The first time Poe Dameron meets Leia Organa, he nearly faints at her feet.
Well, that's not exactly true. Technically, the first time Poe meets the General is nine months and four days after the Battle of Endor, and he squalls indignantly in her face. (Or so he's told; Poe prides himself on having an excellent memory, but it doesn't reach back to infancy.)
Poe doesn't count that, though. The General has kissed thousands of babies over the years, no doubt, and probably dozens that week alone. The number of Resistance babies who are pretty much exactly Poe's age is a long-running joke, which never fails to make parents grin impishly (and kids groan). So the first time they properly meet, when the General actually notices him and Poe is only metaphorically shitting his pants, is after the engagement on the First Order base in the Teryllium system.
The fainting thing isn't Poe's fault, by the way. It's his first big battle, and when it's your first big battle, it's easy to forget to hydrate regularly. Add the nerves, the stress, the adrenaline, the close calls with death by space asphyxiation, and the giddiness of victory – and top it off with a bang on the head when he dodged incoming fire with a maneuver that edged the 'recklessly dangerous' line – and, well, Poe's surprised more pilots aren't lightheaded after engagements.
Luckily for him, the General doesn't comment on the slight sway in his posture. "Excellent work, Dameron," she says, with a little nod.
Poe falls in love with her then and there.
It's a pretty common thing, falling in love with the General. Half of Poe's squadron has a crush on her. She's the biggest hero of the Rebellion, and now she's the leader of the Resistance, and that's a double whammy. Plus, she's not just powerful and knee-meltingly confident, she's also gorgeous, charismatic, and her smile sparkles.
Jessika comes into their quarters one evening and flings herself into her bunk. "When we kick the First Order's ass for good," she announces, "I have first dibs on asking the General out."
Poe, trying to avoid Snap capturing his queen, asks absentmindedly, "Why not now?"
Jessika flips onto her stomach and props her chin on the edge of the bed, eyeing the chessboard dispassionately. "Mate in eight moves. Because I want to do things right, not get interrupted halfway through dinner by a First Order movement report, or – worse – another one of those communiques from the Republic that make her break out the battle eyebrows."
"Battle eyebrows could be good for sex," Snap offers, because of course Snap does.
Poe frowns at the board, trying to figure out a strategy for luring Snap into a mistake. It's a lot easier in a cockpit. "Even an interrupted dinner is a start."
"You just want me to make a move so the General gets used to hotshot pilots asking her out," Jessika says, pointing an accusatory finger. "You'd like me to fall on my face. Then you can come along and be all, I'm Poe Dameron, with that suave smile of yours, and sweep her off her feet."
That wasn't actually what Poe had in mind. Now that he thinks about it, though, he can see the merits of that plan… except Jessika is a mechanics whiz and could totally sabotage his ship to make him look ridiculous in a training drill, so that thought must never be voiced aloud. "I would never want you to fall on your face," he says, all big eyes and wounded innocence.
Jessika raises an elegant eyebrow. "Uh-huh."
Snap takes advantage of the diversion to corner one of Poe's starships. "If either of you ask her out, you'll have to deal with Han Solo."
Poe feels a chill run up his spine. It's not that Solo is around much (he seems to blow through about once a year, give or take), or that he and the General are the model of happily married domestic bliss (the tales of their fights are legendary). But a) they do genuinely seem to care for each other, in their fireworks kind of way, and b) the idea of Han Solo coming after you with a blaster for propositioning his wife is the stuff of nightmares. Dude is a good shot.
"Come on," Jessika says, loftily. "I'm sure Solo would respect the General's choices."
"Since when does Solo respect anything?" Snap asks, capturing Poe's last starship.
"He didn't shoot Luke for kissing her," Poe points out.
Snap snorts. "Droid-gossip."
"If Solo shot Luke for kissing the General (and I agree, it's droid-gossip)," Jessika says, "the General would space him without a pod. For not respecting her choices, sure, but also for shooting the last Jedi and compromising the Resistance effort."
They contemplate that for a moment. Yes, the General would. She takes the Resistance very seriously, does the General. It's part of what makes her so hot, that firm command and clear eye… oh hell, there goes Poe's awkward boner again.
"You should go for it," Poe tells Jessika, ruthlessly cutting away the tangents and returning to the original point of the conversation. "Worst she can do is say no."
Snap takes Poe's queen, putting him in checkmate, and Jessika promptly jumps down out of her bunk. "Loser's out, my turn." Then, as Poe surrenders the stool to her and Snap resets the board, "I'm going to wait until just the right moment. After a battle we win, I think."
Poe nods. "High on adrenaline, I get it."
"Plus victory sex is hot," Snap adds.
Poe hits him in the knee, because while this is true – Poe's had victory sex with both of them on separate occasions (and one memorable time, together) – he would prefer to keep his detailed fantasies in his own mind. Otherwise this might easily turn into roleplaying, if he knows Snap, and that could go wrong really quickly.
"No dibs," Poe tells Jessika, fending off Snap's attempts to retaliate for the knee-smack. "If I get the chance to capture the General's heart, you bet your hyperdrive I'm taking it."
Snap says, "Solo has her heart. I just want her…" which means Poe has to cut him off by tackling him. The chessboard gets knocked over, and they don't find the last white starship until two weeks later (how it ended up in the bottom of Jessika's spare helmet is anyone's guess. The Force, maybe.)
The first time it actually happens, Poe can't stop pinching himself.
(Mentally, of course. Even Poe, hotshot pilot, cool as he undoubtedly is, can't think of a cool way to pull off 'pinching yourself in bed to prove it isn't a dream'.)
"That was, uh, great," he says, then fights back the urge to hit himself in the forehead. Dammit, Poe, you are not a virgin, you've had sex in all the positions known to man (and most of the positions known to Twi'leks, thanks to Kaait, Poe's first boyfriend), you've had sex in a fekkin' X-wing, and that's like the second thing it says in the manual, "do not have sex in the X-wing". (The first being, of course, "keep all arms, legs, and miscellaneous appendages inside the X-wing at all times".)
He braces himself for the brushoff, now that he's proven himself to be a tongue-tied novice. You get the General in bed – you get the General in bed – and all you can say is "that was, uh, great"?! Fail, Dameron, fail. He deserves to be turfed out on his ass. No doubt she's going to pat his shoulder any moment now and tell him it's almost curfew –
"Well, it had its moments," the General says, and Poe's head whips around. She's smiling at him – mostly with her eyes, but she's still smiling. "But I think we'll have to work on it a bit more before we hit 'great'."
Poe swallows hard.
She rakes her eyes down his body, long heavy slide. "If you're up to it."
Part of Poe's brain is still stuck on it was a quiet night and I was just doing maintenance and chatting to BB-8, and then the General came along and suddenly I ended up here, but the rest of it knows a cue when it hears one. "You can be the judge of that," he says, huskily, and kisses her.
He doesn't tell Jessika and Snap. It was fun to share hero-crushes when it was all imaginary, but now that it's real, it's not a matter for idle discussion.
He knows they've guessed that he has someone. He's out of the room too much, and he can only pass it off as 'late-night maintenance, slept in the hangar' so many times. The General's schedule is best characterized as 'constant', so her calls are never predictable; she does seem to try to check his schedule first, so he's spared any awkward conversations with his commander.
He's not ashamed that he's sleeping with the General. It's the best part of his life right now, neck-and-neck with flying an X-wing. But it's complicated.
It doesn't seem complicated when he's in her bed.
He grins at her, all teeth and bravado, and feels his heart leap when she grins back at him. She is so fierce in bed, and sometimes it can get overwhelming – clutching at each other until her fingernails tear his back, setting a speed that threatens the structural stability of the camp bed, kissing that tips over into battle. He loves the overwhelming, loves every inch of her and everything that she is; but he also loves moments like these, when he makes her smile, makes her laugh, and they slow down for a little while.
She threads her fingers into his hair, and he dips his head slightly, encouraging. "Hang on," he says, kissing her inner thigh, slow and dirty, dragging his mouth along the saltiness of her skin.
"Fuck," she says, dropping her head back into her pillow, her hand tightening in his hair.
She tastes like the stars.
Afterwards, he kisses her with his mouth still wet, and she opens hers to him. "My General," he says against her lips, title turned into a caress.
She winds her legs around his back, still as flexible as she must have been thirty years ago. "I think," she says, rocking up into him in a way that is rapidly diverting his brain cells, "that you can call me Leia now."
They've been sleeping together for two months, and Poe has never before even thought of making that transition. He pulls back slightly, looking down at the familiar beautiful curves of her face.
Despite his efforts to play it cool, she must see the conflict in his eyes. "It's just a name," she says, bringing a hand up to stroke the side of his face. "I can still be your General, Dameron."
"You will always be my General," he says, low, and turns his face to kiss her palm.
She laughs, the rich little laugh that never fails to make him shudder with desire. He's not sure whether this one is at the tickle of the kiss or at him, but it isn't a mean laugh. "Say it."
Poe licks his lips, watching her eyes follow his tongue, and then says, "Leia."
It comes out rusty, more scrape than sound, but she doesn't seem to mind. She kisses him and pulls him down against her, and he kisses back, holding on.
Nothing is a given these days.
Every time Poe takes to the sky, he knows he might not be coming back. The First Order is only gaining in strength, and the Republic continues to dismiss the General's pleas for more funding and more military aid. (Leia is Leia only in bed, in the close warmth of their bodies; elsewhere she is, as always, Poe's General.) He counts himself lucky every time he sees Jessika and Snap these days – every time he wins another dogfight – every time he comes home in one piece.
He kisses Leia as if she is the stars, and he space-hungry.
Who knows what the future will be? The General has survived one galactic war already; the odds that they both would survive a second have to be pretty slim. But perhaps the Force protects her – Poe has never really understood the Force, but he knows that it runs through her as surely as flying does through him.
When the future is uncertain, all you can do is live for the present.
So Poe loses chess games to Snap, and plays minor prank wars with Jessika, and calls his mother every restday, and spends his nights in Leia's arms.
He does not ask her if she loves him; he knows her heart is long since given. But he knows she cares for him, by the lilt of her voice and the twinkle in her eye, the shape of her smile and the arch of her back. He closes his eyes as she moves above him, setting a rhythm as fast as a battle heartbeat and as intoxicating; he holds on to her hips, tightly enough to leave a mark, knowing she wants him to; he wears her marks into battle, tangible defiance against the caprice of fate.
"Dameron," she says, one night, as he presses a languid kiss against the curve of her breast, his heartbeat still returning to normal, "I need you to do something for me."
She doesn't need to ask; he is hers to command, here and everywhere. "Anything," he says.
Her hand strokes his shoulder, almost absentmindedly, but he knows that she is never absentminded. "I need someone to go to Jakku and rendezvous with an informant. It will be dangerous; if the First Order has spies here, and I'm sure they do, they'll be looking for him too."
Poe lives danger every day. He flies in countless dogfights, takes on long odds, dares reckless maneuvers, and on top of everything else, loves the most dangerous woman in the galaxy.
"I need you to go soon," she says, her hand continuing to stroke his shoulder. "Tomorrow."
He knows she is not really asking. He is her best pilot; in the morning she will be his General, and she will put the welfare of the Resistance, and of the galaxy, ahead of him (and ahead of whatever feelings she may have for him). She needs her best pilot to go to Jakku, and however dangerous it may be, that is where he will go.
She is not really asking; but she is asking.
"The sooner I go," he says, lifting his head from her chest, "the sooner I'll come back."
She smiles, and the worry lines around her eyes ease. I did that, he thinks, and kisses her.
He is loading his X-wing, laughing at BB-8's chatter, when he sees her coming across the hangar.
(They never say goodbye, because every time they part may be goodbye. Still, Poe keeps the memory of their dawn kisses like others might keep photographs; this morning, he woke with Leia curled in his arms, her cheek pressed against his chest. He thinks he will never forget that, whether he dies today or in fifty years.)
There is nothing to say now. He looks at her, drinking her in, and watches the faint tinge of color high on her cheekbones.
"May the Force be with you, Dameron," she says, finally.
He clears his throat. "May the Force be with you, my General," he says - and is appalled at how tender it sounds; this is not their sunlit mornings, and his heart need not be quite so blatantly exposed.
She smiles, and he forgets everything else.