norealhero (norealhero) wrote in soulboundic, @ 2020-02-21 20:26:00 |
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Finn put his hand into the pocket of his jacket as he waited for Poe to join him. He'd checked the device he'd been given three times since Poe said he was on his way before realising that wasn't making time move any faster so slipped it into the back pocket of his trousers and resisted the urge to pace back and forth for all of ten seconds.
Checkers was behind him, filled with people and smells that were both sweet and bitter and making his stomach grumble. He wasn't sure if he could just walk inside, a lot of his confidence was bravado and bluster so he sort of anxiously paced outside the building, curious about the interior and the food he could see people eating that looked much better than even the best food he'd had in the First Order but not sure about actually going and sourcing some.
Besides, he had no money.
He was about to reach for his phone again when he heard a familiar beep and whirr and turned his head to see BB8 approaching, followed by Poe, who was - without doubt - a sight for sore eyes. It hadn't been long since the party but it felt like forever as it always did when he was separated from Poe and Rey.
"Hey BB-8!" He greeted, crouching down and rubbing the droid's head before standing and hurrying to Poe, reaching out to tug the other man into a hug.
BB-8 as always was racing ahead given the prospect of reuniting with Finn who had very quickly become one of his favourite people their unfortunate first meeting aside and Poe wasn’t that far behind. It was damn good to see Finn, even better when it was evident that he unlike Rey remembered everything, and honestly it was a relief to see him, it really was.
Not that Poe had been feeling like a fish out of water or anything.
He immediately responded to the demand for a hug by wrapping his arms around Finn in the same enthusiastic greeting, hand lifting to clasp the back of Finn’s neck. “It’s good to see you,” he murmured softly and warmly as he briefly pressed his forehead against Finn’s temple.
Finn let out a relieved laugh and leaned into Poe as he was hugged back fiercely, eyes closing briefly as he leaned into the other man. “Yeah,” he said, “You too.” Even though it had only been a couple of hours for him (not including the time spent walking through the mists) it had been too long. “How long’ve you been here?”
He didn’t let go, just leaned back and kept his hands on Poe’s upper arm and shoulder, feeling BB-8 winding between their feet. “Are you okay?”
Poe let out a breath as he also leaned back but his hands remained fixed on Finn’s shoulders. “Couple weeks give or take.” He’d lost track, honestly. “And yeah, I’m good. I mean, frustrated, but good.” Mostly. Aside from the fact that Rey apparently had no memory of him. That wasn’t at all bewildering.
“Did you come through the mists okay?” He asked, hurriedly patting Finn down to make sure the other man was in fact all okay and in one piece.
“Oh, yeah, I mean, it’s was weirdly exhausting and reminded me a lot of Jakku but yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Did you?” Finn lifted his head a little, like he was trying to prove that he was definitely okay and not injured which, aside from a slight cut above his eyebrow (the only mark he had left from Exogol), he definitely was. “And it’s weird that you’ve been gone so long considering I literally just left to go and get you another drink so you could talk to your friend.”
The one whose name Finn had conveniently never learned. Just, because. Names. Such hard things to remember. There were just so many.
“The air here smells different,” he added, “where are we again?” He’d been listening but also not listening because he’d started worrying about what was going to happen to his friends. Something about a war that they had to fight even though they’d just finished one. “Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah,” Poe reassured Finn with a smile and a wave of his hand which was a universal gesture for “don’t worry” or at least it was where Poe came from. Hopefully Finn had learned it during his time with the resistance. “I can’t even with this place, I don’t know how it works, but it seems that once you’ve been pulled from the place you were it’s like you never left.”
Trying to wrap his head around that was just giving him a headache and so Poe had stopped.
“Somewhere called Equilibrium.” Whatever that meant. “It’s nothing like what we’re used to. The technology is super old.”
BB-8 blipped bopped and whirled as if they weren’t getting enough attention.
“Old? Like Radiant Seven old or older?” That was the oldest ship that Finn could recall at that time, though since he’d not been an engineer his knowledge was limited to the things that he’d heard in stories and tales. “It looks like it’s all…” he didn’t want to say ‘primitive’ because that was a bad word and where they came from, the disparity between Coruscant and some of the worlds on the Outer Rim couldn’t be compared. “So different,” is what he settled on after a moment of trying to find the right word.
He squeezed Poe’s wrist and then bent down to fuss BB-8. “Sorry buddy, I missed you too.”
“Older, I think,” Poe said with a nod but honestly he had no way of knowing for sure. “And it is different. Really different.” Which was either a good thing or a bad thing, Poe was still trying to work that out. “Hey, uh, you spoken to Rey yet?”
He didn’t think so but you never knew in this place, maybe they’d spoken over the network.
It was possible.
“Only over the Network,” Finn said with a nod of his head, glancing up at Poe. Once he was sure that BB-8 wasn’t feeling ignored anymore, he stood up again. “She seems okay? I mean she knows me but that doesn’t mean much. But she told me that she’d gone back to her training with Luke Skywalker and then seemed to, I don’t know, catch up? I’ve got no idea what she was talking about, really. This whole place is weird.”
Poe’s brow furrowed and he reached out to clasp Poe’s shoulder in his hand, drawing the younger man’s attention to him. “Wait, wait, Rey knows you?” Of course that wasn’t too surprising given that Rey had met Finn before she’d met anyone else. “Like how well would you say that she knew you on a scale of one, you’re sort of familiar with each other to a ten, where she knows that you were a Stormtroooper and are now a fully fledged resistance fighter?”
“Uh, she said that she’d been here and then left and came back having gone to Tattoine? Like, after the party we’d thrown when we collectively saved everyone from an evil Sith Lord uprising or something.” Finn answered, looking away from where he was watching something that looked like a speeder on wheels moving past them. “So maybe a ten? I still haven’t told her that I-”
BB-8 bumped into his ankle and he looked down, frowned, and then looked back at Poe.
“Yeah, a ten, I think.”
Poe’s expression became one of absolute confusion as that was not the Rey!experience Poe had had earlier.
“Huh,” Poe murmured with a lift of his eyebrows. “I did not know that was a thing.” Immediately he latched onto the fact Finn was doing that thing again where he started saying something about wanting to tell Rey something but then never finished.
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
“Tell Rey what?”
“Huh?” Finn asked, glancing up at Poe and seeing the other man’s eyes narrowed in his direction. He could feel the suspicion rolling off of him, along with another feeling that Finn didn’t know how to quantify. He shifted, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean- uh- it’s not important. I just- I wanted to tell her that I- uh-”
Poe literally said nothing but rather verbalised the unspoken ”what?” with a lift of his eyebrows and tilt of his head. BB-8 helped by tipping his head back to regard Finn quizically.
Suffice to say Poe wanted to know what was so goddamn important that Finn had to tell Rey as soon as was humanly possible.
Finn frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just wanted to tell her that I knew, you know?” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “About the Force. That it’s real. And stuff. Because I can feel it?”
It took a minute or so for the revelation to drop and Poe just blinked. Finn could feel the Force? Did that mean he was a Jedi? Or did that just mean he was Force sensitive? Honestly the Force confused the crap out of Poe and it wasn’t his most favourite thing in the world. Mostly due to the fact so many people put so much and on occasion too much faith in it.
It sort of made sense as to why Finn had been keeping this close to his chest and wanted to speak to Rey about it given where she was on her Jedi journey.
“I knew there was a reason you keep beating me at holochess.”
Finn laughed, a sudden surge of relief so powerful rocketing through him that his knees felt weak. “Yeah,” he said, clapping Poe on the shoulder firmly. “Yeah, I’m using the Force to beat you rather than the truth which is that you suck at holochess.”
Though, it was something to think about: had he been using it to cheat? How did he work that out? Did that make him a bad gaming partner?
Poe let out a soft chuckle and reached up to squeeze Finn’s wrist before he tipped his head. “Come on, let me give you a tour so you won’t get lost the next time you’re out on your own.” Of course if he was really concerned about that he’d make sure that BB-8 stuck close to Finn because better safe than sorry.
Finn snorted. “You really think one tour’s gonna stop me getting lost?” he asked, because he knew full well that his sense of direction was diabolical. “Because I hate to break it to you, but you’ll have to come rescue me at least three more times before I find my way around.”
He wasn’t too worried, though. They hadn’t survived the First and the Final Order to be undone by something as simple as navigation.