Finn shifts on his feet outside Poe’s quarters, fist raised to knock on the thick, utilitarian door, far closer to the kind of thing you’d find in First Order barracks than Finn’s comfortable thinking about. Palm sweating, he grimaces and drops his hand. Wipes it surreptitiously down his shirt and tries to find his sense of calm. Deep breaths, he tells himself. He’s not gonna bite. You’re looking for lunch. Not a commitment.
“Buddy!” the ‘he’ in question says, bounding up to him from Force knows where. With all the orange he’s wearing, the approach should have been obvious.
It hadn’t been.
Not even considering how long and straight the hallway happens to be.
“Poe,” he answers, somehow even less enthusiastic than when he’d thought the man was behind the door. Not just coming back from… wherever. “What’s with the—” His hand circles the air in front of his face. “—oil? Is that oil?” Finn reaches out to touch, only snatching his hand back once his senses catch up with him. What the hell’s he gonna do? Swipe the black patches from Poe’s cheek for him?
Finn, be serious.
“No,” he says, beaming. Giddy. Far too excited. And worse, his boundless energy somehow infects Finn, pitching his heart rate into hyperspace. The smile, well. The less said about that the better. “Gave Black One a touch-up today. She looks beautiful, Finn, just beautiful.” Squeezing past Finn, he keys open the door and presses himself against the threshold, gesturing expansively. Theoretically, this gives Finn more room to get inside. “I don’t think she’s ever looked this good.”
As Finn brushes past, he can smell the sharp, industrial paint—it’s definitely paint, but something else, too, underneath, something Finn might uniquely identify as Poe if he was the kind of person who catalogued such things, which he’s not—
“I’ll bring you by to see her if you’d like,” he continues, casual, the way normal people behave when they want to issue an invitation. He follows Finn inside and starts unzipping his flight suit, wriggling out of the sleeves almost more quickly than they’re willing to part from him. As soon as he’s out of it, the whole upper half hangs forlorn from his waist, exposing the thoroughly demure black shirt underneath, sleek all the way to his wrists. Fire protection, Finn’s mind supplies helpfully, though he’s dubious about its efficacy in a genuine emergency. Safety first.
“Sure, yeah.” Nodding furiously, Finn turns away from Poe, staring at Poe’s bunk while Poe rifles through a chest of drawers behind him. One thud, then a second. Boots, maybe? Turning his attention to the ceiling, Finn counts numbers in his head and defiantly thinks of anything except Poe Dameron’s boots hitting the floor.
“—listening?” Poe asks, popping into view, fingers snapping scant inches from Finn’s nose. His eyes sparkle with suppressed mirth. “Guess not. Tell you what, I’m gonna hit the ‘fresher while you think about it. Sound good?” He hooks his thumb over his shoulder, backing toward the glorified cubby in question. Still, he stops short just inside the doorway, expectant, fingers fiddling with the handful of clean clothes bundled under his other arm. No matter how fast he goes, he never lets himself bulldoze other people completely. At least in Finn’s experience.
“Sounds good.”
“Good,” Poe answers, finally disappearing from view with Finn’s half-assed blessing.
Finn’s lungs burn, protesting his forgetful treatment of them; he pulls in a long, shuddering breath as an apology. And then another. And a third to tide him over in case Poe comes back unannounced.
The room goes quiet and expands in Poe’s absence. Finn’s been in here a handful of times before, of course, but never without Poe acting as a buffer and a distraction. He notices things he’d not seen last time or the time before that. A PADD gathering dust on the stand by his bunk. The imperfectly made bed. A handful of images pinned to the wall.
These stop Finn in his tracks. Stepping forward, he leans toward them, splaying his hand against the way for balance. They’re not the best quality, blue-tinged and fuzzy around the edges, flattened replicas of a holo maybe? Still, they’re clear enough for Finn to recognize a familiarity among the figures depicted.
Family. They’ve got to be.
Nearly pressing his nose to the artifacts, he scans each and every one, noting the curly, dark hair of a young woman in one, the smiling, handsome man from whom Poe might’ve gotten his jawline in another. The young child with both of them in the third, small and bright and so obviously Poe, steals what Finn thinks is the remains of his heart.
He stares, memorizing the smile that all but consumes Poe’s face, radiating more happiness than Finn has ever experienced in his life, than Finn has ever even seen. Though he’ll likely never find the courage to ask, he wonders at the image’s context.
It’s only then he notices the jacket. His jacket. The jacket Poe had given him. Resting on the woman’s shoulders. Too wide across the chest, a little long in the sleeves. But painfully, clearly, the same one. Poe’s got his arms wrapped around her neck, one hand caught in the collar, tugging her—and the jacket—off-kilter.
It’s the same jacket currently hanging in Finn’s own quarters, tattered and out of place, still just about the only thing in there that feels like it belongs to him in a room full of other people’s stuff. He hadn’t had the heart to toss it even though his heart twists guiltily every time he looks at it.
“Good-looking parents I got there, right?” Poe asks, startling Finn for a second time as he claps Finn on the shoulder from behind. The question is obviously rhetorical, but there’s still a hint of pride underlying his words, like somehow he’s responsible for them and not the other way around.
“How did you—?” Finn asks, spinning around, breathing heavy, blood pounding in his ears. “I’m getting you bells.”
Poe just laughs Finn’s discomfort off, warm and pleased—or so it sounds to Finn. “Sure, bud. I’ll wear ‘em right around my neck just for you.” He scrapes his hand over his jaw and frowns, but before Finn can ask, the look dissolves into nothing, replaced by interest and a head tilt. “You alright? You’re lookin’ a little…”
“I’m good.” Finn nods, decisive. If he believes he’s good, then he’s good. That’s how it works. He’s not going to—
“Why didn’t you tell me it belonged to your mom?” he asks, the words flying out of his mouth before he can stop them, before he’s even sure that woman is his mom. Wincing, he bites his lip and mentally curses himself. There’s no need to explain what ‘it’ is, of course, and it’s just as well. Finn’s not sure he could name it even if he wanted to. Poe’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open, perhaps in shock at Finn’s strange outburst. Of course, the jerk also recovers more quickly than Finn ever could, pasting together a smile that’s so genuine, it hurts a little to look at.
So Finn doesn’t.
“I wanted you to have it,” Poe admits, brows furrowing as he pauses. To collect his thoughts, maybe. Finn couldn’t rightly say. Poe’s never not talking at light speed. This is new territory for them. “No strings, Finn. It seemed selfish to mention it. After. You know.” Here, he slices his hand through the air. A concise gesture that encompasses so much more than Finn wants to think about. Then he shrugs as though a simple acknowledgement of the fact can banish what happened. “It’s not the jacket that matters. Or where it came from.”
“It does matter,” Finn insists, though he’s not sure why. Poe’s words ought to have lifted a weight from Finn’s shoulders, but the guilt remains, pressed heavy against his neck and down his spine. “C’mon, Poe. It belonged to your mom.”
Flicking the picture, Poe shakes his head. “She mattered. That moment mattered.” Poking Finn in the shoulder, he adds, “You matter. That jacket’s just a battered piece of leather some machine stitched together a long time ago. I could probably find another one just as nice given an afternoon and a transport back to Yavin IV.”
Scratching at his chin, Poe looks away, mouth pinched at one side as he sucks on his teeth in thought. “Tell you what,” he says, glancing slyly in Finn’s direction. “Why don’t I tell you about how she got it and we’ll call it even? She’d be proud it helped protect a Resistance hero from a lightsaber to the back. I’d say it’s done its job.”
Finn’s eyebrow crawls up his forehead in response.
“What?” Poe asks, opening his arms wide to expose his chest, now clad in a pale cloth shirt. “Seriously, what?”
“You’re something else altogether.” Frustrated and relieved and impressed all at once, Finn shakes his head. He’s still gonna see about repairing the jacket, because who the hell is Poe to say it doesn’t matter? It matters to him, but if Poe wants to tell him about his family, Finn’ll gladly listen.
Grin fixed into its rightful place, Poe says, “Well, that’s sure better than the alternative.” He jerks his head toward the door, curls brushing lightly across his forehead, more enticing than hair has any right to be. “I haven’t told this story in a while, might be a bit rusty. The least I can do is feed you some lunch. What do you say?”
“I’d say you read my mind.”
“Good man, Finn,” Poe answers, elbowing him in the side. “Good man.”