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Poe found BB-8 settled in their favorite spot on the garden roof, the small boy who was a member of the Crystal Gems sitting in front of them. He'd borrowed Lieutenant Connix's decca and was improvising on it. He clearly didn't know how to play the thing – his hand positioning was all wrong – but he equally clearly knew how to play some similar instrument. He was getting good sound out of it, if not the sound Poe associated with a decca.
BB-8 was singing along.
“That's great!” the kid said as Poe approached. “Let's do it again! I want to try something.”
BB-8 whistled an affirmative, but spotted Poe at the end of the sequence, and their “yes” turned into a squeal of delight with no assigned meaning.
The kid laughed as BB-8 whirled impulsively away from him, towards Poe, twisting around to watch when BB-8 sped by his shoulder. “Where're you going, little guy?” he asked. “Oh!”
Poe crouched to meet BB-8, who was enthusiastically explaining about having a jam session, and musical styles, and how their new friend, Steven, was from a dimension with lots of electronic music but no droids.
“Sounds like you had quite an afternoon,” Poe said. He glanced up and smiled at Steven, who had stood up. “Hey there. BB-8 was telling me about your jam session.”
“She's really good!” Steven said. “Did BB-8 say if it was fun?”
“BB-8's having lots of fun,” Poe told him. BB-8 beeped in agreement.
Steven responded with his whole body. His stance relaxed, his shoulders moved back, his eyes widened and his mouth opened, and instead of looking shyly down at the body of the decca he lifted his head and met Poe's eyes.
Poe grinned at him. “I'm Poe Dameron,” he said. “You've met BB-8.”
“I'm Steven!” Steven said. “Are you BB-8's friend?”
“We're partners,” Poe said. BB-8 protested. “And we're friends! You'd think I never said an affectionate word to you,” he said to BB-8.
BB-8 replied that it was only polite to answer the question someone asked, not some other question they hadn't.
“You've got a point there,” Poe conceded.
Steven was staring at the pair of them as if they were the best thing he'd seen for days. “Do you want to jam too?” he asked.
Poe sobered. “I'd love to,” he said. “But I actually came up here because I needed to ask BB-8 to do something for me. I'm on the clock.”
“Oh,” said Steven. “Okay.”
Steven did a good job of putting a brave face on it, especially for such a young kid, but Poe hadn't gotten to commander by failing to pay attention to how people felt and what they needed. He smiled at Steven as warmly as he knew how and said, “Tell you what. How about you come along and watch? It's for your folks, anyhow. Maybe it'll be interesting.”
Steven bounced back. “Gem stuff is always interesting! And I bet BB-8 stuff is always interesting too!” he said, and took off, running past Poe and BB-8 – who immediately rolled after him – to the top of the steps, where he stopped and turned back around with the slightly stunned and sheepish expression of someone who has just realized they have no idea where they're going. Despite this, he rocked up and down in place, heel to toe heel to toe.
“All the way down the stairs!” Poe called after him, straightening up and striding towards the uncovered rooftop door himself. “Wait for me there!”
Steven whooped and giggled and darted into the darkness like an especially joyful hominid shooting star, Connix's decca slung over his shoulder. BB-8 followed him, pausing after each careful roll down to gauge the depth of the next step anew.
“Foreward,” whispered Poe to himself, and began his own descent, touching every stone at shoulder height to give BB-8 plenty of time to get down.