lina_musebox

;poe

Sex Pollen Pre Relationship
Poe Dies Pre Relationship
Nightmare Early Relationship
Hogwarts AU Pre Relationship
Poe Almost Dies Pre Relationship
MoM AU First Night
Slightly Older Hogwarts AU
Post-TLJ
Bodyguard and Prince AU; overflow
Massage Pre Relationship
Oblivious Poe AU
Cyborg Poe AU
MoM AU Sex Pollen
FO Infiltration Sex Ring
TFLN
Soulmate Tattoo AU
Finn Marries Someone Else AU
Evil Finn AU; overflow: 1, 2
MoM AU Poe 10 Yrs Older
Vamp/Were AU
Missing for a Year/Telepathy AU
MoM AU Poe 'canon' updated
Dark Possessive AU
Married on Yavin AU
MoM AU Sexy Outfits
MoM AU Subway Sex
MoM AU with Melodies!Finn; overflow
MoM AU Photo-Op Kiss
Nearly Old Men AU
MoM AU Rule 63
Online Dating AU
MoM AU Poe Lost His In-Game Memories; overflow
Trans Poe AU
College Roommate AU
TIE Pilot/Prostitute AU
MoM AU Finn Returns from Port-Out
MoM AU Manipulative Masturbation Machine
Canon AU Manipulative Masturbation Machine
Shape Shifter AU; timeskip
FO Sexual Torture AU
MoM AU Finn Has a Boyfriend
Hades AU Finn Left Alone
MoM AU Apocalypse
MoM AU Poe Died in Canon
Canon AU Handjob in a Hospital (inspiration)
MoM AU Another Apocalypse
WWI Pen-Pal/Love Letters AU
Institutionalized Prostitution AU
MoM AU Body Swap
Post-TROS Victory Party

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Poe loved him... That more than anything else made Finn finally realize what he'd lost. That everything they'd had together was gone and gone for good. This was how Poe felt before, but at least he'd had time to move on and grieve. Finn had been still saddled with hope.

He couldn't let it out here. He couldn't. Finn looked up at the models, shifted his footing, swallowed hard- Fuck. He wiped at the side of his nose and stepped forward until he could grab his arm and steer him towards the bed.

Once they were both sitting and Finn could breathe a little better, he tried. "You didn't do anything to me. We dated, we had a life here, and I don't regret any of it. Of course, I'd still want to be with you, I'll always love you, but that doesn't mean I should make that decision for you.

"You barely know me, Poe. The last thing I want is for you to feel obligated to do anything here. That's not how it works. You're not making any call for me. This is your life, not mine, not the guy that was here two weeks ago, yours. Get it?"

He let Finn sit him down, and then leaned forward on his knees, clasping his hands together.

He didn't reply for a little while - didn't know how to process any of this - and fiddled his thumbs against each other.

Finally, eventually:

"The same thing happened to you, when you came back, right? So how did you feel?"

Hm. Finn leaned back, jaw firm. "Well, you were already with someone else and then you didn't tell me until I found out about a month later, so... hurt? Confused? ... A little jealous? But we talked and I got over it, then the past didn't matter anymore. It had happened, it was good, but things were different and we moved on."

Right back into each other.

He let out a long, suffering sigh. "My situation was different, but even if it wasn't, it doesn't matter... How do you feel?"

"I don't know." It was the honest answer, and he worked his hand into a fist, then released, shaking out his fingers like he couldn't sit still.

"It doesn't - it doesn't make sense to me. Not you. I don't mean you. You make sense. I mean --" He hesitated, but what was the point in keeping that to his chest? "Like, you made a hell of an impression on me, Finn. I can't deny that. And seeing you here, alive, was like - I don't think I've been more relieved to see someone in particular in a long time. You're incredibly handsome, you saved my life, and apparently helped me finish my mission..."

He trailed off, then ran a hand through his hair with a sigh.

"I can see it. Easily. I just... I promised myself I wouldn't date anyone, and I'm trying to figure out why I broke that promise."

He didn't really know how to take all of that. It was good and bad- Bittersweet. But he couldn't dwell on his own feelings right now.

His hand reached out to rest between Poe's shoulder blades. "Maybe you will in time but you don't have to right now."

Finn certainly didn't know why.

"I just didn't want to do this," he said, his voice heavy, Finn's hand on his back making something twist in his chest.

Longing.

"I didn't want to make anyone feel like this, Finn. It doesn't matter what I--" He was talking in circles, though, and he sighed.

"... Sorry. It's just... a lot. All of this is a lot."

Even though Finn's hand grips at Poe's clothes, his arm relaxes, and Finn sits back up again.

"You're always doing that, you know? You're always more worried about the people closest to you then you are about yourself." Finn figured it was a defense thing but that's not the point.

"Listen. I'm fine. Yeah, everything sucks right now, but you're here and safe, and I know you want to go back home so bad but the war isn't going anywhere. Just having you near again means that I'm okay... I just need you to be okay. It doesn't have to be right this second. We have time."

He let out a breath.

Yeah.

It wasn't the same. He wasn't gone forever, the way his mom was. He might not remember and he might not get it, but he hadn't caused a gaping, unfillable hole in Finn's chest.

At least, he hoped not.

"I'm okay." He'd just say it until it was true. He ignored the stuff about being worried about other people, because, well, duh. Of course he was. There was no point worrying about himself. Things had a way of working out, eventually. As long as he took care of his people, the universe would take care of him.

"I'm trying to figure all this out and I'm a little unbalanced, but I'm okay."

There was a pause.

"It just doesn't actually feel like there's time, you know? But I guess - two and a half years... If I get that again, then yeah. I guess there's time."

Finn more or less believes that Poe's okay, so he doesn't press for much more. "We never know how long we stay. Just have to make the most of it."

He leans forward, too, finally removing his hand. "You may not remember them but you have a lot of people that are here for you, myself included. You don't have to figure it out alone... Maybe we can order takeout and watch that movie you claimed was your favorite. One of the first things you did when I got here was drag me around to eat as much Earth food as we could. I can repay that much."

Or maybe he should give Poe space but he's kind of too scared of that right now.

"Movie?" Poe asks, frowning slightly, the word a foreign one to him. "... But yeah. Sure. We can do whatever you want. Maybe something distracting would - I don't know. Give my head time to wrap itself around all this."

But something was still bugging him, as he looked at all the models. He sat still for a second and then abruptly got up, reaching for one, and shaking it, before -

Well.

Breaking it in half.

"Holo, sorry." Finn waves a hand, shakes his head. "It's what they call holos here. There's one you've made me watch a hundred times before I stopped counting, so it's only right... that-"

Oh. Poe just...

Finn stays frozen for a second, looking at Poe with two halves of his precious model in his hands after being doted on and meticulously put together for days, and he just- He laughs. It's hard and loud and he tries to stifle it at first but he can't take any of this anymore.

"I'm sorry," he gasps, hand over his eyes to pretend he's not crying, too. At least his smile's wide as he falls back on the bed, still not calmed. "Sorry, I- You broke it." Apparently, this is hilarious.

Poe blinked back at him, surprised, but the edge of an answering grin pulled at his lips in the wake of Finn’s laugh, despite himself.

“Yeah, didn’t you notice? This one doesn’t have my racing stripe on it.” Indeed, all the rest of them had a little orange stripe somewhere - sometimes just decorating the tail - but this F-22 model did not.

With the pieces in his hands he came back to the bed and sat down, breaking it down into smaller pieces before pulling out a USB stick.

“I’m going to go ahead and guess that this is data storage,” he said wryly.

Finn had thought he'd broken the thing on accident but sat up on his arms to watch Poe break it more, curious. Eventually, he found a USB drive...

"How did you-?" No, Finn hadn't noticed. "Huh. Yeah, it-... Hang on." Laughter gone and a mission to be had, he left the room for a moment to return with a slim laptop, booting it up quickly and taking the stick from Poe to slot it in- And then he stopped.

He put the computer on Poe's lap and stood. "I probably shouldn't see this," he said as a way of explanation. "You okay?"

Poe looked up at him, a weird urge to tell Finn to stay.

But.

So far, all he had for any of this was Finn's word. And though he trusted him - probably trusted him way too much - who knew what kind of warnings he would have left for himself. So after a moment he nodded.

"Yeah. I'm okay. This is a good thing. Knew I had to leave something somewhere. Meant I was planning for it."

He offered Finn a small smile. "Don't worry so much. I'll be out in a bit."

He waited for Finn to leave. And then he started opening files.

It was a good hour before Poe appeared, again. He had the laptop under his arm as he walked over to Finn on the couch, but he looked a lot more relaxed. "Thanks," he said, offering the laptop back. "He left some files that I think he would have wanted you to see, so I left them on there for you."

Finn practically fell into the couch, resting his elbows on his knees, thumbs pressed into his eyes, and stayed like that for basically the entire time. This was much more difficult than he thought it was going to be and it wasn't going to stop. This was the new normal now, and Finn had to adapt somehow.

This was better than Poe not being here at all, he reminded himself. In fact, this wasn't even really bad. He wasn't a different man or anything. It's just... so much lost between them. All of those shared memories were just Finn's own. Even worse, all of the memories Poe carried of the two of them before was now gone forever. He didn't know... how to handle that.

When Poe came back into the room, his head popped up and he took the laptop back. The way Poe spoke about himself was what his attention latched onto first, the urge to correct him bubbling up from his throat, but he couldn't. He understood the need to make the distinction, at least for now. Poe needed time.

"Thank you," he repeated back with a nod, setting the computer aside. Whatever Poe had left him, he could look at it later. Much later, maybe. Couldn't really think about it right now, so he studied Poe instead. "You look a little better."

"I feel better." He walked to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, and one for Finn, while he talked. "Weird as hell to watch me basically talking to myself, but. He confirmed basically everything you said and then gushed about you for like ten minutes, so. Less worried there."

He wandered back, glasses in hand, and held one out to Finn.

"It just... explained a lot."

Finn smiled about the gushing and left the distinction between "the two Poe's" alone. It was himself, Poe got that, so that part was fine for now.

"Good... And you should know that you always gushed a little too much about me, liked to exaggerate." He doesn't know why he says that part, but it's said with a smile anyway, almost like he was joking. "But I'm glad it helped.

Oh, hey, I found that mo- Holo. I found that holo you were obsessed with. I shouldn't even show it to you, honestly. It'll just make you crazy about beach volleyball again. But, uh-" He's rambling. "It's whatever you want to do."

"Is that whatever, uh, Top Gun is? Because there was a weirdly serious bit about something called Maverick and fan fiction? I didn't really understand that part." He took a sip of his water and then sat himself down next to Finn on the couch.

"Or we could just talk a bit. I'd kind of like to know a little more about you. Because say what you what, but I don't exaggerate."

He does. He just. Believes it.

Finn leans back in the couch with his glass tucked in both hands, chuckling to himself. "Yeah, that's Top Gun. You'll get it when you see it." Finn still doesn't get but he never watched the movie because he liked it. At least Poe could have picked worse options.

But instead of pushing the silence of a holo on to him, Finn braces himself but still smiles easily up to the other man. "You do," he disagrees about the exaggerating thing, "but we can talk... Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you. I'll try to be as honest as I can."

"I have never exaggerated even once in my life," he blatantly exaggerated.

He pulled his legs up onto the couch, sitting crosslegged and turning to face Finn while taking another sip.

"I want to know basically everything. How you ended up in the First Order, why you wanted to leave, what happened when you got here, what you do here. Everything. So just take it from the top."

Not demanding at all, Poe.

Huh. Finn blinks down at the floor before taking a sip of water and setting the glass aside. He turns to mirror Poe, facing him, then 'takes it from the top.'

"I was taken from my family, if I had a family, when I was very young. Too young to remember, obviously. That's how they get troops except for the ones that enlist. Those guys are- were different from the rest of us. Understood the outside more and things like that. They knew the stakes and the rest of us just knew the Order. Indoctrination, conditioning, marches, the whole thing.

"For a long time, I believed them. After I left, for a while, I was pretty ashamed about it, but there wasn't any other frame of reference. Of course, I believed them. There was nothing else to believe. But it started with little things, I guess. Basically, the supposed enemies of the First Order turned out to be enslaved miners who just wanted enough food to go around or people who's villages were burned to the ground looking for a spy or- Well, you know. There was all that, but they also didn't give a damn about us. I was-" Poe probably didn't want to know about his squadron or the whole life story. Finn paused, swallowed, and tried to summarize it a little. Besides, it sometimes still hurt to talk about.

"I was in a four-man squad. The only one that didn't hate me was FN-2003. We called him Slip because he was slipping up all the time, and Captain Phasma was really wanting to recondition him. I was stayed back to help him. As squad leader, I felt it right, but Phasma ordered me to start leaving him behind. And I did. It was only simulations or sanitation duty, but that's when I started letting him slip. On our first real mission, he was killed in battle. And, uh- Well, we captured a guy that was apparently the best pilot in the Resistance and... you know the rest." Finn shrugged, trying to make Slip's death still seem just as distant as it probably was to everyone else.

"Let's see, uh- When I got here. When I got here, you'd already been living on Earth for over a year, I think. You were dating 622 and told me about the truce, which pissed me and scared the hell out of me, but we made it work. Honestly, the relationship you had with 622 at the time helped a lot, but that's not why you two were together... You should meet him, actually. He'd want to see you."

But anyway, Finn rubbed at his face. "What I do now? I work at the local aquarium." He smiles at Poe like it's a big secret and also the best thing in the world. A funny joke, even. "I like it a lot. But I also work with Aegis. They're a group of people brought here like us that works with the government to keep everyone safe when stupid stuff happens. It's more like an on-call position, but I like it, too...

"When I arrived, you showed me Base One, and I've lived here ever since. The unit next door, actually." He points, like Poe wouldn't know. "When we were together, I-... Well, I sort of moved into here, but I'll go back. It's not a big deal and a lot of my stuff is still there, anyway... I, uh-..." He looks up at Poe, looking a little lost since he more or less answered those questions. "What else?"

Poe listened, a hundred percent of his focus on Finn. He never wavered from watching the man's face as he spoke. It did fill in a lot of gaps, though he blinked at the mention of slip dying when he was taken captive. That battle had been a massacre, and the only one who'd been firing at the stormtroopers had been--

Well.

Him.

He didn't know what to feel about that, but Finn was already continuing so he shoved it away to think about later. He listened right to the end, and then:

"You don't have to go back." He said in a rush, barely even meaning to. He didn't even seem to realise he said it, and he blinked again, and then said: "Ah - I mean - Look, I uh... I don't want to kick you out of your home, Finn. Even if you say it's only a sort-of thing. You don't have to go anywhere, unless you really don't want to bunk with me. I uh - I don't mind the company. Means we could get to know each other better. Or, well, I guess I could get to know you better. You kind of have a jump on me there."

Finn, who doesn't realize the revelation he just dropped into Poe's lap, finds himself a little relieved and then subsequent guilt for said relief. "I don't want to suffocate you." Which is exactly what he'll do if Poe lets him stay.

"But I-... I don't mind bunking with you." He'll take the couch or something, but his smile should be enough to say that he wants this, too. Maybe, hopefully, that's not obligation coming from Poe. Hopefully, it's what he actually wants.

If the honest relief that spreads over Poe’s face is any indication, this is no obligation. He’d been worried Finn would say no.

“Alright. Great.”

He should say something, though. Before it’s too late to ever say something again.

And because, for him, this only happened yesterday.

“I, ah... I’m sorry. About your friend. Obviously it doesn’t mean anything in hind sight, but...” He wet his lips. “Wasn’t a good night for anyone.”

Finn still doesn't have the dots connected that it was Poe that night who killed Slip. The whole village had been in chaos. To him, it could have been anyone but there's only one person that's to blame.

But Finn just nods at Poe's condolences, accepting them. "It's all right. Been a while for me." It's not really all right but time heals those sorts of things.

"It wasn't that long for you, though. Are you sure you're okay? We have healers here." Oh, he... hadn't gone through the whole powers thing yet. Right. Still, though!

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