Chapter Text
“Finn?” The room, awash in harsh blue light, did not resemble their quarters, or any room in the base. As he blinked heavy sleep from his eyes, he recognized his surroundings with a jolt of shattering terror. His legs failed him, and if he hadn’t been cuffed to the table-like apparatus, he would have slumped to the ground. In the absence of sound or movement or any other indicator of activity around him, he breathed.
In through the nose, out through the mouth. Repeat.
Once his heart had stopped vying to break through his ribs and he was sure he wouldn’t pass out, he took stock of the situation. He had to analyze his surroundings, look for weak points, look for potential tools or ways out. As a Resistance fighter, it was his duty to avoid giving up sensitive information if at all possible, unlike the last time he’d found himself in one of these places. He knew that he could withstand any physical challenge, any test of pain, but he wasn’t sure he could block out the kind of violating mental assault that had easily taken him to pieces before. God knows he’d try, though.
Poe closed his eyes and thought back, pulling at the strings of his memories to make sense of his current predicament. He remembered eating in the mess hall with Finn and Jess and Snap, remembered getting updated on Rey’s training progress from General Organa, remembered showering with Finn—to “conserve water” was their excuse—and settling in for an early night, prepared for an early morning of training flights.
And now he found himself here, inexplicably, searching for anything that could provide a means of escape and foundering as two troopers marched in, followed by a harrowingly familiar masked face. Kylo Ren—Ben—dismissed the troopers and waved the door shut, almost an afterthought, before removing the mask and approaching him. There was no need, he supposed, for the mask, not when Poe had seen his face, knew it both from experience and from smiling photos shown by General Organa in a moment of nostalgia.
“So, here we are again.” His low, bristling voice sent unpleasant tingles of anticipation through his mind, which remembered the sound all too well. “You should count yourself among the fortunate, Dameron. I’m sparing you the pain you endured before since I know it won’t work. Now, I have a question for you and I’d be very pleased if you answered it.”
He didn’t sound very pleased.
“I know that you’ve seen the completed map, and I need to know where Luke Skywalker and the girl you call Rey currently are. You are going to tell me. Whether you make it easy or hard for yourself is up to you.” Poe looked up, at his eyes, and recoiled at the cold flatness he saw; no light, no depth, no spark of a struggle. General Organa seemed convinced that her son still had some trace of goodness in him, some little remnant of the boy he’d once been. But Poe kept looking and saw nothing left, all of his former self probably trained away by Snoke.
Though he had no training, he braced himself, imagining walls around and above and below his mind, a twisted-up, impenetrable crown. He felt the first of Kylo Ren’s onslaught less as reaching tendrils of Force than the crashing, crushing power of a mighty wave collapsing down. The impact shook Poe, almost physically, but he narrowed his concentration beyond that around him to that within him and redoubled his defensive efforts. Kylo Ren had withdrawn, probably just as surprised as Poe that his efforts had met any successful resistance.
The next assault of power shattered his defenses, ran them clean through. He was angry at Poe’s resistance, which made him both stronger and more reckless. Inside his mind, inside his thoughts and memories and everything that made him Poe, he ripped and slashed about. He slammed into Poe, three years old, taking his first ride in his mother’s fighter ship; he tripped over Poe, eight years old, too shocked to cry at the news of his mother’s death; he pried his way past Poe, several months ago, kissing Finn for the first time.
The pain educed from Kylo Ren’s careless hunt through his mind was physical this time, a searing, all-consuming agony far worse than any of the torture he’d endured, and all he could think was No, get out of my head, get out of my head, I have to live, get out of my head—
* * * * * * * * *
“Poe! Poe, come on, wake up, please wake up.” Bright light, but the warm yellows of the base replaced the severe blue of the First Order detention rooms. A familiar face swam into focus above him, worried but a welcome sight. Finn knelt above him, and Poe felt one hand wrapped around his arm as the other moved from cradling his face to petting his hair. His limbs felt heavy, used. His head felt like it had been split in two and sewn back together with floss and safety scissors. His breaths came fast and irregular, sucked in through a parched throat and a jaw sore from being clenched for too long. How?
“Oh, thank god, you’re awake. Poe, I was so worried, you started saying things and then you were yelling and writhing around like you were in pain and then you just went limp like you were—” Finn choked on his words and let the sentence hang in the air, unfinished but self-evident. Poe couldn’t manage to string all of Finn’s words together into a meaningful phrase, so instead he turned his head a fraction and saw their surroundings—their quarters—and several other people.
A doctor he recognized from medical stooped over his bedside, kit of medical tools at the ready. General Organa sat at his desk chair, watching from afar, elbows on her knees and chin in her hands. Poe tried to shake away the heavy haze smothering his thoughts, tried to form a coherent sentence.
“What…how am I here?”
The doctor leaned forward in confusion. General Organa’s brow furrowed, troubled more than surprised. Poe licked his lips and made another attempt.
“I was there. The First Order, so…how? And Kylo Ren. Did you find…?”
“I believe you experienced something called a Force projection, Poe,” General Organa explained slowly. “When someone uses the Force to enter your mind, they sometimes create a mental bond without meaning to. If Kylo Ren realized this, he might have been able to connect with your mind, even far away, while your defenses were down while you slept. Then he could project whatever he pleased, make you think you were somewhere else. Is that what he did, Poe?”
Poe nodded weakly, his neck creaking in protest. He let his mind drift as the others talked around him, the reality of such a power too awful and game-changing for him to consider. Because if this was true, then Poe was a liability, a weakness. Unless he could somehow learn to block out such Force projections even subconsciously, he’d have to go. Instead, he focused on Finn’s hand, large and warm and comforting, scratching through his hair. He didn’t want to lose that. He couldn’t.
He couldn’t lose Finn.
The realization jolted him at the same time he knew it was ridiculous. If staying with him meant endangering the Resistance, Finn included, he’d leave. He’d go far away, maybe too far for Kylo Ren to find him; or maybe he’d learn to resist such advances and block it all out like a demented sort of nightmare. The thought of failing both these endeavors, of taking other measures, seemed both awful and sensible at once. He would make it so that Kylo Ren could never access his memories and privileged information—so that no one could.
So, instead of dwelling on it, he focused on Finn. With all his considerably diminished faculties, he concentrated on his touch—fingernails short, fingertips soft but firm, fingers long and nimble, hands well-versed in the movements that could bring Poe sleep, bring him pleasure, bring him laughter.
He looked up dimly and catalogued Finn’s features for something like the thousandth time. Eyes wide, seeing so many things for the first time, always seeing nothing but the best in people. Somehow, raised to be a mindless soldier, he retained his capacity for compassion and empathy far and above what he’d seen in any normal person. Lips full, sometimes soft and sometimes chapped when he bit and worried at them, waiting for a mission to return. Right now, his eyebrows were drawn together and his lips turned down, which angered Poe. Nothing should exist that could make Finn frown. He loved Finn’s smile, so easily earned and infectious and long-lasting. People paid attention when Finn smiled—they looked twice, they listened, they gave smiles in return. Finn’s smile encompassed his entire face, his nose scrunching up, eyebrows raising, little lines appearing at the corners of his eyes, slightly crooked teeth showing. It was, without a doubt, the most genuine smile Poe had ever seen, because Finn experienced things wholeheartedly and unassumingly. When he smiled, he meant it. Poe loved everything about Finn’s smile.
He loved Finn, really.
Poe dragged his arms up the bedsheets and hauled himself onto his elbows, wincing as every joint and muscle screamed.
“Commander Dameron, you shouldn’t be straining yourself,” the doctor warned. Poe side-eyed him and pushed himself into a sitting position purely out of spite. He hated taking advice from medical, no matter how right they were.
“Finn, it’s gonna be okay.” He ran his thumb down Finn’s cheek, resting the palm of his hand softly against the side of his face. “I promise I’m fine, buddy. I’ll be peachy keen in no time and then we’ll figure out a fix for this real quick.” He couldn’t quite tell if Finn saw through his words for the lie they were, but he smiled his beautiful smile, just for Poe.