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[volitaunt]

"Hey, try again later."

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clearly

[paged]

[ There is the heaviest fucking sigh. But fuck it, she asks it anyway. ]

Are you alright? Aside from physically.

[volitaunt]

[ AN EVEN LONGER SILENCE!! ]

no.

[paged]

[ She expected as much. ]

Do you want me to back off?

[ She knows on her worst nights, she just wants to be left alone because she knows she won't be good company to anyone around her. ]

[volitaunt]

i don't know.

[ Poe isn't used to wanting to be alone. He thrives on interaction, takes his joy from being around others.

He almost doesn't know how to be by himself. ]

i have no idea.

[paged]

[ Karen sometimes feels the same way. She hates feeling lonely, isolated. ]

I'm here if you need me, Poe.

My door is open. Or I can come to you. You just need to let me know, okay?

[volitaunt]

i'll come to you.

[ He wants to see her. He's not sure what he'll say when he does, but so far he's seen the other people that mean the most to him here.

He also wants an excuse to leave the little room he often shares with Finn and Rey. It feels claustrophobic. He knows why. Half the time he sees the walls of the interrogation room instead of the residential building. The other half of the time he's waiting for that slip of memory to take him back into a nightmare. ]

[paged]

Be careful.

[ But she means it: her door is open to him if he needs her. She's lost enough friends by now. She doesn't want to push more away. ]

[volitaunt]

[ It takes him, oh, an hour or so to finally go to her room. An hour or so of looking at her messages. An hour or so of fluttering between half-formed thoughts and memories of the park, the Finalizer, Leia.

He leans against her door for a second before knocking on it, keeping his voice light. ] I thought you said it'd be open.

[ Even traumatized, Poe is a shit. ]

[paged]

[ She opens it for him, shaking her head. ]

You know what I meant.

[ And, as soon as she was able to, she gingerly wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a hug (easy to do with the height difference). ]

[volitaunt]

[ Poe flinches, tenses, and then forces himself to relax. It's not that he's surprised by the hug. It's that he's so far into the pit of the Finalizer that he's expecting something else.

He rests his face against her shoulder. ]

Hi.

[paged]

[ She rests her chin on his shoulder in turn, eyes closed, ]

I'm glad you're okay.

[ Even if he's not all "okay", he's still standing, he's still here. That counts for something. ]

[volitaunt]

[ For a few seconds he doesn't say anything, just holds her and lets himself be held. It's a silent affirmation: yes, he's here, he's alive, no matter what else is happening. ]

Me too.

[paged]

[ She continues to hold him for a few moments, vaguely realizing she can feel his heartbeat against her own chest. Just further confirmation. ]

Are you hungry? Tired? I'll lend you my bed for a few hours if you need it.

[volitaunt]

[ He chuckles. Honestly, he could use food and sleep--he hasn't gotten enough of either, not being able to stomach one and not being able to relax into the other. ]

I look that bad?

[paged]

[ She smiles a little at that, glad to hear him laugh. ]

A little bit, yeah.

[volitaunt]

[ He exhales, trying to sort out his thoughts. ]

...I don't know.

[ So much for sorting out his thoughts. ]

[paged]

[ She finally pulls away but takes him by the hand to tug him inside all the way. ]

That's fine. I got time for you to decide.

[ Adding, ]

Well, as long as you don't mind me working.

[ She's got new files to read for this story but fox packs creating their own network in the Quarantine. ]

[volitaunt]

[ He should know. He shouldn't be content to let her lead him into her room, he shouldn't be okay with confusion. He wants his head to work properly again. He wants his X-wing, he wants a target, he wants anything but this moon and its endless rounds of safe routines that don't feel natural in the least.

He doesn't know how to live without the possibility of dying. He doesn't know what to do with himself when his friends are the ones taking the lead.

But he doesn't say anything, either, as she draws him in to her space. Because it's still true: when it comes to what he needs right now, he has no idea. ]

[paged]

[ She closes the door behind them (locking it out of habit) and pulls him over to the bed, letting go of his hand to gesture how he can lay down if he wants.

She steps away, not really knowing what to do with her hands and it shows as her fingers thread and lock together. ]

I was going to make an egg sandwich. Do you want one?

[ The protein certainly couldn't hurt, right? ]

[volitaunt]

Sure. Sounds good.

[ There's no emotional force behind the words. They're just words, said because they're the proper response. It's like Jim asking to come in and Poe saying Yeah, sure. Desire doesn't really factor into it: it's preprogrammed social expectation. ]

[paged]

[ She knows that kind of response. She's seen and heard it from Matt more than a few times. Her mouth presses into a thin line as she tries not to say anything to push. She gestures to the small television, instead. ]

You can turn that on if you want. It's not bad for background noise.

[ Moving into the kitchenette to start getting the eggs and bread ready, ]

Not sure I get the shows but at least it's not re-runs of Cheers or something.

[volitaunt]

[ A flicker of presence behind his eyes. Curiosity. ] Cheers?

[ He switches the television on, rolling through the channels twice before he realizes he's done it, and then just... leaving it on something with cats. That seems safe.

He watches it for a few seconds before drifting back to her bed. Instead of laying down in it, he sits on the floor, back against one of the legs. ]

[paged]

Yeah, um. It's a show where I'm from. What we call a "sitcom", short for "situational comedy".

[ She's more focused on what she's doing with the food but talking about this seems good for her, too. Better to talk about something like this than try to press something that they already argued about before.

(And the absence of Matt and Frank has her feeling a little cagey with people she knows in general.) ]

Which is a fancy way of saying 'a comedy where things happen to people' and Cheers was a show that took place in a bar and was about this group of friends that always hung out at this bar, one of them being the owner. It was... actually pretty funny for a while. Was on tv for years and years.

Did they have anything like that in your universe?

[volitaunt]

[ He only half-hears what she's saying. It's a little like with Finn, in the hospital--the sound of a familiar voice grounding him more than anything else. Poe closes his eyes, letting her voice wash through him, fill every dark place with something that's only ever been a part of his light.

It takes a few second of silence for him to realize she asked him a question. ] Mmm? Oh. Yeah, yeah we did, we do, on the Holonet, we have... [ A tiny gesture. ] All of that. Sitcoms, dramas, news. Even those television trial shows, like the one here in the morning sometimes--Judge Judy. Never understood the appeal of those.

[ His back twinges, a phantom pain. Poe shifts to try and get more comfortable.

Hesitation, then: ] Can you... Do you mind just talking? It doesn't have to be about anything important. It doesn't have to be about anything.

[paged]

[ She's about to ask him what kind of dramas and sitcoms but then he's asking her to keep talking and while she pauses long enough to look at him, seeing something there that she's seen a few times when looking in the mirror, she just nods and looks back to the stove top. ]

Sure.

[ A beat before she tries to pick up where he left off. ]

The appeal for those courtroom shows, usually, is just watching to see people get in trouble or squabble before a judge and then see the judge snap at them or smack them down if they get uppity. I watched a few one day when I was bored. Ended up turning it to another channel and found a show called Unsolved Mysteries which ended up creeping me out more than anything else. And yet, it was super addicting to watch; wanting to find out what they would cover next, you know?

Though... this whole thing puts those episodes about alien abduction into a whole new light...

[ TO SAY THE LEAST. ]