[ This is why Poe is a good person. Because he leaves space where it matters, lets Finn try to jumble together thoughts he never really had to learn to handle.
Because he can listen to Finn talk about one dead stormtrooper in a veritable galaxy of dead stormtroopers, an army who only ever ran down a ramp and killed anyone they could on Poe's side of the war, and he can act like it matters anyway. Finn doesn't believe for a second that there are people out in the universe who just do that.
Stormtroopers don't do that for each other. They're not even allowed to go back for their dead.
Poe makes things human. He reaches out and it just happens, easy as that, everywhere he goes. Like breathing. Poe listening makes Slip more human all on its own, and now there's at least one real person out there in the real world who'll know what Slip was like, what he was called. Finn wonders if Poe knows what that's worth. What it means.
The silence stretches again, but Finn doesn't feel rushed. ]
He died on Jakku. Same night I met you. It was our second deployment, first firefight. Didn't take long for him to go down. [ If a firefight is what it could even be called. Second deployment, second slaughter. ] I stayed back with him, but I couldn't do anything to help. Everything happened too fast.
[ He remembers that night on Jakku with a clarity that he can't stand. The villagers. Slip reaching up to him. Kylo Ren. It gets hard to breathe through remembering, once in a while, all the terror and confusion, the sharp edges cutting down into his bones. ]
no subject
Because he can listen to Finn talk about one dead stormtrooper in a veritable galaxy of dead stormtroopers, an army who only ever ran down a ramp and killed anyone they could on Poe's side of the war, and he can act like it matters anyway. Finn doesn't believe for a second that there are people out in the universe who just do that.
Stormtroopers don't do that for each other. They're not even allowed to go back for their dead.
Poe makes things human. He reaches out and it just happens, easy as that, everywhere he goes. Like breathing. Poe listening makes Slip more human all on its own, and now there's at least one real person out there in the real world who'll know what Slip was like, what he was called. Finn wonders if Poe knows what that's worth. What it means.
The silence stretches again, but Finn doesn't feel rushed. ]
He died on Jakku. Same night I met you. It was our second deployment, first firefight. Didn't take long for him to go down. [ If a firefight is what it could even be called. Second deployment, second slaughter. ] I stayed back with him, but I couldn't do anything to help. Everything happened too fast.
[ He remembers that night on Jakku with a clarity that he can't stand. The villagers. Slip reaching up to him. Kylo Ren. It gets hard to breathe through remembering, once in a while, all the terror and confusion, the sharp edges cutting down into his bones. ]