"Rey!"
The scavenger jumped, torn from her meditation session at the sound of Finn's urgency. She let out a nearly inaudible yelp, and then scowled, whipping around to her friend.
"Rey, you have to help me!" he said, gasping for air a little. Clearly he had been on the move for awhile.
"You gave me a heart attack!" she replied from the floor
"Sorry," Finn apologized quickly. "Please, I need you to let me hide in here."
She blinked. "Let you-?"
"Please, there's not much time, I just need to-"
From the outside of Rey's quarters came a muffled knock, and a voice. "There's no escape!" it taunted.
"Damn it." Finn cringed and threw himself in the closet. "I'm not here. I never was here."
"I'm not going to lie for you," she said, standing up. He didn't blame her; lies were unbecoming of a Jedi.
"Then don't! Just don't tell him anything." Finn closed the door.
Rey raised an eyebrow and moved to the door. The door opened with a swish, and she gave a grin to the new company. Poe Dameron smiled sweetly back at her, glancing into the room beyond.
"Hey," he said with a nod, by way of greeting. "Have you seen Finn?"
"I thought he was with you," she dodged the question with the innocent tilt of her head. "Is he avoiding you?" she said knowingly, dropping just enough hints to keep a conspicuous air.
"He's here, isn't he?" Poe asked. His smile was slightly more sly.
The scavenger grimaced a little, desperate to keep playing both sides of this situation. "Maybe," she said with a shrug. "Might I ask why you need him?"
"Three-month anniversary. He thought he could escape it."
Rey smiled. "Quite the anniversary. Well, as long as you aren't planning to sell his kidneys to an outer rim market…"
Inwardly, she wondered why someone so compatible with Poe would want to hide from him, especially on an anniversary. Most likely, the the ex-stormtrooper had forgotten about it and felt bad enough to want to escape. It didn't sound like something he'd do, however.
"Where's he hiding?" inquired the pilot, dropping his voice into conspierial levels.
She backed away to let him through. "Closet," she whispered.
From said closet, Finn scoffed. "You. Traitor," his muffled voice barked in disappointed monotone.
Poe swung the closet door open, and Finn immediately made a run for it, only to be grabbed by the waist in mid-flight. Poe pulled the ex-stormtrooper back with a victorious grin.
"Ha! Gotcha!" he said.
"Ah! Poe!" Finn yelped in between small laughs, his voice nearly drowned out by Poe's giddy laughter. He struggled helplessly against the pilot's embrace. "Gah! Not again!"
Finn attempted another lunge at freedom, but Poe tightened his arms around his captive and dragged him to the floor with a thud. The two thrashed around on the floor until Poe pinned significant other to the ground with his arms above his head.
Rey sighed, shaking her head. "When I told you to get a room, I didn't mean mine, you know."
Poe ignored her and grinned at his captive, pressing their foreheads together.
"P-Poe!" he said quickly, struggling underneath him. "Don't- don't do it!" he warned. His eyes flicked to Rey, then back to Poe, and he dropped his voice, as if she wasn't standing five feet away. "...Rey's watching!"
"So?" inquired the Resistance pilot with a sneaky smile. "You know what you have to do to make me stop," he teased, with voice equal parts playful and sultry.
Finn grit his teeth nervously and looked back at him, silent for a moment.
Rey almost didn't ask, but the pause stretched on long enough for her curiosity to get the better of her.
"W… what exactly does he have to do?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow and turning her head slightly. She leaned back slightly, trying not to be too nosy about it.
Poe sat up and turned to her. "Oh, he just has to- ahh!"
Finn saw his chance and took it in a heartbeat, twisting out of Poe's grip, and was gone in a flash, leaving the pilot flat on his back. Cat and mouse was the kind of game Finn would set up and Poe would play, from what the she-Padawan knew.
The pilot sat up again with a chuckle. "Damn!" he murmured, smiling despite the turn of events.
"Sorry," Rey said with a flash of a sheepish smile.
"It's alright," he returned, "I'll get him next time. Intrepid hunter Poe Dameron is back on the case. Thanks for the help."
He strolled out, ambling easily after his boyfriend.
Rey closed the door after him and smiled, laughing to herself. "Poor Finn… he doesn't stand a chance."
General Organa blinked and stared for a few seconds in confused and mildly concerned silence before asking any of the many questions she had. From his position wedged underneath the Millennium Falcon in the most awkward fashion possible, Finn looked back, glancing behind her.
"Why?" she asked.
"I'm not even here," he replied in a hushed tone. "And if Poe asks, say I'm out on the runway or something."
"Hiding from him, huh? I've seen that one before," Princess Leia said reminiscently with an amused chuckle. "And since when did hiding from Dameron ever work? He's going to find you, you know."
"I know, just have to keep this up for another few hour or so. He'll have to give up eventually." He shifted his position so that he was slightly better hidden.
General Organa continued with another question. "Why exactly are you hiding from him? You two didn't have a fight, did you?" she gave him a serious look. "You better not have broken that poor guy's heart- hurt him and you go through me."
Finn blinked in surprise. "What? No, no, of course not," he said. "Look, I'll be honest," he said, taking a deep breath, "it's… today's our three month anniversary since our first date, and…" he trailed away.
"...and you forgot about it," she finished for him, her expression an odd but fitting mixture of pity and hysterical amusement. She laughed. "Oh, honey, you are so screwed!"
"Uh, yes! That's it! That's exactly what," he said quickly.
"But if I don't squeal on you, his BB-Unit will, trust me."
Finn briefly wondered what it would take to bribe BB-8 into staying quiet.
"I'm working on that," he said.
A flash of orange moved in the corner of his eye, and he pushed himself back into hiding. Leia turned, returning to her work inconspicuously as Poe approached.
He took a moment to catch his breath. "General Organa," he said respectfully, despite the two were close. "Have seen Finn around? Last I heard he was out here."
"Nope," she said casually, observing some data on a monitor.
"I saw him on the cameras," Poe said. "He was here, I know it."
"I'm not saying anything."
"Please, Leia, I need you to be a snitch!"
She ignored him.
"Fine. I bet BB-8 will help me. My droid could track a ball of tinfoil across the galaxy. He's got the best sense of direction there is!"
Not even two seconds after he said this, BB-8 came rolling speedily across the platform, ramming clumsily into Poe Dameron's legs and flying end over end into the Millennium Falcon.
"I'm sure he does," was all General Organa said. His exaggeration spoke for itself.
Poe sighed and turned to leave, motioning BB-8 to follow him.
BB-8 chirped imperatively, and Poe whipped around. "Where?"
The droid whistled a second time, extending a small prong from its spherical body to gesture to Finn's hiding place. That was all it took for the Pilot to pounce upon him, and Finn protested briefly before the wind was knocked out of him.
And once more, he found himself staring into Poe's glittering brown eyes. For a second, he was captivated, and stopped contending the attack, before he remembered that he was supposed to be fleeing in dread.
The rebel pilot dug his thumbs into Finn's sides, forcing giggles and cries of mercy from him that didn't help to cover his partial embarrassment. He squirmed under Poe's grasp, doing his best to ignore the fact that the leader of the rebellion herself was standing right there, watching him fail to escape Poe's vicious tickling.
General Organa laughed. "It looks like you're off the hook for now, Finn."
"Come on," Poe said, smiling that radiant smile, "say it!"
"I… Uh, I-" he stuttered in response.
The stormtrooper twisted, with much less desperation this time, and looked to Leia for some support, but she was already walking away, the flat monitor in hand. There was no way out of this one.
Poe let him up, and the two sat shoulder to shoulder, tilted towards each other. The pilot slung an arm around the trooper and moved his face a bit closer.
Finn took a deep breath. "Poe, I…" he trailed away. Their lips were almost touching, but his gaze was angled downward. All he could focus on was the fluttering in his stomach, and it was not the beautiful kind. It was the apprehensive type, the type he hated himself for feeling.
"Yeah?" Poe responded playfully.
The trooper exhaled in surrender, closing his eyes and turning away. "Poe…"
The pilot's smile faded and he recoiled slightly in surprise. "You… you do wanna say it… right?"
FN-2187 sighed, gently moving away. "It's just… I don't know what…"
He suddenly imagined the horrible expression that must have been on Poe's face. A mix of sadness and concern, with shock mixed in.
He couldn't actually bring himself to look, but he turned and quickly pecked him on the cheek. "I'm sorry!" Finn blurted before scrambling up and darting away.
Dameron remained, his eyes glued absently in Finn's direction even after the trooper had disappeared. He was left in confused silence for only a moment before Chewbacca stepped down out of the Millennium Falcon. The Wookie looked first to the direction Finn had run, and then to Poe, staring at the suddenly-distant pilot for a moment. Then he lifted up his welding mask and gave an inquisitive howl.
Poe blinked, composing himself quickly. "Oh- yeah, yeah; I'm good. I'm good," he said, trying to keep his cool.
Chewbacca gave another, shorter howl as Poe got to his feet.
"Yeah, it's just a little game we're playing," he explained. "Cat-and-Mouse kind of thing. He's not a great hider, but damn he can run."
That smile was back as he motioned BB-8 to follow. The droid rolled out from under the infamous ship and tottered after him.
Chewbacca gave a condoling, somewhat fawnish growl, and Poe stopped walking, his smile fading once more.
A second later, he gave a weak chuckle. "Yeah… I like him a lot, too," he said softly, not turning to look at the Wookie.
He trudged off, BB-8 in tow.
Chewbacca wondered briefly if it was something he said, then shrugged and returned to his work.
Chapter 2 (final) coming soon. Thank you for reading.