Work Text:
When Rey moves into her cabin at the Resistance Base she thinks she’ll fall in love with it. Having a place amongst people she cares about and who, surprisingly enough, care about her too. A place where she won’t have to worry about things disappearing, or try to stop herself from becoming too attached to anything in case she has to trade it later. The fact that food is not only regular but doesn't need to be traded for anything is frankly still unbelievable. A place she should feel safe.
Despite all of this, Rey feels uneasy in her bed.
She finds herself more often than not curled up on a bench in the medical unit, falling asleep to the reassuring hums and whirs of Finn’s support systems. BB-8 is around sometimes, when they’re not off on an adventure with the pilot, Poe Dameron. She doesn’t know much about the pilot apart from what Finn and BB-8 have mentioned.
A month later Finn is awake and Rey still feels strange about her cabin. Instead of med unit benches, it’s now either Finn’s bunk or Jessika Pava's, another pilot who had promised Rey a spin in her X-wing after finding Rey poking around the flight deck.
Rey snaps awake in her dark cabin two weeks after Finn wakes up (when she started telling time by Finn’s recovery she isn't sure). She’s breathing hard and is cold like the aftermath of every nightmare. Even when living on Jakku nightmares still had the ability to make her shiver. Tossing the tangled bedding aside she slips from her bunk and slinks down the hall to Finn’s cabin. He doesn’t startle when Rey curls in beside him, used to the now-frequent intrusions. With a quiet snuffle he turns and slings an arm across her waist. The first couple times she found herself in Finn’s bunk she’d been awkward, not knowing how to say ‘somehow my mind shuts up around you’. Finn had just scooted to make room and said ‘stormtroopers get nightmares too’. Occasionally Rey has been there when Finn’s brow scrunches and the fine tremors start. He comes awake as soon as she touches him and she holds his hands until he falls asleep again. By some miracle Rey doesn’t dream as long as she’s near Finn.
She buries her nose into Finn’s shirt. He murmurs quietly above her, not so much words as noises of curiosity and concern.
‘I like your bunk better,’ is all she says.
The next morning she needs to grab something from her cabin before finally taking Jess up on her X-wing offer. Finn will be watching so he trails after her and stands in the doorway as she grabs the helmet Jess had lent her. The room is sparse, almost empty. Her staff and the blaster pistol that Solo gave her are the only things Finn knows are hers.
As Finn stands in the doorway he starts to maybe understand why she keeps coming to his bunk. Finn doesn’t know where she used to live but the way the room looks he’d say she doesn’t know what to do with the extra space. There’s a sad-looking plant on a shelf near the bed, Finn isn’t sure what kind, and he’s guessing Rey has no clue. The walls are silent and empty. The dark metal of the cabins hasn’t really bothered him since arriving, they’re similar to his barracks in the First Order, but the architecture is different enough that it’s no longer unsettling.
They leave before he has more of a chance to wonder. Rey flies the X-wing with as much skill and precision as she had the Falcon. No one is surprised but they are all a little awed.
After that he takes to paying closer attention to things that comfort her. He recruits Poe and Jess and BB-8 to help. Jess coaxes Rey’s plant back to life, then slowly more plants start appearing in her cabin. Soon enough there are dozens of tiny red, orange, and green flowers clustered about her bed. Finn sees the way Rey cradles the fluttering petals reverently and smiles to himself.
Poe talks pilot stuff with Rey, reliving the best missions and begging Rey to tell him what flying the Falcon was like. With Finn’s help they recount every moment, then have to start again when Jess appears and demands that they start from the beginning. Poe never says it but Finn can see how much he’d love to fly it. His eyes shine when Finn tells them about how Rey and Solo frantically patched the ageing ship back together even as they were flying. Rey’s never built an X-wing but schematics start cluttering up her cabin. It becomes commonplace for Rey, Jess, and Poe to sit around discussing different crafts, engines, hyperdrives, the list is endless. Finn is mesmerised watching them, they each light up in completely unique ways. It never bothers him that he can’t really contribute. BB-8 sits beside him and beeps approvingly at new plans, clarifying things occasionally, but usually just basking in the glow of their friends like Finn. BB-8 seems to have taken on the role of medical droid, alerting the others when Finn’s back starts to ache. At the same time every day Poe walks Finn back to medical, BB-8 following alongside, where he undergoes evaluation and physical therapy. Both Poe and BB-8 stick around to cheer him on.
The worst thing about Finn’s nightmares is that he never remembers them. Rey cradles his hands as soon as he wakes, her thumbs brushing back and forth.
‘Tell me about Jakku? Why you love it?’ his voice is barely above a whisper, his eyes still closed.
Rey doesn’t answer right away. He wonders whether she’s already asleep again. He opens an eye in the dim light and sees her gazing at the ceiling. She blinks slowly and starts to talk about how she lived in the shell of an AT-AT, how it was hers alone. She tells him about doubting herself, her ability to survive. She tells him about finding the tiny spinebarrel flower growing out from the walker. Showing her that she could survive and maybe even thrive. She stopped seeing the sand as an enemy after that. She tells him about the helmet she’d found, how when she wore it the variations across the desert turned deeper orange in the sunsets. The yellows and oranges of the sand soothed and wore away at her sharper edges (Finn wants to snort at that but after a moment can understand what she means). She keeps talking until Finn no longer recognises words, the cadence of her soft voice easing him into sleep. He doesn’t dream again that night and when he wakes in the morning Rey has the slightest smile on her still-sleeping face.
Finn’s last set of strengthening stretches is interrupted when Poe gets too eager for dinner. Rey isn’t in the mess hall, off on an adventure with Jess. She’ll probably stay with Jess tonight. Which works in accordance to his hypothetical plan. He starts by asking Poe if the Resistance Base has paint to spare, earning him a queried brow from the pilot and a questioning whistle from BB-8.
‘It’s for Rey. I…I want to paint her cabin. To make her feel more at home.’
‘Absolutely! Let’s see what we can find!’
Poe grins broadly and jumps up, leaving his half-finished meal behind. He grabs Finn’s hand and pulls him out of the mess hall conferring with BB-8 all the while. He strides through the corridors, only stopping once when BB-8 tuts, indicating to a different door. They make it into a series of storage closets and BB-8 beeps rapidly once they’ve found the door they’re looking for. Poe opens it and Finn sees several barrels, dried paint encrusted around the tops. It’s his turn to raise an eyebrow.
‘An ill-conceived attempt at stealth on your favourite kind of planet, buddy,’ he opens a barrel to reveal exactly what Finn didn’t know how to hope for. Yellow paint.
‘There’re a few different shades. Even if it was a stupid idea, we still take camouflage pretty seriously.’ Poe launches into an animated story about an undercover stealth attack on a First Order outpost on a desert planet. BB-8 chimes in with their own ideas and interpretations of exactly how unsuccessful the operation had been. As the story unfolds the two of them lug the barrels one by one to Rey’s cabin. BB-8 goes to find some brushes while Finn and Poe move the furniture away from the empty grey walls.
Rey and Jess manage to borrow an X-wing not on patrol so they can both test each other’s limits. It’s hours after midnight by the time they’re grounded again. They’re still high on adrenalin going over their flights when Jess remembers that she has a patrol the next afternoon and regrettably needs sleep. Usually Rey would follow but she feels like she should make a better effort at sleeping in her own cabin, especially now that it’s a bit more lived in.
Buoyed by the little changes around her Rey smiles to herself as she makes her way to her cabin, wondering if maybe it’ll feel like home. There’s light spilling out from her doorway and the sound of voices and enthusiastic beeps and whistles reaches her ears. She pauses in the doorway, her face catching in a frown. Finn and Poe are armed with paintbrushes and the room seems to be bathed in yellow. She’d mistake it for sunlight if she didn’t know better. BB-8 is rolling back and forth along the wall near her bed with their own smallish brush extended and eagerly adding to the make-over.
The walls aren’t a dull grey anymore.
Her room has become a desert. Thick bands of soft yellow curl around the bottom half of the walls. Richer tones clumsily wind throughout, imitating the variations of the dunes. The palest yellow is beginning to reach upwards with the occasional smudge touching the ceiling. It’s clear that Finn and Poe are no artists but when her eyes blur with tears she can’t tell the difference. Her boys finally notice her and toss aside their brushes. Finn’s got yellow flecks across his cheek and Poe’s smeared orange all up his left arm. BB-8 nudges at her ankle, she looks down to see golden droid tracks across the sheet laid over everything.
‘Finn’s idea, absolutely brilliant! BB-8 and I think it looks better than all the other cabins!’ BB-8 whistles in agreement as Finn rubs his cheek and shuffles his feet. The still-wet paint smears under his fingers so Rey catches his hand, reaches for Poe’s arm and pulls them both into a rough hug. Their arms come around her solid and warm. Finn’s chin brushes the top of her hair while Poe leans his forehead against Finn’s cheek. BB-8 does their best by resting against Rey’s calves, beeping softly. The words she wants to use can’t seem to make it past her heart. She untangles her hands and pulls their faces closer to her. She presses soft kisses to the lips of these beautiful, strangely thoughtful men. Kisses until she’s grinning too hard to continue, she draws them close again and squeezes tight.
Eventually they unwind themselves and declare the walls finished. They haul the barrels out and BB-8 drags the sheet behind them. Rey flops onto her bed and stares. She feels settled in a way that she hasn’t known for years and her eyelids slip closed. Finn joins her a moment later and tucks himself into her side, effortlessly tactile. There’s a soft peep and Rey cracks an eyelid. BB-8 is looking at a sheepish Poe standing in the doorway. Finn gazes at him steadily.
‘You can come in,’ he says softly, ‘I know you’ve been having nightmares. We all kind of do.’
Poe rubs the back of his neck and takes a hesitant step inside. Rey finds it curious, what she knows and has seen of Poe has only ever been confidence and fearlessness. His eyes flick to her and she nods without a thought. Finn trusts him and she knows what it’s like to be at the mercy of monsters. The thin line of tension in his shoulders drops and he shucks his boots before climbing in beside them. He gives them each a shy kiss before snuggling down. BB-8 keys the door closed, shuts the light off, and settles at the head of the bed.
There are no nightmares tonight.