"What?" The anger is suddenly cut through with confusion, and Poe shakes his head roughly as if he's trying to clear it.
"When you were nine--" That didn't make sense. He shook his head again. "Why would Dad take you in? That's not--" He let out a hard, breath, the anger quickly flooding back in.
"That wasn't the point. You were supposed to get that time with your family, and have an actual childhood and not just get thrust into some ludicrous-- I can't believe he would do this--"
Owain runs his hand over his bicep, like he's cold, the mention of his family making him physically tense and draw away.
Poe was never told, then. It makes sense, to a degree. Distracting one of the best knights in the military with news about deaths from home - the deaths of people he barely met - so soon after he was first deported? No. Lon'qu would have been a familiar enough face to Poe, but after Shara's death, Lissa retreated into her own home to raise Owain. Their deaths wouldn't have meant much to him, and the circumstances behind them must have been left in Owain's hands to share. It's his family, after all. His story, for his master.
"They - died. Protecting me. An attack, for being a part of this family. Bitterness, I think, stemming from your mother marrying outside of her station. Revenge, maybe. I don't know who was behind it, but I was the one who was supposed to die. Dad took an arrow to the heart and mom took a sword to the gut and I was the only one still alive."
Nine years old, hiding under the bed, terrified of more footsteps that never came.
"Your father might have taught me how to fight in order to defend myself," he says, flat, a thought he's had a thousand times before, "as well as serve you in the life you've chosen to live."
"That's--" But whatever Poe thought 'that' was, never left his lips. Instead, he grit his teeth together and took a step backward, turning his shoulder towards Owain and looking off across the room.
He raised a hand to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, the rage like a tidal wave against his heart. And to think. To think. He'd actually come here, fully expecting to see Lon'qu here, at his Father's side, like he always was--
He pinched his nose harder, as if he could pull himself back into the moment by just a sharp bit of pain. Nine years. Nine years, and his father hadn't even told him. And Owain--
How the fucking hell was he supposed to do right by him, after even just being connected to his family had done so much wrong?
"Fucking cowards," He hissed under his breath. Going for Lissa, for Lon'qu, because they weren't people they were property, and here he was, completely unable to even try to avenge their death. Nine fucking years too late.
His hand did go for his sword hilt, then. But not to draw it. He pressed hard down on the cold metal, the end of the scabbard lifting sharply, dragging the edge of his cape up with it. He was just trying to think. He was trying to think, but he was so angry--
He's been locked away in this house for a long, long time. He hasn't seen much anger, other than his own, which he's almost always internalized and kept quiet until it was shredding eveything inside him. The few scant punches he'd thrown in isolation at an unfeeling wall or the few times he cut the training dummy a little too hard with his sword to relieve a buildup of tension were all incomparable to this.
Poe, like fire. Angry, over Owain's life. Over his family's deaths, as if they were a personal loss. Owain's heart skips a beat, but he doesn't notice, nor know what it means.
"He-- said we should have some time alone." He looks over his shoulder, back through the door he came through. "I - imagine he's gone. We could try and find him... but if he doesn't want to be found, he won't be found."
He looks at Poe, fingers drumming over his arm. He hesitates, noticeably, before he speaks again.
He drew in a hard breath, and then raised a finger, just one, to point at Owain, and then shake it, for emphasis.
"Because of you. Owain. Because you're not a sword, or a jacket or some other damn heirloom that I'm meant to carry around, and he knows that. He spent. Nine. Fucking. Years. Not telling me what happened, when I thought--"
The finger was gripped back into a fist, then held tight at his side.
"I should have been here. He didn't tell me because he knew I would come back and he knew I'd put an end to this whole fucking--" Hard breath. In and out. In, and out, trying to put all the rage aside for one fucking minute, because there was something more important.
"I'm sorry. About your parents. They were - I loved them very much. And I'm sorry I wasn't here, to save them. When I should have been."
"No, it's-- I-- you loved my parents? That's-- wait, put an end to-- wait--"
It's starting to fall into place, brick by brick. Poe... hates this, with every fibre of his being. The thought of someone serving him, the thought of someone waiting on him hand and foot - Owain gets it, now. Poe can't stand it.
His eyebrows pinch and he feels like he's swallowed salt water. He tries, he honestly tries, to see things from Poe's perspective, but he can't. Nine years. Nine years of having it drilled into him that he's following in his parents footsteps, that he'll be able to make them proud, by giving away his identity and his life and his everything. Nine years of hinging what little self-worth he's grown up with on a single dream to be good enough for Poe.
Maybe if Poe had come home sooner, Owain wouldn't be in so deep. It might have been possible to save him, once. As it is, he just freezes in place, struggling to be good.
"If--"
He swallows, and there's too much emotion in his voice for a slave. He gets rid of it.
"If you want to do right by them-- then-- don't send their son away."
It was, of course, the most effective argument that Owain - or his father - could have made. And he knew it. He didn't think Owain knew it, because he didn't have to. Poe knew exactly what kind of training the pledged went through. Knew that if he hadn't run away, Owain would have been at his side even at thirteen. So even as the righteous anger still trembled in his bones and in his breast, the responsibility and the guilt hit heavy right behind.
Kes had done this. So that Poe wouldn't be able to say no.
And he had left, rather than face his son.
Poe swallowed, hard, unable to look directly at Owain, glaring at some far point across the room, instead. When he finally spoke, every word was direct, and pointed, and careful.
"I'm not sending you away." He couldn't, now. How could he? He couldn't pretend to care about Owain's autonomy and then refuse to accept a choice that he made.
Even though Poe knew he couldn't make another choice.
"I won't- I won't stop you. From leaving. Or staying. That's your choice, Owain, even if no one else in this damn universe seems to think so. So I won't -" Hard breath, and he finally turned to meet the man's eyes. It was impossible to keep the very real grief out of his own. (A grief not solely for Owain's parents.)
"I'm not going to strip you of that choice, too. But if my Father refuses to face me, then I'm not going to stand here waiting for him to."
He hangs on every word Poe says with far too much willingness to listen. Every slow and careful sentence, every decision, every promise, Owain listens to with an attention that had to have been trained into him. His parents could walk straight through that front door, and Owain would still watch Poe like a hawk until he gave him his dismissal, his blessing to reunite with them.
The grief in Poe's eyes makes his heart break, and it might be the only thing that could waver his attention. His eyelids flutter for a second as he looks down, trying to break eye contact, but something in him pulls him back. He watches Poe, repeating his words in his head, trying to find the right thing to say and settling on honesty. That seems to be the kind of master Poe is. One who wants honesty. It's the only reason he's been getting so much of it so far.
"I haven't been stripped of any choices," he says, slowly, just as certain as he is wrong.
He has no possessions to his name, other than the sword his father left him, his mother's ring and a piece of her staff. Even his clothes, the fine ones he's wearing included, are just uniforms. If Poe wanted to leave, it wouldn't take long for him to pack.
"Your father has been a very kind and generous man, to me." Owain pauses - not for effect, not because there's a realization brewing in his head that he's complimenting the man who raised him in servitude - but because it wouldn't feel right to leave this estate, for the first and last time, without saying so.
"If you want to leave - I'll follow you anywhere you want to take me."
"I'm sure he has been," Poe replied, unable to keep the bitterness fully out of his voice. But he caught it while he was saying it an closed his eyes very tightly and let out a breath.
"That's not - Look. I'm going to the Palace. They'll give me rooms there, I'll give my report. If you want to come, you can meet me there. But I'm not going to stay in this city, Owain. I'm going to ship back out as soon as they let me. So don't - don't just say you're coming. Actually think about it. Then whether you change your mind or not, meet me at the palace. Alright?"
He doesn't need to think about it. The fact that Poe wants him to think about it makes him panic, and his face goes pale. There's a tiny, tiny imperceptible shake of his head, but that, at least, he stops. Such a thing would be unbecoming behavior for the pledged.
But again - Poe values honesty.
"I don't want to be away from you." There's not the slightest trace of embarrassment in his voice - just a truth, nine years in the making. "I've been waiting to see you again for half my life. Reliving the same two or three memories I have of you, holding onto them, sleeping with them in my chest. And now I'm-- I'm actually talking to you-- you're here. I don't want to lose that. We're supposed to be... they said you'd always be there. We'd always be together."
He looks at Poe with the loneliness of a kid without a family who grew up being told you're made for someone, you're his and his alone, he's yours, you belong to each other, you're everything to each other and you don't even know it yet. The still uncertain hope of a boy days shy of becoming a man, wanting to know what the fuck it is he's done wrong, to make the person he's made for see him as a burden and a flaw.
He managed to hold Owain's gaze through it. Somehow. Even as his expression twisted into something unreadable and his chest felt squeezed like a vice. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, and he thought he'd fixed this and instead all he'd done was make it worse--
A lump caught in his throat and he finally turned his gaze, angrily glaring at the wall, trying to swallow. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?
He wanted to argue. He did. But he couldn't - he could see the pain and the loneliness and he couldn't do it. He should be better than this, should fight for what he believes in.
But in the end, Poe always fought for the people he loved. That was the cause, beneath it all.
"Okay." The word ground out of his throat and he ducked his head to run a hand through his hair, the fire still there, deep, but being quickly doused. "... Alright. I'm not going to... I'm not going to just leave you, okay, so don't- worry about that. Let's just... let's just go."
Relief washes over Owain, and in an instant, he looks his age. No tension in his shoulders, no worry lines on his face, just - vibrancy, even if only in passing. Poe's going to let him stay. Okay. Okay, then. He can do this.
"Can I--"
He's had nine years of being told he needs to ask Poe for permission, when he needs to do something for himself - not necessarily because that's what Kes believed was right, but because it was how things were done, and if Owain didn't learn, he would have embarrassed himself (or worse) when he and Poe were in the presence of other nobles. He's had nine years of that - but it's clear to him now, more than anything, that Poe would just resent him for sticking to his station.
So he falters, trips over himself, and stops talking so suddenly it's like someone cut out his tongue. His stomach twists in knots, his throat hurts... he has no idea how to just ask Poe for something, too many conflicting lessons fighting in his head. This isn't how today was supposed to go.
"I have--"
He rakes his fingers hard across his arm, that same bicep he's been fidgeting with. Fuck, fuck, he's a bad pledge, he's bad, he can't even talk to his lord, his parents would be fucking furious-- the reaction comes on hard and fast and way too easily, too many nerves all at once that threaten to burn him alive.
A flash of anger through his chest, but again, not aimed at Owain. Aimed at the world that makes him think that he needs to ask Poe's permission for something like this.
"Look- just- 'Poe, I need to get some things from my room'. Okay? That's all you need to say. And yeah. We'll grab whatever you need."
He repeats the words he's been given - replacing Poe with Lord Dameron - but he hesitates before leaving. He's supposed to walk behind Poe, at all times, unless he's acting as a bodyguard and putting himself in harm's way. He again doesn't know how to navigate etiquette here, with a master who flies so violently in the face of everything he ever learned - but they figure it out, one way or another, and end up in Owain's room.
It seems shockingly small, less because it's a tiny room and more because it's shared with four or five other servants. His bed is the most bare, a single with white sheets pushed under the window so he can read with the best lighting, and he takes everything he owns from under the mattress he'd stashed it all. It's all he has to his name - it's obvious, in the fleeting look he takes over the pathetically bare bed and the lightly stained wall - that he's saying goodbye, sentimental, like he never expects to sleep here again.
The ring and the splinter of wood he puts away in his pocket. The sword, he straps to his back. Only then does he look at Poe.
He doesn't argue the name, even though he makes a face. He can argue it later. He stops before they leave, though - his unwillingness to see his father not extending to the servants he grew up with - and he has a few brief conversations as they leave the house. He stops at his father's office, motions for Odin to wait, and strides up to the man's desk. Two minutes later, he and Owain are leaving the house, and there is a letter waiting for Kes.
You had a chance to make this right, was all it said.
The Palace itself isn't a building - it's a complex. An entire wing set aside specifically for the military. So though they go through the main gate, they take a sharp right afterwards - walking for several minutes until they reach the part of the complex that houses the Palace's military barracks. It doesn't take much, to get them seen to. Poe pulls the chain around his neck, flashing the silver medallion of his rank and station, Shara's ring clinking quietly against it. His audience is scheduled - 9 am the following morning - and they are shown to their rooms. There is one main bed, and a cot, and almost as a point of pure rebellion, as soon as they enter, Poe goes straight for the cot and throws his bag onto it, claiming in.
"When did you eat last?" He asks, not even turning around as he moves to undo the clasp of his cape.
Owain had kept his head down, through most of the trip. He'd never really left the walls of the house, other than to sit in the yard and draw or write - he had everything he needed there, with tutors and training and a small, surrogate family. He's actually kind of scared to be away from the tiny portion of the Dameron estate he remembers most clearly as home, because he is, at the end of the day, a pledge. Well-respected and treated with dignity, but a second class citizen with a target on his back. He's terrified he'll do something wrong, this far into the Palace, bump into the wrong person, say something stupid, and--
He thinks of his mom and his dad and he keeps walking.
He looks between the bed and the cot once they're given a place to stay, and he realizes pretty quickly what Poe's done, flushing a little red. He sits on the very, very corner of the bed he's been given and figures he'll sleep on the floor once Poe passes out and try to wake up before he does so he doesn't know - it's better that than risk being seen in the sleeping quarters reserved for nobility.
When Poe asks him a question, a few words run through his head pretty quickly - two square meals a day, dawn and dusk, snacks at noon - a schedule he had to keep when he was on cooking duty. It takes him a moment to realize he doesn't actually remember when he ate last.
"Uh." He scratches the side of his cheek. Looks to the cape, sees the brand, looks to his sleeve-covered bicep, looks away.
"I've been... excited. And nervous. About seeing you. So..."
He drapes the cloak over the back of a chair, then pulls the cloth completely free from his throat and undoes another couple of buttons loose with a sigh.
"Sorry. That can't have been-- I didn't know you'd be there." Gallant, he had not been. That was for sure.
"The mess hall will be closed, but we can probably get into the kitchens. Usually if I smile enough they let me grab a bite." He turns, finally, and looks at Owain - properly looks at him - for the first time. Not as a symbol of this world's manipulations, but as - just a man, sitting on the edge of a bed, looking nervous.
(When described that way, it wasn't even a situation unfamiliar to Poe.)
"Look, before we - anything - I'm not going to answer to Lord Dameron. At all. If we're in public and you want to be respectful, you can call me Captain Dameron, but otherwise you call me Poe. There's only one Lord Dameron, and I am not my father. Yeah?"
"No, I wasn't--" He's holding his hands up, twitchy with panic all over again. "You shouldn't apologize to me. It's not-- people might not-- I don't know how people feel about nobles apologizing to... their, uh."
He trails off. Fuck, fuck, Poe's not going to want to hear that, Owain, you fucking idiot. He starts to stumble over an apology, an acknowledgment that Poe can do whatever he wants to do and Owain's not in any place to restrict his behavior, but-- the sight of him undoing those buttons makes him nervous, and he loses his train of thought, turning his head away.
He watches the wall, for a moment, balling his fists up in his lap before he's ready to look at Poe again.
"Captain Dameron."
He has two things to ask. He swings his legs a little as he tries to decide between them, as if The Captain would only allow one question of him at a time, and he ends up just spluttering both of them out a breath away from each other.
"Why don't you like your dad?" A pause. "Isn't smiling your way into the kitchen super immoral?"
"I don't care what other people think about it. You're a person, with feelings, and I was kind of a dick. So - apology required." Maybe not given in the most graceful way possible, but. There it was.
He was about to comment that Captain Dameron was really only meant for in public and not in private, but then he was given two questions very quickly back to back. He let out a snort, and raised a finger.
"Okay, first, it's not immoral to charm the kitchen staff into letting me eat when I missed a meal. I could make it an order, if I wanted, and send some poor private to fetch it for me, but what's the point in that."
He raised a second finger.
"Secondly, I don't - not like my dad. I love my dad. But he's wrong. About a lot of things. About you. And about me. And I'm not in the mood to try to fight a battle with him I've been waging for a decade, when I know it'll end with him ignoring every damn thing I said, anyway."
Owain doesn't seem happy with Poe's apology, but he doesn't talk back. He shifts a little further off the bed until he's all but hanging off of it, bouncing his leg nervously and looking at the room to the door as if expecting someone to bust it down and imprison the fuck out of him for being an awful, awful Pledge.
"Yeah, but you'll... get. Like. Looked at. Weirdly. Or judged. Or something. If you treat me like that. I don't... I've spent the past nine years trying to think of all the ways I wanna make you happy, dude. I can't just be the reason why you're--"
--wait. He goes beet red, hiding his face behind both of his hands.
He scrubs his hands over his face, flustered. He's not... doing well. At this. His nose is sniffly and running when he puts his hands back down in his lap, leg bouncing even faster now. He wants to ask more about Poe's relationship with his father, but he knows it's not his place, and he's sure Poe doesn't want to share any more details with him. He makes a sympathetic noise somewhere in his throat (that comes out kinda bouncy and vibration-y thanks to the leg thing), but that's it. He scans around for a topic change.
"-- Dam. Dameron. Captain. You don't need to order privates to do stuff for you anymore. That's why I'm here."
Poe's eyebrows raise as Owain stumbles over his own words, watching the man flush.
... Shit.
Shit, he was cute.
Poe carefully slid a hand over his own mouth, masking the smile behind it, and looking away. Alright, not really what he'd been expecting. But he didn't... mind that. It made it easier to think of Owain as a real person rather than the personification of an institution that he hated. He gave himself a few seconds to get his face back in order.
There were a few things he could say, or maybe should, but one was most important.
"Poe. Just-- just Poe." A pause, then a smirk. "Or dude. That one is fine."
He looks for a second like he's considering calling Poe by his name, but then he's smirking and Owain's not equipped to deal with it. He covers his face with his hands again and waits for his heart to calm down so as not to say something stupid. People don't smirk at Pledges. Not like they're friends. He'd expected a lot of things, but not for Poe to treat him like a friend.
He pulls his hands away, staring cautiously at Poe. This is... difficult. Somehow, the not-treating-a-Pledge-like-a-Pledge thing was easier to deal with when Poe was angry.
"I'm not supposed to do that. You shouldn't even see me acting like-- this isn't-- I'm doing a bad job. I should be like my dad. Quiet. You're not my friend, you're-- my owner. Essentially."
He nods, as if affirming it as much to himself as to Poe. They can be friends, in time, but only after their dynamic is firmly established, and never all the way. He already feels like he wants to be total, total friends with this guy. He can't do that.
The smirk, and any trace of good humour, vanished from Poe's face. Instead, annoyance flickered there, twitching in his eyebrow.
"Yeah, no. I'm not owning anyone." He turned his back, unwilling to watch Owain make that argument - unwilling to watch how he believed it. He unclipped the Orange sash and put it beside his cravat, but undoing all the buttons of his coat, his back sill turned.
"If you stay with me, you're going to have to figure out a different way to do that."
Owain panics, again, head down, mood shattered. He shifts a little further off the bed, hesitates, then slumps down off of it entirely to sit on the floor. He curls his knees up to his chest with his back against one of the bed's legs, pointedly not looking at Poe.
"That's not what... what Lord Dameron-- said. He told me-- everyone told me-- just, I was taught to know my place. One of my tutors always said you would be proud of me for that."
He glances up, seeing Poe undress, and he realizes he doesn't have a change of clothes. He untucks his dress shirt from his belt, at least, allowing himself a modicum of comfort, taking a gamble on assuming Poe won't find that exceptionally out of turn. Maybe.
"Whoever that tutor was has definitely never fucking met me." Once unbottoned, he slid the jacket over his shoulders, smoothing it out carefully and putting it on the back of the chair as well. His shirt, underneath it all, was basically the same as Owain's - crisp and white and formal, though he undid the top few buttons at his throat as he turned around.
He stopped as soon as he saw Owain on the floor, and swore to himself under his breath. Great. Fucking great. Good job, Dad.
He stepped over, after a few seconds, before squatting down in front of Owain.
"This- Owain, look at me. This has almost nothing to do with you, alright? Well it-- no that's not true it's also pretty specifically about you-/ but not like that. We should have been-- something else. I don't know. Not this. It's not your fault you happened to get paired with the most stubborn abolishinist on the continent. Maybe this planet. That's not on you, alright? And the fact that you feel like you've failed me because I won't treat you like property--"
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"When you were nine--" That didn't make sense. He shook his head again. "Why would Dad take you in? That's not--" He let out a hard, breath, the anger quickly flooding back in.
"That wasn't the point. You were supposed to get that time with your family, and have an actual childhood and not just get thrust into some ludicrous-- I can't believe he would do this--"
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Poe was never told, then. It makes sense, to a degree. Distracting one of the best knights in the military with news about deaths from home - the deaths of people he barely met - so soon after he was first deported? No. Lon'qu would have been a familiar enough face to Poe, but after Shara's death, Lissa retreated into her own home to raise Owain. Their deaths wouldn't have meant much to him, and the circumstances behind them must have been left in Owain's hands to share. It's his family, after all. His story, for his master.
"They - died. Protecting me. An attack, for being a part of this family. Bitterness, I think, stemming from your mother marrying outside of her station. Revenge, maybe. I don't know who was behind it, but I was the one who was supposed to die. Dad took an arrow to the heart and mom took a sword to the gut and I was the only one still alive."
Nine years old, hiding under the bed, terrified of more footsteps that never came.
"Your father might have taught me how to fight in order to defend myself," he says, flat, a thought he's had a thousand times before, "as well as serve you in the life you've chosen to live."
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He raised a hand to his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, the rage like a tidal wave against his heart. And to think. To think. He'd actually come here, fully expecting to see Lon'qu here, at his Father's side, like he always was--
He pinched his nose harder, as if he could pull himself back into the moment by just a sharp bit of pain. Nine years. Nine years, and his father hadn't even told him. And Owain--
How the fucking hell was he supposed to do right by him, after even just being connected to his family had done so much wrong?
"Fucking cowards," He hissed under his breath. Going for Lissa, for Lon'qu, because they weren't people they were property, and here he was, completely unable to even try to avenge their death. Nine fucking years too late.
His hand did go for his sword hilt, then. But not to draw it. He pressed hard down on the cold metal, the end of the scabbard lifting sharply, dragging the edge of his cape up with it. He was just trying to think. He was trying to think, but he was so angry--
"Where's my Father?"
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Poe, like fire. Angry, over Owain's life. Over his family's deaths, as if they were a personal loss. Owain's heart skips a beat, but he doesn't notice, nor know what it means.
"He-- said we should have some time alone." He looks over his shoulder, back through the door he came through. "I - imagine he's gone. We could try and find him... but if he doesn't want to be found, he won't be found."
He looks at Poe, fingers drumming over his arm. He hesitates, noticeably, before he speaks again.
"Why are you... upset with him?"
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"Because of you. Owain. Because you're not a sword, or a jacket or some other damn heirloom that I'm meant to carry around, and he knows that. He spent. Nine. Fucking. Years. Not telling me what happened, when I thought--"
The finger was gripped back into a fist, then held tight at his side.
"I should have been here. He didn't tell me because he knew I would come back and he knew I'd put an end to this whole fucking--" Hard breath. In and out. In, and out, trying to put all the rage aside for one fucking minute, because there was something more important.
"I'm sorry. About your parents. They were - I loved them very much. And I'm sorry I wasn't here, to save them. When I should have been."
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It's starting to fall into place, brick by brick. Poe... hates this, with every fibre of his being. The thought of someone serving him, the thought of someone waiting on him hand and foot - Owain gets it, now. Poe can't stand it.
His eyebrows pinch and he feels like he's swallowed salt water. He tries, he honestly tries, to see things from Poe's perspective, but he can't. Nine years. Nine years of having it drilled into him that he's following in his parents footsteps, that he'll be able to make them proud, by giving away his identity and his life and his everything. Nine years of hinging what little self-worth he's grown up with on a single dream to be good enough for Poe.
Maybe if Poe had come home sooner, Owain wouldn't be in so deep. It might have been possible to save him, once. As it is, he just freezes in place, struggling to be good.
"If--"
He swallows, and there's too much emotion in his voice for a slave. He gets rid of it.
"If you want to do right by them-- then-- don't send their son away."
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Kes had done this. So that Poe wouldn't be able to say no.
And he had left, rather than face his son.
Poe swallowed, hard, unable to look directly at Owain, glaring at some far point across the room, instead. When he finally spoke, every word was direct, and pointed, and careful.
"I'm not sending you away." He couldn't, now. How could he? He couldn't pretend to care about Owain's autonomy and then refuse to accept a choice that he made.
Even though Poe knew he couldn't make another choice.
"I won't- I won't stop you. From leaving. Or staying. That's your choice, Owain, even if no one else in this damn universe seems to think so. So I won't -" Hard breath, and he finally turned to meet the man's eyes. It was impossible to keep the very real grief out of his own. (A grief not solely for Owain's parents.)
"I'm not going to strip you of that choice, too. But if my Father refuses to face me, then I'm not going to stand here waiting for him to."
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The grief in Poe's eyes makes his heart break, and it might be the only thing that could waver his attention. His eyelids flutter for a second as he looks down, trying to break eye contact, but something in him pulls him back. He watches Poe, repeating his words in his head, trying to find the right thing to say and settling on honesty. That seems to be the kind of master Poe is. One who wants honesty. It's the only reason he's been getting so much of it so far.
"I haven't been stripped of any choices," he says, slowly, just as certain as he is wrong.
He has no possessions to his name, other than the sword his father left him, his mother's ring and a piece of her staff. Even his clothes, the fine ones he's wearing included, are just uniforms. If Poe wanted to leave, it wouldn't take long for him to pack.
"Your father has been a very kind and generous man, to me." Owain pauses - not for effect, not because there's a realization brewing in his head that he's complimenting the man who raised him in servitude - but because it wouldn't feel right to leave this estate, for the first and last time, without saying so.
"If you want to leave - I'll follow you anywhere you want to take me."
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"That's not - Look. I'm going to the Palace. They'll give me rooms there, I'll give my report. If you want to come, you can meet me there. But I'm not going to stay in this city, Owain. I'm going to ship back out as soon as they let me. So don't - don't just say you're coming. Actually think about it. Then whether you change your mind or not, meet me at the palace. Alright?"
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But again - Poe values honesty.
"I don't want to be away from you." There's not the slightest trace of embarrassment in his voice - just a truth, nine years in the making. "I've been waiting to see you again for half my life. Reliving the same two or three memories I have of you, holding onto them, sleeping with them in my chest. And now I'm-- I'm actually talking to you-- you're here. I don't want to lose that. We're supposed to be... they said you'd always be there. We'd always be together."
He looks at Poe with the loneliness of a kid without a family who grew up being told you're made for someone, you're his and his alone, he's yours, you belong to each other, you're everything to each other and you don't even know it yet. The still uncertain hope of a boy days shy of becoming a man, wanting to know what the fuck it is he's done wrong, to make the person he's made for see him as a burden and a flaw.
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A lump caught in his throat and he finally turned his gaze, angrily glaring at the wall, trying to swallow. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?
He wanted to argue. He did. But he couldn't - he could see the pain and the loneliness and he couldn't do it. He should be better than this, should fight for what he believes in.
But in the end, Poe always fought for the people he loved. That was the cause, beneath it all.
"Okay." The word ground out of his throat and he ducked his head to run a hand through his hair, the fire still there, deep, but being quickly doused. "... Alright. I'm not going to... I'm not going to just leave you, okay, so don't- worry about that. Let's just... let's just go."
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"Can I--"
He's had nine years of being told he needs to ask Poe for permission, when he needs to do something for himself - not necessarily because that's what Kes believed was right, but because it was how things were done, and if Owain didn't learn, he would have embarrassed himself (or worse) when he and Poe were in the presence of other nobles. He's had nine years of that - but it's clear to him now, more than anything, that Poe would just resent him for sticking to his station.
So he falters, trips over himself, and stops talking so suddenly it's like someone cut out his tongue. His stomach twists in knots, his throat hurts... he has no idea how to just ask Poe for something, too many conflicting lessons fighting in his head. This isn't how today was supposed to go.
"I have--"
He rakes his fingers hard across his arm, that same bicep he's been fidgeting with. Fuck, fuck, he's a bad pledge, he's bad, he can't even talk to his lord, his parents would be fucking furious-- the reaction comes on hard and fast and way too easily, too many nerves all at once that threaten to burn him alive.
"Things... in my room. Can we--"
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"Look- just- 'Poe, I need to get some things from my room'. Okay? That's all you need to say. And yeah. We'll grab whatever you need."
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It seems shockingly small, less because it's a tiny room and more because it's shared with four or five other servants. His bed is the most bare, a single with white sheets pushed under the window so he can read with the best lighting, and he takes everything he owns from under the mattress he'd stashed it all. It's all he has to his name - it's obvious, in the fleeting look he takes over the pathetically bare bed and the lightly stained wall - that he's saying goodbye, sentimental, like he never expects to sleep here again.
The ring and the splinter of wood he puts away in his pocket. The sword, he straps to his back. Only then does he look at Poe.
"... To the Palace, then."
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You had a chance to make this right, was all it said.
The Palace itself isn't a building - it's a complex. An entire wing set aside specifically for the military. So though they go through the main gate, they take a sharp right afterwards - walking for several minutes until they reach the part of the complex that houses the Palace's military barracks. It doesn't take much, to get them seen to. Poe pulls the chain around his neck, flashing the silver medallion of his rank and station, Shara's ring clinking quietly against it. His audience is scheduled - 9 am the following morning - and they are shown to their rooms. There is one main bed, and a cot, and almost as a point of pure rebellion, as soon as they enter, Poe goes straight for the cot and throws his bag onto it, claiming in.
"When did you eat last?" He asks, not even turning around as he moves to undo the clasp of his cape.
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He thinks of his mom and his dad and he keeps walking.
He looks between the bed and the cot once they're given a place to stay, and he realizes pretty quickly what Poe's done, flushing a little red. He sits on the very, very corner of the bed he's been given and figures he'll sleep on the floor once Poe passes out and try to wake up before he does so he doesn't know - it's better that than risk being seen in the sleeping quarters reserved for nobility.
When Poe asks him a question, a few words run through his head pretty quickly - two square meals a day, dawn and dusk, snacks at noon - a schedule he had to keep when he was on cooking duty. It takes him a moment to realize he doesn't actually remember when he ate last.
"Uh." He scratches the side of his cheek. Looks to the cape, sees the brand, looks to his sleeve-covered bicep, looks away.
"I've been... excited. And nervous. About seeing you. So..."
So, he hasn't eaten.
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"Sorry. That can't have been-- I didn't know you'd be there." Gallant, he had not been. That was for sure.
"The mess hall will be closed, but we can probably get into the kitchens. Usually if I smile enough they let me grab a bite." He turns, finally, and looks at Owain - properly looks at him - for the first time. Not as a symbol of this world's manipulations, but as - just a man, sitting on the edge of a bed, looking nervous.
(When described that way, it wasn't even a situation unfamiliar to Poe.)
"Look, before we - anything - I'm not going to answer to Lord Dameron. At all. If we're in public and you want to be respectful, you can call me Captain Dameron, but otherwise you call me Poe. There's only one Lord Dameron, and I am not my father. Yeah?"
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He trails off. Fuck, fuck, Poe's not going to want to hear that, Owain, you fucking idiot. He starts to stumble over an apology, an acknowledgment that Poe can do whatever he wants to do and Owain's not in any place to restrict his behavior, but-- the sight of him undoing those buttons makes him nervous, and he loses his train of thought, turning his head away.
He watches the wall, for a moment, balling his fists up in his lap before he's ready to look at Poe again.
"Captain Dameron."
He has two things to ask. He swings his legs a little as he tries to decide between them, as if The Captain would only allow one question of him at a time, and he ends up just spluttering both of them out a breath away from each other.
"Why don't you like your dad?" A pause. "Isn't smiling your way into the kitchen super immoral?"
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He was about to comment that Captain Dameron was really only meant for in public and not in private, but then he was given two questions very quickly back to back. He let out a snort, and raised a finger.
"Okay, first, it's not immoral to charm the kitchen staff into letting me eat when I missed a meal. I could make it an order, if I wanted, and send some poor private to fetch it for me, but what's the point in that."
He raised a second finger.
"Secondly, I don't - not like my dad. I love my dad. But he's wrong. About a lot of things. About you. And about me. And I'm not in the mood to try to fight a battle with him I've been waging for a decade, when I know it'll end with him ignoring every damn thing I said, anyway."
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"Yeah, but you'll... get. Like. Looked at. Weirdly. Or judged. Or something. If you treat me like that. I don't... I've spent the past nine years trying to think of all the ways I wanna make you happy, dude. I can't just be the reason why you're--"
--wait. He goes beet red, hiding his face behind both of his hands.
"-- Captain. Captain. Not dude. Sorry. Captain. Captain Dudema-- am-- Dame--"
He scrubs his hands over his face, flustered. He's not... doing well. At this. His nose is sniffly and running when he puts his hands back down in his lap, leg bouncing even faster now. He wants to ask more about Poe's relationship with his father, but he knows it's not his place, and he's sure Poe doesn't want to share any more details with him. He makes a sympathetic noise somewhere in his throat (that comes out kinda bouncy and vibration-y thanks to the leg thing), but that's it. He scans around for a topic change.
"-- Dam. Dameron. Captain. You don't need to order privates to do stuff for you anymore. That's why I'm here."
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... Shit.
Shit, he was cute.
Poe carefully slid a hand over his own mouth, masking the smile behind it, and looking away. Alright, not really what he'd been expecting. But he didn't... mind that. It made it easier to think of Owain as a real person rather than the personification of an institution that he hated. He gave himself a few seconds to get his face back in order.
There were a few things he could say, or maybe should, but one was most important.
"Poe. Just-- just Poe." A pause, then a smirk. "Or dude. That one is fine."
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He looks for a second like he's considering calling Poe by his name, but then he's smirking and Owain's not equipped to deal with it. He covers his face with his hands again and waits for his heart to calm down so as not to say something stupid. People don't smirk at Pledges. Not like they're friends. He'd expected a lot of things, but not for Poe to treat him like a friend.
He pulls his hands away, staring cautiously at Poe. This is... difficult. Somehow, the not-treating-a-Pledge-like-a-Pledge thing was easier to deal with when Poe was angry.
"I'm not supposed to do that. You shouldn't even see me acting like-- this isn't-- I'm doing a bad job. I should be like my dad. Quiet. You're not my friend, you're-- my owner. Essentially."
He nods, as if affirming it as much to himself as to Poe. They can be friends, in time, but only after their dynamic is firmly established, and never all the way. He already feels like he wants to be total, total friends with this guy. He can't do that.
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"Yeah, no. I'm not owning anyone." He turned his back, unwilling to watch Owain make that argument - unwilling to watch how he believed it. He unclipped the Orange sash and put it beside his cravat, but undoing all the buttons of his coat, his back sill turned.
"If you stay with me, you're going to have to figure out a different way to do that."
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Owain panics, again, head down, mood shattered. He shifts a little further off the bed, hesitates, then slumps down off of it entirely to sit on the floor. He curls his knees up to his chest with his back against one of the bed's legs, pointedly not looking at Poe.
"That's not what... what Lord Dameron-- said. He told me-- everyone told me-- just, I was taught to know my place. One of my tutors always said you would be proud of me for that."
He glances up, seeing Poe undress, and he realizes he doesn't have a change of clothes. He untucks his dress shirt from his belt, at least, allowing himself a modicum of comfort, taking a gamble on assuming Poe won't find that exceptionally out of turn. Maybe.
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He stopped as soon as he saw Owain on the floor, and swore to himself under his breath. Great. Fucking great. Good job, Dad.
He stepped over, after a few seconds, before squatting down in front of Owain.
"This- Owain, look at me. This has almost nothing to do with you, alright? Well it-- no that's not true it's also pretty specifically about you-/ but not like that. We should have been-- something else. I don't know. Not this. It's not your fault you happened to get paired with the most stubborn abolishinist on the continent. Maybe this planet. That's not on you, alright? And the fact that you feel like you've failed me because I won't treat you like property--"
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