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“Finn, Finn, Finn,” someone repeated incessantly, and that someone was Poe.
Finn rolled over in bed, tucking his head underneath an unfairly comfortable pillow and mumbling, “What?”
“There’s been chatter around the base and—“
He sat up and rested back on his elbows as the thin sheets pooled at his waist. “What did you do this time?”
“Nothing, I swear! Don’t know why you think I always do something whenever there’s talk, but—“
“History has proven why, Poe.”
“This is different!” Poe insisted, clambering onto their bed, careful not to dirty up the blankets with his boots. “There’s chatter going around about us.”
Finn blinked, confused. “What about?”
“Snap and Jess started a bet about when we would get together and Rey’s in on it, too. They each predicted a different date and placed a decent amount of credits on it,” Poe explained, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “And I think we should do something about it.”
Finn narrowed his eyes at him, taking in Poe’s excitement as a scheme slowly formed in his head. He knew whenever Poe was acting like this that he was scheming. “Like what?”
“We, my beautiful co-general, we should get in on it, too. So far the farthest bet placed was from Jess about three months from now. Rey thinks it’ll happen within the next two weeks, but she probably already knows. No, scratch that, she definitely knows.”
Finn kissed Poe to put an end to his rambling. “What’s the rest of your plan?”
“We enlist the help of someone else to place a bet on the exact day we reveal ourselves. We could make a kriff ton of credits and go out to eat at your favorite little joint by the port. I’d treat you to all of your favorites.” Poe waggled his eyebrows. “What do you think?”
Finn, hardly ever able to say no to Poe, agreed. “All right, let’s do it.”
Poe kissed him out of gratitude.
“Who do you think we could enlist to pull this off?” Finn asked, one hand bracing the back of Poe’s neck and toying with his dark curls.
“Karé,” Poe said. “Or Iolo. They haven’t made a bet yet, but I think they probably heard about it.”
“Wouldn’t Karé tell Wexley?”
Poe clicked his tongue in distaste. “Kriff, you’re right. Let’s go with Iolo. Couples tell each other everything.”
Finn raised a brow.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Who ate my last piece of sweet bread?”
Finn watched as Poe’s face went blank, then flush a brilliant shade of pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Is that so? Because I could always ask General Organa to see the security footage in the canteen—“
“Okay, it was me!” Poe raised his hands in surrender. “It was sitting right there and you know those are my favorite!”
Finn cackled in victory. “You’re too easy, Dameron.”
“Yeah? I’ll show you easy.” Poe pushed Finn back onto the mattress and kissed all over his face.
Poe stopped Iolo in one of the barrack halls, jogging to catch up to him before he retired for the night. They were both still dressed in their flight suits and Iolo looked about five seconds away from falling asleep. “How do you feel about making a few extra credits?”
Iolo squinted at him. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch, I promise. There’s just this rumor going around about whether Finn and I are together or not and some bets have been placed, naturally.”
“I’ve heard.” Iolo nodded to show he was following. “Go on.”
Poe draped an arm across Iolo’s shoulders, casually leaning into him as he said, “The truth is, Finn and I are together. Have been for a while now. But we think that if we can get you to place a bet on the day we’ll reveal it to everyone, then we can earn lots and lots of credits all for the sake of a little while lie. No big deal, no trouble at all. We’ll even take you out for some good food at that diner Finn talks nonstop about. What do you say?”
“And what if I tell everyone you’re together right now, seeing as you already told me?”
Poe made a face. “Would they believe you? Everyone’s been saying the exact same thing and no one knows what the truth is.”
Iolo hummed in consideration. “All right, you have yourself a deal.”
“Great!” Poe pulled away and clapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “We’ll meet up in the canteen at 0700. Sound good?”
“You got it.” Iolo waved him off before slinking off to his room to retire for the night.
Poe celebrated all the way back to his own room where he knew Finn would be waiting for him.
It was stupid, but Finn and Poe managed to convince Iolo to wear a comm so they could overhear his conversation with the others. Poe had briefly met with Iolo outside of the canteen at the promised time to discuss what he was going to say and how much to bet, but after that, he had snuck back to his room to wait for the whole thing to unfold.
So far, Finn and Poe had overheard Iolo flatter one of the Twi’leks who served food to get himself an extra helping of whatever was sweetest. Poe only just held himself back from thunking his head against the wall after that obscene seven-minute interaction.
“Never thought I’d hear someone flirt so badly it made me want to rather fill out a dozen flight logs instead, but here we are,” Poe muttered, temporarily disabling the comm.
“I thought it was cute,” Finn said from the closet, rifling through Poe’s clothes.
“Of course you do, you’re a hopeless romantic.”
“Very true,” Finn agreed. He pulled out an off-white sweater and slipped it over his head.
Poe turned back on the comm and listened as Iolo sat down with a group of the other betters. He had heard Snap and Karé chime in a few times, and at one point Rey had joined in along with Jess. Even Bastian ended up joining and the guy had only just returned from a two-week-long mission to some planet in the Outer Rim. He still had a mostly-healed cut along his cheek and everything.
“You want to get in on the betting pool?” Jess asked.
“Why not? I’ve been eyeing a new jacket for a while, so I figured it was worth a try,” Bastian answered. “I bet they are going to get together in three weeks. Maybe two.”
“It’s two,” Rey agreed, although it sounded a bit high-pitched as if she were lying. She definitely already knew.
“No way,” Jess protested. “They will never get their head out of their asses. I’m changing my answer from three months to five. If they don’t get together by then, I’ll lock them in a storage closet and force them to talk about their feelings.”
“I think they are going to get together tomorrow,” Iolo added, the words all rushing out at once.
There was a moment of silence and possibly stunned looks before Rey broke it with, “That soon?”
“Why not? Anything is possible.”
Jess huffed a laugh. “How much are you betting?”
“Two hundred credits.”
“Arana coming in with the big guns,” said Karé. “I like it. I’ll doubly my fifty credits just for that.”
“Sweetheart—“ Snap started.
“He’s upping the prize, so it’s only fair I do the same,” she argued.
“I’ll also put in a hundred,” Jess gave in.
“I’ll stick with twenty,” said Bastian. “I don’t even know how big the pool is now anyway.”
After that, the conversation shifted to upcoming missions and Poe saw that as his cue to turn off the comm. He felt Finn’s arms wrap around him from behind along with a kiss on the back of his neck.
“I have to get to the medbay, but I’ll see you tonight?”
“Sure thing,” Poe replied, pulling him in for a goodbye kiss. “Work hard!”
Finn began training under Doctor Kalonia’s tutelage after his back had healed up and was well on his way to becoming a doctor of his own. He even treated Poe once or twice after he came back a little singed from missions gone awry. Finn wasn’t too happy about that, but Poe got to receive a get well soon kiss on his way out both times, so he wasn’t going to complain if he burned a few strands of his hair off.
“BB-8, keep an eye on him!” Finn called back as the little droid beeped an affirmative.
“I don’t need someone to keep an eye on me,” Poe said. “I haven’t caused trouble in at least six days.”
BB-8 bleeped.
“No, the betting thing doesn’t count.”
Another beep.
“It doesn’t! Can’t I treat my best guy to a good meal without you guilt-tripping me? It’s just a few credits!”
A boop-beep-bleep.
“You’re surprisingly good at guilt-tripping, I hope you know.”
BB-8 let out a series of happy beeps before spinning around Poe’s feet.
Poe had just settled onto the spot next to Finn at a table for a late dinner when they were swarmed. Iolo looked guilty from where he sat across the room, talking in hushed tones with Rey. She was due to leave in a few days to return to her training, so she was probably getting in as much Resistance gossip as she could until then.
Poe didn’t blame her, the last remotely interesting thing to happen on Ajan Kloss was when there was a mysterious black goo turning up all over the place without an explanation. It ended up being one of the droids leaking after a malfunction, which was a lot more uninteresting than Poe thought it would be.
Poe resisted the urge to rest a hand on Finn’s thigh, feeling the warmth from him being close but not being able to do anything more, as Jess and the others sat across from them.
“Hello,” Finn greeted. “Bit late for all of you to be eating, isn’t it?”
“You two are eating,” Jess argued.
“I had a training session in the medbay that ran late,” he explained.
Their attention shifted to Poe, who explained, “We always eat together. That’s nothing new.”
Jess made a contemplative noise as she rested her elbows on the table, chin falling into her hands. “Interesting.”
“Not really,” Finn disagreed, poking at a piece of brown mystery meat. “Unless you consider this dehydrated meat thing interesting. I’m too afraid to ask what it is.”
“Bantha,” Snap filled in.
Finn set down his fork. “Bit of a relief, I gotta say.”
“Are you two planning on hanging out after this or—“ Karé started, gesturing for them to fill in the blanks.
“We might play a round of dejarik,” said Poe, leaving out the make-out session they will definitely be doing after that. “I’m on a winning streak.”
Finn coughed.
“Okay, Finn’s on a winning streak,” he corrected.
“Great, sounds fun,” Karé said flatly.
“Oh it is, we even make a drinking game out of it. I can’t hold liquor for the life of me, but it makes it a lot more fun,” Finn chuckled.
“Fun in what way?” Snap pressed, a slight lilt in his voice.
“Oh, you know, makes it a lot harder to make a good move—during the game—and it’s fun to see whether I wake up to a blinding hangover or not. It’s like a guessing game of torture.”
Poe snorted. “Always fun in my book.”
“And then you’ll go to sleep?” Jess questioned.
“Probably,” Finn answered plainly.
“Someone keeps me up with his snores all night,” Poe sighed. He actually didn’t have a problem with Finn’s snoring. He found it easy to focus on whenever he woke up trembling and unable to place his surroundings. It was more of a rarity as time went on, but it wasn’t going away just like that.
“So you’re both still sharing a room then?” Karé asked.
“His room is closest to the medbay,” Finn replied. “It also has a private ‘fresher, which is always nice.”
Poe lightly kicked at Finn’s ankle from the suspicious looks they received from their friends.
“Although it’s not much of a positive thing since he hogs it every morning,” Finn added hastily. “Uses all the hot water.”
Poe thought about them sharing a shower earlier that morning, pressed together under the thin water stream and washing each other’s hair. “He’s right, I need at least half an hour to style my hair.”
“I know that’s true,” Snap grumbled. They used to share a room in their early pilot days, so he was subject to Poe’s excessive hair styling and perpetually messy habits. He never made the bed and was bad about leaving his clothes all over the ground, too.
“Please, let’s continue revealing my flaws,” Poe said flatly.
Finn turned to Poe, eyes aglow. “Where do I begin?”
He was paying for that later, and Finn knew it. Poe may have been staring at his best guy a little too long, but he couldn’t help it. He was always weak whenever it came to Finn.
“Iolo!” Jess whipped around in her seat, waving an arm out at the other pilot. Rey looked smug as she waltzed out of the canteen, almost skipping. “Come over here a second, would you?”
Iolo hesitated for a moment before picking up his tray and trotting over. “What’s up?”
“Do these two seem, I don’t know, suspicious to you?” She cocked a head in Finn and Poe’s direction.
Iolo’s attention shifted back and forth between them, and Poe swore he could almost see sweat beginning to bead down his right temple. “Nope, seems normal to me. They’re just good pals. Always been like that since they met.”
“I know that, but for the past few months they’ve gotten—“ Snap paused for lack of a better word. “— chummier .”
“Yeah, and the whole base has noticed it, too,” Karé expanded.
Iolo shook his head slowly. “They seem normal to me.”
“All right, let’s make a deal,” Jess interrupted.
Poe shot a look uneasily at his partner, who shrugged in return.
“You two sleep in separate rooms for one night and see if you survive. Just one night.”
“Is this part of your whole bet thing?” Finn asked.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
Poe really didn’t want to sleep alone. Sure, he would survive, especially with BB-8 in the room in her charging station as always. But that didn’t mean that he wanted to. He had gotten accustomed to Finn’s soft snoring and inability to keep to one side of the bed, as well as how he was like a heater no matter what temperature it was. But he could do one night. No problem. No problem at all.
“All right,” Poe agreed. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Yeah, no problem at all. I’ll bunk with Rey,” Finn added. “She has a spare bunk.”
“Maybe she does when Jess isn’t in there,” Snap coughed. “Or maybe they share one mattress, I can’t really recall—“
Jess elbowed him in the ribs. “I’ll go let her know what’s going on. And you—“ She glared at Snap. “—hush.”
He looked a little scared, so he nodded as Jess strode off.
Finn tossed and turned on the lumpy mattress, huffing when he couldn’t get comfortable. He tried counting the painted stars on the ceiling to put himself to sleep, but that was a waste of time.
“Oh my god, Finn, go back to Poe,” Rey mumbled from across the room, still half-asleep. “I know you’re together.”
“We’re not—“
She sat up, blinking at him through the darkness. “Finn, I’m your best friend, I like to think I know a lot about you. If you leave and let me get some real sleep, then I won’t tell anyone you did. As long as I get a few credits, that is. Confidentiality fee and all that.”
Finn jumped to his feet, untangling himself from the sheets. He couldn’t leave any faster.
Poe was awake when Finn got back, opening his arms and letting him sink beside him on the bed. They fell asleep within minutes.
“I can’t do it,” Iolo said the next morning. It was about a half hour before dawn, he was still dressed in his skivvies—bed head and all—and he looked exhausted. “The pressure is getting me.”
Poe, still barely awake said, “What?”
“You saw me last night when they were confronting me. I almost cracked when Jess looked at me.”
“To be fair, Jess can be pretty scary,” Finn said, still in bed.
“Looks like you two couldn’t make it through the night.” Iolo gestured over at Finn.
“Was there ever a doubt that we couldn’t?” Poe asked.
“No,” Iolo admitted. “No, there wasn’t.”
“Well hey, the whole secret-keeping thing is over today anyway. We’ll come out and tell them all during breakfast, okay?”
Iolo nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Hah, ‘come out,’” Finn snickered.
Poe loosed a heavy sigh. “You never get tired of those jokes, do you?”
Finn grinned, blankets pulled up to his chin. “Never.”
“I knew it, I knew it!” Jess crowed over breakfast, having barely touched her food.
“Actually, I knew it since it looks like I just got paid.” Iolo held out his open palm, waving it towards himself. “C’mon now everyone, fair’s fair.”
“What’s going on?” Bastian asked, having joined the conversation late.
“Finn and Poe finally admitted they were a couple,” said Snap as he rifled through his pockets for spare credits.
Karé gently tapped his arm and handed over their combined bets.
“Damn.” Bastian clicked his tongue, dropping a handful of credits in Iolo’s hand. “Damn, Damn, Damn.”
Rey did the same, although she didn’t look too off-put about it since she knew she was getting all of it back and then some later. Jess was the most suspicious out of the bunch and was the last to dispense the money.
Iolo looked as if he were about to crack and laughed nervously. “What can I say? I have good luck with these kinds of things.”
“Right, sure you do,” Jess huffed. “Finn, Poe—I know you two did something.”
“By something do you mean get together? Then yes, that’s what we did,” Poe retorted.
“And then some,” Finn coughed into his sleeve.
“What’s going on here?” a new voice announced.
Poe and the others stopped what they were doing and straightened, even saluting sharply to General Organa. She was sneaky and dead silent on her feet.
“There was a bet going around on whether Poe and I would get together,” Finn answered.
“Were you not already?” General Organa asked, nonplussed. “I’ve heard you two in the supply closet nearest to the briefing room at least five times. And that was just last month. Really, you two should know by now that those things aren’t soundproof.”
Finn and Poe could do nothing but let their jaws drop in response, both too stunned to speak.
“You little liars, I knew you were always together!” Jess hissed accusingly. “Give me back my credits, Iolo, I know you were in on it, too.”
Iolo began backing away slowly.
“Iolo, now,” Jess demanded.
Iolo ran, the others chasing after him as he ran out of the canteen.
General Organa was the only one who remained aside from Finn and Poe, who sheepishly looked back at her.
“We’ll try to avoid supply closets from now on,” Finn promised.
“And all public spaces,” Poe added. “Not that we do—that in a public space. That would be highly inappropriate. And unsanitary.”
General Organa stared back, unamused.
“Now would be a good time to run,” Finn whispered.
“Yeah, we better—“ He didn’t even finish that sentence before Finn took his hand to make a break for it.