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Poe Dameron has always known that his soulmate is going to leave him, whether it be through death, breakup, or some other scenario--after all, he has the tattoo.
It had appeared sometime around his eighth birthday, and his mom had explained with some sadness in her eyes that those are the last words he'll ever hear from his soulmate (not the last words they'll ever say, she was careful to specify--the last words you'll hear). Only one person in every pair gets it, she said, and the person who does will be left behind.
She didn't explain that day that death was a possibility, maybe assuming that Poe was too young to understand. As he had grown older, and once he had found out that his father's tattoo was of his mother's last words to him before she died, he had realized that it was, in fact, possible--probable--that his soulmate would die. Joining the Resistance made him feel like it was almost definite.
The idea was terrifying, but at some point he just...stopped thinking about it. It's a part of him, his eventual destiny, but he puts so much thought into flying and fighting and opposing the First Order in every way he can that those efforts just take over his life.
And the tattoo fades from his mind.
When he meets Finn, the wonderful perfect innocent beautiful ex-stormtrooper who goes against everything he's been taught to save Poe and get out of the First Order, who does everything he can to help people, who takes a lightsaber to the back to protect Rey, he starts thinking about it again for the first time in probably fifteen years. He wonders if Finn is his soulmate.
He doesn't really want to know, of course, because that would require Finn dying or breaking up with him or whatever entails Poe being left in this situation, but he wonders nonetheless. He doesn't tell Finn about any of it. He doesn't even tell him about the tattoo. He isn't even sure that Finn knows what soulmates are--somehow, he feels like the First Order isn't too big on that concept.
Finn might be his soulmate, and Poe sincerely hopes that he is, but he really, really doesn't want to find out.
"This feels somehow familiar," Poe quips as he's dragged down the corridor of a Star Destroyer, hands bound in front of him, a stormtrooper on either side. "Finn, you feel it?"
"Yeah, Poe, I feel it." Finn is similarly bound and guarded, but seems to be impressively calm. "I'm not sure, though. Maybe-"
A white-gloved fist to his jaw cuts off the rest of his sentence. Sudden anger fills Poe at Finn's pained gasp. "Hey!" he exclaims, putting extra effort into fighting his escorts. "Leave him alone."
"Poe, you don't need to-"
"Both of you, be quiet," commands one of the troopers.
Before Poe can come up with a suitable reply, a stormtrooper in all-black armor rounds the corner. All four of their guards halt immediately. One throws a salute. "Captain, sir!" she exclaims.
Poe raises an eyebrow. "Do all captains have ridiculous armor? Because I'm-"
"If you don't get quiet I'll tell FN-thirty-eighty over there to shoot your boyfriend," the captain says. The stormtrooper on Finn's right points a blaster at Finn's head.
Poe immediately shuts his mouth.
"We only need one of you for information," the captain continues. His voice is on the quiet side, but it does nothing to detract from his air of authority. Poe has no doubt whatsoever that the officer won't hesitate to have Finn shot on the spot. "FN-seventy-three-oh-eight, where are you taking them?" the captain asks.
"The detention block for interrogation, sir!" replies the same trooper who had first addressed the captain.
"And who are they?"
"Resistance, sir. We don't know their names at this time."
"Well, that should be easy enough." The captain walks forward and stands in front of Poe. He punches Poe, his armored fist leaving a cut across Poe's cheek that he can feel start dripping blood immediately. He hears Finn make a sound of anger. "What's your name?"
"Kylo Ren," says Poe, straight-faced.
The captain sighs. "FN-thirty-eighty? Go ahead and-"
"Wait. Wait!" the pilot says quickly. He has no desire for Finn to be shot. "Dameron. My name is Poe Dameron."
"Ah. I've heard about you." The captain steps to the right, turns his attention to Finn. "Which would make you a traitor to the First Order--FN-twenty-one-eighty-seven, am I right?--and we can't allow traitors to go unpunished."
"His name is Finn, you-"
The captain wheels and punches Poe in the face again, hard enough that he would have fallen to the floor if not for the two guards holding him upright. "Poe!" exclaims Finn. Poe meets his eyes and shakes his head slightly. I'm fine, he mouths. Finn bites his lip uncertainly but nods.
"FN-twenty-one-eighty-seven," the captain says, deliberately drawing out the numbers as he stares at Finn. "I think your time for reconditioning is long overdue."
"That's not my name," Finn says firmly. Poe is torn between silently cheering for him and wishing he would wouldn't antagonize the First Order douchebag. Though, Poe considers, he himself isn't a great example of avoiding antagonism. "My name is Finn."
The captain strikes Finn in the stomach. "You don't have a name. Your designation is FN-twenty-one-eighty-seven."
"My name is-"
Three blows, one after the other, make Finn double over. "You don't have a name!" the captain shouts. "FN-thirty-eighty, FN-twelve-ninety-nine, drop him."
Finn falls to the floor with a sound of pain. The captain kicks him in the ribs, and Poe hears something crack from where he's standing. Poe struggles against his guards, but they don't budge an inch. "Finn!" he yells.
"Your designation," the captain continues, kicking Finn again, "is F. N. Two. One. Eight. Seven." Each word is punctuated by another kick, followed immediately by a gasp of pain from Finn.
Poe is honestly ready to fight every frickin' person in the entire frickin' First Order. He puts all his strength into getting away from the stormtroopers holding him--still, to no avail. "Leave him alone!" he yells. "Leave Finn alone!"
"Poe," says Finn weakly, and he coughs and there's blood on his lips and if anger equated power this entire Star Destroyer would be dust because Poe is absolutely furious. "Poe, stop."
The captain pulls Finn upright roughly (another gasp of pain from Finn, another spike of anger from Poe). "FN-thirty-eighty, FN-twelve-ninety-nine, take him to reconditioning. FN-seventy-three-oh-eight, FN-thirteen-twenty-six, take Dameron in for interrogation."
At the word reconditioning, Finn looks up in horror. He tries to struggle as 3080 and 1299 take his arms, but one elbow to his ribs makes him cry out in pain and slump over.
"Finn. Finn!"
"Poe, don't worry," Finn says in what's probably supposed to be a reassuring tone, but he's covered in blood and there's literally no way in all of space that Poe wouldn't be worried right now. "It'll be fine. We'll get out of here just like last time."
Poe's eyes widen.
No-
"Knock him out," the captain orders. FN-3080--Poe thinks, though at this point he isn't positive--deals Finn a harsh blow to the side of the head.
It's with a sense of horror that Poe watches Finn collapse to the floor.
Because those were the words that are inked on Poe's left forearm.
"No! No!" Poe screams, and he manages to rip free of his guard for about half a second before they seize him again, tighter. "Finn! Finn!"
The stormtroopers take him to the left and Finn to the right, and it feels like Poe's heart is actually being torn in two. Finn is his soulmate, he has been all along, and he's gone. He's left Poe. The tattoos don't lie.
When they dump him in a cell, he doesn't even care what they're going to do to him
Nothing could hurt more than losing Finn.
It's been about a month and a half, Poe thinks, but he isn't sure. It's hard to keep track of time when he's being near-constantly interrogated.
And when all he can think about is the tattoo and Finn.
His...
soulmate.
Who's gone.
Forever.
Another two weeks, and for once it's the captain himself (the captain who Poe wants with every fiber of his being to destroy) who comes in, followed by a stormtrooper.
"Poe Dameron," the captain says, and it's that voice, that awful, terrible voice that has haunted Poe's dreams for the past two months. "I heard you haven't said much."
Poe doesn't say a word, just studies his reflection in the captain's black armor. His face is bruised, bloody, and just generally in bad shape, but his eyes are what strike him the most--they look empty and haunted and dark.
"I've brought someone you might want to meet," the captain continues, unfazed by Poe's silence. He turns to the stormtrooper behind him. "Remove your helmet."
The trooper takes his helmet off slowly, tucks it under his arm, and Poe just stares.
Because it's Finn.
But...the tattoo. The tattoos don't lie.
Maybe Finn will say the words again. Maybe there's another time in the future that they end up captured on a Star Destroyer again or maybe there's something else that Poe is missing.
"Tell him your name, trooper," the captain orders.
Staring blankly ahead, Finn says, "I don't have a name. My designation is FN-two-one-eight-seven."
"Finn," Poe whispers, but Finn doesn't acknowledge him at all. "Finn, it's me," he continues, louder, desperation tinging his voice. "It's me. It's Poe."
Finn doesn't react at all.
Poe would probably be crying if he weren't fighting against it with all of his will.
The captain walks closer and removes his own helmet, allowing Poe to see for the first time the face of the man who took his soulmate. He's human, with pale hair and dark eyes, and he's smiling ever-so-slightly. "You see, Dameron," the captain says, leaning close, "Finn is gone. He was your soulmate, wasn't he? I've been told about the tattoo."
"I hope a rancor eats you alive, you-"
The captain presses a button on the thing Poe is secured to, sending a surge of electricity through him, and continues speaking.
"I've always thought that the system was rather pointless...flawed, even. How can it allow a broken failure of a soldier to have a soulmate?"
Poe is shaking, both with anger and with pain. "He wasn't broken!" he exclaims. "He wasn't a failure!"
"Yes." The captain's voice is hard, unrelenting. "He was. FN-twenty-one-eighty-seven, we're leaving."
Finn--except, no, he isn't Finn anymore, because that's the only explanation for the tattoo--nods and replaces his helmet. He follows the captain out the door.
Poe gives up trying to stop the tears.
"FN-twenty-one-eighty-seven died in action yesterday. Thought you might want to know."
Poe hears the words, but his exhausted, pain-scrambled mind doesn't comprehend them until much later (when he does, the feeling in his chest is so akin to being shot that he's seriously concerned that he's dying, and he doesn't even mind--maybe he'll see Finn again.)
The Resistance rescues him eventually, though some part of Poe wishes he had died on that Star Destroyer. He spends two weeks recovering in the medbay--two weeks that remind him so much of waiting for Finn to wake up that his chest starts to get that shot feeling back.
He misses Finn so much.
"I heard that they weren't able to rescue Finn," comes a quiet voice from the doorway the day Poe's supposed to be released. He looks up from the shoe he's tying. It's General Organa.
"No," Poe replies, his eyes dropping almost unconsciously to the writing on his arm. "It wasn't anyone's fault. They couldn't."
The General follows his gaze. "Was he your...?"
"Yeah," Poe says. His voice so quiet he isn't sure she can even hear him. "He was my soulmate. I-I just..."
General Organa sits down next to him on the bed. "Wish you had never found out? Want to cry every time you see the tattoo? Miss him so much your chest burns?"
Poe nods, once, tearing himself away from the words on his arm. "How did you know?"
"I lost my soulmate on Starkiller base," she explains. "I didn't realize that he had said...it until after he had taken off."
Poe frowns. He hadn't known that. "Han Solo?"
General Organa nods slowly. "I miss him," she says. "I miss his smile and his voice and I even miss his flying. I'm sorry about Finn."
Poe stares at the floor. "I miss him," he says. His voice and willpower give out on the last word, and he suddenly dissolves into a sobbing mess. "I miss him so m-much I just want...I just want him back."
General Organa rubs his back comfortingly, something he doesn't remember anyone doing since his mom died. "I'm sorry, Poe," she says.
Poe cries harder, and some part of him is ashamed that he's crying in front of the General. But he can't help it.
He misses Finn's smile.
He misses Finn's wide-eyed wonder at things Poe has never been without.
He misses the way Finn looked in that jacket.
He misses everything about Finn.
Finally, when he's cried for several minutes, the tears subside, though his chest still hurts (somehow he thinks it will for a while).
General Organa stands. "Let me know if you ever want to talk about anything, Poe," she tells him in what he can only consider a motherly tone. "Losing a soulmate is hard."
"Does it ever stop hurting?" Poe blurts, before he can consider if he should or not.
The General is silent for several seconds. Poe is afraid he's said the wrong thing.
"No," she says finally, and Poe can see unshed tears in her eyes.
"You just learn to live with it."