Chapter Text
Poe Dameron can’t make you out at all.
Are you Force-sensitive? How can you be in so many places at once the same time he’s there? Everywhere he goes, you’re there. Walking around the landing zone, quietly fixing the astromechs at the hangar late at night, or hanging around in his off-days at the makeshift library where his favorite books are hidden. He’d spot your furrowed brows behind a book you’re poring through.
You’re a constant around the base, always there, in his periphery. He’ll find you in the early hours of the morning at the landing doing maintenance work for the Black Squadron’s star fighters before they go off on a mission. He’d catch you with ground tech at time, wearing overalls too big for you, covered in grime as you check on BB-8 and the gaggle of maintenance droids surrounding you.
You’re like the grumpy ghost of the Resistance base in D’Qar to him, floating around wherever he is. Regarding him with little to no interest. The constant look of mild displeasure always present when you’re within striking distance of him.
The displeasure. Maker give him strength. He doesn’t understand any of it.
Like right now, for example. You’re talking to his squadron at the landing zone after their mission. So smiley around his squadron coupled with the ease of your interactions. Poe overhears the light banter as he watches from the cockpit of his T-70 X-wing, envious of the jokes that bloom in the conversation.
It’s a different story when you’re around him.
He’s unsure when this had started — nor can he remember any arguments or any interactions of note that would warrant him being given the cold shoulder. But something about it… Eats at him. Big and unexplainable. He’s also unsure why this is bothering him so much so.
It’s not like you’ve been bristling to argue with him, whenever he happens to talk with you. But something in your eyes, hid a story, or more from him—the curt little smile you flash at him, the strained conversation where you sound like you’re enduring a tooth extraction anytime he asks you something beyond ‘hello, how are you?’ or Maker forbid—personal questions.
It shouldn’t bother him. He’s dealt with his fair share of officers and flyboys with bigger attitudes, ruder dispositions and even worse egos. A closed-off and extremely guarded new recruit like you should be the least of his worries. And you don’t seem like you’re the sort who’d look for trouble in or outside the base that would warrant his closer investigation.
But Maker, it does.
He sighs, attempting to think about you less, and more on the panels in front of him, shutting the engines off. Maybe it’s exhaustion from the recon mission that his thoughts are all over the place right now. It doesn’t do anyone any good, being up for hours like that. His only company had been the endless expanse of space and the sounds of his own starfighter. Beebee beeps from his six, eager to be let out. Poe waves at his droid friend, assuring him the ground techs would be coming up to assist them in any second.
Right on cue, he hears a familiar thud outside the cockpit, which means you’re climbing up the ladder, ready to get his helmet for him.
‘Hello, Commander. I’ll take care of that for you.’ You greet him, prim and professional, guarded eyes boring onto him. Your hand beckons for his very sweaty, very used flight helmet. He’s quick to slide up the orange visor, and takes it off, loose dark curls sticking to his forehead.
‘Thanks,’ he says, a little embarrassed he’s perspired that much in one mission. You don’t seem to mind, his embarrassment barely registering in your face. Nothing ever seems to faze you. Or perhaps you don’t care as much as he does.
‘Do you want to get some caf at the mess hall?’
He blurts it out. Before his mind can even stop him, looking as confused as you are at the sound of your name leaving his lips and the invitation that comes after.
‘S-sorry?’
‘Caf? Mess hall?’ He doesn’t even sound like he’s talking in Basic anymore. Maybe you’re as sleep-deprived as he is, waiting on the squadron all night. And maybe you’re surprised he’s asking questions outside of polite greetings.
‘Oh. Did I do something wrong?’
‘What? No, not at all. I just wanted to talk. You look as exhausted as I am.’
You look strained. Deep in thought. About caf?
‘Hey,’ he taps the helmet on your hands, and that seems to bring you back to reality, blinking back at him with wide eyes. ‘You know what, don’t fuss. You’re probably busy with work. I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks for looking after BB-8.’
Maybe another time.
But an idea springs to mind the moment his feet hits the ground, and he swiftly makes his way to the mess hall. Poe can’t help it, being like this. He likes being liked, especially to the people constantly around him.
To a fault sometimes.
‘Want to get some caf at the mess hall?’
You snort and roll your eyes at the thought as you climb into the cockpit of his X-wing long after Poe Dameron left. There’s a datapad in your right hand, a set of tools on the other. Stars. There’s something about him that you can’t stand. The way he talks. The way he smiles and radiates that kind of easygoing authority, like everyone and anyone in his radius will listen to whatever he says (which you’re certain is always the case). It’s irrational—you know that—and your petty judgments of a man you know so little about speaks more about you than him, but stars above. Everything about him gnaws at every fibre of your being.
From where you come from, no one gets to be that likable. That easygoing. That handsome, especially in the face of difficulty.
And no one, especially Poe Dameron, gets to smell good after spending hours sitting in a T-70 X-wing starfighter doing reconnaissance when they should’ve been sweating their ass off with the cockpit smelling like feet. But that’s the Commander of the Black Squadron for you, you suppose. Everything he does is extraordinarily impossible.
Whatever. You’re here to do maintenance, to give it a little wipe down, to check if the coolant feeds are working fine before their next mission at 0040. You’re here to make sure his ass doesn’t crash the next time he goes into light speed. That’s your job. At least for today. Tomorrow? You had no fucking clue.
You’re good at it though, thriving in the uncertainty. In chaos. In picking up the pieces of someone else’s mess. That’s partly why you joined the Resistance in the first place. That, and doing the right thing, of course.
‘Maker!’ you sigh aloud. You wipe the cockpit module with the clean rag in your hand, and then doing the same on your sweaty forehead with it. No one can see you anyway, you smile. ‘Poe Dameron! What a fucking ray of sunshine.’
‘I’m a what?’ calls a voice from below. ‘Hey, I got you some caf. I know you said you don’t want any, but it looks we got a long night ahead of us.’
Are the voices in your head starting to sound like him? What the fuck is going on?
You suppose it’s a ghost. But then you feel the weight of someone stepping onto the ladder of the X-wing. The starfighter makes a little creak, as the ghost takes another step. You see the top of someone’s head, then loose dark curls through the transparisteel and then the flash of an orange flightsuit. His face, smiling at you, holding up a flask you assumed is filled with caf. The ghost looks and sounds exactly like Poe Dameron. Stars, it’s really him. And he’s climbing back up. Fuck. Fuck.
In your panic, your left elbow accidentally leans against one of the buttons of the armored cockpit of his X-wing. You turn towards the sound of his voice. The ladder, the one Poe Dameron’s currently standing on, swiftly tucks itself back underneath the starfighter. Then suddenly his face disappears from you. A loud thud follows, the sound of him falling hard on the ground.
You gasp, and immediately get to your feet. Half your body leans against the edge of the cockpit as you peer below, anticipating the worst. Poe Dameron’s lying on the ground, his right arm looks twisted… In a not so… Normal way. Arms are not supposed to look like that, you’re certain. The flask he had in his other non-twisted arm had slipped from his grasp, hot liquid spilling around him. Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit—
You climb down, rushing over to him.
He’s not answering. He looks like the wind was knocked out of him. His eyes are closed, his body splayed next to his starfighter. You say his name again, kneeling beside him now, trying to check if he’s bleeding anywhere. Dameron groans, your fussing eventually waking him back to consciousness. He lets out a cry of pain and a flurry of curses when he tries to sit up and put weight on his arm. It’s painfully obvious. He’s injured.
For fuck’s sake.
Poe Dameron’s right. You do have long night ahead of you.