Fire Meet Gasoline | Poe Dameron

Ten

Poe

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

When I saw her I thought, 'it's been a hell of a day what's the harm in some light hearted flirting? We could both use the distraction after all.' Turns out there's a hell of a lot.

I'm pacing the corridors on D'Qar waiting to be called in to see Leia, simultaneously cursing and thanking Threepio for interrupting us long enough for me to realise just how bad an idea it would have been. Not because I don't like her, not because I don't think she's absolutely beautiful and incredible even if she drives me slightly crazy, but because I do like her.

I have Leia's trust and confidence, the last thing I need to do is break it by going and sleeping with her daughter. In all fairness before we ran into Threepio I was going to make another attempt at being a romantic and asking her out on a date first before stumbling into one of our bedrooms, but even asking her out like that would be a bad idea, even if it would be for the second or third time.

I want to know her but not that like that, alright maybe a little like that, but this isn't the way to do it. I want to know her, to be close to her in a way that's more intimate than just sex. 

Friends? Friends. It has to be as friends. 

When we met I'd half succeeded in talking her into a date, and maybe as we were heading back to the crew quarters I did open my mouth to try to attempt it again, to take things back just a notch considering the last thing I want is to give her the impression I just want to sleep with her. Maybe that's all she wanted, and that's a thought that stings a little, but I know it was more than that for me. 

Even then, intentions don't matter when the thought of being anything more than friends would be a terrible idea on every level.

Feelings and attraction aside, I'm nearly ten years older than her and I've never even looked at someone that much younger before. If anything I always judged the people my age in the navy who went after the new recruits fresh out of the academy. It's not that situation with Hope, if anything I'm the new recruit, but it doesn't sit right with me. I've dated people who are older, some younger, but never anything more than four or five years difference let alone nine.

She's twenty, she's a grown woman and I know that objectively there's nothing wrong with how I see her and that the attraction's mutual, but a decade is a hell of a lot when someone's twenty and I don't know how comfortable I am with that when I really think about it. I was joining the academy when she was still in elementary school or whatever the fancy political school equivalent is that I saw on her file. Again, her parents might have had a bigger age gap but from the things I've overheard they aren't exactly the best example to lead by. 

Then there's all the rest. 

Rank is one thing, I'm hardly her commanding officer but experience plays into it. She's worked hard since she was still a kid, hell she started in the starfighter corps at twelve, not that long after I first joined the academy, and according to her file only quit when the Resistance was formed. She's been at this almost as long as I have and she's incredible at what she does, military experience and training might be about equal but when it comes to life experience and relationships I'd have to have more than ten years on her when it comes to those. Even before I'd ever left Yavin-4, as a teenager I cared about people and got hurt because of it, I was still screwing things up thirteen, fourteen, maybe even fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago she was five. 

Snap would tell me nine years isn't the worst age gap, I mean Snap's got sixteen years on Karé and can't help but become a nervous kid whenever she's around. But Hope's a lot younger than Karé and it's my responsibility to do the right thing by her when I know that type of age gap does matter, and yet when I look at her there isn't a single thought in my head aside from her.