Work Text:
The first thing Finn saw after being knocked unconscious by that force blow was Poe. Questions swarmed through his mind. Why was Poe on the ground? Did he get shot down? Was he a figment of Finn’s imagination? Why did he only have a blaster to fight off a dark-sided force user with? There wasn’t much that could be assessed besides how terrified Poe looked in that moment as Ren quickly advanced on him after words had been spoken. Kylo Ren looked angry. Angrier than he had a mere moment ago once catching up to them.
It was over quicker than Finn could blink. A bright red blur, a short cry out, and Poe dropped into the snow.
Finn quickly found his feet, and he must have screamed by the way Lord Ren turned to him. Before he could think, Finn grabbed the first weapon on him - Skywalker’s lightsaber - and attacked with the bright blue beam colliding with the red unstable light.
They shared a few blows, but it was clear which one of them had the more training here, which one had the upper hand. Finn had dabbled with weapons and swords like this before, but the Stormtrooper training allowed for his skill set to be proficient at a wide range of weapons, not an expert at just one. It was also clear that his mind wasn’t in the fighting or the movements. All he could think about was cutting the bastard down and getting to Poe as fast as possible. All he could focus on was the anger and hate and worry and panic coursing through his body. As much as he tried to let it bleed into the fighting, he was still acting too quickly on advances that he knew were too risky. Until they were proven true, and Kylo Ren tossed the lightsaber straight out of his hands.
They were both distracted by the lightsaber’s sound of unsheathing echoing over the trees, and Rey stood there poised to attack.
Finn didn’t give them a second to think it over. He ran, first far enough to get out of Ren’s reach and then straight to Poe. BB-8 was already there, beeping wildly at the pilot still half buried in the snow. Finn could make out his orange jumpsuit, but the white vest was missing. So he may have landed, had time to adjust his clothes- But why would he land? The planet was falling apart beneath their feet. What was he thinking?
“Poe!” Finn fell to his knees beside him, gingerly turning his body to see his face. Unconscious but breathing. The pulse was weaker than it should have been but very much there. And no pools of blood beneath him either, though Finn did spy some dark dots in the snow right before finding a deep gash in Poe’s chest and shoulder… Lightsabers. Cauterized. Right.
“Poe, wake up!” He tried to jostle his uninjured shoulder, but knew deep down that Poe would be in a lot of pain if he did manage to rouse. But seeing him like this… Finn just wanted to see his bright eyes and soft smile. See him awake. Finn patted at the orange jumpsuit, putting out the embers left by the lightsaber, trying to figure out what to do with an open and gaping burn wound. The First Order never trained much in the way of medics seeing as how everyone was expendable, and Finn found he had no idea what to do. He was scared of covering the wound, making the burn worse. Scared of putting snow on the burn to only infect the wound. “BB-8, what do we-?”
The droid beeped and booped at him, and Finn quickly grew annoyed with his own stupidity. “I still don’t understand you! We have to help him! What do we do?” Panic was setting in. What if he lost Poe like this? What if-
He turned around, suddenly remembering Rey was Kylo Ren’s new plaything, but they were too far into the woods now. He couldn’t see them.
Then the droid’s little pincers were tugging at his jacket. It took a second to realize what it meant and not just a way to gain his attention. He looked back down to Poe, looked to all of him and not just the wound, and realized he was breathing slower, his lips were turning blue, he- “Poe! Wait! No!” Finn pressed his hands against the pilot’s face, feeling how cold he had gotten since getting hurt. Quickly he took off his- Poe’s jacket and tucked it over the pilot, trying to avoid the harsh wound. “Poe, please, please, stay with me. Please. What were you doing out here? What were you thinking?”
The ground shook beneath them, caving in not too far away. They would have to move soon and, again, Finn was scared of doing something terribly wrong that would result in losing his first friend… a second time. But just as the thought passed through him, Rey appeared again, harried for breath and clutching the lightsaber, unharmed. “Is he okay? Who is he?”
“He’s Poe Dameron,” Finn answered, seeing her eyes light with recognition of the man who had supposedly died on Jakku. “He’s not okay. I don’t know what else to do. He- Rey, where’s Ren?”
“Don’t worry about Ren,” she replied, falling to her knees to study the wound with the same expression that Finn currently felt: helpless.
“He’s cold,” Finn muttered, still rubbing his hands along Poe’s neck and chest. “He’s freezing.” If it were a regular sword or some sort of blaster wound, Finn could handle that. If he were unconscious from a concussion, Finn could handle that. If he were freezing and contracting hypothermia, Finn could handle that. This was a lightsaber wound. He didn’t know what to do.
Familiar turbines sounded across the snow not too far away, and the Millennium Falcon suddenly came into view with Chewbacca in the pilot seat. Rey turned to him. “We’ll get Chewie to put him on board. He’ll be all right, Finn. Don’t worry.”
But would he? How did she know? Or maybe she felt the need to be comforting from the sight of Finn’s hand clutching with a death grip in Poe’s, just trying to keep him there for a few minutes longer. Rey ran off, presumably to get the Wookie to them quicker, leaving Finn and BB-8 behind.
Finn licked his lips and leaned over Poe, trying to block him from the harshest winds. “You’ll be okay, Poe,” he muttered in his ear, still trying to warm his too cold face with his hands. “I’m not leaving you behind on some backwater planet again. You’ll be okay. I promise.”