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“I love you,” Poe says, tumbling out of his X-wing, with stripes of grease marking his hands, his body. “If this was all I could think about in the ship, then I—then I—”
Finn reaches for him with both arms. “Then?” He prompts, feeling the adrenaline course through Poe’s body, still staggering with loss and victory and everything in between, “what is it?”
Poe smiles, gently, and drops his helmet to the ground, uncaring. Reaches for Finn’s hands and Finn reaches back, eyes trained on Poe when he places a kiss onto his knuckles, the gesture familiar, and says, “marry me.”
--
Everyone knows by the afternoon: Poe is the poster boy of the Resistance, after all. Everyone offers them congratulations, but there’s a slight sadness to all of it, laced with some kind of sympathy. Finn understands and doesn’t, all at the same time.
There wasn’t anything much to expect, at this stage, not when death was all around them; it wasn’t the problem of neither of them knowing if they would still be alive, when the war ends. They weren’t thinking of the restrictions of time, but the abundance of it, now and here and maybe later. Marriage—or what little Finn knows of what that means to Poe—isn’t a promise. Not exactly. More of a declaration.
--
“Poe,” Finn says, pressing a kiss to his fiancé’s knuckles.
“Finn.”
Because he’s a bit of an idiot: “how do we get married?”
Poe stares at him, eyes wide, and lets out a bark of laughter. “I don’t know,” he says, curling further into Finn’s side. “Does it matter?”
Finn shrugs, cups a hand to Poe’s jaw. He does this just to watch him lean further into the touch, to feel the stubble scratching at his skin. “Not to me.”
--
But it seems like a ceremony is in order, after all. Finn and Poe can’t get married quietly, it seems, with everyone insisting that they’ll have to be getting hitched properly. Finn doesn’t mind; he’s willing to go along with anything they want him to do. He knows that Poe would do the same, the Resistance is his life line, after all.
“Let us have this,” General Organa says, after a brief meeting, lips curling up at the edges, “give us something happy to celebrate.”
“Happy,” Finn repeats, but shuts his mouth before he could continue anything further. He knows that he still processes everything differently from everyone here, although it’s been months since he’s defected. It’s difficult to shake off what the First Order had let him think, what they had allowed to grow and fester in his brain, all of it designed just to take away humanity. Finn still lacks that, he thinks. He can see it in everyone else’s shock, sometimes, when his tongue is a little loose and his nonchalance of what they’ve taught him shows through.
“Yes,” General Organa says, her eyes focusing on him. “Shouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know,” Finn says, blinking down at her. “Doesn’t seem like it, with the way that everyone is responding.”
Her gaze softens. “We’re just sorry, Finn.”
“Sorry,” Finn repeats. “Why?”
“Why indeed,” she says, and Finn has never thought of her as anything less than wise, but he sees the exhaustion in her eyes now. He thinks that she’s probably remembering General Solo. “For what we couldn’t manage to end, I suppose.”
Finn wonders how it felt like to be force-sensitive, if he could—find a way, to actually comfort her, rather than stand here and fluster after words. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says, because whose fault was it, really, “at least—we still have the opportunity.”
“Sometimes that’s all you need,” General—Leia says, a smile blooming on her lips. “Opportunity.”
“I’d rather marry him in a war than not marry him at all,” Finn confesses, and thinks about Poe, at the tender age of two, grinning at her with his eyes full of worship. Wonders if she approves of him marrying someone that she had seen grow into a boy, into a man. Wonders if he’s deserving at all.
“Hold onto that,” Leia says, and Finn doesn’t resist when she pulls him in for a tight hug, the way that she hugs Poe, sometimes, when no one else is looking. “Treat each other well.”
Finn’s posture has the tendency to be ramrod straight more often than not, from his First Order days. But he loosens now, and lets his spine curve when she lets him go, feels the tension flooding out from his limbs when she closes a hand around his shoulder.
“I will,” Finn promises, with all the sincerity that he has.
“Good,” she says, laughter lines around her eyes dancing. They catch Poe’s attention in the corner of his eye, somehow, and he beams at them, striding over. Swoops in to press a kiss against Leia’s cheek, and General Organa—Leia—laughs.
--
Poe lies with him on the grass, head on his chest. They’re a distance away from the base—there’s no one else for miles around—but Finn can still see the outline of the Resistance’s ships even if he doesn’t squint. It’s probably why they’re here.
This is where Poe used to take him, when Finn was still recovering from his spine; they’d lie on the ground and pretend, just for a bit, like the both of them had nowhere else to be. The both of them aren’t as solemn, now, not anymore. They’ve learned how to wash away some part of the anger, the bitterness, even though the leftover violence always lingers, from all the planets lost. Surprisingly—Finn doesn’t grieve as much, not anymore. Mourns, instead, with his fingers holding onto Poe’s.
“We’re gonna get married, huh,” Poe mutters, stretching out his legs, heavy on top of Finn’s own. “I can’t tell you that I never saw that coming.”
Finn places a hand on the small of Poe’s back. “What do you mean?”
Poe flushes—and it’s so strange to see him like this, outside of the bedroom. It’s rare that Poe isn’t upfront about anything, ever since their relationship started—Finn doesn’t even need to ask what’s on his mind, most of the time, Poe would just tell him anyway, and nothing had ever felt so good as being trusted implicitly.
“I thought about it,” Poe says, meeting his eyes, “spending the rest of my life with you.”
“I didn’t,” Finn confesses, relishing in the weight of that gaze. “I just assumed that it’d happen.”
“Oh,” says Poe, speechless for once.
“Yeah,” Finn says, and laughs when Poe flips them over, goes along with it. Kisses Poe back just as fiercely as Poe kisses him.
--
Finn remembers the days, where Poe would pull him around, have him feel a little bit of everything, have a taste of what looks edible. Try this, Poe would say, not that; it tastes awful—but Finn would have a little bit of both, anyway.
“I want to see things for myself,” he’d told Poe, licking off the excess juice on his fingers with Poe’s eyes growing heavy. Finn didn’t know what that meant, at the time. Didn’t know what to do with desire once it crossed from sexual to romantic. “That these decisions? They’re mine to make. That if I choose to—be someone, or stay something—that I’ll be fine with it. That I won’t think back to what could’ve happened if I didn’t take the leap, or if I didn’t dare to try. Is that—is that weird to say?”
“No,” Poe had told him, his gaze searching—for something. Finn didn’t know what he was saying, then, not really. But he knows that now. “That’s alright. You’re allowed to want things, you’re allowed to be this person who you think you want to be.”
Finn’s face had darkened. “Sorry,” he’d said. “That kind of came from nowhere.”
Poe shook his head. “If these moments were nothing—life would be insubstantial. There’d be nothing other than milestones. What we need—is all of this to pave the way. Tell us where we’re going.”
“And what if we don’t know,” Finn had asked, inhaling the scent of new. “What if we’re not sure?”
Poe shrugged. “Then you find out,” he’d said. “Then you try your best to go somewhere you think you’d want to be.”
--
There are some nights when Finn can’t fall asleep: it’s nothing new. That he’d lay in bed for entire nights at a time, staring into the ceiling and wishing for unconsciousness to come. The exhaustion he’d had has tapered off, now, but some things aren’t meant to be forgotten, and they come to him sporadically, twisting in Finn’s mind.
One night before Finn heads to another planet on a diplomatic mission, Poe says, “you need to rest.”
“I do,” Finn agrees, glancing sideways at him. Poe eyes are half-closed already; the Resistance hasn’t been letting him get a lot of down time. Part of that is his fault, too, but Poe Dameron’s the best pilot in the Resistance, and if he ever wants to make it to Yavin 4 at all—there are some fears that need to be overcome, in the end, no matter how intrinsic.
“Sleep,” Poe reminds him, an arm sprawled over Finn, “at least try.”
“Alright,” he whispers back, and Poe drops off, inevitably, the fatigue seeping into his body at last.
Finn shifts, and makes himself comfortable. There’s no way that he can even get in any shut eye, so he wraps an arm around Poe’s waist, and watches his lips mouth words the way they do when Poe dreams.
It’s not sleep, but honestly? It’s close enough.
--
They set a date, when the both of them return safely. Finn doesn’t understand the significance of it, doesn’t know why choosing the exact day is of the ‘utmost importance’, not exactly, but he’s more than happy to let them decide the details out for him. He knows how the traditions are like on Yavin 4, and what goes on, but never what people expect from it. Poe reassures him that he’s happy that they’re getting married, in the first place, and that Finn shouldn’t worry too much about what everyone else is getting them to do.
People keep on giving them suggestions, and Finn doesn’t quite understand them, most of the time, so he turns it over to General Organa, who plans out every detail meticulously. He feels sorry, but she seems to enjoy doing giving orders, so.
“She cares,” Poe had told him when he’d brought this up, hands on his waist when he slips out to see the pilots in the hangar. “It’s her way of showing affection, I think.”
Other than the excitement of the wedding—nothing else really changes. Poe still embarks on whatever missions that he’s assigned to, and Finn is typically the one assigning them more often than not, these days, overlooking them, cautious to ensure that everything runs smooth.
--
The thought has been growing persistently, now, festering in his brain; there’s no going around it: what if Poe dies?
--
“He’s braver now, if it’s even possible,” Jessika tells him, her usually-wild grin gentling down, somehow, “I think you just remind him of what he’s fighting for.”
A little selfishly, Finn says, “I wish that wasn’t the case,” because Finn sees the decisions that Poe makes, sometimes, knows that he’s a pilot, first and foremost, that maybe everything else comes after. “How does he come back, that way?”
“Oh, Finn,” Jess says, reaching up to give him a firm hug, “none of us really do let go of the war, do we?”
--
Poe goes on missions, comes back harmed. Finn’s the first to reach him in the hangar, as always, wrapping a hand around his waist to escort him to the medbay, with BB-8 trailing along behind them—and he should be used to this by now, the constant worry eating away at his brain, but. He never gets less worried.
Finn watches him wash off the air from his body through their doorway, and says, “tell me what you want.”
“What I want,” Poe repeats, half-out of his flight suit. “To go home, probably. With you.”
Finn exhales, and comes up behind Poe to press his mouth to the crook of his neck. “Don’t forget that.”
“How can I,” Poe says, his eyes meeting Finn’s in the reflection of the mirror, the lights overhead shining brightly onto them. His arm is bandaged and there’s a hint of blood still leaking through from his wound. BB-8 rolls over, and nudges against Finn’s thigh.
“Yavin 4, remember,” Finn mutters, lacing his fingers with Poe’s. “I don’t know how to fly a ship, Poe. Don’t make me go there alone.”
--
This is about, what? The—fourth mission that Poe has come back injured? Not that Finn is keeping track, of course. Finn understands, he really does, it’s Poe’s decisions to make, whether he wants to be surrounded by constant danger, or not; but how is Finn supposed to relate? What Poe fought for was an ideal; what Finn wanted to come back most was just a person.
--
“Are you sure,” Poe asks, after being shaken awake by a nightmare, “I mean, really. Are you?”
He’d shouted himself hoarse in the last hour, sweat running down the side of his head while he thrashed—and Finn had held him down in a desperate attempt to calm him, both hands steadying his shoulders as Poe screamed. He knows the resentment that comes after a nightmare, the distress of it all, has been in Poe’s position more often than he’d like to admit. Except it’s Poe that feels this way, too, and Finn, just. Fucking aches, because there really isn’t much he can offer, he thinks, except for company.
“Who else am I going to marry,” Finn says, pressing a kiss to Poe’s forehead. “Chewie?”
“Hey,” Poe says, blinking up at him with his eyes still wet, “who knows, he may be a good husband.”
Finn shrugs, “I want this one.” Then he breathes out, slowly, and asks, “are you sure?”
“I am,” Poe says, voice scratchy, and Finn almost misses it, almost dismissed the assurance laced behind those two words—but he doesn’t. Nothing about this exchange feels real to him. The exhaustion underneath Poe’s eyes is starker, and Finn has been running on virtually no sleep at all, and he doesn’t know if this was a dream, or if this had really happened, if he had really shrugged off that helmet to rescue a pilot, if all the abandonment in the world had meant finally coming round to this.
--
Through the curtains, the light warms up most of Finn’s face, and he wakes. Props himself up to look towards Poe, by the table, completely focused in maintaining BB-8 and regarding it with exactly what he thinks about Jess’s new modifications to her ship, “that ingenious little fucker, how couldn’t she tell me?”
The bandages wrapped around his wound are fresh, Poe must’ve changed them by himself, just now. Something twists in Finn’s chest to see him so content, even when he’s grounded for a few weeks because his arm is too heavily injured to risk again. Doesn’t think about what happens after the war—that’s a tough route to go down—but what if Poe could stay this way, all the while it lasts?
Poe seems to have noticed that Finn has woken up, finally, and turns his head to grin at him, the sunlight diffusing through strands of his hair, and says, “morning, buddy.”
“Morning,” Finn says, and climbs out of bed, ignoring the time displayed on the clock beside their bed, and tugs Poe in for a light kiss. “You look considerably well-rested.”
“That I am,” Poe says, when they part. He’s leaning back against the wall, the expression on his face soft. “Good sleep?”
“Pretty much,” Finn mutters, just about to kiss him again, before he hears an indignant beep from BB-8, and they both let out a breath of laughter.
Finn pats BB-8’s head. “Looks like I’m not the only one wanting your attention, Poe.”
“What can I say,” Poe winks at him and picks up a screwdriver as he turns back to BB-8. “I’m kind of a big deal.”
“Stop it,” Finn laughs, and shuffles over to the bathroom, happy.
--
Finn fills up the paperwork he’s been missing out on. His documents are still empty, ever since he’s woken up from his injury from Starkiller base, there’s his name and his age and nothing else, really, nothing else that could tell him who he is.
Poe’s beside him, hand on his thigh as Finn inputs every information he’s salvaged about himself—blood type, height, weight, last name. ‘Finn Dameron’, he types.
“Guess it’s official now, huh,” Finn turns to look at him, and there’s something hungry in Poe’s gaze, fierce and heated and proud. A soft smile spreads over his own face, and he can feel it, feel the stretch of his own lips and the hurried beating of his heart, thumping softly somewhere in his chest. Stays there for an eternity looking into Poe’s eyes with Poe looking back.
“You wanna fuck?” Finn says, biting down on his lips, and it’s jarring, how many of Poe’s mannerisms he’s picked up.
“Stars, yes,” Poe laughs, tossing the holopad in his lap to straddle Finn, “how are you so damned beautiful.”
Finn doesn’t quite know what to say. Reaches up to tug Poe down by the neck, instead, and crashes their lips together, hurried and messy and quick and isn’t this them? Desperate to get past the war, dying to stay alive? To stay together?
--
Poe’s leave ends.
General Organa asks for him, after he sends Poe off; she always makes sure to do that after Poe’s in the sky, and Finn thinks about all the time she’s managed to spend with General Solo, and all the time she hasn’t.
“The hardest part is watching him leave, isn’t it,” she says, when he sits down across from her, hands clasped tightly on the table.
“Yes,” Finn confirms, “sometimes it feels like I’m sending him to his death.”
“Have a little faith in him, Finn,” the General says, and Finn has to swallow down that quick burst of embarrassment that wells up in his throat. It’s not that he doesn’t think of Poe as someone capable; he’s just seen what Kylo Ren has done, has actually been there: what if this happens to him again? How would Finn live with himself, then?
“I’m just scared,” he admits, after a while, when they’re both staring at the little moving dot labeled ‘POE’, black in colour. The map laid out in front of them is complex, and there are a thousand things to be said about how it’s the one thing that draws Finn’s eye automatically, but he doesn’t quite want to hear it.
“We all are,” the General says, after a pause. “Poe included, don’t you think?”
--
It’s a clean resolution—and all of the pilots land safely, helmets in their hands. There’s not a scratch on Poe, not this time.
--
Finn stays conscious through most of the night, because he’s still on edge, jittery from the relief of seeing Poe stride around the hangar and joking around with the other pilots during the debriefing. The tension is always going to be sliding free of his shoulders whenever Poe comes back safe; and he’ll always be staring at the curve of his lips or the slope of his shoulders because this is what he’s used to and what he craves, all at the same time, and. Getting to do all that again? It’s not a guarantee. Nothing is, really.
(He remembers the weight of the name he’d had before, the coldness of it, thinking that it was going to be his forever—but by now Finn has gained two. He’s pretty sure he can keep both of them.)
“Still awake,” Poe murmurs, opening his eyes eventually, “you never sleep these days, do you?”
“Guess not,” Finn returns, letting his fingers trail over the side of Poe’s cheek. “I’m used to much better standards than these sleeping quarters, after all.”
Poe rolls his eyes. “Wake me up, next time. That’s an order. As your husband. Yeah.”
Finn laughs, and presses a quick kiss to his lips. “Coffee?”
“Please,” Poe agrees, nodding his head, and Finn moves towards the coffee machine, fills one cup up.
--
“I’m sorry,” Poe says, when they’ve both downed that same cup of coffee, “I know I’m away more often than I’m actually around.”
Finn tightens his hand around Poe’s, brings their clasped hands up to press a kiss against Poe’s knuckles. It feels like all those months ago, when Finn was crawling out of his nightmares, the both of them sitting in front of this same window. He thinks that people change, sometimes, but some things are meant for circling back to. Like places. Like people.
“It’s who you are,” Finn says, rubbing his thumb on top of Poe’s. “You were always meant to be a soldier, weren’t you?”
Poe—moves his gaze, to the sky. Finn thinks that they’d probably be this way for a long time, him looking at Poe looking to the air. It’s in his blood, coursing through his veins; it’s who he is. Sometimes Poe would look back, and it’ll be enough.
“I’m also meant to be yours,” Poe says, after a beat, and it’s so sweet that it surprises Finn, a little, even though this is Poe, who doesn’t shy away from saying what he thinks and endearingly bad at lying, so Finn believes it.
“I don’t mind sharing it with the X-wing,” Finn says, and Poe giggles a little, at that. “Or BB-8. That’s fine, too.”
“Finn,” Poe says, slightly chiding, sliding himself into his lap to give him a rather thorough kiss, “you know that’s not what I’m saying.”
“I know,” Finn says breathlessly, because Poe has always been gorgeous and adept at making Finn lose his nerve, “but you have a purpose. And I—have one, too. In the Resistance.”
“You do,” Poe whispers back, against his lips. “Arguably, a larger purpose than mine. But we rarely see each other, you know? And we’re almost married, and sometimes I’m afraid that you’d forget my face.”
“What are you apologising for,” Finn asks. “You can’t really control that, can you?”
“I guess not,” Poe says, his breath warming up Finn’s face. “What if. I don’t come back, one day?”
“I’ve thought about that,” Finn admits. “Sometimes it’s the only thing that’s on my mind.”
Poe’s eyes darken, a little. “Finn—”
“—and I’m afraid, you know,” he interrupts, because Poe is always good at talking him down and some things are just meant to be said aloud, “I think about running to the hangar and knowing that Black Leader’s not going to be there, or his ship has crashed during a fight, or that all these pilots are gone, except for one. I have faith in you. In what you do, but we lose people, in the Resistance, we lose them every day. What if you’re one of them?”
“Finn,” Poe says, a crease appearing between his brows. “I didn’t know.”
“Well,” he says, a bit nervously. “Now you do.”
“No, no,” Poe shakes his head, licking his lips a little. “Thank you. For telling me. ” He rests his forehead against Finn’s, wipes a tear off Finn’s face. “How long have you been keeping this in?”
“Not that long,” Finn retorts, a little. “One or two months, probably.”
Poe kisses him again, briefly—Finn never tires of that, the casual affection that Poe loves so much. “Those fears aren’t completely unfounded. You should—talk to me, next time. Tell me everything.”
Finn nods, and Poe continues, after a few seconds, “you’re right. I might not come back, someday. But Finn—the Resistance is everything to me. This is—what my mother fought for, you know? I’d give away my life, if that was what it took.”
“I understand that,” Finn says, and he really does. Knows the frantic searching his brain does when any of their strategies go wrong, has volunteered to go down there and make things right, more than once. He knows that he would lay down his life, too, that it’s somewhat hypocritical of him to not expect that of Poe—but that’s the difference, isn’t it? That Poe is the one Finn’s actually in love with?
“And I’ll fight my hardest,” Poe says, clutching his hand tighter, “to come back to you. Alright?”
“Okay,” Finn says, blinking to shake away all the memories of a bloody Poe that he’d just rescued, the TIE fighter sinking down into the sand on Jakku.
Poe smiles, and there’s a quiet sadness to it, and the atmosphere between them is heavy, but not stifling, “if I don’t come back. At least try to move on, okay? Because. All of this?” He gestures, with their hands still clasped together, and the movement is strained because of their close proximity, but it gets the point through. “It was all my choice.”
Finn closes his eyes, debates between telling him the truth and keeping his mouth shut. “I’ll accept that choice,” he says, finally, “I’m just not sure if I can learn how to live with it.”
“Finn,” Poe says, his eyes softening. “You saved me. I just want to make sure that you hadn’t thrown your old life away in vain.”
Finn swallows. “I think it’s the best thing I ever did, considering where we’re at, now.”
“And I want to make sure that it’ll remain that way,” Poe says, his gaze fierce and almost unrelenting—but Finn can see the gentleness in them. He’s had a lot of practice.
“You’re a good man, Poe,” Finn says, echoing the words Poe had said to him when he’d first felt that rush of excitement in knowing that he wasn’t dead. He loves it now, loves the consolation that it brings him, like the sweet wash of victory, like the knowledge that his plans hadn’t resulted in complete failure, like the knowledge that Poe Dameron loves him.
--
“It’s kind of amazing, how we’re both still alive,” Poe mutters, somewhere between half-conscious and asleep, a few hours later. “Makes you wonder if we’re just meant to die for something else.”
“’ll do it for you, probably,” Finn says, honest. “If things ever get to that point.”
“Thanks,” Poe says, sleepily, and Finn lets his eyes drift shut, with Poe’s head nestled against his chest, between his legs.
--
When Poe thinks that Finn’s asleep, he says: “I think that the problem was never with still being alive. The truth of the matter is that there’ll be people wanting to fight as hard as you do. People want to win this war, too, people want to go home and see their family, they want to come down from it all telling their sons and daughters, hey, I survived.”
He says: “but sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you panic, or someone shoots you down, or you make a lapse in judgment. Those things happen and you can’t help it. Can’t help if the First Order comes down swooping down on your ass, can’t help if Kylo Ren straps you to a chair and digs all these parts of you, piece by piece. You can hide from the war but sometimes you just can’t escape it. You can confront it head on and still lose. You can walk into a battlefield alone and still end up hurting other people.”
He says: “but you were there.”
He says: “but you removed that helmet and then there was the most beautiful face I have ever seen. Those are the bravest and most terrified eyes, that’s the look of someone scared, someone deciding on what happens in war. And I could have forgotten what had pushed me forward, I thought I was going to die, I thought that this was the end of it. I thought that this was done, I was over, no one’s going to come get me now. That if death was coming I’d hoped to hell that it was quick. Needed it to be. But you dragged me into that small corner and removed your helmet and looked at me—and I’d thought, there’s a chance. Couldn’t stop thinking that—if you were one result in the midst of all that atrocity—how about war? What were the chances of war birthing something beautiful, like peace? Like tranquility?
He says: “you didn’t know it, then. But I think I knew, when we broke into that TIE fighter, when we were so desperate just to run away. You from who you weren’t and me from what I hid. And I’d thought. And I believed—”
He says: “this is someone I’d die for.”
--
They wake up like this, entangled in each other’s arms and content—until Finn realizes that his hair is currently sticking to the curtains. Poe laughs so hard, he almost knocks his head against the table. There are a few creases on Poe’s skin, from where he’d slept on Finn, the last night, and it strikes him, how stupidly reassuring it feels to see him, this way, not fully awake. If this is what marriage is, Finn thinks, he wants it. Wants every part of—whatever this means—to be etched deep into his lungs, his body.
“Yuck it up,” Finn grumbles, trying to shake the curtain loose. “I’ll stick your curls to this damned fabric, next time. See how you enjoy playing tug-of-war, flyboy.”
“Sure,” Poe says, stuffing some food he’d salvaged from the mess hall into his mouth, swallowing hurriedly. “Did I tell you that my father’s coming? Today?”
“What,” Finn says, his jaw dropping. “Kes Dameron?”
Poe nods.
“Oh,” Finn inclines his head, the curtains following his movement. Poe’s doing his best not to burst out laughing, again, but he doesn’t quite succeed at it. “That’s. He is?”
“Yeah,” Poe says, obviously amused at how much Finn isn’t freaking out. He’s fine, really. “For the ceremony, remember? Our marriage? We’re getting married?”
“Does this mean that he’s going to talk to me,” Finn says, opening his mouth to eat the forkful of pancakes Poe’s holding out to him, “what am I supposed to say?”
Poe shrugs. “Buddy. If I can handle the father talk, so can you.”
Finn squints at him, “I don’t have one.”
“Chewie sat me down,” Poe laughs, with that for an explanation, “gave me a lecture on how marriage was built on honesty. That if I were to hurt you—I’ll be in for a beating, apparently.”
“Oh, stars,” Finn says, and buries his head into his hands, but there’s a subtle kind of joy that’s washing over him, now, surrounding him with its warmth.
“Besides,” Poe says, his voice softer, “you both share the same last name, now. You’ll be talking to him for quite a while.”
--
“Finn,” is the first thing Kes Dameron says, climbing out of his ship, “good to finally meet you.”
“Good to meet you too,” Finn nods, pressing his lips together, “sir.”
“None of that,” Kes Dameron says, beaming. Pulls Finn in for a tight hug, and Finn eases into the embrace; returns it.
--
“I love him,” Finn blurts out, the minute Poe leaves, and he thinks about how he’d admitted it, all those nights ago. How much more easy it’s become to confess that now. “I swear.”
“I know,” he says. “Some things like that, you feel it, down here,” Kes points a finger to his chest. Where his heart is.
“Yes,” Finn says. A confirmation.
--
Poe rests his legs on top of Finn’s—it’s a new habit of his—and Finn’s hand drifts to rest upon them, just as naturally.
“So,” Poe says, clearing his throat. “What do you think?”
Finn looks up from his holopad, sets it down beside him. It’s always obvious, when Poe wants to discuss something but doesn’t quite know how to approach it. Finn always tries his best to spare him the trouble. “Of what?”
“My pa,” Poe replies, looking ridiculously nervous, “what did you think of him? Did you like him?”
Finn holds his gaze, and reaches for his hand; it’s all instinct by now. “I do. Yeah.”
“Good.” Poe breathes out, and his eyes light up. He looks so relieved that it’s astonishing—and there are a million things Finn wants to say in response to that, to whatever concerns that Poe’s been stashing inside of himself.
Finn clears his throat, a while later. “Pal,” he says, jokingly, but everything else tapers off after that, takes on a more serious tone. “He’s going to be my family, right? If we marry.”
Poe raises an eyebrow. “If?”
Finn shrugs, “when,” and continues on. “Your father, my father. I’d have liked him anyway, if only on principle.”
“You shouldn’t have to like people on principle, Finn,” says Poe. “Even if you feel obligated to.”
Finn says, “maybe. But this is someone that raised you. If I don’t like him, then I’m at least grateful.”
“Poe,” Finn says. “What are you so worried about?”
“I don’t know,” Poe answers, and his eyes are searching Finn’s—and Finn lets him. Lets him find what he needs; it’s all written-out, anyway, if Jess’s words are to be trusted. He’d spent most of his life faceless—if exhibiting too much was considered a vulnerability, Finn doesn’t mind letting down all his defenses in front of Poe. Thinks that he already has.
“I just,” Poe tries, again. “I just wanted to make you happy.”
Finn asks, “is that what you want?”
“Yes,” Poe says, frighteningly honest, except maybe Finn has known this all along, known that maybe Poe loves him back just as much. That all the victory in the world would amount to this, a simple few words, a kiss of the knuckles.
“I’m as happy as I’m going to get,” Finn tells him, doesn’t bother keeping the tremor out of his voice. “We’re going to get married, right?”
“Yeah,” Poe says, and Finn doesn’t bother tamping down on the warmth spreading out all around him—there was a time where he’d never experience this before, didn’t think that he could. But it accompanies him, now, whenever Poe stands in his sight. Finn’s learned how to cling onto this hope. He’s learned how to forget, how to remember.
“Then let’s stay that way. You want to make me happy? Stay married to me. Don’t think about—everything else with it,” Finn says, shifting to press a kiss to the corner of Poe’s lips. “All that will come later.”
--
Finn thinks that there’s a gap, between what he wants and where he is now. Knows the shift in his shoulders when he’d taken that helmet off, knows the slow unbuckling of every part of his armour, the catches, the zips. Understands that there are some things that are meant to linger in your memory, long as you move forwards—but there is other information to keep safe, too—
—like the first breaths drawn when he wakes up from what the First Order had surrendered him to, or the slow smile spreading across his face, reading up intel about Yavin 4, or the first words muttered when he’d introduced himself to Rey, finn, what’s yours, or Chewie, the strength he puts into his hugs, or General Organa, with her discreet looks of approval, or every single pilot he’s familiarized himself with, or Poe Dameron, actually. Every part of him.
--
Later on, Poe says, “I’ve told you I’m in love with you already, right,” with his eyes still wet, “because I am.”
“You have,” Finn confirms, running a hand through Poe’s hair, “multiple times, actually—and I’ll never get tired of hearing it. I love you too, Poe.”
--
Sometimes: the only thing that Finn can think about is what if the war never happened, even though that’s a strange thought, so far removed from reality—that he wouldn’t know what he would be without it. Without the violence or the torment or the destruction, and every other emotion that comes with all of this, now, dragging themselves out of Finn. Decides that none of that really matters, that all of them could pretend like it never happened but it did; they’re here now.
“I know how it feels to watch them go,” Mr. Dameron—Kes—what is Finn supposed to call him?—says, standing beside him on the hangar. General Organa had left them in peace, in search of Admiral Ackbar. And Finn doesn’t know what he’s more grateful for, if it’s Leia’s quiet acceptance of how stubborn Finn is to watch Poe go each time, or the fact that Kes is here with him now.
Finn breathes out. “Like they’re too far beyond your reach?”
“And that all you can do is hope for them to come back,” Kes says, and there’s an overwhelming sense of familiarity to him—Poe takes after his mother the most, Finn knows, but there are traces of his father, too—and it’s amazing, he thinks, how he can pick apart all the features Poe had inherited from Kes, despite the limited contact.
(How does Finn’s mother look like? Did she love him? Was his father angry when the First Order took him away—did they cry—or were they not upset at all?)
“But these are pilots, Finn,” Kes says, and Finn recognises a soldier when he sees one, knows the stance and the tone, has lived that for most of his life—but he also sees a father. Was this how it felt? Being a son?
Kes says, “they don’t know when to stop. Nothing is ever too much for them—but tell Poe that you need him, and he’ll find his way back to you. All you need to do is tell him when.”
“When,” Finn echoes, “but what about how? What if all I wanted was to see him alive?”
Kes looks back. To the silhouette of the X-wing, and sighs. “He can’t promise you that, Finn, and you can’t promise him that, either—that’s the thing about war.”
He says, “But you know Poe; he'll do his best. He'll die trying.”
--
Three days pass—and Finn waits. Spends that time feeling the hesitance of his decision, settling it, but deciding on what he wants from it.
“It’s alright to be scared of your own feelings, Finn,” General Organa says, watching him track the location of Poe’s X-Wing with his eyes, “it’s alright to feel—uncertain.”
“Part of being human, isn’t it,” Finn says, and something in General Organa’s eyes shifts. Finn—knows. Knows that sometimes it is this fear that allows you the slight separating from humanity, or the quiet acceptance that this could be a war that they’re never going to win. It’s a possibility—but that’s all that it is. Some things are what you make of it. Life is bargaining with time, with identity. It’s about trying to hold onto all of these things—and finding a way to appreciate them, too.
“One of the best parts,” General Organa nods, and Finn stays where he is, feeling the weight of Poe’s jacket on his shoulders. Takes comfort in who is here and what isn’t. He grows familiar with the bite of the cold. Understands that not every road will lead him back to where he’d started. Kylo Ren could be a memory, but also a name. Marriage could be both declaration and a promise; Poe Dameron is what he wants the most—and who he’s willing to wait for.
“Do you think it’s worth it?” Finn asks, wondering, “the pain?”
General Organa looks back at him, and he—wants to know. If all that remains of war was the dust settling down upon it, if it meant loss, if it meant the lack of a closure, if it meant certain people never coming home.
“It depends, Finn,” she says, after a moment, “but I don’t think that any of us have the answer to that. Only thing we can do is—prepare for it.”
--
Finn remembers—the taste of sand. The tight clutch of dehydration at his throat, the ache in his joints, his bones, the pressure of holding onto a newfound name. Trying to deserve being Finn—but never knowing how to be happy with it. The unrelenting squeeze of his brains, trying to shut himself down—but his heart refusing.
There is loss and there is victory and there are the consequences that come after.
He also knows: this is all easily dismissed in the face of someone he loves. This is all negligible when he wakes up in the morning, eager to breathe. Forgetting is something that he doesn’t have to work towards. It’s okay to put it all behind. It’s okay to be a little cluttered, sometimes, a little disorganized.
Finn can cling onto hope, if it makes him feel better. Maybe hope would cling back. Maybe he’ll stop losing this conviction that it is only what stays behind that matters. The pain of being alive is—inevitable.
But it isn’t everything.
--
Finn thinks, later, that this could be what makes everything tangible. That people would know how to cling onto things, because they know that the bad could follow after. But it doesn’t mean anything. Anything is suspended, always in the air. Waiting for the time to circle down, and give those who wait the revelation they’ve been asking for. It’s what I’ve been craving for, he thinks.
But it also could mean that it just isn’t time. That the all the stars and the suns and the planets in the universe are saying to him: don’t rush it. You now have an eternity and then some more. The days go by limited and gracious; everything is in the same vein. What you love is what you make of it.
So Finn tries. Confesses to Kes, “I don’t know how to be a husband. Don’t know how to be a son, either. But I could try.”
Kes turns to him, expression heavy. Comes at him with both arms held open—and Finn reacts. Returns the gesture. War is here but some people survive. War has happened but here is a man that has lived through it, if only to get past one to meet another. War sinks its teeth into every generation and maybe it’ll never let go, but everything remains to be seen.
Kes says, “being either of those things—it’s not something you try to do.”
Kes says, “it’s what you are. Not who you become. But what you are to other people. To Poe. To me. To Leia.”
“Something effortless,” Finn mumbles into Kes’s shoulder, something tight clutching at his heart. This is what it means to be alive, “for once.”
Kes laughs, and it’s a bright sound. You could close your eyes and never know that this was a man that was also forged by war. That all of them come from different places—but lusted for the same thing. Victory—peace—love. Felt the proof of all these things existing in unexciting moments, like breathing. Like finding home. Like being accepted.
--
“Shara,” Finn says, looking up from all these images of when Poe was younger, more innocent. But none of that could promise that this was when he was happiest. “What was she like?”
Kes hums. “Inertia, maybe. The jump into hyperspace.”
Finn smiles. “Like Poe.”
The grin on Kes’s face grows wider, and Finn could feel himself mirroring it— “exactly like Poe,” his father says. “The closest thing there’ll ever be.”
--
Poe Dameron comes home, two weeks later. Finn is still the first to rush to the hangar—no surprise, there. Presses a hand to the top of BB-8’s head, indulges all the complaints it has of Poe.
[Incredibly air-headed], it argues.
“No opposition to that,” Finn murmurs, raising his eyebrows, and BB-8 gives him a thumbs-up.
Poe says, “hey,” petulantly, as he climbs out of his ship at last, waving a hand at their father. Finn turns—and there he is, standing with General Organa. Inclines his head to give them a small nod.
“Hey,” Poe says again, and Finn is all his, now.
“I’ve come back, Mr. Dameron,” Poe grins, and the weight of the name pulls something out of Finn, leaves him breathless and agonizingly ecstatic. And Poe seems to realise what he’s just called Finn, too, a milder, more subdued kind of disbelief lighting up in his eyes. Like there was ever the question of whether Finn would be his.
“Good work done on the mission, Black Leader,” Finn grins, looking at him carefully, grazes a finger over a small cut on his cheek.
Poe laughs, “thanks, pal.”
“Buddy,” Finn rolls his eyes, and Poe seems to brighten up. If he could feel this way on the ground, Finn thinks, with me—
Poe says, “it’s good to be home,” and Finn tugs him in by the neck, presses his lips firmly onto Poe’s. Feels the softness of it, the carelessness, and kisses him again. Feels the small spot within him burning brighter; with a lot more hope.
“One closer step,” Finn says.
“To what,” Poe asks, and Finn doesn’t answer. Brings up Poe’s knuckles to his lips, instead, to let him infer everything that he wants to hear.
--
After the debriefing—Finn comes with Poe to their old spot. Finn’s lost count of how many hours they’ve wasted away, here, but he doesn’t think it’s fair to call them a misuse of time, not anymore. It—reminds them of the past, he thinks. Tells them where they need to go.
It’s not peace, but it’s not violence, either—just a lull amongst all these other bigger things happening. Finn loves feeling it: the calm. The strong sun beating down on his skin, slightly uncomfortable, the tangle of their limbs.
“You were right,” Finn confesses.
Poe says, “about what?” Cracks one eye open to peek at his face, only to snap in focus, with the entirety of his attention fixated on Finn, now, unwavering.
“That all this time I thought we were misusing. It’s important, too,” Finn says, seeing that same desire in Poe’s eyes, the same flash of heat. He’s grown into this understanding, he thinks. “That we need it to know where we’re going.”
“So,” Poe says, head propped up with his elbow on the ground, “where do you want to be?”
“With you,” Finn replies. “Here, Yavin 4, wherever that has space for us. Home can be an emotion too, I think. Not just a place. Not just a person.”
“So what is it? The feeling?” Poe asks, and Finn thinks about the way they are, now, with all of the war chipping away at their cheer, scraping away all their enthusiasm— but it’s alright, they’ll learn how to be solemn. They’ll adapt.
“Acceptance,” Finn says, after a while—but it’s okay. Poe will wait for him. “Serenity, joy, hope. Whatever makes life better.”
--
They drift off, eventually.
There was a point in time where Finn would have never allowed it; that he would never trust himself to lose control in a place that didn’t give him explicit protection. It doesn’t matter to him so much, now, not anymore. He’ll still fight when things go to hell—but Finn has also learned that it’s just not necessary to be afraid of what every waking moment will bring him. That composure had to exist with hope. One thing balanced out with the other. The Force, he thinks. The Force, and everything that builds around it.
He looks towards Poe, who’s asleep, now, eyebrows slightly furrowed in his sleep. Finn remembers the nightmares. Remembers the exhaustion that came with the fear, or the sleepless nights, knows that they still have them—will continue to have them, but it’s different, now. They taper off. All the good tapers off and all the bad ebbs away, too, and in comes the new.
You were right, Finn thinks. Hope will be the one telling us where to go.
--
“I want you to have this,” Poe says, hours later. Holds up a key, and Finn feels the imprint of it on his palm.
“What is it,” he asks, examining the rust and the brittleness. It’s primitive, and probably older than the both of them combined. “Why are you—”
“—key,” Poe says. “To my house, in Yavin 4.”
--
(Finn wears the key around his neck under his uniform now, for security. He can feel it, when he walks around the base, following after General Organa, the metal on a string. It stays close to his chest; right beside his heart.)
--
Finn blinks, and the wedding is—
“—tomorrow,” Poe says, lazily, the corners of his lips pulling upwards. He shifts closer to Finn, and the both of them really need to get a bigger bed, sometime soon. Finn wraps an arm around his waist.
“That was fast,” Finn mumbles, even though General Organa had sat him down in front of decorations, fabric, food, flowers. He’d made Poe sit through the entire thing with him, knees touching the entire time. Finn doesn’t think either of them even remembers what they’d decided on for the main course. Whatever any of that meant.
“Fast?” Poe raises an eyebrow. “It was anything but.”
Finn rolls his eyes. “Yes, because everything that travels slower than sublight speed is unbearable, for you pilots.”
Poe grumbles. “You sound more and more like my Pa. He’s a negative influence.”
“Sure,” Finn says, indulgent.
Poe squints at him, but he softens, eventually, and lies back down onto the bed. “Plans for today?”
“Not much,” Finn answers, lifting a hand to brush away the curls falling into Poe’s face. “Aren’t we supposed to be receiving the rest of your relatives?”
Poe hums. “Yeah, but—” He cuts himself off, eyes darting to Finn’s. “Oh.”
“It’s nothing,” Finn says, because he can roughly guess what Poe’s thinking about, “I’m not that upset about it.”
“But you deserve to be,” Poe says, after a minute, when his eyes clear back up again. Finn watches him, safe in the reassurance that he’s allowed to look, now, he’s allowed to trace the lines of his jaw, he’s allowed to either tamp down on the desire curling low in his stomach, or let it grow.
It’s a time for growing, Finn thinks. There are things to feel, people to return to.
Not to say that moving forwards isn’t difficult. Because everything requires conviction. Intimacy requires effort—and it takes guts to be honest. To come back out in the open and tell someone, here is how much I love you.
“Yes,” Finn says, carefully, “but having a husband takes the sting out of it, actually. Not as lonely, and everything.”
--
“My mother would have loved you,” Poe says, sometime in the afternoon, because they can’t quite manage to get out of bed, and no one has come to lecture them yet, “she would have—approved.”
“Of us,” Finn says, despite knowing how redundant it is: he just wants to hear the confirmation.
“Of us,” Poe echoes, and presses a kiss to Finn’s knuckles. “You’re sure, right?”
He falls silent. Considers it, really considers it, but there’s no hesitation when he thinks about what he’s willing to do for this man. Nothing quite compares to defecting from the First Order, if you’re asking Finn.
But between them is—so much of everything else. So much time trickling by when they’re just lying down, outside, with the grass to their backs and their eyes to the sun. They’ve spent so much time hurting—that maybe it is time for them to rest, even if it’s not to heal.
If there’s one thing that Finn deserves: it’s probably this.
“I’m sure,” Finn says, settling on this at last, even though his mind has long been made up, days before, months before, or even when he’d taken that helmet off and thought, this man is going to be the death of me.
But that’s not the case, is it? Because Poe has given him a chance, so to speak. Gave him a chance, and Finn went on to do everything else. Went on to understand that happiness was not the only thing to be humanity, but the pain, too, along with the loss. That what he was before wasn’t anything else, not quite. Just fractured. Just broken.
--
“We’re happy for you,” General Organa says, after they’ve finished discussing the next action to take for the Resistance. It feels—liberating, knowing that they’re going to finish this, someday. That all the misery in the world didn’t amount to nothing. “Don’t overthink it.”
“We’re fighting,” Finn reassures her, leaning in to give her a tight embrace, “we’re determined.”
And they are—being born into a war never meant that they didn’t have a choice. It would have been easy to run away, to pretend like all this couldn’t last. Like Finn would have been the same if the First Order hadn’t stripped him of who he was, if he’d never shrugged the uniform away to tell them, no. That was a decision he had to make, Finn thinks. The same one everyone else had to.
“It’s not all about surviving the war,” Leia says. “Sometimes it’s about who you find in the midst of it, too.”
--
“You look—good,” says a voice behind him.
Finn turns, and there’s Rey, standing proudly, BB-8 quiet by her side, and he can’t quite believe it.
“Rey,” he says, and his voice breaks. He trusts Rey not to call him out on it.
“Finn,” she says, a grin lighting up her face, fierce, coming up to embrace him. He clings onto her, but she doesn’t seem to mind the strength—holds him tighter, in fact.
“Rey,” Finn says again, because he’s still in shock; there was no communication between the two of them, all this while, and the both of them have changed, now, before Finn manages to digest this information. Turned into other people than what they were before. Now they’re starting to—run towards what they were both scared of. Rather than away from it.
“Congratulations, Mr. Dameron,” Rey grins, nudging her shoulder against his.
“I’ve missed you,” Finn confesses, squeezing Rey’s hand back, “there was a lot you’ve missed.”
“I’m positive,” Rey says. “But I didn’t miss this, did I? I’m back to see you get married.”
--
“Nervous?” Leia asks.
“Very,” Finn says, trying to pick off invisible lint off his uniform, “but it feels—right, at the same time. Like this was just the next step forwards, you know?”
“Among many others,” Leia says, pressing a hand to his shoulder.
“Among many others,” Finn repeats, and believes it.
--
The ceremony turns out to be—more lavish than Finn’s expected. There’s a band, somewhere, playing a sort of music that Poe had hummed under his breath, before, multiple times. An audience gathers, and from Finn can tell—they seem to be mostly from Yavin 4. The pilots take up the front row, of course, along with Chewie and Kes and Rey. BB-8 is—buzzing around.
If this is his first glimpse into what Yavin 4 is like, Finn decides that he likes it.
--
“Do you trust me?” Poe whispers into his ear.
--
(Finn thinks that this the last thing he’ll give up. That what everything has boiled down to, now—wasn’t it all dependent on that split second of confidence? Of Poe trusting Finn, of Finn trusting Rey, of this blind faith that everyone invests in one another?
But this isn’t blind, Finn knows. It’s the furthest thing from blind—not when Finn’s trying his hardest to live his life with both eyes open, no helmet on.)
--
“I trust you,” Finn tells him.
--
Repeats the words said to him in Poe's native language, and watches Poe’s eyes well up. Strings out the syllables and makes sure that the pronunciation is correct.
“I love you,” Finn says, in Basic.
“I love you,” Poe says, and reaches his hand out.
Finn takes it.
--
The kiss is—nothing spectacular. Nothing that would scandalize the audience they have, even though a few of the pilots are unable to keep their mouths shut, which surprises no one. It’s chaste, and it’s safe but maybe this is what they need right now. Perhaps this was never supposed to be fierce or strong or turbulent. That this could just be—theirs. Their spot in war. Their spot of sweet and quiet and calm.
An opportunity, Finn thinks. He reaches out with both hands to grasp it.
--
(He feels the key’s weight the entire way.)
--
So Finn and Poe are married, now;
FN-2187 becomes Finn becomes Finn Dameron.
--
“Wait for me,” Poe says, having to leave the next day after, “I’ll come back for you.”
Finn wonders: is this what he wants? An entire life of plotting and strategizing and scheming, down on the ground. With one eye to the sky and his entire heart full of hope. There is the future and there is Finn, determined to let his family live in it.
“Is this what you want?” asked Finn, all this time ago, asking Poe because he didn’t have an answer himself. Didn’t know that what he wanted he had, that what he wanted was just to feel the universe, opening up under the touch of time. Swallowing it up like a blessing.
“To go home,” Poe had said. Home is—calm and serenity and joy and hope. Home is whatever that makes it better. Home is Yavin 4 and Poe Dameron and new names, new identities.
“I’ll wait for you,” Finn tells him, and it’s a promise. Feels the flesh on his husband’s body. Feels the strong curve of his jaw, the roughness of his fingers. Feels the tears running down Poe’s face, if only to wipe it away. Sadness and fear and longing, Finn thinks. Still part of humanity. Ugly but human and true. “I hope I always do.”
--
Yavin 4, Finn thinks, watching Poe’s ship launch.
--
The thing is: no one really knows how the war is going to end.
People survive and empires fall, only to be built back up again. There are people misusing the Force and there are people doing good with it. Power comes to lay seeds into the minds of leaders, and there’ll always be people dying without justice. Old wounds heal, and there’ll be new scars gained, new alliances, new people. Flesh will close up and conceal the bones. The war could quiet down, or it could never stop.
It’s all inevitable. All out of Finn’s control. There’s an ugly side to humanity that Finn has grown up with. He’s lived the bulk of it, scrubbing away dirt to mask what’s really underneath it. The world is grime and muck and a thousand planets still susceptible to harm. No one really escapes the danger—but there’s no guaranteed safety, either. They don’t have to fight for it—but they will.
Him and Poe? The Resistance? They could tear a hole into the future. Just for that possibility. Just for the chance to say that they hadn’t let the violence slide by, when everything around them tears down. Just for the chance to say that they didn’t sit around to win this war.
There is—change. Forming within the universe, and it could be an implosion, could be nothing substantial. No one knows what is happening, never the entirety of it. And there are, quite frankly, a million reasons to panic—but Finn eases into acknowledgement, instead.
--
Poe asks, “are you scared?”
“Yes,” Finn tells him, honest.
There’s nothing wrong with fear.