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It feels as choking hot as D'Qar. Even in the shadowy depths of the Resistance's cave-base.
Poe wipes off his forehead absently, lying on his back and stretching. Not too far, he can hear Wexley giving orders to a squadron of newly recruited starfighters from Neelanon. There's no barracks for a jungle moon like Ajan Kloss, and nobody got the extra time or the extra hands for it. Those working for the Resistance sleeps on the Tantive IV when they need to sleep.
His red-tailed hawk daemon makes a high-pitched kree-eee-ar! and soars down to him. She lands on Poe's chest, her long, beautifully full wings tucking at her sides. "What do you think?" Poe mumbles, rubbing a callused palm-heel over his nose.
"You know what I think, Poe," she whispers. Poe thinks her voice has deepened now to a hoarse rasp.
It seems like years and years ago when they were reveling in their youth. Has it been so long? Is Poe already forgetting?
Him and his daemon running on his homeworld, trying to climb the purple-barked Massassi trees, daring each other to put grubs in their mouths and spitting them out. Poe would stare admiringly at the Force tree planted behind the colony's borders, daydreaming alone and feeling his beetle daemon prickle harshly at his ear, reprimanding him for sneaking out.
The corner of Poe's mouth smirks.
"What do I know?"
"It's what you are thinking right now," she deadpans. "That's how I know." Poe's daemon gives a throaty runk! as if irritable and settles herself, letting Poe's knuckles ruffle through her feathers. He strokes over her breast, comforted by the familiar softness.
"I think… I don't know, I guess I think sometimes that I miss being the new recruit. I miss knowing less than I do right now."
"That's just growing up, Poe."
"Suppose so."
Footsteps echo on the cave's floor. Poe jerks his head up in time to watch Finn emerge around the corner. He's glistening with sweat. Finn's daemon — a lean, muscular dire wolf covered in black fur — growls a little. The noise echoes through Poe, too.
"There you are," Finn declares, his expression pinched. He limps. "Rose said you might be here."
Poe hauls himself onto his feet, now concerned by the obvious and jagged tears in Finn's shirt. He says nothing at first, embracing Finn and lightly pressing their mouths together. Finn's arms slip around Poe's waist, tightening. Poe sighs a soft laughing sound against Finn's now smiling lips, arching a little to Finn's hands, hearing his own name murmured.
The red-tailed hawk daemon swoops in front of Finn's dire wolf daemon. She waits patiently for the other daemon to press her snout against her, nudging and curiously snuffling into her glossy, brownish-red feathers. Poe's daemon warbles.
Finn lets him go, and Poe cradles Finn's right arm between them. He can see a burn shiny and pink on Finn's dark brown skin.
"Got yourself into a lightfight, buddy?"
Rey appears on Poe's other side, interrupting, "More like he got his butt handed to him during practice."
She looks so smug in this moment, filthy with hardening clay-mud on her boots and cream white pants. One of Rey's cheeks scraped-red in bruising. She's got a hand on her lightsaber, and the other cradles her fennec fox daemon closely to herself.
Finn waves offhandedly, going sour.
Poe leans in, greeting Rey and kissing her until he can feel a quiver in Rey's exhale. He thumbs over Rey's bruise gently, pulling away to examine her. It's not a deep cut. Poe's fingers then — even more gently still — brush over the soft, dense fur of Rey's daemon.
Rey turns pink with knowing and barely concealed glee, much to Poe's amusement.
She swats hard at Poe's arm.
"Yeah, yeah, I was there." Finn complains, "Rey, you trained with the Luke Skywalker for months, and then General Organa, and I learned to build my own lightsaber with my own hands yesterday. How am I supposed to compete with you?"
Rey sets down her fennec fox daemon, as he animal-whines through a yawn.
Poe wonders he will ever hear Rey's daemon speak. He hasn't yet. Poe's daemon hasn't heard him either.
"And now you're training with me," she insists. Rey offers a grin, leaning into Finn's hands resting on her hips and moaning quietly against Finn's mouth smushing to hers. Poe's fingers bury into Rey's unraveling hair, cupping the back of her head.
The fennec fox daemon scampers to the other two daemons, butting his head playfully against Finn's daemon.
"You two missed mealtime," Poe announces as soon as the kiss separates. "They had blatberry pie this time with a cup of caf." He snorts out a laugh, not offended when Finn aims a long-suffering and exhausted stare at Poe.
"I could sleep through a Imperial Fleet's drill siren right now. I don't even care, man."
Poe steps behind Finn, touching and massaging into Finn's back. "Full speed ahead then," he says, ushering Finn ahead and marching. Poe grabs onto Rey's wrist, trailing his hand over her warm, mud-specked fingers and holding on. "You too, Rey."
"It's early…" Rey protests, but she scoops up her little, inquisitive daemon anyway and follows them out of the cave.
Poe's red-tailed hawk daemon takes off, screeching and heading for the Millennium Falcon.
Behind all three humans, Finn's dire wolf daemon prowls slowly, keeping an eye out for intruders while keeping a distance. Not too much of a distance. That would be going against the daemon taboo, and Poe never wants to see that physical agony and terror seize Finn again.
"Early to bed, early to rise." Poe walks up the Millennium Falcon ramp, still holding firmly onto Finn's shoulder and Rey's empty hand not on her daemon. "And if you're not early enough for the General, then I guarantee your peaches are canned."
Inside the forward hold, Poe feels a growing sense of relief as the air regulates and cools down.
There's a cot somewhere with their name on it.
Thanks the stars for the little blessings.