Finn realized two things when he kissed Poe Dameron on the lips for the first time.

The first was that it was the best thing he had ever done in his entire life. Hands down, no competition. The only thing that might even come close was escaping the First Order (also with Poe, his mind volunteered, Poe Poe Poe).

The second thing he realized was that he wanted to do it again. And again. And again.

For a few moments, it felt like a door had opened and he could see the whole universe on the other side, and he knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted to hold Poe in his arms and give him as many kisses as he could stand. He wanted it more than anything.

But then Poe had pulled away and thanked him for being his "friend" and it all kind of fell apart. He suddenly realized that he did not want to be Poe's friend. He didn't know what he wanted to be, exactly, but for some reason, "friend" was not it.

"What are you doing out here?"

It was Rose. Finn had been standing in the middle of the courtyard staring at a blue bush for what felt like hours. It was probably just a few minutes, but time didn't have much meaning at the moment.

"I kissed Poe." He felt like maybe he wasn't totally inside his body. He was having that feeling a lot lately.

"Oh wow," she said softly, gently resting her hand on his elbow. "Are you ok?"

"I don't know," he said, his voice a little high. He slowly shook his head back and forth.

"Did he… kiss you back?"

"Nope." He took in a deep breath, which helped clear his mind a little - breathing was also weirdly challenging these days - and finally looked at Rose. She had her hands out like he was a wild animal and she was afraid he was going to bolt. "He said thanks and told me to wait outside."

It took a second for that to sink in. "Oh wow," she said again, her eyes wide.

"Yep."

She very slowly put her arm in his and started to guide him into the house. She set him down on the couch and disappeared for a few minutes. He was vaguely aware of her talking to someone in hushed tones, but then she was back with a glass of some kind of juice. He automatically took a drink and then held it in his lap, continuing to stare into space. She sat down next to him.

"You want to talk about it?"

His mouth started moving of its own volition. He told her about the arm waving and the punching and the yelling - although he had enough presence of mind to leave out the details of the conversation with Mon Mothma, at least, and only gave vague reasons for the argument. He described how they ended in an embrace that he thought was good, but maybe it wasn't so good. When he was done talking, she just sighed.

"I'm sorry, Finn," she said, her voice soft and empathetic. "I think if you just talk with him about it, you two will figure it out. Poe loves you, but it's pretty clear he's struggling right now. Just give him a little time."

Finn looked at the glass in his hands and considered her words. Things were changing between them really quickly, and even though it felt like he was in free fall and it gave him vertigo, he was eager for it. Hungered for it. Was starved for it. He had no idea he could feel this way. He liked talking with Poe, sleeping with Poe, holding his hand, but he wanted more. He wanted it all. He thought of Mon Mothma's words, that Poe needed him, and he wanted to be needed. He was eager to get to wherever it was they were headed.

But he had no idea where that was or what he was doing. He was flying blind, with no context, no instructions, no guidance. If he did nothing, he felt that Poe would just be stuck and they wouldn't get anywhere. But when he just went with it, it seemed like it was too fast. What was he supposed to do?

He sighed again and Rose gave his arm a quick pat.

"Tell you what. You let me deal with Poe, and you go outside and check out that." She was pointing out the window where Simi and Lissa were putting some tauntauns into a paddock. They had saddles and tack, and the tauntauns were trotting around and sniffing the ground. A brown-and-white paint and a silver butted heads, and Simi threw up her hand to get them to stop.

Rose was beaming. She looked like she could barely contain herself, and somehow, it caught an edge inside him. She was right, of course. Maybe he just needed to set this aside for a while and let it be.

He smiled at her goofy face. Things have a way of working themselves out.

Rose was waiting for him when Poe finally made it out of his cabin.

"Let me see it," she said, pointing to Poe's right hand. Poe sighed and let Rose look at the scraped skin on his first two knuckles. The wounds had stopped bleeding, but he'd made a bit of a mess of his skin, and a large bruise was forming as his hand began to swell.

"You're such an idiot," she said and pulled him into the main house. The domestic droid had laid out a variety of bandages and bacta salves. She carefully cleaned the scrapes as they sat at the counter.

"You gonna tell me why you and Finn were fighting?"

"Me and Finn? Now why would we be fighting?" That's right, Dameron, keep it light. He felt proud of himself.

"Because you're an idiot," she said and put on a bandage.

"Nice. Love you too," he said dryly. She just continued working on his hand, giving him a little kiss on the bandage once it was all taped down. They walked outside and towards one of the side paddocks, where Finn, Simi and Lissa were talking. Lissa was holding the leads of two tauntauns, and three others were already saddled, bridled, and tied to the fence.

"Am I in trouble about the fence?" he said out of the side of his mouth as he leaned into Rose, who had taken his arm as they walked.

"No, but only because Finn covered for you. He said the fence broke because you two were 'playing around' and it was an accident."

They walked over to the black tauntaun, which was tied loosely to the middle rail. The beast reached his head over the top of the fence and blew out a breath through his large nostrils. Rose pet his nose.

"He loves you, you know," she said. For a moment Poe thought she was talking about the tauntaun until he followed her line of sight. Finn was currycombing one of mounts and talking with Simi, who was getting ready to throw a saddle over its back. Poe's heart squeezed a little, but he ignored it.

"I know."

"No, I mean -" and she looked up into his face so Poe couldn't look away, her eyebrows raised. "He really. Loves you. As in, none of the rest of us have a chance. As in, you'd better not mess it up because Rey and I will hunt you down and… and you'll be sorry." She tapped his chest.

Poe met her gaze and bit his cheek. Two can play that game.

"As in, he's too good for me?"

Rose just tilted her head to the side and considered.

"No, he's not too good for you. I actually think you two make a lot of sense. But you're pretty messed up these days, Poe. I'm glad you two are finally -" she reached out with her hands and pretended to put them all over Poe's body "- doing whatever this constant public display of groping is. But just ..." She sighed and then reached up and cupped Poe's cheek. "Be careful with him, ok? He doesn't get it. You have to be very clear with him about what you want."

She fixed him with a sassy look. "Because he thinks you just want to be friends, which is so not what's going on here."

"Ok, well, thanks for the dating advice," Poe said, feeling annoyed. He wasn't that obvious.

He wasn't, right? That obvious? He looked at Rose's face again and it seemed pretty clear that he wasn't fooling anyone. She just shook her head again. "You're both idiots."

"Hey!" Finn yelled from the middle of the paddock when he spotted them. He began to scoot along the fence, trying to avoid the back of the tauntauns that were tied up. "Do these guys kick? They look like they'd kick. Nice tauntaun," he said to the one closest to him as he ducked nervously under its neck and got right up next to the one that Rose was petting.

"Poe, this is so amazing." He had a huge, luminous smile on his face that lit up the whole sky. "I already got up on one of them and they are fast. It's kinda bumpy at first but it is so much fun. You're going to love it!" He was so excited that he bounced up and down and then apologized to the black tauntaun, which was now throwing its head in agitation. Poe couldn't help but laugh.

He was so completely fucked.

Poe didn't know it, but Finn made sure that he had the fastest tauntaun.

It turned out that Simi was the master tauntaun trainer at the farm, and she was in the process of breaking in the black one. As they combed the mounts, put on the tack, and cinched the saddles, Finn learned that they all have their temperaments. The silver was big and fast, but he might toss you (that's the one they gave to Poe). The brown with the black forelocks and fetlocks was sweet and smaller, and that one went to Rose. Finn had the brown-and-white paint, which was steady and sturdy and would go anywhere he asked. The last one was an old white dam they called "Momma," who didn't put up with any nonsense from the youngsters and was used to help train the others. She was in the back with Lissa.

They headed up into the hills to the south, along a well-used bridle trail. For a while, they just walked along, and Simi talked about living out in the country on this strange and remote planet. Lissian IV used to have a much larger human population, but during the Old Republic, it was discovered that there were so many unique medicinal plants and animals on the planet that it was almost completely set aside for conservation and medical research, which meant it didn't really have any strategic importance any more. That was just like she and her husband liked it.

Of course, the First Order just did whatever they wanted to, so that could change at any moment. But for now, they were mostly ignored.

Finn and Rose asked a lot of questions, and Finn tried to ignore the fact that Poe said almost nothing as he rode behind them. The one time that Finn did get up the courage to look back, Poe was gazing off into the trees, his eyebrows pulled together and his face serious. It made Finn want to panic, but he just turned back and tried to listen to Simi tell stories.

It wasn't hard. Simi was a dynamic, clever and quick-witted person who clearly loved what she was doing. Every once in a while, the black she was riding would begin to toss his head and trot to the side, and she would pull him around in several tight circles until he was back under her control. She didn't break a sweat or stop telling her stories, as if this was just a normal thing, and then she'd continue leading them up the trail.

They reached the top of a hill where there was an open field filled with low-growing purplish groundcover. Simi broke into a loping run on her tauntaun, and the rest of them followed. Poe's silver suddenly sprinted past all of them, and it looked like Poe was surprised as he struggled to bring in the reins. But then he got the hang of it, stood up in his stirrups and leaned forward. The tauntaun got the message and broke into a full run.

Finn took off after him. He knew his mount wasn't quite as fast, but it was willing, and he chased the silver to the end of the field. But as they reached the edge of the forest again, it looked like the silver wasn't going to stop, even though Poe was pulling on the reins. At the last second, the silver turned sharply to the right and Poe went sailing through the air.

Finn was off his mount and running towards Poe before he could even think. Poe was lying on the ground, his hands covering his face, and Finn feared the worst. He dropped down at Poe's side.

"Are you ok? Are you hurt?" He looked for any obvious injuries and then pulled Poe's hands away from his face.

Poe was laughing so hard he couldn't speak. He had tears in his eyes as he put one of his hands on his chest and grabbed Finn with the other.

"That was the funnest fucking thing," he said when he finally caught his breath. He looked at Finn's stunned face and then started laughing harder. Finn just slumped a little in relief, and Poe pulled him down to the ground and wrapped his arm around Finn's neck as he laughed.

Finn's tauntaun clomped over and put his head down and sniffed them. Poe reached up and patted him on the nose, squeaking out "good boy" before squeezing Finn around the neck again and then laying back on the ground, his arms wide as he caught his breath.

"You're a crazy person," Finn said and shook his head. Poe just made a vocal sighing noise and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"And this is news to you?" he said and rubbed Finn on the head.

Simi rode up, leading Poe's silver behind her. "Everything ok down there?"

"Yeah, great!" Poe said and then sat up. He had purple leaves in his hair. "Let's do that again!"

The spell was broken after that. All the tension disappeared as Poe and Finn remounted their tauntauns and walked back to the trail side by side, their legs occasionally touching. Poe stretched his neck and groaned - apparently getting thrown 20 feet by a tauntaun didn't come without a few consequences - but otherwise he had a big smile on his face as he patted the silver's neck and murmured encouragement.

They still didn't hold hands, but at least they could look at each other for more than a second. The sight of Poe's smile playing on his lips brought back all those funny flips in Finn's stomach.

Maybe we could just stay here, the thought flit through Finn's mind. Just work with the animals and maybe get Leia to come too, and they could never leave. Forget about the resistance. Forget about everything. But he knew that could never happen, so he just tried to enjoy the momentary reprieve from the suffocating burden of their everyday lives.