.

All through the trip home, he whispers things about Mystletainn in Poe's ear - it's a sword designed to keep nobility safe, a sword that protects. Coated with mistletoe, a plant capable of felling certain evil, according to legends, but more realistically, a tradition to hang above doorways at Christmas to bring two people together. He talks about the design, seeing as Poe can't see it - the gold letting scratched into the silver blade, which he runs his fingertips over with a featherlight touch. The hilt - he rests one fingertip at the very tip of Poe's spine - keeps the blade sturdy, steady - he drags his fingertip all the way down Poe's back and leaves it at his waist.

By the time they're back home, Owain's touched every corner of Poe's spine, just trying to make him squirm.

He succeeds. By the time they can see the governmental housing that they still live in (as permanence is not something that had yet to cross Poe's mind), Poe is as tense and taut as a tightrope.

He doesn't head for Owain's window, he heads for his own.

It isn't entirely unusual. Owain's been over a couple of times, but not many. Even without someone living there to make him shy away from bringing anyone home, he still doesn't really like it. There's an implied intimacy there, of letting someone into his life that close, that he was never quite able to manage. The few times Owain had been over had ran a little too close to Intense, so Poe had always defaulted to Owain's rooms, given the option.

Tonight? He barely thought twice.

He always left the window I unlatched when he left, so that when he returned he could throw it open on arrival. Which is what he did, the second they slid up to it.

Owain doesn't actually realize what Poe's doing, at first, and when they park next to Poe's window he's quietly complaining about how he can't reach his own window from here and that Poe flew too far away. He's standing on the edge of the carpet wondering if he can make the jump from here - of course he can, he's Owain, he can do anything -
when he turns his head and finds Poe opening his own window. Oh. Oh. His eyes widen and he falls quiet.

He heads inside, scratching at his tattoo beneath the still-slipping bandage, his ankle catching on the ledge and make him trip gracelessly over the threshold. Even if it's not unusual, exactly, it's a curveball to be here, and any surprise from Poe typically always gets his heart racing a thousand miles an hour. The tattoo alone is enough to keep him in cardiac arrest for years.

Here, in the soft light of Poe's bedroom, their date cut short by revelations that rewrite the entire playbook of their relationship, Owain is, once again, suddenly very afraid. He has no idea if-- if people can resent their soulmates, or if-- if Poe doesn't want this--

"Do--"

He takes a breath. Do this the easy way.

"Do you want to see mine?"

He doesn't reply. Or more, he doesn't reply to words - the nearly useless and indirect method of communication that they are. Instead, as soon as he's inside, as soon as he's finished rolling up the carpet and leaning it against the wall, he's turning to Owain. Gonna rip that coat off him, then the bandage, and get a good look for himse--

Okay, that was what he was going to do, until he actually saw Owain in his jacket. He blinked, then felt his cheeks warm.

"Right. Okay. Buying you one of those later," he said, half to himself and half to Owain, still completely ignoring his question as he shoved the jacket off of Owain's shoulder, pulled out the man's arm and then went straight for the bandage--

PSL || poe/odin

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