InsaneJournal

Who: Poe Dameron, Finn & Rey
When: Backdated: Last Weekend in March
Where: Poe's Backyard
What: Poe invites his new friends over for a BBQ.
Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly
Status: Complete

While it had been kind of nice to have some time off, Poe had been very happy when the whole social distancing thing had been lifted. Not only had it gotten lonely with just BB-8 for company when he couldn’t understand the droid, but he also missed being on the base and flying.

Now that normal life had resumed and he was back to a regular schedule, Poe had decided it was a good time to invite both Rey and Finn over to hang out. He had decided to break out the grill and do a little barbecuing and was currently priming the grill when BB-8 rolled out in the yard and beeped.

“Yeah, buddy, they’ll be here soon,” The fact that he could now finally understand the astromech was one other reason he had decided to invite his new friends over and he was looking forward to surprising them with that news.

Finn had been grateful when the whole virus thing had finally ended and a vaccine had started being distributed. Being a homicide detective meant that he didn’t get to work from home like others, and he’d been stressed out that with every call to a crime scene and gathering with other police officers that he could get exposed to the virus. Thankfully, that was all over with now and he could relax and what better way than with a barbecue and friends? He was excited to see Rey and Poe again and thought it would be neat to be all together - something he hadn’t even experienced in the dreams.

Pulling up to Poe’s place he got out of his car - which ran beautifully thanks to Rey’s handiwork a month ago - and followed the column of barbecue smoke rising into the air. He had bags of chips and some sides to go with whatever Poe was cooking up.

“Hey!” he called out as he entered the backyard. “I didn’t know Resistance pilots knew how to barbecue.” He grinned stupidly.

Rey had thought being used to being along would have made everything easy, but found that now that she had people to talk to, it had sucked.

So she was more than happy to meet her friends for food and... well she wasn't sure what else people did together when they were friends, but that was all part of what she was going for, wasn't it?

But she ended up being fashionably late as she rolled up on a newly restored motorcycle and followed the smell of delicious meats.

"Oh my god that smells amazing!"

Food, of course, rated above everything else.

Poe turned at the sound of Finn’s voice and returned the smile easily, “I’ll have you know that I can also build a campfire and cook over that too.” Not only had Poe gone camping fairly often while growing up, but he picked things up here and there while in the Navy. “Hopefully it should taste just as amazing.” He said as Rey entered shortly behind Finn.

BB8 beeped and chirped, his dome angled up towards Poe, “Yeah, buddy, hold on.” He turned his attention back to his friends, “He said I’m a terrible host cause I didn’t offer you any drinks yet.”

“Hey Rey,” Finn grinned broadly over his shoulder at her as she appeared, ready for food, as always. He wanted to give her a hug, but refrained, instead fidgeting a bit awkwardly. The dreams made both Rey and Poe so familiar to him, which made it confusing as hell whenever they met up in person. Which so far hadn’t exactly been often.

Finn cocked his head to one side, brow furrowed as Poe suddenly translated for the little orange and white ball droid. “Wait a minute...you understood him? You know binary now?” He pointed at BB-8 then gaped up at Poe.

“Campfire, grilled, does it really matter?” Rey asked, wanting to start eating immediately. She’d just gotten hungrier since she’d started dreaming. Like her body had quickly adapted to the kind of starvation life style she’d dreamed about.

She didn’t particularly like that part, and decided it wasn’t a day to think about it.

Instead, she planted her hands on her hips, “My binary seems to be a bit behind, I only made out part of that!”

Poe couldn’t help but laugh at both of their reactions and nodded, “Yeah. It happened like two days ago. I was gonna tell you guys, but I decided to wait so you could see it first hand.” He turned back to the grill briefly to check on the meat then returned his attention to his friends, “And before BB-8 yells at me again, if you’re thirsty there’s beer and water in the cooler right there.” He gestured with his tongs towards the cooler, “So what’ve you guys been up to now that we’re allowed out into the real world again?”

Finn headed over to the cooler and grabbed himself a beer. Cracking it open he took a sip and said “Been out in the real world. Detectives still had to show up.” Being a narcotics detective meant more field work as some criminals thought the lockdown meant less police bothering with such offenses. They were wrong. “I’m just glad the whole thing’s over with.”

He glanced over at Rey. “What about you? What’d you do during lockdown?”

"So basically you decided you rather wanted to troll us," Rey teased, folding her arms but only able to give a stern look for three point five seconds before she gave up on the idea. "That's amazing, though! What sort of things has he been saying? Does he know he's not where he belongs? Or does he not know our dreams exist? Or rather that there are space ships and the like?"

She helped herself to a beer, though technically she wasn't old enough for one in the states, but don't tell anyone. "Working. My own pet projects, and a few cars that came in. People still needed their vehicles working."

Poe laughed and nodded, “Maybe just a little bit. I don’t think he knows about the dreams the way we do, but I mean, he knows me so he has to have some dream memories or something,” He said in response to Rey’s statement about him trolling them then he glanced over at Finn, “Oh that’s right. Makes sense. If I was still on active duty I probably would have been considered essential.” At least then Poe wouldn’t have been quite so bored, “I met a guy recently who is also a mechanic and he pretty much said the same thing. He was still working cause people still needed their cars fixed.” They may have only just met, but Poe was hopeful that he’d see Michael again.

“Well, here’s to no longer being on lockdown.” Finn suddenly toasted, raising his beer can. He took a sip. “And to learning binary.” He added belatedly. “Wish I knew binary.” He mumbled it, annoyed that in the dreams he didn’t know it. He was a Storm Trooper, he didn’t need to know how to talk to droids - that was for pilots mostly.

Rey wondered if BB8 dreamed, or if he’d ever remember her. He did seem to like her, and she supposed she’d find out when she finished learning Binary. She didn’t want to ask Poe to ask him, mostly because she was afraid of the answer.

Plus there were a lot of questions about droids she had in her dreams and whether or not they were sentient. BB8 certainly acted it.

“I think it’ll come for me soon. I’ve already learned how to fly! Not that I’ve had a chance to test it, they don’t exactly have starships…”

Poe laughed and took a sip of his own beer, “I’m sure you’ll get it soon.” BB-8 rolled around, beeping at Finn and Rey, which caused Poe to laugh even more, “He said that he’s glad the lockdown is over too because now he isn’t stuck with just me. Buddy, that’s just rude.” Poe shook his head and turned back to check on the meat before quickly turning back to Finn and Rey, “Oh so I’ve been having more dreams about after I joined the Resistance. I’ve been going on missions, looking for some guy who is supposed to know where Luke Skywalker is, but of course none of our missions are going the way they should cause we have a spy in our ranks.” Poe shook his head again and turned back to check the meat again and after deciding it was done, he moved it to a serving plate.

Finn laughed. “Yeah, I dunno if I’d want to be stuck with this guy either for that long.” He said to BB-8 before throwing a teasing grin at Poe. As Poe started talking about the dreams, Finn listened intently. “Oh wow. The Luke Skywalker? And you guys have a spy??”

“I kind of wish we’d all gotten stuck together.” They could have treated it like a big party, which would have been a lot better than worrying about everything and anything, which is what Rey had mostly done.

She planted her hands on her hips, “I thought Skywalker was a myth! But then, Solo was kind of a myth too, wasn’t he?”

Poe gasped in Finn’s direction as he turned back towards the table on the patio where his new friends were, “I wouldn’t be sassing the person who has the food, Finn.” He teased back then nodded in response to both of their questions, “Yes as far as I have deduced, both of those guys are real and a big deal in our dream world.” Poe would know since he was working for Leia Organa who was very close to both men, “And yeah, we have a spy or something cause there’s this one asshole from The First Order, Agent Terex who keeps knowing exactly where we’re going to be on our secret missions.”

Finn frowned. He didn’t know of any Terex, but he wasn’t surprised at the First Order’s rabid desire to take down the Resistance at any cost, including using spies. “You got any idea who it could be?” He plucked a hot dog with a fork and stuck it onto a bun before chowing down on it plain. He was suddenly too hungry to care about toppings.

Rey looked down at the droid thoughtfully, “I remember reading a story. Well it was a report, from one of the downed Star Destroyers on Jakku that I routinely salvaged from. There was one report from the Clone Wars, about an astromech that was actually a spy for the Separatists and nearly got some of the Jedi killed.”

In response to Rey’s suggestion, BB-8 made a series of indignant sounding beeps, which caused Poe to laugh, “She’s not suggesting it’s you, buddy. Calm down.” He shook his head as he began putting food on his plate and turned his attention back to Rey and Finn, “I don’t think it’s a droid cause BB is the only one who knows the info I know. I trust Black Squadron with my life. So I’m at a loss as to who it could be.” It really was a puzzler.

Finn munched on some chips. “Maybe your next dreams will reveal ‘em.” For his part his dreams had him defecting from the First Order, crash landing on Jakku and getting into all sorts of crazy with Rey and the Falcon. “All I know is, the First Order has a way of getting to people, of getting what they want no matter what.” Be it torture, kidnapping, blackmail. Kylo Ren was particularly good at the first one.

“Oh, I definitely didn’t mean you! But it is possible…” But Poe’s words made her rethink it. If not a droid, then the only answer was that it wasone of his buddies. She looked over at Finn, unsure of how far he’d dreamed and how much she was willing to share until he’d caught up to her; After Solo and the Rathars she’d dreamt of that beautiful green world. And then getting captured.

“Brainwashing, maybe. Blackmail. Or mind control. Ren is… powerful like that. I’ve heard.”

She smiled to distract them and then shoved her fork into a potato, regretting this line of talk..

Poe was sure that it would all come to light eventually and he was sure that whatever happened he probably wouldn’t be surprised by any of it. “Yeah, I’ve heard that.” Poe was one of the few in the Resistance who knew most of the details when it came to Kylo Ren as a result of his closeness to General Organa. “But hey, why don’t we talk about some stuff not dream related.” Sure, Poe had been the one to start talking about his dreams, but Poe thought this was a good opportunity for them to get to know each other better despite the fact that it almost felt like they had known each other longer than a few weeks even though they hadn’t even all met in the dreams.

Either way, Poe had always liked making new friends and he was looking forward to getting to know Finn and Rey better.