Chapter Text
Poe awoke with a start as a panicked scream tore from him. His eyes were wild in alarm as he fought in the darkness as the sheets seemed to tangle around his limbs, no matter how he tried to fight them. He could just see himself being held down by the First Order as Kylo Ren towered over him, about to tear out the information that he held so dear.
He felt something seem to climb behind him and then pull on the cord connected to his lamp. The room was bathed in an orange glow as Poe was able to see Finn towering of him with alarm shinning in his eyes. “Hey, hey, hey.” He had Poe’s shoulders in his hands as he slightly shook him. “It’s okay. It’s alright. You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re with me, in our room. It’s just us.”
Poe let out a half strangled cry that turned into a painful gulp when he tried to speak. “Ren,” he sputtered as his jaw seemed to tense when he tried to say anything else.
“Ren isn’t here,” Finn reassured quickly. He then lifted the bottom of his shirt and slightly rubbed it against Poe’s cheek where a line of spit had fallen from his gritted teeth. “It’s just us. Only us.”
Poe opened his mouth as he tried to sit up. Finn was there to slightly pull on his arm and help Poe rest against him. “That’s right. That’s right. You’re safe. You’re with me.”
Finn thought back to the session that he had had with Dr. Firn. Poe didn’t know that Finn had started to see him without Poe, just to know how he could help the traumatized pilot. Dr. Firn had suggested using a common phrase or string of phrases that would help pull Poe from his frightened state. They had spent numerous sessions going over common words that would break through Poe’s flashbacks and bring him back to Finn and the environment that he was in. Finn had been reluctant to try it for fear that Poe would guess that he had been meeting with Dr. Firn, but luckily that hadn’t happened as of yet.
“Finn,” Poe echoed, straining to speak once again.
Finn lifted up a gentle hand and gingerly rubbed the tears aside. “You’re safe. You’re with me. It’s just us. You’re alright. You’re okay.”
“Sorry I woke you,” Poe managed after a moment. He was still trembling against Finn as if still trying to soothe himself to the best of his ability. “I-I didn’t m-mean to.”
“No, of course you didn’t.” Finn brought Poe close to him and kissed his forehead gently. “You didn’t. It’s alright.” He started to rock Poe back and forth as Poe clutched at his shirt and whimpered as sobs overtook him. “Shhhhh, shhhhh, shhhh. You’re alright. I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. I’m right here.”
Finn rested his chin on top of Poe’s head as Poe buried his head against his chest. All Finn could do was try to soothe Poe as he silently let his own tears roll down his cheeks.
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Poe sat up straight on his bed with his legs outstretched in front of him. He held his PADD tightly in his fingers as he swiped through articles that spoke about planets being able to take their lives back after being under First Order persecution. While it was supposed to be warm-hearted and good news, Poe couldn’t find any energy to be proud of it. All he felt was exhausted and his eyes were constantly trying to close. He had felt the feeling all day and he was tired of fighting it.
“Poe, are you listening to me?”
Poe turned his head upward and blushed when he realized that Finn had been speaking to him. The former Stormtrooper had stuck out his head from the fresher while he brushed his teeth. Finn grunted as he turned back into the fresher and spat into the sink. The sound of running water reached Poe’s ears as he turned back to his reading. He had read the same paragraph four times and it still wasn’t sinking into his memory.
Finn headed out of the fresher and came over to sit across from Poe on their bed, his legs folded up under him. “What’s so interesting that’s more important than me?”
“Nothing! This just helps me not think of other things,” he confessed as he tried to read through it once more.
Finn nodded slowly. Poe had seemed a little distant the whole day and he wasn’t sure that encouraging him to dissociate was the best plan either. “Really? Well, how about we talk about something else interesting? Something that isn’t on this thing.” He stretched out his hand and grasped the PADD before setting it on the nightstand. They used to have a rule never to bring their PADDs to bed, but that rule had gone out the window when Poe’s flashbacks had first started.
Poe seemed edgy, distant, and uncomfortable as he looked anywhere around the room that wasn’t directly at Finn’s face. Finn more than picked up on that, but he wasn’t about to say anything at the moment. “Nothing? You have no witty comment or funny story? You’re never short on words.”
“Sorry, Finn, I’m just not feeling it today, I guess,” Poe mumbled.
Finn nodded in understanding. He lifted his hand and brushed hair from Poe’s face so that it wasn’t in his eyes. “You seem tired. Is it time for bed?”
Just the memory of what had happened the night before was enough to put Poe off of sleep for years. He couldn’t let Finn know of that, though. Finn worried enough as it is. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t we at least try to go to sleep,” suggested Finn. “I’ll be right beside you. I’m not going anywhere. Would that make it better?”
Poe wasn’t sure if better was the world, but it was certainly something that he could live with. He smiled as he nodded. “Okay.”
Finn scurried to the top of the bed beside Poe and wrapped his arms around him. Poe laughed as Finn’s breath tickled the side of his neck as he held Poe close. Finn was as exhausted as Poe was, if not more. Poe had woken him up every night for the past three weeks.
However, tonight was going to be different.
Tonight, Poe wasn’t going to sleep.