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When Poe Dameron was six, he'd been with one of his older cousins the day they met their soulmate. One moment he and Betra had been looking over fabric in the market for his Harvest festival outfit and she'd been eying a particular shade of red, the next she'd gasped and demanded to know of the shopkeeper why the fabric before her was now gray. The shopkeeper's son had just entered the room and introduced himself the moment before.
Both Betra and the young man, Juvan, had fallen silent and stared at each other for a long moment, before their expressions turned to ones of utter joy.
Shara Bey had explained the concept of soulmates to her son that night, and told him of the moment she first saw her flightsuit go from red to gray when she met his father in the hanger of a Rebellion base. Poe had been enraptured by the story, and the idea. He'd longed for the day he would see things flash to gray since then, assuming in his mind that he and his soulmate would hit it off immediately, fall in love, and settle in together.
When he joined the Resistance, he still hoped for it in the back of his mind, but he expected it less and less as the years rolled on.
Now strapped to an interrogation chair, his mind aching from being ripped apart by the likes of Kylo Ren, Poe believed he would never find that moment. He would die in this chair, or he'd be dragged before the First Order forces and be publically executed.
He had failed the Resistance, he had failed his soulmate.
I'm sorry, Poe thought softly as his head slumped to one side, pain thobbing in his temples.
Suddenly the door opened and Poe found himself looking at a figure in white Storm Trooper armor.
At first he didn't register the change in his vision as the Storm Trooper lead him through the Finalizer. But then the trooper was removing their helmet, and Poe saw the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen.
In shades of gray, he saw the face of his soulmate, the man's dark eyes and skin etched in gray, but lovely all the same. The relief on Finn's expression when Poe said "You need a pilot" would be etched in Poe's mind forever.
But then their stolen Tie Fighter was crashing into the sands of Jakku, and Poe woke up alone, no Tie, no Finn, nothing but a world in black and white and shades of gray. His heart ached. Finn was dead, and Poe would never get the chance to see Finn's features when color finally returned to his world.
When he finally made it back to the Resistance, the reality of that notion really settled in. Poe was an X-Wing pilot, how was he supposed to fly colorblind? An older officer provided at least a temporary solution, a program loaded into the astromech droid that Poe would fly with and would feed into Black One, giving him other visual and audible clues to supplement the colored light cues he'd always taken for granted. Y9-T2 wasn't BB-8, but it was a useful astromech droid painted, or so he was told, in yellow and black, not that he could actually tell since all he saw was a sea of gray.
The first sign that Poe had that all might not be lost came when they were flying over Takodana, chasing off Ties and First Order Storm troopers. Somewhere below, he thought he saw a flicker like blue flame. At first he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, but when he landed on D'Qar, flickers and flashes of orange bled into his gaze when BB-8 came rolling up the tarmac towards him.
And then Finn, beautiful, wonderful Finn was there, and his arms were tight around Poe. If Poe had his way, he never would have let go, but Finn had a friend, Rey, that needed to be rescued, and Poe knew business had to come before pleasure.
~~
Finn, formerly FN-2187, had lived his entire life seeing nothing but shades of gray. The idea of color seemed foreign when everything around you was either black, white, or some form of gray. The rumors among some of the Storm troopers that this was a reality forced on them by the First Order seemed impossible at first. The idea that a Storm trooper, who was supposed to be just one of many, dedicated entirely to the First Order, had soulmate, was laughable.
So when he took off his helmet and really got a look at the handsome man in front of him, bruised and beaten up by Kylo Ren or not, the fact that he saw Poe's dark hair and gray eyes didn't strike him as odd. It was clear from the moment that he'd taken off his helmet that Poe looked at him a bit wistfully, but in the haste of their escape, Finn didn't have much time to think about it.
He knew though, when he woke up without Poe on Jakku, that it felt like he was missing something he desperately needed. He missed Poe, though he'd known the man mere minutes.
When the Falcon landed on D'Qar and he'd seen Poe standing beside an X-Wing, a joy like Finn had never known even in meeting Rey and Han Solo filled him, and he raced across the tarmac to throw his arms around the other man.
For a moment, the world swam around him as he held Poe close, and he swore he saw a riot of...was that color?
Then everything settled back into place, his normal gray world returned, and he pushed it to the back of his mind, something to think about when Rey was safe.
When he'd stood in the snows of Starkiller though, thinking only that he must defeat Kylo Ren for what the man had done to Rey, and what the man had done earlier to Poe, a blaze of something erupted from the lightsaber he held, flickering and dancing before his eyes, stark against the white snow and the blaze of color from Kylo Ren's own blade. He didn't have time to process what he was seeing before pain overtook him and he fell unconscious.
Finn didn't know if it was hours or weeks later when he finally awoke in the medbay of the Resistance base on D'Qar. The first thing he noticed was Poe Dameron, asleep in a rather uncomfortable looking position in the chair beside the bed, his head tilted at an odd angle.
Something, someone, beeped at him beneath the chair, and then BB-8 rolled into place. Finn felt a frown flicker over his lips as a splash of..something seemed to fall over BB-8, something other than the normal black and white he was used to. But then Dr. Kalonia was rushing in and Finn found his thoughts dragged elsewhere as he was peppered with questions and exmained by the Dr. and medics.
Poe's eyes came flying open at the noise, but they weren't the same gray Finn remembered.
What in Force was going on?
When he was finally alone with Poe and BB-8 again, he found himself confused and trying to formulate how to as Poe about his eyes even as the other man's hand entwined with his own.
"Finn, buddy, I'm so glad you're going to be okay," Poe said in a tired voice, but he was smiling. "Please don't ever worry me like that again."
"Didn't exactly do it on purpose, Dameron," Finn tried for humor, and saw the smile reach Poe's eyes. Finn stared for a long moment. "Poe why..why aren't your eyes gray? What are-"
"Yeah, they're brown. Is it just my eyes you can see in color right now?" Poe asked gently. "Don't worry buddy, it comes back slowly, as you and I get our act together, as the General would say."
Finn's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, color? What comes back slowly?"
It was Poe's turn to frown. "Well color comes back as you and I figure out our relationship," he said at last. "So long as we do figure it out."
"Poe, I've never seen anything in color before," Finn replied. "So what do you mean it will come back?"
Poe found himself having to rapidly readjust his thinking on all of this. "Color..you know, when you find your soulmate, it goes away for awhile, until you solidify your bond with each other."
"Kriff," Finn swore under his breath. "You mean the rumors were right?"
Finn did some quick mental calculations. It had been at least 24 hours or more when he'd been on Starkiller and first seen those flashes of..something. More than three days since his last dosage of supplements from the First Order. He turned his eyes up to Poe, seeing the worry in those lovely...what color was that..eyes. He grasped Poe's hand a little tighter in his own. "There were rumors, among the troopers, that the Order gave us something so we'd never see in color, so we'd never meet a soulmate. But now?"
"Now you're seeing something other than gray for the first time?" Poe finished. Then Finn saw a slow hope growing in Poe's eyes. "That means..." He took a deep breath. "After you meet your soulmate, colors come back after you start forming a bond with them." He drew slow patterns on Finn's palm. "I've been seeing flashes of color since you hugged me on the tarmac."
"So that means you?" Finn found himself pressing, wanting to hear Poe voice what he was feeling.
Poe gave a nervous laugh. "I know it seems real fast, but I'm pretty sure I love you, buddy."
The world exploded in a riot of colors for Finn, leaving his eyes suddenly aching. He had to shut his eyelids against it, but happiness swam through him.
"I love you too Poe," Finn said softly.
As the world bloomed back into color for Poe, he smiled and leaned over, pressing his lips against Finn's.