maskormenacelogs | Winter Gala

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Winter Gala

WHO: Everyone
WHERE: Jeopardy
WHEN: Saturday, December 21 from 5:00 p.m. onward into the early morning hours of Sunday, December 22.
WHAT: The Winter Gala Fundraiser for Jeopardy Relief Efforts
WARNINGS: Please include any necessary warnings in your TLs.
NOTES: This post will serve as a catch-all for logs for the entire event (though you’re also welcome to post things elsewhere, of course).

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Well, mostly. In the wake of a near-apocalyptic event, the city of Jeopardy is in need. What started out as an idea to advertise Rikki Chadwick's burgeoning business, after a little more planning and nabbing some ideas from Kenzi's post, she and Rupert have reconfigured and rebranded their idea to focus less on her and more on the relief effort.

Characters will enter the venue after giving a small donation at the door and they will be greeted by a large room lit in blues, soft pinks, and purples. From the ceilings hang snowflakes made of glass. The centerpieces are also made of glass. Come to think of it, nearly all the decorations are made of glass. Except, that is, the mistletoe hanging from several of the rafters and archways. A buffet-style dinner will be served from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., at which point, the buffet tables and seating tables will be cleared away to make room for the makeshift stage for the DJ and a gigantic dance floor.

Drinks will be flowing, music will be playing, and people will be bidding on silent auctions to win everything from one of the centerpieces to a date with their favorite imPort and everything in between. So, eat, drink, and be merry until you can't stay awake any longer. Why not? It's all for a good cause, after all.

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Her eyebrows raise ever so slightly towards her hairline, like she hadn't expected him to answer her so readily — not like that, too honest for it to be a joke. It introduces a little uncertainty, an undercurrent of wariness that shows in the slightly narrowed shape of her eyes. But she doesn't step out from under the mistletoe. And she doesn't pull away when he tilts her face up towards him either.

If she'd wanted to, she probably could have gut-punched him and left. But she just watches him, meeting his gaze in a way that's somehow half a question and half a challenge.

Finally, unreadably: "Guess you'll know in a second."

"Uh huh," he agrees eloquently, and then without another second of hesitation, he leans in to press his lips to hers.

There were a few ways he could have gone about this, he knows. Kiss her cheek, laugh it off, take the punch. Kiss the edge of her mouth, smirk, take the punch. Pull back at the last second, laugh, take a knee to the balls. He doesn't do any of them. Instead he takes a kiss that is far too soft, and far too quiet, and he doesn't pull away.

The truth is, she doesn't know what she means to do. She doesn't know what he's going to do. He could just be teasing her, playing a game of mistletoe chicken — that's what her head says, anyway. Her body seems to instinctively know what he intends, because she leans ever so slightly towards him without even realizing it, her head tilting just enough to the side that their mouths fit right.

It's not a perfunctory mistletoe kiss.

It's much too tender for that.

He doesn't withdraw and laugh or joke. There's just that very, very soft kiss. And it does something to her, knotting her insides up and making her lungs a little too tight. Her eyebrows pinch. She doesn't know if she should kiss him or kill him. Both, maybe — hard to say by the way she abruptly catches two fistfuls of his lapels, fingers twisting tight as she kisses him back.

For a half a second, he's convinced she's going to shove him off, and he braces himself for it.

But then she doesn't. She's just got his suit in her hands like a death grip, and she's kissing him back. He should end it, probably. He had meant it to be nice but he hadn't quite meant to let himself go right off the deep end, with this one.

But, well.

He's got one shot.

Force knows he owes it to her.

She can kill him after.

He threads an arm around her waist as his lips part, teasing at hers until he can deepen the kiss.

It isn't even her first time kissing Poe Dameron. She's done it before. Multiple times before. At least twice in the waking world, even. Those were moments of keen emotion. A sharp shard of feeling between her ribs, her heart throbbing painfully. The first time, they'd acted like it never happened — just grateful to be reunited, too relieved to fight about it. Then, there'd been that day in the kitchen, when a line was drawn in the sand.

After the bruises on her ego had healed, she'd pretended not to think about it anymore. And the turbulence between her and Poe had eventually settled back into some semblance of routine. Maybe the world ending had just been more important than whatever confused, tangled shit was going on with them. And besides, she'd had Rex and Martin at home. It had been hard to stay bitter about most anything, wrapped up in their love.

But then, here, in this moment — Poe puts his arm around her waist and kisses her deeper, and there's that sharp, poignant feeling in her chest again. Her lungs have started to burn for air, but it's not just that. She should stop kissing him. Figure it out. Get pissed and berate him because he was the one that drew the fucking line —

Getting pissed still isn't off the table.

It's his lungs, more than his brain or his heart, that finally get him to pull back a little. He sucks a breath in, his lips twitching into something warm and fond, crinkling at his eyes. He looks happy. It's not an expression that has graced his face super often, in the last while, not with the end of the world and one disaster after a next. But in that moment, there really isn't anything wrong with the world.

Unless, of course:

"Well? Punch? No punch?"

She really should punch him. Not even necessarily because she thinks he deserves it — but because that would make this into something else. It would keep it from being so intimate and tender. They could play it off — maybe have a little spat over it, or hell, at least make a joke out of it. But she sees that look on his face and she just...

She doesn't look happy. But something softens in her expression, just a little.

"Are you trying to instigate police brutality?" she answers finally, glancing away. "Last thing I need is my own husband writing me up."

She turns away and his face falls, something like guilt worming its way into his chest. At the mention of husband that guilt turns from a tiny thread to a thorny tangle, and he steps back.

"Well, can't have that," he says, playing it as close to a joke as he can, but his smile isn't nearly as easy as it was a moment ago.

He's an idiot.

"Though who knows, maybe he'd just want to punch me too."

It's obvious, when his face falls. He can't hide it from her — she knows him too well by now, even if he didn't have such an honest face to begin with. That warm smile ebbs, and she misses it the moment it starts to fade. Fuck.

"I doubt that." A twinge of habitual wryness. Still falls short of their usual banter. "Hasn't punched anybody else yet."

She pauses. Then, after a moment, she reaches for him, just lightly brushing her fingertips along the line of his jaw, coaxing him to meet her eyes as she tries to meet his. Just for a second — just long enough for him to understand her intent as she leans in again, pressing her mouth to his in a firm, but fleeting reprise.

Her hand lingers even after she's pulled back. Her voice is a low murmur when she goes on.

"Should send you back to your date before you're missed."

He let his eyes meet hers, his heart skipping a beat, though he didn’t bridge the gap. He knows it’s coming, and it certainly instils a feeling of relief, but it is over almost as quickly as it started. His lips trail after hers for half a second, before he remembers himself and pulls back when she does.

There’s a hint of colour to his cheeks and his expression has softened again, though he looks faintly embarrassed.

“Pretty sure he’s around somewhere taking notes,” he said a little wryly. “But sure.”

He knew when he was being dismissed for his own good.

What he says makes her hesitate, her eyebrows lifting ever so slightly in an unspoken question — but it's never really been her way to ask, is it? And if she stalls now, they'll stay there, standing underneath the mistletoe together, and neither of them can really be trusted with that, can they? So she lets it go. Says something she isn't even fully aware of — I'll catch you later, probably, or Don't get in too much trouble — then she turns away with the excuse of getting back to her job.

The reality: She takes a long smoke break first, getting her head back before returning to her duties. It's fortunate that nobody seems particularly inclined to be rowdy tonight. Andy has been known to handle disturbances with a certain roughness when she's in a mood, and like she said — the last thing she needs right now is to be written up. Makes it a Christmas miracle that she gets to the end of the night without being accused of police brutality.

It's only as the gala starts to wind down that she finally decides to go find Poe. They can't just... Leave it like that, can they? Because they're too close, too tangled up in each other's lives to let such a thing fester — and what's the worse that'll happen, really? They'll fight? Have it out? Like they haven't done that a hundred times already.

She's unceremonious about it too, coming up to him when he's alone and turning him toward her by the shoulder.

"Hey." Her lips purse slightly. "Do we need to talk?"

Between Andy and Finn it has turned into a long night. He isn’t really sure what he was thinking in the first place, believing he could kiss either of them without his feelings leaking out everywhere. He could have done the smart thing and given them both a warm peck just like he had been giving everyone else, and that would have been that. But no. He’d had to go and kiss them the way he actually wanted to. Because he was stupid.

He thought, maybe, that Andy just wouldn’t mention it again. That the reminder of their places - with other people - would be enough. That he’d been firmly chastised. Now they could just go back to pretending nothing had happened and that they didn’t constantly sit on their own desire for each other. That was fine by him. It was easier to pretend.

But he still wasn’t that surprised when a hand caught his shoulder and he turned to find Andy. He couldn’t quite help the sheepish expression that crossed his face.

“Pretty sure that’s more up to you than me,” he said, deflecting the question a little.

She's still not sure that mentioning it again really is the best idea, to be frank. Maybe it just seems like the lesser of two evils. They've managed to pretend like a lot of things that happened between them didn't actually happen — but it feels like there's an invisible threshold to all of it, another line they're getting too close to. And maybe... Maybe things have changed enough at home that she feels the need to know where she stands in all this. To keep it all safe. Hers and his.

"Don't do that," she sighs a little, one hand coming to rest on her hip as she glances off. Pot and kettle there — isn't Andy always deflecting these kinds of questions? "I'm trying to be a responsible adult here."

There's a twinge of wryness in it, habitual more than anything and half meant to conceal how sincere that sentiment really is.

He sighed, running a hand through his dark curls, and looking off toward the party.

"I'm just saying," he said a little heavily, not quite able to match her wryness. "If I stepped out of line far enough for you to need to tell me to back off, I get it. And I'm pretty sure that's your call."

He glanced back at her. "I'm not trying to fuck anything up, if that's what you're asking."

Her face does that thing it does — where it pinches with visible displeasure. A hint of frustration. It's a far cry from some of the blow out fights they've had — the yelling, the low-blows, the accusations — but still. A diplomat she is not, and it's a conscious effort to try and just... Talk. Honestly. About something that they probably haven't talked out as much as they should have.

"Is this really on me? I'm the one that suddenly has to making the fucking calls around here?" She exhales, her body language shifting as she loosely folds her arms over her chest. Her voice gets a little bit flat. "I don't have to bring up last time, do I. You're not going to make me throw your own words at you."

She'd been angry about it, back then. Or maybe not angry so much as hurt. It had been a vulnerable time. And he hadn't been wrong — not at all — but there wasn't much logic to the feeling.

“That’s not what I mean. But this— This isn’t like last time,” he says, his voice dropping quieter. “I wasn’t just—“ he cut off, sighing, not knowing how to put anything in a way where she wasn’t going to want to punch him.

“The mistletoe—“ Nope, bad track, try again.

“I’m not sneaking around,” he says finally, frowning deeply. Still not what he meant to say, but, oh well, it’s how it came out. “I explained the whole tradition to him, he knows what I- what I’m doing, what I was planning on doing, and it was okay. I thought- “ He wet his lips and then flared at the ground a little miserably.

“It’s hardly a fucking secret, right? How I feel about you. So why not take the opportunity to actually be able to show it, when I’m allowed to. I’m not trying to change anything or fuck up anything I just - I thought it would be nice.”

He’s an idiot, basically.

She lets him finish talking. Lets him finish digging that hole without saying a word to interrupt him. Her expression barely changes at all the whole time, except for the almost imperceptible narrowing of her eyes. There are a lot of ways she could react to this — a lot of things she could use to pick a fight. Things she could dig her teeth into. Like the implication behind the term sneaking around — how it skirts too close infidelity, intentional or otherwise. Is that what he thought of all those other times? That in those moments, they'd been sneaking around? That day when she'd been so relieved the Porter brought him back to her. Or the night she'd told him her name.

Maybe it wasn't right, and maybe it was her fault, but it wasn't as if she'd meant —

She could soften this. Looking at his face, hearing him falter with his words, she knew he was struggling. Worried, maybe. He didn't want to hurt her. He never did. And she, in turn, could have at least tried to sweep it under the rug. Make it into a smaller thing than it felt like. Or maybe, if she was feeling generous, she could reassure him. Remind him that he was always showing her that he loved her — in little ways. Every time he came over to the house with his arms full of groceries, she knew it was a gesture of love.

But frustration swells in her chest. What is it about this that pisses her off, exactly? That this was just some... No-strings-attached, one-off, guilt-free hall pass for him? That he'd cared more about what 622 would think of him kissing her than what she would think of him kissing her? Or is it the idea that the boundary drawn between them suddenly didn't matter because it was a fucking holiday?

"Oh, good. Well, as long as you explained," she finally answers, her wryness devoid of the usual warmth of her humor. "Guess if there's one day a year you're allowed to do whatever the fuck you want, then Merry fucking Christmas to you, Dameron."

He wilts, visibly, his eyes sinking to the ground.

Yeah. Yeah, he deserved that.

"That's not..." He tries to start, but he falters. Isn't it what he meant, if he boiled it down to it? One day to be selfish as hell and hurt everyone he cared about just because he was tired of keeping it all inside anymore?

He let out a long breath, his eyes glancing to the side, unable to meet hers. It would have hurt less if she just punched him.

"... Yeah. I'm an asshole," he says instead, murmured low under his breath.

He isn't really though, is he. She's the asshole — metaphorically going for the balls like this when she kissed him back just the same. Of course it was just the fucking mistletoe. What else could it be, except a little bit of festivities? Sure, maybe they got carried away, but they've been over this before — neither one of them wants to threaten what the other already has. And she's happy at home. She is. Hell, when was the last time she was even blackout drunk? Somehow, sleeping next to Rex has become a better remedy for the aching emptiness of her existence than drinking herself half to death.

Maybe it's just that taking it out on Poe is easier than dealing with the twisted little knot of feelings in her gut. She shouldn't be hurt. She's too old for this shit. And if this is painful, then the wound is self-inflicted anyway. She knows he tried to do it right. She knows he tried to have a good reason. A good excuse. She knows he went out of his way to ask permission. That still doesn't make it feel any better — though neither did cutting him down with her words.

Andy purses her lips. Her temper ebbs a little. Fuck. All she really wants now is to escape for another long smoke break.

"So that's it." A certain flatness settles into her voice. "Glad we fucking cleared that up." She's already rooting around in her pockets for her pack and her lighter, her eyes drifting away from him in search of the nearest exit. For a moment, it seems like she'll leave it at that. And it's hard to say why, exactly, that she doesn't. But she glances back at him for a moment, her face unreadable when she asks at length: "Was I the only one?"

She must suspect the answer. She must. Otherwise, why even ask.

The flush of shame travels quickly up his throat, turning his cheeks ruddy and his stomach inside out. Fuck, he is an idiot. He is an idiot of massive proportions. She's going for blood and he can't even be angry about it. He set this up for himself.

He'd known, all this time, that even wanting more than what he had was stupidly selfish. He'd resisted acting on it for over a year. And yet, here he was, fucking things up utterly and completely, despite himself. Despite knowing better.

But there's no point lying. She already knows. She knows, because she knows him.

He frowns at the ground.

"No." It would see him in less trouble if he lied, maybe. But Poe's never been a man to deny his own actions. Right or wrong, he'd done what he'd done.

"No, I had to hurt Finn, too."

She doesn't look surprised — mostly because she isn't. She does know him. Maybe a little too well. Just like he knows her. It's a credit to the man that he's just taking this from her — not retaliating. Just accepting. Acknowledging. Even though he could have turned it back on her. She probably knows that too. Maybe that's why she hasn't truly gone for the throat yet.

This isn't really about blame, is it? This is just... A way to vent. The frustration at whatever limbo they've put themselves in, festering with unfulfilled feelings.

She's just as stupid as he is. And meaner about it too.

"Finn's soft," she mutters, pressing an unlit cigarette between her lips. "He'll forgive you."

"This time."

Because Finn will forgive him, he knows, but he also doesn't think that will last forever. And he knows himself too well to think he won't stop fucking it up, down the road. He'll just keep making mistakes because he can't help himself.

He's never learned how to turn his feelings off, and Andy and Finn were the ones to suffer for it.

"Are you?"

He doesn't deserve it, he doesn't think. But he hopes she will anyway.

His question draws her eyes back towards him. Her stare lingers for a moment, unreadable. Then she glances away again.

"Are you asking me to?"

As if he even has anything to apologize for. Takes two, like they say.

He lets out a breath, dropping his eyes. He didn't ask Finn to. And he's not sure he can ask Andy.

It would help, maybe, if he felt honestly sorry for what he did, rather than for the fact that he's hurt her. 'Sorry I hurt you' always makes for a shitty apology anyway. And if he said 'Sorry I kissed you', he wouldn't mean it. He still wants to kiss her again. A hundred times. So that would be a lie.

"I don't think I can ask that," He decides quietly. If she grants it to him anyway, that's one thing. But he can't ask for it. "... It okay if I ask for a cigarette, though?"

Since he keeps having to look at one dangle between her lips, unlit.

She won't stay angry. She rarely does, with these things. It settles into a place of regret and acceptance and self-loathing eventually. Besides, Andy's too fucking old to be mad about anything for too long anyway. She half wants to let it go already. Easier than holding onto it. Things between her and Poe will always be complicated, and she doesn't see it spontaneously resolving itself anytime soon either.

At his question, she gives him a sidelong look, then holds her pack out to him with one hand while the other clicks her lighter to life. Finally, she speaks again, wry but still a little unreadable, fresh cigarette smoke wisping around her words.

"What did you mean, when you said 622 was 'around somewhere taking notes?'"

Winter Gala

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