Archive of Our Own ^beta

Finn was at the shooting range. He had been practicing with a blaster gun he borrowed from his and Poe’s room, ignoring the burn on his back and his friend’s disapproving voice in the back of his mind. It was only two weeks since he got out of the infirmary, still healing from an injury that could, and should have cost him his life. By all means, he was not supposed to be exerting himself. His body needed time to heal and then he would be able to help the Resistance as something more than the ex storm trooper turned inside information provider extraordinaire.

At least that’s what everyone kept telling him - the doctor at the base’s medical ward as he was getting discharged, General Organa when he asked for an assignment 2 hours later, even Poe. Poe was the one person in the whole of the Resistance whose opinion Fin valued above all others. When Poe took him aside and asked him, or begged him would be a more acute description, to take it easy for at least a week and then he himself would find him something to do, Finn was floored. In the First Order you rest when you die.
It was the unofficial rule of the Starkiller base that the only time a storm trooper was to be sent to medical was when they couldn’t stop the bleeding. Even then, the moment you could stand by yourself for more than 10 seconds you were back on duty. And if the bleeding didn’t stop, if the bones needed more time, if you were unconscious for too long, you expired. Fin remembered late nights and way too early mornings bandaging wounds and cleaning blood off the dorm’s floor before Phasma, their team leader, saw anything.

That’s all he ever knew. You were either useful, or waste. And right now Finn wasn’t feeling very useful. He knew, deep down he knew, that it was wrong. The First Order conditioned them, brainwashed them to consider normal some things that aren’t. No person should be expected to simply walk off a lightsaber cutting through his spine like it was made of butter. But that other part of his brain, the part that spent the last 25 years as a mindless, obedient attack dog, kept whispering things in his ear.

“They want you to be useless so they can get rid of you.”
“First sign of weakness and they will take you apart for parts.”
“They don’t want you here.”
“Poe doesn’t want you here.”

It was that last thought that hurt more than any other. Poe was his best friend. When they first met, when Finn rescued him from the Order, they clicked instantly. In the beginning they were only tools for the other to use, but by the time they crashed in Jakku, Poe was already the most important person in Finn’s life. He took Finn in with no judgment, no prejudice and welcomed him with open arms. He gave him his jacket, which Finn insisted on wearing with all his clothes. He arranged with General Organa for a bed to be brought in his room so that Finn didn’t have to sleep alone. He ate all his lunches and most of his dinners in a table at the corner of the base’s cafeteria with Finn, even though Finn knew that he had a table full of his pilot friends a few feet over.

Poe was his best friend, even if sometimes Finn wished they were more. So the fact that even for a second, the fleeting thought that Poe didn’t want him here, that he simply tolerated him passed his mind, it was a second too many. Poe had taken it upon himself to remind his friend how much he liked him every day, but it was still a little too much to handle for Finn, who had never experienced the feeling of wanting or being wanted before.

Finn stopped shooting at once. He was so lost in thought he didn’t notice the simulation had ended and he had been shooting in the same spot 10 times in a row. He glanced up at the board, a red glowing “25/25” in the centre of the screen. The elated feeling that passed through him was enough to make him feel as if his chest was caving inwards, this time for a completely different reason than a moment ago. His first instinct was to leave everything and find Poe to show him what he did. What he could still do. At that moment though, as if he was summoned by the power of Finn’s thoughts alone, Poe entered the training room with his bright orange flight suit and his black helmet under his arm. It was one of the three black helmets the pilot had, specifically the one Poe insisted on wearing when going on recon mission on the neighboring systems. His “everyday helmet” the infuriating curly haired man called it. He walked towards Finn with a bounce in his step, a promise of good news and an even better mood, which served at turning Finn’s bad day into a great one.

“Guess what, Finn!” Poe said as he stopped right in front of him, their toes almost touching. Finn’s heart started beating so fast and so hard he was afraid his friend would be able to hear it, but he didn’t dare take a step back from Poe’s warmth. He loved to hurt himself after all.

“You had a very successful run, as always and we are going to have celebratory cake?”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Poe said with a kind hearted roll of his eyes and the sweetest smile Finn had ever seen adorning his face, “but I was actually going to tell you that starting from next week you are to be trained to be a combat pilot by the very best the Resistance has to offer.”

Finn’s mind went blank for a second. He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or if someone hit Poe over the head. There was no other explanation as to why hid friend just told him what he did.

“You are going to train me?”

“Yes, sir! Isn’t it great? I mentioned to General Organa that it was something you wanted to do and she was all in for it. At first she suggested Skip to be the one to train you, but I wasn’t going to let another pilot teach my boyfriend how to fly, especially when I am Poe freaking Dameron! So you are all mine, pretty boy. Leia just told me to behave, which I find offensive, but ok.”

Poe was grinning ear to ear when he finished his speech waiting for Finn’s reaction. Finn on the other hand was pretty sure he was short circuiting. The last word he heard out of Poe’s mouth was boyfriend, after which there was a ringing in his ears. Boyfriend?

“Yes, boyfriend. Did you not want me to tell the General? Sorry, I didn’t know. You were pretty chill when I introduced you to my team, I didn’t think you had a problem with it.”
Poe answered his unspoken question, which was not so unspoken after all, with his grin slipping off his face and a sadness setting in his eyes.

“You never introduced me as your boyfriend to the other pilots. And you never asked me to be your boyfriend for that matter!” Finn answered frustrated. He had no idea what was going on, but he had a feeling he was either going to really like or really hate the outcome.

“Of course I did! I asked you to go to dinner with me when you got out of the infirmary and I cooked for you in our room! Then I took you on a ride on my X-Wing and a few days ago I asked if you wanted to be my partner.”

“I didn’t know that’s what you meant! You never even told me you liked me!”

“Yes I did! I tell you every day!”

“Well I didn’t know that’s what you meant! It’s not like I have a lot of experience in the department! And besides, if we’ve been dating for almost two weeks why haven’t you kissed me?”, Finn’s voice grew smaller and smaller as his rant went on, at the point he wasn’t sure if the word “kiss” was even audible to Poe, who was looking at him with a look to complicated for Finn to decipher. Before he could take back whatever he said that was clouding Poe’s face, or explain to him that his semi-hostile tone and poor choice of words weren’t a rejection her was tipping forward, pulled by Poe’s hands on the lapels of his jacket and crashing on a pair of lips that tasted like heaven.

That night as they lay on Poe’s bed practically on top of each other and their hands intertwined on top of the pilot’s naked chest a question hang in the silence of the room.

“Do you know you are my boyfriend now?”

The pillow thrown on Poe’s face wasn’t enough to silence his elated laughter, or Finn’s for that matter.