#time for that sweet dopamine-embarrassment cocktail

[everything-on-red]

[stardustkenobi]

And Days to Go Before I Sleep

Poe Dameron x Reader

Warnings: Piercing needle, mentions of alcohol, I swear a lot 

A/N: Here is a lil Poe thing based on one of my convos with @woakiees​ about her and Poe’s many adventures so we dedicate this one to her I wuv u Haaads

“Fuck, no, don’t you fucking dare.”

The words passed Poe’s lips in a rushed laugh, laced with nerves and the haze of alcohol.

You snort, shaking your head as you take his chin in one hand and press the ice cube to his ear. “Poe Dameron.” You said sternly, cheeks flushed from the most delectable cocktail, equal parts adrenaline, dopamine from stolen kisses in the back of the cab on the ride home, and whiskey. “You have been talking about this since, like, dinner.” Your retort was lamer than you expected and the blush on your cheeks only intensified as you poured a hearty serving of embarrassment into the mixed drink swirling in your head.

Poe was your coworker of approximately two and a half years. You’d spent the better part of a year telling yourself to get your head out of your ass and stop ogling him during staff meetings because there was no way he could have been harboring the same feelings that you had for him. This wasn’t some cheesy NBC docuseries comedy shit. You weren’t Jenna Fischer or Amy Poehler and Poe Dameron certainly wasn’t John Krasinski or Adam Scott.

When you first laid eyes on him, you all but forgot stupid celebrity crushes and fantasies meant to distract you from the loneliness that crept in during the hours of insomnia on the weekends. You were almost positive that the man that sat three cubicles away from yours would put all of them to shame.

“I know but, like,” Poe whined, trying to push your hand away from his ear by raising his shoulder to meet the side of his head. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to make important, permanent decisions while you’re intoxicated?”

Ten months after his being hired, you were met with a new companion in the break room whose tongue was adept at giving you chills just by speaking about the most mundane things and, suddenly, you let yourself play into the new fantasies that you had worked so hard to suppress for months on end.

You chuckled, shaking your head. “It’s literally not permanent, you idiot.” You teased, pushing his shoulder down and pressing the ice cube to his ear lobe with a little more force so you wouldn’t be shrugged away again. “You can always just take it out in the morning.”

Over the course of another three months filled with friendly banter that turned to flirting that turned to getting caught under the mistletoe at another coworker’s Christmas party, something you both tip toed around for the better part of another two months before that same coworker forced you into a conference room to “work things out”.

You hadn’t looked back then — spending fifteen months of the thirty you had known each other avoiding the obvious chemistry between you was, in your opinion, one too many months of your life you didn’t spend kissing the beautiful man sitting in front of you.

He whimpered at the cold on his skin, the sudden contact making him wince. “But what if it doesn’t look good?”

One eyebrow rose, followed by the other. “Are you seriously doubting my skills as an amateur piercing artist, Dameron?”

Poe merely bit his lip, the ghost of a playful smile creeping onto his face. “Is that what it sounds like to you, sweet girl?”

You scoffed, shaking your head as you began to count to sixty in your head, giving his earlobe one more minute to get numb. “I think that’s exactly what it sounds like and all I have to say is you better be nice to me.”

He laughed, wincing a bit at a drop of water that rolled down his neck from the ice cube that was melting between your finger tips. “Have you ever done this before?” He asked, a twinge of authentic apprehensiveness leaking through a tough guy guise fueled by his own cocktail of hormones and booze.

“A few times. Used to do stick and pokes too.” You mumble, fixating on a particular curl that rested over the shell of his ear. His hair was starting to become unruly again and you made a mental note to write an actual note to remind him to call his barber. “You know my older sister owns a tattoo parlor?”

“You never told me that. Rachel, right?”

“No, Hannah.”

“I thought Hannah was a psychologist.” His nose scrunched and he kicked himself for mixing up your elder sisters for what seemed to be the hundredth time since he had met them just a month ago at Rachel’s baby shower.

“Other way around, baby,” You smiled reassuringly, patting his knee with your free hand. “It’s all good.”

Poe relaxed a little bit at your touch, not realizing how tensed up he actually had been — this didn’t go unnoticed under your watchful eyes.

“You know you don’t really have to do this.” You mumbled against his skin after pressing a gentle kiss to his temple. “I’m not going to tease you or shit.”

He smiled, letting his eyes close as he shook his head as best as he could given the current situation he found himself in. “Well where’s the fun in that if I don’t end the night with another scar to mark the occasion?”

Your eyebrows furrowed as you moved the ice cub to the back of his ear, deciding on just another minute to be safe. “What occasion?”

“950 days since we met.” He shrugged, as if it should have been a given.

“You’ve been counting?” You asked, sucking in a breath as you tried to stave back the tears that were now threatening to fall down your cheeks.

Again, Poe nodded as best as he could. “Is that weird? I’ve been keeping track so when we get to 1,000 we can crack open a bottle of champagne or some sh—“

The ice cube fell to the floor, forgotten as you kissed Poe as hard as you could without hurting him, trying to convey all of the love and tenderness you could muster for him into the movement. It still wasn’t enough to properly convey how much he meant to you. “I love you.” You whispered against his lips.

“I love you.” He mumbled back, his hands coming up to rest on your waist, a firm presence that always anchored you no matter what the situation was.

Pulling back after a few long moments, you studied his face with the softest of expressions. “We could always just nix the piercing and go to bed.”

The smile that crept up onto his lips was goofy, but his eyes betrayed the fact that he was already calculating how you two would spend the rest of your night. “Piercing first, then we’ll talk.”

Your eyes rolled up to the ceiling as your own lips turned up into a smile to match his own before grabbing the needle and cork you had sterilized beforehand. Poe’s hand came up to grip your shoulder as you placed the cork behind his ear.

“Will you count to three please?”

“That’s not gonna make it any better.”

“I know but if I know it’s — fuck!” His sentence was cut off by you quickly piercing through the little black dot you had drawn as soon as you got home between stolen kisses and rapport characteristic of your relationship as you both stumbled to the kitchen.

You smiled, batting your eyelashes as you pulled back, leaving the needle for a few minutes before swapping it out for one of your studs. “Would you look at that, Dameron.” You whistled afterwards, shaking your head. “You look pretty enough to be in Pirates of the Caribbean 12.”

Poe grumbled, a little more relaxed after you had finished up cleaning his ear and secured the earring. “It’s coming out in the morning.”

You snorted, leaning up and kissing all over his face. “That gives me, like, twelve hours to enjoy it.”

“What are you gonna make me do, talk like a fuckin’ pirate?”

You laughed even harder, leaning back and closing your eyes for a second before looking up at him with a wicked grin. “I was thinking a photoshoot, but if that’s where your mind is, I —“

Your sentence was cut off by Poe scooping you up in his arms and kissing you hard before walking the two of you to the bedroom, already counting the hours until he could take the earring out.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

Apollo

————

I didn’t know you well, but you sat on the couch in my living room.

Behind a thicket of dreadlocks, you placidly told me about visiting Costa Rica in a Rastafarian-adjacent drawl. I made my usual comment that pedestrians don’t have the right-of-way there.

If you’re hit, it’s your fault.

You were out of it, of course. Stoned for sure, but probably swimming in a cocktail of substance. Endlessly trying to find the elusive light at the bottom, like all of us. I can still sense your gentle spirit—docile and scarred like a retired greyhound.

John sat next to you and wanted to kiss you so badly. It was a contained force that hissed throughout the room like a smoke bomb, and we all gagged. I could have kissed you too, sweet man, but sometimes love works best when it’s hidden.

————

On Sunday night you took the hit, so by Monday your body was cold. Chest compressions are a false hope borne of panic. He had just left to go buy your cigarettes, only to return to this frantic task.

I wonder who eventually smoked them.

I wonder what John thought when he saw the burnt foil, your vacant face, the same one that would calmly call the dog, wrinkle in laughter or confusion. The face that nuzzled against him in reluctant platonic cuddling.

You must have been exhausted from happiness because your smile-lines were so deep—almost like the crevices of pain you tried to fill with your faulty spiritual Botox, Fentanyl.

I didn’t know you well, but I know that pain.

————

“Seee-dooo-naaaa”

You named your dog after a city of wealth and wellness. She was all the enlightenment you needed, except for that pestilent need to escape.

They said you wouldn’t let a woman touch you for fourteen years. They cut you open on that sterile table and you were still embarrassed from it. I know John touched you, though. He gave you more love than you could have gleaned from any manic pixie dream girl. I think you kept each other alive.

Symbiosis expresses itself in the most unlikely ways. It wasn’t enough for you to survive, but I could see the comfort in your eyes. You fed off the love of others yet it could never completely fill that restless gargantuan soul.

I think that’s why you fell in love with emptiness. I wish I could tell you that life is just emptiness in motion, though you must know that by now.

It is just a shadow.

————

I didn’t know you well, but we danced together in the desert dust.

Saturday, the last time I saw you. Our limbs were flailing wildly under the half-baked moon that fucked with the sky-view; they only stopped moving for long embraces and chainsmoking.

Usually you could see every star out here, you said, but it was still magical. At least we could watch out for rattlesnakes. Stars weren’t the only thing that moonlight hid. It shone so bright that you were blissfully unaware of the darkness to come.

The darkness underneath, beyond the very bottom.

Beyond the smile, the dog, the shrooms, the dreads, the cigarettes and weed and armchair psychology. Beyond the dealer who knew it could kill you, but that just meant it was good shit, bro. Beyond the needle’s sting and the burn of the spoon and reeling guts and pangs of pleasure. Beyond the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and adrenaline.

Beyond chemicals and compounds.

————

I didn’t know you well, but I know that darkness.

I didn’t know you well, but I know that emptiness.

I didn’t know you well, but I have known light.

I believe you knew it too. I believe in accidents.

————

I didn’t know you well, but we’re not in Costa Rica and I know it wasn’t your fault.