PublicPrivate

by Keryl Raist

This is the third book in the Tao-of-The-Force-verse series. If you haven't read Tension/Balance or Rumors/Gossip, it's not going to make a lick of sense. If you have... We're starting off right where we left off. The First Year parties are ending, the Order is coming into it's own, and Rey and Kylo...

32. The Talk: The Boys

2/15/2

Sitting at Rey's kitchen table, watching Ren and Finn do everything in their power to get out of this job, Poe smirks.

Poe's never said it out loud, mostly because he knows neither of them wants to hear it, but he'd certainly really appreciate it if Finn and Ren would at least attempt to get along with each other.

And he's never said it, because if he were, Finn would go into a long and angry rant about the First Order in general and the huge fucking scar on his back from Ren in particular, and Ren would mostly just sit there quietly, eye twitching a little, and then get defensive about how Finn's not going to forgive him anytime soon. Or ever. So, there's no point in him making nice.

So, part of him is looking at this as a chance for both of them to see the other one in a more positive light, and maybe thaw things out a bit, because if there's one thing that'll get guys to crack a bit, it's telling entertaining lies about sex over a few drinks. (Granted, he's not entirely sure that Ren can tell entertaining lies about sex, but he certainly can listen to them, so that should begin to ease things in the right direction.)

And part of him, the part that is watching, for the first time ever, Finn and Ren both stare at him in agreement about something, namely that neither of them is remotely capable of handling this particular job, and that Poe should really do it, on his own, is aware of the fact that it took the girls telling them that they needed to sit down with the older boys and have a chat about sex and whatnot to get both Finn and Ren to stop staring at each other like a fight's about to break out and start thinking about something else.

Granted, they appear to be thinking that Poe, charming, polished, gets tuffed regularly by lots of different people, Poe, is the best of the three of them to do this, and that really, neither of them have anything of any real value to add to the conversation, and… Finn's actually talking about how much Chewie needs him, and they've got to have that conversation while he's away, and… Ren's doing that thing where he's trying to chew a hole through his lip, and now Finn's pointing out he's only had sex with Rose, and Ren's attempting to top that by mentioning being raised in a sect of celibate monks, and…

Poe shakes his head and decides to say it, because after all, this isn't going to be a conversation with just Jacen. "I know I'm not subtle about this, so how has it escaped both of you that I don't fuck women? That I've never fucked a woman? That I haven't even seen one naked in real life?"

Which would be the moment that both of them stare at him, dumbfounded, and then at each other, and back to Poe, and are suddenly coming to the conclusion that while neither of them feel like they've got anything approaching Poe's level of experience with sex, that just possibly, in that they've both, on a regular basis, seen a woman naked and touched one, they might have something of use for both Critt and Elias that Poe just doesn't.

Poe smirks. "Exactly. Yeah, I can have a chat with Jacen, and likely fill him in better than you two can, but… So. My ship. Tomorrow night. Bring the sprogs. We'll talk."

---

2/16/2

Traditionally, conversations like this are had with alcohol.

At least, that's how Poe and his dad did it. Granted, on his part there wasn't a lot. He had one, small, cider, and then sweetfizz, but it made him feel grown up, and likely got him more comfortable with asking questions than he would have been otherwise.

(And the whiskey his dad was sipping likely made answering them easier, too. Especially since Poe's line of questions wasn't a shock to his dad, but on a mechanical level, wasn't something he had any real experience with, either.)

So, Poe's ready for this. He's got cider, because, especially for kids, it's a good place to start. It tastes good, it's easy to drink, they could probably drain his entire stock of it and just wake up woozy and headachy in the morning, (though he's not going to let that happen), and with any luck it'll dull down their inhibitions enough to get them actually talking, which should make this easier.

So, for the kids, Poe's not expecting any issues.

No, it's Master Dark and The Smuggler who are going to be the issue.

Ren doesn't like alcohol, and Finn won't drink if Ren's around.

And normally, he'd respect that, but if he can't get those two to unclench a bit and relax some around each other, then this is going to fall flat. Ren's already told him Jon'll lube his brain if he needs it, and Poe's fairly sure this counts as needs it. And Finn… he's got to relax around Ren, or the kids'll focus on them, and not what they're talking about it.

He makes coffee. It'll cover the taste of the rum he's putting in there, and he'll dole it out slowly enough they won't get more than buzzed.

It feels like a good plan at the time.

---

Ren and Critt get there first. They'd apparently been working on whatever it is they do to not be so pissed off all of the time. Poe's never exactly asked, but whatever it is, they don't appear to be any rougher for the wear. And he's certainly noticed, especially since he's been working with Ren, that Critt's a bit less… everything… these days. Granted, he started working with Ren when his parents left, and that might have something to do with it, too.

Critt's looking around, noticing that Poe's changed things a bit since the last time he was in here. "You got a galley?"

Poe half-shrugs. "I'm moving more people than cargo these days, so room to actually feed you guys comes in handy."

(Really though, since he started cooking in the communal kitchen, he's decided he likes it, so… He's got a full galley now.)

Ren glances at the coffee mugs, seeing three of them. "For us?"

"Yes." He hands one over to Ren.

He takes it, and a deep sip, and then slowly lowers the cup and looks at Poe. He shakes his head and takes another drink. It's abundantly clear that he knows exactly what Poe did.

Poe half-shrugs and takes a long sip of his own drink. "Male bonding rituals work better with alcohol."

Ren rolls his eyes and takes one more sip. "How much is in here?"

"Two shots."

Ren nods, and puts his mug down before pulling off his cloak, hanging it up, and sitting at the table. Critt watches that, and then says, "So, does that mean we get to drink, too?"

"Check the cooler."

He does and comes back with a bottle, grinning, then slides in next to Ren.

Poe nods. "Take it slow. You puke in my ship; you're cleaning it up. And I'm sleeping in your bunk until the smell's out."

Critt waves that away. "Back on Frerreau, we used to get cider. I've been allowed to drink it since I was twelve."

"Okay. Good."

A moment later, Finn's stomping up the ramp with Jacen and Elias, all three of them dusted with snow. Either they came from further away than Kylo and Critt did, or they were working outside.

"Poe, Critt…" Finn nods at them, ignores Ren, sees the cups, and says, "Tell me it's coffee, and tell me it's hot."

"It is and it is," Poe replies, and Finn swoops in, grabbing it, holding it in his gloved hands and letting the steam wash over his face.

"Outside?" Critt asks.

Jacen slides into the booth next to him, not taking his coat or gloves off, he still needs to thaw a bit before that, and nods. "Feel like passing some of that my way, too? It's fu-frosty out there."

Poe sets up his coffeemaker for more of it. "Those cups are spoken for. I'll make more. Or you and Elias can have cider if you like."

Elias opts for cider, and Jacen looks at Poe, thinks to him I'll take mine with milk, sugar, and a shot of rum, please and Poe sighs. At least it was a request and not an order, and it was silent, in his head, because he could tell it was supposed to be a secret.

They take a moment, the boys talking about being cold and how the Faviers are getting stir crazy in the barn all the time, and how they really need to get a dome over them or something so the critters can run around, while Poe gets the last of the drinks set. But, eventually, they're all seated around his table, (Ren and Finn on opposite sides, and Finn looks ready to sprint away or fight if need be) drinks in hand (he hopes that look will get less pronounced as Finn actually drinks the 'coffee' instead of just using it as a hand warmer.) and ready to go.

"Okay. One rule for tonight. No lies. We'll talk. You can ask whatever questions you like. We'll answer or not, but no lies," Poe says. (Neither Ren nor Finn appears to be under the impression they signed up for this, but, again, when he was doing it with his dad, that line mattered to Poe.) "I'm not saying any of us'll know the answer, but hopefully between the three of us, at least one of us has a clue."

Finn sniggers at that and then shakes his head. "You can hope. But unless you've got questions about Rose, and I'm not answering those, I don't think I'll be of much use."

"They're women, Finn. They're all fairly similarly built to each other," Poe says, and then looks to Ren, "Right?"

He nods. "All the ones I've seen."

Finn rolls his eyes and takes a drink, and then chokes. "What is in this?"

So much for the secret. "Coffee and rum, drink up," Poe answers. He sees Finn glare at him, and then look at Ren's cup, note that he's a quarter of the way through his drink, and takes another sip.

He swallows, and then says, "Before you tried to poison me, I had a point. Yes, I know they're all built, more or less, the same. I've only slept with one of them, but I've seen holovids. Back in the day, a lot of holovids. That said, they don't all like the same things, and just because you're good with one of them does not mean you're going to be good with a different one."

Ren nods at that, too.

"That's not the level of useful I'm thinking," Poe adds. "You learn how to fuck by paying attention to the person you're fucking. None of us will be any good, beyond the most general level of here's where all the bits are, and maybe try touching them with your tongue or something, at teaching you how to fuck because you've got to be paying attention and talking…" he looks at Ren… "or thinking at your partner, to get good at sex. This is more general stuff… So… let's start here, who's a virgin?"

Jacen smirks, looking stupidly proud of himself, stretches a bit, and says nothing. Critt and Elias look at him, look at each other, and both with horrible sabbac faces, also, say nothing.

Poe looks to Ren for confirmation on the lying. He nods and slaps Critt upside the back of the head as Poe gets Elias.

"First rule of the night is…" Finn says.

Critt glares and says, "Fine. Me."

Elias looks horrified and astonished, and Ren's the one who gets the disconnect, because he's the one who can see what Elias is thinking about. "That's not what any of us mean by sex." Then Ren looks at the other two men. "How are we defining sex?"

Finn stares back at him, astonished. "You have to ask? Yeah, you mentioned the raised-by-celibate-Jedis-bit, but… You know this, right?" Ren, Jacen, and Elias can all feel Finn suddenly wondering what the hell it is that Ren and Rey actually get up to when they're on their own.

Ren's practically got a view of his brain he's rolling his eyes so hard. "I know how I define sex, now. And I know how we used to define sex back when I was one of the celibate monks, and that definition was so narrow individual atoms would have a hard time passing through. By the definition I grew up with, Poe's a virgin."

Poe flat out laughs at that. "Not for a long time."

Ren smirks at that, too. Then he looks to Elias. "But he's thinking of grinding and kissing, mostly dressed, and I'm fairly sure that's not sex."

Elias is blushing so hard he looks ready to burst a blood vessel. Poe gives him an affectionate hair ruffle, nudges his cider closer to him, and says, "We all started there. But, that's not sex. Uh… Let's say anything that involves skin to skin touch and you get off."

Ren blinks. "Get off?"

Finn and Poe are staring at him, as well as Jacen, all three dumbfounded that he's never heard that term before, but Critt and Elias also don't know that bit of slang.

Poe runs his fingers through his hair. This is a significantly deeper hole then he was expecting. "Uh… You know… When you…" he makes a little sort of spurting hand gesture.

"Spurt. That's what we called it," Ren adds.

"Come," Critt says.

"Spend," Elias adds.

"Great," Poe says. "Anything that involves skin to skin touch and ejaculation, that's the technical term, right? That's sex. And no, grinding and kissing, even if you do end up with wet trousers, isn't sex. It's practice. And practice is fun, but" Poe nudges Finn to gets up and grab the packs he got for each of the boys. Finn tosses the slicks at them, and the three boys manage to catch them. "When you get around to real sex, use them. Every time until you're ready to be a dad."

Jacen smirks and says, "So, I can ignore this bit."

Kylo feels it off of Poe, so he reaches behind Critt and gives Jacen a little smack upside the back of his head.

Poe says, "Only if you want to finally do some tuffing, pull your shaft out, find it covered in shit, realize the closest refresher is five hundred meters away at the end of the hangar, finally get cleaned up an hour later, and then pee liquid fire a hundred times a day until you get a shot of antis from the med droid three days later."

Jacen's face goes white and he swallows, hard.

"Yeah, that's exactly as much fun as you think it is. And telling your fifty-year-old, female boss about why you can't work, and having her smirk at you for the next week is an entirely different level of fun." Kylo's sniggering at that because he knows said boss was his Mom, and he can see that smirk. "So, unless you want to have the least comfortable conversation with Rey, ever, learn from my mistakes on that one, okay? Use them." He notices the Finn only grabbed the rubbers. "The little bottles, too." So Finn grabs them, and puts them on the table in front of the kids, too. "And if you don't have any of that on hand, stick to oral or hand jobs, okay? And trust me, if you think the why to use rubbers reason is gross, you really don't want to hear about what happens without slick." Then Poe looks at Finn and Kylo who are just staring at the little bottles. And, watching them look at the bottles, and the fact that Finn didn't automatically know they were part of the kit, he's got the sense that this isn't part of how they do sex. "You use this with the girls, right?"

And for a moment Finn and Kylo are staring at each other now, too. Finally, Finn says, "Uh… If…" He rubs his hand over his face. "We were going to do what you're talking about, yeah, but…" He's staring at Kylo, not exactly wanting to get too deep into this, but… He decides the rum in the coffee is likely a good idea and takes a big swallow.

Kylo sort of nods, slowly, and says, "Uh… Generally speaking… At least in my experience… Which is not exactly vast, but…" He rolls his lips together. "And… Uh… I've never done what Poe's talking about, so… At least not on the penetrating side, so I don't know about that… But, with what I've done, if you… need that, with a woman…" He's taken another gulp of his drink, too, also acutely aware that some things are just easier to say when that little uncomfortable voice in your head is dead, and alcohol is the fastest way to kill it.

"Okay, could you be a little less vague about this, I'd appreciate it. I lost the topic at least a few sentences ago," Elias says. "I'm not entirely sure what Poe was talking about to begin with, and you two aren't helping, so…"

"Right." Poe says, "As you've likely noticed, men don't come equipped with a delta, so, when we tuff each other, it's usually, hand, mouth, or ass. And only one of those options is naturally slick, so… Hand or ass, you want some slick. Spit'll do for a hand, but it's not going to get the job done if you're going for ass."

Elias blinks at that. "You… can… oh… I though… before… you meant… you know… between…"

Poe shakes his head. "Uh… No. I mean, yes, between is an option, and it's a lot of fun, and if you get the angle right, it's really good, but… if you're coming away dirty after that, your partner really needs to work on his hygiene. Also, that's better with slick, too. Honestly, most of it's better with slick, or spit, or something to make the strokes flow. But, I'm talking about in."

Finn quietly says, "You can do that with a woman, too, and… uh… It's… good, but, yeah, you want lube for that. A lot of lube."

"And go slow. That's true for all of this, but especially anything involving anyone's ass, including your own, go slow," Poe says. "Better yet, get whoever's doing the penetrating on their back, and the one getting penetrated just eases on down. Trust me, until you've got some experience, that'll work a lot better."

Jacen looks like he's wishing he'd brought a pad so he can take notes, and Critt and Elias are both looking slightly squirmy at this.

"Anyway… deltas make their own lube, and if the woman actually wants to be having sex with you, you don't need extra," Finn says. "Unless she had a baby like three months earlier, because her body will be off for a bit after that, but… Assuming none of you are planning to be dads anytime soon, this is information you won't use, so…"

Kylo doesn't exactly grit his teeth, but… "If she needs that… Either she's with you because it's her job, or you're doing a shit job of making her feel good. If it's her job, just roll with it, everyone's going to have a better time because of it, and if it's not, stop, ask, listen, and pay attention. If she wants sex with you… You should be able to slip in nice and easy."

"What if you're big?" Critt says.

Kylo stands up. He's a good twenty centimeters taller than Critt, and likely has thirty kilos on him. Just by standing there, he's getting across the idea of big fairly elegantly. Then he sits down. "Go slow, go gentle, if it's not working with you on top, which it might not the first few times, because you've got a nebulous concept of what you're aiming for, do like Poe said, roll on your back, have her straddle you, because trust me, she's going to have a vastly easier time getting you where you need to go than you are, because she knows where you've got to go in a way you just don't. Let her set the speed and angle, and you'll fit. If she wants you, it'll work. If her body doesn't want yours, go home, jerk it, and go looking for someone else. Don't try to force it."

"Didn't hit the target the first time?" Finn smirks.

Ren rolls his eyes. "Like you did."

"I was on my back. So, yep, nice and sweet and easy," Finn looks remarkably pleased by that.

Ren glares at him, a little, no real heat in his eyes. "Between the lube and the slick and being big, and not knowing what I was doing, I slipped out of place a few times. Third time I didn't hit the target she got me on my back, took over, and it worked." Kylo takes another drink of his coffee, getting down to half the cup. Without looking up from his cup he says, "Also, if you're on your back, the view's really nice."

Finn takes another drink, and then nods. Kylo can feel him remembering his first time with Rose, and how much he adored it. He's beaming with the pleasure of the memory. "It is."

"What do you mean, 'It's her job?'" Elias asks. It's very clear, not just to Kylo, who can feel it, but to Poe and Finn, that the idea that this might be a job is something that's never occurred to Elias, and that's distracting him away from concerns like potential views.

It's also very clear that Finn and Poe are staring at Kylo with You're the one who brought it up, you get to take it to its conclusion so he's the one who gets to answer.

He takes another sip of his coffee, feeling the heat of the drink and the alcohol, and possibly the topic of conversation, light his cheeks pink. "People like sex. A lot. Not everyone can get it based on just looks or personality. Not everyone wants to take the time and effort to get it by using looks and personality. And some people just prefer to fuck with no strings attached. So, there are people who sell sex."

"You can buy sex?" Critt's looking both amazed and like he can't believe no one has taken them on a shopping trip yet.

"You can buy anything, somewhere, if you've got enough credits," Poe says. "And just an aside, you three don't."

"Here's the catch," Finn adds. "Go to the right place, and the people working there are there because they like selling sex. Go to the wrong place, and the people are there because someone's holding a blaster to their head." He's staring at Kylo as he says that. He knows how the First Order got its manpower.

Kylo knows what he's thinking. "Yes, the Order still has pleasure specialists. And just like with my soldiers, they're there voluntarily now. We don't conscript anyone, for anything, anymore."

"You just let them leave?" Finn can't believe that.

"For a while there, I had more people, on all levels, in all jobs, leaving than were coming in every month. Yes, we let them leave. I'm trying to make it worth their while to stay, but we're not keeping anyone who doesn't want to be there." He rolls his eyes a bit. "Everyone's got a monthly wage, room and board, and it's my understanding the pleasure specialists get paid in tips, as well."

"Your understanding?" Poe says.

Kylo sounds a bit exasperated at having to be this specific about it. "I haven't seen a pleasure specialist since before I was in charge. I read reports, and that's as far as it goes these days."

"But that's not how it used to be?" Jacen asks.

That gets a small wave of exasperation off of Kylo, too, but… This is probably something that's useful for them to know, so… "The Jedi felt differently about this, and not just about sex. They were pretty sure nothing was a need. But as far as I'm concerned, sex is a need, like food or air. If you don't get enough of it, it won't kill you, but you'll start to get—" he's gesturing trying to explain it.

"Wrong," Poe adds.

"Yeah," Kylo replies. "Back when I was under Snoke, he particularly liked and encouraged that kind of wrong, so I did it as little as I could, but even I had a breaking point, a point where I didn't like how tangled my head was getting, and that was about once every ten months to a year. And… apparently my personality wasn't particularly attractive to the women around me," Finn's enjoying that line vastly too much, "and all you could see of me was black fabric or metal, so my looks didn't come into play, so I'd hit my breaking point and then visit the pleasure specialists."

Finn and the boys are just looking at Poe and Kylo. They're interested in wrong. Then the boys are looking at Finn.

"Uh…" Finn says. "Not for me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I miss it if I go too long, but… I just get irritable."

Kylo half rolls his eyes. Then he points to Finn. "Well balanced, and maybe, some days, on some things, just barely edging into dark." Then he points to himself. "Back in those days, two shades away from black. Amazingly enough, every emotional situation is easier to deal with if you lean more to the light. Back in those days, irritable was me on a good day. After getting my brains sucked out through my shaft." Then he says, for Critt mostly, but he figures the other two might need to know this, "You asked about what I like to do, and how I stay more balanced, and yes, sex is part of that. Sex with Rey helps, a lot. It's easier to not… feel like everything's going wrong, or is going to go wrong, or angry all the time, or just… bad, when you know there's something good, physically and mentally, coming in the next day or so."

"Yeah, shocking revelation, being happy makes life easier," Finn says, voice sharp, sarcastic.

"Fuck you, Finn!" Finn's moving back, fast, into defensive mode, and Poe grabs his wrist, he can feel Ren's not in fight mode, he's just talking. Talking hot, but talking. "You've got no use for me, fine. But try a little empathy and pretend you can imagine that there are people for whom happy isn't the default setting. For some of us, happy takes work. Let me guess, you wake up, and as long as everything is more or less okay, you can go roaming about with a smile on your face and joy in your heart. That's not how it works for me, and it's not how it works for Critt, and it's not how it works for a lot of darksiders. Happy takes work, and effort, and intentionally setting things up to encourage not always being stuck in hurt." Then he looks back to the boys. "And yes, with the way I do it, sex is part of that. Being with people who like me is part of it. Physically enjoying things, being allowed to physically enjoy things, that's all part of it.

"Being raised a Jedi means you aren't allowed to want things. You aren't allowed to enjoy anything that isn't being a Jedi. No physical pleasures, not food, not touch, not… clothing that feels good on your skin, because Force forbid you ever get attached to something other than being a Jedi, and try to seek it out. So, food, sex, touch, cuddling, comfortable clothing and furniture, we wore homespun and slept on mats on the fucking floor. Jon's suggesting at some point I may develop taste in music, because apparently music is a thing people like. Anything like that, things that make you feel good, pleasurable things, help. So, fucking helps. It feels good and keeps my mind less tangled. Sex with Rey is better. Speaking of things Jedi aren't allowed to have, romantic love is at the top of the list, and that makes everything better. And unlike the other women I've had sex with, Rey loves me, and that matters. And back when I was under Snoke, literally no one, including myself, loved me, I wasn't getting tuffed regularly, I barely ate, didn't sleep, enjoyed nothing other than occasionally beating the smirk off of Hux's face, so I was less stable, more volatile, and everything hurt and pissed me off all the time."

The boys glance at each other and nod. Then Kylo catches part of what they're thinking.

"And, yes, if I'd been so inclined, that was a problem I could have taken care of on my own. I used to do that when I was at Luke's school. And then feel bad about it, because that was 'giving in to my desires.' Trust me, give in, give in a lot, rub yourself raw if you need to, though lube helps with that, too. You'll be better off for it. It's… not as effective as with another person, assuming the other person even remotely likes you, but it'll get the job done."

Which is where Finn and Poe also understand what Kylo's saying. Finn's looking shocked, and Poe says, "Wait… Nothing, at all, for ten months to a year?"

Kylo glares at him, though it's more frustrated than angry. "I know I mentioned being celibate. Did I need to define that word for you? Wake up glued to my sleep pants every ten or so days, very rarely take matters into my own hands, but basically, yes."

"Why would you do that to yourself?" Finn asks, shocked. He's not sure he buys Ren's get tuffed to stay sane thing, but… He was also assuming he was getting himself off, and without that…

Kylo glares at him, too, and this look has some anger in it. Finn's still staring, amazed. Poe's starting to get it.

"Why?" Finn's still staring at him like Kylo isn't human.

"Because there was a fucking monster in the back of my head telling me to use it to kill people. Telling me to save it up, and to ride the release with my literal saber. He was there, enjoying my pain and using me as a fucking emotional battery. You try jerking it with an audience telling you that it's a weakness and you should just go kill things instead."

All five of them wince at that.

"Yeah." Kylo says, voice dry. "Between Luke and his don't give in to your wants because that's how you fall to the dark side, and Snoke's turn every want into pain and death so I can use you for power, I didn't exactly have a normal sex life until I was almost thirty. And, for you three, here's more fun of Force sensitive sex, when you're that close and intimately touching someone, you will generally be able to feel what's going on in their head, which is amazing when you're with someone who wants you, and shattering when you're with someone who is tolerating you for your money or power.

"Unless you're particularly randy, which is part of what I had to be to shut the voices down, or better at shutting down your telepathy," he's looking at Jacen, "or empathy than I am, or you really don't care what people think of you, I don't recommend fucking professionals. It'll be beyond disappointing."

The other five of them stare at each other, and then Poe makes himself snigger to lighten the mood, and get them off of this, because this is a hell of a lot darker than he wants to go with his 'let's get together and try to get to know each other better, talk about sex, and have a generally good time' plan. Granted, it's also making Kylo Ren make a lot more sense. "That's the difference between a pro who wants to work with you and one who doesn't. Trust me, in the right place, they like their jobs; that's why they work there. Even without magic, most of us still have enough of the big head thinking to be able to sense if someone doesn't actually want to touch the little one. And, yeah, if you get the sense your partner doesn't want you or sex with you, that's… Just get out of that. And if you're so drunk you can't tell the difference, you've got no business fucking anyone, paid or not." He takes another sip of his drink, and thinks of something. "You three should have an advantage at finding people who really like their work, and like the look of working with you."

Kylo thinks about that, remembering the massage techs he and Rey visited on their vacation. He intentionally makes himself think of something they enjoyed, together, makes himself pull out of his own dark. "He's probably right. Rey and I—"

"Stop!" Jacen says. "You and Rey. Why are you visiting pleasure specialists with Rey?"

A wave of shocked and curious is cresting over Kylo from the boys. Jacen's titillated, Critt's curious, and Elias is trying to figure out how more than two might even work.

"Okay… Uh…" He's looking to Poe and Finn, trying to figure out how to get out of this, but Poe's just smirking, and Finn's looking curious, so… "Pleasure specialists don't just fuck you. If you're a twit… or under extenuating circumstances… you might just get tuffed, but if you're not, get a full hour or more and let them work on you. Their job is to make you feel good, and that means any bit of you that likes getting rubbed can get rubbed. And if you're anything like me, just about all of you actually likes getting rubbed. And, yeah, I've got more shaft than the next two guys," he eyes Finn and Poe, silently naming the next two guys. "Put together." Finn rolls his eyes, and Poe leans across the table and punches his shoulder, though he's smiling as he does it, pleased that Ren's willing to make a comment like that. "But it's still not most of my body, or particularly difficult to avoid touching, even when I'm naked, so… We were getting massages, together. And someone who knows how to rub you down is an experience I highly recommend, especially if they happen to be attractive wo—" he remembers Jacen and Poe are here, "people, who are not wearing a ton of clothing, and you get to watch them rub on your partner at the same time. That was a lot of fun, and with luck we'll get to do it again sometime soon.

"Anyway, the point was, the ladies working with us were having a good time, and they liked talking to us, and it did feel good, in my head, and feelings, and body, and that was a really good experience, unlike one of the others I've had where the lady was counting each thrust in her head wondering if I'd make it to twenty-five strokes or not, and hoping I couldn't, because she didn't exactly enjoy my company or size and just wanted me to get done before her jaw cramped up."

Finn, Poe, and Jacen wince at that because they can all imagine it.

"Did you?" Jacen asks.

"No, but not the way you're thinking. I went soft, stormed out, and spent the next hour breaking shit, with Snoke cackling in the back of my head. And then the next day Hux lectured me about breaking expensive equipment."

Poe exhales long and low at that, and even Finn looks troubled.

Kylo half-shakes his head, not wanting to dwell on that. He gets back to where they started. The slicks packs. He taps Critt's the one nearest to him. "Do you three actually know how to put those things on?"

Finn leaps onto that. The last thing he wants is empathy for Ren, but it's threatening to break out if they keep talking about Snoke, so… "Good point. They don't work right and are fairly uncomfortable if you don't know what you're doing!"

Kylo notices the way Elias is staring at the slicks packs. Then he remembers what Elias thought sex was. And he realizes that if they wait for Elias to ask for clarification, they're going to die of old age, because Elias can feel the two other boys seem to know something he doesn't, so… "Okay, back further. What these things go on, and why put them on, and what you intend to do with yourself and your friend once you've got them on."

Finn and Poe catch Ren's eye and realize that, okay, they need to go way back on this, and start at the beginning, and that they'd been making some assumptions that were likely unwarranted, and that it's possible that adding a basic human reproduction class to the things MX-6 teaches would be in order.

Poe decides to go all the way back. "Have you three played with yourselves enough to get off?"

That gets eye rolls and nodding and three separate waves of adolescent annoyance aimed at him, though Kylo's the only adult who can actually feel it.

"Quit that. He's not being an ass. None of us have done this before, and it'll go better if we know what sort of stuff you guys know."

"And unlike those two, I also didn't get this from your side, either," Finn adds.

Kylo shakes his head. "I didn't get this. Five minutes of mechanics followed by twenty-five minutes of keep your hands to yourself, and off of yourself, meditate to calm yourself, and give up your wants to the Force, was not this."

"What did you get?" Poe asks Finn, hoping this'll help build some empathy in his direction from Ren.

"Twenty-minute-long holovid on the mechanics of reproduction and reproductive anatomy, followed by implants at fourteen, and the older guys trying to get us to go see the pleasure specialists."

"Why didn't you?" Jacen asks. "I mean… If we had them here…"

"You like sex, right?" Critt asks.

"I like sex just fine. I love sex. With Rose. The First Order tried to keep us focused on work."

"That's part of why there are pleasure specialists. It's easier to meet other people's wants if your needs are met. You can focus on your work better if you're not constantly randy. That's why the Order has them." Kylo sighs. "And it dulls down empathy for the people you conquer… You're less likely to find one to get emotionally attached to if you're not fucking them. That's why the First Order had them."

Finn just looks at Ren when he says that. He's never thought about why they were there, but… "Captain Phasma did her best to keep us on the fight, all the time. Focused on fighting, on training, on— Why are you smirking?" he shoots at Ren

"Because she was fucking Hux, and occasionally both of them, together would go visit the pleasure specialists."

Finn winces. "Oh…" He looks like he's got a bad taste in his mouth. "I did not need to know that. Uglh." He just stares at Ren. "Hux? She'd break him like a twig."

Ren shrugs. "I couldn't avoid their feelings at each other, but I did my best to avoid most of the details. Whatever it was she liked, he could give her, and vice versa. Sometimes when we'd train, I'd see bruises and teeth marks, but… she wanted him to put them there."

Finn's lip curls, he hates that he wants to ask, but… He does it. She'd been lurking in his nightmares for more than a decade, and all he'd ever seen was one eye. "What did she look like?"

Ren sighs. He wonders a bit what she might have become out from under Snoke and Hux's influence. Wonders if she'd have been willing to be part of The Order. He puts those thoughts aside, too. "Tall. She was as tall as I am. Broad and well-muscled, not just for a woman. She was big, bigger than Poe in all directions. She could bench press you, or me, and both of us together. Big hands and feet. Blonde hair, short, wavy. Blue eyes." His expression softens, a little. "She wasn't pretty, but she did have pretty eyes. Determined."

"Determined?" Jacen asks. "That's a look?"

Finn's nodding though. "On her, even under head to toe chrome armor, it was."

"She could take me down in a hand to hand fight."

"Did you like her?" Poe asks.

Ren shakes his head. "Not on any level or definition of the word you're thinking of. I respected her."

"You respected her," Finn's voice is curling with derision. "She gave up Starkiller to save herself. That's how we broke it."

Ren half shrugs. "She wouldn't have been the first person to value herself over a horde of nameless, faceless strangers. That's part of why he made sure you were in that fucking armor all the time. So, you couldn't build that kind of attachment to each other."

Poe decides they're far enough afield, and yanks them back. "So, you're busy working your way to officer material…"

"Right…" Finn nods, willing to try to get back onto topic. "Uh… Yeah. So… The older guys keep pushing, trying to get us to go visit the Specs."

"Specs?" Critt asks.

"We had slang for everything. Pleasure Specialists became Specs. But… I'm busy. I'm tired. I'm spending most of my non-training time studying up on everything. Good officers need to know their own systems in and out, and as many of the other ones as they can. There are holovids with some really interesting material on them. Ten credits'll get you a mountain of them. Ten credits will also get you about thirty seconds with a Spec. No one ever told me my hands needed to stay above my blankets, and I can get myself off just fine, so paying someone else to do it didn't interest me."

Poe thinks the next bit matters, so he adds, "And then you met Rose."

Finn nods. "And then I met Rose, and suddenly someone else doing it was a LOT more interesting."

Poe gives him a little poke. A non-verbal keep going.

"And, eventually she got her hands on me and vice versa, and, uh… It's a distinctly different set of sensations from doing it yourself, and they're really nice, and… Uh, especially right before and a few months after Paige was born, I went back to being best buddies with Ms. Righty," he wiggles his fingers, "and I'm much happier playing with her than with myself."

"Which gets us back to basic sex, making babies. Uh…" Poe glances at the other two men. "I don't actually know how to do that. My dad had this chat with me, so, I mean, I know, but, I've never seen a woman naked or had sex with one, so…"

"So…" Finn's staring at Ren.

"You're the one who's actually done it," Ren says back.

This is where the boys are getting confused because it's clear that all of them know at least the most basic of basics and they're under the impression that Finn and Ren should be talking about the same basic thing.

Kylo catches the confusion. "He got his wife pregnant. I haven't. We've both had sex. And, yes, it works the same if you're trying to make babies or not."

Finn half-inclines his head. "The mechanics are probably about the same for guys, too. Just a different target."

Poe shakes his head. "No!"

"No?" Finn asks.

"Let's get sex with women done first, and then we'll compare and contrast."

Finn sighs. "Okay, shaft gets hard. Assuming you don't want to be a dad, and you don't have an implant—"

"What's an implant?" Elias asks.

"It's a small injection in the tubes between your stones and shaft. Makes sure the sperm can't get out," Ren says.

"So… can you… still come, with one of them?" Jacen asks. It's clear on his face that if implants work the way he thinks they do, they're some sort of torture device.

Kylo nods. "There's… a few tubes… maybe?" This would be when Kylo realizes he doesn't exactly know how the implant works. "I don't know, really. It's a shot, one on each stone, it hurts for a few days, it takes two months to really kick in, then no babies for three years. But, yes, you can still spurt."

"They put a needle in your stones?" Critt's staring at him in horror. Jacen and Elias are wincing and curling in on themselves.

Finn rolls his eyes. "Some of us didn't have a choice in the matter. The First Order didn't want us leaving bastards in our wake."

"Didn't want you getting attached to any babies you might have made," Kylo adds. "And it's not mandatory for anyone past their first five years, now."

Finn rolls his eyes. "And yeah, it hurts, but…" he pokes the slick packet. "These things don't always work. You don't always have one. And… it feels better without one."

"A little pain now for peace of mind and more pleasure later," Ren says.

"A little?" Elias asks.

"I'm not saying I'd have it done regularly for fun, but… compared to," Ren rolls his eyes a little and gestures to his face. "It wasn't a big deal."

Finn nods. "Numbing gel, shots, they'd usually time it so you'd get it before your two off, but if not, a day or two of light duty and feeling achy, and you're done."

"Numbing gel?" Ren asks Finn, his voice creeping up toward the next octave as it occurs to him that maybe it didn't have to hurt that much.

Now Finn's staring at Ren in horror. "Did you get it done without?"

"What's numbing gel?" Ren's also looking horrified.

"You don't know what numbing gel is… What the fuck?" Finn says.

Ren doesn't make a noise. He's stunned beyond the capacity to verbalize.

Poe's looking from one of them to the other, and the kids are also staring in amazement.

Finally, Kylo gets his voice back and says, "I don't take pain meds. Morphe or anything like that. They… mess with my head. Visions that I don't want to see. Would I be correct in guessing that numbing gel is…"

"A wet gel they just rub on the skin and it makes the bit of your body under it go numb," Finn says. "It doesn't mess with your head. Won't deal with any sort of serious pain, or anything full body, but... You know Morphe is like... only for really bad injuries. There's a lot of options that don't fuck your head up."

Ren's glaring at his mental image of the med droid. "If you tell the med droids no pain meds, apparently they give you no pain meds. No, I didn't know numbing gel was a thing."

"So, if you ever decide to get implants, make sure they give you numbing gel. With it, it kind of pinches, and you likely don't want to watch them do it, but it's mostly just uncomfortable, not pain," Finn says.

"Great. We've got implants covered. So, you're hard, your friend wants to have sex with you, you've got a pack of rubbers…" Poe's saying.

"Why do you call them that?" Ren asks.

"Because, at least where I'm from, there's this stuff, called rubber, that's awfully similar to what they make these out of. Why do you call them slicks?" He's noticed that that's one of the few other things Kylo and Finn agree on, the little sheathes in front of them are 'slicks.'

"Because the ones the First Order had are lubricated, and slick." Ren nods at the rubbers in front of them. "Are these not lubricated? Is that why you've got the bottles?"

"They're lubed, but if you're having sex with a man, you're going to want more lube than comes on a rubber."

"Okay," Finn says. "You and your sweetie are looking to have sex. You're ready to go. Except you don't have the slick… rubber on, yet." He's opening one of the boxes.

"Hey! I might need that!" Jacen chirps at the idea of losing one of his.

The three older men don't roll their eyes at that, because of the boys, Jacen's the one least likely to need them any time soon. He still feels them all think it. He glares at them for that.

"I'll replace it," Kylo says. He's gone for a second, and then back, and tosses another one at Jacen. "Go ahead."

"Wait. Why do you have these? Didn't we just cover implants?" Jacen asks, looking at the slick Ren just threw at him.

"I'm willing to give you that because I don't need it."

"Oh." Jacen cracks a grin. "Got any more?"

Kylo sips his coffee. "Use two of the first three and come talk to me."

Jacen glares a little at that.

Finn waves the slick in his hand around to get their attention. "They're made to be opened with one hand, in the dark, by people who are too horny to see straight," Finn says, placing the disk on his thumb. "Balance it on your thumb, put your index finger and middle fingers on the rim, push," he does and the pack splits, and the slick slips out. "You wanna demonstrate?" he says to Ren, daring him to take this the next step.

"Why in the dark?" Elias asks.

"Lots of people like to have sex in the dark, and no I don't know why," Poe replies. "Okay, Ren, show us how to use one."

Ren rolls his eyes. "Sure." He grabs Critt's empty cider bottle. "You done with that?" Critt nods. "Obviously, this is not exactly how it works. Pinch the tip."

"Wait." Poe says, "Grab the lube, put a drop or two in the tip, then continue on."

Finn and Ren are staring at him. Poe shrugs. "It'll feel better."

"Pretend I put some lube in it. Pinch the tip, put it on your tip," he settles it over the mouth of the bottle. "Roll it down." It's not exactly rolling down easy, but a cider bottle isn't exactly shaft-shaped, either. "Once it's all the way down, you're ready to go."

"Pro-tip," Poe adds, "practice a few times on your own before you do this with someone else. Don't worry about not having enough of them. I'll make sure the med bay stays stocked. You need them, just go get them."

"When you're done, pull out, make sure you're holding onto it, so it doesn't leak, or you don't accidentally leave it in her, pull it off, tie it up, and toss it," Finn says.

The boys are staring at the prophylactic-ed bottle, and Critt's the one who decides to actually ask. "So, uh… what do you… do… in between putting it on and taking it off?"

The men look at each other. Ren says, "That's… uh… probably going to depend on how close to spurting you are, and how close to spurting she is—"

"Wait. Women spurt?" Jacen's staring at Ren. "Okay, I've never… not with one of them, but… They don't…" He's gesturing toward his lap. "have the equipment for that, right?"

Ren sighs. "Come… Spend… Get off… They do that. If they can literally spurt, I've never seen it. They can… drip, sometimes, or leak, but I've never seen spurting."

Finn half inclines his head. "I've seen pictures of it on holovids. I think she was peeing though. Rose doesn't think it really happens. But they can do the feel really good and twitch part of it, just like us. And, yeah, if she's having a really good time, she'll get really wet, and sometimes she can drip or leak or… Ren said it earlier, if she wants to have sex with you, her body's going to get wet and slick and just going to let you right on in, and it's going to feel amazing."

"Wet and snug and slick and hot and… It's really good. And it smells good, and tastes good, and assuming you like women, you'll like touching and smelling and tasting it," Kylo adds.

Poe breaks in there. "Good point, if… whatever it is, mouth, delta, ass… anything, doesn't look and smell good enough to lick, don't put your shaft in it, rubber or not. Your sense of smell and taste are your first line of defense on this. Beyond peeing liquid fire, there are a bunch of fun, by which I mean terrifying and painful, diseases out there, that you can catch by sticking your shaft in places it shouldn't go."

That's got the boys attention.

"That said, if she's… he's… healthy and clean, you're probably going to want to lick it," Kylo says. "Or they're going to want you to lick it. Or, maybe both at once."

Finn's got a big grin on his face there.

Critt's looking confused. "How are you tasting it if you're… in her."

Ren looks down, biting his lip, trying not to laugh. Then he swallows and looks up. "I meant both of you licking each other at once. Uh…" He's never tried to think of a name for that. "Tops to tails." That seems like it's properly descriptive, though. "Unless you're a lot more flexible than I am, you're not fucking and licking at the same time."

Poe, noticing that all four coffee cups are empty, gets Finn and Elias out of the booth, scoots himself out, and goes to make more.

Finn's smirking. "But a man can dream, right?"

"Oh yeah! If I could do both at once, I would." Kylo's very pleased at the idea of that.

"One of the holovids had a guy with a girl on his shaft and face… talk about died and went to heaven…" Finn's saying, enthusiastically. Kylo's very happily nodding along to that idea.

Poe's chuckling at that as he's measuring out more coffee. "About six years ago. I was on Hollan V, and there was this guy… Uh… He was flexible and, you know, I'm not build like a girl," He holds his fingers out, about waist high, indicating that someone wouldn't have to get their mouth quite so close to his pelvis as he would to a woman, "so… he had me coming and going at once, and that…" He's got a dreamy look on his face, and a slow, satisfied nod. "That was a treat."

"Rey's done something like that. Fingers and mouth, and… yeah…"

Poe's looking shocked. "You let her…"

Ren's surprised that Poe's shocked, but… he rolls with it. "What do you mean? Let? Once I knew it was a possibility, I more or less rolled over and said, 'yes, please!' You're the one who gave her the idea in the first place. Which was a good one! So, yeah, sure. It felt good. It feels good when a guy does it to you, right?"

Poe nods. "Yeah, it does, but… Uh… Men who are narrow for women don't generally seem to like that."

Judging by the way Finn's just watching them, and not immediately hopping on the idea or expounding on how he thought it was tons of fun, too, Poe might be onto something with that theory.

Ren shrugs. "I do." Poe's just staring at him. And Ren knows what he's thinking. He rolls his eyes a bit. "Unless I've got a big surprise coming for me late in life, just women."

"Guys, you've lost me again," Elias says.

"And didn't answer the original question," Critt adds.

"Okay, one more detour, and then we'll get there," Poe says. "You're with a guy, or a woman, hoping to do anal. Unless this is something you do a lot, which we know isn't the case here, you can't just shove your shaft on in. If you just hop on him and try to shove it in him, even with lube, you're going to hurt him, and honestly, it's not going to feel all that great for you, either. There really is such a thing as too tight, and an ass that isn't ready for you is going to be too tight. So, fingering. Lots of people have different ideas on what feels good with this, so… try it on yourself before you do it to someone else, but, in general, lots of lube, slow, start with one finger, rub it around a bit, and when that's comfortable, you can go to two. Some guys'll do three, some'll just go for shaft. Mostly, the muscles in your ass are designed to stay shut most of the time, so you just want to help 'em relax a bit."

Jacen sort of rolls his eyes, feeling stupid asking, but… This feels like something he probably needs to know. "Uh… messy?"

Poe blinks. It's been so long since this wasn't part of his 'getting ready for a good time' routine he'd forgotten it's something you need to teach people. "Oh, yeah. Right. Yes, it really can be. Use a rubber on anything you're going to stick into someone's ass, make sure it's got lots of lube on it, or make sure you've cleaned yourself out first."

Both Jacen and Kylo (who is suddenly wondering about when Rey's done it to him) are staring at Poe.

He shrugs a bit. "Sex is messy. That's true no matter what you're doing. And, honestly… look, a little shit here and there isn't the end of the world. Just make sure you wash up thoroughly and pee after any adventure where you're on the penetrating side of things."

"Wait!" Finn hops in. "For the girls. I don't know if Rose mentioned that, and with the way Rey heals up, she probably doesn't know. Make sure the girls pee after you have sex with them, or they can get the same kind of sick Poe was talking about. Seriously, nothing kills the 'we just had sex' glow like a urinary tract infection."

Poe looks thoughtful at that, and Kylo blinks, because that wasn't anything in his sphere of knowledge. Poe continues on, "If you want to try anything anal, absolute bare minimum, hit the head first, take a shit, and make sure you've washed everything. If you've got time, and you want your sweetie to not need to use a slick, get an enema, read the damn directions, and use it, wait half an hour, and then do it again. When the water comes out clean, you're good to go."

Elias and Critt squirm a bit at that. Poe puts the refilled coffee cups on the table, waits for Elias and Finn to budge over, and sits down.

Jacen nods. "Sure. Fine. We're cleaned up and moved to penetration, now what?"

"Unless you think you're going to spurt in the next heartbeat or two, you're likely going to want to move," Ren says.

Poe adds a very descriptive hand gesture. The boys, and Ren, snigger at that. Finn stares at the ceiling, indicating he's vastly too mature to be involved in a discussion with hand puppets.

"And if you are going to?" Elias asks. What he and Magiit have done might not be sex per se, but he's more than familiar with the sensation of being two strokes away from spending in his trousers.

"Stay very still and let it pass, or if you've got another slick, move fast, enjoy it, then take care of her, and go at it again in bit. You three are young. If you've got an hour, you can likely do it at least twice if not three times, so… It's up to you," Ren says.

"Or, be smart about it, pick a time where you've got enough time to get your partner off first, and then if you get off in ten seconds, it's not a big deal, because she's not disappointed," Finn says.

"Or, she sucks you off first, you take care of her, you both have a bit of a cuddle and rest, and then when she's on you, you're toned down enough to last more than a minute, and you have a good time together," Ren adds.

Finn decides to say something vaguely vulnerable. "Uh… Our first time. Our first time together, and my first time, period. I knew I wasn't going to last. Not… without help. So… We'd been having dinner, talking, flirting, her hand's on my thigh, and it's just moving higher and higher up, and there's no one else around, so after dinner things are going to get hot, so… I excused myself, jerked it, fast and between what'd she'd been doing to me and what she was going to be doing to me, I didn't have any trouble getting done quick, and that bought me enough time to really pay attention to her before my shaft got back into play and I was having a hard time focusing on anything else. Pretty much, do whatever you've got to do to make sure she has her good time, first. Then you get off."

"The reverse of this is true if you're penetrating another man. If you're in him, you want to get off first. Maybe not by a lot, but prostates, the little nub inside you that feels really good to touch, are sensitive after you get off, and do not appreciate getting poked then. Just like your stones probably like a bit of attention while your fucking, and DO NOT want anyone pressing on them at any other time. So, try to time it so you fire off a few strokes before he does, and that should leave everyone happy," Poe adds.

That's a deluge of information over the boys, and finally Jacen's the one to say, "Okay, great. Move it, how?"

Poe's looking from Jacen to Ren, and back to Jacen, because he was the one making a big show of not being a virgin, and Ren didn't twig to it as a lie, so…

"I've given head before. Gotten it once, too. So, I know what to do with my mouth. Less so with my hips."

Poe nods. "It's similar." He does that hand gesture again. "The in-out's pretty much the same no matter what. But, yeah, hips move more when you're fucking," He curls his left hand into a loose fist and moves it over his extended right index and middle finger, both hands rubbing against each other. "And hopefully, when you're getting sucked, you keep 'em pretty still," this time just the fist moves, and he keeps the pointer finger and middle finger still, "because you don't want to choke your partner. I've met exactly no one who appreciates getting gagged by a shaft. And, anal with a guy…" Poe stares at his fist for a moment, then he flips it so that his thumb is pointing toward the ceiling and away from his body, "Speaking of things I never thought I'd be doing finger puppets for. Okay. If this is his shaft," he wiggles his thumb, "when you're inside him, your aiming for his prostate, which is," he slips his fingers into his fist, pinky finger side, and wiggles them where his thumb connects to his wrist, "about here. Touching it generally feels really good, but, again, lots of lube, go slow, keep talking, and go find your own first, and get an idea of what it likes."

The boys look at least somewhat intrigued by that.

"There's a spot like that on a woman, too. Uh… not in their ass… or if there is, I don't know about it," Ren says. "But, same general sort of place in their sheath. I haven't found a good way to reliably hit it when fucking, but fingers work just fine," he wiggles his index and middle finger together, showing off the motion, "If there's a way to make your shaft do that, I don't know how. Fingers are good at that, and if you pair it with your tongue, you've got a happy woman."

Poe adds, "Okay, actually, yeah. Reliably hitting a prostate while fucking is difficult, too. Some positions make it easier, but fingers are a lot better at that."

"With a woman… when you're fucking, you can wiggle and grind and whatnot, but… Uh… I mean… Shit," Finn looks at Poe. "You don't have any… I mean… Back at our place, on my datapad… Uh."

Ren smirks. "A picture's worth a thousand words, right?"

"Right," Finn says. "And I bet he doesn't have the right sort of pictures."

"You have a copy of the full library?" Ren asks Poe.

"Yeah."

"Go get it."

"Why?" Finn asks.

"Because it's Orlac's library, and he, at least officially, runs an art school, and art schools paint nudes, a lot of them, and I know for a fact he's got some interesting pictures on there." Then he turns to the kids. "And yes, these are on your libraries, too, and I'm not saying you can't enjoy them, but if you boogers decide to use this information to spend the next six weeks locked in your cabins rubbing yourselves raw, I'm going to delete all the good stuff off your copies. You still need to show up for meals and chores and lessons, so, use this information wisely."

All three boys look deeply intrigued by this.

Poe hands his library over. Ren queues up the search feature, puts in erotic nudes, and goes skipping through the list for the one he thinks has the most useful pictures of the bunch. He then goes whipping through the images, because the last thing he needs to do right now is spend enough time really looking at them to get excited, because that'll just make things awkward, but eventually he gets to the image he wants.

"Human female sexual anatomy, all laid out for you. This lady doesn't seem to have any body hair, but most adult women do, so, pretend she's got hair."

"All over…" Critt sounds like he can't wrap his head around that.

"Like your body. The pink parts don't have any or much hair, the normal skin colored ones do," Finn adds, sketching out the triangle where the hair would normally be, which helps to clarify things. He taps the lady's pearl. "Think of that as your shaft. Yes, she can have a good time without you touching it, but, like with your body, it's really difficult to get off without touching it."

"It's tiny," Jacen says, staring. "How… do you… What do you do with it?"

Poe shrugs. This is the first time he's really looked at a picture of a naked woman, and tiny is the first thought that came to his mind, too. The billion and one comments he's overheard his different female friends make about their partners not being able to find it are making a lot more sense.

"Lick it, kiss it, stroke it, suck it," Ren taps his middle finger against the table and makes small circles with it, "circle it, grind your palm against it, kiss it some more, rub your shaft against it,"

"Get her on top of you, she bounces up and down, and you rub your thumb over it," Finn shows off his back and forth gesture. "You get on top of her, in and out is for you, grinding your pelvis against it is for her."

"She's on her hands and knees, you use one hand to support yourself, the other is on her boob, and she touches it herself…" Ren adds.

"Just make sure that someone is touching it," Finn says. "Doesn't have to be you, but knowing you got her off is a kick."

"What about," Elias points to all of the rest of the woman's delta. "What's…" He's blushing furiously. "Uh… the target?"

Kylo doesn't laugh, because, yes, this is a picture of a completely naked woman, lying on her back, one leg bent at the hip and knee, the other spread to the side, so it's a nice view, but she's not spreading her inner lips apart, so it's not that good of a view.

He lightly touches the screen. "Those spread apart, and between them is her sheath."

"So, you just… focus on her… pearl?" Critt says.

Ren shakes his head. "Spend a lot of time on it, but… Especially when you're starting out, touch all of it. Be gentle. She'll let you know when not to be gentle. If she's got hair you can lightly tug on it, and that's nice. But, just, touch it. Get on your knees or have her straddle you so you've got a good view of what you're doing, and touch it. Like I said earlier, if she wants you, she'll let you in. The happier she is, everything gets wet, and swollen and puffy, and those'll open for you."

"Gentle, though," Finn repeats. "It's likely you like to be touched a lot harder than she does, at least at first. So, go soft, and she'll let you know when to use more pressure. And… all of it. Her pussy, her legs, her belly, her butt, and tits, and… If there's a spot on a woman that doesn't like to be touched, I've never found it. Hell, you can kiss her elbows, and if she likes you, she'll likely like that, too."

Ren's nodding along, and Poe's feeling pretty satisfied to see the two of them agreeing about something. "If she's in front of you, on her side, and you're behind, and on your side, you can snuggle up close, drape her top leg back and over your hip, and you'll have free access with your hands to touch everything, and your lips can get to her neck and shoulders and ears and… That's really good."

"Spoons. That's what Rose calls that. Spoons is good. Especially first thing in the morning, when you're mostly asleep, but your shaft's up, because it's morning, and…"

"That's generally where between comes into play, because that's good with a man, too. You're half asleep, but your shaft's not, and it's partially dream, and partially real, and you just reach around—"

And Ren's still nodding along. Then he looks at Poe, "Until some idiot shows up first thing in the morning waving muffins in your face."

"I did that once. Come on, even you aren't so dark you need to get tuffed every single night and every single morning. You can take a day of missing out on your morning shag."

"Shag?" Critt asks.

"Shag, fuck, tuff, slam, score, roger, canoodle—"

"Canoodle, really?" Finn asks.

"Yeah, I don't know where that one comes from. Look, there's a million words for sex," Poe says, "They all basically mean the same thing, up, in-out in-out, and done."

"Commune," Ren adds. "That was the Jedi term, physically communing together in mutual accord and affection."

"I thought Jedi weren't supposed to… commune… at all," Finn says.

"We weren't. But, supposedly, a master who was well-grounded in the light, with a suitably well-grounded partner could commune in an effort to enhance their knowledge of themselves, the Force, and the light."

"That doesn't sound like much fun," Jacen says.

Kylo shrugs. "Last year, I agreed with that. Now… Uh… Rey and I have done a lot of fucking, and had an absolute blast at it. And when Luke was explaining it to me, I think he meant commune as a 'nice' synonym for fuck. He was celibate, as best I know, truly celibate, and probably asexual, too, so I don't think he knew that sex has… levels… flavors… whatever. But the Jedi who wrote about it in the books he was telling us about, they knew, and Rey and I've communed, too, and it's… Do you know what the word ecstasy means?"

It's clear the boys don't. Finn and Poe don't appear to, either.

"Not surprising, it's a religious term. The idea is that when you've got something immensely good, a mix of pleasure and joy and happiness and sharp, crystalline good usually wrapped in a sense of religious euphoria…" And he lost the other five with that one. Apparently, they're all expanding their vocabularies today. "joy. It's… tasting the Force, feeling wrapped in it, bathed in light and good, and… And if you're really communing, you can get there, and that's… Uh… Okay, spurting is sharp and good and your body sings and your heart races and you feel tingly and glow-y all over, and that's good. Communing, really communing is all of that, all over, in your head and heart and shaft and then take it up a few levels, and… You hit a point where your bodies fall away, where it feels good, but… When you're fucking, it feels good in your shaft and stones, and when you're communing it's just good all over, and your brains sort of meld, and you don't know where she begins and you end and if you're really in it… Uh…There's the old mantra, 'I am one with the Force and the Force is with me,' and okay, yeah, that sounds dry and stupid, but… You… you and her, together, one, flow into and with the Force and… Fun's not the word. It's not fun. But it is intense and present and real, and ecstatic and… Uh… yeah… If you can do it, do it because it's amazing, but… We've only managed it once…" Ren bites his lip. That's advanced sex, and they're not there. Basic though…

"Okay, sex for Force users. Slipping out of your head and into hers, and vice versa, is, from what I can tell, at least for Rey and I, pretty easy. And," he looks at the picture in front of them, "Don't get me wrong, good technique is useful, but… She can feel if she's making me feel good. And I can feel if I'm doing something she likes. And, honestly, sometimes it's just easier to have both of us ride off of how I'm feeling, because of the two of us, I'm the easier one to get spurting. But… I can be between her legs, happily licking away, and if she needs me to the left or right or harder or softer, I can usually, assuming I'm paying even the least attention to her, feel where and how she needs it. I don't know if you three will have that, but… You probably will to at least some degree, and that makes everything easier.

"And, even when we aren't communing, when we're just together and present and with each other, it's really easy for my mind and hers to get all tangled up."

"Does that always happen?" Finn asks, feeling like this is a major piece in the why Rey's having anything to do with this guy puzzle.

"No," Ren shrugs. "We can just fuck, too. It works that way for you and Rose, too, right? Sometimes you're just randy and having a quick one because it feels good, and sometimes it's deep and present and emotional and real and different, right?"

"Yeah. I can't… feel it through her body, or get into her head, but, yeah, sometimes you're just getting off with your favorite person because you like getting off, and sometimes it's a lot deeper and more intense, real. Slow and steady and present and you just feel their love for you, in their skin and your skin and through how you touch each other."

"My dad called it making love," Poe says. "Sometimes you're fucking. And sometimes you're making love. He told me I'd be able to tell the difference when it happened."

"Did you?" Finn asks.

"Yeah. It's been a long time, though." Poe says. He shrugs a little. And both Ren and Elias can feel the wave of longing that goes with that. Kylo reaches across the table and gives his hand a squeeze, which shocks everyone else. Poe squeezes back, and says, "They say you know when you meet the right person, but since that's not been working out so hot, these days, I settle for men who like to fuck other men, and that's enough."

Kylo's curious about that, but he's got the good sense not to ask about it, not now.

"I didn't know when I met Rose. She says she knew when she met me, but… I didn't know until she was saying to me, 'We're going to win by saving the things we love,' and then she kissed me, and then I knew, and then I just about died because she passed out, and she was bleeding, and I thought she'd died, and… It was fifteen hours before she woke up, and when she woke up and said my name, I knew," Finn says.

They're all looking at Kylo, so he says, "There was… I guess I was ten. I don't remember the day, not like Tuesday the Fifteenth of the sixth month of ABY 15. Not like that. But… There was a day, and I was… older than eight. I was at Luke's school. And younger than twelve, because Kumman hadn't joined us, yet. I was twelve when he came, so… Sometime between eight and twelve. And there had always been the dark presence in my head. I thought it was my grandfather. It wasn't. And then one day this tiny little light was there, too. It didn't have a voice, or name, or anything like that, just a feel. The dark voice didn't like it. He told me to ignore it. That it was trying to drag me away from my destiny. And it didn't do anything. It didn't talk to me the way the voice did. Sometimes it was brighter, sometimes more dim, and sometimes I got the sense it was happy or sad or hurting, but… It was just a light. A very small light.

"I do remember when I finally saw who the light was attached to. Takodana." He looks to Finn. "You were there, too, right?"

Finn nods.

"I was in the forest, looking for the droid, and I found a girl. I wasn't looking for her. But… I found her. She felt, important. She mattered; in a way I didn't expect. I knew my father was there. I could feel my mother coming. Snoke was mucking about in my head telling me something important was coming, and all I wanted to do was snark at him with something like, 'No shit. The Force drops all three of us here at once, and you think something important is coming? Wow. Amaze me with your glorious insights into the nature of the Force, oh great and powerful master.' But even thinking that is asking to get hit with a million volts of lightning, so I don't think that. I thought about the girl, and realize she's Force sensitive, too, and that I can feel her mind, and… She's seen the map.

"I don't need the droid. She's seen the map, so I can grab her, and unlike the droid, which I can't open to my will with the Force, I can read her mind. So, I grab her, take her with me, and when I start to question her, I'm riffing through her mind, and I can feel it, she's my light. I think I said something like, 'Oh, it is you!' and she's staring at me like I'm a moron—"

"She's staring at you like you're a moron because you've kidnapped her, tied her to a chair, and are interrogating her, and for some reason can't figure out why she's not instantly delighted to be in your company, Ren!"

Kylo glares at Finn but there's no heat in it, given that that's exactly what was happening, it's not like Finn's wrong. Then he shrugs a bit and continues on with, "because she may have been my light, but apparently she wasn't aware of me as the boy she'd been sensing for years, that would come later, anyway…

"Rey's been in your head since she was born?" Jacen asks.

Ren shrugs. "That, I don't know. We don't know how old she is. She was a child when she started to get a sense of the boy we think is me, so… That might have been about when her parents left her."

"Oh," Critt says. "That doesn't sound like love, though. At least, not what Finn's talking about."

"It's not," Ren says. "Destiny and love are not the same thing, and at first, given how many years Snoke had been telling me that my little light was trouble, I was fairly sure she was going to kill me. But, she didn't. And I didn't kill her. And I killed Snoke. And together we killed the guards. And… I broke her heart, because I couldn't be Ben, and she broke mine because she wouldn't help me set the galaxy on fire, and time went by and we got to actually know each other, and I moved light and she moved dark, and we got to a point where we could love each other, and then did love each other, and there wasn't just a moment of 'Oh, you and me forever!' it was a centimeter at a time, and we tangled into each other, and then we started having sex, and that tangled us even further, and now I'm not sure where I end and she begins, and we both rather like it that way, but I can't point to a moment and say, 'This, here, now' is when it happened." Kylo rubs his lips together. "It changes, too. Shifting. Not… not that we're less in love or we don't want each other, though I suppose that's true for some people, my parents, I guess, but… What it… what love means, what we do by and for each other… You and Rose do that, too, right?"

Finn nods. "Yeah. The bedrock, you and me until the end, that's solid, but… We have arguments, and conversations, and trying to figure out how to be you and me to the end, but… the goal, the two of us together, with Paige, and any other children we may make, and a home, that's what everything else has to serve, so there are… boundaries to the fights or conversations. We know where the journey has to take us, but we're often talking about how to get there."

Elias looks over at Poe. "Have you been in love?"

Poe shrugs a little. "Flying?" Jacen's already raising an eyebrow at him. Then he shakes his head a bit, and pours himself a rum, straight, shooting it back fast. "No bantha shit. Uh… Yes. Long time ago. His name was Micah, and we were young and stupid and…" he smiles, but it's sad, "and very in love." Finn's never heard this story, and he's listening intently. Ren's never heard it, either, though he's guessed it exists. It has to, if this Force/balance/destiny thing is real. "We'd both been part of Leia's protection detail, and we were both ace pilots, and… And we weren't actively fighting then, but we were training, and… It was an accident. Close combat flying is dangerous, and he was taking a group of fliers up for their first low-atmo, close combat flying exercise. One of them misjudged how far apart they were, clipped the other's wing, that one spun into Micah, and all three of them died. Just a stupid fucking training accident. There's at least one every year, and we all know it, but… He's the one who got burned."

"How old were you?" Finn asks.

"Seventeen when we met. Twenty-two when he died." There's a small smile on Poe's face. "Like I said, long time ago."

"But not really," Ren adds, voice soft.

Poe shrugs.

"So, you just… find strangers to sleep with?" Critt asks.

"More or less. I tend to sleep alone. I fuck strangers or near strangers. It's easier, especially when we were fighting. I didn't have to worry about getting hurt, or hurting anyone. Out of the twenty-five of us who left the New Republic as Leia's hand-picked help, Connix and I are the only ones left. Everyone else is dead." Finn's glaring at Ren, and he looks embarrassed. Poe keeps talking. "And, I've had some guys I've been sweet on since, but I'm unerringly able to crush on men who don't like fucking other men, so…" He shrugs at that, too. Kylo's almost about to ask about Jon, but decides now isn't the time. "Leia told me to get my head out of my ass once, and to stop doing that, and I'm trying, but… I mean… She never remarried after your dad," he says to Ren.

"Easier advice to give than live," Finn says, feeling very uncomfortable with what Poe just said and the way Jacen and Ren are looking at him.

"How do you… know which ones like men?" Elias asks. He points to Jacen. "He had to tell us."

"Talking is good," Poe replies, pleased to be on this instead of his own deeper feelings. "Talking is your friend. Talking will get you in and out of a lot of situations you need to get into and out of. And… There are places people go when they're looking to find sex and don't want to pay for it, and some of them are just for men looking for men, or women looking for women, and some are for everyone looking for anyone. Anyway, there are more than a few places I'm familiar with where I've got much better than even odds of getting tuffed if that's what I'm looking for."

"If you just want to get tuffed, why not pay for it?" Jacen asks.

Poe doesn't exactly shrug, but… "At a club, a hundred credits can get me a few good drinks, probably a few hours of good dancing, and more often than not, decently fucked, too. Or, at a brothel, it can get me fucked. I like getting fucked, but I like dancing and drinking, too. And, generally speaking, the more I want sex, the more likely I am to get it."

"How do you do that without Force skills?" Critt says.

That makes Poe laugh. "Like a lot of men, the randier I get, the lower my standards drop, the easier it is to find someone to scratch the itch for me."

The other five of them glance at each other, all of them able to imagine that.

Finn's the one who asks the next question, "You say, getting fucked… Are you… uh… giving or getting?"

Poe smirks. "I like both just fine."

"How do you figure out who does what?" Jacen asks.

"Same way you figure out who does what for anything else. You talk." He looks at Ren and Finn. "They don't do the same thing every time, either."

The men nod. Ren adds, "We've got… Okay… This is probably stupid, but I think about it a lot like food. Snack sex. Something quick and easy just because you like how it tastes. The ten minute… shag?" Poe nods, he's got the word right. "In the morning before you get up to go do whatever it is. Usually not a whole lot of talking with that because we're generally both half-asleep. That's normally the same thing every time. We sleep next to each other on our backs, but usually as we're waking up, I spoon up behind her, and we're not wearing pajamas, so…" He figures he doesn't need to be more explicit than that. And, fortunately, it seems the boys are following along well enough he doesn't need to. "Meal sex. That's… like dinner. More variety than snacks, and you take longer to eat it, so, yeah, more talking with that. And some nights we actually talk, ahead of time, about what we're going to do, or other nights we just sort of roll into it, but there's uh… more on the menu… so we've got to talk to figure it out. Then there's banquet sex, where everything you like is on the menu, and you've got the time to have some of all of it, and talking is definitely part of that, and not just in a what are we doing sort of way, but also because talking makes you feel good. It's part of playing."

The boys are just staring at him, but Finn's smirking along, nodding.

"There are things that you never think are going to come out of your mouth, or hers, but then she… says something, and no, I'm not saying what, but it will hit you hard and you'll want to hear a lot more things like that, and she'll want to hear them from you, and…"

"It's good," Poe says. "There's something to be said for the direct approach. Though, this is another pro-tip, you need a certain amount of swagger to pull this off cold, and probably at least five years more growing up, but having an attractive stranger walk over to you, gently brush your hair away from your ear, bend down, and whisper into it with what exactly they want to do to and with you, that feels good."

Poe thinks about that for a moment, and looks at the boys in front of them. Then looks at Ren and Finn. "And let's take a moment here about how to be attractive. Grooming 101. Head to toes. If it grows hair, wash it regularly. Top of your head can probably get by on just once a week, but more is likely better. Pits and pubes, do not go more than two days without applying soap or a sonic, and if you can't avoid going longer, get a wash before you've got to be around people." He glances at all three of them, and then sighs. They smell like teenage boys. "Deodorant, every time you wash. Every time you wash, foreskin gets pulled back, and the glans gets at least a rinse. Apply soap if there's smeg all over your tip, otherwise water's fine, okay?" They blush. "Look, you want someone to put it in their mouth, the odds of that increase dramatically if it smells and looks clean."

"When you have a partner, getting clean together is a lot of fun," Ren adds.

Finn nods. "And if you let your girl do you, you know you're the way she likes you, after. And if you smell/look the way she wants you to, she's a lot more likely to rub herself all over you, so that's a good thing."

"Shave or not as you see fit, but Jacen," Poe reaches across and gently strokes Jacen's cheek, "If you want more than your current bunny fluff, you've got to shave it more than twice before you grow it out." Jacen glares at him, a little, with no real heat. Beard length is coming in fine for him, but the textures is soft. "If you want to talk razors and gear, we can do that later, or you can chat with Finn."

"Why not you?" Jacen looks at Ren, who he figures has the closest hair texture to his own.

"Rey's got a laser thing, so I only have to shave once a week, and these days she shaves me, which… uh… That's fun. And, not exactly sex, but kind of like sex, but…" He's coming to the conclusion that this is probably not necessary right now. Not only are the boys staring at him, but so are Finn and Poe. "But, she'll tell you about the laser thing if you want to know more. It works, keep using it, and eventually, you won't have to shave at all, so… if you want options, maybe not a plan."

The boys nod at that, and return attention to Poe.

"Also, shave where you see fit. Some guys have no hair below their eyelashes. Some have lots. That's generally going to be a personal preference thing. If you do your pubes, talk to me first, because there's a trick to not wishing someone knocked the razor out of your hand before you started once it begins to grow back."

The boys look disturbed by that. Finn looks intrigued.

Poe keeps going, "Fingernails get trimmed at least once a month. If you've got a partner who you intend to put your fingers in, nails get trimmed, filed, and scrubbed regularly. Do not put dirty fingers in someone else. Do not try to put raggedy, scraggly nails in someone else. I can tell you from personal experience that no one, ever, enjoyed getting a nail snagged in a sensitive area, okay?"

They nod.

Finn adds, "Though if you let them get a little long, trailing them over her back or neck or leg… Rose likes that. Just lightly. It'll light up her skin and make her break out in head to toe goosebumps."

"And if your friend has them… uh… not lightly can be fun, too," Kylo adds.

Poe smirks. "You've got claw marks down your back, don't you?"

"Not today," Kylo replies with a wide grin.

"Rey's so light, I doubt he keeps them for more than five minutes at a go," Jacen adds.

Kylo just smirks.

"Back on track," Poe says. "The rest of you gets washed when it gets dirty. Feet get washed before they get smelly. Clean socks every day. Clean shorts, every day. The rest of your clothing is less strict, wash 'em when they need it. And they need it beforethey get smelly."

Finn adds, "And all of you need to do your laundry. Yes, it's winter. No, you don't need to wash your clothing as often as you did in summer, but right now anything with a nose can smell you coming a klick away."

They look embarrassed about that.

Poe stops to think. "Cologne. If that's something you want to chat about we can do that, too."

"Just you?" Elias asks.

"Finn doesn't wear it, and Ren appears to still be learning," Poe replies.

The boys look confused about that. Jacen leans a little closer to Kylo. "He's wearing some right now."

Poe smirks. "Yeah, I know. He smell good to you, Elias?"

"Uh…" Elias is blushing. Ren's eyes are narrowed. "Yeah, he does."

Poe nods. "I bet. Like I said, learning. Somehow, either because it's rubbed off from Rey, or he's still a little rough on this, Ren's wearing a woman's scent."

"How can scents have sexes?" Kylo sounds annoyed. "If it's on my body, it's a men's scent."

Poe snerks a little at that. "Finn? You want to enlighten our boy?"

Finn looks skeptical about the 'our boy' bit, but he does answer the question. "I thought it'd rubbed off of Rey." He sighs. "Also, you've got shit taste in presents for women if you bought it for her."

Kylo looks appalled and stunned. "She likes it! I like it! It smells good!"

"You smell like my dormmates coming home from rolling around with the Specs all night. Where'd you get that? One of the sex shops in the R&R section of the F-Deck?"

Kylo blushes furiously. Finally he says, "Finalizer."

Poe, more gently, says, "The reason it smells good to you, and Elias, and Critt, and though he's not going to admit it, Finn, is because it's not only a collection of pleasant scents, it's also packed full of female sex pheromones. Which is why they sell it in the sex shops in the R&R section."

"Then why do you know it?" Ren snipes at Poe.

"Just because I don't fuck women doesn't mean I haven't played a million card games in different pleasure palaces. Trust me, I know that scent, and all of its cousins. And I know why it's attractive to you." He glances to the boys. "Speaking of attraction… And why we'll talk cologne one on one. You're going to want to find something that works with your personal chemistry, and is, with any luck, a little less readily identifiable than what Ren's got on," Poe says with a little smirk. "Anyway, yes, it smells good to you, Kylo, it's been designed on an atomic level to make you feel good in its presence."

"And that's why Rey likes it, too," Critt says. He glances around because the rest of the table, including Kylo is sort of just staring at him. "What? She mentioned this to the girls last night, and Savarah told me. Rey likes girls, too. So, it smells good, it's packed full of yummy girl scent, so…" He sniffs at Kylo a little more deeply, and then pulls back. "Yeah, that's just weird on you. My nose is telling me one thing and my eyes are telling me a different thing."

Kylo sighs, deeply, and then rolls his eyes a bit. "That cover all of grooming?" he says to Poe.

"I think so."

"Great, from attraction to desire. You'll feel it, most of the people around you want to be desired, maybe not by you, personally, but in general, and the ones who do want to be desired by you, tend to enjoy proof of said desire," Ren says.

"But, since rubbing a hard shaft against someone without their explicit permission is generally considered inappropriate in most social situations, learn to use your words," Poe adds. "Which I guess gets us back to walking over and telling people what you want."

"Or patting your lady on the butt from time to time and just looking at her," Finn adds. "Especially if she's feeling a little low, a direct, 'You're the most beautiful woman in my universe,' tends to lift the mood."

"Lift her… his, I guess, hair, lay a kiss on the nape of the neck, and say something sweet. Rey likes that. I like it when she does it to me."

Poe's nodding. "Especially if you're in a relationship with someone, don't ever be afraid to tell them what you like about them, and why. That generally makes people happy."

The men look at each other, not immediately sure what goes after that.

So, after a moment, Ren says, "Questions?"

The boys look at each other, and at the picture, and at the men, and Ren can feel they want to spend a while talking to each other, and looking up every even nearly dirty word they can think of on their library pads, so…

"Never mind," Ren says. "Go, have fun. Learn, ask when you've got more to go off of."

Poe adds. "You can always ask. Hopefully, at least one of us will know the answer."

The boys nod at that, too, and then grab their jackets and hurry off, whispering to each other.

Finn looks to Ren. "We do okay by them?"

Ren nods. "Yeah. They're feeling good about it."

Finn gets up. "Good." He grabs the bottle of rum and adds more to his coffee. He gulps it, figuring that it's doing an okay job of killing the part of his brain that's uncomfortable with the boys, so… Maybe it'll work for Ren, too. One more swallow. "Okay. No bantha shit. Jakku." It's not a question, but it is, because…

Because, for a minute at least, Finn's trying to be not horrified and scared of this man, and he can, almost, sort of, get it.

Sort of.

Poe wants to grin, pleased to see Finn trying, but doesn't, because… Well, Rey hasn't exactly told him about Jakku, but given what Ren did about it, and the fact that Poe's not some sheltered kid out on his first run in the wider world, he's got a pretty good sense of what's going on, still… He's not sure if he should leave for this, but… He notices the way Ren catches his eye, like… maybe this would be easier if he sticks around, so… He pours himself more to drink, and tops up Ren's cup, too. (Mostly coffee, a little rum. The guy's the size of a Wookie, but he doesn't drink from what Poe can see, so… four shots in three hours… probably good.)

Ren nods, and drinks, draining his cup, and then says, "I can look back at it now and say that was a bad decision. And maybe, as more time passes and I do a better job of balancing, I may, begin to feel like it was a bad decision, too, but…" He exhales slowly, feeling that moment when he got hit by Rey's memory of it. "I felt it in her mind. She didn't tell me about it. Not until much later. And…" he rubs his lips together, "it's… different when she tells you, than when you feel it. When she talks, you've got her walls, and yours in place, so you can do things like… think.

"But, the Force kept throwing us together. And it has a sense of humor apparently, or… something. Maybe it mattered for her to see the man, with the scars, the big ones she put there, reassurance that she could hurt me, maybe, but, every other time it would connect us, it would pick a moment where I wasn't particularly dressed.

"The first time she saw me, she was angry, and a little afraid, but mostly angry. Tied up, in my ship, at my mercy, and she was angry, and then confused, and then more angry. The next time, I was half-naked, changing after training, and she was on the other side of the galaxy, but she was afraid and disgusted. I'm used to that, so… I don't think anything about it. Then I'm dressed, and she's getting comfortable with me. We talk and touch and the galaxy almost spins apart. Half-naked again, and again disgusted. I said something like, 'It's just skin, you've got it, too,' and got hit with this… wave…" He bites his lip, hard. "I didn't see it, because she didn't see it. Her eyes were closed tight. But for a few heartbeats I felt it… and… She was alone, and afraid, and hungry, and hurt." Finn and Poe can feel the anger burning through him, the wave of dark around him. "And the men who did it to her," his voice is shaking with anger, "and the people who didn't protect her, and the ground they left her crying on, and the dirt her fucking abomination of parents are buried in, their bones, the…" he howls out a word that Finn's only heard Chewie say once, and he still isn't brave enough to ask what that one means, "that bought her from them, all of it's gone, now. Because of me." He sounds very satisfied by that, and both Finn and Poe are very aware of the fact that Ren may be balancing, but he's still dark.

Ren swallows. "I wasn't there to protect her. I couldn't have been. But I could avenge it. And, yes, revenge is hollow, after, but it's fucking amazing when you're doing it." He's glowing with the memory of the feel of watching Jakku shatter. "And if there's anything in this universe I'm good at, it's breaking shit and hurting people, and being able to turn that against people, things, that hurt her… That was good."

Finn snorts. "Good." He shakes his head. "It was a whole planet, Ren!"

Kylo nods. "Small one, but yes. And there were probably a few thousand people on it. Maybe ten thousand, and in all of those years, all of those people, none of them changed her story. Just one of them, in the right place at the right time… Just onegetting off his, or her, or their ass to prevent a child from being raped, and everything would have unfolded differently. One person could have saved that whole planet by one fucking act of kindness, but none of them did."

"Don't put what you did on them," Finn says.

"I'm not. It's on me. It's entirely on me," and Finn and Poe again feel the satisfaction that's still thrumming through Ren at that. A dark purr that's richly pleased and very dangerous. "But it wouldn't have been on me if anyone had had enough light or kindness or humanity, or however you like to think about it, to step in and stop a gang rape. And from what she's said, it's not like she was the only one, and it's not like it only happened once." He's looking at Finn, really looking. "I read your files. You were officer material. You had perfect or near perfect scores in the training simulations. Any order aimed at you, you followed as close to perfectly as a human can. Phasma had glowing notes about you in your files. She was grooming you to be her eventual second-in-command. But once there were actual, real, people around you, you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't kill civilians for me. You connected enough, with them, in a matter of minutes, to feel that they were people, break the hardest mental conditioning in the galaxy, and disobey direct orders. Not a single fucking person on Jakku did that for Rey. NOT ONE! They didn't even share fucking food with her. We'd been together for a few weeks, and I realize she doesn't actually know how to use a godsdamned fork, because not a single person on that fucking planet took the time to teach her, or feed her a fucking meal that needed one. Not one. Not one in fifteen… eighteen… twenty years? We don't know, because no one on that rock bothered to tell her her birthday!" The cups of coffee and everything else that isn't attached to the floor in Poe's ship rattles as Kylo says that.

Poe lays his hand on Ren's wrist, and Ren nods, making himself calm down. He nods and takes a deep breath. "I grew up with people who tried. They failed. They couldn't… rescue me. But they tried. No one tried for Rey. So, yeah, a whole planet. I cleansed the universe of that filth. And I wouldn't do it now. I'd probably stick recruiting centers on it, take the people who want to go and likely any child, and get them out of there, and then blow it up, but… I didn't learn about it, now. I learned about it, then."

They're all quiet after that.

Finn takes another drink, and then says, quietly, "Okay. You asked me to try some empathy. Now, I want you to. You have a friend, and you love her, dearly. There are five people in the universe you call family, and she's one of them. But, her family fucked up. They screwed her over, left her in the middle of nowhere, and bad shit happened to her.

"And there's this guy, and she says she loves him, and… I can see it, she thinks it's real, but… Based on what? The family she never had? The" he mimics Ren's term for Plutt, "who bought her? The day and a half with your dad where he was basically decent to us, but that was it? I mean, I'm not saying that I know what it is to love, or that I've got any great role models for it, but Rose did, and I can talk to," he nods to Poe, "and Chewie about what it means to love someone, and… So, yeah, I'm flying without a map, but not blind.

"But, she's got nothing to go off of, and this guy of hers, he's fucking dangerous." And if it weren't for how earnest Finn's being, Ren would have his hackles up, but he can feel this. This is deeper than Finn's own issues with him, and is well into his justified concerns for his friend. "And just for kicks and giggles, we know he's got the kind of magic that can warp people's minds. We know he can do things like make people forget who he is and what he's done. And we know he's not exactly good at controlling himself. Just being near him sets my alarms off, and it's not like I don't have good reason for it. You are not some harmless little lamb who got a bad rep by accident or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being afraid of you is not unreasonable."

Kylo just blinks at that.

"And sure, maybe the greebles in your head are gone now, or at least calmed down. And yes, it's clear you got the shit end of the childhood stick, too, and I am genuinely sorry for what Snoke did to you. And yes, I can feel that you, as best as you know how to, love her. Like Jacen would say, 'It's obvious if you look,' but, just like with Rey, what map are you using? The parents who didn't save you? The 'grandfather' who wasn't? Would you actually know love if it walked up and bit you in the ass?

"And maybe you're balancing. But… What the fuck are you going to do if something goes wrong? Really wrong? It's abundantly clear that the little voice most of the rest of us have, that says, 'Back the fuck up and turn around, this is wrong!' is not in your head.

"If she tries to leave you? Or if any of the probably billion people out there who have a reason, a real, personal reason, to want you dead or in pain, go after her? The Kennas show up next week with a pile of guns and bombard the place rather than see Critt turn into another version of you. What happens?

"Am I going to lose my friend because she's near you?

"What the fuck am I supposed to do if she gets caught in the crossfire of someone aiming for you? Or if some new dark fucker pops up and starts using you as a puppet again? Or if you just get bored of her? Or if you can't, actually, balance? Or something goes wrong and pushes you over the edge again?

"So, Master, help me out. Tell me what you'd do if it were your dear friend who brought this guy home."

Kylo closes his eyes, and swallows, and chews on his lips some, looks at his empty cup, takes a gulp of Poe's, which is straight rum at this point, and fidgets with the cup for a bit before saying, "I used to have nightmares every night." He fiddles with the cup some more. "No, I didn't. Because I could and usually did go a few days at a time without sleeping. I used to have nightmares every time I slept. I don't, not any more. These days, I can go weeks, sometimes months, without them. But when I do… It's what you're talking about. That I'm not stable enough for her. That I'll get bored, and if not of her, then of this… thing I'm doing. That I'll turn into Palpatine and start blowing shit up just for kicks. And then she'll turn on me, because she can't abide that. That any of the billion people out there who want me dead will strike at her. That one day I'll reach out, and she'll just be gone.

"I wake up with my heart pounding and body in a cold sweat, and some nights I can't shut it off, so I get up, grab one of my datapads and work, or go to the gym and fight the training droids. And some nights I roll over and hold close to her, and just touching her calms me down.

"Some nights I pray. I used to do that every night, then… not for a long time… but it's coming back. It's difficult to trust in the Force when you've got my history with it. But the Force brought me Rey, so… I'm giving it another chance.

"And I think about my dad, who literally let me kill him, so I could get to this spot." Kylo bites his lip again, sniffs, makes his voice stabilize. "What do I know about love? He died for me. You saw it, right? He literally died for me. The last thing I said to him… before… was, 'Help me…'" Kylo's lip is trembling as he says this. "And he did. For the chance that it would help. And he didn't know if it would, but he did it anyway, just on the hope that it would. And it did." He takes a deep, centering breath, and another sip of Poe's drink.

"And I think about the children we don't yet have, and, you'll either laugh or be horrified, but Paige, too. And the rest of this pile of children we seem to have collected. About the idea of a future, for them, and what and who they're going to need to have the kind of future where they can go and do or be anything they want to do or be.

"I think about Jon, and if you could get over him having been a First Order officer, you might like him. Poe does, because he's a really good guy, and how when his husband was killed, how he had a very long conversation with his blaster, and how, in the end, he couldn't turn it on himself, because he'd been loved, truly loved, and if he loved his man back, he couldn't betray that love by hurting himself.

"I think about the vows I've made to her, and the ones I've made to myself, and who I have to be to keep them… Like you said, how we get there may shift, but the goal doesn't. And sometimes the sun comes up and I'm still awake, and sometimes I'm back to sleep by then, but…

"According to my mom, I was named for hope. And that's all I've got, hope." He takes another sip of Poe's rum. "And I don't enjoy you being scared of me, and scared of me for her, and it sets me off, because a lot of people who didn't have a good reason to be afraid of me were, and it feels a lot like that, but I know it's not, and your fears are reasonable."

Finn nods slowly. And then he stands up. He knows this is a problem that can't be solved by anything but time. "Fair enough. Anyway, it's late, and I want some time with my woman." He pulls on his scarf and coat, and heads off.

Kylo's about to stand, too, when Poe says to him, voice deceptively mild, "See, when I asked you if Jon was okay, that bit about the blaster is the sort of thing that should result in yelling at the top of your lungs NO!"

Kylo shakes his head. "It was… right after. Before I knew him. He's not… I'd feel it if that was part of now."

"Okay." They sit there, quiet, and for them, very relaxed. Then Poe says, voice low, "If it looks like you're going wrong, we'll take care of it, before it's a big problem. Fast and easy, and you won't see it coming, she won't either."

"Thanks." He twists his cup. "Make sure of that. If I have even a hint of it coming, you won't succeed. I've taken out more than twenty-three coup attempts since I took over, so I'm not kidding about that. Uh... When you shot at me. I could feel you aiming. That's how I stopped the bolt.

"That's how I was able to take Snoke. Did it on a whim, less than five minutes after I knew I was going to. Use a droid or a mech or something. I can't feel them because they don't have feelings. And for her sake, make it look like an accident."

Poe waves that off. Between him and Finn, he figures they've got enough tech to seal up whatever room Kylo's in and space the atmo. Give it an hour, and that'll be it.

Kylo shakes his head. "I can teleport. And even if I couldn't, I can slow my respiration down so low I barely need to breathe. I can probably spend a week in a sealed room and pop right back up after. That's not going to do it."

"Noted," Poe says. "You got any other neat tricks?" For the first time, Kylo's really seeing the fighter under the scoundrel.

"Not as of yet. Have you… done things like that before?"

Poe grins, a little. "I was on your mom's security detail. It was part of my job to make sure other people didn't do stuff like that to her. Best way to do it is to come up with every plan they could try, and then make sure they don't. Trust me, you won't see me coming."

"Good."

Poe clamps a hand on his shoulder. "Okay, home with you now, too. Go get some sleep, and no nightmares, we'll take care of you if need be."

Kylo snorts a laugh, stands up, overbalances, ends up on his ass again, then slowly, carefully gets up, and then says, "That's bizarrely reassuring, you know?"

Poe laughs at that, too. "Go to bed, get your snuggle on, and balance some."

"'Night, Poe."