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Rey’s not quite used to taking charge.
Years of waiting passively in a forgotten scrap heap will do that to a person, she supposes. Every day on Jakku she had made a choice, always with the same result: to remain another day where she could leave easily, to scratch another mark on the wall, to wait and hope and dream and never move.
Every day, until Finn had dropped from the sky and given her the push she’d needed. After that she’d been a whirlwind of action, following her friends wherever they led her and never stopping long enough to consider the consequences.
All that had ended when she finally met Luke, learned to quiet her mind. She’d sat with him at the temple and let the fear and uncertainty catch up to her, let it crash over her like a wave, battering her down until she could no longer breathe or think. Every ounce of pain she’d felt since the day her parents had left came shrieking back, and she’d let it all rush over her and through her, and then she’d let it go. When she’d opened her eyes to Luke’s weathered, smiling face, she was one with the Force at last.
Which, albeit really cool, wasn’t a total cure for her stubbornness.
Rey thinks back to Luke’s other lessons as she paces her quarters at the D’Qar base. For one thing, she knows pacing while meditating isn’t exactly standard Jedi practice, but she and her master had both realized quickly that sitting still was one of the only things at which she wasn’t a natural.
Fighting was easier: lightsabers, she’d learned, were in fact very different weapons than staffs, and could be infinitely more dangerous if handled correctly – that is, not like a staff.
More than anything, though, Rey had savored her lessons about the connection between herself and all other living beings through the Force. It’s beyond anything she can explain, the feeling that resonates now beneath her skin and brings new awareness, new life, to everything around her. With the slightest energy, she can push back the barrier that contains her consciousness and feel a thousand other heartbeats, hear a thousand other thoughts, radiating all around her. It’s so apparent, Rey thinks, that anyone must be intentionally blind not to see it as she does.
So naturally, the situation between Finn and Poe is causing her unacceptable amounts of frustration.
“I have to do something about this,” she decides suddenly, grabbing a pair of loose-fitting pants from a pile on the floor. “Any more of their nonsense and I’ll fall to the Dark Side. They’re forcing my hand – them, not me.”
It’s not as if they’re trying to hide it from her; or from anyone, really. If they were, they’d be doing a pretty laughable job of it, since you can barely walk to the mess hall without passing by the Rebellion’s bravest heroes laughing together and holding hands. And Rey’s already minimal focus during meditation is constantly being disturbed by the depth of emotion that they broadcast through the Force; sometimes gentle, sometimes awestruck, sometimes (like now) fiery and desperate, always distracting.
So, she asks herself for the umpteenth time, exiting her quarters and storming down the corridor, why can’t they just communicate with each other for once?
Rey strides purposefully along - fortunately it’s too late in the night for anyone to approach her with a pressing matter. The halls are empty, in fact, which means she won’t have to hide her scowl under the mask of dignity that the Rebels seem to expect from a Jedi apprentice.
She’s never visited Poe’s quarters before, but it’s easy enough to follow the signal he and Finn are unknowingly sending – in fact, it’s coming across so forcefully that Rey couldn’t block it out if she tried. Possibly, she thinks, because she’s more attuned to them than she is to anyone else, but sorting out her own feelings on their relationship - and where she might fit in - is a problem for another day. Right now there are more pressing matters.
Rey smirks at her own stupid joke and then remembers that she’s supposed to be angry. Without hesitation she stops in front of Poe’s door, knocks once, and then opens it with the Force before he has a chance to respond.
She knows before her eyes have even adjusted to the dim light that he’s preoccupied; pressing Finn up against the wall nearest the entrance, one hand fisted in the other man’s collar, a knee between his legs, kissing him deeply. Poe turns his head to look at Rey when she enters but doesn’t untangle himself from the embrace. Unashamed. Fiercely happy, and daring her to say something about it. Finn looks too dazed to even care.
They do look lovely this way, Rey thinks, but it’s not quite right.
“What do you think you’re doing,” she says, crossing her arms. It’s directed at both of them, and it’s not a question so much as a general statement of disapproval.
“I mean.” Poe glances at Finn’s confused face, and then they both turn simultaneously to look at her. “I just feel like it’s kinda obvious.”
“Yes,” Rey responds, careful not to sound too amused. Enamored? Amused. “You’re right, it is. In fact I think anyone even vaguely force-sensitive within a few light-years can sense this.”
“Uh, whoops?” Poe still doesn’t sound the least bit concerned. “We’ll be sure to… put up mental barriers, or whatever? Next time.”
“I don’t think we can do that,” Finn whispers.
“We can’t do that,” Poe tells her, straight-faced.
He’s better at this game than I am. Rey’s skin and thoughts are both suddenly too warm. Muscles twitch around her mouth. She decides to start again.
“Finn, I don’t think Poe has been totally honest with you.”
Now she’s got him. Poe’s eyes widen with the beginnings of real worry, and he looks quickly back and forth between the two. “No, I… what are you talking about?” He steps back from Finn, hands sliding down to his waist. “I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about.”
Finn, to his credit, immediately recognizes that this is the part where they fuck with Poe and his seemingly endless supply of concern for the people he loves. Without missing a beat, he turns to Rey and says, “What, does he have like a weird space-STD that I don’t know about? Because I would really like to know about that.”
“No! That’s not even a thing! Why would-“
Rey lifts her right arm, clenches her hand. In a flash Poe is pinned against the wall opposite her, floating several feet off the ground, with his arms flung over his head and his mouth half-open in an aborted shout.
It’s Finn’s turn to panic without cause. “Rey, what the hell?!” He takes a few steps towards her, then turns back to Poe, dumbfounded as to how he should be reacting. “What are you doing to him?”
“Like I was saying.” Rey steps past Finn to stand in front of the pilot. “He hasn’t been honest with you.”
She stares up at her handiwork, hoping the expression on her face is a confident smirk rather than the combination of awe and childlike excitement that she feels. She’s using the Force to hold the whole of Poe’s body against the wall at once, careful to be as gentle as possible. The clenching of her hand is mostly for show, as she’s not actually choking him; rather, she’s applying light pressure to the key blood vessels on either side of his neck, slowing the supply of oxygen to his brain. Something else Luke had taught her, though definitely not for these purposes.
The effect is magnificent. Poe’s breathing is ragged, his eyes are glazed with something other than pain, and Rey can hear the beginnings of some interesting sounds low in his throat. However, since it’s Poe, he isn’t so easily defeated.
“I’d expect you to be a little more sensitive,” he breathes out, trying for a cocky smile but not quite getting there, “considering I was just tortured a few months ago.”
“Oh, of course, you poor thing. It must have been so hard for you.” Upon the stressed word she takes another step forward, pushing up slightly more on his neck, and the moan that’s ripped from him is just gorgeous.
Rey hears Finn’s small gasp from behind her, realizes that her own mouth is hanging open. I think I might be enjoying this too much.
“Finn,” she says, her tone carefully measured. “I’m sure that what Poe’s trying to say is that he’s tired of being the one in charge all the time. Do you understand?”
She can see the lopsided smirk on Finn’s face without having to look. “Yeah, I think I do.”
Rey lets Poe hang there for a few seconds more, capturing his expression in her mind: jaw slack, gasping, now trying desperately to resist her control and grind forward into nothing. Completely helpless. Suddenly she understands the strictness of the Jedi code before Luke, why they forbade deep connections. This memory would almost certainly come back to haunt her.
“Good.” Stepping back, she sets Poe down gently, watches him slump to his knees and attempt to regulate his breathing again. Clears her throat. “Well, I’ll leave you to it then.”
With a twist in her gut that she can’t quite explain, she clenches her fists and turns toward the door. Everything is as planned. Right? Right.
Just as she’s composed herself enough to exit, she hears a low chuckle from the ground behind her. Then Poe’s voice, deep and slightly hoarse.
“Oh, she is not going anywhere.”
And before she can put together the meaning of his words in her mind, Finn is grabbing her by the arm and kissing her forcefully. Then somehow her hands are on his back and his are in her hair and he is whispering into her lips, “Do that again.”
Well.
Maybe these two are more in-sync with each other than she’d thought.