STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

[avali]

STAR WARS CALL OUT POST:
STEP 1: pick a muse
STEP 2: leave a comment with their name in the subject line, pictures, words or all of the above
STEP 3: profit

Comments

[scrounging]

[That makes her mouth pull crooked, something like a wry quirk of a smile. Barely there at all really, the ghost of a reflex, but it sticks instead of sliding off her face the moment after. She shoots him a sideways look.]

You really think that? That they'll just forget me?

[There's an obvious note of doubt there, but at least half the sentiment is genuine. What does she really know about the First Order? Not what a Resistance fighter does, anyway. Maybe she really can just slide back between the cracks. Disappear. Once he and BB-8 are gone, she'll go back to being nothing more than a scavenger, the only thing of value on her half ruined metal and wiring and repurposed rubber.

That makes sense, then. A person like that would be easy to forget.]

[reconditioning]

[Infectious, that little quirk there at the corner of her lip: part of the reason he'd pried into the state of her life aside from just the fact that she somehow managed to save his own. His expression instinctively mirrors hers (one of the benefits of helmets, those visors never ran both ways) eyes bright and level when he meets her stare-- he hasn't forgotten the weight of what's behind them, he just has the luxury of a good view of what's ahead.

And it's more than he ever found in cold walls or cramped corridors, armor pinning him in like a noose.

He's not fidgeting anymore.] They get bigger targets. Better ones.

[And then, attention fixed, Finn adds, peeling the leather from his shoulders:] You cold?

Gotta be after spending forever on that dustball. Here.

[scrounging]

[That much is true, she knows. If the Resistance finds Luke Skywalker - if that's real and not just a crazy story, like talking about catching the sun (crazy like leaving Jakku on an antique spaceship) then, sure. She's no one.

No one who, honestly, wouldn't mind a turn with the jacket.]

Sure.

[She has no compunctions about taking it off his hands when offered and shrugging into it. No arguments about Jakku being a dustball - no sense arguing with a fact.]

[reconditioning]

Just keep it closed there-- [Reaching across the panel again, fingers still light over leather until he flicks his grip, laying down one of the automatic snaps just overtop her collarbone. A lot of things they teach First Order troops are ways to kill, to disarm and maim without flinching or fear, but it has the added effect of insight when it comes to helping, sometimes. Little things, like where heat's stored mostly within the human chest, and how insulating it properly can make a world of difference everywhere else. Hands, feet-- counting off the facts he knows in his head as he pulls back away from her into his seat.] --and you'll feel better in no time.

[Things like this? They were rare. He never got to really talk to the only friend he had within the stormtrooper ranks; it's hard not to wonder how well he'd have managed if the both of them had lived instead. Quiet appreciation wound up in the seconds he spends watching her--

Before his elbow hits the same switch again, setting off a jarring collection of unhealthy-sounding beeps. So much for sentimentality.]

[scrounging]

Oh. Thank you.

[It's-- a strange, pleasant gesture. She's never had anyone offer her a jacket, to do a snap for her, do anything more than pass her a brush to scrub scrap with. But that makes sense. That's just Jakku. There are other systems and other planets where the people are gentler, where it doesn't cost a microvalve and a mostly working binary motivator to earn a half ration.

And then his elbow throws off the same course switches and she hisses, bats his hand and his elbow and his whole arm away with-:] Watch it!

[She hastily corrects what he's knocked out of place.]

Honestly, what do they even teach you in the Resistance? [How to aim and fire, apparently. He's a good shot even if he doesn't know how to sit in a cockpit.]

[reconditioning]

[Thoroughly swatted for his transgression, 2187 scrubs diligently at his own elbow, using it as an excuse to keep from giving an answer right away. Mostly because for all the vids they watched, all the speeches Hux gave-- he didn't really know the Resistance. Or much of anything else, for that matter.

They said people starved for the Republic's depravity while Phasma demanded that they mow down striking workers, they promised order and change and a better life, but they stole children to do it, and he watched, uselessly, as Slip just...died. For nothing. For less than nothing. And in the face of all that? There was Poe.

He picks at the leather with his fingertips, the gesture already running out of steam.] Oh you know, most of it's pretty classified stuff.

[Which, if they were talking about the First Order, would actually be true.] Besides, I always did most of the teaching. Cadets needed somebody standing around watching their backs, making sure they don't slip up and get themselves killed.