There truly is no experience like being at your younger siblings after-sports-event-dinner where the dads are all getting drunk and the moms are shit talking everyone there and each other and the kids are giggling on their phones that they got too young and realizing that you are completely alone.
''i don't have anyone anymore.'' ''you have me.'' with poe?
gender neutral reader; nothing romantic happening in this one besides some crushing. hurt/comfort, discussions about having to heavily mask while in an unfriendly environment with unaccepting friends/family prior to the resistance. autistic!reader, and autistic!poe bc yes.
The Resistance was everything you hoped it would be. On paper, it was a paramilitary organization that surveyed First Order activities, working in between the lines to help those the New Republic had turned their backs on, and desperately trying to prove to an increasingly ignorant Senate that the First Order was a legitimate threat.
In reality, it was a paramilitary organization held together with space tape. There were only 400 members, give or take, and everyone knew each other — not just from living on D'Qar together, but from the past as well. Most were former government employees who'd followed Leia, or pilots who deserted the Defense Fleet when it had abandoned them and their morals. Then there were the veterans from the Alliance who'd already fought in a war together, and knew the parents of the next generation they were now fighting alongside.
It meant that the Resistance felt more like a family than anything else, and they'd welcomed you with open arms.
You'd been reserved at first, afraid to drop your guard or be yourself after so many years of masking or having to watch what you said. Maybe that was why after speaking with you for a few minutes, General Organa had Poe Dameron give you a grand tour of the base.
Or perhaps it had just been logical, since you'd wound up with the bunk next to his.
Either way, you were grateful for it because he'd made you feel a little more at ease, despite the fact that he made your heart skip a beat the first time you saw him properly — he was unfairly handsome and you're not responsible for the first thought that flitted through your mind when he held his hand out and introduced himself.
But it hasn't been easy, either. It's been a month now since you made the decision to leave Hosnian Prime, move away from your family and all but cut ties with them to join the Resistance, and that choice weighs heavily now on you.
There are a lot of good spots on base to hide when you don't want to be found, but one of the lesser used hangars towards the encroaching treeline you've found to be the best: so when your thoughts become a little too much to handle, you go there.
When you arrive, however, it becomes clear that it is not empty as it normally is. Instead, when you step inside the darkened hangar, there's a lantern glowing softly underneath a grimy looking X-Wing: but it does nothing to light up the room by comparison to the shower of sparks that abruptly soars across the space.
The miniature explosion is followed up with a series of swears and panicked beeps, and your medic instincts kick in before you know what's happening, rounding the frame of the starfighter to find Poe Dameron on the other side of it, face covered in soot and grease.
“Maybe we should've found something else to do, buddy,” he muses morosely to his droid who beeps an affirmative, before lighting up when he spots you. "Hey, stardust. Whatcha doing?”
You come to a stop, stride faltering over the softness of his tone and the usage of a nickname. Were you really at the place of your friendship (did it count as a friendship? You thought of Poe as a friend, probably, but you hadn't really known each other a long time either) that nicknames were a thing?
"I heard…” you gesture helplessly at the X-Wing and then at Poe. "I thought maybe someone had gotten hurt.”
"Nope! Nobody hurt. Well, maybe my dignity's a little wounded but I think anyone on base would be happy to tell you I don't have a lot of that left.” Poe pulls out a rag from his pocket to clean his hands of the grease on them, still smiling at you.
“Well, you don't look very dignified right now,” you admit with a small laugh, reaching for the cloth. "Can I? You've got some…”
"All over my face?” Poe guesses, handing the rag over. You snort, and it's not a pleasant noise at all, but it makes his smile tick impossibly higher.
"Little bit.” You confirm, stepping closer into his space. You have to stand up on your tiptoes in order to gently wipe his face clean, and it takes a lot of mental energy to ignore the way his dark eyes are studying you carefully, how you can feel how warm his body is, and the slight shadow gathering around his jaw — never mind the rosy-pink of his lips.
"It wasn't that loud. The X-Wing, I mean. How'd you hear it all the way out on the tarmac?”
You pause where you'd been carefully and lightly scrubbing some grease off the thin skin under his eye, your own flicking up to meet his. Instinctually, you start to go for a lie, but it's - becoming harder to come up with covers for your actions when there really hasn't been a need to lately.
So instead, you swallow thickly and fall back on your heels, twisting the rag between your fingers. “I like coming here to clear my head sometimes. There's usually sentries up on the top of the bunkers so - this is a good alternative.”
For the first time this evening, Poe's smile tightens a little. He steps a little bit closer, taps the side of your temple. "What's going on up here, then?”
You press your lips together, the truth lodged in your throat and begging to be released. It's never been easy for you to just talk, to say what you're feeling or to explain what's wrong.
But something about Poe makes you want to try, makes it easier. Maybe it's because you know no matter how long it takes you to articulate something, he'll be waiting to listen.
"It's been a month since I left Hosnian Prime,” you begin to explain. “And I keep thinking about…everything I left behind, how much happier I am here with the Resistance, and what that means about the life I had before.”
"What does it mean?”
You lower your gaze from Poe, if only because your eyes begin to sting. “That I was never going to be happy there with them, and…now that I'm starting to get an idea of who I am without them, the thought of going back - of going back to who I was pretending to be - scares the kriff out of me. But what's scarier is that I don't have anyone anymore.” No friends, no family, none that would ever accept you exactly as you are without complaints or disappointment.
Before you can comprehend the sound of his boot scuffing against the duracrete, Poe's nudging your chin so you'll look up at him, standing closer than he was before and cupping your elbow with his other hand. “You have me. Alright? You're not alone, and you don't ever have to be that person again, not if you don't want to.”
You lick your lips and nod once, ask hoarsely, "What if I end up not liking who I really am? Or whoever all of this makes me become?”
“Then I'll be here to remind you of how great you are, just like you'll be there to patch me up everytime I do something reckless and foolish.”
You huff a laugh at that, shoving the rag at Poe's chest, but you're buoyed by his words and his vow, the shadows that had been chasing you since you woke that morning finally being extinguished by the ray of sunshine that is Commander Poe Dameron and his huge heart.
And when his eyes crinkle a bit at the corners as he takes the cloth from you, pulling his hands away from you to fiddle with it like you had been, you soften and say, "Thank you…flyboy.”
Poe lifts his head incrementally at your own new nickname for him, surprise being quickly overtaken by a stomach flipping crooked grin. “Always. Now, is there any chance I can get your medical opinion on this X-Wing?”
"I think it's beyond saving unless you happen to actually be a mechanic, Dameron, which neither of us are. And in my medical opinion, I think you should move away from a ship that's already tried to set you on fire once tonight.”
But Poe's already getting down onto the ground to inspect it from underneath. “Where's the fun in that? You can stay if you want to make sure nothing else goes boom.”
Then he disappears under the frame of the X-Wing, leaving you to share a glance with BB-8. When you cave and settle down into a lotus position on the ground just beside the starfighter, it's only out of sheer concern for your friend and not an excuse to keep talking to him until the early hours of the morning.
