Summary: Finn is guarding Kylo Ren, latest prisoner-recruit-whatever-the-hell of the Resistance. Kylo acts like a semi-malicious cat. And is either trying to seduce him or plotting a murderous rampage (or both - is multitasking of the Dark Side?) What is his life even? Finn doesn't know.
Notes: For ambiguously for Finnlo Fest Prompt: One day you're just another stormtrooper. The next, you're the main guard for your unstable former boss who may be joining the Resistance and may be plotting to kill everyone, but who definitely is a lot better looking than you would have suspected.
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Day Shift
by Artemis1000
When Finn was a Stormtrooper, he had never really wondered about the face hidden beneath Kylo Ren's mask.
Well, that was a lie. They'd all liked to come up with fanciful speculations about the Knights of Ren, it wasn't like they were permitted much entertainment so they had to make their own. But he hadn't really wondered wondered. It wasn't like Kylo Ren's face would ever be relevant to FN-2187's life.
Now Finn, Finn the Resistance fighter, was determinedly not-looking into Kylo Ren's face while Ren was doing… something. He was mostly just sitting on his cot in his cell and scowling at a flexi, but imprisoned or not, that seemed far too innocuous and mundane to be what he was really doing.
"You can stop looking at me," Ren said suddenly, though he kept up his pretense of reading. "I'm not going to go on a murderous rampage armed with a flexi."
Finn frowned at him, and patted his side to check the blaster was still there. He'd been training with a lightsaber, sure, but you couldn't shake off a lifetime. He still felt safer with a blaster in his hands.
"But you didn't say you won't be going on a murderous rampage at all," he pointed out, "is this supposed to make me feel better?"
Ren looked up, and glowered at him. He had a pretty face beneath the mask, younger and with poutier lips than Finn would have guessed back when he was stationed on the Finalizer. "I'm not here to make you feel better."
That… was debatable. But Finn had learned better than to debate with Ren.
He just rolled his eyes in exasperation and turned his face away to watch the news playing on his datapad.
"Speechless, traitor?"
"I'm not arguing with you," Finn said firmly. He wouldn't be Ren's entertainment. No matter how pretty his face was.
Kylo Ren scoffed, and scowled, and went back to his flexi, which was about what Finn had learned to expect from conversations with him.
This was day five of being assigned as Kylo's guard. It will be good training for you, he had been told, and he still didn't know how this was going to teach him anything other than just how many terrible soap operas you could watch in a day.
He finished the news, and another episode of Coruscant By Night, and then it was nearly time for shift change. Finn stretched on the uncomfortable chair placed just outside the bars to Kylo's cell, and took a cursory look into the cell. There hadn't been a peep from Ren in hours.
The man inside the cell perked up and gave him a mulish look, as if he had been waiting all along for Finn to pay him attention. When he scowled, the scar Rey had given him stood out more starkly.
"Do you realize they have you on Stormtrooper duty?" Kylo asked, his tone of voice innocuous to belie his barbed words. "Still on guard duty. It must be comforting, that nothing has changed in your life."
"And you're still imprisoned by your own bad decisions, I guess nothing has changed for you either," Finn shot back.
Ren tensed up like he would throw himself at the bars any moment now.
Finn looked away first. He didn't feel bad, he told himself. That he had been trapped in Snoke's manipulations was Ren's own defense, he was just using his words against him. And he had every reason to do that, after what he'd done to Finn's back on Starkiller Base. Nothing would ever convince Finn he hadn't enjoyed that.
The sounds of Ren standing up made him look. Just in case, bars or no bars.
He gulped.
There was Kylo Ren, stripping off his shirt so deliberately casual that Finn would never buy the casual. Ren was a terrible actor. But he was also devastatingly effective.
Why, oh why wasn't he an octopus beneath the helmet?
Finn tried to look away, just like he had tried to look away every other night when Ren presumably 'got ready for bed' which was just code for 'time to torment Finn.'
Problem was: jerk or not, there was a lot to see.
Kylo raised his arms high above his head and stretched languorously, and just like every karking night, Finn found his eyes glued to the sight of rippling muscles. There was the flex of his shoulders, the easy, but dangerous feline grace of his body. It seemed at odds with the sullen, spiteful personality Finn had discovered since becoming his guard, but somehow that only made his grace more alluring.
General Organa said he was just lashing out because he felt cornered, but Finn had his doubts. He'd heard the stories of Kylo Ren's temper tantrums with the First Order.
He really, really hoped General Organa was right.
Ren kicked off his shoes and looked at him, head tilted to the side a little too far, as if he were trying to overdo his body language to make up for his face being hidden behind a mask. He did that often. His hands fluttered to his pants.
Finn made a strangled noise, and leapt up from his chair.
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"
Finn's mouth opened and closed without a word coming out, just a gurgle. He tried again. Same result. On the third try, he finally managed to blurt out his standard, "You've got a 'fresher, use it!"
"Hm." He didn't look angry today, mostly thoughtful. Finn could have sworn he looked disappointed for a moment, but that was giving Ren too much credit. He was just bored, and would certainly mock any other guard in the exact same way.
He said he liked that Finn had stood up to him and held his own far longer than he had thought possible. He seemed to genuinely not understand why Finn would be even the teeniest bit upset at having been nearly killed when the fight did turn against him. It was a Dark Side thing, Master Skywalker had explained, their ideas of safe, sane, normal social interactions were very different from the rest of the galaxy's.
But…
"I still believe you're going to murder us all in our sleep," Finn said firmly.
Ren shrugged. He looked on the verge of pouting again. "You didn't call it a murderous rampage."
Finn opened his mouth… and shut it again. Not worth it. Just. Not. Worth. It.
Looking disappointed by that non-response, Ren left for the 'fresher, and Finn went to open the outer door for his night shift replacement.
As he returned to his quarters, Finn promised himself he would ask to be reassigned tomorrow – it was the same promise he kept making himself for five days.
He knew he would be back tomorrow.