"Thank you so much for coming to this debriefing with your pants on," the General said.

Finn stared at the wall and very seriously contemplated giving up his life energy to the Force.

"Mother!" Kylo was, once again, bright red. Finn hated how charming he found it. "It's none of your business what we do in —"

"A Resistance ship, which of course is monitored for hostile activity, including heat signatures and audio feedback? Interesting hypothesis. Now, let's move on to the point of this meeting: Finn. Start at the beginning."

It wasn't exactly fun, reliving Hux's not-quite-inquisition. Finn felt almost ashamed, like it'd be less embarrassing if Hux had actually physically brutalized him — which was ridiculous. No one in the room wanted that to have been his experience. But it was hard to express what he'd felt: the Force bending in agony around him, the awful anticipation of knowing, feeling deep in his heart, that Hux intended to hurt him.

But it seemed like the General understood it, at least partially. When he got to the part where he found out Hux had been drugging him, she nodded, mouth set in a grim line. "That sounds like the Empire. Well, the First Order, but there's no daylight between them. I'm sorry you had to experience that."

For a hysterical second Finn thought of his whole childhood: the beatings, the re-education, the sheer endless terror of being a tool for the First Order who also happened to be a whole person. He managed to fight his way out of the moment, long enough to say, "Thanks."

"Mother. Perhaps try to trigger fewer flashbacks in our only witness of the First Order's malicious anti-Force depravity."

"What, you don't count?" the General said. But even as Kylo reddened and prepared for what Finn was pretty sure would be an historic meltdown, she turned to Finn and said, "My apologies. Feel free to skim over the — more painful parts. We can always request more detail later, if the Council decides it's needed."

Finn had the strong impression that no one would gainsay a testimony stamped by Leia Organa, really, but he appreciated the thought. He finished his testimony as quickly as possible, then waited for further instruction.

"Thank you, Finn," the General said. "This will be pivotal when we put that cretin on trial."

"He's done enough. Let's go," Kylo said.

His voice sent shivers down Finn's spine, even here, even now. Oh, and he hadn't realized: his hands were shaking. No wonder Kylo sounded like that, angry and evil yet — not quite evil. Not quite.

"She should have let you take breaks," Kylo said as soon as they made it into the hallway. "That was utter barbarism."

"I could've asked for a break any time. I didn't want to."

"You're traumatized." Kylo reached for him, then yanked his hand back, curling it into a fist. "Next time — I'll speak to her. Breaks should be mandated."

Finn thought of the torture chair Rey'd told him about, on Kylo's old ship, and didn't respond.

But apparently he didn't need to. Kylo stopped dead in the hallway and said, "You're right; I'm a hypocrite. I should leave you to your duties." He bowed very slightly, a First Order-y salute.

Finn should just let him go. This whole thing was so stupid and fraught, and Finn had a bunch of stuff to do, including his actual duties as a member of the Resistance. Well, technically he was on leave for a few more days, but there was probably something he could do that kept him away from Kylo, and free of all the stupid feelings he engendered.

"Thank you," he said, not having gained self-preservation instincts in the last ten minutes.

"Don't."

They kept walking. When they were close to Finn's room, he said, "So — can we just go over what I'm allowed to do? I guess I can tell you what to do when we're — in bed —"

"Fucking," Kylo said coldly.

"Whatever. But I can't say thank you for defending me?"

"Most people on this base would say I'm the one you need defending from, not my mother."

"The General's amazing. But she's on the side of justice, and the Resistance. Truth and duty, and honor." Finn paused for a second, trying to dredge up just a little more courage. He knew what he was about to say was true, and he knew saying it would help Kylo understand, but — well, it just felt a little like pulling his chest open and saying, here you go, grab one of my ribs and play catch with it. "You're on my side. You watched me, you cared about me. I don't — no one else does that, really."

"Rey. Dameron. Tico. The kriffing droids." Each name said with tight anger.

Jealous anger, Finn realized as the Force wrapped itself around them. Well — the truth had to come out at some point. Why not now? "Not like you." He caught Kylo's hand, squeezed it when Kylo scowled. "Kylo. Really, seriously, not like how you are."

"What do you think this is?" Kylo whirled around and slammed the door to Finn's room open. He made the space seem crowded, as tall as he was, with his broad shoulders and thundercloud of power. "Do you think I'm your little boyfriend?"

"I think you love me."

Too late to take it back. Kylo blanched and took a step back, knocking into the wall above Finn's tiny desk. "Who — what — it's incredible that you think I'm even capable of. Why would I. You're not — it was just a lie to save my skin. It wasn't —"

"So I just hallucinated all of it on the Falcon?"

Kylo adopted a supercilious look. "I'm sure you know that sometimes people say things during sex that they don't mean."

Sure they did. And Kylo hadn't quite admitted to anything, of course; it was all implication and overwhelming Force feelings and too-desperate need. But even now, with Kylo trying to deny everything, he felt the want coming off him in waves. Kylo wanted to belong and he wanted to be forgiven and, more than anything, he wanted Finn. It burned through him.

Finn took a deep breath and tried to think of the best way to say this, the way that wouldn't end in Kylo leaving him yet again. "I'm not going to pretend this never happened. Okay? It's —" Impossible, wonderful, a massive pain but also the best possible outcome — "Important to me, this thing — between us — I told you. I love you. You can tell yourself whatever stories you want about your side of things, but I know how I —"

Kylo kissed him.

It was clumsy and more rambunctious than Finn normally preferred, the kind of kiss you might receive midway through a drunken festival day. Finn loved it. He kissed Kylo back, again and again, until Kylo smiled — grimaced — laughed -

And he knew the truth of it, shining between them and in them, in the Force and in their touches. Love, as clear and strong as any power Finn had ever felt.

Kylo had left several hours ago to do his late-night meditation, so when Finn woke up screaming from nightmare about being forced back into service as a stormtrooper, no one saw how embarrassed he was. He almost would've welcomed it, though, in exchange for someone to remind him that it wasn't real. As it was, he spent several minutes dizzy, sweat soaking his shirt, gasping for breath as he tried to pull himself back into the here & now.

When he'd recovered enough to stand, he put on a jacket and walked out to the shipyard. He saw a few techs, but no one he knew very well, thankfully. Past the shipyard, he found his favorite bench and lay down on it, staring at the stars.

He didn't recognize them. If this quadrant had astrology, it wasn't any Finn was familiar with. But just looking up at the sky, remembering the darkness of space and the feeling of sending his consciousness racing through it in the Force, helped calm him down.

It seemed to Finn like he shouldn't have nightmares. He knew the secrets of the Guardians; he could live forever, if he wanted. He didn't, and he wouldn't, which was why they'd given the secrets to him to begin with, but still. He could. It seemed to him that with that deep well of power and knowledge should come immunity from bad dreams.

A soft voice broke his reverie. "Immunity from the human experience sounds like a pretty bad deal to me."

Finn sighed and sat up, scooting down the bench to give Lyssa space to sit down. "Sorry, I guess I was pretty loud, huh?"

"Not to anyone else. Well, maybe Kylo Ren." Lyssa raised her eyebrows at Finn, a speaking sort of glance. Finn looked back at the stars.

"I'm just tired of feeling this way." Finn sighed. "Sorry, that's stupid."

"I don't think so."

"I'm not the one who nearly died a few days ago."

"No, only the one who saved me using ancient and arcane magic." He felt Lyssa's amusement even before she nudged him. "Let up on yourself a little, okay? Force knows I've had to."

"What do you even —"

"All those nightmares about mine shafts collapsing. Losing our parents. Losing you, too. And of course, worry that my little brother is climbing into bed, literally, with the worst the First Order has to offer."

"I'm not going to apologize for that."

"Nor should you." She said it easily enough. "My point is just — life sucks. We're all doing our best. Outdoors is a good place to recover from nightmares, for both of us."

He heard the rebuke and commiseration in equal measure. He leaned against her, just a bit, and took deep breaths in time to the movement of the wind, watching the strange stars above them. And when a leaf whirled past them on the breeze, when a tiny beady-eyed lizard darted past Lyssa's foot, when the sentry droids hummed behind them, he thought: we're going to be okay, we're going to be okay, we're going to be okay.

Finn had nearly fixed the dorsal engine on one of the captured destroyers when the sky exploded above him.

He felt Lyssa in the Force before he saw her, a joyous racket as she dipped and swerved, avoiding Poe's training blasts by so little that it seemed from the ground like she should've been hit a dozen times over. As she sped away again, Kylo murmured, "Your sister's not very good at shielding."

"Ah, you know that's not it. She wanted me to know she's having a good time."

"I see. Pass me that spanner, would you?"

They worked in silence for a few more minutes. Finn was about to suggest they go grab lunch when he felt a disturbance in the Force and saw someone running towards them.

"Finn! Kylo, hi." Rey careened to a stop in front of them, gasping, lightsaber at his side. "Come quickly, please, something's happened."

"Is everything okay?"

She shook her head. "I'll explain, just — follow me, please! Quickly!"

Really, he should've realized what was going on when she led him away from the barracks, into the woods. But he didn't. He thought maybe Lyssa'd crashed, or they'd found First Order spies, or —

They reached the meadow where he'd fought with Kylo. A table sat in the middle of it, heavy with all sorts of food. Lyssa, Poe, Rose, and Chewie sat around it.

"Surprise!" Rey said, and then as one, everyone said, "Happy birthday!"

Finn felt his mouth falling open, knew he looked stupid and couldn't make himself stop. "What — how — I don't have a birthday."

"Everyone has a birthday," Kylo said, only just loud enough for him to hear. He was smiling a little, watching Finn, like he was happy. Like he'd been in on this.

"You sneaky bastard," Finn said, but he couldn't help but laugh.

"Come on over," Poe said. "We've got a couple different birds here, some vegetables, and what I think is pastry." He picked up the item in question and glanced at Rey. "Got creative, did you?"

"It's a Corellian specialty!" Rey said.

"Their ships might be good, I don't know about their pastry."

Rose plucked the pastry out of Poe's hand and took a bite. "Oooh, spicy."

Finn shook his head. "This is ridiculous. What if I wanted my birthday to be later in the year, huh?"

"We'll just throw another party then. Try the chicken," Rey said. "Well, it's not chicken, it has scales and massive teeth, but it tastes like chicken."

The meat did, in fact, taste like chicken. Finn gave everyone the thumbs up, then laughed when Poe choked on Rey's Corellian pastry. The sun shone down on the sparkly red drinks Lyssa had passed out to everyone, and Kylo's thigh kept knocking into Finn under the table.

He'd never had a birthday party before, but this one was pretty good.