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“This has to stop.”
Finn barely registered the words, because Rey’s hand was in his -- scratch that; both of Rey’s hands were in his, which wasn’t new, but he couldn’t help but consider the way they were interlaced with a hazy sense of wonder. He didn’t know what needed to stop. He should probably say something charming? Witty? He’d settle for anything but the disjointed spew of syllables he was very admirably choking back.
“You know, she’s right,” added the source of the sudden weight around his shoulders. Poe Dameron leaned into his embraces without reservation, which was pleasant enough even with the twinge in his spine, but Finn always had to remind himself that it’s weird -- weird -- to have to hold yourself back from wanting to smell your friend’s hair. Even when said friend seems to encourage it. Finn’s spent his entire army career with unwashed dudes, and no unwashed dude smelled that nice.
Finally, Poe managed to spit out, “What?” Rey had done a very good job of putting on a serious face until Poe started chuckling.
“Buddy!” he laughed, sounding a little exasperated. “You need to stop giving us stuff.”
Wrinkling his brow, Finn looked at the small mountain of Valentines gifts he’d gathered for his misfit college family. “You don’t like them?”
Rey’s gaze settled somewhere over Finn’s left shoulder, and he could tell that she and Poe were silently agreeing on what they were going to say.
It was starting to get weird.
Admittedly, Rey barely understood the concept of a gift. “People actually give other people things...for free?” she’d very seriously queried Poe in the week before Christmas. Watching young students bustle in and out of the campus scraping together what they could for the holiday was a strange observational exercise for the former ward of the state, and confusion could not have been more clearly etched on her face. It wasn't as though she's never heard of a present before, but it had never squared neatly with her life experience. Before her engineering scholarship kicked in, she’d worked every free hour for the local garage. When you were the only gas and fix for sixty miles of desert on each side, you wrung your unfortunate customers for every penny. Out there a "gift" something extra thrown into the pot to make the buyer feel like they were getting a good deal. In other words, a useless piece of junk.
Selling someone something was easy; they bought what they wanted. Trying to predict what someone might want, but wouldn’t buy for themselves, was a nightmarish exercise.
Poe had been unable to offer her any substantial advice, not only because he didn’t feel like spoiling the girl’s first real Christmas by jumping into the politics of obligational gift-giving, but also because (he had begrudgingly admitted to himself) he was a surprisingly uninspired gift giver. He tended to fall back on classics of flowers, sweets, and Hallmark cards, but being an RA never really paid well enough to be super adventurous in that area of his life.
And then there was Finn. Finn was on a whole different level.
It wasn’t just that Finn seemingly remembered every word they ever spoke to him (that Poe liked the snacks with the white-ish cheese, not the yellow, so he saved those when he found them), or that he was a keen observer of their habits ( that Rey was paranoid about going anywhere without potable water, so he always brought her extra). He was also uncannily good at anticipating which little gifts would reduce the recipient to sentimental goo.
Once Finn had started running supplies for the biological and horticultural departments, Rey’s living quarters had, week by week, transformed into a small forest of desert succulents, green ones with needles and spiny ridges. Some even sprouted vivid yellow and pink flowers. She couldn’t explain why they were perfect, but they were. Finn had also spent a week mending Poe’s favorite jacket after he’d ripped it dodging riot police. He’d delivered it back to his owner with all the pomp and circumstance of a knight of the Round Table presenting King Arthur with Excalibur.
While Finn’s open-handedness endeared him to nearly everyone he met, it was also kind of irritating. Not only did it make everyone else look bad by comparison, but it was impossible to return the favor. He rarely talked about himself, or his past, and he engendered enough kindness for no one to push him on what the dishonorable discharge entailed. He never seemed to need anything.
Except, perhaps, her. Poe couldn’t help but laugh at Finn fumbling to hold her hand, gushing idiotic things. She could be smeared with grease and be in dire need of a shower, and he would still look at her like he’s lost and found at the same time.
So naturally, if Poe could pull some strings and get the two starry-eyed undergrads alone on the dorm roof for Valentine's Day, it might pass for thoughtful.
Poe told Rey as much earlier in the day, of course unerringly cool about his third wheel status, and she’d laughed so hard she’d nearly peed. “You know the rest of the world can see you make eyes at each other, right?” For once, he had nothing clever to say as she hooked her arm in his, effectively steering him back toward the roof he’d planned on vacating. “You two always look one Four Loko away from a really enthusiastic make-out session. It wouldn’t be a good gift if you weren’t there.”
When she produced the afore-mentioned booze from her book-bag, he could have kissed her. He was heavily considering it.
“The gifts are great, Bud,” Poe said assuringly at the same time that Rey asserted that they were quite beautiful.
There weren’t really words for being simultaneously perplexed by someone who gave so freely of himself, and knowing that it’s exactly what you need.
So for the duration of the evening they simply sat on the roof, passing a can back and forth, shoulders touching, often knees, eyes cast sometimes at the students below, sometimes at towards the starry sky, but mostly at one another, lost and found at the same time.