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He’s starting to get back on his feet.
Finally.
He’s been itching to get up, to explore, ever since he woke up to an empty hospital room.
(Poe had appeared, after he’d called out - rumpled hair, bleary eyes, splashing hot coffee over his hands, caught between swearing blue murder and staring across at Finn, awake at last).
He’s used to order, to constant action - training, tests, drills, breakfast at five am, every single day planned from when he brushes his teeth to when his head hits the pillow. But now everyone - his doctor, the nurses, even Rey, looking a thousand shades of disapproving even via a hologram call - have been telling him to rest. Just rest. Poe brings him from the cafeteria - marginally better than the hospital ward’s food - and trinkets back from his missions. A shell from a planet mostly consisting of pebble beaches and miles upon miles of ocean. Unexpectedly, a small pipe, whittled from a skinny branch Poe had picked up in the jungle. Perhaps the strangest - a pressed flower (white, almost translucent petals, a pink tinge). Poe brushes it all off easily - lots of down-time on long, boring missions, apparently - accompanied by the sort of easy, blinding smile that distracts Finn from the fact that he’d kill to go one one of those missions. Finn accepts the brush-off every time, not daring to question or push the friendship he can’t believe he’s managed to build up from a hospital bed. Everything around him feels fragile, breakable like glass, and he doesn’t want to ruin the only thing that feels solid.
Better than the gifts Poe brings him, though, are the stories. He’ll come in smelling of motor oil and woodsmoke (the first makes sense and the second - well, that might just be Poe) and talk endlessly about his missions, the odd places he goes, every near-death experience he has, until it’s almost enough.
Almost.
But still - he’s been stuck in bed for three weeks, barely able to make it to the bathroom without braining himself on the damn sink. He’s been wearing a hospital gown for what feels like years, and no one will give him any underwear, and he sort of wants to curl up into a ball of mortification and boredom and die a slow, dull death.
Poe enters just as he’s retreating into the foetal position which. Yes. Of course. Thank you, universe.
‘Hey, buddy, watch it!’ Poe admonishes him as he flails about in his sheets until he’s effectively swaddled himself like an enormous, pathetic baby. 'You’re gonna tear your stitches.’
'Good,’ he declares dramatically, giving up on trying to untangle himself and lies, arm tied up around his nose. 'At least that way something interesting might - is that my jacket?’
He scrabbles to see it and, upon spotting the accompanying bundle of clothing, almost tips out of the bed, Poe catching him and rolling him back onto the mattress.
'Will you shut up? Or do you want Sister Krifna to castrate us both?’
Finn shivers a little, which is unfair - Sister Krifna is lovely. But he has no doubt that the pair of them might undergo some grievous bodily harm if he tears the stitches she painstakingly sewed into his skin. Sure, she would patch him up afterwards. But it would still hurt.
'I’m breaking you out,’ Poe grins from above, leaning over him on the bed (which evokes a lot of vastly in inappropriate images that run his mouth dry) before untangling his arms.
'And how do you intend to do that?’ Finn pressed, getting a jacket flung in his face for his troubles.
'Get dressed, you smart ass. I have a plan.’
-
Poe’s plan is awful.
It consists of the pilot pushing Finn along in a squeaky wheelchair at double speed and relying on a stolen stethoscope dangling around his neck to get them through.
'This is a terrible plan!’ Finn tells him, for maybe the fifth time: 'Really, really terrible.’ One of the nurses holds the door open for them, sending him a pretty smile as they go. ’…How is this terrible plan working?’
Poe leans over his shoulder as they speed through another set of doors, unexpectedly close as he breathes into Finn’s ear.
'Fortunately, I am very, very handsome.’ As if to prove his point, Poe flashes a charming grin and a wink to another nurse. Finn is pretty sure the guy swoons.
Swoons.
And then walks directly into a cupboard door, which he can sympathise with.
'You’re an asshat, anyone ever tell you that?’ Finn grumps, twisting in his seat a little. 'You’re not even wearing a lab-coat!’ A pause, and then; 'You’re wearing your flight suit, aren’t you?’
'Yep!’ Poe grins, cheerfully popping the 'p’ as they just about make its to the lift. 'And yet…’
Finn’s pretty sure he can hear Sister Krifna’s voice echoing down the corridor, muffled by the doors slipping shut.
-
He doesn’t ask Poe where he’s being taken as they wheel along. Almost everyone knows Poe, it seems - and he greets them all by name, slinging in-jokes and snarky comments over his shoulder as they go. He realises fairly quickly that travelling with Poe, even just down a corridor, is a little like flying a plane with him - a whirlwind of quips and chaos and warmth. His cheeks ache from smiling, and as they come to a stop by a small, innocuous door, Poe squeezes his shoulder through the leather of his jacket, warm and tight, before he steps around the wheelchair to tap in a code for the door.
As Poe wheels him through the doorway, it’s as if they’ve stepped into another world - he can’t help the way his breath hitches in his chest. Abruptly, they’re surrounded by greenery, leaves and branches, rows of vegetables and herbs. The room smells of soils and fresh sunlight and, inexplicably, woodsmoke. A fern brushes gently against his cheek as Poe settles him by a bench and perched there, swinging a bag into his mail and beginning to unpack food. Dried fruit and crackers, some cheese - simple bits and pieces, but Finn’s practically drooling after the stodginess of hospital and cafeteria food.
Poe’s skin is tinged a little green, the plants splaying odd, pretty patterns and shadows across his cheekbones. He smiles across at Finn, eyes seemingly huge in the dim light of the room, and he feels his breath catch in his chest once again.
'Never had you pegged for a gardener,’ Finn quips, filling a rare silence, and Poe glances away with a chuckle.
'No - my mother was the one with the green thumb.’
Finn blinks - with all the stories Poe’s told him, he’s never heard anything about his family. His childhood. He supposed it’s one of those quid-pro-quo things, and there’s never been much to say about his own childhood
And yet.
Finn dares himself, just this once, to press a little further.
'Did you grow up here?’ He blurts out around a mouthful of cracker. Smooth.
Poe’s eyelashes flutter for a moment, casting long shadows across his cheekbones - but then he nods, running a thumb along a waxy lead as he smiles fondly.
'Yeah. Was born in the hospital ward, actually. My parents were resistance fighters - early on, you know.’
Finn nods, as usual stuck for something to say - it’s not hard to spot the past tense Poe keeps using, and the sadness stamped across his shoulders has aged him ten years in thirty seconds.
'I - I trained with Luke Skywalker for a while.’
The word sound like a confession - and a few things click into place all at once.
'Oh,’ he says softly, stupidly. 'So you - you knew -’
'Ben - Kylo - whatever. Yeah. We were friends. Not close but - we got along. He liked my mom. She was kind to him.’
Finn remains silent. All of a sudden, he realises he’s not really a part of this conversation. He wonders, absently, why Poe brought him here - and if he’s ever brought anyone else before.
'She was in here a lot - when she wasn’t out flying. She was a pilot, like me. She taught me what all the herbs and plants can do, what they can be used for.’
'She sounds amazing.’
Poe starts a little, as if he’d forgotten there was anyone else in the room - then huffs out a breath, smiling.
'Yeah. She was. They both were.’
Poe’s eyes are dark, and something in Finn’s chest aches to look at him, sharp and sweet. The other man stands, running his fingers along the plants and coming to a stop by a small strand of pretty flowers.
'She planted these - a few weeks before she died. They don’t do anything, don’t have any medicinal uses, they just - look nice. I come here every now and then, just to make sure they don’t die out.’
Poe runs a thumb over the vine and Finn looks a little closer.
White petals, pink tinge.
Finn’s mind darts to the carefully preserved flower, pressed into paper, that he keeps in his bedside drawer, tucked into a book to keep it safe. And - oh.
Oh.
'Poe,’ he’s saying, already forcing himself up out of his seat and shuffling along the ground, just about making it to the pilot, who turns just in time to catch Finn in his arms as he stumbles and falls.
'Finn - damn it, sit down -’
Finn shuts up in what he supposes is the most effective way possible.
Which is kissing him.
It’s messy and awkward and when their noses bump together Poe pulls away, looking at him with those unfairly big, dark eyes.
His heart thuds against his rib cage and he chases a breath as large, warm hands brush along his jaw, thumbs tracing his cheekbones - and then Poe’s kissing him back. Properly, this time, with a little tongue and a little teeth grazing against his bottom lip - and that sense of whirlwind and warmth eclipses Finn once again.
Poe pulls away after a few breathless moments, unable to suppress a laugh as Finn follows him, a disgruntled grumble rolling out of his throat.
'Huh,’ Poe muses, and Finn’s caught between kissing him again and hitting him. 'I knew there was a reason I kept you around.’
Finn hits him.
-
It takes them a little while to make it back to the ward - and Sister Krifna’s waiting for them, seething. She opens her mouth - and, seeing the rumpled clothes and little marks dotted across Finn’s neck, shuts it again. She sends Poe a wildly disapproving look and hustles Finn back into the room with what he likes to pretend is an indulgent smile, silent as the door shuts on Poe.
But it’s alright. Because he comes back the next day - and the next day, and the next.