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

Okay. Showtime.

Finn took a deep breath and turned around to face Poe. "No, nothing." Again, not shocking. Just disappointing. He took one of the bars. "Thank you."

Instead of beginning to eat, though, he picked at the warm wrapping. He had just thanked Poe. Granted, it was for handing him some food, but a few minutes of normalcy didn't change the last few days. He should just get this over with.

He leaned back against the bulkhead, trying to choose his words carefully again. "I really enjoyed last night," he began, starting with as much honesty as he could muster. "I-... I shouldn't have enjoyed it but I did. I wanted to talk about it."

He was on edge and tense - until Finn said I shouldn't have enjoyed it but I did, and then he just... relaxed.

Oh. He got it now. He hadn't got it before, because he'd been working so hard. But it had worked. It just needed percolation time.

A smile came to his lips, small and fond and a little apologetic.

"It's okay to like it , you know," He said, taking a bite out of his bar. "I know it's hard to think about it like that at first, but it'll get easier to admit it to yourself as it goes." Chew. Swallow. "So what did you want to talk about?"

It'll get easier... The thought of this continuing like it had been wasn't something he was looking forward to. That's the part he wanted to change.

Yet, he paused for an entirely different reason. The way Poe talked about it had sounded like experience. Had he done this to other people? Had this been done to him?

He squeezed the bar and tried to put himself back on track. "Communication." Right. That was a good start. "Last night, we- we, uh-" Fuck. What words could he possibly use? "We improvised. It worked out, but that's because we were both holding back. Now that we aren't anymore, I want us to talk about what we want before we start-... before we start."

He should say he didn't want the sex at all anymore, but Poe wouldn't listen to that. Besides, Finn had no room to say no now. He had begged. Poe would call him a liar and he'd be fucking right.

Poe took another bite, chewing thoughtfully as his brows started to pull together a little.

"Why are you worrying about that?" He asked finally. "I told you. I know what you need. Telling me what you want isn't really going to help, is it? You can't ask for what you need, so you'll just be disappointed. Just trust me. I took good care of you last night, right? You enjoyed it."

He looked down as hit bar to pry a little off with his fingers.

"I did like the improvisation, though. Especially that last bit - It just felt so right, Finn. I can't describe it. I knew it'd be good, but you just feel so right."

Okay. Okay, he was getting freaked out again. The flippant, happy way Poe talked about it, how he looked forward to doing it again.

"I can ask for what I need. I just want verbal communication before it starts, that's all. I... feel like it'll help me understand."

He was really starting to dig with this, trying to find logic where there wasn't any just to keep Poe pleased. "Most people don't do things this way. Whatever we have-" -preferably not this- "-I want us to last."

“We’re going to,” Poe said, a sudden strength and sharpness in his voice.

“I am not going to abandon you, Finn. No matter what happens or who gives me grief about it - I wouldn’t do that to you.” Not like the Admiral had done to him. “I know most people don’t do things this way, but that’s why we have each other, right? We’re not most people.”

What the hell was he talking about now? He thought Finn was scared of abandonment? He didn't want to lose Poe, that was true, but this isn't what he meant.

Why did it feel like they were always having separate conversations?

Instead of trying to seague into his next point, he just jumped right in. There was little other way to do it. "Poe, I'm worried about you. I- This is... doing something, it's working out, but sometimes you say or assume things-...

"Are you okay? Did something happen before?"

He wouldn't have dared to be so blunt if he wasn't freaking out again.

Poe blinked, the comments feelings like they were coming out of left field.

“What? Yeah, I’m okay. Finn, I’m more than okay. Last night was amazing. I don’t know what you’re asking. Do you mean about the abandonment thing? Because yeah, I mean, like— you know me. Don’t keep my trap shut all the time. Makes me a liability. But not for you. You’re gonna be fine.”

Dammit, okay, he had to back off on that one for now. Had to go about it slower than that. Had to stay calm.

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "But what do you mean by liability? To the Resistance?"

He blinked. Had he said that.

“No? No, I meant—“

It was weird, how memory worked sometimes. How grief worked. Because despite thinking of the Admiral a lot, recently, despite thinking of the context, he’d somehow managed to make one very important connection.

The Hosnian system had been destroyed. The Fleet has been destroyed.

The Admiral was dead.

He raised a hand, covering his mouth without realizing it, a look of shock on his face. How had he not realised it earlier?

“Politically,” he said, not looking at Finn at all as the knowledge finally washed over him. “I meant... I’m a liability politically.”

Finn froze, realizing Poe's mind was in a completely different place right now. Usually, Poe was unpredictable, but this just made that aspect worse. How could he get him to see that he wasn't well? How could he convince him to find help?

Terrified, Finn put the bar to the side and stepped forward, gently putting a hand on his arm. "Poe? What's wrong? What are you thinking about?"

He'd been sworn to secrecy about it. Had the secret beaten into him, branded into him, and he hadn't spoken about the Admiral aloud ever since.

But the Admiral was dead.

He felt a sudden heat behind his eyes and he swallowed, roughly, trying to shake it away.

"Sorry-- Sorry, I just. I guess I never... I never really stopped to think about it, I..." His hand worked over his mouth, eyelids flickering. "... I didn't think about it. But he's dead."

"Who?" Finn asked quietly, carefully.

He could guess who, though. This had been done to Poe before. That's why he was so messed up about it, it's why he didn't think he was in the wrong. Poe had enjoyed it like Finn had and he'd eventually given in. That's how Poe knew what it felt like, what he thought Finn needed.

But now that man was dead, somehow, and without giving Poe closure.

Maybe this was it, though. Maybe if he could get Poe to open up about it, he would see how this was all wrong. This is what Poe needed help with.

"The Admiral." Said like both a title and a name. Poe didn't even dare use the man's name in his own head, let alone out loud, and he looked a little stunned that he was talking about it at all. But he shook his head quickly, as if dismissing it.

"It's fine. I'm fine, Finn, a lot of people died. Just get a little blindsided by it, sometime. Let's - let's go back to what we were talking about."

Only he didn't totally remember what they were talking about. Something about liabilities? Being abandoned--

He swallowed.

"Point is, we'll, ah-- it'll work out. Okay? I promise."

An Admiral. Of course, it was someone with such a high rank. Poe would never have been able to get out or even tell anyone. He must have died with the Hosnian system.

At this point, Finn didn't want to go back to what they were talking about. This was the most progress he'd made since this whole thing started. "Now that he's gone, maybe you can talk to someone about losing him. It's okay to be blindsided about it." That was a good track he could lead with, at least.

Finn licked his lips, thinking. "I want this to... work out. I just know we'll have a better chance of it if we talked more about what we wa- what we need. Just talking, Poe. That's all I ask."

For now. He had no idea what he was going to do when Poe wanted him again.

"No, I lost him a long time ago." A little too quickly. He took a step back, then another, until he could press his spine to the doorframe and lean against it, crossing his arms.

"You don't need to worry about it, okay?" He said, misunderstanding the curiosity for jealousy. "It's long over. You're the only one I care about, right now. I won't let him ruin this for you."

He was losing this again, dammit. "I know that. I know you care about me and don't want anything to come between us. I know." In Poe's own twisted way, that is. Finn stepped forward until he could gently put his hand on Poe's arm again, trying to reach him.

"I'm just going to worry about you, anyway, all right? It's part of the deal. I just want to know that you're okay... You can talk to me if you want."

"I'm fine." The reply was immediate, but then he hesitated, conflict warring on his face.

"Really, I'm fine." Softer. "Like I said, it's... It's been a long time. It's not like I was ever going to see him again anyway. He made that very clear." He almost retreated from Finn's touch, but at the last minute forced himself to relax, to feel Finn's hand on him.

"But he was with the fleet in the Hosnian system." He wet his lips. "He was a good man, Finn." But he doesn't sound as certain as he had, once upon a time, saying the same thing to Finn. "Don't think badly of him. Like I said, I'm a huge liability. Hot shot pilot that can't keep his mouth shut. I wasn't a good look for someone trying to make a difference in the political sphere."

Finn never implied that he'd think badly of him. Poe had assumed that all on his own. Not to mention that he definitely didn't sound certain about him being 'a good man.'

"You're not a liability. You always... try to do the right thing, what you feel is right." He licked his lips, trying to think. If he could get Poe to realize that the Admiral had been wrong about one thing, maybe he could make him realize he was wrong about more. "He shouldn't have said that if he had. But if he hadn't, we wouldn't have... gotten together. Maybe not have met. It doesn't change that you're not a liability."

"I absolutely was," Poe said, frowning. "I was also right. But there's a reason I left the Navy, Finn, and part of it was that I really wasn't willing to keep toeing the party line."

He started to shift, uncomfortable in his own skin even though he couldn't quite figure out why.

"Being right was what made me a liability. And I wasn't willing to change that."

Everything else, he'd been bowed and broken to. But that part of him had never died.

Finn watched him squirm, hoping that this was some sort of breakthrough. It was something, wasn't it? Poe was coming to realize some things, at least.

"What were you right about?" Is that way Poe always thought he was right? Because he had to double down on why he left the Admiral or why the Admiral left him? "Why did you really leave?"

"The Navy? Or him?"

The latter had happened far before the former, even though he'd suffered for it. "I didn't leave him. He left me. ... I maybe have gotten super drunk and lit his speeder on fire. It was dumb. It didn't even catch, just made a nice black mark across the backseat."

You can't make me into this and then leave me!

"I left the Navy because the First Order was the last straw. But I'd never been good at doing things just because everyone else thought it was better to ignore the obvious than it was to deal with it."

So, Poe's abuser tried to leave him and Poe tried to blow up his speeder in response. Finn gripped his arm, hoping it felt like reassurance when really it was just to stabilize himself. If he tried to do that to someone who hurt him from the start, what the hell would he do to Finn?

He let out a slow, quiet breath. "It was good that he left you, then. You were able to do things on your own. You saved the galaxy without him holding you back."

But that implied that this Admiral had done something right.

Poe looked away, frowning sharply, and he did withdraw from the touch, finally.

"Yeah well. If he'd actually seen it, maybe we could have saved the galaxy earlier." He slid past Finn, heading for the pilot's seat and sliding into it.

"It's fine. It's over, he's dead. His mistakes are dead with him, too."

Not all of his mistakes.

One thing was incredibly clear, though, and made this whole situation much harder to deal with. Poe loved him. Probably in a similar way that Finn loved Poe.

"Yeah, he's gone," he agreed quietly, staying at his spot behind the pilot's seat. "All of that's gone now, and we have to move on without it. Make something better and new. Something different."

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