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Poe heard it before he saw it. A single deafening shot fired from a blaster, the sound unmistakable. Familiar. It caused the air to flee his lungs and his heart to stop in his chest, his feet planting themselves to the ground, and he watched as the streak of red shot past him, barely missing him. He was frozen, for just a split second.
But he was quick, and he managed to pull himself out of it. He was a soldier after all — trained to respond promptly when faced with any sort of threat, and he pulled his own blaster from its spot on his hip, catching a glimpse of white and shooting without hesitation. They’d missed one.
Poe stared at the spot where the Stormtrooper had just been standing, his chest heaving, just a little bit. It didn’t matter that he was trained to shoot, to stay alive, no matter the cost — it didn’t mean that a piece of him wasn’t stolen from deep within his chest with each life that he took. A shard of glass being ripped from muscle, cutting through tendons. It never got any easier.
But he was almost proud of that. If it hurt, if it brought him some sense of guilt, it meant that he still had most of himself intact. It meant that he hadn’t turned into a cold, lifeless monster, and it meant that he wasn’t as bad as the Stormtrooper he had just shot down. The dozens of others he had watched fall in the village, so many by his hand. He hadn’t lost himself completely as long as that pain was there, tugging at his heart, hanging in his mind.
He shook his head, running his fingers through his messy, sweaty curls before suddenly remembering that he hadn’t been walking through the dense forest alone. He sighed, slowly turning around after shoving his blaster back into its holster.
Poe wasn’t quite sure what was going on at first. He didn’t understand why your eyes were so wide and full of fear, or why you were clutching at your stomach with trembling hands. He didn’t understand why you were so pale, why you looked as if you were about to collapse until you did, your body hitting the ground with such force he knew you’d have a bruise to prove it.
But a bruise would be the least of your worries, he soon realized.
You were bleeding. Heavily.
It was all over your shirt and all over your hands, and that deep, vivid red was all Poe could see as he fell to his knees, his own hands shaking as they hovered over your body.
All of that training. Every single thing he was ever taught about staying alive, about making sure that your partner, your team, stayed alive — it was all useless.
He couldn’t focus on anything but you and the blood and the sound of his heart drumming in his ears, the panic starting to settle between his bones.
He should apply pressure, shouldn’t he?
Poe’s hands shot out, immediately falling to your stomach, wincing when you cried out, the pain of his touch setting your entire body ablaze. Poe hated himself in that moment, probably more than he ever had.
He thought he was going to be sick.
That bolt should have hit him. He should’ve jumped in front of you, he knew you had been standing there. He should’ve shot quicker, shouldn’t have missed one back in the village.
He still wasn’t doing enough. He knew he wasn’t.
But he just couldn’t fucking think. Couldn’t do anything but stare at your frightened face and feel the warm crimson stain his fingertips. He couldn’t even speak, couldn’t even ask you what you needed him to do.
Not that you would’ve been able to answer. You had blood pouring from your lips.
Poe was going to lose you. He was going to lose you because he was frozen again and he couldn’t fucking pull himself out of it this time.You were going to die there, on the forest floor, and it was going to be his fault.
He never even got the chance to tell you that he loved you, how much you meant to him. He was never even going to get to tell you how sorry he was for letting this happen to you, because he couldn’t fucking speak, no matter how hard he tried.
He was just frozen.
It was his fault, his fault, his fault.
“Poe?”
His head snapped up.
And his eyes met yours.
But you weren’t lying on the ground, and he wasn’t in the middle of a forest on some faraway planet. You were standing above him, your hands on either side of his face, and he was sitting on his bed in his quarters. Your shared bed, your shared quarters.
And he was panicking. He could feel it coursing through his veins like water meeting oil, and his hands were trembling, shaking so badly he feared it would never stop.
He was spiraling. His vision was blurry, his chest heaving, head spinning. He wanted to sob, but no matter how hard he tried, no noise left his body. No tears. Nothing.
Okay, maybe one sound — a cry mixed with a grunt when you pulled your hand away from his cheek, though it died in his throat when you wrapped your fingers around his wrist, pressing his hand to your neck, his fingers right on your pulsepoint.
“Focus.”
Poe swallowed thickly, his eyes glued to yours as he let himself count each of your heartbeats, letting your pulse remind him that you were there, that you were still breathing.
That it was just a memory.
A memory that would forever haunt him, but a memory nonetheless.
“I’m right here, sweet boy.”
“I know.”
He swallowed a second time, shaking his head, moving to settle his head in his hands, trying to take deep breath after deep breath to steady himself, to ground himself back to reality.
“I should’ve been quicker.”
He felt the mattress dip beside him, and your hands move to roam across his shoulderblades, so comforting and reassuring, when he felt like tenderness was the last thing that he deserved.
“I’m still here.”
“All I could fucking do was stare at you.”
“You went into shock, baby.”
He scoffed. He hated how gentle you were being with him.
“Yeah, at the worst possible time probably ever.”
“Finn found us.”
“But what if he hadn’t?”
You fell silent, but your hands never once stopped moving along his clothes back, never once faltered.
Poe’s own hands reached out, gripping the bottom of your shirt, pulling it up just enough to expose your stomach. He stared at the angry, red, still somewhat new scar that marked your skin — a constant, permanent reminder.
“When I told you I loved you,” he started, his voice hardly audible and somewhat cold, though the harshness was meant for himself, never for you. “I wanted you to tell me that you hated me.”
“You know I’m not a liar.”
The laugh that left his lips was only somewhat amused, and he shook his head again, sad brown eyes meeting yours.
“I never should have told you.”
He watched as you rolled your eyes and clenched your jaw, and there it was — that annoyance, that anger he needed from you.
“Poe Dameron, you are insufferably dramatic.”
It was his turn to fall silent, and he merely averted his gaze to the ceiling, knowing that your words were true, and knowing that telling you how much he loved you had been the best decision of his life. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he had made you hate him, even if it was what he deserved.
Your hands found his cheeks again, effectively pulling his attention back to you, your expression stern and serious, unwavering.
“I love you. And I love that you love me. And dying looking up at that handsome face wouldn’t have been a bad way to go.”
“Don’t even joke like that.”
“I’m not,” you said simply, shrugging your shoulders. “Poe, I’ve always known that I’m going to get taken out by a blaster or sitting in the cockpit of my X-Wing or some other shit. And if I get to go down lookin’ at you, then it’s not as scary.”
“It’s fucking terrifying for me. I don’t even want to think about a life without you in it.”
You let your thumbs stroke across his skin, and he sighed deeply, closing his eyes.
“So if we find ourselves in that position again, let that thought convince your body to keep going.”
Poe’s eyes snapped back open, meeting yours once again, letting your words sink in, write themselves into his skin.
He hadn’t been able to remember what to do in that moment, because all he had been able to think about was the fact that he was failing. That he was going to lose you because he was failing. He had never once stopped to think about what his life would mean without you, never once let that thought push him, motivate him, and now that he thought about it, he realized just how different that situation would’ve been had he been focusing on the right thing.
“You did your best, Poe-” you sighed, effectively pulling him from his thoughts, bringing him down once again. “-and I love you for it. And you can’t stop shock and panic and all of that shit, but you can push through it.”
Poe blinked, several times, and when he didn’t respond, you took the chance to continue, a soft smirk finding its way onto your face.
“And I know next time it’s gonna be your cute ass saving me and not Finn’s.”
He knew that your words were meant to make him smile, and it worked, his first genuine laugh in weeks falling from his lips, and suddenly, he was tackling you back onto the mattress, his face burying itself into your neck as he playfully nipped at the skin.
“Oh, you think I have a cute ass, do you?”
“Have I not made it obvious with the amount of times I’ve grabbed it?”
He laughed again, and he watched with bated breath as a small spark returned to your eyes, one that had been missing ever since he stopped finding joy in the little moments, deciding to wallow instead, deciding that he didn’t deserve the happiness.
Poe wouldn’t be able to fully pull himself out of his murose headspace overnight. It would take some time, of course it would. It wasn’t something that he could change in the blink of an eye, fix with a single thought, but he was damned and determined to chase that spark for the rest of his life, and he’d do anything to catch it.
“You really know you’re gonna die from a blaster?”
You smiled, biting at your bottom lip. “As if I’m goin’ out without a bang, Dameron.”
Poe snorted, shaking his head and capturing your lips with his, letting his eyes flutter close as he became lost in the taste of you on his tongue.
“You’re kind of fucked up, and I love you for it.”