Title: Make Do and Mourn
Fandom: Star Wars
Rating: PG
Length: 950 w
Content notes: none.
Author notes: thanks to GF for the insta-beta. Also for the murder square on my bingo card.
Summary: Decades after the war, Finn and Poe still have a lot to repair.



Years on, they inhabit an easy, congenial space together. Finn has to keep a place near the university, but manages to come back to share a triday or two with Poe whenever he can. When Finn's away, Poe spends most of his time down at the settlement. There's a public sleeper down there, around the bend from his studio; he claims it's easier to crash at the sleeper than make the hike back up to their cabin.

Their reunions are usually ebullient, full of the kind of good food neither enjoys when they're apart (Poe because he tends to subsist on spice bidis, koyo melon, and noodles, Finn because he's working at gala dinners and cannot let himself get distracted by the food) and sex in as many positions and at every opportunity as possible.

This time Finn's break between terms coincided with one of Poe's group shows. It would have made sense for Poe to make the trip into the Rim and stay with Finn, but they've become accustomed to this routine. Finn comes back, they live together, and then — maybe — Poe will accompany him back for the show.

After the food and sex and naps, wonderful long luxurious naps, the kind that remind a person what it is to relax and live, this reunion settles into their customary ease. Finn is reading at the low desk overlooking the valley, while Poe reclines across the room, doing whatever it is he gets up to in order to keep busy.

The rain this morning has pulled off, scooting up the river, leaving the air sweet and fresh in its wake.

Poe has been muttering a little, shifting in his seat, but Finn successfully tuned him out, assuming the disquiet was simply Poe's characteristic restlessness.

Finally, however, Poe snorts loudly and says, "Do I even want to know what you do to your socks?"

"Hmm?" Finn has to finish reading this footnote to a parenthetical aside before he forgets how he got to this spot in the text. "What's that?"

"Although known in his own time as an inspirational defector and ground-breaking political philosopher," Poe intones with the plummy gravity of an old-style holo-journalist, "Finn will, most likely, be best remembered by history as the murderer of countless innocent socks."

"Okay, sorry, you're going to have to back up." Finn sets aside his holo-scroll and turns to face Poe. He rubs both palms over his face. "Okay. What?"

"What did these poor things ever do to you?" Grinning, Poe tosses one sock, then another, at Finn. His accuracy is unerring; both hit Finn smack in the middle of his chest. "Are those even worth fixing? I ask you!"

Finn looks them over. The first one is made from a fine muun-yak wool. He seems to remember that they were a gift from Leia when he defended his thesis: dress the part, she'd said, and the audience will already be halfway yours. The other sock is coarser, heavier nerf-wool, half of a pair he often wears hiking. He bought the skein for Poe's father on a visit to one of the original research stations-cum-self-sufficiency projects, then received the socks for spring moon holiday the next year.

Both socks are worn away at the balls of the foot and the heel. The bare spots are feeble netting compared to the rest of the fabric. The muun-yak sock has blown through at his heel, while his big toe poked a hole in the hiking nerf.

"Are they worth fixing?" Finn repeats. Older darns and patches, some perfectly invisible, others garish and obvious, decorate both socks. "I don't know? Can they be fixed?"

Poe sounds shocked as well as outraged. "Excuse me?"

Finn puts his thumb through the hole in the heel and lets the sock dangle from his hand. "You know what I meant."

"I think I heard you impugn the quality of my work," Poe says. "I certainly hope that's not what you meant."

"Poe..."

"Give them back." Poe holds out his hand. His voice is tight, his expression shut down.

"I'm sorry," Finn says.

Poe isn't the crafter his father was. He rarely makes anything new. He fixes what other sentients toss aside; he unravels and salvages and reimagines. That goes for the art he allows to be exhibited every bit as much as his household work. Both categories encompass textiles built back up from loss and destruction. Even the wool and thread he uses for repair comes from other pieces.

"Forget it." Poe smiles and rubs the back of his neck. "I'm just fucking with you."

That's true and also an enormous lie. They both know that, but neither is sure if the other will say so.

Finn smooths the two socks over his thigh.

"These must be twenty years old," Finn says. "Do you ever throw anything away?"

"No," Poe replies. His good eye is blinking fast. "Well, careers and awards, yes. Reputations, secure futures, also yes. But not anything that matters."

All Finn can think to say is Poe's name. It comes out hoarse, like a whispered secret.

"Right here," Poe says, every bit as softly. "Not going anywhere."

Finn wants, with the sudden calm clarity of a riddle resolving itself, a knot tugging out straight, to kiss him. He pulls on the hem of Poe's jersey until Poe staggers and sinks onto Finn's knee, then his lap. He returns Finn's kiss with an answering calm, a wondering hitch and sigh.