Work Text:
“There’s something I never told you, Poe!” Finn shouts, and then he is swallowed up by the grey sand, and thinks it’s all over.
It’s not over. Poe hassles him all through the caves, and after, trying to worm out of Finn what he never said; but Finn, cheeks red, stands vigilant. They’re not dying now, after all; and it’s true that they probably won’t survive, but there will be another time for Finn to say it if he has to. He hopes they won’t get to that.
Then there are Stormtrooper blasters aimed at their backs, and Finn is pretty sure that this is it, and he leans over ever so slightly and says, in that bold rush of fatalistic courage, “I never told you that I love you,” and he feels himself go red again but it feels so good to have said. Poe looks taken aback. Finn is scared he said something wrong and that Poe’s horror will be the last thing he sees–
and then Poe’s features soften and he says, “I love you too, baby,” and takes Finn’s hand. “It’s a shame we’re gonna die, because we would’ve been a great Resistance war marriage.”
Finn realises that Poe is talking through his fear, and encouraging Finn to join him. His hand is clammy. Finn doesn’t care, because it’s Poe’s hand, and he’s getting to hold it, and that’s all that matters. “I know, right?” he says. “Rey could’ve been our maid of honour and Chewie could be our best man.”
“BB-8 could be the ring bearer,” Poe says, and Finn even sees him crack a smile at that. He would be okay dying feeling like this, actually. In love. He’s never been in love before. It’s nice.
And then Hux shoots the Stormtroopers, shouts “I’m the spy!”, and Finn lives to maybe get married another day. Hux calls them idiots as they run, and Poe frowns, and says “yeah, but he’s my idiot”.
“You two better get fucking married,” Hux says, right before he asks Finn to shoot him. Finn almost falters. The hard lines in Hux’s face don’t change, but for a moment Finn could swear he heard some tenderness. A moment of communication between someone who might never escape and someone who did. Both of them came from nowhere. The First Order never likes people who come from nothing. Finn shoots him in the leg, anyway. Empathy and sympathy don’t have to go together.
“Do you?” Finn asks as Poe brings the Falcon to thrumming life. “Want to get married, I mean.”
“We could try it,” Poe says with a grin.
“Damn spice smuggler,” Finn says.
“Shut up,” says Poe.
Poe almost forgets he used to have a crush on Zorri. She asks him, on the rooftops, if he’s in love with Finn, and he says, “sure, yeah”.
“Survive for him,” she says when she places the coin in his hand. He looks at her and tries to say no, that she got it, that she deserves it: but she says, more forcefully, “save the galaxy for him ”, and Poe supposes he can do little more than that.
“Yeah,” he says. “I will.”
When he calls Finn his General, Poe feels as if they’re practically already married. He likes that. Generals. He’s scared, but he’s hopeful, and he’s proud: of Finn, of the Resistance, of the neverending bravery of Leia, for whom he will fight forever. His last stand, he thinks, is for those he loves dearest: Leia, and Finn. When he speaks he thinks of them.
He really, really hopes that they survive.
He could go for being married.
When it’s all over, when they’re safe and alive and their feet are on the ground again, Poe runs for Finn so fast he almost trips over his own feet and kisses him so hard their noses crash together. “Oh, baby,” he says, his thumbs caressing Finn’s cheeks and feeling the flush of heat to his skin, “we fucking did it,” and then they’re kissing again and still haven’t found any more rhythm than desperation. They’ll have time, Poe supposes. They have all the time in the galaxy. Time where Finn can hear about all the illegal things Poe used to do and tick him off as if they didn’t commit a single crime during the war, time where Finn can tell Poe about being a Stormtrooper and find the words to communicate the grief for his lost childhood while in the arms of someone who loves him and will listen, time where they can figure out the best ways to kiss. Poe gets the feeling Finn hasn’t had much practice. Maybe any.
Lando promises them the Falcon as a wedding present, because technically it’s still his and he speaks like a man who holds that grudge, and Rey agrees when they stop hugging her and crying to be their maid of honour, and Chewie to be their best man. Most of the Resistance promise to attend. Poe knows he’ll see them there. They’re his family. The people he trusts and loves.
He takes Finn’s hand, and he looks up at the sun shining in the sky that is still there, and says “you were the spark”. Finn is wearing his jacket. It looks good.