Notes: For Finn Week - Intellectual Courage

Nerdy Specs

It took Finn about three months after joining the Resistance before he finally came forward to General Leia Organa-Solo and admitted that he didn't want to be a soldier anymore. An admission he probably would not have made if Poe hadn't helped him realize what he actually wanted to be. And then cajoled him into coming forward to ask for help achieving his dreams.

"Alright," Leia had agreed easily. "Then what do you want be, Finn? It's okay if you don't know yet..."

"I do, actually. Know, that is." Finn looked nervously over at Poe who motioned for him to go on. "I want to be a medic or a... a nurse or... just... I want to be a healer. I just... I've been a storm trooper my whole life and told my only purpose is to follow orders and destroy lives. If I can really make my own choices going forward then... then I want to save lives. Not end them."

Leia gives Finn a look of intense pride that he has no idea what to do with. And Finn can't look at Poe either because he's looking at Finn with so much love that Finn feels like he might combust from their stares.

"Let me introduce you to a few people and see what we can do about getting you some training," Leia told him. And that was that.


Finn is given a huge pile of data chips to read about different career options in the medical fields and basic primers to first aid care. And he's set up with a schedule where he shadows several medical practitioners during the week and attends training to become an emergency medical technician, all of which Finn's really excited about. It leaves him really busy, but in a satisfying way.

It helps that all his new instructors treat him as a person and adjust their teaching methods to suit him instead of telling him he's an idiot for not picking up on concepts quickly enough for their liking.

And in the evenings, Finn can curl up in bed with Poe and learn about the most fascinating things as he reads about anatomy or the way bacta affected the healing rates of different species or...

There's so many fields to choose from and the possible futures before Finn seem almost infinite. It's terrifying and exciting and Finn is so glad for Poe's arm's around him, grounding him when he felt overwhelmed by it all.


After a while, Finn starts to get tension headaches. Which is when he's introduced to the concept of eye doctor specialization. Also known as the field of optometry.

Finn gets his first eye exam. Well, his first real eye exam. As long as he could read orders and shoot straight, the First Order didn't really care much about whether Finn had 20/20 vision. And, apparently, Finn's got something called hyperopia. It's a very mild form, but enough that focusing his eyes on a data pad makes his eyes hurt.

"No wonder you hold the pad so far away to read," Poe mused when Finn told him. "You're far-sighted. So, what's the plan to fix it? Are you gonna get eye correction surgery or..."

"Is it weird that I want to go into the medical science field but the idea of getting eye surgery freaks me out?" Finn asked, grimacing.

"Nah. So glasses then?" Poe being non-judgemental about Finn's decisions was just one of the many reasons Finn loved him.

Finn nodded. "They'll be ready later today. And I should only really need them for reading."

"Cool." Poe grinned. "So what kind of frames did you pick out?"


Finn likes the look of himself in glasses. It changes his whole face and makes him look like... like a scholar maybe. Someone intelligent who should be taken seriously. As far away from a faceless storm trooper as Finn could get.

But.

Part of him worries he's broadcasting a weakness. Weaknesses are to be avoided at all costs. Right?

So he's a little nervous when he takes them out to wear while reading in bed that evening.

Poe takes the data pad from Finn, however, as they slip under the covers. "I realize you got those to read, but you look. So hot." Poe kissed Finn fiercely.

And well... Finn doesn't get what Poe thinks is so attractive about the glasses. He's not going to complain though. He's been teaching himself to enjoy the things that make him happy and Poe kissing him? That makes Finn very happy.

"Nerdy specs," Poe mutters nonsensically against Finn's lips. "You look so hot in those nerdy specs."

Finn laughed, no longer feeling like the glasses were a point of weakness. The corrective lenses were clearly a sign of something else entirely. He's not sure what, exactly. But like most things he's been learning lately, Finn rather likes the new information a lot.