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(no subject)

who: finn and OPEN
what: tdm prompts (dreamshare, big robits)! canon updates! and a general february catchall.
when: backdated late january through all of february. various.
where: idk, dreams. big robits. generally around.
warnings: violence towards Big Beetles, nightmare content (which includes death, more violence, and maybe vague body horror idk). spoilers for the last jedi. will add as things crop up.

[ splitting starters off into the comments below to save on wall-of-text properties! can be reached by PM or at

comatoseroses for plotting! ]

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[ They could consider making this a permanent change, just to cut back on the wait time. Something to pitch at the next team meeting. He doesn't seem to mind being studied. All the better to study Chyler right back. He squints a little and everything.

His plan is to try to be casual about this. That plan never works. Go figure. ]

I'm at least as all right as you are. Woke up. Couldn't go back to sleep. [ Finn pulls a face. ] I'm pretty sure neither of us is allowed to say we're great right now.

[ She breathes out a laugh, smiling faintly for the first time. ]

Fair. [ A long pause. She takes the chance to drink some coffee, hot as it still is, to try and put her thoughts in order.

Casually, maybe too casually: ] What woke you up?

[ Sometimes it's mystifying, the ways in which Chyler is so... directly on his level. The way she tries to wield casualness like a sharp stick is one of those ways.

John's better at that. Even when casual isn't actually working, he's better at acting like it is.

Finn momentarily grapples with the internal debate of "nothing and I'm fine bc I am a very mature and stable person" and "we're literally already both here at three in the morning, there's nothing stable about that". ]

Weird dreams. It happens sometimes.

[ Well. Strictly speaking, it's less often that he'll have a dream he can't sleep again after. If he's up at this hour, he usually couldn't get to sleep at all in the first place. It's in the same neighborhood, though.

Finn knows better than to not be a little suspicious of the convenience of this late-night meetup. If he's honest. The fact that he woke up and charged out to knock on her door and she called within a minute. Can't trust anything to be coincidence anymore. ]

You too?

[ Chyler takes a deep breath and nods.

It's too big a coincidence. Far too big. She's finding she believes in random happenstance less and less the longer she's in Riverview. There's always a reason for the strangeness here, even if it's not clear at first. It would be reassuring if the range of strangeness weren't so broad and unpredictable. ]

Very. [ She hesitates. ] You were in them, actually.

[ He takes back all the times he's thought the Quarantine isn't so bad. Okay, not every single time. Finn is both petty and vindictive enough to consider the prospect. ]

Small world. [ Presumably by deliberate design. There's solidarity in how weird real life is being. They aren't suffering alone. On the other hand, what's the best way to ask a person if they had the same dream as you. Might as well be up front? ]

Any chance you were up because it was a good weird that we both lived through?

[ A lot of his questions, he already thinks he knows the answers to. Since they're both here at this time of night and all. ]

[ Her face does A Thing where it wavers between laughter and crumpling in upset for a second before settling into neutrality. ]

No. No, on both counts. [ She squeezes her coffee cup a little tighter. ] You?

[ He taps a finger against his cup once, twice. Briefly purses his lips. ]

No. [ Catch him dead before he sees it happen in real life, frankly. 0/10. ] It's fine, though. We're here. We're good.

[ And if he says it the right way maybe they'll both be completely over it. Then, if cautiously, because if he's made it this far in the asking he might as well make sure they both know for sure: ]

Trees and snow?

[ Safer for him than "the room with the sand," safer for her than "the aliens who shot the purple spikes". He thinks. ]

Trees and snow.

[ She exhales quietly, somehow feeling better knowing it for sure that he was there. She wasn't alone, and neither was he. Even if it ended the way it did, at least it ended this time with her knowing that she wasn't being left behind.

Chyler reaches tentatively across the table and puts her hand on Finn's wrist. ]

[ That's a feeling that he knows. As much as part of him is stuck on the wouldn't wish it on someone setting at any given time, as much as he knows most of his friends are the same way--

Better the two of them dreaming together than having to go through it separately. Better that he could be there. Even just in a very vivid magic dream. He shifts to turn his wrist and take her hand instead, not quite as tentative, but still cautiously enough that she can pull away if she's not a fan. ]

I like the coffee better. [ That's a weak joke even by his standard. ] Sorry about-- you know.

[ I mean if she knows, he sure actually doesn't know exactly what he's apologizing for. Sorry in general??? ]

[ She relaxes into it, looking at their linked hands and feeling a fresh wash of gratitude. She still has a squad. It's small, it's new, but it's real. They would go just as far for each other as anyone in Hastati. ]

You stayed with me. [ There's nothing he could apologize for that she would accept, not when he did that. ]

Of course.

[ Something in her words, her tone, makes him think about finding Rey on Starkiller. The gentleness of it. Call him prone to highly-personalized priorities, but all he can really do is wonder why someone wouldn't. ] You got me out.

[ He was pretty much set to sit on the floor until... Kylo Ren came in to stab him, he guesses. He's not sure exactly how that was gonna go down. ]

[ She smiles. It's even genuine, an expression untinged with sarcasm or exasperation. ] Well, then I suppose we don't owe each other too much.

[ A very small joke. She doesn't know which of them owes the other more, in the grand emotional scheme, but it's enough that they're bound together by that mutual responsibility, the fact that they would go to greatest lengths for each other. Even if it means death. There's something reassuring in that.

She's tired. So tired. Too awake to sleep, maybe too tired to talk. Chyler smooths her thumb over Finn's knuckles and braces herself to ask what she's never asked anyone. She's never had a reason to. There was always someone from her squad close at hand during the night, the comfort of someone else's breathing. ]

Can we stay together tonight?

I'm not big on obligation anyway.

[ All the best things in life are rooted pretty firmly in free choice.

The question is unexpected, especially coming from Chyler, but it's not unwelcome. Being alone isn't something Finn does much in any case when he's got the option. Gets too quiet. Never feels right.

And he knows that even if she hadn't asked, if they'd gone back to their own places, he'd be lying on the floor feeling too on-edge to get the sense of rest that lying down can sometimes offer. Let alone sleep. ]

Sure. I'd like that.

[ It's way better than them just ending up texting or something all night. Like, it would just be nice to be able to look over at his friend and see that she's not impaled and dying. Some of the best things in life are also rooted in simplicity. ]

[ Something in her, some small fear, eases away. She definitely wouldn't have been sleeping, too busy thinking about Finn facing down the man with the red weapon, or surrounded by the monsters from her own world. Thinking about how that last scenario would play out, all the ways it could play out, ways she's seen and can imagine.

Hesitation, then: ] My room is closer, I think. I have spare blankets and sheets.

[ Because they are one hundred percent gonna end up on the floor it is known. ]

[ Sometimes friendship with Finn just means ending up in a bed nest on the floor. It's important to embrace this possibility.

He finds he has it in him to dredge up part of a smile. ]

Okay. Want a to-go cup?

[ A tiny sound that might be a laugh. ]

All right. Sounds good to me.

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