Title: Try imagining a place
Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Rating: PG
Length: 1300 w
Content notes: none
Author notes: for "shelter" + "teamwork" on my bingo card; thanks to GP & O for audiencing; title from Dylan.

Summary: Finn and Poe get lost while on a mission chasing down FO weapons caches.


They're lost, or about to be.

Leave it to the First Order to cache avionics and armaments in such a desolate place. That is, if they did. Poe and Finn arrived here convinced that the cache existed, but after seven hours in port and this endless trek to the far side of the rock, Finn, at least, is starting to have his doubts.

"This place sucks," Poe says. "Not a regular kind of sucking, either. Far from mediocre. Just full-on awful."

"This place? In particular?" Finn asks, as he lifts his com over his head in futile pursuit of a workable signal. "Or the whole damn planet?"

Poe nods. "Yeah."

"Not helpful."

Poe shrugs as he jabs his thumb at the navigator's panel. "Its only saving grace is that it excels at sucking so much."

"The bouncing's kind of fun," Finn says and demonstrates.

"Eh." Poe gives him that galaxy-weary look, so Finn accidentally on purpose jostles him on the next bounce. "Hey!"

Poe might be too cool for low-g antics, but Finn isn't. The gravity on a'Tleine is weaker than anything he has experienced. That fact is this rock's sole interesting feature; everything else about it truly does suck. Poe's right, not that Finn plans on telling him so.

Their boots are wrapped in leaden galoshes and they're draped in heavy cloaks. All this mitigates, but doesn't erase, the effects of such low gravity.

Poe's hair, for instance, drifts up and outward, so he looks perpetually surprised, even when he's being serious. Or, as he is now, cranky.

"This piece of shit isn't helping," he says, shaking the nav-piece as he turns around. "It's a piece of —"

"Shit?" Finn asks.

"Yeah." He scowls and hands the nav to Finn. "You try. Maybe it hates me."

Moonset was about half an hour ago. It's never particularly bright here, but the darkness now is a lot more imposing than the dimness earlier. A sandstorm blurs the near horizon; Finn already snapped on his goggles, but Poe's are still tangled in his excitable hair.

"Nothing," Finn says and hands the nav back. "Put your goggles on."

The sand is fine silver grit, silky to the touch, impossible to dislodge once it gets in a wrinkle or dusts your skin. Its storms move erratically, swirling across localized magnetic aberrations.

The nav-piece was supposed to help them avoid such sites.

"Piece of shit," Poe swears and mimes tossing the thing to the ground and grinding it under his boot toe. He lets Finn take it from him, then waits not very patiently for Finn to liberate the goggles' strap from his hair. "Ow!"

"Shut up," Finn tells him, but works a little more carefully lest he pull another lock of hair. His dexterity is compromised by thick gloves. "It's just hair."

"It's my legacy," Poe mutters, and glances up, half-smiling. "Like, my one claim to legit fame."

"Your hair."

"Yeah, man, my hair! Careful!"

Finn has long since given up worrying that he can't reliably tell whether Poe is joking. He figures that's Poe's issue for whenever (never) he might feel like addressing it. Grinning, he works the strap free and pulls the goggles over Poe's face to dangle around his neck. "Why not wear them down like this?"

"Uh," Poe says. "Because that'd make me look like a nerd?"

Finn checks over Poe's shoulder. They're in something of a hollow, and they have the cloaks and a length of plastisteel, so they should be able to tough this out. "Storm's getting closer."

"Great, just great. This place just gets cooler and wonderfuler by the moment." Poe sinks to one knee, letting his cape fan out around him. He lifts one arm. "Get in."

"What?"

"We'll, like, huddle under each other," Poe says, squinting up at Finn. He still hasn't put the goggles on. Finn would say something about vanity, but the first scud of sand shuts him up fast.

Finn drops down. He can't maneuver his cape anywhere near as gracefully as Poe can, but he manages to get it tented around him.

"Closer," Poe says, beckoning Finn with his outspread arm. He's got his face buried against his shoulder, so his voice is muffled. Finn shuffles on his knees closer, until he's under Poe's arm. "Now you."

Not quite following, Finn starts to speak, but tastes sand. Poe butts the side of his head against Finn's shoulder, so Finn lifts that arm; Poe scoots closer, knocking their knees together.

"Goggles," Finn says against the lining of Poe's cape. They end up with their heads ducked and arms draped over each other, which lifts the capes to their ears.

Poe groans, the same frustrated you're not the general of me noise he makes when Leia reminds him to sleep or Rey takes the controls of the Falcon. And just as he does in those situations, he complies, but only after having made clear his disagreement.

"Better?" Now goggled, he flaps out the roll of plastisteel and tucks one end into Finn's collar, then the other behind his own neck. The sand hits the material like tiny blaster bolts, constant pops and fizzes.

"Better," Finn agrees, then bends further down to hock and spit out the sand in his mouth.

When he straightens back up, Poe's grinning at him. His eyes are huge, distorted behind the goggles, but his grin is unchanged. "Gross, man."

"Sorry," Finn says. He rocks back, spreads his knees so he can bracket one of Poe's and draw that much closer. Above them, the plastisteel shudders, making a low, keening noise like old dirges.

"You're not, though."

"Sorry? No, not really."

Poe snorts and rolls his shoulder, getting his arm more comfortable around Finn's neck. Tipped close like this, their cheeks brush, Finn's smooth skin catching on Poe's mid-mission stubble. They can smell each other clearly, sour pits from a mis-navigated hike but also the lower, steadier scents of their bodies in general.

"Should get kafyurs," Poe says, naming the traditional shawls worn out in the Masgel system. "Wear 'em over our faces, keep out the sand."

"Now you think of that?"

"Thought of it before," Poe admits, "But then I forgot."

"Man," Finn starts to say, but there's nothing to add. His shoulders lift as he laughs, face buried against the warmth of Poe's neck.

"Hey, Finn?" Poe's mouth is just below Finn's ear, ticklish and exciting all at once. He wriggles a bit and tightens the hug.

"Yeah?" Finn tilts his head, trying for a decent angle, but their goggles are in the way and the plastisteel groans. He'd really like to kiss Poe right now. It's not like they can do much more than that, weighted down like they are, but it'd be nice. More than nice, actually.

Poe sounds intent, his voice husky. "If you lean this way, I can —"

Before Poe finishes, Finn's thoughts flash and rampage across his nerves: he could blow Poe like this! Poe could kiss him! They could —

"— grab that hatch and see what's what."

"Hatch?" Finn twists around, checking over his shoulder. There is something right against the hem of his cloak. "Oh, yeah."

He shuffles aside, keeping the sheet above them and one arm around Poe's waist. Heedless of the sand that's now going to get everywhere, Poe lies on his stomach to brush the sand away.

"Jackpot!" He rolls on his side and tugs Finn over to show off the unmistakable twelve-pointed dark sun impressed on the hatch's surface. "We did it!"

They can celebrate later, after multiple baths and droid scrubs. Then, Finn's fantasies can come true. Now, however, there's more work to do, and sand in his mouth and down his trousers, and Poe's already worming into the hatch opening with neihter light nor blaster.