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Seated in the best catina on all of Yavin 4, Poe leans back in his chair. “When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to fly away from this place.”
His drinking buddy, his co-pilot, his former second in command, flicks an olive at him from the drink Poe ordered him. He catches it, narrowly, and pops it in his mouth. Finn laughs despite himself. “Is that so? What, it was too boring and peaceful for the soon-to-be great Poe Dameron?”
“Something like that.” It was not the whole truth and Finn could tell. He could always tell. He just has a sense for it. Back then, this moon he had called home felt far too small after his mother died. Nothing felt real enough to keep him here. The gravity Poe needed receded out into the black, and he knew he had to chase after it. It had led him plenty of places. Dark alleys, burnt villages, the edge of battlefields. But it led him to Finn, too.
Finn sips his drink. He won't admit its as good as Poe promised it would be. Poe just knows his tastes. “How does it feel being back here?”
“I wasn't sure what it would be like, but now...” Poe rubs the back of his neck. “Now, every time I lift off, all I can think about is how long it might take to get back.”
“That’s good though, isn’t it?” Finn pauses, leaning onto the bartop with his hand under his chin. “That means when you’re here, you’re home.”
“Suppose you’re right.” The ekes the smallest grin out of Poe. “Sorry, I shouldn’t—”
“Shouldn’t what?”
“What I have here, I know its a luxury. But It’s not like you have a home to go back to.” Poe winces. Of course he stuck his foot in his mouth.
“I see we’re not mincing words tonight.”
“That came out worse than I meant it. Its the daroroot beer, I swear—”
“Well, the beer isn’t wrong. Wherever I’m from, chances are the First Order cratered it when they’d taken all they could steal.” Finn shrugs. “But hey, I’ll find a new place eventually.”
“Yeah? Where are you thinking? Any where that comes to mind?”
Poe envisions Finn somewhere warm. Somewhere beautiful with bright light skies and refreshing rain. No droughts, no deep winters. Somewhere with fertile earth and heavy harvests. With enough infrastructure and travelers to give him something to do with his hands because he loved engineering and hated . But still a place with enough rustic life that he could enjoy the sunshine, the forests, the vines and the palm trees and fruit all year round. Somewhere close by. Somewhere suspiciously reminiscent of Yavin 4.
Finn mulls over his answer. “Maybe I’ll swing by Tatooine.”
Swallowing more beer, all Poe tastes like disappointment. “You? In a desert? That won’t last.”
“I wouldn’t be going for the hot sands and the blistering suns.”
“No. You’d be going for Rey.” Poe isn't bitter. He's not. “Is that really where you want to be?”
Finn doesn’t deny it. The drunk part of Poe wishes he would. “She invited me. We kept putting it off but…”
“But?”
“I still have things I need to tell her.”
“Things?
He groans. “Yes, Poe. Things.”
“Hm. Equally vague, mysterious, and unhelpful.” Poe claps finn on the shoulder. “Everything you need to woo a woman. I’ve clearly taught you well.”
Finn chuckles into his beer, but he does not deny it.
“Maybe a little too well.”
“Keep it up, Dameron and you’ll be drinking alone.
“I mean, if Rey’s stealing my wingman, isn’t that already on the horizon?”
There are two more steins deep in beer before he and Finn are calling it a night. Poe balances on Finn and Finn balances on Poe. Together march out into the dewey night of the jungle.
“You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone, Dameron.”
“No idea what you’re talking about pal.” Poe hiccuped, brushing vines out of his face. “‘Cause I already missin’ you.”
*
It takes them an entire day to sober up. By the next morning, Poe is up at the break of dawn to shake off the bleary weight. Finn is still laid out, grumbling about the ruckus of Poe firing up the stove top.
“I’m making breakfast,” Poe calls out. The lump on the bed doesn’t move until palm fruit oil touches the heated skillet and the air turns hot and fragrant.
“For the love of the force,” Finn croaks, burying his face in a pillow. “The smell alone might kill me.”
“Then it will be a sweet death. A delicious death.”
Finn rolls over. “If you love me you’ll put the hot plate down and let me die in peace.”
“I’m doing this because I love you. Trust me, a breakfast mash is what you need. Eggs, beans, a little bantha cheese and you’ll be right as rain—”
“People eat Bantha cheese?”
Poe shushes him with a wave of his wooden spoon. “It’s a delicacy.”
Coaxing a hung-over Finn is like reeling in a fish. He doesn’t pull too hard on the line but he makes sure he takes the bait. Its the sticky, fried plantains candied over with sugar that Finn can’t take his eyes off of. He pops a handful in his mouth when he thinks Poe isn’t looking.
“I didn’t know you could cook.”
“Of course I can cook.” Poe layers a line of shaved strips of soursop and mango on the grill and watches close as char licks at the juicy morsels. “You’ve been here for a week, Finn. You really haven’t seen me cooking?”
“Maybe? It’s easy to get distracted.” Finn gestures to the open window. “I mean, you’ve got this view.”
Outside, the jungle canopy below looks like a field of leaves and grass sturdy enough to walk on. It’s an illusion from the thick matted vines and limbs and branches reaching to the sun. The wood and foliage snake and coil together sheltering the understorey and every living creature that called Yavin 4 its home. The only thing keeping Poe and the other bipedal lifeforms brom the bush were the stilts and joists leveraging the structures to the mightiest of the rainwoods.
“Suppose when you say it like that, it isn’t too bad a view.”
“Are you kidding me?” Poe shoves a three course meal under Finn’s nose. He eats more, unthinkingly, as he keeps arguing at Poe. “I thought only kings and emperors could live like this.”
“Us generals do alright for ourselves, too. Besides, you won’t find anything like this on a desert planet.”
Finn chews thoughtfully on more grilled fruit. He’s quiet for the longest time and Poe thinks he must have given himself away.
“Have I really been here for a week?”
Poe nods.
“Sorry. I— I don’t know where the time went.”
“What d’you mean, Finn?”
As if by way of apology, Finn tests a forkful of the bantha cheese covered egg scramble. “Probably time I got out of your hair, is all.”
That’s the opposite of what Poe wants. He heaps more food onto Finn’s plate. “Its been great seeing you. I’m glad I’ve gotten to show you where I’m from. If I haven’t made it obvious, you’re welcome here as long as you want.”
“But what I’m asking is how long do you want me here.”
Poe pretends he didn’t here that last part. He isn’t ready to give Finn his real answer.
*
They head down to the temple and walk on foot. Poe steers Finn away from the shin-deep leech black pools lining the path. They won’t make it to the temple in time if they have to spend the morning pulling off needle-suckers to stave off blood loss.
“Why are we heading this way again?” Finn asks, eyeing a swarm of hornets overhead. “And why are we bringing all that food? Its like you want to get pounced by something with teeth and a keen sense of smell.”
“We’re going because of tradition. And most predators stay off the old Lakit Temple roads. We’re plenty safe.”
“We could have taken a speeder—”
“ Tradition , Finn. We walk to the Temple and we leave a dish for the hungry, the sick, and the lame.” Poe may have recited that last bit with his father’s intonations. “People on these moon have been doing this since the Massassi first built the temple.”
Finn swats away another vine. He doesn’t seem to notice it was a reptilian tail. “How often do people leave food? Is it for holidays?”
“Depends. Some people leave food once a season. Some every few weeks. Some do it everyday.”
“So, if you live on Yavin, and say you’re hungry for whatever reason… You just walk to the temple at the right time of day and there’s food? And no one stops you from taking it?”
Poe halts in his tracks. “Finn?”
“Even kids? The orphans, the runaways?” Finn waits as if Poe is forgetting something. As if there must be a catch. “Lost kids can just go to the temple and put food in their belly? That’s all they have to do?”
Poe nods, feeling his throat constrict. He’s known the pain of staggered rations and living light on credits, barely enough to subsist on. But he doesn’t know the starvation Stormtroopers faced. He’s never known Finn’s hunger.
The First Order might be long gone, but Poe knows in his heart they didn’t suffer enough for all they had done.
The dish in his hands suddenly doesn’t feel like enough of an offering. Poe hadn’t thought much to the food he heaped together. Had he any foresight at all, Finn would have wanted to bring something as well.
The wind changes and the foliage flows around them. An idea hits him just as quickly. “There’s a tree behind you, Finn.”
He squints. “There’s trees all over, Poe.”
“But this is a passion melon tree. Kids love it. Pick one and we can bring up with the rest of the food.”
Finn’s grin is contagious. He isn’t content with just one. He plucks as many of the heavy rounded fruits as he can carry — four in all — and they push forward through the jungle, ready to trek the temple steps. The climb is arduous, but only for Poe. There’s no keeping up with Finn’s new found enthusiasm. He’s in the sudden possession of an unrelenting desire to know all things customary across Yavin’s moons.
“A lot of it is traditions from the Massassi. They settled on Yavin 8 and 13. They built some even bigger temples there. Supposedly they cultivated half the fruits and herbs that grow in the jungle—”
Finn devours his every word, eyes taking in the sight of the Temple’s inner sanctum. High walls of stone bricks and ivy, clay ornaments, glittering tiles, and flowing fountains are everywhere. There are cracks everywhere where age and weather show their mark and moss carpeting every footstep to the offering tables. Finn is pleased to leave his fruits next to plates of steaming rice and stuffed grape leaves filled with mushrooms. He spies two little barefoot boys with dirty cheeks watching him as he sets his offering down. He winks at them and turns to follow Poe out.
“There should be more places like this in the galaxy,” Finn muses on the way down.
“There are,” Poe insists. “As much as I love my home planet, I can’t pretend we’re the only ones looking out for each other. Most times when people are left on their own, when there’s more peace than fear, that’s when you can have this.”
Finn is frowning. Poe isn’t sure how he knows, but he knows exactly what’s on Finn’s mind. The image of another battlefield, another war, more ruined villages and destroyed planets. With his hands in his pockets, Finn kicks a loose pebble down the steps. The rounded gray rock never thuds against the lower steps, instead unfolding and spreading iridescent wings, drifting off to the misty treetops. He watches it ruefully until it disappears. “Do you… do you ever feel bad about mustering out of the Resistance?”
“I don’t,” Poe admits faster than he means to. “But then I feel bad that I don’t.” He left the Fleet in good hands. At the rate Connix was raising through the ranks, she would be running the show before long.
“All I ever wanted was to get away from the fighting. I didn’t want to be anyone’s soldier.” There’s a twist of guilt to his features. Poe won’t stand for it.
“You did your part. And you weren’t just some soldier. You were a general, remember? Fully decorated.”
“How could I forget? You never let me.” Finn takes the lead between them, steering them home to Poe’s place on muscle memory. A few more weeks and there would be no telling Finn from the life-long inhabitants of this moon.
Poe thinks, that for all the tolls of war, there are some things it inevitably gives. Finding Finn was worth it. Worth all of it and more.
“I don’t miss it though,” Finn murmurs, ducking a threshold of vines. “The next war can take its sweet time in getting here.”
*
Along the river basin under Mount Lakit the floating market is thrumming. The fisheries have pulled in their mountainous hauls and stalls stand brimming over with seeds, figs, beans, and nuts. There’s cooking bowls and roasting boar and an aggressive econ-droid selling spare parts for water purifiers that nearly fleeces Finn out of a hundred credits. Poe should have better prepared him for the cut-throat vendors of Yavin 4. He might be overeager to prepare something for tomorrow’s temple offering, but at this rate he’ll be flat broke by moonset.
“This isn’t like a regular market, Finn. Don’t make eye-contact, unless you are ready to trade in gossip or unmarried sisters.”
Finn scoffs disbelievingly. “I don’t have any sisters?”
“That just means you’ll be up on the chopping block. If you don’t mind your manners you’ll be walking away with at least three marriage offers.”
“I’m a little afraid you’re being serious right now.”
With a cheeky grin, Poe figures a demonstration is in order. “Alright, watch this. I’ll get us those battery packs without laying down my bachelorhood in the process.” Poe saunters up to a familiar face. “Koro Tull? That you? No, it can’t be. Tully was twice as ugly last I saw him.”
A purple beaked face being chittered and turned. Its beady eyes narrowed on Poe and its feathers stood on end. “Son of a bipedal swine,” chirped it’s translator. “Poe of Dameron, many have spoken of your return. And only now you dare show your face here!”
“Oh, I definitely dare.”
“Your flightless form and lack of wing-span have not been missed.”
Poe slaps a hand over his heart. “Are you implying that I can’t fly?”
“The implication is unnecessary,” retorts the robotic voice. A feathered phalange wags in Poe’s face. “Koro of Tull was party to your first low atmosphere vehicle crash. There is still wreckage three clicks over!”
“I was eight, Tully!”
“Old enough to molt, old enough to maintain gravity transmission—”
“Still a cranky old bastard. If you really don’t want my business I know Blon Krice will get my friend here the batt chargers he needs…”
Koro Tull leans over his wares, hollow-boned shoulders cracking as he adopts the cold stare of a magpie. “Blon of Krice is a charlatan and a thief and you Poe of Dameron, spawn of Kes, will not be party to his ill-gotten wares.” Finn stands gobsmacked as the avian alien hands him three discounted packs while cursing the Dameron family name and wishing a rainfall of misfortune on the nest of Blon Krice. Yet in parting, the pair hug and Poe slips a credit chip into Tully’s vest.
“Spread many seedlings over your father’s terminal landing, Poe of Dameron.”
“Keep the wildest winds at that back of yours, Tully.”
Inspecting dried breadfruit laid over a woven blanket of palm fronds, Finn elbows him in the sides. “What in the Force was that? I thought he was going to peck your eyes out. All you did was insult each other.”
“Correct,” Poe pronounces. “That’s the only way to do it without having to marry one of his daughters. And he’s got dozens of daughters, last I checked.”
Finn got a doubtful air about him. “Something tells me that isn’t going to work at the Tatooine markets.”
Poe keeps himself from making a face. Any day now Finn could pack it in and take off. “I’m sure when you get there Rey will show you the ropes. But honestly, Finn, why the rush?”
Finn is gnawing a gamey piece of fried fruit, surprised at its sweetness. “Honestly?” He gestures towards the bamboo stalls and spiced meats and blue krill tanks and the rolling river and the high branches in the distance. “I think because I want this.”
“You want this… so you’re going to Tatooine?”
“Yeah.” Finn pauses, doubling back. “I mean, no. I want you— I want what you’ve got. This. Here, Poe. I want what you’ve got here. I want to be somewhere and know when I leave that I want to come back. I want to know, without question, that I’m going home.”
Poe bites down on his tongue. “And Tatooine feels like the most likely candidate?”
“It’s a place to start.”
In spite of himself, the next words come rushing out. “You could just stay here, y’know. There’s plenty of room on Yavin.”
Finn looks almost sorry to hear the offer. “But that wouldn’t be fair, now world it?”
Poe means to argue that what he’s saying makes no sense, but he accidentally locks eyes Momendra Giles who drags Poe by his collar to her stand to sell him pataxte seeds and cans of left over fizzwater and ask him which of her sons he will be wedding by the time the dry season returns.
*
Poe tries not to sulk. It’s no good for him and unwarranted to leave his hurt feelings at Finn’s feet. He tries to make the rest of the visit worthwhile. So long as he has Finn here with him, he wants to be with him. They spend their mornings cooking and carrying loads of food to the temple. They barter and mingle and take hydro-speeders out over the waters and Finn wins every face. He spends hours out past the coral reefs, skin licked with salt and making friends with shellfish. Wherever he comes from, if the planet’s surface isn’t at least eighty percent water then Poe will eat his old orange flight suit. And that’s a promise.
The nights they spend becoming regulars at the cantina. Finn’s learned have the Yavinese folk songs from here to Yavin 13. He’s learned the difference between his brews, syrups, nectars and he can finally hold his leena drink, or at least the knock-off brews that pass for cinnamon leena on this moon. But Finn’s favorite is the chocolate flavored ambrostine. Poe makes sure to order a glass a last call every night. It goes down sweet and warm and does the body good. Finn leans on Poe the whole way home.
In the morning, Poe will kick himself. He has to remember not to forget that this feeling isn’t his to keep.
*
Eventually, a transmission lands on the communication array Poe keeps meaning to unplug in his drawing room. Finn catches it, and Rey’s smiling face blinks into view. Poe waves hello and departs, giving them their privacy. He had known sooner or later Finn would be leaving. He couldn’t keep him forever.
There vid call is anything but brief. Poe manages to climb down from his home and ride out the hangar to shake off the dust from his shuttle, pick out some pineapple from his neighbors shrubbery, and drift back to his front door and find them still mid-comm.
Rey’s hologrammed face notices him before Finn does. She makes a face that Poe can’t parse out, and then she blinks away and cuts out immediately.
“What was that about?”
Finn scratches the back of his neck. “Nothing… nothing…”
“Riiight.” Poe doesn’t like that Finn won’t look at him. Maybe he’s given himself away. “Look, if it helps, I can get you to Tatooine faster than any commercial shuttle. Just tell me when you want to go.”
“Rey kinda of… she might have rescinded her invitation.”
Poe blinks. “Rescinded?”
“She told me not to come,” Finn clarifies, though it does not make any more sense. “She told me to do what I came here to do.”
Poe feels like he’s being messed with. Feels like he’s missed a step and left to coast without engine thrust. No gravity, no center, just endless drift.
Finn steps closer. Then closer. Then one last step until they even, shoulder to shoulder. He can feel his breathing. “She isn’t the only one who knows what I wanted to come to Yavin so bad. Jess and Snap saw right through me as soon as I asked about you. And everyone said this… this thing was obvious, so I don’t know what it’s been so hard.”
His body trains in on Finn’s body heat. He may not be liable for what he does next. “Finn…”
“Talking about it. Saying it. That’s the hard part. Everything else though? Being here? On a planet with no sand? Surrounded by people who’ve known you since you were a kid, and have all these embarrassing stories about you that they just can’t wait to share? And the food and the hospitality and the temple and the beach; there’s nothing here I don’t love. There’s no reason I would ever leave. Except if Palpatine somehow resurrects himself again because there’s no war I wouldn’t fight to keep this planet just the way it is.”
Finn is out of breath. So is Poe, and he hasn’t said a single word.
“I told you I want to be somewhere and feel like I’m home. So earlier, when you asked me to stay, I need you to know exactly what I’m hoping for—”
Poe grabs Finn by his bicep, harder than he means to. The embrace is fast but the kiss is slow. Kissing him like it’s their last night in the galaxy, honing in on the ever sensation, dragging him deeper until there’s nothing left unspoken between them. Poe leans back, a fraction of space and Finn beams like they’ve won the Battle of Exegol all over again.
“So does this mean I can stay?”
Poe rolls his eyes, breathless and happy, more than ready to tell every man, woman, and being in the market that his hand in marriage is well spoken for.
“If she wants, Rey can visit us here. But there’s no way we’re headed to Tatooine during the dry season…”
fin.