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He picks a fight with her. Sort of.
Not really, because honestly, there’s still part of him that has Leia’s voice in his head—dry, witty, patient, but with thinly-veiled exasperation and a quiver of amusement always threatening to bubble out—and he’s certain she’d take Rey’s side every single time if it came between the two of them. Rey’s the favorite. Everyone’s favorite, and no, Poe’s not all that surprised, nor is he trying to find a reason to dispute it. She’s his favorite, too, and maybe that’s why he can’t quite take that little tremble of her lips and the way her eyelashes flutter quickly as she blinks back tears. He’d notice it even if she was across the room, lost in the crowd, trying to fade into the shadows like she used to.
But she’s standing right next to him, close to him, only a breath away, and she keeps glancing over her shoulder at him as if she—
He almost laughs. She looks at him as if she needs him, and he thinks it’s hilarious, pretty damn hilarious, because he’s starting to think maybe she just might.
This girl who never needed anyone but herself needs him. For friendship. For guidance. For a quick smile of comfort as they stand in the center of a crowd of Rebels, listening to Lando Calrissian recount a fond memory of Leia with his cup raised in honor. This is their proper sendoff to their general, their princess, now that the war is finally over.
He cries. They all do. They all cheer, too, and they all celebrate with a thunderous, relieved applause.
And Poe?
Poe does what he seems to do best, damn better than being the best pilot in the whole damn galaxy, it seems—he pokes at Rey Skywalker until her tear-brimmed eyes are glittering, flames burning, dancing in those big, bright eyes, her cheeks wet but pulled in the widest smile that seems to carry every star in the galaxy in it.
“Difficult man!” she shouts, head tipped back, skin flushed pink, voice light and giddy, and he stands there with his hands on his hips as he does little to try to fight his own widening grin as she throws her arms up in exasperation.
BB-8 swivels his head at Poe and chirps, jumping to Rey’s defense without hesitation—his own damn droid is calling him a name that a droid really, really shouldn’t be calling their own pilot—and, yeah, that’s got him smiling, too. He’ll never get over the way BB-8 is with Rey, never wants to get over the way his stomach always dives deep like he’s back in the cockpit of his X-Wing, free-falling with the stars rushing in a blur of lights beyond the glass, all because his BB-8 adores Rey from the very core of his circuitry.
(His droid takes after him like that, too, Poe guesses.)
“Did you—” Finn stops himself short, blinking, head snapping between Rey and Poe and back to Rey and then down to BB-8 as the droid whirls back and forth in the very small distance between Rey and Poe, still indignant, even though Rey is laughing harder, now, both hands pressed to her stomach as she shakes her head. Not once does she look away from Poe, and Poe doesn’t, either, except for a fleeting second to acknowledge Finn and Rose as they join him and Rey and BB-8 on the outskirts of the celebration. Rose is rubbing her lips together, eyes twinkling in amusement, knowing amusement, and Finn is downright smirking. Poe didn’t think his best friend was even capable. “You just—”
“—called yourself a better jedi than Rey?” Rose asks, finishing Finn’s sentence, because they’re like that now and Poe pretends to be more disgusted by it than he actually is.
“Hypothetically,” Poe and Rey chorus, Rey’s elated laughter having quieted down into a burst of giggles as she glances down at BB-8 and absently toys with his antenna like she likes to do sometimes, because BB-8 loves it, too. “And a bad hypothesis at that,” she says, and she’s talking to the droid but Poe knows it’s meant for him.
“I’m just saying,” he continues on, hands gesturing in a defense he doesn’t really care for, not really knowing where he’s going with this, just knowing that the somberness that had been in Rey’s eyes during the vigil is nowhere to be found. “I figured out how to light-skip with the Falcon when you said it couldn’t be done, didn’t I?”
“He did,” Finn chimes.
“He did,” Rey agrees, eyes blazing, beautiful, “and then it caught on fire.”
BB-8 chirps as Rose hums in agreement.
“Still counts,” Poe argues, leaning in closer to Rey, his stomach somersaulting and then soaring at her nearness, at her brightness, at just her very being.
“Does it?” Rey counters, stepping closer, into his space, making BB-8 roll back at the sudden movement before they both knock their knees into him. “Because when I accidentally, almost dropped a tree on BB, you”—she pokes her finger into his chest and then his hand is on hers, fingers curling, holding onto her even though she makes no attempt to jab at him again, but other than a flutter of her eyelashes, she simply lets the touch be without a second thought—“certainly weren’t going to let it go, were you?”
“He could’ve been crushed,” Poe reminds, hand tightening over hers, just a little, his thumb sweeping over her knuckles, reveling in how her hands could be calloused and strong yet soft and delicate, all at once.
“But he wasn’t, was he?” Rey points out, clearly mimicking him and his tone, his stance, even his charming, mischievous quirk of his eyebrow and tilt of his head, with such quick ease, such familiarity, that he loses it. He bursts out into laughter at their stupid, absurd, ridiculous argument, and it only grows louder, brighter, as he watches the same giddiness ripple through Rey. A quiver of her shoulders, a sharp exhale that quickly dissolves into laughter as her body shakes with it, swaying into his, head tipping down to his shoulder as she laughs and laughs. She steps into his space, her other hand falling to his chest, too, clutching at his shirt, and he threads his hand into her hair.
They’ve never touched like this, but it comes easy to them, easier than breathing, and he glances over her shoulder to find Finn and Rose looking at them and—
Rey tips her head back suddenly, leaning back into his palm, letting him cradle her head as her laughs taper off and she smiles up at him like maybe, just maybe, she might now how much he needs her, too.
“If you fly with me to Tatooine,” she starts, eyes sparkling up at him, filled with questions that he can’t wait to find the answers to, “then maybe we can find a way to light-skip without catching the Falcon on fire this time.”
“Maybe,” he concedes, thumb stroking at her scalp, his heart pounding wildly against his chest, “but I’m leaving you in charge of getting sand out of BB.”
“Why me?” she asks, her gaze burning in indignance, smile widening, and eventually, he’ll figure out another way to watch those fireworks dance behind her eyes without nearly offending her with every other word out of his mouth, hypothetical or not.
(But it won’t nearly be as fun as this.)