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The night is quiet, serene, as if everything is covered in a feathered blanket, deafening all the background noise, softening the hard edges and making all things warm and gentle to the touch. The sun’s final yellow streaks fade behind a cloud and the stars appear one by one, twinkling mutely, only seen through the holes where the clouds can’t cover them, and there’s a haze; It makes all things misty when looked at head on, almost like a dream.
In the unclosed cockpit of an X-wing Poe sits, one leg curled up, foot resting on the edge of the seat with his knee in lieu of a headrest. His eyes gaze up at the stars, the blue darkness, and his thoughts are eons away, so deeply intertwined into the mist it almost feels like being lost. He can’t leave. Not that he really wants to, anyway.
Two weeks have passed since the battle of Exegol. Some people have already left the base to go back home. It’s nice in some ways. There’s breathing room, plenty of rations for everyone and less maintenance, but some part of Poe feels more sad than happy, like saying goodbye to a person you’ll never be seeing again. Like the end of an era.
Huh, he thinks, it is the end of an era.
The war has been acting as his crutch for longer than he’s realised and suddenly there’s nothing left, all the things that gave him purpose are gone. Only now is he realising that everything is empty when one leaves the height of intensity. Where is he supposed to go now? Home to his father? Help the humanitarian groups that are coming out of the woodwork? Continue working with the resistance to establish a new government? Poe can’t see his place in any picture without having to shoehorn himself into someone else’s place.
The night breeze sweeps past Poe, capturing him like a leaf and bringing shivers with it. He considers closing the cockpit, but chooses not to. The cold is sobering. Simply pulling the coat around him closer does the job well enough and he sighs, heavy and exhausted.
It feels like collapsing, all muscles giving out as he falls helplessly to the cold, hard ground. Lucky for him, he’s not standing, but that didn’t stop everything from spinning around him as though he were in a crashing speeder. It didn’t stop his lungs from heaving and the tears from rolling down his cheeks and dripping from his chin onto his knee.
Poe is so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of thinking where he’s gonna go. Tired enough to sleep for weeks on end. The only reason he doesn’t is because he always wakes up in a cold sweat with nightmares he doesn’t dare speak aloud to anyone, least of all himself. It’s like admitting that they’re there and he can’t. He just can’t.
“Poe? You up there?”
His eyes fall shut and he swallows the lump in his throat. Not like this.
“It’s cold,” Finn says, voice steadily approaching, increasing in volume. “Let’s go back inside.”
With whatever scraps he has left of his self control Poe looks down at Finn, his jacket wrapped tightly around him, boots untied with the laces lagging behind.
“I think I’ll stay out here for a bit,” he replies and leans back, tries to wipe away the tears, but they just keep pouring out, demanding to fall.
A pause. Poe thinks Finn might’ve left.
“Okay,” he says then.
Boot against metal clatters onto the wing and then into the cockpit. Finn hops inside and though it’s cramped Poe makes as much space as he can find. Only barely doable, but doable enough once Finn’s arms wrap around Poe.
“You should be sleeping,” Finn says, the puff of his breath is cold where Poe’s tears fell, but everywhere else it’s warmwarmwarm, contrasting starkly with the night air. If Finn notices the tears he doesn’t say anything and Poe is grateful.
“So should you,” he replies. His head finds a comfortable space in the crook of Finn’s neck. He’d always felt safe there. Untouchable. Loved.
Finn’s fingers card through Poe’s hair, gentle and barely there.
“I couldn’t sleep without knowing you were okay.”
“I am okay.”
Finn scoffs, but he makes it sound so kind. Normal people don’t sound that kind when they scoff. Then, of course, Finn isn’t like everyone else and he never was.
“No, you’re not.”
It’s like aching, when Finn speaks to him like that, like aching, but sweet and it’s better than the other kind he’s been feeling all night. Finn always makes everything seem like it will be okay, no matter how long it takes, no matter how difficult, it will always be okay. Sometimes that’s the only thing he needs, reassurance that one day the pain will ease.
Perhaps, he dares himself to think, he could take Finn to Yavin 4, to meet his dad. They’d get along well. Another daring thought peeks out of the shadows and Poe suddenly remembers that Finn hasn’t got a last name, but he could, if he wanted one. He could make one...or take one. The thought doesn’t go further than that, but it could. He makes a mental note to remember that in the future. One more thought, one that he’s had longer than he cares to admit, crosses his head. I think I love him.
It’s silent, they don’t say much, or anything at all, but eventually their toes grow numb and Finn moves, much to Poe’s dismay. He enjoyed watching the stars and the moon, as if the night sky had something to tell him.
“We have to go inside unless we want our limbs to freeze off,” he says, moving away from Poe, which very nearly makes him whine. Finn ruffles his hair and smiles, like Poe is a vast and glittering ocean, like he’s something beautiful and invaluable, like anything about him is worthy of a smile like that.
How can he say no to anything Finn wants?
“Fine.”
They climb out of the cockpit and Finn’s hand grazes Poe’s arm. It sends sparks of...something up his spine, but says nothing about it. They go back to their dorm. The sensation in his fingers and toes immediately comes back and he takes off his boots, puts them by the door, shrugs off his jacket, throwing it onto the hook above his shoes. With practiced ease, Poe heaves himself onto the top bunk above Finn and settles onto the pillow. Finn turns out the light. This doesn’t mean Poe is gonna sleep, by the way.
“I have them, too, you know?” Finn says, barely audible.
Poe doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. His teeth worry his bottom lip, but luckily Finn continues talking.
“I see everyone I’ve ever killed. I see burning houses and exploding fleets. I see a kid’s shoe in the middle of a desolate road going through a ghost town. I hear blasters everywhere.”
I’m sorry.
You don’t deserve that.
Don’t blame yourself.
He should have said at least one of those things, but except for Finn’s voice and the occasional shuffling the room was silent.
“My point is, you’re not alone. Even if you don’t wanna talk to me, specifically, I’m sure there are a lot of people you can talk to. You could even just record yourself and leave it at that. Just know that you don’t have to carry it all on your own.”
Poe squeezes his eyes shut and the lump in his throat returns. “So many people are dead because of me. Good people.”
Finn doesn’t say anything and Poe feels shame burning at his chest. He shouldn’t have said that. Of course he shouldn’t have said that. He must sound like a monster. Finn must’ve understood why he never told anyone about his nightmares, because they’re too horrible, he’s horrible and Finn’s gonna leave and—
“Uhm, do you mind coming down here?” he asks, voice raising slightly at the end.
“What?” Poe can’t really think straight.
“I don’t know if that’s weird. I don’t understand all these things, but I just...I want to see your face. I don’t know if that’s weird.”
He doesn’t go down immediately, no, he sits up, shifts around, tries to understand why he thought Finn would hate him. Stars, that’s just ridiculous in hindsight.
“No, it’s not weird,” he says and then waits another ten seconds before swinging his legs off the end and jumping down. “Just wasn’t expecting that. For some reason.”
Finn has already rolled onto his side and moved to the edge of the bed. Poe wordlessly crawls into the space and looks into the eyes looking back at him from only a couple of inches away. He feels the tension melt away and he’s filled with warmth coming both from Finn’s body and the sort of fuzzy, blooming feeling from within his chest and arms and legs and everywhere until he was sure Finn would be able to see his blush if not for the darkness.
“You’re a good man. You know that, right?” Finn propped his head up by placing his arm below it, but the other one went to stroke a ringlet that had fallen into Poe’s face.
“I try my best?” he whispers and scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip. “I just...I guess I just don’t think that...that’s good enough, all the time.”
His eyes are closed, so he flinches when Finn’s hand cups his cheek and sneaks to the back of his neck, tangling itself into the short curls there and Poe shivers. He’s terrified, he thinks. It feels like Finn can see every imperfection, every flaw, everything he’s ever done wrong and Poe lets him see it and he doesn’t know how much more he can handle because the facade is chipping away, crumbling with each touch on his skin and the man underneath is a gentler soul than Poe would ever admit.
“War makes murderers of us all, but that doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It just means we did the best we could in a bad situation.” Finn is shifting, pulling a blanket over the two of them and it’s too small, it doesn’t really cover their feet nor their backs, but somehow it’s good enough. It’s warm and close and Finn must be able to hear Poe’s heartbeats now.
“Maybe.”
It’s all he can give, it’s all he has, but it feels like a start and he doesn’t feel like he’s falling. Poe smiles and realises that it almost feels easy to do so.
One look through the window tells him the sun’s on its way up. The sky is no longer black, now replaced by an intense blue, some of the brighter stars can still be vaguely made out in the sky. There’s no sun yet as far as he can tell, and he just wants to sleep, consequences be damned. Nightmares didn’t seem so frightening when sleeping next to Finn.
“What do you say we get some sleep before breakfast?” Poe murmurs, closing his eyes and nestling closer.
“Sounds like a plan.” He pulls Poe into his chest and turns onto his back. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Poe whispers, smoothing out all the crinkles in the fabric of Finn’s shirt. He makes for a good pillow, admittedly. It smells like motor oil, wood and something that he could only describe as ‘home’.
It only takes a couple of minutes for him to begin fading from consciousness and he’s almost there when Finn shifts. Poe very nearly complains, but before he can get a word out Finn’s hand travels up the length of Poe’s back and to his upper arm, squeezing it closer.
“I love you,” Finn whispers and presses a lingering kiss to the top of his head.
Each syllable sounded like a bone uncracking, an explosion in reverse, a mother blowing on her son’s knee when he’s scraped it, a whisper on the lonely winds, like healing over and over and over again until there’s more scar tissue than skin, but it’s better than the gaping hole that used to be there.
“Go to sleep,” he replies, murmuring into Finn’s chest. His hand finds the hem of the beige cotton shirt and carefully sneaks its way underneath, making its way up the bumps and dips, the soft expanse of Finn’s stomach and chest, settles around his waist and pulls him closer, if that were even possible.
And it almost sounds like ‘I love you, too’.