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Poe Dameron peers in on Finn's motionless body through a small window in the door; it's night and not another soul is around, no one to see him, so it's okay to be here, it's allowed.
Just this once, though. Can't make it a habit.
Poe's eyes track down from Finn's expressionless face to his lifeless toes and he thinks, Wake up, as hard as he can, like he's got some unknown force inside himself that means if he just wills it hard enough, Finn's eyelids will shutter up and his grin will snap to life.
Poe's got no such kind of power.
Finn stays unwaking.
/
It is worse when Finn is awake.
Poe spirals through space in an X-Wing, stars spread out below and above and around him like tiny holes letting specs of light through the silky-dark fabric of night. BB-8 is with him, as xe should be. He's back flying missions. Things are right.
He knows, though, that somewhere far, far away, there's a boy lying unconscious and unclaimed in a med bay, and as he curves his X-Wing between the stars, flying doesn't relax him as it should.
/
Finn isn't half bad with a blaster.
When Poe questions him—casually, briefly, catching him as they're each filling plates of food to be eaten elsewhere; don't linger too long, keep your head clear, the Resistance first, Poe—Finn explains that the med bay has cleared him for full activity.
It means that Finn is allowed to train, and then to work.
Something inside of Poe is restless.
They believe that the First Order is less crumbled than its planet. For the Resistance there can be no sleep, no peace until they've uncovered the scattered remnants of the Order.
The X-Wing is less a second home than it is a second skin. BB-8 alongside him, Poe speeds between planets, alert for any signs of Order loyalists in hiding. He and BB-8 investigate anything that appears on their radar, hoping for TIE Fighters, encountering only an assortment of meteors, old ships, and space junk.
/
It is worse. It is so much worse now. When Finn was comatose, Poe at least knew he wasn't out looking for enemy fire.
Besides the problem of Finn when he's out seeking Order members, there is Finn when he is at the base. The Resistance comes first, always. But it's one thing to hop in his X-Wing when Finn is on D'Qar unconscious, and another to leave when Finn is awake, alert, talking, his grin flashing and his eyes wide with wonder.
“Poe!” Finn says whenever they arrive at base near the same time. “Poe Dameron!” He gives a salute and an easy smile, and Poe feels his insides turn to nervously bubbling liquid.
“Finn,” he'll say warmly. “Going well?”
And Finn will nod, and they'll share an embrace that's far too short and involves a fair amount of back-slapping to reassure everyone of its platonic nature, and that's—it.
The Resistance first. Always.
No matter that the passion Poe feels for the cause is nothing when compared to the flame in his stomach at the sight of Finn's wide grin.
They will tell him when Finn wakes.
An Order escapist, Finn is a treasure chest of information. He will speak to the General, and also to Poe, the Resistance's best pilot. They will tell him when Finn wakes. There is nothing to be gained by sitting vigil at Finn's bedside.
They will tell him when Finn wakes, and Poe barely knows the guy, anyway—but for some reason this knowledge makes it no easier to abstain from unnecessary trips down the hall that will take him past Finn's door.
Get yourself together, Dameron, Poe thinks sternly. He's Poe Dameron, best damn pilot of the Resistance, and a sleeping ex-Stormtrooper he's met a handful of times has no place in his thoughts.
/
“I hear you're an excellent shot,” Poe says to Finn as they're walking back into the base, together by coincidence. Poe begins to loosen his flight gear.
Finn's features tighten; his easy smile goes a little sour. Dismay curls through Poe. What did he say wrong?
“Yeah,” Finn says. His smile returns to proper volume. “Yeah, thanks.”
BB-8 wishes Rey farewell before she departs to find Luke.
Free from the surveillance of his smallest friend, Poe heads to the med bay.
There he spends ten minutes outside the door that leads to Finn. This is all he allows himself. Resistance first.
Poe is friendly, has friends, but none that he is so distracted by. He won't waste more than ten minutes on this boy he hardly knows.
/
It is never quiet within the base; always something to be done, always motion, always chatter, always official and un strategy meetings convening in conference rooms and corridors respectively.
But it's night, and things are as quiet as they get. The lights are at half power, a pretense that the Resistance sleeps, respects normal hours.
Night air brushes its cool fingers against Poe's cheeks as the external doors hiss open for him; a faint breeze tugs at the tips of his hair. His hair's getting too long, but he's been too distracted to sit down with a pair of scissors.
He folds himself to the ground, leaning against the chilled metal of his X-Wing. BB-8 is elsewhere. He should be alone, and yet—
“Finn?” he says, eyes catching on a shadowed figure among the ships.
Teeth flash in a smile. A ducked head, hand rubbing at the back of his neck; Finn strides closer, into clarity.
Poe chuckles, shifting his bent legs. “Couldn't sleep?” he asks.
Finn shakes his head.
Poe nods. “Wanna sit?”
Finn doesn't answer, but his feet carry him closer until Poe can see the tension in the line of Finn's wide shoulders, watch his hands as he curls them into loose fists and crosses his arms, leaning back against the X-Wing. He doesn't sit. Poe can faintly smell a tinge of sweat on his skin, a dull, worn scent of leather from Poe's old flight jacket overtop.
They are quiet.
It's...
good.
Poe spends a week in flight, chasing down a half functioning TIE Fighter.
It's not Order—someone stole the ship, a scavenger with a sharp edge in his eye that makes Poe sigh and decide not to bother repossessing the ship for the Resistance.
He returns to D'Qar.
He doesn't visit the med bay.
/
Poe is not sleeping. When he's not running what feel more and more like wild goose chases across the galaxy, he's at the base, restless feet taking him wandering through corridors and into the cool liquid air of the night.
Finn, too, is sleepless.
Poe hasn't asked why—just offers the patch of cement beside himself on the ground by his ship, or gestures for Finn to lean beside him against the outer wall of the base.
BB-8 asks him daily when Rey will return. Poe tells xem daily that he doesn't know.
BB-8 says xe's even beginning to wish Finn would wake.
Poe doesn't have a response to this.
/
“You don't like blasters,” Poe says one night. He says it in a mild voice, his expression calm. Still Finn's spine goes rigid.
He asks stiffly, “What makes you say that?”
Poe shrugs one shoulder. “I've noticed,” he says.
“What have you noticed?” Everything about Finn is guarded: his tight shoulders, his carefully set jaw, his frozen-still posture.
“You don't like to handle them,” Poe says. “Your jaw gets tight and you stop smiling.”
Shut up, Poe. Don't tell him you've been watching.
Finn works his jaw.
Then his shoulders go abruptly lax. He releases a sigh from the bottom of his stomach.
He says, after a wide gap of quiet, “You're—not wrong.”
“Why do you still train?” Poe asks. Finn is not looking at him, so he doesn't look at Finn either. The night full of stars is easy to talk to, an easy place to spill secrets, kept safe in the glittery grasp of stars.
“When Rey comes back,” Finn says, “I have to be better.” Through his peripheries, Poe sees Finn fold his arms, fingers gripping his biceps. “If she's in trouble again, the Order's not gonna go through me so easily a second time.”
Poe thinks of the long line of injury down Finn's spine and recalls that though he protected Rey long enough for her to regain consciousness, Finn was knocked out mid-fight by the damage.
“I'm pretty sure she can handle herself,” Poe says, trying to be reassuring.
“Of course she can. But what if we're outnumbered, and she's counting on me to pull my weight, and I don't pull through?”
Poe has nothing to say to this.
Poe keeps busy. Avoids the med bay. Shoves out thoughts of an exhilarated grin that makes his stomach swoop and a determined furrowed brow that makes his thumbs ache to smooth the creases of worry.
Things are normal, he remains the best pilot through every training course the Resistance has got to offer, and if he pretends hard enough, he can just about convince himself that he's content.
He wishes Finn would wake.
/
Poe doesn't see Finn for several nights.
He hopes Finn isn't avoiding him.
Thinks he probably is.
And then there is Finn up ahead, by the looks of things sweet-talking a higher clearance operative into opening the outside door for him.
Poe catches up. “Hey,” he says. An easy smile, confident, though his stomach swirls with unease. Finn may not want him here. That's fine: he won't push. He'll open the door for the guy, then leave, if that's what he wants.
That this makes something ache dully deep in Poe's gut doesn't matter.
Finn looks at him. “Thanks,” he says.
Poe rests a hand on Finn's shoulder to usher him outdoors. He shakes his head. “ 'Course.”
Finn doesn't make a break for it once they're outside; he half turns, eyes on Poe's face. Though Finn is expressionless, Poe is encouraged. He places a hand on Finn's strong forearm.
“Finn,” he says. “What you said the other night...”
Finn's face darkens.
Poe speaks quickly. “I understand." A slight smile, a reassurance, an offering of anything Finn wants—friendship, a listening ear, non-judgement. “I'm sorry you have you to use violence, even though you don't like it,” he says. “I wish you didn't have to.”
Finn doesn't say anything.
But he walks beside Poe as they wander through the dusk.
Poe flies.
Not—on a mission, or anything official. Resistance first, yeah, yeah.
The X-Wing feels good underneath him, controls responsive to his practiced grip.
He flies fast.
He expects it to calm him more than it does.
/
“Why do you fly?” Finn asks him one night. They are sitting side by side on one wing of Poe's ship, their legs separated by several inches of impenetrable night air.
“What?” Poe says.
“I mean, is it just for the Resistance? Do you just fly because the Resistance is important to you, or are you their best pilot because...” A shrug. “You enjoy it?”
“The Resistance has always been an important cause." Poe spreads his fingers against the metal of his X-Wing beside his right thigh. “But flying itself...” He shakes his head. “It's—something else. There's nothing like it. Best feeling in the galaxy, buddy.” He tosses Finn a half smirk, but Finn is gazing off into the air.
Why hasn't Finn woken up?
The question sits heavy in Poe's mouth, but he doesn't give it voice.
Whether that would be admitting too much to others or to himself he's not sure, and he doesn't care to ruminate on the topic.
/
“Why’d you ask me about flying?” Poe asks Finn.
Finn's legs are extended straight, his back against the X-Wing. “Was—curious,” he says. “I'm trying to... figure some things out.”
He is quiet for a time, and Poe does not intrude upon the silence. Finn will talk when he's ready. Poe has learned this. (He's learned several things about Finn.)
“I told myself I wasn't going to fight for them,” Finn says. There is no need to clarify who “they” are. “And when you and I escaped, I thought maybe—I thought maybe I liked fighting, if it was for a better cause.” His mouth is twisted with frustration and faint distaste. “It was one thing, shooting while we were making our great escape, you know. But then I started training for real, and I just kept thinking—” He shakes his head, a frown settling into his face that Poe doesn't like so much as his glowing grins.
“It was different,” he says, “to aim a blaster at a cut-out of a guy in a white mask and intentionally blow a hole in him.” He flexes his fingers, placing his palms against the concrete. “I don't think I like fighting. No matter what cause.”
Poe likes flying. He likes BB-8. He likes meals with lots of gravy and he likes the way the controls in his X-Wing have been worn to fit his hands perfectly.
He also likes Finn.
He'd like it if Finn would wake up.
/
“Come flying with me,” Poe says.
Finn blinks at him.
Poe grins, taking him by the upper arm and steering him towards the hangar. “Come on,” he says. “It'll be fun. You'll like it.”
They are going to find things Finn likes. Finn is allowed this now: the Order may have tried to control every aspect of its troopers' lives and personalities, but the Resistance has always been more individualistic.
And if fighting's not the thing, then maybe flying. Or—baking, or painting; Poe doesn't care, just knows he's gonna help Finn figure it out.
A Resistance fighter approaches Poe while he's strapping into his orange flight gear, her brow drawn.
“Yeah?” Poe says, pausing in his task.
When she speaks, Poe's heart sputters like a bot without quite enough power to fully function.
“Finn is awake.”
/
Poe is—breathing again. Resurfacing after too long underwater. Being renewed, reenergized—he's reawakening after time spent comatose.
Finn's mouth on his is warm and alive and curious, uncertain but enthusiastic, and Poe feels warm down to his toes.
Finn pulls back to look at him, his eyes narrowed as he inspects Poe's expression. Poe suspects he's grinning like the most lovesick sap in the galaxy. He doesn't think he cares.
“Poe Dameron,” Finn says thoughtfully.
“Finn,” Poe says, nodding, his voice more serious than his smile.
“Well, I don't know where I'm going to fit within the Resistance,” Finn says, “but—you definitely found something I like.”
Poe grins. He slaps Finn's shoulder. “Well,” he says. “Good. It's a start.”
A smile grows slowly on Finn's face, the broad one that makes Poe's ribs squeeze tight around his heart. “Yeah,” he says, his tone curious, eyes lit with excitement for everything the world may hold for him. “A start.”