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“Shh,” Poe ordered, voice low enough to only be picked up by the headset inside of his helmet. “Don’t make any sudden movements. Watch your step. The last thing we need is to get caught.”
“Then shut up,” Jess hissed at him. She shadowed his left flank; Finn was at his right, a blaster held in his hands like it didn’t weigh a thing. His eyes were focused on his surroundings, taking it all in. He glanced up at the cover of trees over their heads now and then, but made no comment on it.
“We’re going in from the south bank of their base,” Poe explained in hushed tones. “The First Order prefers to organize towards the north, so approaching from the southeast should be our best bet. Finn?”
“Yeah, yes,” Finn took over, letting Poe stop to quadruple check that his blaster rifle was in working order. Another breeze shifted the leaves overhead, and Poe glanced up the trees. Finn followed his glance, still running through his plan again as he looked, but nothing came through the cover. Poe frowned, giving them one last glance before turning to his blaster rifle.
“They have a group of Resistance prisoners,” Finn was finishing when Poe returned his attention to him. “They’re our priority. Snap, Jess, Rey, you go ahead, go towards the upper west corner and release the prisoners. Karé, Iolo, L’ulo, I’m sending you to flank them, and I want you to take out as many troopers as you can. Shoot for the weak points I showed you in training and we can take them in for interrogation.” Finn motioned to Poe. “Commander Dameron and I will be right behind you, we’re going to trace the perimeter.”
A chorus of “Yes, Captain,” returned to him, and the team split off, Rey patting Finn on the back before tracking silently to Jess’ side and following her along their preordained path. Poe turned to Finn, grinning.
“So, how are we-” Poe started, but was interrupted by all the breath exploding out of his lungs at once. A sharp force slammed into his back, and he staggered forward one step, then another, before falling to his knees. He turned his face up to look at Finn, to try and gauge what was happening, and found Finn tearing off his helmet and falling to his knees beside him.
“Poe, Poe, look at me, you’re fine, it’s going to be fine,” Finn was saying. Poe barely heard him. He blinked blearily, staring up at Finn; he blurred out of focus and back in.
“What is it?” Poe asked, reaching up towards his chest. Finn batted his hands away.
“Don’t touch that,” Finn ordered. Poe tried to stand up on his feet, and Finn clapped a hand down on his shoulder. “Poe, stop moving.”
“I’m fine,” Poe said, but Finn had already moved around to his back. “What are you doing?”
“Hold your hands over your chest,” Finn instructed. Poe looked down, finding his hands moving slowly upwards. He forced them to move a little bit faster, and covered the point of pain in the front of his chest. “Are you good?”
“Yeah,” Poe answered, and a sharp slide of pain slithered through his torso. Finn tossed whatever was in him to the ground, and Poe stared down at it - a long wooden branch carved into a spear, metal arrow head piercing the front, bloodied, splintered. Poe gazed down at it tiredly, barely finding it in himself to be shocked.
“Poe, keep your hands against your chest,” Finn instructed, and Poe pushed his hands back over him. “Can you stand?”
“Yeah,” Poe said. He put one hand on the ground and pushed up, as hard as he could, up onto his feet. Finn was behind him, one hand at his back, firing his blaster rifle with one hand into the trees. Poe heard a few thumps as somethings hit the ground behind them.
“I don’t know what the kriff those are, but they’re gone now,” Finn told him. He appeared in front of Poe’s face, close, so close, hand still pressed to Poe’s back. “Can you walk? Poe. Look at me.”
“Hi,” Poe said. “Yeah. I can walk. Let’s go.”
Finn eyed him, but turned him around. He crouched to pick up his helmet and started talking into the mouthpiece, alerting the rest of the team to continue with their mission as he and Poe fell back. Poe could hear several concerned voices, but could not distinguish the individual words. He focused hazily on putting one foot in front of the other, letting Finn lead him through the jungle.
“I’m fine,” Poe assured him, but Finn ignored him, continuing to guide him over roots and under low-hanging branches. Poe pulled his hand out from under his jacket and stared down at the blood on his hand, staggering to a stop. Finn nudged him forwards.
“Keep walking, we’re almost back to the X-wings,” Finn encouraged him. Poe looked up and blinked, trying to clear his vision. He staggered a little as he walked, blinking hard and fast. Finn steered him back onto the path when he drunkenly reeled off-source.
“There’s Black One, see? You’re almost there,” Finn told him. They reached the clearing they had hidden their X-wings in, and Finn leaned Poe against Black One. BB-8 leapt to the ground beside them and started whirling around their feet, beeping rapidly at Poe. Poe struggled to translate the Binary as quickly as BB-8 spoke it, but fell behind almost immediately.
“It’s going to be fine, BB,” Poe told him. He leaned down to pat BB-8 on the head and nearly toppled over; Finn appeared at his side in a blurred rush, righting him.
“Please be careful, Poe, please,” Finn asked desperately. Poe stared up at his face. “Hey. Look at me. Are you okay? Focus.”
“I’m fine, I’m good,” Poe told him. He blinked again; the edges of his vision were darkening. He frowned. “I’m doing fine. Tell BB-8 I’m doing good. I’m just… Hmm?” He stopped, and Finn stopped, staring at him. “What’d you say?”
“I didn’t say anything,” Finn said. His eyes were red. He helped Poe to sit down on the ground, in the dirt. “Hey. You’re going to be okay. Stay right here, hold still.”
“Okay,” Poe said. He watched BB-8 spin around him and beep, rapid chirps that Poe could hardly follow. The black was still encroaching on his vision, and his tongue felt heavy, thick in his mouth. He pressed his hands to his chest again and they slipped against the material of his shirt and his jacket. He shook himself and tried to force his thoughts back onto track.
“Finn?” Poe asked, blinking. His vision didn’t clear; Finn didn’t arrive in his vision. “Finn? You there?”
“You’re going to be fine,” Finn said, nearby but not close enough. Poe heard a crash, and Finn appeared, holding something boxy and white. He snapped it open and Poe let his head lean back against Black One. “Hey. Poe. Look at me. You’re fine.”
“I’m fine.” Poe resituated himself, fixing his position against the X-wing. He frowned, shifting again, and a hot lance of pain coursed through his body. He felt himself seizing, and he slammed his eyes shut, trying to get control over himself as his thoughts went haywire and his body escaped his control. He could hear Finn somewhere above him, but couldn’t see him. He felt a pinprick of pain in his arm and was able to open his eyes a moment later.
“I can’t breathe,” Poe forced himself to say, as his chest filled up with pressure. His darkening vision was nearly gone, narrowed to tunnels that he could distantly see a blurred Finn at the end of. He reached up for his chest, but could barely feel his hand moving through the air. “I can’t- I can’t breathe.”
“Hey,” Finn said, far away, wavering. “Hey. Stay with me, Poe. Keep your eyes open. Breathe with me. Do you feel this? Feel my chest.” A faint pressure against Poe’s palm. He blinked sluggishly and tried to inhale, to breathe through the pain, to fill his lungs with something besides agony, but he failed. He could feel his eyes glazing over; feeling wild, he looked at Finn, desperate.
“Finn,” Poe choked. He grasped at the material of Finn’s shirt. “Finn. Finn-”
“Hey,” Finn interrupted. “Hey, just look at me. Breathe. Poe. Breathe.”
“I can’t-” Poe tried again, a sharp inhale, but it felt like his throat was closed up, like his lungs were gone. He reached to claw at his own chest. “Finn, I can’t-” He gasped, starting to hyperventilate with air that wouldn’t come into his body. His chest ached, a sharp pain piercing his front and back with each attempted breath. His vision swam before vanishing completely, and his ears rang. He could hear Finn distantly, but he could hardly pick out the words. BB-8 must have been bumping into his leg, but he couldn’t find his hand to reach out to him.
“I’m sorry,” Poe gasped. He could feel pressure against his face, a strange sensation amidst the torment his own body was trapped in, a prison for his mind. He tried to reach for it, to find it, but he was too far gone.
Poe had always thought it would have been some blaze of glory that would take him out. His parents had anticipated the same for themselves, and likely for him, and he felt odd to disappoint them like this. He drifted, wishing he could have been in his ship when he went down, rather than getting stabbed with some weird spear in the woods on some unnamed planet. He wished he could have talked to his father more recently, asked how he was doing. He wished-
Well, he wished a lot of things. Mostly, he thought about Finn. The look on Finn’s face when the spear shot through his chest, the fear in his voice when he lied and told Poe he would be okay. How much he wanted to stay with him. How much he wanted to tell him that he loved him, one last time, as ridiculously romantic and cliché as it was.
He wanted to have died in his X-wing, maybe. He had been considering, lately, the possibility of dying when he was old. Maybe with Finn. Maybe. Neither one was a bad option.
Poe wanted to stretch. Everything was quiet, and dark, and his limbs felt stiff. He shifted as best as he could, and wondered if death was just this - just nothingness. At least he existed, he thought. At least he could still think, even if there wasn’t much to think about in that void. He shifted again, trying to fix his arms, and felt pressure again.
Where his chest should have been, his heart seemed to soar. Things still blazed with pain, and he pushed against that pain, lashing out at anything he could find. He could hear distant sounds, loud sounds, getting closer and closer to him. He struggled for a surface, anything that he could breach. He grappled for sight, for sound, for touch. He still had no air, but he felt the need for it, which he counted as better. He gasped, and felt a pressure slam into his chest. He felt it again, and again, and pressure against his face. He lashed out, and felt his arm twitch. He tried to lift his head as he came back into his own body.
“-ear me, Poe? Poe? Please?” someone familiar was saying. Poe frowned. Pressure slammed into his chest again, harder this time. He tried to breathe; a little air scraped down his throat, and he tried again. He wheezed, trying to calm his hyperventilating, but finding himself struggling to do so. He felt pain; everything was pain again, the nothingness leaving him behind. He could hear again; there was a voice around him, a familiar voice, Finn’s voice.
“We’re coming in,” Finn’s voice was saying. “We’re almost on the ground. He’s trying to wake up.” Finn’s voice again, closer. “Poe? Come on, Poe, we’re almost home. Please don’t go.”
Poe tried to speak, but only a harsh rasp left his throat. He found himself drifting again, before the pressure hit his chest again. He wanted to flinch, but couldn’t. He felt absent, the pain growing further from his body. He tried to fight his way closer, to hold onto the pain longer, because it meant he was still alive. Finn’s voice faded again. Poe tried to hold on, but his grasp slipped, grew weak. He wanted to come back. He wanted to make things okay for Finn.
Silence, again. Darkness. Nothingness. He reached out; the pain was gone. He drifted again, in the empty space inside of his own head, a prison of his own making. He shifted, trying to move for a surface to break through. Nothing. He heard a distant screech, and struggled towards it. Something slammed into his chest again once, twice, three times. He grasped at it desperately, reaching out as best as he could.
“Poe!” Finn’s voice shouted. Poe gasped, breaking through a sudden surface and letting his lungs fill with air. He blinked, his vision tunneled and black but appearing to improve somewhat. He choked on the air, trying to pull it into his burning lungs. His face was immediately covered, his vision being taken from him, and something was jammed down his throat. He reached up to yank at it, but his hands got forced back down to his sides.
“You’re going to be okay,” Finn’s voice promised nearby. Poe squinted; he could barely make him out, a blurred shape covered in blood, red mouth, red hands, desperate face. Poe closed his eyes again. “I’ll be there when you wake up, okay? I promise. You’ll be all right.”
“Finn,” Poe tried to say. Probably, failed to say. He was out again, but in sleep this time; he felt the familiar pull of it, and drifted without dreaming.
When he came back into his own head, without memory of his time spent sleeping, his whole body felt like a dull burn. His chest and his back were sharp with pain, and he groaned when he shifted, trying to reach for his chest. A hand encircled one of his, easing him back down, and he forced his eyes open.
“Finn,” he said, grateful. Finn reached out and cupped Poe’s cheek in his hand.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” Finn ordered him. “Poe, I am so kriffing mad at you.”
“Finn,” Poe tried again. Finn leaned down and pressed their foreheads together. Poe’s chest finally seemed to settle, content with the amount of air he was taking in. He had a mask over his mouth and nose, he could feel it, could see the top of it. He reached for it, but Finn pulled his hand away.
“Leave it,” Finn told him. He turned as a medidroid entered, and Poe reached out, trying to pull his attention back, but the medidroid came to his side and, before he could say anything, he was falling back asleep.
When he awoke again, with no concept of the passage of time in the intervening space, Finn was asleep next to him. He was slouched in a hard chair, his head bent at one angle, his hand loosely tangled with Poe’s. Poe turned his hand and squeezed Finn’s, and Finn snapped awake, his head shooting up. He groaned and rubbed at his neck.
“Oh, good go-” Finn started, before looking down at Poe. Poe, mercifully now free from the respirator, gave him a winning smile. Finn smacked his shoulder
“Ow, Finn, what the f-”
“You can never ever do that again, do you hear me?” Finn demanded. “You’ve literally got to be kidding me. You weren’t even point on this mission.”
“What happened?” Poe asked, throat rasping. Finn helped him sit up and drink from a weird-tasting plastic cup at his bedside.
“Race called the Tulmorane lived on that planet,” Finn explained to him, holding the cup to his mouth, cradling the back of Poe’s head in his palm. “They don’t care to distinguish one human from another, they thought we were involved in the First Order taking over their planet. They thought you were in charge and decided to take you out.” Finn eased him back down, settling him against his pillows. He picked up Poe’s hand again. “The wound itself was bad enough, you were bleeding really bad and your lungs started to collapse, but you were totally gone for a while there. Once Rey got one of them and we were able to figure out what they were saying, we realized there was poison on the spear. We were able to explain that we were trying to help them, and they gave us an antidote.”
“Nice of them,” Poe coughed. Finn helped him sit up a little more.
“They didn’t give us enough,” Finn continued, like Poe hadn’t even spoken, “for how much poison was in your system. They injected you, and I flew you home, but you were gone for a little while on the way over.”
“Gone?”
“Gone-gone,” Finn clarified. “Like I said. You’re never doing this to me again. I resuscitated you a couple of times, and we got you back to base. Medical took you from there. General Organa stayed with me, and Rey. And your whole team, really. Nobody’s really left Medical since we got you in here.”
“I’m touched,” Poe said, grinning. “You really do care.”
“Of course we do,” Finn answered. He pressed their foreheads together again; Poe exhaled shakily, letting himself relax, slumping down into the bed. “You scared the shit out of me, Poe.”
“I’m still good,” Poe reminded him. “Hey. I’m still here.”
“You weren’t,” Finn said. “For a while, you weren’t.” He was silent; Poe waited. “I can’t lose you, Poe.”
“I don’t plan to go anywhere,” Poe told him. “Honest. I was thinking about it, while I was… whatever I was. I thought, ‘damn, it’s too bad I couldn’t have died in a cool way,’ and then I thought… You know, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to die when I’m old.” Poe looked up at him. “With you,” he clarified.
Finn hesitated, then leaned in, pressing his lips to Poe’s forehead. Poe let his eyes slide shut and exhaled, slowly. It felt good.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” Finn whispered against his forehead. Poe nodded. Finn pulled back, brushing Poe’s hair away from his face. “You’re going to heal up just fine, they said. They’re recommending you for physical and emotional therapy, though.”
“That’s fair,” Poe said, pushing himself painfully into a sitting position. Finn wrapped an arm around his shoulder and helped him before taking a seat beside him on the hospital bed. “Sorry I scared you.”
“Sorry I couldn’t protect you,” Finn replied, and Poe wrapped Finn’s hands up in his.
“You couldn’t’ve known,” Poe said. Finn shook his head. Poe pressed his lips to the back of Finn’s hand. “Hey. I don’t blame you.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Finn said. “Right now, just focus on getting better, okay? The Resistance needs Commander Dameron in peak position.”
“How would they ever have functioned without me?” Poe laughed, and Finn leaned in to kiss him.
“They wouldn’t,” Finn told him. Poe kissed him back.