riverviewlogs | [ closed/open ] Highway to the danger zone

[ You know what Finn's still never really ended up doing in the near... what, five months he's been in this city with Poe and BB-8? He's never really ended up learning how to understand droid. It's just. Been not a huge priority.

Who needs to learn when his best friends are fluent and he's been living with at least one of them this entire time? No one, that's who. Realistically, he probably meant to get a little more into the prospect at some point. Things have a way of happening. Life gets busy.

He's picked up a thing here and there, though, over all this time. The very specific series of sounds that BB-8 uses to address Poe, and the same for Rey. And judging by their reactions to several other specific beeps, at least three straight-up strings of profane insults.

So when BB-8, sans Poe, comes rolling up to him at top speed and lets out every string of insults Finn can remember and possibly then some, and the sounds that are presumably Poe's name, Finn can only assume it's the intervening-party version of getting another "I did something stupid" message. This is where the real Lassie recreation comes into play, because Finn is booking it after BB-8 and doing a lot of "what did he do" even though he literally can't understand the answers.

BB-8 leads him to... a kind of trashy-looking bar. And Finn figures yeah, that might as well be happening, a solid bad sign. And from inside the bar, what can only be described as the tell-tale signs of a ruckus.

BB-8 makes a long and detailed series of low-pitched sounds. Finn just says "I'm pretty sure I agree with that" and pushes his way in.

How bad is this vibe and does he literally have to come in swinging? Because he will if he has to. He spars with Jyn all the time, his fear can no longer be reserved for big slow drunk dudes. ]

[ Well, that sure is Poe getting thrown onto a table. He rolls off of it just in time for the guy who tossed him there to punch the polished wood and then reel back, holding his hand and yelling in pain.

Poe doesn't finesse it. He doesn't use any of the hand-to-hand he learned in the Navy or since.

He just straight-up bullrushes the guy and tackles him into two other guys, who look less than happy about it. ]

[ Okay, you know what.

He doesn't know what he expected. This, probably. He was kind of hoping it wouldn't be this, is all. But that's life. Getting exactly what you expect when you really wish you wouldn't.

Step one: get the hell into the fray.

Step two: get Poe by the back of the jacket and haul him up.

Step three: didn't think terribly far ahead, and known for making impulsive team-based decisions. He guesses he's just going to try to finish as much of this fight as possible so that Poe doesn't get the satisfaction? Finn thinks he's angry about this. Still working on being sure. It should depend on the circumstances, right? This could be a first-time thing. This could be a misunderstanding. All he knows is that BB-8 wanted him to come here, maybe because he thought the odds weren't looking great. Benefit of the doubt.

Finn has a gut feeling that his doubt is well-founded.

So he puts thinking about anything on hold for a little while and knees a gentleman in the stomach. It's fine, this is fine. Two minutes, easy. ]

[ Poe thinks two things at once. The first is simple: "Shit. Finn is here."

The second is... also pretty simple, actually. It's guilt and shame. He didn't want Finn to know what he was doing. He can't begin to explain why.

He doesn't have time to think about it, though, not when his brief distraction earns him a punch to the jaw. He sees stars and hears BB-8's loud trill of protest before the guy hanging on to him crashes downward and nearly takes Poe with him. BB-8 is the source of the other man's fall--apparently the droid decided to roll full speed into the guy's ankles.

Finn is dealing with Guy #2. Which leaves Guy #3 to Poe, for now, and he has to step quick to get between Guy #3 and Finn. He ducks a wild punch and knees the guy in the stomach, boxing his ears for good measure.

Two minutes. No problem at all. ]

[ Finn was very right in his self-pep-talk thoughts. Compared to Jyn, this is kind of like trying to hit the broad side of a dead hutt. The guy's drunk, he's sloppy, and he's angry. It's almost embarrassingly easy pickings at this juncture.

Finn doesn't waste time with taunts or vindictive extra strikes once he's put him on the ground. He just leaves him there. Straightens his jacket back out.

Turns to look at Poe, assuming he's made good on his unspoken promise to deal with contestant #3 in the meantime, with his fingers flexing fruitlessly at his sides. This is probably the part where he's supposed to start arguing. Yelling. Complaining about running out here for an emergency that turned out to be... this. It doesn't really happen that way. He's buzzing with energy, but it doesn't want to get channeled out in that direction. ]

I would appreciate it if you left with me, Poe.

[ He doesn't wait for an answer before making for the door again. Bust in, beat someone up, immediately walk back out. Sounds legit. If Poe's coming, he's coming. If he's not, he'll undoubtedly get kicked out sooner or later and Finn will scrape him off of the sidewalk himself. There aren't too many ways for this to end, as far as he can tell.

There are things that he's not good with. Not equipped for. More than he'd like. This feels like one of them, however passingly familiar something about it all is. ]

[ Well, shit.

Finn is here, and he is angry. Possibly angrier than Poe has ever seen him, if the evenness of his tone is anything to go by. Poe feels like he's been caught out doing something stupid by his father, which is a strange sensation given how long it's been since anything like that happened. And how much younger and smaller Finn is than Kes Dameron.

BB-8 doesn't even wait for him. Just rolls out the door on Finn's heels.

He's doubly in the barghest house.

Poe trails them outside, bracing himself, starting to speak before he even knows what he wants to say. ]

Look, Finn, I don't know what you think that was, but....

[ Poe follows. It's a small mercy. It's a lot better than the alternatives. ]

Great. That makes two of us. [ Angry is a good start. Not everything his brain is working overtime trying to cover all at once, a little frazzled and floundering, but clear enough that Finn can grab the thread and try to figure out where to start.

Scared might also be a good place to start. Finn knows that feeling better than anything. His nerves are still lit up with it. (When aren't they?)

He's not Poe's-- guardian or keeper or anything. It's not his call whether or not Poe decides to do something, even something like this, and he knows that. He respects that, he respects the importance of choice. It's not his place to try to put a leash on anyone.

But he thinks maybe if Poe feels the need to try to explain it away right off the bat, then Poe figures it's something that he didn't want to get caught out doing. And following that line of thought, if he tries to frame this as a matter of... strategy, maybe? It makes it something Poe theoretically figures he shouldn't be doing. Probably. That's worth noting. Has to be a reason for that.

Finn runs a hand down his face. It doesn't help much, so he winds up running it over his hair, winds up pacing a tight line, four or five steps and military-sharp turns. ]

Are you hurt? [ Okay, good. Objectively, that actually is the most important thing to start with. Just to be safe. Then: ] Are you drunk?

[ This isn't a conversation (or argument, or plan to start yelling, or a lot of things, depending on where his brain lets him land eventually) he intends to get into if Poe isn't all there. ]

No more than usual. [ Poe winces. That was a dumb answer. It was a revealing answer.

BB-8 lets out a chorus of scolding noises and Poe winces again. ] And I'm not drunk.

[ Poe watches Finn scrub his hand through his hair, start to pace, guilt gnawing fresh holes through him. So much for taking the opportunity to get out of his own head, out of the warren of emotions he keeps getting lost in. He just wanted to stop feeling for a little while, and look where that's gotten them both.

He glances back toward the bar, a thought suddenly occurring to him. ] We should move. In case they get kicked out.

[ He doesn't have any illusions about what those guys will do if the people who kicked their asses are in arm's reach on neutral territory. He never meant to drag Finn into his stupid fight, and he'd rather not get Finn caught up in a second wave.

So he starts walking, slowly, hoping Finn will follow or lead, while BB-8 waits on Finn's lead. ]

[ BB-8, the original droid son. Some part of Finn wants to dig in his heels and refuse on to budge on principle. He's not sure what the principle would be. The principle of stubbornness and argument, maybe.

He's not in the mood for some weird public brawl. Definitely not in the mood to get arrested for it. Finn matches Poe's pace easily enough, then, still buzzing with energy, starts a weird cycle of walking too fast and overtaking him, falling back until he inevitably speeds up again. This is a regular Greek myth level purgatory.

He wonders if he knows anyone who knows the ins and outs of handling these situations well. He becomes very aware that he doesn't think he does know anyone like that. Just trying to get by and function until there's room to think about more than functioning is one of the things that they all sort of have in common. Even Poe. Poe was one of the first people he learned that about, as early on as the Perimeter Guard boot camp.

Obviously, he doesn't stay quiet very long at all. ]

You know, when we talked about needing each other alive, I really assumed we both meant alive and in one piece if we could manage it. I don't think you're doing a lot of managing right now.

[ Mentally, physically, emotionally. Take your pick. All of them. ]

[ Poe's chest goes tight. It's been happening, lately. Tight chest, tight throat, eyes burning when he's doing things as simple or stupid as making dinner or working on his mom's ship.

He could tell Finn he's fine. He could lie. But he's pretty sure that's not going to fly, not with what Finn just saw and did for him. It didn't work on John. Why would it work on Finn?

There's no hiding the surge of misery that washes through him. (When was the last time he felt happy? Before he left John. And that's what he did. He left him. He found his mother's ship, a wreck in the jungle, and then he ran from everything it meant and could mean.) ]

I'm.... [ What? He's what? He's already ruled out fine as even a possible answer.

Poe sags and looks away. ]

[ It's good all around that Poe doesn't finish off with "fine". Finn was gearing up for a "fine," which is to say he was gearing up to get very angry about the insult of trying it. ]

You're starting to scare me. And I get the feeling you're not scaring yourself, so I'll go ahead and be scared enough for both of us. [ That makes sense. He thinks. ] I know what a punishment looks like. Whatever you think you're fixing by getting thrown into tables, you're not. You're wrong.

[ AND IF FINN HAS TO PUNCH HIM TO PROVE IT.... that's probably very counterproductive. Hm. ]

I'm not punishing myself. I'm not trying to fix anything, I'm just...

[ Trying to get out of his own head. Trying to hurt something worse than he's already hurt himself. Looking for a way to stop feeling, and this isn't perfect, but feeling nothing but pain is a respite. It's something.

It's something.

He would go to Leia, if he could. If he trusted her to do more than command him to stop and then disappear. He's starting to wonder, he has to wonder, if she's even his Leia at all. His Leia... His Leia is different.

Paige is gone. John might as well be. His mom's ship is here, rusted and out of shape, like a dark promise of how long things stay in this place. How long they'll have to wait to get home, if they ever do. (If they do, if they do, a new doubt that's been cutting Poe to pieces strip by strip.) ]

I just. [ His eyes burn. Poe closes them. ] I just need this.

Edited 2018-05-26 01:33 (UTC)

[ Finn is starting to realize he really didn't figure out what he wanted to try to do about this situation when he went kicking open bar doors. All he really has on his side is disagreement. Poe can be as stubborn as he is impulsive on his best days.

Finn trusts him more than anyone. Maybe even Rey depending on the situation, because things have been-- different with her. Even with all the rationalizing he's done to justify how she thinks and how she sees things, even after the canister and starting to talk to her again. He doesn't understand it. Not really. It's hard moving around that.

Poe is a lot of things, but they've always undoubtedly been Poe. He leaves his boots in the middle of the floor. He bickers about petty things with a grin on his face, like he's mostly in it because it's funny to watch people get riled up about them, only sometimes he gets genuinely invested along the way and the grin fades out while he gets more and more frustrated. He chides BB-8 for bad language, then stubs his toe and swears up a storm. Finn's never seen him toast a marshmallow without catching it on fire. He still makes things more human. Even when he's frustrating or not at his best, he's good.

Poe gets pushed to a limit or punched in the gut or scraped out hollow and still tries to keep giving, to not need help.

It comes back to that a lot, with Poe. Not wanting or needing or wanting to need help. Not asking for it. Finn doesn't really understand that, either, he never has, but it's a less cutting thing to be aware of.

He reaches for Poe's wrist without thinking about it. Grips it carefully. ]

If I believed that, I'd cover you in as many sloppy fights as you wanted.

[ Poe makes a sound like he's been punched in the chest. Like Finn has done it, specifically.

BB-8, rocking back and forth the way he does when he's anxious, pops the arc welder from his side and whistles his willingness to take Poe down too. Poe has to wonder how much the little droid understands about the offer. How much of his response is based on knowing how Poe's mind works and how much of it is based on Finn's reaction.

He keeps his eyes closed, because looking at either one of them right now might make him cry. He's been distant from everyone he knows, lately. Either unintentionally avoiding them or actively trying to stay out of their way. He can feel himself cutting loose from the world, from this place, and he's starting to think he finally knows what it feels like to be displaced.

He's in mourning, for himself, for his people, for his cause, for everything. Ren's words come back to sting him all over again.

A fanatic cut off from your cause. You have no purpose.

You will never bring those lives back. You can never really avenge them.

The helplessness must be maddening.

Those words, playing in his head, over and over again, with every fight since. Every one more brutal. Every one with odds more and more slanted against him.

He's not trying to punish himself. He's trying to destroy himself. He just hasn't thought of a quicker way to do it.

He finally opens his eyes, giving Finn a look that's pure hopelessness. It's I'm going crazy, it's I want to kill them, it's I'm lost, and I don't know where home is any more.

He can't even bring himself to say Finn is right, that he doesn't need this, because he believes it. He believes that he does. ]

[ The irritation fades out more quickly than it first struck. Poe turns paper-thin in his hand, turns barely propped up and liable to implode. It radiates outward like it has its own energy. Something that burned so hot it turned cold. Something that stopped burning, with nothing left for fuel.

Finn feels a pang of sympathy, even without the details of why he's been doing this, why it's happening, what the tipping point was.

He thinks about Poe in his hospital room, spikes of anger buried in with long stretches of vacant staring. He thinks about that handful of fighters backed into a corner on Crait, the desperate, muted pall that fell over them and spread. About Rey, and Poe lately, how unsettling it is to miss a person when they're standing right there. About Slip, and how easy it is to lose someone while all you can do is watch.

He's glad he mentioned being scared enough for the both of them, because he's viscerally aware of how true it is in this moment.

Finn hesitates. Drops his grip on Poe's wrist only to step into his space and pull him into a hug, for lack of any immediate ideas about what to say. That much, most definitely, is something he's picked up from the Poe Dameron school of daily living. ]

We're still in this together. We're still a team.

[ It's not enough to say that. It's never enough to get across what he means, it's one of the most important things he can say but it's not right. If Rey became home, Poe is the door that let him in. If Rey is the moon, Poe is the first constant star. ]

You know I'd cover you anyway, right?

[ Another noise. Broken grief. Poe slowly wraps his arms around Finn in return, like the motion is one he's remembering how to make.

He presses his face against Finn's shoulder, feeling the sting of fresh bruises and a lip that's split in two places. Then he tightens the hug like hanging on to Finn is the one thing that can keep him anchored to this moon. Like if he lets go he really will drift off, suffocate somewhere out there between this moon and its pastel planet. ]

I know.

[ His voice is quiet, scraped bare. It breaks when he speaks again. ] I know.

Edited 2018-05-28 05:25 (UTC)

[ Okay. As long as he knows that much. It's a start.

Finn lets Poe call the shots on how long the hug stretches out. Since it seems like Poe could use it, and it's not like Finn has anywhere he's supposed to be. Let alone anywhere he's supposed to be that would beat this in a priorities lineup. Riverview wishes it had anything to throw at him that could keep his people from getting top billing.

It also gives him that little bit of extra time to line up his... what to do next. He's winging it. Just a little. ]

[ It stretches out. It stretches into gratitude and guilt, from guilt back into grief. ]

We could be stuck here, Finn. We could be stuck, forever.

[ A wave of exhaustion he's been keeping ahead of for the better part of a month washes through him, carried by the image of his mom's ship, rusting quietly in the jungle. Is she somewhere out there on the Capital World? Is she alive, is she dead, was she never here at all?

This is the first time he's voiced a possibility that's haunted him from the moment he recognized the A-wing's scuffed red paint. It had been there long enough to start to come to pieces.

What if they never get to go home? ]

[ Things start to make more sense, just like that. Finn can't put the timeline from point A all the way to point B. This is the heart of it, though. He doesn't need to dig.

He doesn't try to brush off the notion, because it's true. There's no way of knowing for sure.

The First Order raised his cadre for a war he didn't see until he was 23 years old. In a way, the situation in waiting to go home is almost second nature. It might be harder on someone like Poe. While Poe's about on par with Finn for impulsiveness, his brand of impatience is very different.

Poe is so much worse at sitting still. ]

We could. [ They could be here for years. They could go home tomorrow. ] Doesn't mean we're giving up, right?

[ He knows he's not. If it's another day or another ten years, he knows he'll take the first road home they offer. They need to be there. So they'll get there somehow.

(He's entertained the thought of hoping to be able to come back someday, maybe. It's the most he's put into any sort of after-the-war hypothetical in his life.

But it always, always, comes after.) ]

[ He presses his face against Finn's shoulder. Familiar rough leather, familiar rough smell. He can hear BB-8 making encouraging noises, agreeing with Finn, and feels the pressure of the droid rolling over to lean against his leg.

For a few seconds more, Poe just lets Finn hug him. For just a few seconds more. ]

No.

[ He doesn't do that. He doesn't give up.

(That's why the bars, the fights, the endless rounds he can't win. It's easier to have someone beat him into oblivion than to do it to himself alone. )

He slowly lets go. Exhales, lifts his head away from Finn's shoulder. He doesn't know what to do now. He's tired. Exhausted. He just looks down at BB-8, because it's easier than trying to look Finn in the eyes after all this. ]

[ He can take his time with it. That probably goes without saying, of course.

It's a start. As long as Poe knows he's here regardless, it's a start. ]

Want some waffles? I know a place. If you don't wanna go back yet.

[ Poe stares at him for a moment, uncomprehending, trying to sort "want some waffles" into the context of this conversation.

His lips twitch into a smile. ]

Yeah. Okay.

[ closed/open ] Highway to the danger zone

timmy is stuck in a well, a dramatic retelling

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