Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eventually, there’s a bad mission.

Embarrassingly, it’s on a standard patrol call through a trade route when a Star Destroyer drops out of hyperspace and suddenly it’s not open space but instead thick with TIE-fighters, and Poe loses two of his squadron in the first minute. They’d been coasting on a bit of a high since Starkiller, and most of the visible First Order operations had retracted significantly, but still.

Idiot, idiot, idiot.

[More incoming!] he hears BB-8 beep out from behind him, and sure enough a smaller ship appears alongside the other, and immediately starts to open fire.

He barks out one order, which is to split formation and to get back to base whatever the cost. They have been left with no room to manoeuvre, and it’s too tight to stick together, but he’s with some of the best pilots in the galaxy. Regardless, he tries to buy them time, which means he has to circle around Mandalore, which adds in an additional three cycles in the passage he’s forced to make before he gets back to D’Qar.

He’s fairly certain that his communication system has been damaged, but he still radios General Organa in the hope of response, of which there is none. One of the engines has caught heavy fire, and he can feel that one or two of his ribs might be broken from an extreme whiplash he received when half a dozen TIEs forced him towards the side of a moon. Overall, Poe isn’t doing so great.

[Identified injury to both the ship and Friend-Poe,] BB-8 tells him the first time he tries to go into hyperspace.

“Give me some logistics: can we get back to base?” Poe asks, watching the computer shudder violently before starting up again.

[Yes,] says BB-8 and, after a pause, [if we do not first explode.]

“Good enough for me,” Poe says, and then they’re gone.

He appears again in the outskirts of the Ileenium System, and he has to flash a light at the sentry when his comm refuses to pick up messages. Maybe as a way of insurance, he’s followed back to the planet by several older scale ships. When he does land, he sees an unusually large crowd grow just outside the range of his T-70’s wings, and as the canopy swings back he sees Karé sprint up the hill, climbing up the ladder and almost pulling him out of the cockpit.

“I… what-?” Poe manages, before Karé’s grip tightens and she shakes him violently, which does nothing for his chest. He wheezes, “Karé – Karé my ribs-”

He’s released once they make it to the ground, although she ends up holding him anyway as he struggles to breathe, one hand pressed gently just below the fractures.

“Idiot,” she tells him, “Poe Dameron you’re an idiot.”

[Correct,] burbles BB-8.

“I’m your commanding officer,” Poe tries.

“Shut up.”

What Poe has clearly missed, either by just not thinking about it or that he was distracted with trying to get as many of his team out alive as possible, is that they, in turn, might have assumed that he might not be alive.

The idea of dying on a botched patrol assignment of all things Poe finds very insulting, but he keeps it to himself.

He’s almost carried by his squadron to the med-bay, loudly protesting all the way as they refuse a stretcher on his behalf, until he’s violently manhandled onto a bed and his helmet is torn from his hands. Then there’s half a dozen separate hands, feeling up and down his chest and without meaning to, he’s arching up in pain, trying not to cry out.

Poe’s not sure if he succeeded, because when his head stops pounding the room seems to have been cleared, and there’s only some kind of probe pressing against his bare skin, feeling cold and raising goosebumps on his flesh. There’s a soft tug as his dogtags are pulled aside, and he feels something jab into him.

“Stay calm, Commander Dameron,” says a smoothly accented voice. Naboo, if he had to guess. “This is an anaesthetic so we can sew your ribs back together.”

And then, he knows nothing.

When he comes to, which his internal bodyclock tells him is now closer to evening than afternoon, there’s a warm weight on one of his arms, with calloused fingers rubbing against his other hand.

The air tastes too fresh, which means he’s still in medical, but he feels way too comfortable despite the weird, sticky abrasive of the bed beneath him, and the paper thin hospital gown he can feel ghosting over his ribs.

“Poe?” Finn. Abruptly, he feels the warmth leave, and he wants to reach out for it, but his body doesn’t seem to be working. There’s another touch, this time on his cheek, and though it feels like pulling a starship from the sand he manages to crack his eyes open. Shapes remain blurred until he manages to blink, and then Rey appears, then Finn. They seem to be shining as they look down at him.

Or maybe that’s backlight.

“Hey,” he says, although his mouth doesn’t seem to be working either because it’s more of a “heee…”

He sees Finn frown, and Rey says something to him, but it sounds like they’re underwater. Poe hates anaesthetic.

Poe fumbles, but he manages to put a clumsy hand on Finn’s shoulder and give it a pat, before it drops like lead back onto bedsheets. Finn smiles at him then, and Poe tries to mirror it but based on how he’s been going so far, he probably just looks drunk.

“We’ll be here when you wake up,” he hears Rey say, and then the weight is back and he’s gone.

When he wakes again, the chain of his dog tags is pulled almost taut, and he can feel through the minute vibrations that someone is turning them over in their hands. His head feels clearer, and he manages to open his eyes with limited effort, taking in the sterile room, and the two people sitting in front of him. It’s definitely evening now, but he isn’t sure if it’s the same day.

“Have you two been here the whole time?” He finds himself asking, instead of saying hello.

Finn starts, dropping the dog tags so that they fall heavy onto his chest with a soft clinking noise, and Rey leans in closer.

“They tried to kick us out for dinner,” she tells him. Her eyes are red. “But since we’re…” she pauses, and makes a vague hand gesture, “we convinced them to let us stay.”

“You shouldn’t’ve-” Poe starts, but then Finn interrupts him.

“We thought you were dead.” He says in a hard voice.

“I… oh,” Poe says, lamely. He looks between them, feeling guilty, even though he had no choice of contacting them if he couldn’t even get a hold of the General.

“I didn’t,” Rey tells him, but Finn gives her a flat look. “I did… once. You nearly crashed.”

“Yeah, on a moon,” Poe says, swallowing a few times, watching Finn’s face.

“You’re not allowed to do that,” he’s told. “Not since last time.”

“Finn, it’s not like I wanted-”

“They said you didn’t even try to go into hyperspace,” Rey interjects.

“I had to draw their fire, so-”

“They told us you died. That there was no way you’d made it out of that firefight.” Finn says, but his voice sounds smaller, and his grip on Poe moves from his hand up to his neck, pressed fat over his heartbeat.

“It was no more extreme than my audition for the Resistance,” Poe says, which is true, but the joke seems to fall flat. “I was doing my job. I was protecting my squadron.”

“And who protects you?” Rey asks.

“Well, you two, usually.”

“Well we weren’t there, were we?” Rey says, sounding impatient.

“BB-8 protects me,” Poe tries.

[BB-8 does no such thing,] says a familiar voice from the floor. [BB-8 convinces the T-70 to keep flying when Friend-Poe is being an idiot.]

“Traitor,” Poe hisses at it, and Finn seems to stiffen, eyes going back to the dogtags.

“They said they’d send out a search party for you,” Finn says after a pause, then he picks at the chain. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know they’d do that.”

“If I’d died,” Poe says gently, trying very hard to swallow the guilt at his expression, “or maybe if I’d taken a little longer getting home, they would have deployed a small search team, probably half a squadron, to look for my body.” He pulls up the dogtags. “These are made of titanium, and they have a tracking unit. They’re designed so that if my ship explodes,” Rey makes a small noise, and he reaches for her hand, “they can verify my identity, you see?”

Finn takes them from him, turning them over in his hands. “This isn’t… the First Order never did this.”

“Finn-” Rey starts.

“Once you died, you died.” Finn laughs, sounding very tired. “Though I guess that’s what to expect since they didn’t even give us names.”

“Finn…” Poe says.

Finn breathes out noisily, and then leaves forward until his head is resting against Poe’s collarbone. After half a moment, Rey follows him, her head pressed on his chest above his injured ribs.

“Is this alright?” She asks him, and Poe nods, trying not to breathe too deeply.

“Don’t do it again, please,” he hears Finn say, and the weight shifts briefly as there are warm lips pressed against his own, and then he’s asleep.

Poe tries not to think about it, and after his ribs heal he gets distracted by other things.

He doesn’t really notice that Finn likes to hold his hand in their bunk, in the mess hall, thumb rubbing over his knuckles, and that Rey constantly checks as though to make sure he’s still there, digging her hands into his hair and pulling. There’s a weird sort of fixation on his dog tags as well, to the point where the two of them reach forward to touch them in quiet moments when they’re alone, tugging them out from the collar of Poe’s shirts, warming them by their touch, using them to tug Poe forward into heated kisses.

Once, he sees that Finn has been gripping them so hard that Poe’s name has imprinted on his flesh, dug as neat letters above his serial number.

They check in, constantly, to the point where Jess starts to wiggle her eyebrows at him whenever they land after a mission, and Iolo gives him a knowing look.

“I don’t know exactly what you’re thinking,” Poe says firmly, “but I can tell you that it’s not true, and to please never think of it again.”

Jess’ eyebrow action only seems to increase.

He’s lying in between them later, once Rey has returned from that place in the Force that only she and Luke seem to be able to find, and he finds himself turning his dog tags in his hands, over and over. They’re standard, and have lost their shine over the years, though they seem to have worn down further over the past several weeks. He knows his father wears his mother’s beside his own, three instead of two complete pairs, the other cut from the chain and lost in the void of space.

Finn makes a quiet sort of sigh, shifting so that he’s lying further on top of Poe, one leg crammed between his own, his hand on Poe’s neck.

“Does everyone get them?” Finn whispers. Poe has to stop himself from jumping in surprise. From where Finn’s lying, Poe can’t see his face.

“Yes,” Poe says. “Everyone in the base, anyway. Anyone directly involved with the First Order.”

“Stormtroopers weren’t encouraged to go back for each other,” Finn tells him quietly, tracing a pattern on Poe’s chest that he realises spells FN-2187. “I had this… maybe I shouldn’t call him a friend. A teammate, I guess. We called him Slip. I used to get in trouble because I’d always go back for him instead of completing the mission objective.”

“There’s nothing wrong with compassion,” Poe says, but Finn shakes his head.

“They would have just- Slip wasn’t important, like I wasn’t important.  This whole idea,” he picks up the dogtags, “I just… I guess I’m grateful?”

“For what?”

“For the Resistance being different? I don’t know. For knowing they’re looking out for you when you’re up there.”

Poe doesn’t reply, and Finn moves his touch further down to his abdomen.

“I think Rey feels the same,” he says, his voice dropping even lower. “No one ever looked out for her either. She chose to be alone, she said. And we’re down here, and we know where you are, and that even if…” he swallows, “they’ll go back for you. For these.” He taps the dogtags with one hand, and the other moves to Poe’s thigh, pulling at his leg, turning him sideways. For the first time, he looks into Finn’s eyes, and sees that they look a little red and puffy.

“Finn,” Poe says, “they’d go back for you too.”

Finn shrugs with one shoulder, like he can’t quite believe it. “Maybe.”

“Definitely. You and Rey both.” Poe gives him a miniscule shake. “You’re important to us.”

He gets a kiss for that, and a drowsy murmur from behind him as Rey tells them both to be quiet, and can’t they have emotional conversations that she wants to be a part of when she doesn’t have to get up early to try and change out the fuel gauge in the Falcon?

“It’s not exactly procedure to give out dogtags with no surnames,” General Organa says, sounding patiently amused. Poe is standing in front of her, snapped to attention, hands behind his back.

“I know, ma’am,” Poe says, “but considering the circumstances, I feel as though it’s necessary. To repay them for their service.”

“Last time I checked, neither of them are retiring.”

“It’s the thought that counts, ma’am.” Poe shifts a little awkwardly, before sighing. “Listen, I… they were concerned, about my dogtags.”

The General cocks an eyebrow.

“It was a strange concept to them,” Poe says, “and I feel like getting their own would really help them understand their place here.”

The General looks at him, considering. “Have you discussed this with them?”

“Vaguely.”

“Define vaguely,” she says.

“They aren’t expecting their own,” Poe says, “I know that much. I’d really appreciate this, ma’am. I’d owe you one.”

“If we’re keeping count,” she tells him, “you technically owe me thirty seven.”

He gives a salute as she walks away, feeling the chain around his neck as though it were burning, before making his way out of the room. It’s still early in the day, so he finds himself pacing outside the room until Connix, a lieutenant, appears at the door, a small package in her hands.

“The General said to give these to you,” she says, and then winks.

Poe tries not to blush, and holds the parcel under one arm. It’s light, and chinks softly between each step.

He finds Rey out in an open field. She’s alone, but Luke’s pack is sitting in the grass, so he mustn’t be too far off. She’s sitting on a stone, staff balanced across her knees, both eyes closed. As he approaches, she smiles, shifting until he’s in range, and then springs forward, staff hitting his legs and sending him sprawling backwards onto the ground. Her weight feels steady and familiar across his hips, and she beams down at him.

“I think that’s cheating,” he says. “You’re supposed to keep your eyes closed.”

She laughs, hair hanging into her face. He tilts his head back, catching a glimpse of the package, having landed some distance away. Following his gaze, Rey frowns, and he watches as it springs forward into her hands. He shivers against his will, and her other hand strokes the inside of his wrist, before she hands it down. Even though the angle is awkward, Poe still manages to get it open, while she watches him curiously, until he pulls out the thin chain, holding it up.

Rey stares at it, then at him, then back again, before taking it with trembling fingers, turning it over.

“For me?”

“For you.”

She squints at it, stroking the surface.

“We don’t know your surname, so that’s blank. But everything else… it’s got the tracking beacon. It can’t be broken.” He winks at her, and watches as she leans back, dropping it gently over her head until it nestles on her chest, shining in the sunlight. She looks down at him with wide eyes.

“I didn’t ask for one,” she says.

He tries to shrug, but it’s difficult.

“You didn’t have to,” he replies. “I just thought you and Finn might like your own.”

“I..” She swallows, hard, and clenches it in a fist. “I do. I really do. Thank you.”

He takes her cheeks in his hands, and presses a kiss to her forehead.

Finn has a similar response, only he spends a lot of time just staring at himself in the mirror, watching how they look over his jacket, eyes reading over his name again and again.

“They look good,” Poe offers from where he’s sitting on the bed. “They suit you.”

“I’m a born soldier,” Finn mutters, half to himself. “But a soldier to a cause now, I guess.” Then he turns. “Thank you, Poe.”

“I wanted to do it,” Poe says, feeling weirdly pleased. “You two are malnourished orphans who deserve better. I need to spoil you as much as possible before you catch on.”

Finn snorts, before looking back at the mirror.

“Finn,” he says, then stops.

“Something wrong?”

“It looks a little blank,” Finn says, then flushes. “Which is fine. It looks great.”

“I gave you a name off the top of my head,” Poe says, “but if you and Rey want surnames, I think you should pick those out for yourselves. They can be important as first ones.”

“Jess says they mean family,” Finn says, his tone questioning. Poe shrugs.

“Yeah, or people share names because they want to, or they change names sometimes.” Like Ben Solo.

Finn nods with this new information. “So I can just… pick one?”

“Yeah, and then talk to a tech about getting it put on the tag,” Poe says. “Got any in mind?”

“Just one.”

They look suspiciously shifty when he gets back from another reconnaissance mission, both of them in his room despite the hour. They’re both still wearing the tags though, so Poe takes that as a good sign.

“Should I ask?” He says, dropping his helmet onto the dresser and shaking out his hair. “Did something happen?”

“Yes,” says Rey at the same time Finn says “No.” They look at each other. Finn scratches his neck, looking at the floor.

“Are you okay?” Poe asks, trying not to get worried. They both look fine. Like, as fine as usual. Which is very fine. Be quiet, he tries to tell his brain.

“You know how much we loved the tags,” Rey starts awkwardly.

“We do,” Finn interjects. “We really do.”

“But they felt blank,” Rey continues, before hurriedly saying, “and General Organa agreed with us!”

“Okay?” Poe says, confused.

They look at each other again.

“We didn’t want to offend you,” Finn says. “Or overstep anything. We’re both new to this, but she said it was fine, so…”

Then they both walk towards him, dogtags flat against their outstretched palms, text-side up. Poe leans forward squinting, before feeling his stomach drop, and pleasant heat appearing in his abdomen. He looks at them, then down again, and reaches forward to take their free hands in his.

Now, instead of blank spaces beneath the names Finn and Rey there is Dameron, printed in neat, block letters.

Chapter Text

Poe wakes to the feeling of hands running through his hair.

When he shifts, the blankets trapping his legs in their heated grip, lips press against his neck, travelling across his jaw until the mouth opens and he feels the scrape of teeth against his pulse point.

“Morning,” Finn says with a laugh, as Poe tilts his head to the side, eyes still closed. The words are warm against his skin, and Finn bites down so Poe can feel the shape of Finn’s smile.

“Mmm,” Poe says, words becoming incomprehensible as a moan when Finn’s hands move down, holding the curve of his thigh and pulling him onto his side. He cracks one eye open, seeing that Finn still looks delightfully soft from sleep, lids half shut and pressing gentle kisses to Poe’s collarbone. “Hello to you too.”

“Rey left early,” Finn says into Poe’s chest. “Something with the Force, she said. She got a call from Luke.”

That explains why the bed around him feels empty and cold, even though he can still make out the scent of grass and motor oil that seems to cling to Rey’s being. Poe cups one hand at the back of Finn’s neck, rubbing at the short stubble curving around his ears, fingers fiddling with the thin chain holding his dog tags. They both wear them constantly, even as they live permanently on the base with a rare need for excursion. Poe’s found himself developing a new habit; when they’re close enough to touch, he rubs the tips of his fingers over Finn Dameron and Rey Dameron over and over again, until he can feels them sink into his flesh and settle in his heart next to Kes Dameron and Shara Bey. It’s the closest he can get to flying with his feet still on the ground.

He gasps without meaning to when Finn starts to apply pressure, dropping slowly onto him as his legs are parted and there’s a grip on one wrist and on his own tags, pulling them taut as he’s kissed. The weight is comforting and familiar, hard and soft simultaneously, and it grounds him in the moment. Poe wraps his free arm around Finn’s shoulders, holding him close and letting him sink into the kiss, opening his mouth.

Past the locked door, he can hear the base start to wake; half a dozen X-Wings fly overhead to go out on morning patrol, past the asteroid belt and into open space to scope out any threats from the scattered remnants of the First Order. The power line above his bed starts to make its tell-tale buzz, which means that half a dozen of the standard holos have started up, showing plans or communicating off-planet. Somewhere out on the landing strip, Rey will have her lightsaber on her hip, or maybe in one of the empty practise room, with Luke quietly watching over her progress. When she works, she tucks her tags under her shirt, held stationary by the thick cloth, and she’s told him that she’s determined to stop the letters from fading.

Poe remembers that his parents both wore dog tags, but they also wore matching bands of silver on their left hands. His mother’s was lost in the explosion that killed her, but his father’s has lasted years, and on the rare occasions when he takes it off it leaves a thick tan line against his skin. They moved from a symbol of his parents’ loyalty to each other to a symbol of Kes’ loss.

“You alright?” Finn’s pulled back, staring down at him, still close enough that the tags hang down and rest beside Poe’s own. He brushes a gentle hand across Poe’s forehead, tugging at his hair. “Is it the flashbacks again? Do you know where you are?”

Poe grabs Finn’s hand, and kisses it, before linking their fingers.

“I’m good,” he says, “just…thinking.”

“Should I ask about what?”

“No.” Then Poe kisses him again, pushing until Finn loosens and opens his mouth into it, stroking his ribs as Poe tries to inhale. What Finn’s discovered about himself is that he likes going slow, his tendencies for perfection and uniformity translating into observation and curiosity. His favourite position is above Poe looking down, dictating the pace or structure of their time together, always maintaining physical contact. Poe still struggles, sometimes, in telling reality from fiction, especially at night when the lights are completely shut out and the world seems to halt. Only now he can feel the heavy tag on his chest, and if he reaches out in the dark he can feel another two of the same design, still warm from proximity.

“I thought you were both supposed to be early risers.”

Finn breaks the kiss with a click, turning enough so that Poe can see Rey standing in the doorway, arms folded, looking very amused.

“Rey,” Finn says, sitting up, keeping his weight on Poe’s hips. When Poe moves to do the same, he presses a hand to Poe’s chest, pushing him back down again. Poe huffs out a laugh, and Finn turns to look at him. “You still haven’t told me what’s wrong,” Finn says. “Hush.”

“Something’s wrong?” Rey asks, standing on one foot to pull off her shoes.

“No, you’d have sensed it,” Poe reassures her, trying to angle his head to catch a glimpse of her again.

“I’ve been feeling weird all day, actually,” Rey admits. She walks on her knees across the bed towards them, kissing Finn before peering down at Poe. “It’s weird. Luke calls it a disruption in the Force,” she says, making air quotes, “but I don’t know. It feels like something’s coming.”

Poe manages to wiggle his eyebrows and grin at her, and she shoves him, hard enough that Finn swears and almost falls off the bunk. He steadies himself by planting his hands on either side of Poe’s head, his face close enough that as he laughs, Poe can feel it ghosting against his skin. Poe runs a hand up and down Finn’s spine, relishing in the moment.

“What did Luke say?” He asks.

Rey shrugs, but she’s frowning, and keeps glancing towards the closed door. “I don’t know,” she says. “He wouldn’t tell me anything, and he went to go and talk to Organa. I think something’s…” she shifts, and Poe reaches up, cupping her cheek and watching as she leans into it. “Something feels wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“Like… a storm,” Rey says. Her experiences with rain on D’Qar were thus far contained to running outside, elated, whenever the sky broke open and spilled, staying outside until her clothes clung to her body and her hair to her face. Thunder elicited an entirely different response; it reminds them both too much of fire in space and the sudden vacuum of lightspeed, so they sit in their room, lying back and watching the fall of rain through the one tiny window. She looks almost embarrassed, ducking her head down until she’s lying next to them.

Poe manages to twist his arm enough to pull her closer, and Finn sighs before lying on top of him fully, pressed chest to chest and resting his head in the juncture of Poe’s neck and shoulder.

Time like this passes, and while the sounds of activity and movement increase as the sun casts a longer shadow, Poe is content to remain stationary until his alarm goes off and he’s forced out of bed for a briefing, and probably fifteen minutes of ribbing from Pava in the cafeteria because of the hickey he knows now decorates his jaw, courtesy of Finn, matching the bite marks down his back. He’s hypnotised by Rey drawing an invisible picture across Finn’s shoulder blades with the tip of a finger, watching the rise of goosebumps that follow her touch.

There’s a telltale chime from the pad on the beside cabinet and, after flicking it off with a lazy finger, Poe lets himself relax completely for a moment, before stretching, and trying to wriggle out from under Finn, rolling towards the edge of the bed. He laughs when Rey drops onto him instead, draping herself across the both of them, looking nonchalantly up at the ceiling.

“They’re going to start rollcall,” Poe says, clawing at the sheets in his attempt to get away. “I can’t be- I’m going to be la-agh.”

There’s a hand against the back of his neck that squeezes, at the same time as another curls around his back and running up and down his spine. He huffs.

“Rey,” he tries again, “Rey, I need to-”

“I don’t think he likes us anymore,” Rey interrupts, sounding offended. Finn shifts until their legs are tangled together. The edge of the bed mocks him as he’s pressed deeper into the mattress. “When was the last time we got to be together without someone rushing off?”

“I think it was last night,” Finn says, amused, but begins pulling at Poe’s hair regardless. “Or very early this morning, anyway.”

“Too long.” Rey insists, stopping Poe’s last ditch attempt to escape with an invisible touch ghosting around his wrists and bringing them together. This is new and terrifying, and only performed on him half a dozen times, wherein Rey carefully experimented with Poe’s somewhat static boundaries around this sort of thing. Her Force feels like sunlight and the openness of space, and holds him and Finn and this room in the moment.

(Also, it's good to know that Kylo Ren has destroyed everything for him.)

He's rolled onto his back in time to see Finn kiss Rey on the mouth, leaning in to cup a hand on her jaw as the grip on his own wrists tighten, and the sight and feel of it all is enough to make his heart beat faster in his chest and arch upwards. Finn breaks the kiss with a laugh before leaning down, licking a broad stripe up Poe's neck and behind his ear, gently nibbling at the soft skin of his ear lobe. Rey stays motionless, staring down at the two of them, rocked back on her heels over Poe's waist with her tags swinging across her shirt and then she squints at him. The feeling is instantaneous: goosebumps rise along his flesh and there's a warm flush down his chest as every inch of his skin suddenly becomes hyper sensitive like a cut wire, crackling almost painfully as Finn runs his hands over Poe's nipples, up to his face, then down his sides again. Breathing gets difficult, and Poe screws his eyes shut and presses his head back into the blankets, trying to stay in some level of control.

"Is this alright?" Rey asks clearly, looking a little unnerved. Finn stops long enough to carefully look at the both of them and Poe tries to keep his head clear. He nods. "Verbally, please."

"Yeah," Poe licks his cracked lips. "Yeah, I'm... I'm good."

Rey looks at Finn. He nods. "You alright, Rey?"

"For the moment," she says firmly, "I'll let you know if things get to uncomfortable for me."

She presses down and Poe has to dig his hells into the bed to stop himself from arching up into her, hands tightening into fists. His teeth sink into his lip in the effort to keep quiet, because he can hear activity the corridor and the wall behind his head. Above him, Finn trembles and tightens his hands on Poe's shoulders, and Rey's expression seems to only intensify as she holds the two of them in a phantom grip. Time drips past in golden seconds, and he's lost in their dual touch and the image of Rey biting her lip and Finn's mouth hanging open, and the sheets that are warm against his back and the feeling of the two people he loves most in the world pressed up against him in every way.

Then Rey falls sideways with a cry and the moment is shattered.

Poe finds himself free, and any sense of arousal evaporates with the sight of Rey crouching on the floor, hands pressed against her temples with her eyes wide and unseeing.

"Rey?" Finn lands beside her, takes her face in his hands and inspecting her with a doctor's touch, carefully turning her from side to side. "Rey? What's wrong? Is it the Force? Luke?"

She yanks herself away from him, staggering upright as she turns to look out the tiny window above the bed, and it's only then that the loud clang of the warning bell penetrates the fog in Poe's mind.

"The First Order," Poe says without meaning to, and then he's on autopilot. He finds his flight suit and pulls on his boots and gets out his holo to find it full of messages stating immediate evacuation, all civilian refugees and Resistance members required to immediately evacuate to a secondary base, and he's hastily washing his mouth out when he hears Finn and Rey start to move behind him.

Rey says: "I have to go-I need to find Luke. And Leia. There are so many-we need to get everyone out of here."

"How long have we got?" Finn asks, grabbing his lightsaber from the dresser and hooking it on his belt, at the same time as he's putting things in a shoulder bag with military precision.

Rey opens her mouth to respond before there's a telltale snap crack that seems to echo through the base.

"They're entered the atmosphere," Poe says for her, slamming the button for the door open with his shoulder and sprinting out into the flurry of people running to the tarmac. 

He's almost lost, and then he feels a hand fisted into the back of his suit, and when he briefly turns he sees they've formed an impromptu line behind him, keeping in contact as he pulls them outside.

He can see half a dozen squadrons already readying to take off, and the small circle of space around Black One is blissfully empty, enough that he can finally breathe away from the crushing claustrophobia of a panicked crowd. He turns to face them, and Rey's craning her neck as though she's trying to catch a glimpse of Luke in the chaos, even though such a thing would seem impossible. But, she is a Jedi after all.

"You need to get in the air," Finn says determinedly, shoving him towards the ladder. Poe grips his arm.

"So do you," he insists. "The two of you need to get to the Falcon, or an evac."

"I need to find Luke," Rey says, brokering no room for argument. 

Behind them, a workshop explodes as three TIE fighters swoop as low to the ground as they're able, open firing on any parts of the base built above ground. There's a scream, and Rey grits her teeth, almost vibrating with the need to move.

 "But-" Poe tries. He needs to see them take off. He needs to see them get up and away from the violence so he can be sure that they're safe. "But you-"

“Go,” Rey says, giving him a shove. Poe digs in his feet, watching as her tag swings back and forth, glinting in the light of the flickering flames that have engulfed a workshop. She pushes him again. “They need you. We’ll go get Luke.” She takes Finn’s hand, and then grabs the back of Poe’s neck, pulling him into a kiss. It’s more teeth and tongue and achingly short, before Finn presses his lips to Poe’s cheek and they both look at him one last time, before sprinting back towards the compound.

There’s still a sea of people around him but he feels like an island, watching as they vanish into the crowd while the chain around his neck burns hot. He stays motionless until there’s a tug on his arm, and he’s pulled backwards, BB-8 at his feet, and then there’s a tech hurriedly checking his gear and he’s in the cockpit and the canopy is sliding into place.

Poe’s on autopilot until a beam fires, landing about two yards out from his left wing, and he’s shaken away, everything clicking into gear and he’s firing the engine, BB a comforting presence behind, burbling out his status.

[All systems clear,] BB says as there’s another explosion that rocks the ship, close enough that he’s reminded of the smoking remains of the village on Jakku, and he watches Blue Three take to the air before following suit.

The sight is even worse from the air; the trees lining the tarmac have been reduced almost to ash, and there are half a dozen flaming X-Wing’s dotting the landing strip. Poe doesn’t look close enough to see if any of their pilots made it out.

In the sky, there are two First Order cruises opening fire, flying as low as possible considering their size, and launching a horde of TIES, until the air is thick with ships from both sides. He knows he has no hope of spotting Finn and Rey in the chaos, but he risks one last look at the ground below, but people are now far enough away to be tiny ants past the glass, and Poe isn’t Force sensitive by any means, so he’s essentially blind about their safety.

Luke Skywalker is generally considered to be a trustworthy human being, though. And Rey had said that he was with the General, who was never one for being unprepared. Chances are they’ve all evacuated into the woods, where there are always several larger transports on standby in case of emergency, and will have already found their way offplanet.

They’re fine, Poe tells himself, taking out a fighter with one hit and following the trail of another, cutting a hole in their offensive, they’re fine, they’re fine, they’re fine.

Ultimately, the speed of the chase takes him over like it always does, and he sinks into that spot in his mind where his brain feels connected to the joystick, and everything narrows into time between one breath and the other, and he and his X-Wing are one being. He cuts a swath in the opposing forces, clearing enough of a passage for a medical ship to jump into hyperspace, and then swings back around over the base, trying to minimalize the fire on those still running on foot.

“Blue Squadron, form up and protect our larger ships,” Poe says, watching as a Fighter bursts into flames and spirals downwards, taking out the left side of the medcentre as it went, exploding outwards with a bang. “Our only objective is to maintain minimum loss of life.”

“Roger,” half a dozen voices call back through the speaker. Two split off and circle back, looking for survivors, and the others stay in pairs, sleek shapes against the curves of the TIES.

Poe stays in the atmosphere longer than he probably should; long enough that the outside of the base has completely cleared and most of the fires have burned out, and the First Order has started their campaign on the ground, starting to unload battalions of Stormtroopers onto the scorched earth. Poe doesn’t take any pleasure in taking them down because now, in his mind, all troopers have a face as familiar as his own, and one that he could draw in his sleep. Another Resurgent-class Star Destroyer appears beyond the stratosphere, and immediately he’s got one, two, five missiles trained on his T-70, enough that he’s forced back, away from the base and over the open woods for a lack of better cover. A majority of the remaining squadrons have already departed to guard the fleet, but Poe isn’t sure if there’s anyone else left besides him. He gets a profound sense of déjà vu, and risks taking a hand from the control panel to tug at the dog tags resting beneath the collar of his flight suit, until he can feel the individual links in the chain, and hard enough that when he lets go and breathes, he can feel it ghosting against his skin.

He turns again, catching sight of the base finally being completely destroyed, sending up a plume of ink coloured smoke and soot, and he flicks on the radio again.

“Any remaining squad leaders, this is Black Leader,” Poe says, readying to go into hyperspace, BB-8 checking over the calculations and then giving an all clear. “I’m withdrawing; any value in maintaining an aerial assault has gone. I’m meeting at the rendezvous point, I’d advise everyone to do the same.”

He gets loose static and, looking back one last time, he soars upwards, flicking dials until space blurs into light, and D’Qar disappears from view.

Lightspeed always causes a weird feeling in his stomach, somewhat reminiscent of inertia on a standard planet, as though his body abruptly stopped moving but the rest of his body kept going.

Poe remembers his mother explaining the sensation, describing it as spinning in a circle before suddenly standing still, causing the pilot to stagger and fall off balance. It’s worse the smaller the craft, but Poe’s learned to relish it, to understand it that he’s alive and that he didn’t accidentally torpedo into a star.

The secondary Resistance base is outside a farming settlement on Lothal, built sparsely as not to attract attention, and is kept active by a small, permanent team. Poe’s only been there once, on one of his first patrol missions, but he knows it doesn’t have the capacity to sustain their already dwindling numbers, even if most of them didn’t get off D’Qar alive. The Resistance is almost completely crippled and the First Order, in a similar position, didn’t attack them out of strategy: they let far too many civilians escape for it to be considered a successful mission, and they allowed too many ships to leave the planet for it to be considered an invasion. It was mindless destruction, in the hope that the First Order could maintain the illusion of strength in their numbers.

The most irritating thing about the move is the elaborate network of jumps that map out the track to the base, in order to duck and evade any further First Order interference. It requires a stupid amount of concentration to make sure that each equation is correct before jumping again, but it's also a relief because it gives Poe very little time to worry about how many people made it out of the Ileenium system, and how many of his pilots were shot out of the air.

[Authorised entry to system,] says BB-8, radioing their location.

The open field is teeming with people, and Poe has to awkwardly circle in the air before he finally gets the signal to land, squeezing in between a freighter and the general’s personal craft. He hits the ground running, shaking as he’s forced to stand still while a tech checks him over and takes his helmet.

Poe tries his best not to hit anyone, but honestly it’s difficult: everyone is in complete disarray, any idea of protocol having almost completely disappeared in the tragedy. He spots Kalonia in the crowd, but waves off her concerned look, walking to the main control room, where he can already hear raised voices bickering over the central console.

General Organa is looking a little singed but otherwise not too worse for wear, hair flying loose and wearing a flight jacket that’s mottled with tiny burns. Her tiny stature seems to balloon to the size of a tauntaun until she towers over those in front of her, despite there being a noticeable difference in their heights.

"Then I'll ask you again," she's saying, her rasp of a voice raised to a dangerously loud pitch despite the cramped space, "exactly where the hell are they?"

"We don't have records of who got out and who didn't," says a captain defensively, raising his hands as though attempting to calm her. "It's entirely possible that they're still in hyperspace, or accidentally travelled outside of our scanners, or-"

Organa holds up a hand, pinching the bridge of her nose, effectively cutting the captain off mid sentence. She then dramatically turns to look at Statura, who's standing beside her with his arms behind his back.

"Admiral," she says in a clipped tone, "where, exactly, would someone have to travel to get outside the reach of our scanners?"

"The edges of space, ma'am," Statura says flatly. "Or perhaps a quick swing into the great unknown."

"Right." Organa looks back at the captain, her mouth pressed into a thin line. "Right. So, where exactly do you think they are?"

"They could've... it's possible that they entered the wrong coordinates on their hyperdrive, or maybe-"

"Are you suggesting," Organa says with a dangerously cool voice, "that three Jedi somehow entered the wrong coordinates into their navcomputer and what, accidentally flew into a moon?"

Oh no.

No no no no no not again.

Poe pushes through the crowd, people parting for him like slick butter as soon as they catch the expression on his face, and the violent trembling of his hands and knees. Organa's officers are standing in a loose semicircle around her, many suffering from notable indications that they were probably some of the last people to get off base. There's a conspicuously empty spot beside the General though, enough so that its appearance becomes blatantly obvious the closer Poe gets to them, until he can almost see the slightly taller, cloaked form of Luke Skywalker who is definitely not there.

"We're still getting ships landing even now!" The captain is saying, pointing at a hologram, "they could have just gone off course, or are taking a little longer to get into contact. You know that rustbucket has never been particularly trustworthy from a communication standpoint-"

"Poe." The general's voice is no longer steel and is instead the closest thing to soft that she can manage. But all he can see is that the Millenium Falcon isn't showing up on any readings, which means they could have been destroyed from anywhere between D'Qar and the still smouldering remains of the Hosnian System, and that Poe's best attempt to protect them came down to tags that have proved fucking useless in the field.

The chain around his neck feels ready to burn through his flesh and bone to his core.

There's a hand on his arm: "Poe. We haven't found them, but that doesn't mean we're not going to. We're deploying a squadron to run reconnaissance and look for any survivors. It's possible that they stopped on their way here for their own safety."

The general is a lot of things, but when it comes down to it, she's not a liar.

But right now, she's lying.

For some reason, he loses time after that.

He's told later that he gets into a heated argument with another officer until he has to be excused, and he paces back and forth in front of his ship because somewhere in between Organa essentially telling him that there's a very good possibility that Finn and Rey are dead and he couldn't do anything to help them and him matching out of the room, he's been grounded until further notice.

The air on Lothal is hot and murky and tastes of ash, and even though its Empire based industrial center has long since been shuttered down by the New Republic, everything on the planet still seems grimy and fake. The earth beneath his boots is mottled and dying, tiny shoots of green swallowed by open dust and curling yellow weeds that crackle as he walks. The sky is as clear as it tends to get: the sun is cut into pale swathes by clouds dense enough to turn black, and any light that manages to get through them is sickly and weak, and casts everything into an otherwordly glow.

Poe hates Lothal.

Still, thankfully even when presented with nothing to do aside from pay a mandatory visit to Kalonia that Poe is absolutely not going to do, Lothal is sick enough to drive any thought of anything else out of his mind, because it is very difficult to visualise the the curve of Rey's neck or the colour of Finn's eyes or the feeling of the two of them against him while he's gagging and struggling to breath past the stench of shit. 

BB-8 followed him outside, but is just rocking back and forth on the edge of the runway, lights blinking and making miserable beeping noises as its head swings from right to left as it watches Poe move in circles.

[Friend-Poe,] says BB-8, [Friend-Poe, Friend-Poe. Friend-Poe, you're hurt.]

He's not a Jedi, and the closest he's ever gotten to feeling the Force in the way that its always been described to him is the brief moments where Rey works up the courage to hold him with it, to press into his mind gently and send heat through his bones, feeling every part of him at once. He can't feel if they're alive or not, though the sour dip in the General's expression tells him that she's feeling as much as he is right now, but they burn bright in his soul, and he can almost taste them in his mouth, despite them being systems apart.

They're not dead, because he doesn't have the capacity to deal with that.

They're not dead, because somehow even his father got a dogtag and a ship's hull to bury.

They're not dead.

"Poe?" Jess is standing beside BB-8, flight suit tied around her waist and a long line of soot and ash streaking her face. Her hair is tugged into a ponytail and she looks so exhausted it's bone-deep. Poe knows he still looks worse than her, though.

"Pava," he says. His voice cracks, and suddenly he's aware of the aching thirst in the back of his throat. He swallows violently, and feels his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth. "Pava, you should be inside."

"So should you," she counters, stepping out to meet his rigorous pace. He weaves out in front of him, stopping him with a hand pressed against his chest. It feels wrong. "How long have you been out here?"

[Since the briefing,] BB-8 says, ignoring Poe's glare. [Friend-Poe needs to rest. He's ignoring his needs.]

Poe needs Finn and Rey to be alright.

"Kriff, Poe," Jess says, forcing him to stay still when he tries to start moving again. "It's been hours, it isn't going to help anyone if you don't-"

"Whether or not I go inside isn't going to help them," Poe says, violently shaking her off. He's tired, he's so tired. 

"What," Jess says harshly, keeping up with him as he starts to pace again, "so you're doing to drill a whole in the dirt until we get word back that they're alright? What the fuck is that going to-"

"It's going to do nothing!" Poe snaps at her, losing all patience stopping suddenly and jabbing a finger at her. "It's going to do nothing, just like I did nothing, so in the end what does it matter if the three of the most important people to the Resistance end up blowing to hell on their way to fucking Lothal."

He's breathing heavily, and the atmosphere certainly isn't helping. Also, Jess's face keeps swimming weirdly in and out of focus. She runs a hand up and down his arm, and he has to stop himself from flinching away.

"This is going to sound super shitty," Jess says, "but you need to pull yourself together because again, this isn't going to help anyone."

His head snaps up. "Excuse me-?!"

"And I'm not talking about helping Finn or Rey or General Skywalker or Organa," she says, wrapping a hand around his bicep and tugging him towards the open hanger door. "I'm saying this because you're just as important, and you can't let yourself fall apart over this."

His body goes white hot with rage, and were he not still swaying on his feet he might have clipped Pava across the face. Poe's also self-aware enough to know that he'd probably miss.

She gives him a little shake. "You're going backwards," she says, "and it's not good for you, and it won't be good for Finn and Rey when we find them. You know this isn't a healthy way to deal with trauma."

"But they're-"

"I'll say they're dead when the First Order drags by Rebel Alliance trading cards from my cold dead hands," Jess says. She pulls at him again, and he almost trips as he follows, a yawn sinking into his bones. "They could have dropped into deadspace, or they could be blocked by Ren and Snoke. It's any number of variables, and you know how good your two space orphans are at getting out of shit."

"Stop calling them that," Poe says, but it sounds weirdly slurred in his ears.

"Never," Jess says. And he might have imagined it, but as they cross the threshold, BB-8 carefully monitoring his progress from behind them, he hears Jess mutter: "and if they turn out to be okay after all this drama it's not the First Order they'll have to worry about."

Poe's confined to bedrest until he can pull himself together, while Kalonia tuts at him disapprovingly as she places bacta swatches against the open cuts on his forehead and arms.

"I wish you'd at least pretend to care about what it is that you're doing," she says, and he manages a smile for the first time in what feels like centuries.

"You know me," he says, "living life in the moment."

He feels hollow.

On an intellectual level, based on his own intuition and everything the psytech told him during his therapy sessions, holding onto grief is something that always impedes recovery in the wake of trauma. Still, Poe hasn't quite decided if the idea of them still being alive, even after resounding radio silence and a dead signal from their tags, is grief or if it's hope. When he lies still, for lack of anything better to do, his brain spirals out of control and he maps out intricate scenarios in which the four of them, Rey and Finn and Luke and Chewbacca, made it off D'Qar and into the open space before running into some kind of menial problem that inhibited the completion of their journey. 

Maybe they sold their scanner for credits after their ship was destroyed.

Maybe they're blocked by the First Order but somehow managed to escape because the idea of any of them near Ren or Snoke or Hux after Finn just started to stand without feeling pain and Rey just started to learn how to fight against the Dark Side makes him throw up and thrash and he has to be sedated.

Maybe Finn and Rey secretly hate him and sold their tags to fund their marriage in the Outer Rim. 

Maybe maybe maybe.

Poe's had a handful of visitors, mostly Snap and Iolo and Jess, who sits on the chair beside his bed and plays sabacc with him for hours while she critiques his bedhead. He has a drip in his arm that pumps him full of drugs that stop him from blacking out again and sucker punching a nurse in the mouth after the first nightmare, and he can't help but feel like if there was any point in trying to get better after escaping from the Finaliser, considering it seems that he was always going to stay just as fucked up as ever. The base is now overcrowded to the point of overflowing, and Poe is bunked in with three intelligence officers, who all keep such irregular hours that he only knows two of them by face and none of them by personality. 

There's a notable gap in intelligence regarding anything Falcon related, but it's confirmed that the First Order lost eighty percent of their smaller fighters in their initial campaign on the Resistance, and that they'd cut back their hold towards the Mid-Rim, Jess tells him one morning over a cup of caf. It was, to quote Organa, a complete shitshow.

"Which probably means it was Ren's idea," she says with a snort, and Poe looks at the deep circles under her eyes.

There's a constant flow of news, and occasionally there'll be word of a convoy, way out in the eastern sector, hiding from the First Order, complete radio silence, they'll make contact soon. Yes, an older ship. We know nothing else. Poe keeps the holo on his bedside and plays it over as he grips the tags tight enough to bruise.

He's walking to the mess hall when, when-

"Poe!"

Suddenly, he's lost the ability to walk.

He staggers where he stands, turning on his heels as a warm body slams into him, wrapping their arms around his back and pulling him close as someone else worms their way between them, hot enough to make sweat prick across his forehead, and familiar enough for him to bury his head in their neck and shake.

"Oh thank god," Finn's saying, and he smells of chemicals and fire and engine fuel and sweat, and his collar is damp and tastes sour against Poe's tongue, and Rey's hair is wild and frizzing and sticking to the bare skin of Poe's forearms, but they're close enough together that he can no longer tell where one of them begins and the other's stop. "Oh thank god, oh thank god."

He feels Rey's chain pressing hard into his skin, and Finn's cuts into his nose, but there's nothing in that moment that could make him pull away, and he sinks in deeper and deeper.

"How," he finds himself asking, "how-why-?"

"We got hit by a blockade," Rey murmurs into his skin, "I had to block-we cut off the signal, we had to zigzag back around Jakku to ditch them, and then we got hit, and Luke was injured-"

"You missed out," Finn says, sounding exhausted. 'We got to go back to Jakku, and it was-"

"Amazing," Rey says. She doesn't sound serious, and tightens her grip on Poe's hips.

"-truly the worst experience," Finn continues. "Honestly, meeting you two is the only good thing to have come out of that place."

Poe's throat feels thick and clotted, and it's good that the two of them are holding up his weight because otherwise he'd probably be on the floor.

And he has as much a connection to the Force as a loth-cat, but as BB-8 circles them, screaming with delight, he swears he can feel the Force sing.