[ She'd hoped to avoid this, but she'd also had the good sense to be ready for it. Finn's doubt makes sense to her. She understands how much of what she feels has grown out of the bond, out of the private understanding that she and Ben have shared with one another. So she'd known this wouldn't be easy, even if she'd hoped it would.
But ultimately that hope remains. Finn might be struggling with it now, but he will understand. He'll see it for himself sooner or later. More to the point, not understanding isn't a judgment against her. She digs her heels in. ]
He's changed. And his actions prove it. Did Poe tell you that Ben saved his life? [ She sounds incredulous even now as she says it. There's a huge valley between 'not killing people' and 'actively helping people,' and apparently that leap has been made. ] When we go home, we're going to destroy Snoke. Together.
[ Poe didn't mention that. Between the part of the conversation that involved Kylo Ren where he was lying on the ground trying not to be seen, and the weirdness of all the other parts of it, it probably fell through the cracks. Finn would be the first to admit that if Poe brought it up on the beach... he'd have still been so keyed up about Kylo Ren being here at all that it wouldn't have made much of a blip on his radar.
This is a more significant blip. A noteworthy blip. Rey wouldn't lie about it, for starters, which means it's cemented as a factual event. That means Finn can't brush it off or pretend otherwise. Does he, in the fashion of an anime protagonist when the last arc's antagonist apparently does a moral turn, immediately assume that Ren did it because he stood to benefit from it somehow? By throwing them off-guard or angling to get the benefit of the doubt?
Yes. That's sort of what he ends up doing when the confusion is done blatantly bleeding into his expression. ]
What does he get out of killing Snoke? What does he want out of it? [ Because there has to be something. ] And when did this turn over to Ben?
Visibly crestfallen, Rey can't help but look away from Finn when she sees the incredulity and confusion written all over his face. At least it's not resentment, she tells herself, but this isn't even the hardest part. Something dark seizes upon that look on his face and tries to tell her that maybe it's too much at once, that he needs time, and she needs to figure out how to present it, but that's the paranoia and mistrust that she has worked hard to burn out of her, to purge, nearly at the cost of purging her relationship with Ben. She can't succumb to it now.
They're hard questions to answer, not least of all because she lacks the experience still to have a strong awareness of her own feelings, but that doesn't mean Finn doesn't deserve a clear answer. ]
I told you that we grew closer.
[ The weight of this statement seems to set aside the efforts to answer the rest. Finn already has the answer, anyway. He's the one who had been so insistent that actions were what mattered. She looks back at him. Because this IS a shounen anime and Naruto is NOT giving up on Sasuke just because he did some really fucked up shit to Sakura that one time. ]
The Dark Side feeds on pain and loneliness. I've seen how easy it can be to give into that, and how hard it is to root it out once it's there. But he still has a chance to turn away from it. As long as there's light inside of him, I'll choose to have hope.
[ She needs there to be a chance for him. If there's not, it means being alone like she was before. It seems too cruel the that Force should lead her to him like this, entwine them, only to rip him away. ]
[ As far as answers to the name question go, he guesses that's a fair one.
And Rey, he thinks, has a knack for seeing things for what they could be. That's a good thing. He's not sure what else there is to say about it, because he believes that. It's not bad to hope. It's not bad to choose it.
So he takes a long moment to think over what he wants to say. Looks at the floor so intently he might be trying to bore holes into it. ]
If you say he saved Poe's life, then he did. If you say he-- helped you somehow. Helps you. I don't get it, but I'll believe it. If you say you're sure he won't hurt anyone here, I'll trust that. Because I trust you.
[ Poe seemed pretty firm on believing in that much, too.
Finn looks back up. ]
All he gets from me is a temporary ceasefire, Rey. That's as far as I go.
[ He wouldn't go back and change how things have happened to him. He wouldn't. Meeting Rey and Poe and Rose, ending up where he's ended up, figuring out what he's figured out. He wouldn't trade out getting to be Finn. That's who he is. And he knows where he belongs.
But on some level, beyond the war, beyond the scar on his back, beyond everything Kylo Ren did on Starkiller, beyond the short-lived screams of the villagers on Jakku-- putting that all aside, part of Finn still can't help but bristle with personal resentment.
To know where your home was, to know your family, to know your own name. To have someone offer you a free ticket out, after everything. To get a chance handed to you, and a door to leave through, and somewhere to go, instead of stumbling through it terrified, banking on a desperate dreg of hope in the form of a stranger in a holding cell.
To have all that and to throw it away-- to reach out and kill it-- he can't imagine it. He can't make it make sense or find it in him to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who could.
Not today, anyway. Not this fresh off of things back home. ]
[ He trusts her. Even if he doesn't get it, he trusts her. She grabs onto that, holds onto it tight. Her hand itches to grasp his, to hold onto him and take what he's giving and leave it there and forget all about making it clear.
But hadn't she just been the one to point out that pain and loneliness feed the Dark? Her fear of those things does too. She bites down on it. ]
I understand. [ She wouldn't have been able to either. Not so fresh off of Han's death. ] I'm not trying to make you see him the way that I do. But I need you to understand what I see, so that you can understand why …
[ Her brow furrows. She searches his face. She really doesn't even know how to make this happen in words. ]
I have feelings for him.
[ Is it cowardly to hope that their present circumstances fill in the rest? ]
[ How to progress from No Fear to One Fear in a sentence. He doesn't know what he expected, but it probably wasn't that? ]
You have feelings for him?
[ That came out louder than he thought it would. Yikes. I'm sorry your friends and loved ones are all disasters Rey 2k18. Finn adjusts his volume appropriately, leaning in a little. ]
[ Wow that was … loud. Rey looks around like she's expecting the other people around to care or something, but let's be honest, the only people who care about this soap opera are the ones engaged in it. Still, it apparently cues Finn to drop his voice, because when he repeats himself it's only for her.
But no less scandalized, incredulous, and possibly judgy. ]
Yes. Feelings.
[ That's slightly snapped. This wasn't easy!!! To admit!! R'iia's shorts, she's trying to open up here. ]
[ Half of them are just waiting to walk past them to the vending machines without feeling they might get roped in, probably.
His first thought is to ask something like why or how, but before either of them gets out, Finn remembers that a lot of this conversation so far has been covering exactly that. The only thing it didn't include was him thinking to draw a potential... Feelings line between any of it in the process.
Rey has feelings for Kylo Ren. It's a whole real thing that's really happening. There are enough of them being felt to be worth mentioning, here on the sex island facility. Which yeah, Finn can put two and two together on without needing it spelled out.
He was so sure he was used to the maximum level of things he doesn't inherently get. It turned out to be the equivalent of saying "I have a a bad feeling about this." He's left unsure of exactly what to do with this information or how to kickstart the processing on it yet.
So where he settles as far as responding is: ]
And I'm gonna assume he has feelings back.
[ This is the only aspect of this moment in time that Finn can 100% understand. Like, it's been 2 years. Literally anybody should probably be in love with Rey after that long or they're not reasonable. ]
[ Honestly Rey could kiss him for that conclusion because if she had to do another round of Keith's new mixtape, the title of which is 'He acts like you don't matter at all,' she'd probably scream. Repeatedly. Instead, something kind of … unclenches, in her chest.
And she realizes it's not Finn being like fuck this crazy girl who falls in love with serial killers in prison that she has feared, but rather the chaotic hellscape of other people delegitimizing this Thing she can't articulate or describe. Finn, being the perfect human being that he is, sidesteps it all in one fell swoop. One well-reasoned conclusion.
It assuages her primarily because it's obviously rooted not in 'Kylo Ren has the capacity to love another human being,' which Finn is probably still processing, but rather on the premise that 'Rey is someone worth loving.'
It's fine. She has zero self worth issues after being sold into scavenger slavery. This would be revolutionary to anyone … right? ]
Yes.
[ And she can answer it honestly because she's sure. As sure of it as she is of her own feelings and of the fact that the sun makes the sand warm. There's been a lot of back-and-forth, and they have lots more push-and-pull to go before they understand how to deal with those feelings while being so opposite despite being so similar, but that question is easily answered.
She opens her mouth with some further justification or explanation or — well, she's not sure what. But ultimately she shuts her mouth and bites her tongue because the whole point of telling Finn is giving him the chance to Have Feelings about it. ]
[ He's not sure if he buys that Kylo Ren legitimately does have the capacity for something like that. Or-- not in a way that's good, if Finn factors in that it stands to reason that Ren loved Han Solo somehow. Something that either stopped or warped.
Not that he guesses he's all that knowledgeable on the matter? It's been about a week since he hit the real world emotional circuit, and before he got to this place in particular, things were pretty much stressful and fast-paced the whole time. Breathing room is wild. Softness is nothing short of novel.
He's still not sure he believes Kylo Ren has it in him.
It's like, he would try to argue this into the ground somehow, but he also isn't sure what his arguments would... be. It would just be him telling her things she already knows about Kylo Ren, or things that he knows that she's apparently been working on for two years. She's known Kylo Ren longer than Finn's known her now.
At the very, very end of the day-- well, he's not anybody's keeper. Certainly not Rey's. His people aren't things he keeps on leashes while he tells them where to go and what to do and who they can or can't get feelings for.
He's been on the other end of that. The only thing more terrifying than going back under that metaphorical thumb is the idea of doing it to someone else. ]
I don't like it.
[ But yeah, he still wanted his opinion out there.
Could Rey wipe the floor with Kylo Ren if she had to? Undoubtedly. Does knowing that prevent a thrill of fear, some instinctive dread tied into not wanting her to get hurt, wanting her to be safe? Not really. It prevents nothing. ]
[ Candor has always been one of Rey's greatest strengths, and she withholds none despite the seriousness of this topic. She didn't think he would like it, but she told him anyway. And he doesn't like it, but he's not running away or acting disgusted with her.
Except this was where the plan ended. True to form, Rey got as far as Action Step 1 and was like ok that's enough planning my brain is tired. Time to go home. So now it's just out there, sitting between them, and she's not really sure what the resolution looks like. ]
[ Star Wars, the Next Generation: making plans up on the fly. Between Rey, Finn, and Poe alone, there is a consistent circulation between these memes at all times in terms of preparation.
Finn is also running pretty firmly into uncharted territory right now. ]
I don't know. I don't think I can say it is? [ He probably showed up to this meeting half expecting it to just be about a murder or some other big fight the other Finn never got to resolve or something.
It's Kylo Ren. But it's Rey. Repeat ad nauseam. ] But I don't want you to think--
[ When you've never actually told anyone you love them or care about them in your entire life and are a mess, so you mentally slam your face into the keyboard a few times hoping to come up with a good way to convey what you're trying to say. ]
Look, I really don't know how to handle this. [ Finn fails at his mental acrobatics, mostly, and reaches out for Rey's hand on impulse instead. ] I think you're still you. And I think you're good. And I don't wanna be somewhere without you when I know you're right there.
[ He doesn't currently foresee a future where he thinks about this enterprise and is like "yeah, it's okay." But he can't pretend she didn't lay out the timeline and general mood in a way he understood, either. She went out of her way to explain it instead of taking the easy way out and just not mentioning it.
He'd rather have to try to figure it out than fall into the actual worst-case scenario, which is just. Not having Rey around. He's not about that life. He lived it and he hated it. She's sort of everything. She outweighs everything in importance. ]
[ His first answer punches her in the gut. Takes the wind right out of her sails. Something fractures in her expression, crumbles, and it's only when his hand finds hers that she remembers to breathe at all. It feels too much like losing him, and that's a dizzying, horrifying feeling. Finn was the first person to ever treat her like she was worth something, the only person to consistently do so. The prospect of losing that hits her where it hurts.
She squeezes his hand like it's a lifeline.
Every part of her knows that she shouldn't, that this feeling is a bad one. She shouldn't be this desperate to hold onto people. So afraid to lose them. But she has to accept that fear, not hide from it. Accept it, then move on from it. She'd lost Keith. The worst possible thing had happened, and she'd survived it, and they'd come out the other end.
It's hard not to keep cycling the same toxic, codependent thought process that wrecked her relationship with Keith though. He's leaving. He's leaving and it's your fault. You asked for too much. You're selfish. Greedy. Why can't you just— But it's useless. Pointless, this thinking.
This too she swallows down, nods to him to show she's still listening, she's heard him, but her eyes are glassy and all of her effort right now is going into keeping it restrained to that level. ]
I don't know how to handle it either.
[ She admits that quietly. Somehow she'd thought telling him, telling Poe, would fix all of it. But it hasn't. It's as disappointing as Luke had been. As her parents. As any truth can be. ]
[ He weirdly finds himself wishing Rose were here. He still doesn't exactly know her well enough to know exactly what she'd have to say about any of it, or if it would honestly really be something she'd hear about. Considering how personal it is. But Finn still finds himself thinking about her.
Not fighting what we hate; saving what we love.
Maybe that's something like what Rey wants to do. Even if he personally doesn't see what she'd find worth trying to save. Could be he's not very good at looking for those kinds of things. ]
I can try. We've got time. I can-- I don't know. Figure out how to figure it out.
[ There's no real shortage of things he'd try to figure out for Rey. Juggling flaming hot coals would probably be easier because he'd sort of know where to start, but there is time to figure out where to hypothetically start. Maybe one day they'll both know what they're doing, ever.
[ 'Usually,' he says, and she finishes, 'But not now.'
The closest thing to this she'd felt was with Keith in that truth exercise, and she'd come away from it feeling entirely like he was trying to leave her. They both had other people, he'd said, which she took to mean they didn't need to rely upon one another anymore. Cling like the universe was going to fall away if they didn't.
But Keith had told her she was wrong, then, and she hopes she's wrong now. There's no anger in Finn, none that the Force will show her at least. Only confusion. ]
I'll understand if you're upset with me.
[ She opts for this. Not being able to understand why someone makes the choices they do is a shortcut to anger and outrage. She knows this, and she won't hold it against him. ]
Or if you need time, or you'd rather I don't talk about him.
[ All of these are things that she has tried in other ways and failed in other ways with Hathaway. She offers them now as though they could somehow be strategies. ]
But I told myself for months that Poe and the other Finn wouldn't understand my feelings, and that I had to hide them. All it did was make me feel far away from them.
[ He remembers telling her what he was on Takodana and waiting for everything to change. Waiting for the anger, the disgust, the fear to roll in.
And all the moments where he'd almost told her before, where he'd thought about how to do it, only to get sidetracked or to lose his nerve, to end up sitting on the truth a little longer-- the thing about that was that it weighed everything down. Threaded through everything. Even the brightest spots.
He hadn't known her nearly well enough to feel distant; but he'd known it was something that made close a much more distant possibility in the first place. ]
I'd rather know. [ That much, he knows too. He'd rather know now than find out some other way. He'd rather know than have her resign herself to feeling far away again.
So that's one thing figured out. ]
Can... [ Finn swallows. ] Are you safe? Can you promise you're safe?
[ There's a flicker of confusion in her face there, if only because it hasn't occurred to her to even ask that question in so long — the 'will Kylo Ren hurt her' question. Even in Hanabira, when he'd come at her under the guise of sparring and she'd faced him down while he held both of their lightsabers, she'd leaned into her faith in him instead of that fear.
It had been the right choice. He's much more docile now. Not tamed, necessarily. But she can't see him doing anything like that again.
Beyond that, of course, there's the memory of Perdition's Rest, where she'd come close to killing him a second time. Even if Kylo Ren wanted to hurt her, he'd failed to every other time he'd tried. Perhaps the bond would turn the tables, make her weak to hurting him, but it seems unlikely that it would be disproportionate on her part. He'd be just as reluctant to strike her.
So for both these reasons, she actually … laughs a little at that. Even as short as it is, it's a relief. It opens up the space between them, lightens the weight on her chest. ]
Yes. I promise. He won't hurt me, Finn.
[ Unless she … asks him to … But there's maybe not quite enough levity in this conversation yet for that, no matter what Finn thinks he'd rather know. ]
[ Honestly, yeah, even Finn feels something settle with the assurance, the ease with which she delivers it. No hesitation. Like it's the easiest question in the world. He tends to lean towards skepticism, but not much holds a candle to his trust in the things Rey is certain about.
Or, well, his trust in Rey and that's about it. But it's a starting point. He can always touch base on believing in Rey. ]
Okay.
[ And he doesn't have to like it. He doesn't feel like he's obligated to pretend that he does. He was very up-front about the only olive branch he has to offer in regards to Kylo Ren himself before the conversation even got around to the Feelings Part. Rey didn't jump into some my way or no way, all or nothing extreme about that. She didn't say there's only one way this works. She just-- put the truth out there and told him he has room to make his own choice about how he handles it.
Historically, that's better than most of Finn's life experiences. When he thinks on it, he finds the idea of taking her middle ground and pulling out the sort of ultimatums he's tired of to be, to say the least, pretty unappealing. Exactly where that leaves him, he has no idea. Except for a short and reluctant admittance to himself that maybe.... somehow......... this will not be the end of the world? His One Fear levels go from crisis mode to his default keyed-up levels.
He actually will have to think about this more over time, won't he. There's no handy way to avoid thinking about it forever when they're all lumped into close quarters in a sex study facility together.
Also Rey is wise and powerful please don't joke about Kylo's dick he's not ready. ]
Okay. As long as you're okay, I can... I mean, I still don't know what I'm doing. [ He's not afraid to admit that to Rey. Or to Poe. Between the three of them, there's sort of a comfort in knowing none of them know what they're doing at all right now. ] But I believe you. So I'll figure it out.
[ Still pretty firmly in the anti Kylo Ren as a person camp, yes. But he does spare a thought to acknowledge that if she'd sat him down and said I have feelings for General Hux, he would have actually legitimately walked away on the spot. Probably forever.
So there are much worse things than this, and much, much worse things than Rey believing in Kylo Ren's ability to not want to hunt down and gruesomely murder all 15 people left in the Resistance. Like, objectively. There has to be a coping mechanism designed for these situations that he can learn. ]
Well that makes two of us. Because I don't know what I'm doing either.
[ Her smile quirks at that, halfway to a laugh. It's comforting to her too. This is the one thing that makes sense — the two of them winging it as they go along. Making it up and hoping they strike hyperfuel somehow. She keeps hold of his hand and reaches her other palm over to rest atop his forearm, a sort of pseudo-embrace that is designed to further affirm that her choice is well-considered.
Ben thought she had it more together than he did somehow, that this came more naturally to her. And it does, in a way. She has never cut herself off from her compassion and empathy like he had. In many ways he is learning how to re-access those parts of himself through her. But she still feels cluelessly inexperienced with caring about people in that way, with being close to them.
It's a difficult thing to do. And already, she can feel that he's right — it's going to be more complicated for being here. She hasn't even confronted the 'what is gonna happen when Kylo Ren puts his dick somewhere else' question yet.
She finally settles into something resembling peace, even though he's still conflicted and confused. It's out there. They're working on it. It's going to be alright. Her expression softens, warms up, and — ]
[ These are Star Wars heroes truly made for millennials. No one knows what they're doing, but they love each other and they sure are trying hard. Everything went somewhat better than expected.
Finn has it in him to smile back. And, with a little shade of humor: ]
No problem. Thanks for telling me.
[ As far as accomplishments go, he'd like to do everything he can to prove he's worth trusting with it. ]
[ She decides that's what this needs. Carbonated sugar. She's addicted already. Rey asks, but she's already on her feet and settling on 'yes, everyone wants a soda.' Also it gives her something to move forward onto that doesn't involve dragging this. ]
Thor showed me how to make the vending machine dispense as many as I want.
[ It's too late tbh it's a trick now. Regular Finn: oh okay so you just press the button that seems straightforward and exactly like what I expected. Hooded kermit Finn: Rey pressed a button twice, she's amazing and the greatest hacker in the world.
Some part of him isn't even surprised that she can namedrop a god when he's basically just met a normal guy named Matt since getting here though. Shoutout to Matt. Matt is great. ]
I guess it's good to know gods don't get passed over to volunteer. I mean, is he-- is that an actual god, or more like someone people decided to make a god?
[ Like it's gonna make any difference to him personally anyway? He doesn't know. If there's a friend-knows-a-god protocol, he hasn't gotten the XP to learn it yet. ]
[ She says that with a simple kind of certainty. She'd been on the fence for a while too, but Loki's repetitive dying pretty much sold her on it. Which is still sad. She's still mourning and having a rough time with that, but it's fine.
Oh, she hasn't told Kylo about that yet.
Oh …
He's going to be upset.
Anyway. ]
He seems thrilled to be here, honestly. Definitely welcoming the vacation.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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But ultimately that hope remains. Finn might be struggling with it now, but he will understand. He'll see it for himself sooner or later. More to the point, not understanding isn't a judgment against her. She digs her heels in. ]
He's changed. And his actions prove it. Did Poe tell you that Ben saved his life? [ She sounds incredulous even now as she says it. There's a huge valley between 'not killing people' and 'actively helping people,' and apparently that leap has been made. ] When we go home, we're going to destroy Snoke. Together.
no subject
This is a more significant blip. A noteworthy blip. Rey wouldn't lie about it, for starters, which means it's cemented as a factual event. That means Finn can't brush it off or pretend otherwise. Does he, in the fashion of an anime protagonist when the last arc's antagonist apparently does a moral turn, immediately assume that Ren did it because he stood to benefit from it somehow? By throwing them off-guard or angling to get the benefit of the doubt?
Yes. That's sort of what he ends up doing when the confusion is done blatantly bleeding into his expression. ]
What does he get out of killing Snoke? What does he want out of it? [ Because there has to be something. ] And when did this turn over to Ben?
no subject
She was doing so well.
Visibly crestfallen, Rey can't help but look away from Finn when she sees the incredulity and confusion written all over his face. At least it's not resentment, she tells herself, but this isn't even the hardest part. Something dark seizes upon that look on his face and tries to tell her that maybe it's too much at once, that he needs time, and she needs to figure out how to present it, but that's the paranoia and mistrust that she has worked hard to burn out of her, to purge, nearly at the cost of purging her relationship with Ben. She can't succumb to it now.
They're hard questions to answer, not least of all because she lacks the experience still to have a strong awareness of her own feelings, but that doesn't mean Finn doesn't deserve a clear answer. ]
I told you that we grew closer.
[ The weight of this statement seems to set aside the efforts to answer the rest. Finn already has the answer, anyway. He's the one who had been so insistent that actions were what mattered. She looks back at him. Because this IS a shounen anime and Naruto is NOT giving up on Sasuke just because he did some really fucked up shit to Sakura that one time. ]
The Dark Side feeds on pain and loneliness. I've seen how easy it can be to give into that, and how hard it is to root it out once it's there. But he still has a chance to turn away from it. As long as there's light inside of him, I'll choose to have hope.
[ She needs there to be a chance for him. If there's not, it means being alone like she was before. It seems too cruel the that Force should lead her to him like this, entwine them, only to rip him away. ]
no subject
And Rey, he thinks, has a knack for seeing things for what they could be. That's a good thing. He's not sure what else there is to say about it, because he believes that. It's not bad to hope. It's not bad to choose it.
So he takes a long moment to think over what he wants to say. Looks at the floor so intently he might be trying to bore holes into it. ]
If you say he saved Poe's life, then he did. If you say he-- helped you somehow. Helps you. I don't get it, but I'll believe it. If you say you're sure he won't hurt anyone here, I'll trust that. Because I trust you.
[ Poe seemed pretty firm on believing in that much, too.
Finn looks back up. ]
All he gets from me is a temporary ceasefire, Rey. That's as far as I go.
[ He wouldn't go back and change how things have happened to him. He wouldn't. Meeting Rey and Poe and Rose, ending up where he's ended up, figuring out what he's figured out. He wouldn't trade out getting to be Finn. That's who he is. And he knows where he belongs.
But on some level, beyond the war, beyond the scar on his back, beyond everything Kylo Ren did on Starkiller, beyond the short-lived screams of the villagers on Jakku-- putting that all aside, part of Finn still can't help but bristle with personal resentment.
To know where your home was, to know your family, to know your own name. To have someone offer you a free ticket out, after everything. To get a chance handed to you, and a door to leave through, and somewhere to go, instead of stumbling through it terrified, banking on a desperate dreg of hope in the form of a stranger in a holding cell.
To have all that and to throw it away-- to reach out and kill it-- he can't imagine it. He can't make it make sense or find it in him to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who could.
Not today, anyway. Not this fresh off of things back home. ]
no subject
But hadn't she just been the one to point out that pain and loneliness feed the Dark? Her fear of those things does too. She bites down on it. ]
I understand. [ She wouldn't have been able to either. Not so fresh off of Han's death. ] I'm not trying to make you see him the way that I do. But I need you to understand what I see, so that you can understand why …
[ Her brow furrows. She searches his face. She really doesn't even know how to make this happen in words. ]
I have feelings for him.
[ Is it cowardly to hope that their present circumstances fill in the rest? ]
no subject
You have feelings for him?
[ That came out louder than he thought it would. Yikes. I'm sorry your friends and loved ones are all disasters Rey 2k18. Finn adjusts his volume appropriately, leaning in a little. ]
Sorry, I-- feelings?
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But no less scandalized, incredulous, and possibly judgy. ]
Yes. Feelings.
[ That's slightly snapped. This wasn't easy!!! To admit!! R'iia's shorts, she's trying to open up here. ]
no subject
His first thought is to ask something like why or how, but before either of them gets out, Finn remembers that a lot of this conversation so far has been covering exactly that. The only thing it didn't include was him thinking to draw a potential... Feelings line between any of it in the process.
Rey has feelings for Kylo Ren. It's a whole real thing that's really happening. There are enough of them being felt to be worth mentioning, here on the sex island facility. Which yeah, Finn can put two and two together on without needing it spelled out.
He was so sure he was used to the maximum level of things he doesn't inherently get. It turned out to be the equivalent of saying "I have a a bad feeling about this." He's left unsure of exactly what to do with this information or how to kickstart the processing on it yet.
So where he settles as far as responding is: ]
And I'm gonna assume he has feelings back.
[ This is the only aspect of this moment in time that Finn can 100% understand. Like, it's been 2 years. Literally anybody should probably be in love with Rey after that long or they're not reasonable. ]
no subject
And she realizes it's not Finn being like fuck this crazy girl who falls in love with serial killers in prison that she has feared, but rather the chaotic hellscape of other people delegitimizing this Thing she can't articulate or describe. Finn, being the perfect human being that he is, sidesteps it all in one fell swoop. One well-reasoned conclusion.
It assuages her primarily because it's obviously rooted not in 'Kylo Ren has the capacity to love another human being,' which Finn is probably still processing, but rather on the premise that 'Rey is someone worth loving.'
It's fine. She has zero self worth issues after being sold into scavenger slavery. This would be revolutionary to anyone … right? ]
Yes.
[ And she can answer it honestly because she's sure. As sure of it as she is of her own feelings and of the fact that the sun makes the sand warm. There's been a lot of back-and-forth, and they have lots more push-and-pull to go before they understand how to deal with those feelings while being so opposite despite being so similar, but that question is easily answered.
She opens her mouth with some further justification or explanation or — well, she's not sure what. But ultimately she shuts her mouth and bites her tongue because the whole point of telling Finn is giving him the chance to Have Feelings about it. ]
i app myself into the game to hug rey 2k18
Not that he guesses he's all that knowledgeable on the matter? It's been about a week since he hit the real world emotional circuit, and before he got to this place in particular, things were pretty much stressful and fast-paced the whole time. Breathing room is wild. Softness is nothing short of novel.
He's still not sure he believes Kylo Ren has it in him.
It's like, he would try to argue this into the ground somehow, but he also isn't sure what his arguments would... be. It would just be him telling her things she already knows about Kylo Ren, or things that he knows that she's apparently been working on for two years. She's known Kylo Ren longer than Finn's known her now.
At the very, very end of the day-- well, he's not anybody's keeper. Certainly not Rey's. His people aren't things he keeps on leashes while he tells them where to go and what to do and who they can or can't get feelings for.
He's been on the other end of that. The only thing more terrifying than going back under that metaphorical thumb is the idea of doing it to someone else. ]
I don't like it.
[ But yeah, he still wanted his opinion out there.
Could Rey wipe the floor with Kylo Ren if she had to? Undoubtedly. Does knowing that prevent a thrill of fear, some instinctive dread tied into not wanting her to get hurt, wanting her to be safe? Not really. It prevents nothing. ]
GOOD SHE NEEDS IT
[ Candor has always been one of Rey's greatest strengths, and she withholds none despite the seriousness of this topic. She didn't think he would like it, but she told him anyway. And he doesn't like it, but he's not running away or acting disgusted with her.
Except this was where the plan ended. True to form, Rey got as far as Action Step 1 and was like ok that's enough planning my brain is tired. Time to go home. So now it's just out there, sitting between them, and she's not really sure what the resolution looks like. ]
Is that okay?
[ Like, does he have to? She isn't really sure. ]
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Finn is also running pretty firmly into uncharted territory right now. ]
I don't know. I don't think I can say it is? [ He probably showed up to this meeting half expecting it to just be about a murder or some other big fight the other Finn never got to resolve or something.
It's Kylo Ren. But it's Rey. Repeat ad nauseam. ] But I don't want you to think--
[ When you've never actually told anyone you love them or care about them in your entire life and are a mess, so you mentally slam your face into the keyboard a few times hoping to come up with a good way to convey what you're trying to say. ]
Look, I really don't know how to handle this. [ Finn fails at his mental acrobatics, mostly, and reaches out for Rey's hand on impulse instead. ] I think you're still you. And I think you're good. And I don't wanna be somewhere without you when I know you're right there.
[ He doesn't currently foresee a future where he thinks about this enterprise and is like "yeah, it's okay." But he can't pretend she didn't lay out the timeline and general mood in a way he understood, either. She went out of her way to explain it instead of taking the easy way out and just not mentioning it.
He'd rather have to try to figure it out than fall into the actual worst-case scenario, which is just. Not having Rey around. He's not about that life. He lived it and he hated it. She's sort of everything. She outweighs everything in importance. ]
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She squeezes his hand like it's a lifeline.
Every part of her knows that she shouldn't, that this feeling is a bad one. She shouldn't be this desperate to hold onto people. So afraid to lose them. But she has to accept that fear, not hide from it. Accept it, then move on from it. She'd lost Keith. The worst possible thing had happened, and she'd survived it, and they'd come out the other end.
It's hard not to keep cycling the same toxic, codependent thought process that wrecked her relationship with Keith though. He's leaving. He's leaving and it's your fault. You asked for too much. You're selfish. Greedy. Why can't you just— But it's useless. Pointless, this thinking.
This too she swallows down, nods to him to show she's still listening, she's heard him, but her eyes are glassy and all of her effort right now is going into keeping it restrained to that level. ]
I don't know how to handle it either.
[ She admits that quietly. Somehow she'd thought telling him, telling Poe, would fix all of it. But it hasn't. It's as disappointing as Luke had been. As her parents. As any truth can be. ]
I'm doing the best I can.
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[ He weirdly finds himself wishing Rose were here. He still doesn't exactly know her well enough to know exactly what she'd have to say about any of it, or if it would honestly really be something she'd hear about. Considering how personal it is. But Finn still finds himself thinking about her.
Not fighting what we hate; saving what we love.
Maybe that's something like what Rey wants to do. Even if he personally doesn't see what she'd find worth trying to save. Could be he's not very good at looking for those kinds of things. ]
I can try. We've got time. I can-- I don't know. Figure out how to figure it out.
[ There's no real shortage of things he'd try to figure out for Rey. Juggling flaming hot coals would probably be easier because he'd sort of know where to start, but there is time to figure out where to hypothetically start. Maybe one day they'll both know what they're doing, ever.
She's doing her best. He owes her his. ]
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The closest thing to this she'd felt was with Keith in that truth exercise, and she'd come away from it feeling entirely like he was trying to leave her. They both had other people, he'd said, which she took to mean they didn't need to rely upon one another anymore. Cling like the universe was going to fall away if they didn't.
But Keith had told her she was wrong, then, and she hopes she's wrong now. There's no anger in Finn, none that the Force will show her at least. Only confusion. ]
I'll understand if you're upset with me.
[ She opts for this. Not being able to understand why someone makes the choices they do is a shortcut to anger and outrage. She knows this, and she won't hold it against him. ]
Or if you need time, or you'd rather I don't talk about him.
[ All of these are things that she has tried in other ways and failed in other ways with Hathaway. She offers them now as though they could somehow be strategies. ]
But I told myself for months that Poe and the other Finn wouldn't understand my feelings, and that I had to hide them. All it did was make me feel far away from them.
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And all the moments where he'd almost told her before, where he'd thought about how to do it, only to get sidetracked or to lose his nerve, to end up sitting on the truth a little longer-- the thing about that was that it weighed everything down. Threaded through everything. Even the brightest spots.
He hadn't known her nearly well enough to feel distant; but he'd known it was something that made close a much more distant possibility in the first place. ]
I'd rather know. [ That much, he knows too. He'd rather know now than find out some other way. He'd rather know than have her resign herself to feeling far away again.
So that's one thing figured out. ]
Can... [ Finn swallows. ] Are you safe? Can you promise you're safe?
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It had been the right choice. He's much more docile now. Not tamed, necessarily. But she can't see him doing anything like that again.
Beyond that, of course, there's the memory of Perdition's Rest, where she'd come close to killing him a second time. Even if Kylo Ren wanted to hurt her, he'd failed to every other time he'd tried. Perhaps the bond would turn the tables, make her weak to hurting him, but it seems unlikely that it would be disproportionate on her part. He'd be just as reluctant to strike her.
So for both these reasons, she actually … laughs a little at that. Even as short as it is, it's a relief. It opens up the space between them, lightens the weight on her chest. ]
Yes. I promise. He won't hurt me, Finn.
[ Unless she … asks him to … But there's maybe not quite enough levity in this conversation yet for that, no matter what Finn thinks he'd rather know. ]
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Or, well, his trust in Rey and that's about it. But it's a starting point. He can always touch base on believing in Rey. ]
Okay.
[ And he doesn't have to like it. He doesn't feel like he's obligated to pretend that he does. He was very up-front about the only olive branch he has to offer in regards to Kylo Ren himself before the conversation even got around to the Feelings Part. Rey didn't jump into some my way or no way, all or nothing extreme about that. She didn't say there's only one way this works. She just-- put the truth out there and told him he has room to make his own choice about how he handles it.
Historically, that's better than most of Finn's life experiences. When he thinks on it, he finds the idea of taking her middle ground and pulling out the sort of ultimatums he's tired of to be, to say the least, pretty unappealing. Exactly where that leaves him, he has no idea. Except for a short and reluctant admittance to himself that maybe.... somehow......... this will not be the end of the world? His One Fear levels go from crisis mode to his default keyed-up levels.
He actually will have to think about this more over time, won't he. There's no handy way to avoid thinking about it forever when they're all lumped into close quarters in a sex study facility together.
Also Rey is wise and powerful please don't joke about Kylo's dick he's not ready. ]
Okay. As long as you're okay, I can... I mean, I still don't know what I'm doing. [ He's not afraid to admit that to Rey. Or to Poe. Between the three of them, there's sort of a comfort in knowing none of them know what they're doing at all right now. ] But I believe you. So I'll figure it out.
[ Still pretty firmly in the anti Kylo Ren as a person camp, yes. But he does spare a thought to acknowledge that if she'd sat him down and said I have feelings for General Hux, he would have actually legitimately walked away on the spot. Probably forever.
So there are much worse things than this, and much, much worse things than Rey believing in Kylo Ren's ability to not want to hunt down and gruesomely murder all 15 people left in the Resistance. Like, objectively. There has to be a coping mechanism designed for these situations that he can learn. ]
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[ Her smile quirks at that, halfway to a laugh. It's comforting to her too. This is the one thing that makes sense — the two of them winging it as they go along. Making it up and hoping they strike hyperfuel somehow. She keeps hold of his hand and reaches her other palm over to rest atop his forearm, a sort of pseudo-embrace that is designed to further affirm that her choice is well-considered.
Ben thought she had it more together than he did somehow, that this came more naturally to her. And it does, in a way. She has never cut herself off from her compassion and empathy like he had. In many ways he is learning how to re-access those parts of himself through her. But she still feels cluelessly inexperienced with caring about people in that way, with being close to them.
It's a difficult thing to do. And already, she can feel that he's right — it's going to be more complicated for being here. She hasn't even confronted the 'what is gonna happen when Kylo Ren puts his dick somewhere else' question yet.
She finally settles into something resembling peace, even though he's still conflicted and confused. It's out there. They're working on it. It's going to be alright. Her expression softens, warms up, and — ]
Thank you.
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Finn has it in him to smile back. And, with a little shade of humor: ]
No problem. Thanks for telling me.
[ As far as accomplishments go, he'd like to do everything he can to prove he's worth trusting with it. ]
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[ She decides that's what this needs. Carbonated sugar. She's addicted already. Rey asks, but she's already on her feet and settling on 'yes, everyone wants a soda.' Also it gives her something to move forward onto that doesn't involve dragging this. ]
Thor showed me how to make the vending machine dispense as many as I want.
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Nah who am I kidding, Finn is straddling the Neutral Good line and smoothly executing vending machine life hacks isn't on his radar. ]
Yeah. Sure. [ He is 100% here to watch this trick in motion. ] Who's Thor?
[ They've got to be cooler than DJ. Not that that's hard. ]
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that's it. that's how the machine works. it's literally its design. ]
Asgardian god of thunder. Thor Odinson. I knew a different version of him, too, in Hathaway.
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Some part of him isn't even surprised that she can namedrop a god when he's basically just met a normal guy named Matt since getting here though. Shoutout to Matt. Matt is great. ]
I guess it's good to know gods don't get passed over to volunteer. I mean, is he-- is that an actual god, or more like someone people decided to make a god?
[ Like it's gonna make any difference to him personally anyway? He doesn't know. If there's a friend-knows-a-god protocol, he hasn't gotten the XP to learn it yet. ]
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[ She says that with a simple kind of certainty. She'd been on the fence for a while too, but Loki's repetitive dying pretty much sold her on it. Which is still sad. She's still mourning and having a rough time with that, but it's fine.
Oh, she hasn't told Kylo about that yet.
Oh …
He's going to be upset.
Anyway. ]
He seems thrilled to be here, honestly. Definitely welcoming the vacation.
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