A stupid post for stupid threads

[flightforfreedom]

don't look at me like that just tag me dammit

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for freedomflighter

[flightforfreedom]

Meet me for drinks, tonight? The text had said. I've got something I want to show you.

He hadn't specified a time because it wasn't necessary - he figured he would go and find Finn and drag him out. But he hadn't really counted on BB-8.

He didn't notice when the droid slipped away just as he was going in to take a shower. A real one, with hot water, like he hadn't had in two weeks while he was on duty. It had been that long since he had seen Finn, too, which was why he'd sent the text at all. He'd missed him, while he was away. And he had a good excuse to see him.

But BB-8 had other plans. The droid had been forced to put up with Poe's sighing for two weeks, and was determined to end it. So while Poe was in the shower it went to find Finn.

"Weeeeepwoooo," It said, in a sort of long greeting, as it rolled up towards him when he finally found him.

[freedomflighter]

He still didn't speak droid. So, as always, he went more with the pitch of the beeps than the 'words' involved. This one sounded like a non-emergency, happy pitch. Meaning Finn felt okay tossing a quick 'hey' to the droid and finishing reassembling the blaster rifle he'd been cleaning before turning his full attention to the visitor.

"What's up, droid? Miss me?"

[flightforfreedom]

The droid chirped happily in response, and then rolled forward to bat its head against Finn's legs gently, like a cat, before rolling back toward the door and then looking to see if Finn was following.

"Beepbideep weep? Woooo."

[freedomflighter]

"Someone in trouble?"

It's more joke than anything. If there was trouble, he'd have expected to get shocked (again) by the droid. But he's got Finn curious, so he carefully packs the cleaning supplies back up and, after tucking the rifle back in the locker it belonged in, followed along.

"You need to tell Poe he's starting his drinking a little early these days."

for zevran

[flightforfreedom]

So, his world had gone a little topsy-turvy in the last few days. One second he'd been heading back to base through open space after a mission, and the next second he - and his X-Wing - had been roaring through a rift, straight into some trees and nearly a mountain side.

He'd managed to make it out alive, and not too much the worse for wear.

His X-Wing, on the other hand...

They'd found him, somehow. Considering that this place didn't even seem to have lightbulbs, he figured he must have lit up the Hinterlands like a giant flaming beacon. He was just glad, in retrospect, that it was the Inquisition that found him first. At least they seemed to know what was going on.

Sort of.

Who even knew where in the galaxy he was. None of the stars matched his maps, and he hadn't brought BB-8 for this particular trip. They said that the rifts took people to other worlds, and that he could understand. But other galaxies? Maybe even a whole different universe?

All he knew was that he needed to fix his ship, and go home.

And the former was difficult, considering.

So he may have been spending way too much time tinkering with it and trying to see if any of the materials here could be banged into spare parts.

"Hand me that, would you?" He asked whoever it was that was walking around his fighter at the present moment, from where it was stashed in a corner of the grounds in skyhold. He gestured to his admittedly completely shoddy heat panelling that he'd managed to figure out how to forge by bothering the blacksmiths.

[ombranera]

It had been like a comet, the sudden flare of light careening through the rift and into the mountainside. Demon, cried the templars, danger, cried everyone else. Zevran thought it some manner of particularly metallic dragon. To be told by it's rather exhausted (but quite handsome) pilot that it was a ship for the stars? Held Zevran's curiosity. Aside from the initial attempts to free the man, his ship, and all that they could from the countryside Zevran kept a careful, quiet distance. Observing him and his manner, the large metal structure unlike any he had seen before.

The stuff of fade dreams, what he spoke of- and yet it held it's own appeal.

His distant curiosity became close, and he asked questions. Answered a few of his own. Took the time to wander about shirtless on more than one occasion to return the ever so kind favor Poe (what a name, that) gave them stripped to the waist in his horrifically colored jumpsuit.

Now he helped as best he could, even if he did not understand the principles. "You are certain this will hold?"

Zevran offered it over all the same, peering at the side to compare it to what survived the crash.

[flightforfreedom]

"Not at all," Poe admitted, sliding out from under the X-Wing as he pried off the scorched and damaged piece of heat shielding that now mostly resembled extremely burnt toast.

"A bit of a moot point, since I still haven't found anything that could possibly replace my fuel cells," He said, wiping his brow and giving Zevran a grin. "So she won't be flying any time soon."

Elves wandering around half naked were also a little distracting, though helpful. He took the piece of heatshielding and slid it back into place - bright shining blue surrounded by matte black. Well. He could worry about the pain job later.

[freedomflighter]

The helmet wasn't the whole faced monstrosity he'd worn as a stormtrooper, but it served its purpose in battle. Stopped flying debris from knocking him out, protected his eyes, and he'd gotten one of the more technically gifted rebels to install the kinds of readouts he was used to constantly having stream in front of eyes during battle with in it. It told him the relative distance of people around him, whether they were friend or foe, among other things. And, stupidly, gave him the code name of the pilot flying each X-wing that went whistling overhead.

The helmet wasn't as big as a stormtroopers, but it still made a satisfying clang as he hurled it across the locker room into the wall. Stupid. He couldn't believe he'd been so damn stupid. He couldn't remember being so dis-coordinated in battle since Slip had-

Since the night he'd met Poe. His back hit the front of the lockers hard, another satisfyingly violent sound, and he slid down until he was sitting on the floor in his torn uniform.

He'd seen the fighter plane get shot down. Had been leading a squad in the ground assault the X-wings were covering form, and watched BLACK LEADER dive towards the horizon. Then he wasn't leading his squad anymore.

Thank the Force for intelligent rebels, or they'd have caught the grenade slung at them while Finn watched, disbelieving, as the X-wing smoked in the distance. No one had died, thankful. Not this time. But the awkward parting with his squad after the fact said everything that needed to be said.

Someone would, eventually. If he fell apart like that again.

[flightforfreedom]

It was hardly the first time he'd been shot down - even since he'd known Finn. Even a good fighter pilot was still a fighter pilot - stupidly high death rate, and extremely low life expectancy. There were a few different kinds of crashes. The ones that you could half-pilot, and land hard, but intact. The ones where you lost all ability to change course, but the ship still protected you. And then there were the ones you only survived because you managed to hit the button for the ejector seat at just the right second.

This one had been the first. An engine hit, an emergency crash landing. His X-Wing was cut up, but he staggered out with nothing more than a bunch of bruises.

He'd kept focus through the battle, mostly because he had BB-8 surreptitiously relaying him information about Finn. Just little updates about his squads positions, that sort of thing. Totally normal. Nothing to worry about.

He'd been so focused on landing his ship that he didn't even think about Finn until he was out of it - but he was out of range and things were heating up. He didn't end up on the same transport back, and arrived a little later. He was going to head to Finn's rooms, first. Or at least, that was the plan - which was cut short as soon as he stepped into the locker room and heard the slam of a fist against a locker. Raising his eyebrows, he adjusted his trajectory and turned the corner, to see what was happening - and found Finn.

"Hey - You alright? I heard a loud banging--"

[freedomflighter]

He'd known Finn made it out. The pilot had checked in, all by the book. Perfect soldier, than man. Maybe that was a skill that just came from actually growing up in the world. You learned to compartmentalize, to put things in the proper priority. Just another skill the First Order had drilled out of him- out of all of them. There was only the Order. There was no learning how to march into battle besides people you cared about, because there was no one to care about. The Order was mother, father, lover, child. Whatever was best for that massive whole was all that mattered. End of story.

Just another thing on a long list demonstrating why he was broken.

Finn lifted his head sharply enough that the back of it hit the locker when Poe came in, making another sharp bang. That one got a wince, he hadn't actually intended it. Still felt good, a new physical ache to concentrate on instead of...the rest.

"It's nothing. You- you should be getting checked out in med bay."

[flightforfreedom]

Poe wasn't himself the next few weeks. Everyone on base knew it, and everyone had a pretty good idea as to why. He and Finn had been attached at the hip, before that, barely seen out of each others company when one was on base, and now you couldn't find them in a room together to save your life.

Poe always took the most dangerous missions, but something shifted. He was starting to request them, starting to suggest them before anyone else did. Leia quietly spoke to him, but Poe had learned to cope at 8, and there was no way he was letting Leia think there was anything wrong with him.

There wasn't.

But he had one thing that he lived for, now, and that was the mission. That was the fight. And he couldn't take his mind off of it for even a second - so he didn't. He threw himself into his work with an inhuman intensity.

He was good, but he couldn't promise he wouldn't come back dead. And that was what cinched it. For Finn, for anyone. If Poe ever let himself have a family, all he was doing was setting them up to be widowed. Orphaned.

So he owed that to Finn, really. Now he could focus on doing what he did best, and leaving everything else behind. It just would have been better if everything didn't taste like ash in his mouth.

It was a month and a half, when the distress beacon when up. When an X-wing, piloted almost solely by its astromech droid, BB-8, finally jumped back into the star system, and immediately started beaming urgent distress calls to HQ. The other three ships he'd been with didn't make it back, and they had no idea why. They had to go out and get him.

He wasn't in good shape. A laser bolt had torn through one side of his ship and out the other, and him in between. He'd managed to plug the holes in his flight suit with emergency tape - and strap some to the holes, but he had passed out soon after. The cockpit was in near vacuum, when they managed to pick up the pilot.

Poe was almost frozen.

[freedomflighter]

He waited.

No matter what some people may have said, Finn wasn't totally stupid. He wasn't a medic of any shape or size. Could barely wrap a bandage around a wookie's arm without getting his head torn off. He knew his place, and it was waiting for the signal Poe was stabilized, that no ongoing emergency care was needed beyond what the machines could supply. That he wouldn't be in the way, more a burden than help.

That didn't mean he didn't spend that time trying to tear out the punching bags in the gym with his bare hands. Finn couldn't sit and wait, it was a physical impossibility. Any issue always had a solution, that was the way he'd been raised. More training, more conditioning. That was always the answer. So in those hours where he could be nothing but in the way, he'd thrown himself into training like the Republic itself might crumble if he didn't.

At the end, when he'd finally been signaled he could enter the pilot's room, he'd come to a conclusion. He'd been wrong. It didn't matter in the end. He could be in Poe's bed or out of it, but anytime the man was in danger, Finn felt his heart stutter as if he'd been the one shot. He became useless to anything and anyone else. It didn't matter. He was too well and truly lost.

He didn't shower before barging into the room, still dripping sweat and just a little blood from the rounds he'd gone with other members of the Rebellion in the ring. That was all barely a nuisance compared to the need to see Poe, alive if not well.

Finn collapsed into the chair next the bed the moment that life was confirmed, pressing his forehead to Poe's hand. Sitting back up was too much effort, and it didn't matter anyway. Poe was alive.

"...Idiot."

[flightforfreedom]

He didn't remember much of the treatment, save that they'd stuffed him in a tank at one point. So when he woke to to door slamming open and someone literally slumped on him, muttering, it took a minute to let it filter through.

Finn. That familiar feeling gripped his chest, that desperate and self damaging desire to just be close. The one that had kept him at least three doors down from Finn at any given time, just to avoid.

His hand twisted, just a little, just to he could weakly brush his thumb over Finn's forehead.

"... Tell me something I don't know," he got out, but his voice was far hoarser, far quieter, than he expected.

porn au forever

[flightforfreedom]

It was only a few days after he was even allowed to go back to his own rooms - only a week after he could walk again - and Poe was already almost ready to shoot something, he was so bored. It wasn't anyone's fault, but he wasn't used to sitting still - at least not if he wasn't in a cockpit. It went against his nature, and it was driving him crazy. So he planned his escape. Not too long. Just a quick little flight around the planet, just to loosen him up. It wasn't like he'd have to hurt himself, right? He'd be sitting. It would be fine!

But somehow he knew that trying to make that argument to Finn wouldn't end well.

So, instead, he waited - behaving maybe too well the entire morning, sat up in bed like he was supposed to be. Finn went off for training, and Poe waited five minutes before climbing out of bed.

It hurt. The staples in his side screamed their annoyance as he stepped across the floor, but quickly dimmed to a dull pain. Right. Okay. He could totally do this. He slipped into his normal flight gear - not the bright orange suit, but the same thing he'd been wearing when he met Finn, minus the jacket. Something no one would think twice if they saw him in. He checked the living room but didn't see any sign of BB-8, so breathed a sigh of relief and went for the door. Part one complete.

Now to get to the hangar without rousing suspicion.

[freedomflighter]

Sadly for Poe, he was a little more transparent the he liked to think. To BB-8 that was. Finn knew Poe was going slowly insane, but had taken the good behavior this morning as a sign the man might just be starting to accept the more he rested, the faster he would heal. A true example of how everyone was a fool in love.

So when the high pitched wail that had come to signify 'Poe is trying to take his own stitches out' or 'Poe decided a quick run was just the thing his ribs needed' interrupted his time in the shooting range, Finn as a little more surprised than he should have been.

"Droid, you are kidding me."

But no, the little ball of excitement was not kidding around. A sentiment punctuated by him rolling over Finn's foot to get him to move. Which was how he ended up jogging to the hanger with a live blaster in hand in search of the rogue squad leader.

[flightforfreedom]

He'd managed to get through the hallways without too many sideways glances - coming at the Hangar from one of the more round-about routes, and pausing in the door to check who was in. Luckily, it seemed like almost everyone was facing the other way, so he quickly stole across the floor to his black X-wing, only just newly repaired herself. He put his hands out to touch her side, then pressed his cheek against her.

"Missed you, babe. You going as stir crazy as me?" He swung his arms up onto the ladder and pulled himself up - which of course made his side scream in agony, which made him grit his teeth, hard.

it goes on and on and on

[flightforfreedom]

Yavin 4 was still very sparsely populated, even 30 years later, and though Kes Dameron lived in what was now the most densely populated village on the planet, that still meant he had several acres of land to himself, and it was a 10 minute flight to the nearest space port. So when Poe had to make the call when they landed, it was a half hour wait until the speeder finally came up to them.

An older man - hair still cropped military short despite the grey that had invaded it, and the lingering handsomeness that had aged very well - stepped out of the speeder to see the two figures. He paused, and then stepped forward.

Poe smiled, wide and broad, and honest - it had been a long time, and he gave a small wave and a "Hey Dad, Miss me?" as the man approached. He had gone to great lengths to minimize the visibility of his bandages as much as possible, which meant that when Kes strode up and threw his arms tightly around his son, it was more painful than perhaps it was meant.

As soon as the hug ended, Kes stood with his hands on Poe's shoulders, observing him for a long moment, before finally turning his attention to Finn.

"Who's this?"

"Finn," Poe replied, before Finn could. "He's my - he's a friend of mine," He corrected quickly, feeling a little dirty for it, but realising that he didn't exactly have permission to use any other word. "A good friend."

Not really any better, Poe.

[freedomflighter]

He shouldn't be surprised. Poe was excellent when it came to battle plans and leading his men. In anything else, though, it was flying by the seat of their pants at all times. Of course he hadn't called ahead or told the older Dameron Finn was visiting along with with. But he still hovers distinctly behind Poe as the greeting goes on. Remaining a half step behind Poe even as he offered a hand in greeting.

He knew nothing about who Finn was. Add on a suspicious glare and would be just like running around with Rey again. But may as well get it all out.

"We're in the Rebellion together. Sir."

[flightforfreedom]

Kes looked at Finn for a half second longer than perhaps was expected, and then clasped Finn's hand tightly, giving it a firm shake.

"Please, call me Kes. Leia told me that you saved my son," he said, his eyes locked on Finn's while he said it. Poe hadn't told him, but Leia was an old friend. She often sent him updates, when Poe couldn't - or wouldn't. "You are very welcome, here. Though I didn't know that you would be coming, so I only set up one ro--"

"He'll stay with me," Poe interrupted quickly, with a smile that was entirely innocent charm.

Kes, seemingly utterly impervious to said charm, glanced at his son a moment before looking back at Finn, with a sympathetic look. "-- Or I can make something up for you. It's no trouble either way."

[freedomflighter]

The flight back was uneventful. Not quiet, not with a now healthy Poe trapped on a chartered ship instead of being occupied flying them to the base. With no Order attacks or sudden betrayals, though, it was still a relatively calm trip.

As they landed, Finn set about gathering their supplies- increased after parting from Kes and Finn's request about knowing what kind of herbs he was using- and waiting for Finn to get back from hailing Leia and confirming their return.

[flightforfreedom]

The call was quick - he'd already given Leia an update on the situation, for the most part, so it was far too soon before he returned, grinning from ear to ear in the way he did when he was quite clearly up to mischief.

"Here, I'll grab that," He offered, swinging up one of the cartons onto his hip. "Got something I need to show you, back in the room. We can grab the rest later."

[freedomflighter]

"Alright."

There were vague promises to be kept, but....Finn knew things said in the heat of the moment didn't always hold up in the real world. Particularly when they've been gone for so long. There could be a fresh mission to unknown regions waiting, or a new fighter model Poe had to swoon over. So he has a curious look on as he follows Poe off the ship.

MoM-verse Everything Is Going To Shit and it's Time To Make Out

[flightforfreedom]

Everything had gone to hell, and fast.

The attacks had obviously been well coordinated. Every single one of the Porters were hit, at exactly the same time. The Government housing in both Nonah and Heropa had been hit as well - the bomb levelling what until then had been Finn and Poe's home.

Poe had been scrambled for active duty the second the first bomb had gone off, at Heropa's porter. It was pure luck that he happened to drag Finn and Beth out of the house and down to the muster station before the bomb had gone off in the housing.

After that, Poe had simply refused to be parted from them. Beth had been a problem - they were pulling Poe to an aircraft carrier and she was very much a civilian - so he'd been talked down and she had been taken somewhere safe. But Poe had argued very effectively for Finn to stay. He was a soldier. They were veterans together.

In the end, Command had allowed it simply to appease Poe and keep him in the air.

But the missions were going south. His first one had already been dangerous - he and two others had been the only ones to return from the squadron alive. The Russians had launched a full scale offensive, in the aftermath, and they had been running skirmishes non-stop around the clock.

So when Poe came back from the second one - having lost his plane, this time, and survived the crash - he did not have a particularly hopeful outlook.

He'd keep fighting. Until the very last.

But he was also pretty damn sure this was the very last.

So as soon as he was debriefed he was heading straight for the tiny two-bunk cabin that he and Finn had shared since being on this ship.

There were a few things he needed to say.

[freedomflighter]

Even Finn had to, however grudgingly, admit there was something to be said for the sheer simplicity of war. There was never a question of where to go or what to do, how to occupy time or what the point of your life was. There were only orders and movement. The painful minutes between tasks and the mindless certainty of purpose while watching the radar, calling out tactics, or even maintaining the ship. It wasn't the life he'd have chosen, but it still fit like a glove.

He wasn't involved in monitoring Poe's missions or planning the next airstrikes. But that didn't mean he wasn't keeping obsessive tabs on the information. The sea-faring boats of Earth were nothing compared to the size of First Order cruisers, and even on those the flow of gossip among the rank and file had been impossible to plug. So he knew. Every detail of it.

He was sitting on the lower bunk, cleaning and reassembling his side arm without really seeing the tool, when Poe entered.

[flightforfreedom]

"We're down to five jets," was the first thing out of his mouth as he pushed open the door and then let it slam closed behind him. He - didn't look great. His jacket was torn, and though he was dry (now) the cut on his forehead had started seeping blood again. The nanites unable to keep up with the demand, with the imPorts dying in droves. His hand went to his collar, pulling the first few buttons of his shirt open to free his throat. There was blood on it. His blood. Not much, but enough.

"I'll be on the first flight out tomorrow."