“Finn!” Rey shouted, turning toward him with wide-eyed terror. And for good reason. The last of Snoke’s Praetorian Guards had Finn around the throat, his blade dangerously close to Finn’s ear. The vibrating edge hissed and burned his neck and, as he struggled, he thought maybe, maybe he’d miscalculated.
He’d never seen Rey look so upset in his life. And he’d seen so much of her life, in flashes while their minds remained linked. It made him think, maybe…
But no. She’d abandoned him, too. She’d thrown her lightsaber and Finn had caught it, but he hadn’t been quick enough. When he’d tried to ignite the blade, the Guard wrestled him around, nicking him just beneath the ear with his weapon. Pain had sheared through him, but he’d known he was safe enough despite it. Any wound that didn’t slice through him would be cauterized immediately.
Either way, the lightsaber was now useless, split in two by the Guard’s deadly, awful weapon. Sparks spit from the cleanly cut pieces. Only the crystals inside survived intact.
The destruction of it had served as enough of a distraction, though, that when Rey had shouted, he’d elbowed the Guard and knocked him to the ground. The Guard’s helmet clattered to the floor, he heard, but he hadn’t stopped.
Finn had run to her.
And then he’d taken her hand and shouted for her come with him.
And she’d said no. Come with me, she’d said instead. To the Resistance. The one place Finn would never, ever go. Could never go, knowing that it wanted to return the galaxy to its former circumstances. Nothing will have changed if they won; nothing will have gotten better if the Republic was revived.
Finn had always hoped to get out from beneath Snoke’s thumb one day, accepted his tutelage with the goal of beating him eventually.
He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
Too, he hadn’t expected to find his heart ripped out of his chest by a girl who’d shown him the first kindness he’d felt in years, the first understanding.
Instead, he found himself confronted by the last of Snoke’s Guards, still living, still willing to continue, his weapon at his side and at the ready, humming away. Exhausted by the fight and heartsick, Finn didn’t have the patience or desire to deal with this, too.
“The Supreme Leader kept one of us in reserve,” the Guard said, rather than attack. With a raised hand, he used the Force to yank the kyber crystals from their resting place. They found a home in his red-gloved palm. His dark hair hung lank and sweat-drenched across his forehead. Despite having bigger concerns at the moment, Finn couldn’t help but imagine that that helmet of his had been comfortable. Finn wouldn’t have been caught dead in one if he could help it. “The Supreme Leader is wise.”
Anger flashed in Finn’s breast. The Supreme Leader was in pieces at Finn’s feet practically and Rey was gone; he’d let her go—he’d had to let her go, she was too much his equal, his opposite. And all Finn had was this damned nothing of a throne room to show for it. He’d asked her to run, forget all of it. Forget this entire fucking organization, the Jedi who’d spurned him, the Resistance that fought for a Republic that couldn’t give less of a damn about anything except their precious Core worlds, as though those mighty few were jewels to be protected at the cost of everyone else.
Fuck that.
“The Supreme Leader is dead,” Finn spat. Already, his body urged him to go. Adrenaline told him to flee. “And this place is nothing to me.”
The Guard widened his eyes, all innocence as he looked at the carnage around him. Unperturbed by the destruction of his fellows and everything he knew, he shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, light of tone, but heavy with meaning. “Long live the Supreme Leader as far as I’m concerned.” The kyber crystals danced in an undulating circle an inch or so above his hand and sparkled in the light. “But I’m little more than a trumped-up stormtrooper.” His eyes cut to Snoke’s bisected corpse. “Promoted far above his pay grade according to some. It might be I don’t know what I’m talking about, but that little spiel of yours was very touching all the same. Seems to me you could do a lot in Snoke’s place.”
Finn had no idea who might have thought that about a man who’d managed to ascend to the role of Snoke’s personal guard. The politics of Snoke’s military, and particularly his guards, had always escaped him. “Does that bother you? Being called a trumped-up stormtrooper?”
The Guard strode toward the nearest of his former fellows and toed at the still warm body, kicking the helmet free. The heel of his boot pressed against the sickly white-blue face. Tilting his head, he studied the man’s visage as though he was only seeing it for the first time. And maybe he was. “You don’t see me crying, do you?”
“Yeah, okay,” Finn replied. He wasn’t sure if he was impressed or not, but he was definitely intrigued. The Guard cut quite a figure and the way he talked made Finn feel like he could do anything. It was probably not a good idea to let himself get caught up in that. Sycophants could be found anywhere and were as dangerous as a truly devoted enemy when it came down to it. “So why not try to kill me? Why do I let you live?”
The Guard was an excellent fighter, but Finn would win if it came down to it; of that much, he was certain.
The Guard smiled.
“Snoke was an idiot to have not seen what was right in front of him this whole time. I’d been one of his protectors for longer than you were his apprentice. I sometimes took bets with myself on how long it would take you to turn on him. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the way you looked at him like you wanted to kill him. The urge was entirely understandable.”
“You’re not a very good guard, are you?”
“I kept him alive far longer than he deserved to be and if it came down to a fight between you and me, I’m not sure I’d win. What do you have to complain about?”
Finn drew in a deep breath. “What’s your name, Guard?”
The Guard’s smile softened and his voice was quiet when he spoke. Stormtroopers, even stormtroopers who’d been promoted above their pay grade, did not have names. They maybe, if they were lucky, had nicknames, but the First Order had very strict ideas about acceptable nomenclature. “Ben. That was one thing the First Order was never able to take away from me.”
“And where are you from, Ben?”
Ben’s mouth twitched and almost formed a frown. His eyes were more expressive than perhaps they should have been. Finn tried not to find that appealing. “That I don’t know,” Ben answered. “And I don’t care to know.”
Finn? Finn could sympathize with that. It struck a chord deep in his chest, thrummed through him, settled over his lungs and squeezed. He didn’t have anything else either. And maybe that was why Finn let himself be a fool, let himself save a weakness instead of dispatching it to the depths of hell.
Maybe he would regret it.
But he hoped he wouldn’t.
*
Ben pulled the pauldron from Finn’s shoulder, hands careful as they unclasped the leather strap from beneath the opposite arm. The first time he and Rey had met one another in the snow on Starkiller Base, she’d nearly removed his arm. Ever since, it’d been a little weaker than the other. No matter how much he trained—and he did train, every day, with Ben, stubbornly sometimes, when he didn’t like what Ben had to say—it had never regained full dexterity, full range of motion. He was still powerful, could still defeat all-comers, but Ben had gotten fed up with him, with the way he always tilted away when Ben went for the arm. That’s how I got you, you know, that arm of yours, he’d said, a dare, a challenge, and now Finn forced himself to see the value in protecting himself.
It helped. The same way Ben helped. And Finn couldn’t think of Ben as a weakness; so he wouldn’t think of this as a weakness either.
“You’ve gotten better.” Ben inspected the silvered metal, poked at the miniaturized shield generator inside of it while Finn rolled his shoulder. The shield only extended across the pauldron’s surface, but it was enough, mentally and physically, to know it was there, that the scars Rey had left on him couldn’t hurt him. “Hux is plotting again, by the way.”
“Is that different from any other day?” Shrugging out of his tunic, Finn hissed. His muscles twinged in protest to the treatment they’d gotten in the gym and protested again as he tossed the thick, quilted fabric at their bed. Though he’d turned away from Ben, he could feel Ben’s gaze settle heavy and warm across the back of his neck.
“No,” Ben admitted, reluctant, probably pulling a face if past experience was anything to go by, “but it feels different this time. He’s been suspicious ever since you let the Resistance escape on Crait. Now that—”
“I don’t care about Crait or the Resistance or Snoke’s crusade against the Jedi.” Finn looked over his shoulder, finally turned, and strode up to Ben, tipped his chin up and narrowed his eyes. “We have the centers of galactic power in our palms. There are no Centrist or otherwise sympathetic senators left to challenge us and financiers are happy as long as the credits flow. It took twenty odd years of Imperial arrogance and neglect for the Rebellion to win against the Empire. And that was with the full backing of multiple deep Core worlds’ leaders. What can four hundred stragglers with a single capital ship and no allies do to us that can’t wait?”
Ben only looked back at him, his tempestuous mood locked behind a placid mask, only visible in the mercurial warmth of his eyes. His stormtrooper training had served him well, but sometimes Finn wondered what he would have become without that harsh discipline and iron-clad control.
Ben asked, “And what about your officers who agree with him?”
Finn didn’t answer for a moment, chose instead to enjoy the possibilities. There were so very many ways he could deal with them, each one as satisfying as the last, and Ben had proven himself a resourceful and creative enforcer of Finn’s will. Why Snoke had kept him shackled to his silent, anonymous role as a Praetorian Guard was entirely beyond Finn’s understanding.
“I like it when you worry.” Finn’s hand cupped Ben’s cheek; his thumb brushed across Ben’s lower lip almost as though by its own accord. Ben’s mouth parted, as Finn had rather hoped it would, his tongue swiping warm across the calloused pad that pressed between his teeth. Replacing his hand with his mouth, Finn kissed the worry from Ben’s lips, pulled Ben close, slid his hands across the void-black armor he wore over his chest and slipped between the plates to press his palms against the heat of Ben’s body.
“Do whatever you like with Hux’s officers,” he said, words the barest whisper against Ben’s skin.
For now, he had more pressing concerns.