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CONTACT
Rey takes Finn’s hand in hers and all is silence. Beams of light fly into flames. Bodies—people—fall from life. She hears nothing. She only feels.
Her lungs stop snatching bursts of air and begin to pull them in smooth, slow, and deep. Her ribs no longer rattle painfully in the fight to contain the rapid clanging. Instead, her chest vibrates gently around the now steady metronome of her heart.
She senses it—the light surging between them.
She is secure, safe despite the chaos, despite the danger.
With his hand in hers, she knows they will either make it together or they will not make it all. There is peace in that.
He squeezes her hand and pulls.
She follows.
They make it.
Together.
SYMPTOMS
Rey is tending to her garden alone on the outskirts of the Resistance base when it occurs to her that the particular blue of her newest bloom reminds her of Finn. Vibrant yet soft. Smooth all over. Sharp at the edges. Beautiful. Undeniably beautiful.
Back in the mess hall Finn waves to her when she enters. He is seated at a table, surrounded, as always, by admirers. But there is a vacancy right beside him—the place he always saves for her. She returns his smile. There is something more than happiness behind her eyes.
In bed she tosses and turns unable to find comfort. The cold of the barracks is unusually heavy and somehow amplified by the thin sheet against her skin. Finn is always so warm. The thought creates itself, walking in through the open door of her mind without invitation. However, it is not unwelcome. She wonders if she would be if she were to…
She follows the thought out of bed and down the hall. Her knuckles rap gently against Finn’s door. “It’s me,” she offers before he can ask and follows his instructions to come in.
“Cold?” His eyes are soft with care.
Finn sits up, swinging his feet to the floor. His sheet slips to his waist and Rey hesitates. A beam of light had followed her in from the hallway and was now illuminating Finn’s toned abdomen. She feels herself warming and quickly shuts the door to keep in the heat.
When Finn begins to rise from the bed, she stops him with a hand on his bare chest, “What are you doing?”
“Giving you the bed,” Finn yawns as he stretches a little, his eyes scrunching closed.
“No, no, then we’ll both still be alo—“ Rey catches the tail of the word pulling it and herself back from the cliff.
They are just staring at each other now. Finn sitting on the bed, Rey standing close in front of him, her hand still soft on his chest. Their eyes adjust just enough to the darkness to make out the other’s silhouette, the curve of the other’s face, the look in the other’s eyes.
After a moment, Rey breaks the silence with a whisper. “Cold…we’ll both still be cold.”
Finn nods slowly and slides wordlessly back into the bed, lifting the sheet, inviting her in with understanding eyes.
Face to face in the tight quarters, they both fight emerging grins.
“So, I’ve never shared a bed with someone before,” Rey says, her excitement thinly veiled. “How does it work?”
Finn smiles wide utterly charmed. “What do you mean, ‘how does it work?’”
“You know…how do we keep each other…warm?”
“Ahh, okay, I see….well…umm,” Finn fumbles for an answer and stumbles upon something he remembers from his training. “Well, to increase and maximize body temperature individuals attempting to survive in subzero temperatures should prioritize prolonged skin to skin contact, preferably large areas of skin near the midsection since that is where humanoids radiate the most heat.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Rey returns, her tone matter of fact. She sits up quickly, unceremoniously slipping her thin top over her head, and then shimmies back beneath the sheets. She lies down on her side, facing away from Finn, and presses her bare back firmly against his chest.
Finn is a furnace yet she shivers, her body unable to fight the pulsing electricity coursing through them. She feels him solid and still behind her.
“Finn?” She says after a moment of heavy silence.
“Mmm hmm?” the sound is high and tight in his throat.
“Are you breathing?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
She laughs. “Well, if you don’t breathe you’ll die, and then neither of us will be warm.”
She feels him soften behind her and her lips spread in content as the rise and fall of his breath perfectly fills the curve of her back. She reaches back and grabs his hand from where it sits stiff against his thigh and brings it to rest above her navel, her hand warm on top, holding him there, holding them there.
“We should do this more often,” Rey whispers. “For warmth,” she throws in abruptly with more volume than necessary.
“Yeah,” Finn hums. “For warmth.”
In the words she hears his smile. She falls asleep to the thought of that smile—dreams of it—and when she awakens to it she is certain that the curve of his lips is where dreams and reality bend and blur into one.
DIAGNOSIS
"What is this?" Rey shouts at the frothing ocean, the spray and fury of the crashing crests drowning her voice. The water on this distant planet mocks her, mimicking how the cravings come in waves, washing over her and stripping away her hard outer layers before retreating again to her depths.
Rey knows hunger. She understands the tell tale ache in her gut, the dizziness that sways her, the tremors in her limbs when the portions are not enough. But she cannot name the insatiable desire to feast upon Finn’s lips, to taste him, devour him. She cannot explain why there is never enough of him—no suitable portion of Finn. She does not want to be satiated. She wants to be filled.
Rey knows thirst. She is excruciatingly familiar with the sensation that her insides have turned to dust. She knows the terror of her breath, hot and scorching, rushing to escape the barren desert of her body. She has grown to know that the oasis is always a mirage. It is never real. But Finn is real: a vision, clear, and inviting. She relishes drinking him in from a distance. Even now, systems away, she wants to run to him, drop to her knees, and be immersed. She wants to break through the surface and dive deep. She fears she can never get to the bottom of him, but she is willing to drown trying.
Rey knows protection. She remembers the panic of not knowing the way home. Lost, uncovered, and alone in a world that only takes, she has learned that she must erect barriers. She has always been safe inside herself. She does not understand this new impulse to tear down her walls and build a new home in Finn. She does not know what it means that his arms are her refuge, his eyes a sanctuary. Why, with him, can she lay down her weapons and still feel safe?
Rey has only ever had needs. Now she wants. She wants so much, maybe too much, she thinks. How does one have what she wants? How does one have another? Most importantly, how does one know if the want is mutual?
Rey brings these questions back with her on the Falcon and delivers them to Leia. Leia laughs softly, her head cocked to the side, a wry smile on her lips. Rey sees what she thinks is pity, and, thankfully, understanding in Leia’s eyes.
“Oh, poor child,” Leia says, cupping Rey’s eager yet fearful face. “Give him what you want and see if he returns it.”
ANTIDOTE
In the end, it is laughably simple. After all, most things are communicated mouth to mouth.
Her lips on his say I want you. His smile says You have me. Her dream becomes their reality.
She takes his hand and together they climb inside of something she has never had the privilege to inhabit: vulnerability. She allows him to traverse her soft curves and he rounds them with care. Of course he does. He always does.
The way they fit together is something more than perfect and when she finally crumbles the pieces are beautiful.
Lucky, Rey thinks. Just as she grew weary of rebuilding herself, Finn arrived with the perfect set of tools he had been too stubborn to discard.
What this is, she still does not know. Though, she is sure she has never had it before and just as certain that it is the only thing that has ever truly been hers.
No.
Theirs.
After all, neither of them has ever before known love.
They learn it.
Together.