Who: Finn When: Late April Where: His home What: Reflecting on Star Wars stuff Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete.
Finn had a problem. During the months he'd been dating Rey he'd discovered she didn't like the idea of embracing the fact their dreams were a multi-million (maybe billion?) dollar franchise. Their dream experiences were movies, where their friends were played by face twin actors. Those movies were legendary, affecting the lives of generations of fans, and the films spawned merchandise and now conventions.
He'd gone to one of those conventions, Star Wars Celebration, having booked it with Poe weeks ago. But Poe hadn't been able to go, his new assignment keeping him from taking leave. So Finn had gone solo (no pun intended). Unlike some of the others on the network from their dream universe, Finn saw the whole crazy phenomenon as something to embrace and explore, even if it was really weird and surreal. Then again, he'd thought just having the dreams alone had been bizarre so this felt more like a natural step to him of acceptance.
But he had a problem. At the convention, they'd dropped the teaser trailer for the new film, The Last Jedi, which meant glimpses of new information for dreams they'd not had yet. Did he tell Rey? Would she want to know or should he wait until they start dreaming again? Most of the trailer had been about her, with a glimpse of himself still healing in some sort of chamber (really? He hoped he wasn't going to be out for the count like R2D2 had for the first film!) and a split second shot of Poe. He could guess at what was transpiring, he'd been reading some of the canon novels and gone through the occasional fan blog or article talking about Grey Jedi’s and such.
Finn chewed on his bottom lip as he leaned back on his bed, staring at the cute plush Rey he'd picked up at the convention. He'd bought one of her, himself, and Poe. They were cute little caricatures of them and he thought it amusing. He'd have to hide it when Rey came over though, he knew how much the merchandise freaked her out.
“Would you want to know?” He said to the toy, and he made it nod. “Absolutely, Finn.” He said in a pretty terrible attempt at a Rey voice. “Yeah, no.” He said to himself and set aside the toy. He looked at the cosplay outfit he'd bought - his outfit that matched the one he had in the dreams. Granted the dreams had technically sent him this already (after all he’d spent the entire time running around in his under armor with Poe’s jacket on), but it was clean, except for the bloody handprint on the helmet. He still hadn't had the courage to wash it off. He'd worn the armor to the convention, and kept that helmet on for most if it. People had clamored to take pictures, saying his was the most authentic they'd ever seen. If they only knew, he thought.
It'd been stranger still seeing the actors. He'd gone to a few panels, but didn't want to do photo ops or autographs. His heart had jumped at seeing Harrison Ford; it was like having Han back from the dead. In the same thought the absence of Carrie Fischer, who had died last year, felt painful anew, and he wondered what this meant for their dream world.
For now the only woman from the dreams he could logically worry about was Rey and the more he thought about it, the more he was deciding that for now he'd wait on telling her about the trailer. Maybe someone would mention it on the network, or when they came to pick up their car from her. Then Finn would be off the hook from initiating the conversation out of the blue.
He sighed and got up. There were two things he was going to proudly display no matter how anyone felt about the whole thing, and he smiled as he picked up one of the newly framed prints that leaned against his dresser where he'd placed them yesterday. This one was a beautiful painting of Rey with her tri-knot hairstyle, lightsaber in one hand, and what looked like some harnessing of the Force with her other hand outstretched. The colors were gorgeous and to him helped focus Rey’s natural beauty. The other picture he grabbed and smiled at it as well; this was an artistic rendering of a scene, a landscape of sorts - it almost looked like a woodcut print, with Poe standing on his X-Wing watching as other X-Wings flew by on a lush, green world. He’d bought other prints, including one of himself, but he felt weird putting up a picture of himself, so for now Finn was content with these.
Hanging them up only took a moment, as he’d marked out where he’d wanted them to go as soon as the framed prints were ready. Taking a step back, Finn took a moment to appreciate his finds. He just hoped at some point Rey would appreciate them too.