This scene is admittedly filler for the next scene.
Luke's advice is probably not the most sound.
Enjoy the cliffhanger. Next part is already done (I actually wrote it before this part) but it needs a bit more tweaking. Thanks for sticking this out, everyone who's still hanging around!
---
Finn and Rey conduct their morning lessons with Master Luke observing via commlink. He criticizes their form, compliments their concentration, praises them for how far they’ve both advanced in the days the three of them have been apart.
“I’m pleased. Quite pleased,” comes Master Luke’s thin, reedy voice.
Finn looks over at the tiny holoimage of their teacher and flashes him a thumb’s up sign he knows Master Luke can’t see.
“Thank you, Master Luke,” Rey speaks up from her spot on the carpet next to Finn. She’s still contorted into knots, and sweat runs in rivulets down the sides of her face and onto the floor. “We both miss you very much.”
“Yeah. How long until you get here?” Finn asks, stretching his arms over his head until his back aches.
“I’ll be arriving tonight,” he says. His holoimage flickers slightly, like the wick of a candle. Master Luke’s forehead creases and he tips his head up, as if feeling for a disturbance in the Force. Apparently he finds none, and he settles for smoothing his robes over his legs. “You two possess much anger and hate.”
“What?” Rey topples over and unfolds herself, sitting up slowly. “What do you mean?”
“You’re both in conflict,” Master Luke says. The holoimage flickers out completely, before blinking back into existence. He turns toward Finn, his lined face somber and grave. “Especially you, Finn.”
“I—I’m not! I promise,” Finn insists.
“I can sense the turmoil in you over the commlink,” their teacher says. “Both of you have a capacity for the Light and the Dark. They will call to you. It is your job to listen to the Light. To deny the Dark and lock it away.”
“Of—of course, Master Luke,” Finn stammers. “But I don’t understand—”
“Your unending well of empathy is your greatest gift, Finn, it’s what set you apart from the First Order,” Master Luke continues, “but it can also be your greatest weakness. It can tempt you to the Dark side.”
After they end the communication with perfunctory farewells, Finn sits in the center of the room, on Rey’s carpet, and lets Master Luke’s unsettling words wash over him like a wave. He feels tugged down by gravity, by the weight of his words. And, as much as he wants to deny it, there’s a ring of truth there, too.
He has been angry lately.
“It’s fine, Finn. He’s just trying to prepare you,” Rey says, attempting to comfort him, but he shakes his head. “I’m sure he doesn't mean you’ll fall.”
“He’s right though. I have been angry,” he admits, cheeks growing hot with shame. He lowers his head, unable to meet Rey’s eye. “I want to find whoever hurt Poe and—and run through them with a lightsaber. Sometimes I dream about it. Sometimes I wake up with the smell of burnt flesh in my nostrils.”
Rey sits next to him in a graceless heap. “That’s okay,” she says, touching his shoulder. “Poe is your friend. Of course you’d want to protect him.”
Finn glances at her, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. “I wish I could understand…”
“What?” she asks.
Anything. Everything. Why Poe? Why here, on the Resistance base? Why not someplace awful, evil, and cruel, like the First Order? Why not to someone awful, evil, and cruel—someone who is not Poe. But Finn’s stomach clenches with guilt at those thoughts, so he doesn't let any of them escape the tip of his tongue.
Finn scrubs his hand over his face, settles for: “In the First Order, rape was about the one thing they didn't condone.”
Rey gives him a curious look but stays silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Hux said it was disgusting, beneath us. Shameful acts only lawless Resistance scum partook in,” Finn says, with a rusty laugh. It burns down his throat like the bitter restoratives he had to choke down while he was confined to a cot in the medcenter all those months ago. “I laughed then, too. I thought it was ridiculous. But I guess Hux was right, huh?”
Rey closes a kind hand on his shoulder, very near the thin scar caused by the quillons of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. It aches now. “Humanoids have a terrible capacity for cruelty, for evil,” she says, pausing, swallowing, and then continuing. “As well as an unfathomable capacity for good. Evil and good exist in all of us. Sometimes the evil…”
Finn suddenly feels ill. He thinks Rey can feel it too, because she jerks her hand back and stares at him, eye wide, mouth falling open in a frightened 'O.'
[FILL] Poe is raped on the resistance base (Finn+Rey, Finn+Poe) 10/?
Luke's advice is probably not the most sound.
Enjoy the cliffhanger. Next part is already done (I actually wrote it before this part) but it needs a bit more tweaking. Thanks for sticking this out, everyone who's still hanging around!
---
Finn and Rey conduct their morning lessons with Master Luke observing via commlink. He criticizes their form, compliments their concentration, praises them for how far they’ve both advanced in the days the three of them have been apart.
“I’m pleased. Quite pleased,” comes Master Luke’s thin, reedy voice.
Finn looks over at the tiny holoimage of their teacher and flashes him a thumb’s up sign he knows Master Luke can’t see.
“Thank you, Master Luke,” Rey speaks up from her spot on the carpet next to Finn. She’s still contorted into knots, and sweat runs in rivulets down the sides of her face and onto the floor. “We both miss you very much.”
“Yeah. How long until you get here?” Finn asks, stretching his arms over his head until his back aches.
“I’ll be arriving tonight,” he says. His holoimage flickers slightly, like the wick of a candle. Master Luke’s forehead creases and he tips his head up, as if feeling for a disturbance in the Force. Apparently he finds none, and he settles for smoothing his robes over his legs. “You two possess much anger and hate.”
“What?” Rey topples over and unfolds herself, sitting up slowly. “What do you mean?”
“You’re both in conflict,” Master Luke says. The holoimage flickers out completely, before blinking back into existence. He turns toward Finn, his lined face somber and grave. “Especially you, Finn.”
“I—I’m not! I promise,” Finn insists.
“I can sense the turmoil in you over the commlink,” their teacher says. “Both of you have a capacity for the Light and the Dark. They will call to you. It is your job to listen to the Light. To deny the Dark and lock it away.”
“Of—of course, Master Luke,” Finn stammers. “But I don’t understand—”
“Your unending well of empathy is your greatest gift, Finn, it’s what set you apart from the First Order,” Master Luke continues, “but it can also be your greatest weakness. It can tempt you to the Dark side.”
After they end the communication with perfunctory farewells, Finn sits in the center of the room, on Rey’s carpet, and lets Master Luke’s unsettling words wash over him like a wave. He feels tugged down by gravity, by the weight of his words. And, as much as he wants to deny it, there’s a ring of truth there, too.
He has been angry lately.
“It’s fine, Finn. He’s just trying to prepare you,” Rey says, attempting to comfort him, but he shakes his head. “I’m sure he doesn't mean you’ll fall.”
“He’s right though. I have been angry,” he admits, cheeks growing hot with shame. He lowers his head, unable to meet Rey’s eye. “I want to find whoever hurt Poe and—and run through them with a lightsaber. Sometimes I dream about it. Sometimes I wake up with the smell of burnt flesh in my nostrils.”
Rey sits next to him in a graceless heap. “That’s okay,” she says, touching his shoulder. “Poe is your friend. Of course you’d want to protect him.”
Finn glances at her, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. “I wish I could understand…”
“What?” she asks.
Anything. Everything. Why Poe? Why here, on the Resistance base? Why not someplace awful, evil, and cruel, like the First Order? Why not to someone awful, evil, and cruel—someone who is not Poe. But Finn’s stomach clenches with guilt at those thoughts, so he doesn't let any of them escape the tip of his tongue.
Finn scrubs his hand over his face, settles for: “In the First Order, rape was about the one thing they didn't condone.”
Rey gives him a curious look but stays silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Hux said it was disgusting, beneath us. Shameful acts only lawless Resistance scum partook in,” Finn says, with a rusty laugh. It burns down his throat like the bitter restoratives he had to choke down while he was confined to a cot in the medcenter all those months ago. “I laughed then, too. I thought it was ridiculous. But I guess Hux was right, huh?”
Rey closes a kind hand on his shoulder, very near the thin scar caused by the quillons of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. It aches now. “Humanoids have a terrible capacity for cruelty, for evil,” she says, pausing, swallowing, and then continuing. “As well as an unfathomable capacity for good. Evil and good exist in all of us. Sometimes the evil…”
Finn suddenly feels ill. He thinks Rey can feel it too, because she jerks her hand back and stares at him, eye wide, mouth falling open in a frightened 'O.'
“I have to go check on Poe,” Finn chokes out.
She simply nods. “I feel it too. Go.”
---
TBC