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WISH LIST

★ my dark au kink:
+ being captured by the first order and subjected to reconditioning
+ trying to turn him back with the power of gay love and friendship (and possibly failing)
+ he was always a first order tie fighter pilot instead of winter soldiered
+ poe and finn first order murder squad (dynamics if they were both stormtroopers? running away together?)
+ ^ part b: the fam that gets captured and reconditioned together… stays…together…
+ Interesting Dynamics with kylo and hux from dark aus

★ finn stuff
+ what will they do after the war? romantic vacations? homesteading? sending finn's spit to space 23andme?
+ infinite escape reimagining/aus, stormpilot escape room reigning champions

★ rey stuff
+ relationship of convenience because they're both In Denial
+ sith princess rey aus where he tries to save her and/or she turns him

★ kylo stuff
+ infinite interrogating/torture room reimagining/aus
+ ^ part b: stockholm syndrome?
+ We Need to Talk about Leia

★ general
+ honestly anything regarding leia (esp processing grief post-tros)
+ talking about his sketchy spice runner past (possibly playing things taking place during that time in his life?)
+ ^ same for things taking place during academy/new republic tbh
+ i love aus. modern aus, vampire aus, a/b/o aus, let's au the entire world
+ i prefer m/m for poe but am good with most ships

kinks if ya nasty

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's … complicated.

[ Life hack: I'm putting this in brackets so I don't forget what I decided. Anyway, Rey doesn't really want to dig into it with Poe that Unkar Plutt thinks she still owes him money for … raising … her, and that he's holding info about her parents hostage until that debt is paid.

She's pretty sure Poe would offer to just … help her shake down Plutt or something to get them back. And she doesn't want to expose those wounds.

Fortunately, the elevator doors slide open and welcome them out onto one of the shiny floor of offices and classrooms that happens to house the lab Ren uses and the cluster of offices that he occupies with others, including but not limited to Hux. Phasma's elsewhere somewhere. We'll get to her. Maybe she runs the ROTC program, who knows. ]

This way. [ The cluster of offices is behind another RFID-locked door. Rey gets her phone out again. ] PhD students have to do research or reports of some kind, right? What are you working on?

[ she's not wrong. he'd be like "after we steal the answer key, get back in my car because we're gonna go to unkar plutt's house and beat him up." that is just the level of full 100 emoji that he operates at.

anyway, yeah, he remembers this cluster of offices. the asshole corridor. great. who would have thought so many awful people could congregate in one place. at least they're not actually here. ]

You really wanna hear about that?

[ she can't see the way his eyebrows raise while she's working on the rfid like seriously?? i mean obviously it's very interesting to him but why would an undergrad not specifically in his program ... care ... ]

It's about human interaction with robotics in spaceflight. Behavioral coding, ways to make it more intuitive. Does that make sense? Like, what if we could control the tech out there so it's more like a Swype keyboard. The kind of modalities you'd need to map out for that.

[ Because if there's one way to get engineering and physics phds talking about something for a long time, uninterrupted, it's to ask them to explain their thesis. : ) And Rey has discovered this and really doesn't want to delve into the Plutt stuff.

Anyway. It works, so she offers semi-verbal affirmations in the form of noises in the back of her throat as she makes sense of parts while she's plugging away at overriding the RFID mechanism. It's not that elaborate. Most people aren't worried about the security in this building, go figure. Most people wouldn't break in. Most people. ]

That makes sense. You'd need to merge it with a predictive AI then, right? [ She plugs away at cords. ] You must be spending a lot of time in the computer sciences department.

[ you can do it gurl, he's cheering for you. meanwhile, he'll stand here and talk about his life. ]

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I spend more than my fair share of time in those labs. But it's not that bad, I'm used to it. It's kind of my background. Bachelor's in aerospace engineering, master's in robotics. I know the computer sciences department very, very well.

[ Very, very well, huh? Rey looks over her shoulder at him, quietly measuring whether or not that means he's got some long list of exes there. No. He probably didn't mean it that way and she probably doesn't need to be protective of Finn to that end. But that wording tho …

This lock churns like the last one and Rey gets to unplugging her phone and covering the panel back up. ]

I'm going for aerospace engineering too! [ She grins. Oh, right, wingmanning— ] Uh, Finn's still undecided though.

[ the truth is i wrote that tag when i was half-asleep. but maybe he did spend a lot of time messing around in the comp sci department. he is an attractive man. but maybe also consider: all the dumb shit he's said in the last 24 hours alone.

he opens the door to the newly unlocked asshole corridor with an enthused expression that has nothing to do with the newly unlocked door. ]

Really? That's great! Aerospace buddies.

[ going back the beginning of this tag, consider: literally this very moment ]

Yeah. Aerospace buddies.

[ Really Finn? This guy? Ok. Rey heads into the office pod with him. The locks in here are manual, so she stuffs her phone and cord back into her drawstring bag and rifles through it for a black pouch. She flips it open and there are lockpicks in there. Rey has a dubious skillset. ]

So you know which test is the midterm right? You'll recognize it? What if it's got some secret label like 'stardust' the way movies do when they're in production?

[ he'd be surprised but after this mr. toad's wild ride they've been on, nothing would really surprise him about rey at this point. she's a goddess, she walks in beauty, etc. he's delegated to moral support again. ]

If he was dumb enough to not label it, it'd be ... it's intro, right? There are key objectives you gotta cover in intro classes. I mean, it's not all gonna be exactly the same. But I'd know it if I saw it, by whatever's on it.

[ Rey pulls out a few files and tools and crouches to get at the handle while he talks. It keeps her distracted from the facts that she learned this to boost parts for Plutt's shop. ANYWAY. It seems to take considerable concentration so she quiets down during this part. Suddenly. ]

[ when she suddenly stops talking, he looks down like oh. she's doing some intense lock-picking stuff now. should he stop talking? should he keep talking? he decides to just input, quietly ]

You're good at this stuff.

Yeah.

[ This is the only reply she offers as she continues to work. It isn't that long — she's quick about it and skilled in picking up on when she has the pressure in the right place. The industrial locks that schools use are pretty straightforward. It feels like forever, though, because of her silence.

She spins the lock and something clicks. She stands again. ]

Voila.

[ And she opens the door up for him, then stands aside to stow her tools. ]

You're up. If you were a midterm and its key, where would you be?

[ he raises his eyebrows in silence while trying to think of where someone like ren would put their midterms. not someone like him, who keeps the physical copies of all his coursework in a drawer all scattered together with no apparent order but also rammed in with other completely unrelated paperwork, and the digital copy just saved on his desktop along with every other file he's created or saved in the last several months. there's not even a desktop anymore, it's just an ocean of files. welcome to a glimpse of the inner workings of poe dameron.

anyway, what are people who aren't human hurricanes like. how would a sociopath file paperwork. ]

It's coming up soon, right? So he's probably printed everything already. [ and not the morning of, ten minutes before his class starts. ] Check his desk, maybe it'll be in a folder or one of those sorter things.

[ a genius. this is his design. ]

[ The last time Rey was in this office tbh she left crying. She just wanted help. It feels eerie to be in here without Professor Ren's shadowy presence filling it. It feels deceptively utilitarian, actually, without his Aura to infect it. Rey steps around his desk and settles into his chair.

That feels more eerie still, like she's slipping into his skin or something. But this isn't a serial killer AU. So she only spends a moment looking up at Poe and trying to imagine the world from Ren's point of view before she sits up straighter in the chair and starts pulling open drawers.

The files are neatly organized, but have no clear system. At least, not labels. Ren probably doesn't need them since they're his own files and he has a mind like a steel trap. Rey starts thumbing through. ]

These don't look like class documents. I think it's stuff for his own research. [ She pulls out a paper, frowning over it. The calculations are well beyond her. Obviously. But she can figure some broad strokes out thanks to, well, coursework. ] This is military stuff.

[ he hovers over her shoulder to get a look at what she's talking about. his mouth slants sideways as his eyes skim it over. ] Yeah, I think it's for this thesis. Looks familiar. Or, uh, looks like stuff I've heard him talk about.

[ what if he SET IT ON FIRE as a special way to say get fucked. no, that's stupid. he no doubt has it on his computer anyway. it'd just be being petty.

but realistically their whole rivalship is just a series of pettiness ...

no. rey first. this is about rey and not your grudgeboner. ]

It's not what we're looking for. Let me get in here, I said I'd know it if I saw it. [ she can stay in the chair, but he is going to move over the drawer to rifle through all the paperwork. ]

[ Rey returns the paper to where she thinks she found it in the meticulously ordered papers in that filing folder and reaches over to pull his laptop towards her where he's left it on the desk. ]

Ugh, mac.

[ This scoff comes as she opens the lid. ]

[he scoffs with her, adding additional commentary: ]

He would.

[ at least, since ren has ... literally any organizational system at all, it's easy enough for poe to figure out how he's sorted out all his coursework. which means ... ]

Found it! I think. Pretty sure. Look at it, does this look right? [ he pulls the paper out of the folder it was in and hands it over to her. ]

[ Rey has her fingers drumming on the mac keyboard lightly — not typing, but considering what she wants to type. She's indecisive. Hovering in indecision. Macs are harder to get into.

But she looks down at him then. Maybe she won't need to get into it after all. She takes the test from Poe and nods. ]

Yeah. Yeah, this should be it.

[ Then she flips through gingerly, trying not to crease the test near the staple. ]

Was there a key with it, or … ?

[ he goes back into the folder (he kept one hand there holding the folder open because he didn't want to lose it...) , flipping through the other papers only to find — ]

No, I'm not seeing it. Shit. These are probably just the copies he's gonna hand out.

That's okay.

[ She grabs her phone. ]

I can take pictures of the pages, and we can work through the problems together. Right? That's practically the same thing.

[ And then it's studying. Less cheating than stealing answers, surely. She tries to comfort herself with this. ]

I — yeah, sure. Of course. [ like, this is better than nothing ... but still. he wanted a better heist. ]

You sure you wanna do that? I mean, it's your grade, so ...

Passing the midterm was all I came looking for. This'll help just as much. [ She holds up the test in indication. Then, after a pause, she realizes he's not thrilled. ] What did you come here for?

[ Obviously not just her grade. ]

To help you. [ duh. obviously. ] I just wanted to make sure you got a perfect score no matter what. [ a pause as he realizes why she may be questioning this motive. ] ... It's not something personal with Ren.

[ DON'T BE A BAKA REY

]

Are you sure about that?

[ Surprisingly, there is nothing judgmental in her voice. But she searches his expression, trying to suss out whether to take his reply as defensiveness or something genuine. ]

It's alright if it is. You're putting a lot on the line for me; I could help you find something else.

[ honestly he's working through this himself. he's not very self-reflective, okay. does he have a subconscious ulterior motive? let him think about it. ]

Maybe a little. But it's ... you know, all this should be about you. You don't have to do that.

I want to.

[ Rey reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder. ]

If this works out, it'll be because of you. I can't tell you how important staying in this school and keeping my scholarship is to me. It's everything I have.

[ No, literally. She is an orphan from a small town with bad prospects. She's not doing great if she gets caught. ]

Professor Ren almost took that from me. If you want to take something from him, I'm all for it.

[ Even if it means staying longer and increased risk of getting caught. (Never mind the fact that she already put his research back in the wrong place and opened his laptop so it can now record who failed to access it and take a picture of her the way anti-theft measures do. Never mind that they are already caught and just don't know it yet.) ]

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