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It had become normal for Poe to meet up with Rey and Finn to get something to eat after they were done training, but tonight came about by accident, an offhand comment at lunchtime suddenly spiraling into this.
We can meet at Poe’s quarters before we go to the mess, that seems like a good idea!
This madness.
Poe stood in the tiny kitchen in the corner of his quarters, frantically sauteing vegetables and adding spices to meat, eyeing the clock in trepidation. He wasn’t going to be ready by the time they got here, he just knew it. He should have started working on this hours ago, right after flight practice, instead of spending an hour trying to explain himself to Jess.
Finn and Rey? It’s… something we’re still figuring out .
Well, figure it out fast. Those two are gonna get snapped up by half the base if you don’t make a move.
I’ve never been opposed to sharing, Jess, you know that.
I know, but sharing is one thing, being happy is another. I’ve never seen you look at another sentient being the way you look at those two. Might be wise to make it official.
Poe hated having to explain himself, but mostly because he didn’t feel like it needed to be explained. Kisses frequently exchanged between them, late nights talking about life on distant planets, the resistance, the future, falling asleep tangled up in each other’s arms on Poe’s narrow bunk after the two of them explored him like he was a new galaxy, full of delights and fascinations they had never dreamed of.
Nothing really needed to be defined, it simply… was. A foregone conclusion, brought into effect only by the three of them being present in the same place. Poe had grown up being taught about the Force, but he’d never felt it in his life the way he did when he was around the two of them. A sense of belonging, of comfort, of… and he hated using the word unironically, but it fit… of destiny.
It was less a matter of meant to be, and more a matter of always had been. That was him with Finn and Rey. Like a breath he’d been holding his entire life and had finally let out, only to discover he’d been deprived of oxygen this entire time.
They did seem to live and breathe each other these days. The three of them were inseparable, living in and out of each other’s pockets, only parting for necessary actions, like flight practice, training, and occasionally flights of madness like this, Poe’s addle-minded notion that he should make Finn and Rey a home-cooked meal.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t cook. Poe had grown up on a diet of fresh vegetables and local game on Yavin 4, and his parents, having spent most of their time living on dried rations in space, wanted to make sure their son grew up eating at least one real meal a day. Thanks to this, Poe had garnered a reputation amongst the other pilots as the resident parent, feeding his squadron at least once a month with an elaborate, locally-harvested feast of fresh vegetables, soups, stews, and other seasonal delicacies he had learned how to cook in his travels.
No, it certainly wasn’t that he couldn’t cook. It was that he had never cooked for them before.
Their time together had enlightened Poe on many new experiences, most of them completely alien to him. Having grown up with two attentive and caring parents, he could barely fathom the lives Finn and Rey had lived before the three of them had found each other. Finn, growing up surrounded by rules and order, any familial instincts squashed by the First Order’s rigorous commitment to obedience. The first time Finn had sat down with him in the mess to eat a meal, his eyes had grown wide at the spread of food available to him and hadn’t shrunk since.
You mean… you mean I can eat whatever I want?
Poe’s heart ached at the thought of it, of the young man so shocked by autonomy, by food that did more than provide necessary nutrients, food that actually tasted good. His heart ached more remembering that Finn’s expression had only been surpassed by Rey’s, who had never seen so many vegetables in her life.
Finn at least had been around other people. Rey, though she knew how to interact with other people, still showed a side around Finn and Poe that reminded him of a scared and feral child, one used to having to fight for every possession, every meal, every second of free time. When Rey looked at food, she saw quantity, and her eyes widened at the prospect of no limitations, of no cost.
You mean… I can eat as much as I want?
After the first meal or two in the mess, Poe had gotten used to Rey’s lack of table manners. He of course found her attitude endearing, though that was honestly self defense. He had to find her insistence on forgoing forks in favor of fingers endearing, because if he thought too much about why she grabbed handfuls of food and stuffed them into her mouth, why she shoved leftovers into her pockets, he had the urge to go back to Jakku and stab that disgusting Unkar Plutt in his throat.
Finn often imitated her, so meals became a frantic competition between the two of them to get the most and the best of the provided food. Poe had been forced to break up more than one friendly squabble over the best piece of bread, the ripest fruit, the sweetest dessert, and the urgency with which Rey and Finn seemed to need them.
Poe couldn’t imagine growing up the way they had, and this made him all the more determined to make sure they never had to go through it again.
And that meant making them the perfect home cooked meal.
“How much time left on that bird, buddy?” Poe asked BB-8, who sat in the corner of the kitchen next to the oven, keeping time while also wearing a paper chef’s hat. Poe had put it on the droid once out of amusement, and BB-8 had liked it so much that it was now required whenever Poe cooked.
The droid trilled cheerfully, and Poe nodded. Ten more minutes. Just enough time to finish up these vegetables. The bread, which he’d made from a round of dough he’d left in his freezer unit, was baked and sat cooling on the small table in the center of his quarters. He’d set the table earlier, mostly just with plates and cups, knowing that Finn and Rey would continue to forgo utensils in favor of their hands no matter what anyone tried.
BB-8, always able to sense the moods of its master, let out a reassuring series of beeps, and Poe rolled his eyes. “I know, buddy,” he said, seasoning some greens. “But just because they’ll love anything I cook doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do my best to make them something good!”
BB-8 whistled at him, a sound that managed to sound sarcastic, and Poe chuckled. “Hey, cooking is a skill. If I don’t keep it sharp, then nobody’ll want to come to a squad meal ever again!”
BB-8 beeped again, this time to tell him the roasting waterfowl in the oven was done, and rolled over to the door to the hallway, letting out a series of excited squeals. Poe’s stomach flipped, because he could hear them coming without BB-8’s warning, laughing and chattering echoing all the way from the other end of the hallway.
“Kriff it,” Poe muttered, taking the vegetables off the heat and grabbing an oven mitt so he could take the roasting bird out. It smelled of home to him, of comfort and stories and time spent hearing all about the first rebellion. Just like mom and dad used to make.
The door slid open and Poe froze, still holding the hot pan in his oven-mitted hands, as Rey and Finn strolled in.
“I still don’t know how you did that thing with your staff,” Finn was saying, his face fresh and energetic. “One minute I was up and the next I was looking at the ceiling!”
“Oh, that,” Rey grinned, her hair still damp from a post-training shower but returned to its series of knots on the back of her head. “It just takes practice!”
“Obviously I need more practice,” Finn replied. “Hey, BB-8,” he noticed the droid first. “Nice hat.”
The droid beeped excitedly, wobbling on its spherical body, and both Rey and Finn looked away from each other to finally notice Poe. He must have looked quite the sight, holding a metal pan with a steaming roasted bird on it, his hair even more tousled than usual thanks to his time slaving over the hot stove. His shirt was sprinkled with flour and stained with spots of oil, and he found himself blushing as he met their eyes.
“Uh….” he began, a confident start. “Hey.”
Finn and Rey wore identical expressions again, their faces mirrored confusion. “Poe!” Finn said. “What are you…”
“... Doing?” Rey finished. The two of them had picked up a habit of finishing each other’s sentences over the recent weeks, and it made Poe’s heart melt.
“Well, I know that normally you like to get something to eat when you’re done training,” Poe said, finally regaining his bearings enough to place the spice-scented fowl on the table. “And I had some free time after my run with the squadron so I…” he trailed off, taking off the oven mitts and trying to ignore the feeling that his face was on fire. “I made you both dinner.”
Finn and Rey were both silent now, eyes wide and glittering, drinking in the sight before them without missing a detail. The fresh and crusty homemade bread, the wafting scent of vegetables and meat, the table that normally served as a catch-all stand for gear, items that needed repairing, and partially-folded clothes, now set with plates and cups. There were even candles, two half-burned stubs left over from a power-outage, but still candles. It was romantic, it was beautiful, and Poe could tell they had never seen anything like it before.
“You…” Rey was the first to speak, though her expression didn’t change. “You… made all this… for us?”
Poe smiled at her. “I just figured you two had never had a home-cooked meal before, so it might be… something nice to do together.”
Finn swallowed, clearly overwhelmed. Poe felt that ache in his heart again, knowing how new all of this was to them. That ache drove him to do so many things for Finn and Rey, but seeing their expressions always evoked a swirling contradictions of emotions. Happiness, of course, for giving them something new, but also a deep sadness that such things were so new to them, that this was their first experience with this, and so many other things in their time on D’Qar.
Finn finally spoke, his face now all smile and joy. “... You can COOK ?!”
Rey giggled, giving Finn a friendly shove. “Of course he can cook,” she said. “He’s Poe. Poe can do anything!”
“I don’t know about that,” Poe felt the ache in his heart vanish, soothed by Finn’s smile, by Rey’s laugh. “I can’t use a lightsaber, and I’m still getting the hang of waking up at a reasonable hour.”
“I just…” Finn’s smile keeps widening. “I knew that people had to prepare the food in the mess and everything, but … I …” He stared at Poe, his eyes now full of abject adoration. “I didn’t think it was something people could just… do… whenever they wanted.”
Rey smiled at him, though her eyes echoed with something Poe recognized. He knew she felt the same ache in her heart when Finn experienced something new and strange, that need to take the ex-stormtrooper and wrap him in hugs and affection while simultaneously also wanting to scrub the First Order off of the face of the galaxy for what they did to him. Of course he wouldn’t know that cooking was something people did for each other. All of his experiences with food had been communal mess halls, or scavenging scraps, or quick handfuls of MRE style food on missions in the Falcon.
They had so much to do together. All three of them did.
Finn and Rey finally crossed the room to the table, Rey sitting down and grabbing for bread without any kind of pause or ceremony. The only thing Rey loved more than bread was sweets. “I can’t believe you made this for us!” she said. “Everything smells so good!” She ripped off a chunk of bread and chewed it, closing her eyes to focus on tasting the buttery crust, the soft spongy interior. Poe hoped he’d made enough food for the three of them, but only because both Rey and Finn tended to always eat like they hadn’t seen food in days.
Finn sat down too, Poe filling his plate with meat and vegetables, and Finn used his fingers to taste and eat the savory fowl, the crisp vegetables, sometimes talking with his mouth full, though mostly just to say how delicious everything was.
Poe felt as if his heart might burst.
The meal was short, but that wasn’t surprising considering their combined appetites. Finn asked question after question about cooking, wanting to know every detail about how Poe had roasted the meat, had seasoned the vegetables, had baked the bread. Rey asked questions too, though she was more interested in how the vegetables had been grown, whether or not they came from the garden on the other side of the base, and if anyone could go there and plant something. When Poe told her he had picked them himself, she looked thrilled. As they ate, Poe felt a hand rest on his and he saw Finn had paused in his excited devouring of the meal to look at him. Poe felt his stomach flip again at the sweet and serious gaze of the younger man, and he blinked as he felt a touch on his other hand, Rey seeing Finn’s action and joining in.
“Thank you,” Finn said, his voice low and his eyes soft.
“Yes,” Rey agreed. “This really was so kind of you.”
Poe smiled at them. “I’ll have to do this more often,” he said. “Hey, I could even teach you how to cook.”
Finn practically jumped out of his seat he was so excited. “You mean I could learn how to do THIS?!”
Rey and Poe both laughed, and they returned to eating and talking, Poe telling stories of the meals his parents had taught him to make back home. Finn made him promise to teach him how to make every single one.
Both of them helped Poe clean up after, BB-8 whistling cheerfully as they all made sure the dishes were washed and organized. Like all the things they did together, it was close and it was light, Rey flicking soap suds at Finn and Poe while they stood hip-to-hip in the tiny kitchen, Finn resting his head on Poe’s shoulder while they dried plates with a cloth. Cleaning up became a mix of bumping shoulders and stealing kisses, soft giggles and smiles, and Poe had never had more fun doing something so mundane before in his life.
It was simple. Everything, even doing dishes, was better when it was the three of them together.
They ended up curled on the lounge chair next to the door, Poe seated with Finn on his lap and Rey on the floor with Poe’s leg hanging down over her shoulder. It was a familiar configuration, since they came over and stayed over every single night, but it felt different tonight, all of them somehow warmed by the closeness of the meal. Finn lazily held Poe’s hand and rested his lips against the pilot’s neck, and Rey fiddled idly with a fray on Poe’s pants. None of them spoke, but none of them needed to, and all was comfort and peace for a brief expanse of time.
They still hadn’t defined anything, still hadn’t talked about what they were or where they were going, but what they had still didn’t seem to need words. Poe felt Finn’s breath on his neck, Rey’s weight against him, and words melted away in favor of comfort, of familiarity. They would talk, of course they would talk, but only for the benefit of the rest of the galaxy.
When it was just the three of them, close and safe and happy, the only word Poe needed was easily within his grasp.
Home.