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Poe Dameron is eight years old when he sees the light in his father’s eyes go out.
Old enough to listen when the general tells him that it’s not his fault… young enough to blame himself. He watches the light fade, how it dims his father’s smiles and darkens his every movement. He sits in his bed at night and weeps for his father even as he mourns his mother.
The loss is like a gaping hole and he knows - some base part of him understands - that no matter how difficult it was for him to live in a world without his mother, it is nothing compared to what his father must feel.
Poe Dameron is eight years old when his mother dies.
He decides that he’s better off without a soulmate altogether.
+
Maybe it’s the torture.
It could be that he didn’t have a big enough dinner before setting out.
In the moment, though, Poe Dameron can’t be bothered by the hows and whys of it all. No, he’s got bigger problems, because the Stormtrooper in front of him just took off his helmet and the Resistance is fucked.
It’s seriously fucked, because if even half the Stormtroopers with the First Order are as gorgeous as the one in front of him they’ll lose half the Resistance force within twenty-four hours. It might seem defeatist, or like an over exaggeration, but there’s a tiny voice in Poe’s head urging him to kiss the guy…
You don’t kiss the enemy. It’s just not done.
+
The bastard’s laughing as missiles fly by, and it hits Poe hard that he’d do anything for this man. He’s known him for what feels like a second, but he would do anything for him without even knowing his name.
He asks. He has to know, but then all he gets is a string of letters and numbers and it’s not right. It’s not fair that his new partner in crime has no name. It doesn’t sit right in Poe’s stomach, doesn’t sit right in his heart, and before he can stop himself he’s doing the unthinkable.
“How about ‘Finn’? Can I call you Finn?”
It should feel stranger to hand the name over… at the very least it should feel like a betrayal of the child he had been at eight years old and the man he had grown into. It should feel wrong, but then Finn is laughing again, and he likes it, and the knowledge settles down deep in Poe’s heart that he’s done the right thing.
It’s the last thing he thinks before the TIE gets hit and panic sets in.
+
He survives.
He wakes up alone in the middle of the desert, aching and throat dry, and he is alive.
Carefully, cautiously, he forces himself up before scanning his surroundings. The second he does, he’s hit by a pang of regret so deep and pure that he can feel it in his toes.
There’s nothing but sand for as far as the eye can see. No wreckage, no smoke, no sign of the TIE… there’s no Finn. Brave, stupid, terrified Finn who only wore the name for a matter of a moment before they were blown from the sky.
He’s alone in the desert. There’s no one there to hear him scream, to comment on the way that it’s torn from his throat and his heart and his body against his will.
It’s quiet again, afterward, leaving room for the reality of the situation to settle in.
Finn is gone, the mission has failed, and Poe is alone.
He walks towards the setting sun because it’s better than waiting for someone that will never come. He walks and he walks and he doesn’t allow himself to consider why it is that he feels so wrecked over Finn’s loss.
+
The Resistance finds him, and they bring him home. They always do, and it’s something close to relief when General Organa orders everyone else out of the room.
It’s not his first debriefing, and it’s not his first loss, but he welcomes her generous, silent strength like a tonic. He drinks it deep, and when he manages to lift his eyes towards hers, he can remember why this woman was so much more than a legend.
She doesn’t say a thing, doesn’t expect him to fill the silence either, and that’s probably what sets him off. She doesn’t expect more from him than what he can give.
She doesn’t say a word as he tells her about the Stormtrooper than saved his life, doesn’t comment on the way Poe’s voice has been reduced to sandpaper and shavings. There’s no judgment in her face when he tells her about the naming of his Stormtrooper, no questioning that statement at all. Finn had been his in a blinding moment of hope and magic and flight.
General Organa rests a hand over his, and it’s all Poe can do to keep the tears from falling.
She gives him a mission.
+
Word gets around fast. It always does.
It’s not the first time that Poe’s been the center of attention but it is the first time that he actively avoids the whispers and stares. Before he’d been able to wink it off, flirt away an issue until it no longer existed… but this time it’s personal.
He knew what they called him before.
Easy.
Drifting.
Unwilling to settle down.
He’s heard it all before, but that was when the word soulmate was a challenge - when it was something to avoid. That was before he picked his soulmate, and he just knows what they’ll call him now.
Easy.
Desperate.
Terrified to be alone.
None of it… it’s not true, but it’s not a lie, and he’s not about to listen to the gossip and the theory. He can’t wink it off when he’s still figuring it out. Years of separating himself from the very notion of soulmates down the drain.
All he knows is that in the moment, it was the simplest choice in the galaxy.
+
They don’t tell him before hand. One moment he’s checking over his X-wing and the next he’s turning around at BB-8’s unmistakable chatter…
They didn’t think to tell him about the man named Finn that came in with Han and Chewy. No one would have thought to do it, and it feels like an injustice of the greatest kind, because that man is his.
Finn catches his eye and suddenly they’re running at each other like something out of his mother’s favorite holovids. It feels epic in a way that Poe’s only known from behind the controls of his ship. It feels larger than life to be standing here in Finn’s arms, clutched tight and safe together even as he can feel the prickles of Jess’s eyes on his neck.
He’ll answer to her later if he has to, for the moment, all he wants to do is get a better look at Finn… so he does. He pulls back only to find that not only is Finn alive… he saved his jacket. It’s like a sign from above and a wet-dream rolled into one, and he has to seriously contain himself from jumping back into Finn’s arms at the sight.
Like a chore, he drags his eyes up from Finn’s chest, and it’s only then that he realizes that Finn needs something. It’s like they’re back in the First Order’s base, only the two of them, and Finn doesn’t have to say half of what he obviously wants to for Poe to know that the kid needs his help.
So, he does. He helps, drags the kid for an audience with the General, all the while fighting down the desperate grin that keeps fighting for purchase on his face. From the look that the General shoots him, it’s obviously a lost cause, but then Finn’s hand brushes against his own and Poe couldn’t care less if everyone knows.
He’s got Finn back. It’s worth smiling over.
+
Of course, the smiling is short lived to say the least. He’s got teams to lead and a weapon to destroy and Finn is gone to ease the way. There’s no room in Poe’s heart for hope, not with the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, but he allows himself a second to imagine a happy ending for them all.
It’s just a second, but it’s enough.
+
They survive. They survive, and it’s crazy - they lost good, brave people out there, but Poe can’t keep the hope that’s bubbling up at bay anymore. They got the confirmation - Rey and Finn got off the Starkiller in time - they survived, and if that isn’t worth being brave over, nothing ever will be.
His skin’s stretched too thin as he waits for the Millennium Falcon to land, stretched thin over his hope and what feels an awful lot like love. He feels fragile and strong all at once, and there’s nothing that’s going to keep Poe Dameron from kissing his man.
Nothing… nothing except for the way Finn’s broken body is carried out of the ship.
The world stops spinning for a beat before it’s thrown into a new, frantic rhythm.
It’s not a conscious decision to trail after Finn’s body, but no one stops him from following along. They don’t keep him from Finn’s side the whole time he’s unconscious, and it’s only the realities of his condition - human - that keep him from being there around the clock.
He showers and he eats and he takes care of himself in the most basic of ways, but it’s like the urgency and vitality has drained from his life. The only thing he wants to do is be there when Finn wakes up.
They others, while respectful, don’t really leave him alone.
The doctors bustle around him for the first few days before demanding he help out if he planned on sticking around underfoot. It’s not much to ask, so he helps when he can. They’re kinder after that, all of them… even the shifty-looking little Chadra-Fan manages to spare him a kind glance now and then.
+
Rey shows up after a few days looking clean and well fed and sad. She’s a beautiful girl, but he doesn’t have it in himself to question her relationship with Finn. He just can’t bear to be jealous on top of the crushing grief that’s taken root in his heart. She’s kinder than he expected and incredibly gentle when she announces that she’s leaving, making sure to tell Finn in the off chance that he’ll hear and understand. She turns away without acknowledging Poe, but he didn’t expect her to… the fact that he’s still here in Finn’s room speaks to the trust she has in Poe. He doesn’t know Rey at all, but he knows her type. She’s fierce.
Fierce women don’t leave their families unless they know they’ll be cared for.
+
Finn’s eyes flutter open for a moment, machines going wild, but then there’s nothing again.
He doesn’t remember any of it, but they tell him later that he had made quite the scene. It had taken a firm hand and a tranq to stop him from calling Finn’s name.
Poe spends a full day staring at Finn like a hawk, desperate for even the slightest of signs that he’ll wake up.
He doesn’t.
+
It’s two weeks into Finn’s coma that the General stops by. She’s careful in her approach, but it’s clear that she’s concerned. Poe wouldn't blame her if the concern were for Finn… but she’s worried about Poe instead, and it feels wrong.
He’s not the one laid up in a coma.
He’s not the one that took a lightsaber to the back.
He’s not, but it doesn’t stop the tears from welling in his eyes when she looks at him with her knowing eyes. He’s not prepared for her to understand… and he’s not prepared for her to give credibility to his connection with Finn… not after she lost her own soulmate.
She shouldn’t look at Poe’s connection to Finn as anything other than whimsy and choice, but her eyes and her words and the hand on his shoulder speak to an understanding so deep and insurmountable that only someone that has felt it could understand.
“A soulmate always knows,” she says, and it’s like a punch to the gut.
+
Finn wakes up just before lunch on a day that’s just as insignificant as any other. There’s nothing special about it, and for that fact alone it feels like he’s dreaming. Surely, like something out of a fairy tale, Finn should wake up with bird song and a blinding flash…
Instead, there’s a groan from across the room, and Finn’s staring at him like he’s something special. It feels… it feels overwhelmingly like the perfect moment to tell Finn everything, but then he’s looking at Poe like he’s a puzzle and he’s asking what a soulmate is.
It’s like the wind’s been pulled from his sails, and suddenly everything comes crashing down.
He picked someone to be his and they would have no idea what it meant… the implication behind gifting Finn the name… the weight of the feelings behind it.
Poe, in all of his foolishness, wrapped this new name around Finn’s neck like a manacle without stopping to think if it was the right thing to do.
Finn’s still looking at him like he’s hung the suns, and Poe tells him the only thing he can.
Soulmates are complicated.
+
He keeps his distance from then on, can’t bear to see the look on Finn’s face when he realizes just what Poe’s done by giving him that name.
It had been a simple choice - a spur of the moment decision born from the danger and euphoria of hope, and it had been so easy to choose Finn as his. He had picked well.
But then they survived and Finn stuck around… and that’s when the reality sunk in.
Finn is…
Kriff, he wasn’t even born yet when Poe’s mother died, and for some reason, that’s enough to give Poe pause.
Finn is beautiful and he’s brave and he’s so, so young. For all that the First Order taught Finn to fight and to kill and to fall on the sword of their cause, they didn’t teach him to be more than a pawn. Everything else in him: his kindness, his humor, his heart… it all came naturally, but then there are the things that can’t be picked up along the way.
Before defecting, Finn had never known the warmth of a satisfying meal.
Before defecting, Finn’s practical education had been limited to battle tactics and First Order propaganda.
Before… well, before he didn’t know about soulmates and he didn’t know what Poe had done when he gave Finn that name.
It’s just another example of someone else stealing his agency away.
+
Two weeks into his self-imposed exile and Poe’s ready to lose his mind because suddenly Finn is everywhere.
He’s in the mess hall and he’s strolling down the hallways and he’s looking good.
Tired, but good.
Finn looks like everything that Poe never thought he’d want… and that’s enough reason for him to stay away, so he does. He keeps to himself, to his bunk, to his ship. He keeps himself in check, but Finn’s still everywhere… and Poe notices everything.
He sees the lines of stress and exhaustion on Finn’s face after he’s come from physical therapy. Then there’s the way that Poe’s team has started inviting Finn to sit with them, and it warms Poe to see him there. It’s good for Finn to have people, better that they’re good ones.
Of course, he also sees the way that Finn’s taken to scanning the room. It’s subtle, because Finn’s not the kind of person to make someone else uncomfortable, but he’s so achingly obvious to Poe that it hurts, because it is incredibly clear that Finn’s trying to catch a glimpse of a soulmark.
There’s a part of Poe that wants to explain it all to Finn... but the bigger part of him has always been a coward when it’s come to this.
+
He’s not thinking when he does it. He’s actually doing his damndest to do the opposite of thinking as BB-8 weaves and bobs ahead, chattering away the whole while as if sensing Poe’s nerves. If he were in a better place he’d probably thank the little droid, but then Finn’s ahead of him and it’s like his hand’s got its own agenda because it’s turning Finn around by the shoulder and then everything stops.
Their lips touch. It’s gentle and sweet, probably the sweetest kiss that Poe has ever had, but then Finn pushes back in for another taste and everything shifts.
It’s a punch to the solar plexus.
It’s the jump into hyperspace.
It’s better than anything that Poe’s ever known, and there’s this blinding moment of clarity that hits him right between the eyes. If this is what kissing Finn feels like, there’s no way that this man isn’t his soulmate.
There's just no way that Finn isn't his.
+
They take their time with the newness of it all - sneaking kisses in the hallways and holding hands where no one can see. It’s not shame that keeps Poe to the sidelines. Shame isn’t the right word.
It’s this ever-inflating sensation of rightness that’s taken him over. He’s never felt this good with another person, never been so smitten that the most demure of kisses can leave him a puddle of joy. Every stolen moment with Finn is another reminder that Poe’s lucky in this. He spent so much of his life shying away from the notion of soulmates and forever that he never stopped to think about why people would choose to be this vulnerable in the first place.
Being with Finn is everything and he doesn’t want to share.
He’s selfish like that.
The problem is… there are moments when Poe’s not so sure that Finn feels the same.
There are moments when he pulls away, moments when his eyes wander. It’s easy to ignore at first, easy to push aside in favor of Poe’s own happiness, but there’s only so long that he can keep the insecurities at bay.
+
The thing about the Damerons is that they’ve always been known for their attention to detail. It’s what made his mother so great, what kept his father alive for so long, and it’s what helped propel Poe so quickly up the ranks.
So, yeah. He notices the way that Finn goes soft and small when the subject of soulmates comes up. He sees the way that Finn will sometimes look his way when he thinks Poe isn’t looking. It’s wistful, that look. Wistful and longing and full of hurt.
Those furtive, secret little glances tell Poe so much, but it’s the bared tenderness of Finn’s eyes when they’re tucked away in his bunk that forces his hand.
He doesn’t mean to let it come out like this - he’s always meant to tell Finn before it got to this stage - but there’s something about the calluses on Finn’s fingers when they stroke across Poe’s face, as if Poe was something precious, that sets his resolve.
His shirt’s unbuttoned before Poe can second guess himself. It’s between one breath and the next that the fabric falls to the side and then suddenly the world stands still because Finn’s backed off and his face… well, it’s an expression that Poe’s never seen on Finn’s face before, and all of a sudden every cell of Poe’s body panics.
Desperate for connection, he brings one of Finn’s hands up to his heart. It’s the only thing that feels right, to have Finn’s hand over his mark - his namesake - a blessing and a curse all at once.
Finn doesn’t remove his hand at first. On a physical level, Poe can register that the mark’s being traced, but the only thing that stands out is the crease in Finn’s brow and the way he hasn’t come closer. Finn’s hand pulls away and it feels a bit like a goodbye.
Suddenly Poe’s shaking, hands gripped onto Finn’s jacket his jacket as if holding onto him long enough will convince him to stay. He’s desperate and he’s babbling and it’s the galaxy’s greatest joke because it’s not torture at the hands of Kylo Ren that undoes Poe. It’s the thought of losing Finn.
Finn, who’s been etched across Poe’s heart since the moment they met. Brave and beautiful and so perfect that Poe literally picked him for his own the moment that he offered Finn his name. The moment that Poe chose him.
He’s babbling, and once he’s started it’s like he can’t stop - he gives up everything: his mother’s death, his father’s broken existence without her, and how he never looked for his soulmate… because if he didn’t meet his soulmate… he wouldn’t end up like his father.
Poe tells him about how stupid he'd been. Tells Finn about his childhood belief that without a soulmate to hold him down he’d never be hurt. All Poe had ever wanted to do was fly, and somehow from a young, foolish age he had equated being bound to another's soul to being barred from the sky.
It all comes pouring out: how he met Finn and suddenly everything made sense, how he adores him - loves him, even. It comes out how he offered himself to Finn without even realizing, how he chose Finn, and how scared he was that Finn would hate him for it... or worse, that he'd feel indebted…
Everything that he’s carried around for days and weeks and months comes out and Finn says nothing, eyes locked on Poe’s chest, and everything in Poe’s body aches until even his words dry up.
It’s quiet then, in the privacy of Poe’s bunk, and Poe can’t help but feel like a marionette in the moments before a fall - still and waiting for the tension of a handful of wires to give out - anticipating the collapse.
When it finally happens, Poe’s not prepared.
He’s not ready, but then Finn’s mouth is on his, and Poe is flying.
Every cell in his body is singing and soaring with elation because Finn’s lips are on his and their fingers are entwined and their hearts are one.
+
Poe Dameron is 32 years old when he chooses the love of his life.
His mother would have been proud.