The best thing about Coruscant City, New York is that no one pays attention to you. And the worst thing about Coruscant City, New York is that no one pays attention to you. When you're walking through the city feeling and looking like absolute shit, you're both relieved that no one's noticing you while simultaneously feeling irrevocably alone.
Fired and broken up with. Both within eight hours of each other.
Finn had worked at the First Order Journal for nine months as an "entry-level journalist", when in actuality he was more of a glorified intern. Coffee orders and making copies with the occasional human interest story thrown at him. But he was almost glad that he wasn't given any "big" stories, because the First Order Journal isn't exactly...admirable. They tend to favor sensationalism, stories in GIANT CAPITAL LETTERS with little to no substance, and he didn't really want his name heavily associated with that kind of journalism. So he floated through the job, hoping for something better to eventually come along but really not actively looking.
This morning, he came into the office of his editor-in-chief, Ms. Phasma, with her usual coffee order: black and iced. Even her coffee order is terrifying. He set it down on her desk and went to leave when she asked him to sit down.
Phasma didn't waste any time or beat around the bush. She looked him right in the eye and said, "I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go."
He eventually sputtered out a "Wha-why?"
She laced her fingers together and set them on her desk. "I believe it is my responsibility to let people know whether or not they're cut out for this line of work from the get-go, before they waste their life in a world they'll never succeed in." She mustered her best sympathetic expression and said, "I don't want you to waste your life, Finn."
Phasma isn't in the big leagues, but she still has been working in the industry for twenty-plus years. She knows the ins and outs of it more than Finn does, so when she told him that he wasn't cut out for a career he had dreamed of pursuing since he was fourteen, it didn't exactly feel like a warm hug.
And then everything got significantly worse somehow. He had gotten a single text from Rose as he walked home with his box full of stuff from his cubicle:
We need to talk when I get home.
He almost texted her that he got fired, but he deleted it. Rose was an inherently, sometimes annoyingly considerate girlfriend, and she probably would've indefinitely delayed the talk until it stewed into an outburst. He thought it was best to get it over with now.
He didn't really internalize the thought that she might want to break up with him...until she broke up with him. He didn't ask why this time, because he knew why:
Finn is certifably bad at relationships. He's either a) too distant, or b) too attached. For this relationship, he went with A. For most of his relationships over the last four years, he's gone with A. It hasn't worked out super well so far; if it had, he wouldn't be wandering around the city with a lukewarm to-go cup of coffee, feeling like a garbage human. He's staying at a friend's place until he can find somewhere else to go, but he doesn't feel like going inside just yet. He wants to be around people and listen to them existing for a bit.
Not paying attention to his surroundings, Finn nearly knocks into a newspaper stand. He snaps out of his thoughts and realizes that it's the one he always buys from on Sixty-Sixth Avenue.
He's already on Sixty-Sixth? Damn.
The sun is almost down, the sky a gradient from dark to light. The moon is completely full and unobstructed, and it's the stage of autumn in Coruscant City that isn't dead and grey and depressing. For about three seconds, he forgets that he's supposed to be sad.
Finn hears a familiar voice call his name, and he turns around.
Beebee Dameron leans on the side of her newsstand with her hand in a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. She's a short woman, with dark curls piled on top of her head, bright brown eyes, and angular features. Finn has never seen her not wearing overalls, always with some type of orange shirt underneath. Today it's a cropped turtleneck.
"The usual?" she asks, reaching for the door to the booth. Her voice resembles a raspy chipmunk, but in a charming way.
"Sure." He always buys the same thing from her every evening: The Coruscant Times and a pack of peanut M&Ms.
Beebee looks over his shoulder. "Where's Rose? I look forward to your cute little evening walks."
Finn shoves his hands in his coat pockets. "She-um, we…we're not…"
Her eyes go wide. "Oh God. Oh no. I'm sorry."
"It's fine. Well, it's not fine. It sucks. But you're fine." He smiles weakly, his eyes feeling tired. "I also got fired."
"Holy shit. Do you need a hug?" She holds out her bag with orange-stained hands. "Or a Cheeto?"
A hug would make him start sobbing, and he's more of a classic Cheeto type of guy. "I'm good, thanks."
Beebee walks to the front of the newsstand, and Finn follows. She rolls up the bag and chucks it into the booth, wiping her hand on her overalls, then starts plucking things on display; a trashy magazine, about five different candy bars, potato chips, a plastic pack of tissues, and of course, the Coruscant Times and peanut M&Ms. "I'm making you a misery care package," she says. "On the house."
"You don't need to…"
"I'm doing this. Do you have a place to crash?"
"Yeah." He scratches the back of his neck. "Yeah. But it's not a long-term solution, so if you know anyone who needs a roommate…"
She thinks as she puts the abundance of items into his arms. "Oh! I know someone."
"Who?"
"My brother's neighbor."
"I already know that I can't afford wherever your brother lives." Her brother, Poe Dameron, is the campaign manager for Leia Organa's Congress campaign and one of the biggest young players in New York politics. As opposed to Finn, who was just fired from one of the shittiest news sources on the east coast.
She waves it off. "He insists on having a crappy one-bedroom in the Kuat District. It keeps him humble, or something."
Finn catches his packet of M&Ms with the tips of his fingers before it lands on the concrete.
"I met his neighbor a few times. She's cute as a button. British girl, owns a bookstore below the apartments." She reaches over the counter, grabs a paper bag, and holds it out under his arms. "Wears a lot of sweaters."
Finn pours all the crap in his arms into the bag and she hands it to him. "Is she a Nora Ephron character?"
"She's a sweetheart. You two would hit it off."
"I feel like you're trying to set me up."
"Not with her." She waves him off. "This is an indirect way of setting you up with my brother."
"Beebee, I broke up with my girlfriend forty-five minutes ago." Finn says this lightly, but he's hit by a wave of sadness that makes his limbs feel heavy. Saying it out loud makes it ten times worse and times more real.
She looks at him, concerned. "You need to go home."
His shoulders slump. He looks down at the concrete, eyes starting to sting with tears. "Yeah, I do."
Beebee pats his arm affectionately. "Sometimes you have to start over. And it's not always a bad thing."
This flat has a lot of things wrong with it. Half of the windows don't open, the floors creak too much, the landlord is an arse, the hallway lights go out all the time, but her main gripe with it is the *cue dramatic music* laundry room.
Maybe that sounds incredibly trivial, but try living in a building where there's one functioning washer and dryer, and then try sharing that washer and dryer with eight other flats, and then you will understand the "Yellow Wallpaper"-level spiral into insanity that you have to fight off every single laundry day.
Anyway, Rey promises not to stay on this laundry thing long, because it can't be that interesting, but she set up a system in place. A consensus-based arrangement that catered to each individual schedule, meticulously planned and unanimously agreed on by all eight tenants who use the washer and dryer. The first thing she tried was asking the landlord if he would fix all the other washers and dryers, but he said no, like he says no to everything.
All of this is to say that SOME PEOPLE don't FOLLOW THE SCHEDULE even though they SAID THAT THEY WOULD and NOW REY DOESN'T HAVE ANY CLEAN CLOTHES TO INTERVIEW HER POSSIBLE ROOMMATE IN BESIDES A SWEATER THAT SAYS "KISS ME, I'M BRITISH" AND MOM JEANS.
She stomps up the stairs and bangs on the door of flat 2A with her forearm.
She hears footsteps coming toward the door, then it opens a sliver, still limited by the chain. She sees half of Poe Dameron's face.
"Good morning." She says begrudgingly.
"You knock like you're busting a drug deal."
She frowns at him. "You broke the schedule. Again."
He unhooks the chain off the door and swings it open.
Poe Dameron is a short-ish man in his early thirties-dark curly hair, a square-jawed face, deep-set brown eyes that always look just a little exhausted. He's still in his pajamas, an AC/DC t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. She had a crush on him for about three days after he moved in, then quickly got over it once she got to know his personality.
And it's not one of those Sam-and-Diane-I-argue-with-you-so-much-because-I-actually-am-attracted-to-you type situation that only works on TV. It's an I-argue-with-you-because-you're-legitimately-annoying-and-our-personalities-are-inherently-incompatible type situation.
He reads the lettering on her sweater. "I'd rather not."
She crosses her arms. "You have Wednesdays and Saturdays. I have Mondays and Fridays."
"What day is it again?"
"It's Monday!"
He winces at her voice, gingerly touches his forehead. "Dear Lord, woman. Some people are hungover."
"Aren't you supposed to be working?"
"It's one of my very, very, very few days off. I have a date at twelve." He looks down at his pajamas. "And I'm not going to look like this."
"I have a roommate interview at twelve. And I'm not going to look like this. Can't you go to the laundromat?"
"I already told you, I was told to never go to that laundromat after the Red Shirt Incident. Can't you go to the laundromat?"
"No. The guy's a creep. He always watches me separate my delicates…" She squints at him. "What's the Red Shirt Incident?"
"You don't wanna know." He rubs his eyes. "Listen, I really don't have the mental capacity right now to care about your authoritarian laundry system. Bye bye."
"Wait-"
He slams the door in front of her.
Rey lets out a frustrated puff of air. She looks across the hall at flat 3A. Ben Solo's apartment, the landlord's nephew. Normally, she would knock on the door and ask him if she could use his washer and dryer, and he would say yes, no matter how exasperated he was by the request. But ever since New Year's, it's been weird. Why did he have to make it weird?
Her phone buzzes in her pocket.
She slides it out and sees there's a notification from her possibly new roommate, Finn:
Sorry, here early. Overestimated traffic.
"Shit," she mutters.