It gives me something to do and you something to focus on other than what's going on up here. [ Poe taps the side of his head. He pulls a glass down from their cabinet and fills it half-way, keeping a sidelong eye on Finn as he does it. ]
You drink this--slowly--then change clothes. We're going for a jog.
[ He doesn't have it in him to get miffed about more or less being bossed around. Seeing as he did sort of hassle Poe right to the hospital during boot camp, which involved a lot of bossing around and haranguing in itself. And a lot more yelling. Technique could use some refining, maybe.
Finn is a lot of things, is the point. A blatant hypocrite isn't one he wants to add to his list right now. He nods instead.
Besides, he's pretty sure that if he one-shotted a glass of water out of spite, he actually would get sick instead of simply sitting here feeling vaguely sick. That's about the only thing he can think of that could make this experience worse.
Give him the dumb water, he'll drink the dumb water. ]
Poe doesn't do the whole "commander" thing a lot, with his friends. Or he didn't used to. It's been a while since Black Squadron. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime since it was just him, Jess, Karé, Snap. (L'ulo, Oddy.) He's still their friend, he can't be any less, but there's a distance between him and his subordinates has grown into something that sometimes feels impassable. He's their Commander. They come to him with their panic, their fear, their exhaustion, and he puts them back together again. He has to be someone who can give them the most mundane orders with the assurance that they'll be obeyed. Eat. Breathe. Listen. Lay down.
Finn is different.
Finn is the first friend he's had in ages who doesn't have to answer to him, who doesn't owe him some degree of obedience or respect simply due to his position. Finn, he has to be more careful with. Finn, he has to be more honest with. He can't just command and trust that the person he's talking to will assume he has their best interests in mind.
Still, he watches in silence to make sure that Finn does in fact drink the dumb water.
Very quietly: ]
I'm never going to run, Finn. I understand, and I will understand if that's something, someday that you have to do. But I can't.
[ Rey doesn't run, either. It shouldn't hurt to hear something that he knew already. If they can't run, it means he won't. This is where his loyalty lies, and he'll hold to that loyalty with both hands if it kills him. It was part of what turned his fear into anger on Starkiller, part of what made him walk towards Kylo Ren instead of away.
Finn bows his head. He tries to dredge up an honesty that makes sense. An explanation. ]
You know, the first time I couldn't shoot on command, I thought something was wrong with me? I thought it was something I had to fix. I wanted to fix it.
[ He's tired of words leaving him on edge. He's tired of the First Order inevitably being a stain on every single good thing that he finds, everything he tries to do, of feeling like a liar no matter what he does. He hates living in the irrational certainty that it won't ever stop throwing a shadow over those things. That no matter how far he runs, he'll never actually get away. ]
I've been trying to run since Jakku, Poe. When I figured out the problem wasn't me, all I did was get scared and try to get as far away as I could. I didn't leave because I found some better cause to die for. I didn't wanna make it out because I planned to jump onto the other side of the same war to fight them. I didn't stop to think about the galaxy. I'm not-- I'm not like that.
[ Not that brave. Not that good. ]
Everything that came out of that was luck.
[ He's not ashamed of that. Ashamed that he's not ashamed, maybe, but he did what he did. There's no changing it. He did what he felt like he needed to do, with no one to answer to and no hangups about whether it meant he's evil or good or whatever the hell categories people fall into.
Running worked out terribly in the long run, objectively, because he wound up on the First Order's most powerful weapon fighting a dude with a lightsaber? But it also worked out pretty well because of what he has now.
Finn looks back up, finally. ]
Anytime you both stay, I'll stay. If it's real. We're in this together. But I can't promise I won't ask you to run first every time.
[ Stormtroopers aren't raised to have hope. He found that feeling for himself when Poe Dameron looked up and said I can fly anything. They don't have anything to lose but their lives, which they're told they're obligated to throw away as needed. But he found that feeling for the first time with Rey, with whatever it is that they saw in each other.
Now Rey and Poe both give him hope. Now they're both something he can lose. And that's a form of power over him, the kind that Finn freely gives. Out of anyone in the galaxy, he thinks, Rey and Poe have proved over and over that they won't try to use it as a weapon against him. He can make it into a weapon against himself just by not wanting to leave that behind.
He can make it into a weapon against the things that threaten it.
He can't visualize a point where running isn't the first thing that comes into his mind, though. If he looks lesser for that, so be it. ]
Do you have any idea how brave that makes you? Being scared and staying anyway? That’s what courage is.
[ Poe loves Finn for his honesty. He loves him for being willing to expose this particular truth. Even if bringing BB-8 to the Resistance was incidental, it still happened. It happened because there was something important enough to Finn that he couldn’t turn away. ] Not everyone in this fight wants to save the galaxy. Not everyone cares about those stakes, and I wouldn’t ask them to. They fight because they have one person, one place, one thing worth protecting.
[ It’s a strange and touching honor to realize Finn places him in that category. He doesn’t think of himself as being worth that kind of position. He’s just a flyboy, good at dodging around the letter of the law and good at blowing things up. There are plenty of people he loves that much, but he knows the way his story will probably end. Debris, stardust, luminous memory.
He doesn’t value his life the way other people seem to. ]
If you need to ask, you need to ask. What matters is what happens after that.
[ Finn expects disappointment. He expects-- not to lose a friend exactly, because that's Poe, but to lose something from that friendship wouldn't surprise him. It wouldn't say anything against Poe if something changed because of that, it would just...
It would just be something he had coming.
When he explained it to Rey on Takodana, they both wound up pushing a little, and he wound up walking away without her, and a lot of things after that happened very quickly. There was no time for still silence, for reading the lines of her face as she processed in full. She was gone when he turned to look back. If the lying disappointed her, if leaving disappointed her, and he's sure one or both of those things did because he could tell in the moments that they did get. By the time he'd seen her again she was willing to leave it behind them.
(What matters is what happens after that, Poe says, and he wonders if that's the way Rey felt, too.)
Every cell in his body is lit up right now, frenzied and transparent. There's nothing he can push down that won't bleed through.
Finn expects disappointment.
He doesn't find it, and that discovery takes him aback. He couldn't have laid it out more clearly. What he is. What he's never been. He expected something to run from and there's nothing to run from. He expected to be saying he's sorry for something, and apologies sit on his tongue unused. He finds understanding. Someone who says without hesitation that it's okay even if it's just one person that matters, and someone who still seems to think bravery has anything to do with it.
Finn almost argues. Wants to try to push, to get across what Poe doesn't understand yet. And if he did get it across, maybe Poe would understand some things are conditional, and it's just the way they are. In some things, you're good enough or you're not and that's the end of it, and he'd rather hear it sooner over later.
He stares at Poe like he's waiting for something, sharp. Eventually he realizes that whatever he's waiting for isn't coming. And Finn can't make himself argue for it to come. ]
-- okay. [ He considers taking this as something new to learn the controls of, instead: in the moment it has all the same adrenaline and unblinking terror of taking a gunner's seat for the first time, and he can use that to shift his thoughts from I'm calm to I can do this. Tries to use it to wrangle his breathing back into control.
What matters is what happens after that.
It's not a bad compromise for two different ways of thinking. He can afford to think that. Maybe about a few other things. ]
[ As far as Poe is concerned, there is no condition of goodness, no condition of courage. It's a choice, it's always a choice, every day it's a choice. It's a choice he's made so often that he doesn't know how to choose anything else, maybe, but the option to be greater or less than is always there.
BB-8 rolls over to bump lightly against Finn's leg, the droid's own small vote of confidence. ]
Okay.
[ Poe wishes there was some way to communicate to Finn what he expects. What he doesn't. He wishes he could crack open Finn's past and go toe to toe with everyone who ever made the man think he needs to be perfect. That imperfection is some reason for shame.
He wishes he could promise Finn acceptance, sure and unwavering, in a way Finn would believe.
All he can do is keep giving it. All he can do is keep understanding until Finn relaxes into the expectation that's how things will be, at least as far as Poe himself goes.
He can't put words to what Finn did for him. Incidental or not, because he was running or not, because he felt broken or not. Poe hasn't made it clear enough, obviously. He hasn't been able to make Finn understand.
Poe has been ready to die for a very long time. He doesn't want to, that's never been a risk for him--he loves life the way he loves most other things. But he's been ready. Kylo Ren destroyed that balanced peace with death. He made Poe want it. He made Poe wish to be another nameless First Order prisoner, a number slated to be scratched off a list, the sooner... the sooner the better.
Finn saved him. There's no other way to put it, but there's nothing in those three words that explains the breadth of what they mean. ]
[ It should be cheating to use his own words against him, clearly. He should raise a complaint through official channels. Mostly, it's reassuring all over again.
These are the things that matter, that mattered most to him even back before he knew what it meant to have people matter so much.
We're in this together.
You're one of us.
What he used to want more than anything was to just not be alone.
Then he wasn't. He isn't. Even BB-8 thinks so, presumably. He wonders if the string of Poe giving him things that matter (a name, a jacket, hope, trust, understanding, reassurance, more than he can ever give back) will end.
They're here, they're fine, it's okay. And so is Rey. Probably. Assuming she's not on her way here to subdue him by large-stick means as she deems necessary, he should consider calling her back to mention that they might not need to flee an impending takeover. Not that she would have gone.
He is a very calm man and he can definitely do this. Whatever "this" is. He sets his glass down and stands up, because he's had enough sitting, he wants to explode out of his own body. ]
If we get murdered on this jog, I'm blaming you.
[ It's not a joke, per se, but Finn can put enough of something in his tone to acknowledge that it probably isn't likely. Poe deserves that much trust, at least. ]
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no subject
Date: 2017-12-08 05:32 pm (UTC)You drink this--slowly--then change clothes. We're going for a jog.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 01:59 am (UTC)Finn is a lot of things, is the point. A blatant hypocrite isn't one he wants to add to his list right now. He nods instead.
Besides, he's pretty sure that if he one-shotted a glass of water out of spite, he actually would get sick instead of simply sitting here feeling vaguely sick. That's about the only thing he can think of that could make this experience worse.
Give him the dumb water, he'll drink the dumb water. ]
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 08:23 am (UTC)Poe doesn't do the whole "commander" thing a lot, with his friends. Or he didn't used to. It's been a while since Black Squadron. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime since it was just him, Jess, Karé, Snap. (L'ulo, Oddy.) He's still their friend, he can't be any less, but there's a distance between him and his subordinates has grown into something that sometimes feels impassable. He's their Commander. They come to him with their panic, their fear, their exhaustion, and he puts them back together again. He has to be someone who can give them the most mundane orders with the assurance that they'll be obeyed. Eat. Breathe. Listen. Lay down.
Finn is different.
Finn is the first friend he's had in ages who doesn't have to answer to him, who doesn't owe him some degree of obedience or respect simply due to his position. Finn, he has to be more careful with. Finn, he has to be more honest with. He can't just command and trust that the person he's talking to will assume he has their best interests in mind.
Still, he watches in silence to make sure that Finn does in fact drink the dumb water.
Very quietly: ]
I'm never going to run, Finn. I understand, and I will understand if that's something, someday that you have to do. But I can't.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 07:22 pm (UTC)Finn bows his head. He tries to dredge up an honesty that makes sense. An explanation. ]
You know, the first time I couldn't shoot on command, I thought something was wrong with me? I thought it was something I had to fix. I wanted to fix it.
[ He's tired of words leaving him on edge. He's tired of the First Order inevitably being a stain on every single good thing that he finds, everything he tries to do, of feeling like a liar no matter what he does. He hates living in the irrational certainty that it won't ever stop throwing a shadow over those things. That no matter how far he runs, he'll never actually get away. ]
I've been trying to run since Jakku, Poe. When I figured out the problem wasn't me, all I did was get scared and try to get as far away as I could. I didn't leave because I found some better cause to die for. I didn't wanna make it out because I planned to jump onto the other side of the same war to fight them. I didn't stop to think about the galaxy. I'm not-- I'm not like that.
[ Not that brave. Not that good. ]
Everything that came out of that was luck.
[ He's not ashamed of that. Ashamed that he's not ashamed, maybe, but he did what he did. There's no changing it. He did what he felt like he needed to do, with no one to answer to and no hangups about whether it meant he's evil or good or whatever the hell categories people fall into.
Running worked out terribly in the long run, objectively, because he wound up on the First Order's most powerful weapon fighting a dude with a lightsaber? But it also worked out pretty well because of what he has now.
Finn looks back up, finally. ]
Anytime you both stay, I'll stay. If it's real. We're in this together. But I can't promise I won't ask you to run first every time.
[ Stormtroopers aren't raised to have hope. He found that feeling for himself when Poe Dameron looked up and said I can fly anything. They don't have anything to lose but their lives, which they're told they're obligated to throw away as needed. But he found that feeling for the first time with Rey, with whatever it is that they saw in each other.
Now Rey and Poe both give him hope. Now they're both something he can lose. And that's a form of power over him, the kind that Finn freely gives. Out of anyone in the galaxy, he thinks, Rey and Poe have proved over and over that they won't try to use it as a weapon against him. He can make it into a weapon against himself just by not wanting to leave that behind.
He can make it into a weapon against the things that threaten it.
He can't visualize a point where running isn't the first thing that comes into his mind, though. If he looks lesser for that, so be it. ]
no subject
Date: 2017-12-09 07:59 pm (UTC)[ Poe loves Finn for his honesty. He loves him for being willing to expose this particular truth. Even if bringing BB-8 to the Resistance was incidental, it still happened. It happened because there was something important enough to Finn that he couldn’t turn away. ] Not everyone in this fight wants to save the galaxy. Not everyone cares about those stakes, and I wouldn’t ask them to. They fight because they have one person, one place, one thing worth protecting.
[ It’s a strange and touching honor to realize Finn places him in that category. He doesn’t think of himself as being worth that kind of position. He’s just a flyboy, good at dodging around the letter of the law and good at blowing things up. There are plenty of people he loves that much, but he knows the way his story will probably end. Debris, stardust, luminous memory.
He doesn’t value his life the way other people seem to. ]
If you need to ask, you need to ask. What matters is what happens after that.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-10 07:18 pm (UTC)It would just be something he had coming.
When he explained it to Rey on Takodana, they both wound up pushing a little, and he wound up walking away without her, and a lot of things after that happened very quickly. There was no time for still silence, for reading the lines of her face as she processed in full. She was gone when he turned to look back. If the lying disappointed her, if leaving disappointed her, and he's sure one or both of those things did because he could tell in the moments that they did get. By the time he'd seen her again she was willing to leave it behind them.
(What matters is what happens after that, Poe says, and he wonders if that's the way Rey felt, too.)
Every cell in his body is lit up right now, frenzied and transparent. There's nothing he can push down that won't bleed through.
Finn expects disappointment.
He doesn't find it, and that discovery takes him aback. He couldn't have laid it out more clearly. What he is. What he's never been. He expected something to run from and there's nothing to run from. He expected to be saying he's sorry for something, and apologies sit on his tongue unused. He finds understanding. Someone who says without hesitation that it's okay even if it's just one person that matters, and someone who still seems to think bravery has anything to do with it.
Finn almost argues. Wants to try to push, to get across what Poe doesn't understand yet. And if he did get it across, maybe Poe would understand some things are conditional, and it's just the way they are. In some things, you're good enough or you're not and that's the end of it, and he'd rather hear it sooner over later.
He stares at Poe like he's waiting for something, sharp. Eventually he realizes that whatever he's waiting for isn't coming. And Finn can't make himself argue for it to come. ]
-- okay. [ He considers taking this as something new to learn the controls of, instead: in the moment it has all the same adrenaline and unblinking terror of taking a gunner's seat for the first time, and he can use that to shift his thoughts from I'm calm to I can do this. Tries to use it to wrangle his breathing back into control.
What matters is what happens after that.
It's not a bad compromise for two different ways of thinking. He can afford to think that. Maybe about a few other things. ]
Okay.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-11 02:21 am (UTC)BB-8 rolls over to bump lightly against Finn's leg, the droid's own small vote of confidence. ]
Okay.
[ Poe wishes there was some way to communicate to Finn what he expects. What he doesn't. He wishes he could crack open Finn's past and go toe to toe with everyone who ever made the man think he needs to be perfect. That imperfection is some reason for shame.
He wishes he could promise Finn acceptance, sure and unwavering, in a way Finn would believe.
All he can do is keep giving it. All he can do is keep understanding until Finn relaxes into the expectation that's how things will be, at least as far as Poe himself goes.
He can't put words to what Finn did for him. Incidental or not, because he was running or not, because he felt broken or not. Poe hasn't made it clear enough, obviously. He hasn't been able to make Finn understand.
Poe has been ready to die for a very long time. He doesn't want to, that's never been a risk for him--he loves life the way he loves most other things. But he's been ready. Kylo Ren destroyed that balanced peace with death. He made Poe want it. He made Poe wish to be another nameless First Order prisoner, a number slated to be scratched off a list, the sooner... the sooner the better.
Finn saved him. There's no other way to put it, but there's nothing in those three words that explains the breadth of what they mean. ]
We are in this together. No matter what.
no subject
Date: 2017-12-17 06:03 pm (UTC)These are the things that matter, that mattered most to him even back before he knew what it meant to have people matter so much.
We're in this together.
You're one of us.
What he used to want more than anything was to just not be alone.
Then he wasn't. He isn't. Even BB-8 thinks so, presumably. He wonders if the string of Poe giving him things that matter (a name, a jacket, hope, trust, understanding, reassurance, more than he can ever give back) will end.
They're here, they're fine, it's okay. And so is Rey. Probably. Assuming she's not on her way here to subdue him by large-stick means as she deems necessary, he should consider calling her back to mention that they might not need to flee an impending takeover. Not that she would have gone.
He is a very calm man and he can definitely do this. Whatever "this" is. He sets his glass down and stands up, because he's had enough sitting, he wants to explode out of his own body. ]
If we get murdered on this jog, I'm blaming you.
[ It's not a joke, per se, but Finn can put enough of something in his tone to acknowledge that it probably isn't likely. Poe deserves that much trust, at least. ]