Chapter Text
Finn.
It’s a cruel joke, surely. Something plotted by someone with a twisted sense of humor and a penchant for … he doesn’t exactly know; irony, perhaps, or something along those lines.
His eyes flick between the blanket, the hands holding it, and the eyes of the man to whom those hands belong.
The binders around his wrist are an ancient pair, from back when the Force users of the galaxy could be counted on several hands instead of just one. But they work, unfortunately, and chafe his wrists to boot. The cot he’s sitting on is a long, metal thing, and he thinks with no small amount of dark amusement that they’re similar to the ones in the cells on the Finalizer. The clothes he’s been given are thin, much thinner than the layers and layers of black he’d taken to wearing, and he can feel the chill of the metal bed through the fabric.
It’s just one reason in the midst of thousands of why he couldn’t sleep at night, but it’s still a reason.
He didn’t know anyone had noticed.
But apparently someone had.
There's no discernible emotion in FN-2187’s face. He doesn’t offer the blanket with a smile or a smirk. However, the man's eyes are hard, and Ben thinks that the man might not want to be here, offering the orange blanket to the man who was once dubbed the Jedi Killer. Ben can’t blame him.
“I saw you shivering on the surveillance tapes,” FN-2187 tells him. As if that explanation alone is suitable for this act of kindness, of – dare he think it – pity. “Thought it might, you know, help.”
The man’s speech is awkward and stilted. He can see that the trooper’s sweating slightly, as if worried Ben is going to somehow kill him with his bound, bare hands. There's another half a heartbeat of silence, before Finn gives up on receiving any sort of response. The blanket’s gingerly set on the cot beside him. Ben's eyes follow its path, and he continues to stare at it even as FN-2187 pulls his hands away. The deed is done, and the man hesitates but for a moment before leaving the cell.
The door slides closed behind him, and he continues staring at the bright orange atrocity before lying back down and turning onto his side.
-
He doesn’t use the blanket, at first. He kicks it off when he gets ready to go to sleep, the fabric falling to a crumpled heap on the floor. He turns and writhes and tries to ignore the pounding in his head.
Poe.
The cell’s bathroom is a small thing, hidden only partially behind a wall. He finds himself on his knees in front of it several times between meetings with Resistance leaders, retching even when there’s nothing to throw up.
He hadn’t quite realized how central the Force was until it’s stripped from him, blocked by the binders on his wrists. The absence of it makes him dizzy, makes his head feel hollow and too-light for his liking. The nausea comes as a result, and what time isn’t spent on the cot or in interrogations is spent by the toilet, eyes closed against the unsteadiness.
The next visitor isn’t FN-2187. No, it’s someone much more familiar.
“I can hear you down the hallway.” It’s not the traitor’s voice. No, he knows this voice. He knows this voice and all of its snarky comments, its playful little lilt even when blood is dripping down its owner’s temple and from cracked, dry lips.
Ben glances up at Poe Dameron. His eyes flick to the basin next to him, and he just shrugs. “Sorry,” he mutters. There isn’t anyone to talk to, no reason to use his voice, so it comes out cracked and rough.
The pilot’s still dressed in his flight suit, a garish orange-red color that matches the blanket that the traitor had given him. He must’ve come here from flight training. Ben closes his eyes and rests his head against the basin, taking deep breaths to combat the wave of nausea coming over him.
“The General asked me to administer this.” He doesn’t dare open his eyes, but he can feel the man’s rough hands on his arm, pushing the sleeve of his shirt up. He waits for the prick of the needle, waits for the nausea to be relieved, but it doesn’t come. When he opens his eyes, the pilot is staring at the collection of pinprick bruises on his forearm. The man looks genuinely surprised; Ben wants to snort.
“Truth serum,” Ben explains gruffly. “Administered before each information session.”
Information session, they called it. In the First Order, they called it an interrogation.
“Every time?” Poe mutters, eyes still on the dark marks on Ben’s pale skin. Ben just nods before resting his head back against the edge of the toilet.
“Every time.” He lets his eyes slip closed again.
The prick of the needle stings slightly, but it’s not nearly as painful as the truth serum. That stuff burned something horrible. The anti-nausea drug kicks in fairly quickly, and he lets out a soft sigh as the urge to retch near disappears.
The words don’t come easily, given how awful his throat feels and his reluctance to say them. “Thank you.” There’s no response. When he opens his eyes, the dizziness having left, he sees an empty room.
Poe.
Breakfast is late, about eight days after Ben's given the blanket. Said blanket hasn’t moved from the floor since the day of FN-2187’s visit.
He’s given a nutrition bar, usually, three times a day to keep the hunger at bay. He has no way of telling the time, no way of keeping track of how long he’s been inside this damn cell with its slit of a window and its heavy walls. He simply knows the days by counting how often he’s taken out of the cell, usually once or twice a day to give as much information as he can during the meetings between the General and her leaders.
But his stomach is used to regularity now, and when the bar fails to be slid under the door, it growls. He’s unused to hunger, and curls in on himself on the cot in an attempt to stop it. He can recall his teachings, the scars inflicted on him by his master and knights alike in an attempt to get their point across.
Pain is strength, pain is focus, pain is –
His stomach growls again.
Pain is really fucking irritating.
The cold of the cot continues to bite his skin until he gives in with a sigh. He rolls over, and hesitantly reaches down blindly to grab at the orange blanket, carefully pulling it up from the floor. It’s a heavy thing, soft against the areas of his skin that aren’t covered by the Resistance clothing – his wrists and ankles, mostly. He spreads it over the metal cot and curls onto it. It’s merely a barrier between the metal and himself, he thinks. It’s nothing more than that.
His stomach growls again and he shudders.
A good portion of it is still draping over the cot onto the floor. It’s big enough to wrap around him. So he does just that, grabbing the rest of it from the floor and draping it over himself. His feet are still frozen, cold against his shins, but everything else feels just a bit warmer. He lets his eyes slip closed, lets his shoulders loosen some of their tension. He’d expected it to smell as his clothes did, of some cleaner that’s generic and clinical and faint. But instead it smells heavy, of aftershave and soap and something like engine oil.
He can’t bring himself to hate it enough to throw it off, the warmth welcome after days of chill. The bar for lunch comes and he ignores it, eyes closed as he curls further into the blanket.
-
“You haven’t been eating.”
Ben looks up at Poe. His eyes flick to the small pile of bars on the floor, and then back to the Resistance pilot. He merely shrugs. He’d thrown the blanket to the floor when the pilot came in, not wanting to be seen using it.
Pain is strength. Pain is focus. Pain is irritating, but he’s had to deal with more annoying things before (at the moment, he can think of one certain ginger general) and so he takes the amount of bars on the floor in stride. Besides, he hasn’t had the anti-nausea medication administered in three days. If he doesn’t eat, there’s nothing to retch up. It’s simply logic, really.
“You need to eat.” There’s a pause. “The General’s worried.”
“Worried her source of information will die of starvation?” he asks. It’s not an accusation, merely an acknowledgement. His voice is groggy and rough from disuse, and it surprises even him in its softness.
The pilot crosses his arms over his chest. Unlike FN-2187, the other man’s glaring at Ben with all he’s got. “Worried that her son is going to die in captivity,” he nearly snaps.
“I’m not going to die,” he insists softly.
An irritated huff comes from the Resistance man. “It’s been almost 28 hours. I can hear your stomach growling from over here. You're going to pass out, eventually, if you haven’t already. You’re not invincible, you know.”
He knows. Oh, he very much knows. His master had reminded him of it every single day, dangling it like bait in front of him. Something to achieve, something to reach for. Invincibility, immortality, greatness and destruction and darkness. Something far beyond humanity and its pathetic weaknesses.
Ben's stomach growls, and he curls in on himself just a bit more, wincing at the cramping. He tries to resist the very real urge to faint. He’d already done that twice.
“I’m fine,” he breathes, shaking his head.
There's silence. One heartbeat, two heartbeat. The pilot's still glaring at him, before he rolls his dark eyes and turns towards the door. To Ben's relief, the man leaves after a long, annoyed sigh. It’s not until a few moments later that he realizes that the blanket’s gone off with the pilot. He clutches for warmth that isn’t there, and bitterly tells himself that he hadn’t deserved it anyway.
-
He’s not entirely sure how much time has passed since Poe’s last entrance. Two more bars have been slid under the door since then. But he can hear the pilot speaking to the guards outside, his voice louder than the rest.
“The General wants the prisoner.”
“I didn’t hear anything about it.”
“She only just told me. I came straight here. I’m to deliver him to an interrogation room.”
He doesn’t look up as the door slides open. He hears the stomping of Poe’s boots, and then can see the toes of them as the pilot stands before him. There’s a hand on his upper arm, tugging him upwards. Despite Poe being a good head shorter than him, the man’s strong as he pulls him towards the door, stepping over the pile of nutrition bars.
He wants his mask. The desire for it is quick and swift as Poe tugs him out into the hallway, guards eagerly raking in the sight of the former Master of the Knights of Ren. He’s just grateful Poe drags him into one of the interrogation rooms relatively quickly.
He’s expecting a droid with a syringe like he's seen so many times over the past few weeks, or perhaps his mother.
He gets neither.
Instead, he stares at the table in front of him. It’s an interrogation room, sure, with a set of syringes of serums set to the side and two chairs and no windows. But for him, it’s been turned into a dining room, of sorts. Three trays have been carried from the Resistance mess hall, each stacked high with food. Fresh fruit, ripe and gleaming, and comforting stews and meat and vegetables and he feels his mouth salivate just looking at it.
“The dining staff thinks I’m hoarding,” Poe explains from beside him.
He simply stares, mouth watering as he sees the juna berries on one of the plates. He can remember their sweetness from long ago, back when his mother served them to him on Yavin IV with a smile and a hair ruffle, telling him not to eat them too quickly or else he’ll get sick.
“Why?” It’s a simple question, rasped from a weak throat that hasn’t seen water in quite a while.
“Because nutrition bars are shit. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t go on a hunger strike earlier.”
It’s supposed to be a joke, to be amusing and jovial and easy, but it comes off as awkward and embarrassed. Poe claps him on the shoulder and steers him towards the table, forcing him down into one of the chairs. It’s too small, and Ben's knees hit the bottom of the table, so he contorts himself slightly to make it work. He hunches, staring at the spread before him and reaching for the juna berries he’d seen before. Sweetness erupts in his mouth as soon as he bites down, so overwhelming that he starts coughing, juice coating his lips and chin as he tries to catch his breath. A glass of water is pushed towards him, and he takes it gratefully, downing the entire thing in one go.
“Not too fast,” Poe warns him, but refills the glass all the same. “The General would hate me if I made you sick.”
He merely nods and takes another, slower sip before reaching for a slice of thick meat.
The silence that comes afterwards is awkward, filled only with their breathing – his own’s slightly more labored as he’s the only one eating. He chews and swallows slowly, unsure of whether he will ever get this again.
The thought hits him and he stops with a berry halfway to his lips, the fruit dropping from his fingers. “… am I to be executed?”
The man across from him simply stares. “What?”
“This,” he explains, gesturing to the food. “Is this a … last meal sort of thing?” It honestly wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.
Poe snorts, well and truly snorts in amusement, and he’s slightly comforted by it. “No.” That’s all the answer he gets. It’s enough, though, and he starts to eat again.
There’s another bout of silence before Poe speaks. “Do you know the locations of the Stormtrooper training facilities?”
This time it’s his time to snort, the sweet juice of some fruit nearly coming out of his nose. “This … this is your interrogation technique?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at the pilot.
“I’m just curious,” the man offers, holding both hands up in mock surrender. “No one will tell me, no matter who I ask.”
That’s because they hadn’t asked him that question. They asked him about future plans, future bases and possible weak spots in the First Order’s armor. They’d never asked him about the Stormtrooper facilities before. “… yes.”
He couldn’t give much when they’d first tugged him into an interrogation room. His focus was not on attacks, hardly ever on the Resistance and its agenda against the First Order. He honestly can’t give much more than theories and things he’d heard in the hallways. He knows full well Hux thought of him as a nuisance and a fool, and the general kept him in the dark unless the Supreme Leader insisted upon his knowing.
But Poe listens intently to every bit of information he offers between bites, hanging onto every word and coordinate no matter how unreliable or vague they might be. It’s more undivided attention than he’d gotten in the meetings with the General and her people, those meetings ending in his legs aching from standing and speaking for hours on end, fingers cramped from sketching what he could of plans.
He manages to down a bit more, drink a bit more water until he feels full for the first time in what he assumes is several days. He’s had two trays worth of food, much to his surprise, and half a pitcher of water. Poe leads him back, hand warm and steady on his upper arm. The guards part for him and let the other man enter the cell.
The blanket’s waiting for him on the cot when he enters, folded on the cot. He freezes despite Poe continuing to walk into the small room.
“I can’t tell you when I can do this again,” the pilot tells him, sounding somewhat unsure of himself.
“It’s fine.” His voice breaks, much to his embarrassment. Poe jerks his head towards the blanket.
“Finn washed it,” he says, explaining its disappearance. Ben continues to stare at it even as Poe leaves with a muttered goodbye. He unfolds it, bringing it to his nose and curling his arms around it. It does smell cleaner, and less like oil and aftershave, but the warmth remains. He tucks his feet beneath him, the blanket draped across his shoulders as he stares at the grey wall.
-
No amount of truth serum can tell them what he does not know. He rubs at the bruises the needles leave on his arms, taking a small amount of comfort in the pain that it brings him. He no longer needs the pain to focus; it would be asinine to do so, without the Force at his call, but it gives him a sense of familiarity at least.
They’d questioned him for hours again, asking the same over and over again as if he would give them a different answer each and every time they ask. His mother says nothing as he’s led back to the cell, the guards gripping him far more tightly and painfully than Poe had. He curls into the blanket, eyes closed for what seems like only a few minutes before the door slides open. He sits up and nearly topples over, tangled in the orange fabric. He never was the most graceful of humans, and his near fall off the cot proves it.
Poe’s standing in the doorway, damn near beaming.
“They’ve obliterated one of the training facilities,” he tells Ben, moving to lean against the wall opposite of the Resistance’s prized prisoner.
Ben’s silent. There’s more. There has to be, otherwise Poe would’ve left. He stares at the pilot, waiting for the rest.
Poe's smile is poorly restrained, the corners of his lips quirking up slightly despite his attempt to keep a straight face. “They rescued 56 children between the ages of 4 and 8.”
Ben remains quiet, staring at Poe. The man’s happiness is practically radiating off of him. “That’s a small amount,” he mutters, finally. "There are more."
“Sure," Poe replies. "But it’s a start."
Finn.
He’s put on probation after that; house arrest, really. He can’t leave his room, and there's still a guard outside of it. He still has the binders around his wrists, and he has to figure out a way to clean around them in the fresher. But he’s given clothes that are slightly thicker, slightly more comfortable. They’re a far cry from what he once wore back when he was the Master of the Knights of Ren, but the standard issue sweatpants and t-shirt are cozy enough.
He’s in the middle of tugging his shirt over his head, his hair wet and loose around his face, when FN-2187 walks in.
Ben stops with the fabric midway down his torso, raising a dark eyebrow at the other man who’s staring at his stomach and the large scar that spreads across his abdomen. “FN-2187,” he says as he pulls the shirt the rest of the way down. “Can I help you?”
“Finn,” the man interjects quickly. “The name’s Finn.” He’s silent for a moment. “You told Poe about the training facilities.”
“I did.”
“You told him where they were.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t tell him what they do to those kids.” It’s almost accusatory.
“I would have if I knew,” he admits. “But I didn’t, and I still don’t. That was Hux’s project, not mine.”
The man stiffens. “Project,” he repeats flatly.
“A poor choice of words,” Ben admits, casting a glance towards the other man. He grabs the towel from where it had fallen from his shoulders, and rubs at his hair. “Have they recovered any more children?”
“Over 200,” Finn says, shuffling on his feet.
“Wonderful," he breathes, raking his hand through his hair as he rests the towel on his shoulders. "That's ... that's fantastic, really. I'm happy.” He’s surprised to find that he means it. He’s glad his information has been useful. Perhaps now the council will see that he’s on their side, and take these damn cuffs off of him. Or at least give him free rein of the base, preferably including the mess hall. Nutrition bars really are shit.
He walks over to the bed and drops the towel on top of the orange blanket he’s spread over the typical grey quilt, bending down to get a pair of socks.
“You still have it.” Finn sounds amazed, and when he looks at the ex-trooper, the other man’s staring at the blanket in some sort of awe. Ben glances down at the orange blanket. It’d lost its unique smell about a week ago, Poe too busy with the recovery of the children to come by and grab it to wash it. But yes, he still has it, and prefers it to every other blanket and sheet that he’s been given.
“I do,” he replies slowly. “… thank you, for it. It’s … it’s been a big help, through this.”
He can feel the tops of his cheeks and the tips of his ears flushing slightly as he glances towards Finn. "You were right; it was cold in that cell." Ben offers what he can of a smile; it's weak and a little strained, the expression unfamiliar after so long, but he tries. "So ... thank you."
The words are perhaps a bit too late, unsaid for too long. But at least he says them. Better late than never, he supposes.
“No, thank you.”
He looks up to stare at the other man, who’s looking at him with perhaps the most earnest look Ben’s seen since … well, his father, back on Starkiller. It makes his heart hurt and his breath catch as the ex-Stormtrooper shifts his feet, full lips opening and closing as he tries to form words.
When Finn does speak, a shaky breath preludes them. “I was in those facilities, and to know that they’re getting them out of there and destroying those places, it …” The ex-trooper takes a deep, shuddery breath again, and when he looks up his smile’s soft and sad and sweet and the ex-Knight of Ren stares, shocked. “Thank you.”
He can’t speak, can’t think, can’t process anything else. He’s not entirely sure if he says, “You’re welcome,” or not, but then Finn’s stumbling towards the door and its sliding shut behind the trooper and he’s left standing there with a pair of socks in his hand and his mouth open in surprise.
Poe.
He has a moment of weakness.
The binders are starting to chafe him. The night after Finn visits him, he tries his damndest to pry them off. He bangs them against the wall, tries to break them against the edge of the bed he’s been given as well as the wardrobe, the table, the counter in the fresher. It only results in bruised wrists and a few nasty cuts from the metal that cause blood to drip down his forearms.
His last attempt before succumbing to exhaustion is bashing them against the doorframe to the fresher, the act resulting in scrapes and black and blue skin, and plenty of frustrated, indistinguishable cries.
“I’m not going to do anything!” It’s screamed at the door, his voice breaking. “I don’t want to do anything! I just want them off!” There’s no response from the other side. He can hear the guard outside shuffling slightly, unsure of how to reply.
His shoulders heave, and he gives one last bash against the doorframe before leaning against the doorway and sliding down to the floor. He wants to throw something, anything, but the furniture’s bolted to the floor like all regulation furniture and he doesn’t have the heart to throw the blanket that had been given to him. So instead he curls up in it, careful not to get blood on the fabric.
-
“Did you do this?”
“Yes,” he replies simply.
Poe’s fingers are light on his broken skin, fingertips tracing over the scrapes and scabs and scars. “Why?”
He snorts. “Do you know how uncomfortable these things are? I can’t clean underneath them, they clank when I sleep, and they’re irritating and painful.”
“So you didn’t do it to hurt yourself?” Poe asks slowly.
“No,” he insists. “I just want them off.”
The pilot stares at him, before putting the newly cleaned blanket back in his hands and leaving the room.
It’s not much, but he’s able to push some of the fabric in between the metal of the cuffs and his skin. He can’t do it around his entire wrist, but he can do it on the tender inside, and that’s enough to sate him for now.
-
489 children are rescued from the facilities he knows about. He’s almost positive there are more, but he can’t even begin to fathom where they are or how many children are inside of them.
The General retrieves him one afternoon, and they stand watching as one of the shuttles returns with a dozen or so children, all dressed in black with their hair cropped short. He’s never seen this side, never seen this humanity as Finn and Poe stand before the group. He can’t hear particularly well, but he catches snippets of Finn explaining the concept of a name and how they can pick theirs, taking clues from either their assignment number as he did or creating their own.
It’s such a simple thing, a name. And yet it holds more power than he could’ve possibly imagined.
He watches, silent as the kids designate themselves with their new names almost immediately, eager and innocent.
“We have two new Poe’s,” his mother explains from beside him. “And seven new Finn’s.”
He snorts. He’s not surprised, honestly.
“There’s another Ben, as well.”
His back straightens, and he glances down.
She’s still looking out at the rescued children, watching as Finn kneels down to one little boy in particular and embraces him. She doesn’t look at him as she tells him, “Your cuffs are to be taken off tomorrow."
His head turns so quickly that he nearly hears his neck crack. "Really?"
It's such a childish answer, he thinks, in the moment after the word spills from his lips. It's hopeful and pathetic and way, way too juvenile of a response. But his mother smiles softly, and nods.
"The information you’ve provided has helped, significantly. Along with the training facilities, Red Squadron destroyed a developing base on Hoth. Several of the admirals think you’ve proven yourself.”
He stares at her, resisting the urge to bite his lip out of nervousness. "... and you?"
She glances at him. "The most helpful information you've provided to us resulted in the rescue of almost 500 children."
"I'm just sorry I can't tell you more," he replies honestly.
He watches as she smiles at him. It's a strange sort of smile, and he has the feeling she knows something he doesn't. Her hand reaches out, and brushes against his. He turns his hand over, and can recall when he last saw her. When her hand was bigger than his. Now, his fingers come around hers, and her hand seems so small and delicate. But there's strength in the way she clutches at his fingers.
"500 children, and you want to save more."
"Yes."
"You don't think that says something?"
She turns and walks away, her small form moving back into the crowd of people waiting to assist with the children.
He looks back through the window, and sees Finn helping a little girl onto Poe's shoulders, her small hands fisted in the pilot's dark curls as she hangs on for dear life.
-
Poe comes to his rooms the next day with a slim, metal thing in his hands. "The General's in a meeting," he explains as he sits beside Ben on the small bed, reaching his hand out for the man's wrist.
She's always in a meeting, he wants to say, but he keeps his lips shut as Poe takes his left hand in his and pries the metal thing between the two sides of the cuffs. They come apart with some difficulty, cracking open and falling against his leg. He twists his wrists, moves his fingers, examines the cuts and scrapes and bruises that he could feel but couldn't see before as Poe works on getting the other one undone.
The Force comes rushing back to him so quickly he nearly passes out. He can feel again, every life form on the base, can feel Poe beside him and Finn a little while away and everyone and everything. It leaves him breathless, and he barely registers Poe's hands on his wrists, the pilot's thumbs rubbing soothing circles on his skin.
He's dizzy, again, and his stomach turns, and he wrenches his wrists away and bolts to the toilet, emptying his breakfast into the basin. He can’t entirely decide if it was worse when he felt the Force or when he didn’t.
He feels Poe behind him after a few moments of retching, the pilot's hand on his forehead, pushing his hair back from his face as he's sick with the overwhelming feeling of everything after nothing for so damn long.
"I'm sorry, I should've realized," Poe mutters once Ben is finished.
"Don't be," Ben breathes. "It's just ... a lot, after not feeling anything; I can feel everything." He can feel tears gathering, but can't entirely discern their cause.
"Do you want me to stay?" the pilot asks, fingers still running through Ben's hair. It feels so wonderful Ben has to resist the urge to cry, and he ends up closing his eyes and leaning into the other man's touch. Maker, he can't even remember the last time he was touched like this, a hand in his hair, comforting and kind.
"Don't you have training...?" Ben mutters, exhausted.
"I'm already the best pilot in the Resistance," Poe's tone is entirely cocky and teasing. "I think I can skip training for one day.”
Ben just breathes, allowing himself a moment to just breathe as Poe continues to move his hands through the taller man's hair.
Finn.
The man’s holding a bottle of Corellian whiskey, coming to Ben’s door at some hellish hour. He doesn’t look drunk, not yet, and doesn’t smell it either. But Ben’s hesitant all the same, opening the door with a wary gaze and tired eyes.
FN-2187 looks like he’s been through hell and back. Ben can see that the skin under his eyes is slightly darker than usual, and he looks exhausted.
“Poe’s off attacking some base,” the man offers. “He was supposed to be back yesterday.”
Ben steps to the side, letting the other man into the room without another word. Finn walks in and sits down in the minuscule sitting area as Ben retrieves two glasses and sets them in front.
He’s had Corellian whiskey before; his father thought laws as rules to break rather than to abide, and as such he’d had his first sip on his 13th birthday. It was awful, then, and it’s still awful now, and he really should’ve thought to warn the other man of the drink before he knocks it back.
Finn sputters, dark eyes widening and then scrunching closed at the taste. “What the hell is this stuff?!”
“Alcohol,” Ben replies wryly before standing. He has hot chocolate mix, and mugs. It’s better than whiskey, at any rate; though the drink reminds him of his uncle, it’s better than the alcohol reminding him of his father. He walks back with two mugs, handing one of them to the other man before settling across from him.
“He’ll be fine.” He offers the best smile he can muster - a small, closed-lip thing, but it's all he can offer at the moment. “If there’s one thing Poe Dameron is good at, it’s not dying.”
Finn’s quiet, sipping at the hot drink. When he does start to speak, his voice is softer than Ben’s ever heard it. “The attack didn’t go well. The pilots that did return gave a report. They didn’t see his ship go down, but they didn’t see it with them either. C-3PO said the odds of him surviving are 72 to -“
“Don’t tell me the odds,” Ben mutters, shaking his head. “He’ll come back.”
They sip hot chocolate in silence, after that, nursing the drinks until they become lukewarm.
Finn leaves in the early hours in the morning, as the sky’s turning golden, and Ben washes the mugs free of the mix that had settled in the bottom.
-
Poe comes back late that morning, looking beat to hell but grinning like a bastard.
He watches from the back of the hangar as Finn runs to the pilot, gripping him so tightly Ben’s sure that the ex-Stormtrooper’s going to crush the poor man. But then they’re laughing, and afterwards, silence follows.
It takes Ben a few moments to realize what’s going on. It’s the whistling that makes him realize that the cheers from Poe’s squadron aren’t because of the pilot living, but because the pilot’s kissing Finn with a passion in a display that makes Ben feel hot and tight all over.
Oh.
It makes sense, it really does. It makes total and complete sense and Ben shouldn’t be all that surprised, except he is, and he continues staring at the two men as they separate slightly, foreheads still pressed together as they share breath. Both are grinning, now.
He meditates for five hours, and ignores the beeping of his commlink.
Rey.
The day she comes back, it's raining. The sky's dark and rolling and the grass smells wet and clean, and training has been canceled for most of the flight crews for the simple reason of nobody feels like it. It's a day of sitting with Finn and Poe, of playing cards and showing off just a little bit, holding Poe's soda can in the air for a few moments just to watch Finn's eyes widen and Poe's eyes roll with the little demonstration.
"We get it, you have Force powers, big deal," the pilot grumbles, but then he grins a split second later and Ben allows himself a small smile, eyes lowering back to his hand of cards.
They're interrupted halfway through when another pilot runs up, tapping Poe on the shoulder. "She's back," she tells him, her smile big and wide before she rushes off somewhere else.
Cards are scattered, a can nearly knocked over before Ben's reflexes kick in. The can hovers, nearly horizontal before he reaches out to fix it with his hand.
"Rey," Finn breathes, and Ben feels his heart stop with the mention of her name. They stand and bolt, cards fluttering to the floor. Ben crouches to pick them up before Poe grabs his shoulder.
“We’ll get them later,” the pilot insists, words coming out fast and excited. “C’mon, she’s back!”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Ben admits quietly. His last meeting with the scavenger hadn’t been exactly … amiable. He remembers with stark clarity the smell of ozone in the air, and her snarl, and their sabers locked together.
The scar on his hip will never entirely regain feeling, no matter how often he runs his fingers across it.
So he just shrugs Poe’s hand off, throws the two an “I’ll see you two later,” and continues picking up the cards. Finn looks like he wants to stay, and even bends to help when Poe tugs at his wrist. The next time Ben looks up, they’re gone.
-
He avoids them for the next day, knowing she’d be with them. He hides himself in his rooms with datapads and holovids given to him by his mother during his probation to keep him occupied.
He does, unfortunately, see them after dinner, because when has luck ever been on a Skywalker’s side?
He passes the Red Squadron’s hangar and catches Poe’s laughter, loud and open and oh so happy. He can’t resist looking in, and he nearly drops the datapads of information he’d drawn up for the General.
They’re all standing near Poe’s X-wing, laughing and smiling. Rey has Poe’s helmet plopped on top of her head, and he can just barely see it move on her small skull as she turns. It’s too big for her, spinning on her head, and he has to quell down the fondness that suddenly blooms in his chest for the scavenger that resisted him for so long.
And then it happens.
Poe dips his head and presses his lips against Rey’s. There’s no awkwardness, no fumbling. Their lips slot together easily, and her hand moves up to tangle in his curls. They’ve done this before, and by the looks of it, several dozen – possibly hundreds of - times before. It’s easy and sweet and slow and perfect, and Ben watches for perhaps a bit longer than he should as Poe presses her back against the side of his X-wing. And then he moves his eyes slightly to the left, and catches Finn’s curious gaze.
He tries to still his heart, tries to ignore what sounds like wind rushing in his ears, and just nods, offering what he can of a small smile before turning and making his way to the General’s rooms to deliver the datapads.
-
He manages to continue avoiding them for an entire week. It’s not an easy feat, especially when Poe and Finn have decided that they’re now his friends despite everything he’s done. He finds himself turning on his heel and walking away as fast as he possibly can several times, ignoring the call of “Ben!” behind him.
He’s in his room, putting together another datapad worth of information in an attempt to show the Resistance his solidarity when there’s a knock on his door.
He ignores it.
He can feel her.
She’s entirely overwhelming, light and bright and beautiful, and he’s not entirely sure he won’t fall to his knees if he opens the door and sees her. So he doesn’t, and he tries to ignore the knocking that’s becoming even more insistent.
“Open the door, Ren. I know you’re in there.”
Kriff.
He stands, running his hand through his hair as he walks to the door and opens it. He knows he probably looks like bantha shit; he hasn’t been sleeping well, despite the comfort the blanket gives him, and he’s been so busy working on the datapads that he hasn’t had much time to shower or eat. He’d taken a trip to the fresher that morning, thankfully, but he’s not entirely sure it improved much. The t-shirt and pants he’s wearing are a little worse for wear, and need to see a washer, but he can’t bring himself to really care.
He walks to the door and opens it, blinking down at the small woman who’s standing with her arms crossed over her chest.
She’s wearing one of their shirts, the fabric loose and large on her small frame, and tight pants. For once, her hair’s out of its three buns and instead curling along her shoulders. She looks radiant and Light, and he stares down at her with wide eyes and a stuttering heart.
His breath catches in his throat, and he nearly closes the door on her again.
He really should’ve closed it, he thinks, about a minute later, his hand to his bleeding nose on the way to the medbay.
-
Poe visits him in the morning, grimacing at the bruises on his pale skin when Ren pulls the cold pack away. “Rey told us.”
“Tell her well done,” he mutters around his swollen nose. “Not broken, but bruised to shit.”
The pilot looks apologetic. “We tried talking to her, but-“
“It doesn’t matter,” he assures Poe. “It really doesn’t.”
She wouldn’t be the first on the base to want to hit him, he thinks. She’s just the first to act on it.
-
She comes back the next night.
He’s still applying cold packs to the area, trying to keep the swelling and pain down as best as he can. He’s holding one to his face when he opens the door with an irritated, “What?”
She’s dressed much the same as before, only now her hair’s up again and she has the decency to look somewhat ashamed of what she’d done.
“They said you defected,” she says simply.
“I did,” he replies, just as simply.
“Why?” There’s the million credit question, isn’t it? Why did he defect? Why did he come back in the dead of night, when most of the base was asleep, and search out his mother? Why did he fall to her knees with a choked, “Mama,” and let himself be put in binders almost immediately afterwards? Why did he?
“… would you like to come in?” he asks, stepping back and gesturing into the small room he’d been given.
Her steps forward are hesitant, but they’re steps all the same.