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Poe’s heart is beating wildly. He’s hot in his flight suit and sweating, blood on the side of his face where his helmet split his brow. His legs feel weak from hours of sitting in a cramped cockpit, the muscles in his hands are worn out and there is still adrenaline racing through his veins, but his body is electric and alight as he hops out of his ship. As soon as his boots hit the ground, he is surrounded by celebration. The Resistance, all of them, are rejoicing. The roar of victory is deafening and Poe basks in it, glows with the spirit of their flaming rebellion and revels in this moment of a day he never thought would come.
He watches them. He has never been much of an observer, has always gunned toward the action and found himself perpetually at the center of it. This is a certain fact that has landed him in hot water more than once, but it is a fact all the same. He can’t seem to stand sitting still. So he does not watch but he does now, takes in the relieved grins, the dancing limbs, the hands raised toward the sky, the crash of reuniting bodies meeting in tight hugs that ooze relief. He is surrounded by the rallying cry of victory because they’ve done it, they’ve won. He’s here on his own two feet, boots planted in the soil and he’s alive . His heart beats wildly because he is alive and they have won, and his knees feel weak because that is something wonderfully overwhelming and inexplicably thrilling.
After a moment of staring, grinning senselessly, he pulls out of limbo and joins the fray, body moving into the crowd on autopilot because something is still not right. He knows what it is and he searches for it, the buzz of celebration nearly lost on him while he does. There are hands that clasp his shoulders as he passes, there are pats on the back and cries of, “General!” and he nods and he smiles but his heart is beating wildly and something is not right.
There are familiar faces in the crowd as he shoulders and slips through, and each one is another weight lifted off of him. He is so happy, too happy to express, to see his friends here, but he needs somebody specific right now, so he keeps searching. Soon, he sees Lando sitting by himself, watching, and he catches his eye. Both of them are living this, this mass of people crying to the far corners of daylight in their euphoria, but neither of them do the same, for one reason and another. Poe must have some kind of look in his eyes, because Lando seems to sense his reason and knows what he is looking for. The old General smiles wistfully, raises his hand and points, and Poe’s eyes follow.
Finn’s there.
He’s there, and he’s watching too. He’s soaking it in and he’s smiling, a gentle thing that softens his expression and turns his eyes glossy. He’s scanning the crowd, and it’s a moment or two before he sees Poe, who feels rooted to the spot. Something clicks then, and it’s a different kind of force that pulls the two of them together. Suddenly Poe is moving, not disjointed and automatic like the first time but quickly and desperately — it’s all the emotion of every time they’ve parted and reunited before, only this time it’s more. This time, it’s with victory beating in their chests, it’s with promise in their eyes, it’s with the frenzied anxiety of knowing they came so close to losing this moment, and it’s with the bone-deep relief that they are here.
Poe is running and he doesn’t even know it, and Finn is racing toward him just as carelessly. They knew this would happen, of course. They knew they would see one another again; Poe had watched with a sharp eye as Finn got on the Falcon, and Finn had heard his voice in the comms. They knew, but it’s something else to be here together and it’s something else still to actually find each other.
They collide violently, so much so that they stagger a few steps before steadying, but at the same time, there is this graceful familiarity with which they meld into each other.
The moment he is close enough, Poe throws his arms around Finn, buries his face into his shoulder, clutches the back of his neck, does everything in his power to be close and soak him in. Finn is squeezing him hard, breathes out a shaking sigh that comes hot against Poe’s shoulder and finally, he doesn’t feel as though he is watching. He is here, grinning in the midst of this crowd where the air is thick with hope, and he is with Finn. That’s all he needs, and for the first time, with real, blinding clarity, he realizes why.
Poe’s heart beats wildly and there is nothing missing, because he loves him and he has always loved him.
It was always going to be this, from the moment they met and trusted one another with their lives. They were always going to end up here, wrapped in each other’s arms and physically shaking with tear-stained relief. This was always going to be it, and they feel it; they feel it and welcome it with the same desperate, blinding, aching relief with which they hold onto one another. They lean out of each other’s space but they do not let go, hands tight and eyes locked because there is nothing else to see. Poe’s heart is hurting and he loves him, because he always has, and he can’t choke out the words right now but he doesn’t need to. Somehow, Finn understands anyway. They look at each other and all of a sudden, Poe watches tears glisten in those eyes that have always been so soft for all the horror they've seen, and they both understand. They meet again, but this time it is not violent.
Finn kisses him, and this is something new and graceful in and of itself. This is the meeting of two souls circling each other for far too long, and their relief is palpable. The world skids to a stop now, shouts fading into static and people into blackness as Poe closes his eyes tight, burning every detail of this moment into his mind. Nothing else matters right now because they are here, and Finn kisses him because he loves him too, and he always has and Poe should have known it. Finn hasn’t let go of him, either, arms wound tight around his middle like he’s afraid Poe might disappear. That’s alright with him because he’s aching in exactly the same way, hands finding their way up to Finn’s jaw to hold him close as their lips meet. It’s not exactly gentle, not with the way they’re pouring their everything into this, but it works and Poe does not care where they are, only that they’re here together. His chest swells in a way he’s never felt before, but he knows it’s right and that he wants to chase this feeling for the rest of his life.
This is it, he thinks, calmer than he feels. This was always going to be it.
It’s later that night and it is quieter. The base is exhausted from that fight of all fights, and they fall to rest knowing that they have reckoned with the impossible and walked away victorious. They pointedly avoid counting their losses; today is not for loss. Tomorrow, perhaps, they will all rise and they will begin to notice the gaps, the absences, and they will mourn. When that comes, it won’t come kindly. Poe knows this. He contemplates it, as he sits and watches the sky.
The nighttime is alive around him with insects chirping and wind weaving through foliage, accompanied by quiet voices of the restless souls still awake. Poe sits on a rocky ledge, legs over the side and palms flat against the stone behind him. He sits alone; his friends are elsewhere, occupied. Asleep, possibly, like he ought to be -- and he might like to be. Every bit of him is exhausted and there’s an occasional sting that doesn’t let him forget the bullet hole in his arm, so there is no real reason for him to be awake. This newly ordained General, this fledgling Atlas, he deserves to rest after all he has done. Something keeps him from it.
It must be some sort of burden; he thinks it’s born of loss. Leia’s gone (he will grieve at another time. Tonight, he isn’t even ready to think about it) and her absence leaves him with a title which wraps him heavily in a responsibility that he doesn’t feel quite ready for. He doesn’t know if he ever will, because he just isn’t her.
He’s not her, and everybody sees it. Finn sees it, he recalls unkindly; he had made that clear enough. That hurts perhaps worse than anything else, now that he thinks about it. Everybody else, and Poe can tell himself that they don’t know him, not really, because maybe they don't. Finn, and it simply doesn’t work like that; he knows Poe better than anyone, and everybody sees that, too. Finn knows him at his best, when he is logical and smart and selfless, and at his worst, when he is rash, angry, selfish. Surely, Finn must know that he just can’t do this.
He doesn’t have to do it alone, though, and that’s something. It’s very difficult for him to describe, how freeing it is. How grateful he is. He’s going to have Finn by his side in every way that matters, and he can’t trade that for anything. But considering that, he wants Finn to believe in him. Poe isn’t Leia, but he’s someone. He’s General Poe Dameron, one of the best pilots the galaxy has seen in a long time, a classic zero-to-hero who’d come from nothing. He’s a legend in the Resistance, and now he’s leading it; he’s not her, but isn’t he someone? Isn’t that enough?
Poe closes his eyes now. He wants to be enough for them, for these people he needs to take care of, but he also wants to be enough for him. He needs to be something in Finn’s eyes, because he’s the one who really matters. He’s the one who Poe gave everything to, the one he wants to fight and laugh and cry with until he dies. He hates the thought of Finn viewing him as...as a commodity. Is that what he is?
Finn finds him then, before he sinks too deep. Somehow, he always does.
“Poe?” he says, voice quiet, and that’s all it takes.
Poe pulls his head out of whatever dark place it had strayed to and looks back at Finn, scarcely illuminated by the light of the silver moons. There’s always some feeling whenever he sees Finn, one that he doesn’t know how to describe and one that he is too proud to try to figure out. That isn’t to say he doesn’t welcome it, because it's a warm, pleasant ache that softens out so many of his sharp corners.
( Love, love, love. )
“Hey, buddy,” he returns in a sigh, offering a nod and turning his head forward again as Finn comes to join him. It’s a reflexive nickname, one that is far more personal than it sounds.
“I thought it was General now,” Finn comments as he sits down, and by the way he says it, Poe can tell he’s got that half-smile on his face before he even looks over to see it -- which he does, of course. And Finn’s right, by some luck of the Force. They’re in this together.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Poe chuckles, nodding, and his own lips quirk up into that smirk of his, the one that made Leia scoff and shake her head a million times. “What’re you doing up then, General?”
Poe watches the other man shrug, keeps his eyes on him now because the moons are far less interesting. Even so, they paint Finn’s face in shards of silver and make his eyes gleam crystal, and if he were any more of a poet, then he might find something to say about that. He certainly isn’t, though, so he is content to watch.
“Same thing you are, I think,” Finn offers, and he’s looking up at the sky, so calm in that unique way of his that just sets Poe at ease. Finn just seems like he’s simply taking it in, attentive to the rustle of brush and the slight chill each time a breeze passes. “It’s harder to sleep than I thought it’d be,” he explains simply, expressing both of their thoughts as effortlessly as ever.
“Yeah,” Poe scoffs softly, because that’s exactly it. “I don’t think I’ll be much help with that, really.” And that’s true, too. Of the two of them, Poe has always been the powder keg, louder and more reckless. He doesn’t think he’s someone to come to in the late hours when sleep is running scarce.
Finn shrugs again, seems to consider his words (he’s always been better at that) and then replies, “That’s not the reason I came looking for you.” His voice is so steady and the words come so smoothly when he says it, but those words are so important.
Poe pauses for a full moment, perhaps taken aback or maybe just endeared. He waits before he responds because that is the sort of thing one needs to let sink in, and he looks away from Finn as a smile finds its way onto his face, as it always seems to. It shifts something in his chest knowing that Finn didn’t find him by chance -- rather, he was having trouble sleeping and so he willingly sought out his co-general. That sits nice and right with Poe.
He doesn’t end up asking what Finn means by that, because to the most important extent, they both already know. There are many, many things that they know but don’t know about each other, because it doesn’t seem necessary to ask. The best and the worst things, they have a way of coming out on their own. Not always, though. Sometimes, there is a yawning space, something that needs to be filled because it cannot do so on its own. They need to reach out sometimes.
Poe needs to reach out sometimes. He has a way of letting things nag at him, lingering in his mind and weighing heavy on his weary head. Sometimes it’s petty, he knows. He gets jealous, or discouraged, or angry or anything in between, and he needs somebody to shoo those dark things away. More often than not, that's Finn, because Poe is also too proud to rely on anyone else for it. So, he reaches out now, because a part of him is jealous, discouraged, angry and everything in between.
“There was something you wanted to tell Rey,” Poe prompts, and it is out of the blue and yet somehow settles comfortably between the two of them, “before, when we were in the sand. Why couldn’t you tell me?”
It is significant that he doesn’t ask what that something is; he only wants to know why it couldn’t be shared with him. He thinks that whatever it is, it will come to him eventually, so for now, he seeks something else. He wants to know why there is a part of Finn he isn’t allowed to see, wants to know why Rey can see it. He’s jealous, yes, but he won’t say that. They both know.
Finn is looking at him now, and he doesn’t seem surprised. He seems to have known this question was coming one way or another, at some time or other. Even so, he doesn’t answer right away, just casts his eyes down to look at his hands as they brush absently over some pebbles. It’s a while before he responds, so Poe looks off into the night. He can make out the shadowed figure of the Falcon a ways off, dormant and at rest after all her hard work, and he focuses on that until Finn has an answer; it’s a few minutes, perhaps, but neither of them is counting.
“I could,” Finn finally says, and those are two vague words but they are weighed heavily, contemplated carefully, “but I didn’t think -- I don’t think it’s the right time. I haven’t told her yet either.” His voice is quiet, and he seems as steady as ever, but Poe has learned to pick out the subtle changes. Finn’s fingers are fidgeting and the slope of his shoulders droop the slightest bit, and he sounds a little tired when he says it. Poe understands. He’ll wait for this, whatever it may be, because Finn has answered his insecurities steadfastly and he won't ask for anything more.
It goes quiet again, silence chorused by nighttime, and they are discontentedly content. The last few days have offered no shortage of surprises, of revelations and regrets that they were not able to process in the midst of unrelenting action, but now these things are returning and yielding questions that long for answers. Perhaps tonight is not for mourning, but for understanding. They want to understand, because there is no room for spite when one has not yet prepared a space for acceptance.
They talk for a while, now, about things that need to be said and things that don’t. Here with Finn, under the light of three moons and endless stars, Poe is at ease, because there is no need to give anything more than he is. There is no need for forced confidence or insistence that everything is alright, no urgency with which they speak because for once, this is not a matter of life or death. They are not planning their next attack, not arguing over who made the wrong move, not holding back tears because they are so happy to see one another alive. This is simple, and simplicity is not typically something that Poe craves but he welcomes it now. They are here with each other, victorious, and that gives them the space to be quiet and say these things.
After a while, a long while, Finn surprises him. He asks him about something that makes Poe raise his eyebrows and look over at him for a long moment, because it hints at something larger. Finn asks about Zorii; he asks if Poe had loved her. That’s all he says, but it means more than that and Poe doesn’t know how to answer immediately. If it came from somebody else, it would be different. From Rey, and it would make him roll his eyes. Chewie, and he’d tell him to forget about it. Even Leia, he’d get defensive and shake it off. It’s coming from Finn, though, so he won’t do any of that. That means it’s his turn to think, to run his words over and over in his head because he can’t quite afford to misspeak here.
Finn asks if Poe loved her, but that’s not all he wants to know. He wants to know not just whether he loved her, but if she still loves her and if that means anything. Poe has to make sure he’s not lying-- to himself or to Finn --when he responds.
"No,” he says, brow set in some sort of far-off concentration as he continues, “but I could’ve. I think I would have, if I’d stayed,” he continues, sighing and tilting his head back. “We were young and I was real stupid. There probably would’ve been something, but there wasn’t,” he shrugs, shaking his head in dismissal of a wistfulness that doesn’t mean anything to him anymore. “There still isn’t.”
Finn seems to accept that answer, dropping the tension in his shoulders that he probably hadn’t been aware of. This means something to both of them, to be sure; as for Poe, he’s grateful for it. It means that he isn’t the only one that doubts, the only one that wonders whether he is too much or not enough, because Finn’s insecure too. Finn gets jealous and discouraged and angry and everything in between, and Poe is so grateful that he gets to see that. He wonders for a scarce moment if Rey gets to see it, and then dismisses the thought just as quickly. It doesn’t matter.
What matters is this: this moment now, where every piece is slotted together as it should be and they are comfortable knowing that they can say what needs to be said, and even what doesn’t. They are here together in the dark of the night, sitting close and relishing the quiet company because they love each other and they always have, only now they know it and they will chase each other to all ends of the galaxy because of it. That’s all tonight is for. That’s all it needs to be for.
Poe’s heart beats softly, a dull thud in his chest which bubbles with uncharacteristic warmth as the night melts into his peripheral. He only needs to focus on Finn; they are here, and they are happy. That’s all there is to it.