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The machines on either side of him keep doing their jobs. There’s a pump pushing antibiotics into his IV line, his pulse oximeter is beeping at him because he holds his breath when he’s nervous, and the blood pressure cuff constricts every thirty minutes. They just keep on keeping on, doing what they do.
Finn, conversely, has no idea what he’s doing. Something in his brain is shouting in a disbelieving, barely-shy-of-hysterical voice, because he has just reflexively kissed Rey’s hand, panicked, and then tried to cover for it by kissing Poe’s hand. He’s still holding onto said hands, and he needs to let go. He needs to let go, right? Letting go should happen.
His brain just keeps shouting unhelpfully.
And he is still holding their hands.
“Someone say something,” he manages, anything to break the silence.
“That was cute,” Poe says.
Finn tries to glare and can’t get that right either. “Someone say something else.”
“But it was cute,” Rey says, and she’s smiling wide.
“Awful,” he decides. “You’re both awful.”
Poe grins, shrugs, and spreads his free hand expansively. “Not too awful for a kiss to the hand, apparently. I can live with that.”
Finn’s grip tightens, and that’s the crux of it, he thinks. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he does understand his instincts. Even when Rey had been chasing after him with that staff, and even when his mind had categorized Poe as a Resistance captive, they hadn’t felt like enemies. Beneath the conditioning and rhetoric, he’d always had a sense for that. It hadn’t let him down then, and it isn’t letting him down now.
His grip tightens because he wants to hold onto this, metaphorically and literally. He also wants to cover his face with his hands, but he can’t have both.
Can’t have both.
Right.
Rey sits on the stretcher next to him. Their fingers lace together like punctuation to what comes next. “What were you just thinking? Your expression changed.”
Finn widens his eyes, smooths his face out as best as he can. “What? Nothing.”
Rey frowns but doesn’t say anything.
They’re quiet.
With words failing him, Finn thinks on past conversations instead. He’s been coming back to the med-wing for daily antibiotics following the surgery on his back: hour-long infusions, in a stretcher, propped up with mismatched pillows to take pressure off his wound, staring up at the ceiling, unable to really comprehend how much has changed in such a short period of time. Except he hasn’t been left alone for that, not really. Rey and Poe wait with him when they can, and they talk. Bits and pieces, getting to know the details of each other as they fill in the blanks that the excitement of their short acquaintanceship had missed.
He knows them better in a week and a half than he’s ever known anyone. They talk about things he’s never been able to put to voice before, and that’s scary and also pretty great.
But there’s still something hanging in the occasional silence, something they haven’t talked about yet, and it’s getting heavier every day.
Finn knows what it is but isn’t sure how to phrase it, or if it’s even possible, and he’s pretty sure Rey isn’t sure either.
But then there’s Poe, who is eyeing them both, expression open, assessing. “Okay, so, I know you both don’t have a lot of experience with these kinds of conversations.” He mirrors Rey by sitting on Finn’s opposite side. “And we only have ten minutes before that infusion is done and the nurse comes back, so I’m just going to jump in here.” And jump in he does, twisting to face Finn and lifting one leg to bend on the mattress. “Finn, do you like me?”
It feels like something strikes him in the chest, but it doesn’t hurt--- there’s no pain, just heat, pressure, and an expulsion of breath. It’s an impact, all the same. This moment is an impact, and Finn still doesn’t know what he’s doing. Finn shakes in a breath, and on a nervous laugh, says, “Yeah. Yeah, I like you, Poe.”
Poe’s beaming, and he squeezes Finn’s hand. After a warm glance at Rey, he asks, “And do you like Rey?”
He’s been ready to answer that question since the moment he met her, and answering it now feels like shedding a weight. “Yes.”
“Cool.” Poe shifts again to meet Rey’s stare, eyes shining as he smiles. “Hey, Rey. Do you like me?”
She swallows, and there is sheer determination on her face, the kind of determination Finn has seen levelled at all manner of challenge, and he knows that means she’s serious. “I do.”
“And do you like Finn?”
She nods emphatically, practically buzzing with energy; Finn’s heart soars. “Yes.”
“Nice!” Poe exclaims. He gestures at the both of them. “I like both of you too. And to be absolutely sure there is no confusion, did we all mean that romantically?”
Finn looks between them, and when he sees that they’re both nodding, and that no, he is not being pranked in any way, shape, or form, he says, “Yep. Yes. Definitely.”
“Fantastic.” Poe gets to his feet and squeezes Finn’s hand one last time before letting go. “And on that highly positive note, I’m going to head to work, because if I dig in right now, I can probably get through enough reports to be done in time for a nice long dinner with the two of you. How does that sound?”
“It sounds good, Poe,” Rey says, and she’s giving him a knowing look.
“Yeah, it sounds good,” Finn agrees.
They watch him leave, together.
“He’s totally freaking out right now,” Finn observes when Poe turns the corner and is out of sight.
Rey laughs, and that’s what got him to kiss her hand in the first place, so Finn does it again. “I’m not sure he expected it to go this well.”
Finn doesn’t say anything to that. He keeps it in, but just for now. Because now he has people can talk to, people to whom he can explain how he hadn’t expected this to go so well either, because nothing in his life ever had. He just needs the time to find the words.
She sees it on his face. She must, because she turns his hand in hers and kisses the inside of his wrist.
Finn doesn’t know what he’s doing.
But he’s going to figure it out.