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agntofhydra · 4 years ago

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REWRITTEN!!!!! xoxoxo

OFF YOUR CHEST - M. TOGATA (i)

pairing: mirio togata x fem!reader

summary: Mirio tears himself apart, and you’re there to heal the pieces.

word count: 2k

tags: angst, hurt/comfort, strangers(ish) to lovers, AU where UA is college, not highschool (i dont want 2 write about minors), mirio is quirkless and is Dealing With It, slow burn, trauma and anxiety coping

ao3

He splits another knuckle open.

It’s no different than any other exercise or training, but he’s different. He’s stronger now, and smarter but he’s still less. He punches the wall again, willing it to go through. For a second, he thinks he can feel the soft tendrils of the void past the surface beckoning him, urging him forth. It’s asking him where he’s been, that it missed him and that he’s back. For that second, it’s real. His hand is sinking through and he’s back.

But the rough texture of the wall sinks into the cuts he’s ripped into his skin and he’s pulling back, sucking in air through his teeth and withholding curses.

He cradles his right hand with his left, blood trailing down the grooves of the taught tendons on both battered hands.

Mirio’s chest is heaving, his breaths varying from deep to shallow, his heart rate erratic. The buzz in his pocket disrupts his stare at the red stains his punches had left.

TAMAKI

where r u

It hurts to curl his hand around the device, but he does anyway. He wipes the other hand on his pants before responding.

Training! What’s up?

TAMAKI

patrolling tn. just wanted to lyk

Okay - Stay safe! 😀

Mirio pockets his phone. He wants to manually rub the grime out of the cuts or even just leave them the way they are. The sting is a juxtaposition from how his life was before. No longer can he float in the nothingness, phase through infinity until he needs to come up for air.

He feels everything now.

He makes his way towards UA’s medical clinic. It’s late, past dinner at least, which means it’ll be empty save for one person. Recovery Girl doesn’t work the hours like she used to, not since you came in. The clinic after hours feels safe, secretive and his. You’re always there late, as far as Mirio knows. Since the first time he injured himself by pushing himself past his newfound limits (which were significantly less than what they used to be) you’d always been there when he’d sneak in.

Tonight, you were hunched over textbooks, highlighter dangling out of your mouth. If he could’ve, he would’ve lingered in the doorway to watch you. Instead, the few droplets of blood spilling from his hands alerted you of his presence. You peek over your shoulder at him before capping the marker and nodding for him to sit on one of the empty exam beds. It was routine.

“You outdid yourself this time,” You said as you cleaned the open wounds. He’d beaten the flesh raw, almost exposing bone and you wanted to scold him but you knew it was useless. He’d just brush you off with a shrug, a smile and tell you it’s not that big of a deal. Pain is part of getting stronger.

Mirio doesn’t respond. Instead, he chooses to let his eyes flick around the room. Recovery Girl’s absence is notable - no more jar of candy, and you’ve taken over her desk and littered it with your own knicknacks. Your textbooks, an All Might water bottle, a Kamui Woods pez dispenser. It’s cute, he thinks.

“Did you have a punching match with one of those hardening quirks?” You’re frowning as you pop a piece of jerky in your mouth. “Maybe Cementoss?”

“Cementoss,” he confirms, only because that would be the only way he’d have so much…particulate within the splits. Cementoss was made of rock, and Mirio would rather die than admit to you he was relentlessly punching a wall.

You snort, shaking your head as you chew. You both know he’s full of it, but you drop it. You always do.

A soft, blue glow escapes from underneath your hand. His hand feels fuzzy, like it’s fallen asleep before it dissipates and you remove your hand, motioning for him to lift his other so you can begin the same process.

As you clean the other hand, Mirio watches you work. You ignore the weight of his gaze the best you can, focusing on repairing the skin and not how strong and smooth his fingers are. His hand is heavy in yours, and the glow of your quirk flickers as you lose focus imaging what his grip would feel like on you.

“Done,” you said, flicking your used gloves into the wastebasket by your feet. Mirio flexes his fingers. Healed. “Y’know, after all these visits,” You raise an eyebrow, “I think you owe me.”

Mirio looks up from his hands to tilt his head at you.

“Tell me how you really get these injuries,” you grab one of his hands loosely and run your thumb over the freshly regenerated skin.

He wasn’t expecting that.

Mirio gapes at you like a fish out of water, like you’re Thirteen and you’ve sucked all of the air out of the room. He pulls himself from your grip to rest his hands in his lap. He’s uncomfortable, uneasy now. He’s liked this place, liked you because questions weren’t asked that he had to give real answers to. It’s not betrayal that Mirio feels, it’s more like loss. It’s the loss that comes with the realization that you can’t outrun everything you want forever. With all the training, all the work Mirio had put in, he thought he could.

“They’re self-inflicted. The bruising, the wound placements. It’s like you’re training yourself to death.”

“It’s not like that - I’m fine, I promise!” Mirio throws his hands up in a defensive motion. He’s summoning the sunlight, the optimism and charm that swooned UA and motivated him to keep working, keep training, to save a million people. He can feel it churning in his chest, but it’s been pressed so deep he’s grasping at the edges and they don’t want to meet his fingertips.

Mirio knew you never believed his excuses - you knew he knew that and you’d been pulled thin between wanting to show concern and ask what was up and respecting his privacy. But at the previous state of his knuckles, you couldn’t drag your feet any longer.

You watch him, face soft and stoic. You’re not coddling, but you’re not cold either. He realizes that you’re just simply waiting.

“I just train too hard,” he gives in, just a little. You raise your eyebrows a fraction and he continues. “I have a lot to make up for, so I tend to overdo it!” He laughs it off - the injuries are a joke, truly. They’re funny to him.

“You get more banged up than Midoriya,” you look at him over the clear frame of the glasses you seem to only wear at the clinic. “How does your training get you more banged up than the other heroes?”

“I’m not a hero,” he’s quick to say, and it stings more than it should. He was, should’ve been, should be.

Your face is soft again, and it’s an art you’ve mastered over time. You’re good at composing your features to appear passive and static. In your many hero encounters, pity is the quickest way to lose trust. So you watch Mirio, with his soft smile and now long hair tied back at the nape of his neck. He’s analyzing you just as you are him, and you keep your eyes from flicking to his knuckles when you respond with, “Okay.”

His stomach is churning, still sour with his words but he rubs his hands on his thighs. Why are they so sweaty?

In his distracted state, Mirio doesn’t notice you scribbling down something on a notecard shaped like an anatomical heart. You hand it to him, knocking him out of his trance.

Seven digits, followed by the letters 3G, and four more digits.

“What’s this?” he asks. Obviously the first line is your number, but you lost him with the rest.

“My number,” you aren’t looking at him. Instead you choose to refold the sleeves of your white coat as you continue, “and the passcode to get into my dorm building.”

Mirio does white. The passcode? Why would he need that?”

“I can’t be staying here late every night in case you show up.” You hated trudging back to your dorm on the nights he didn’t show, both eyelids and textbooks weighing you down. “Just stop by my dorm if it’s late like this.”

Mirio opens his mouth but you cut him off.

“Floor 5F, my name is on the door.”

He closes his mouth and smiles, nodding and bowing in thanks. He doesn’t trust his voice, not right now. You’re packing up your textbooks as he exits the clinic.

It doesn’t hit him until he gets back to the 3A dorms that he doesn’t know your name.

He beats himself up about it the whole night. He wishes he could go into Tamaki’s room to distract himself, to ask him about the person who’s basically taken over Recovery Girl’s mantle. Tamaki frequented the clinic as well - used it as an excuse to get out of the heroics lessons and sleep. He’d definitely know your name, unlike his golden counterpart who visited her frequently and never thought to ask.

Mirio tried to comfort himself by thinking that maybe you didn’t know his name either. You’d never asked. But then again, Mirio is (was?) part of UA’s Big Three. The aftermath of the Shie Hassaikai was all anyone talked about for weeks. You’d definitely have to know who he was. Mirio Togata, the kid who lost his quirk. Le Million, the hero who gave and lost everything. You went to UA yourself - there was no way.

He didn’t want to be that sob story to you. But he was constantly coming to you with injuries - split knuckles, a dislocated shoulder, a torn achilles. Maybe he wasn’t exactly that sob story, but he knew you pitied him regardless. Maybe that’s why you always stayed so late - you felt bad for him.

The thoughts makes Mirio uncomfortable.

And so much so that to make himself feel better, he adds your number to his phone. Typing in the numbers, he thinks about how he likes that your handwriting was shitty. Another little thing you let him see, let him learn about you. In lieu of a name, he makes your contact name the stethoscope emoji. He laughs to himself when he saves the contact and types out a message:

How late is too late?

He hesitates, but hits send. It delivers, and after fifteen minutes, Mirio is worried he confused one of your twos for a seven or vice versa. Or, maybe he should’ve introduced himself instead of just sending you a basic question that revealed his identity in no way whatsoever. In the eighteenth minute, you buzz back a response.

🩺

Why?

Might break a bone tomorrow.

It only takes eleven minutes for you to respond this time, and Mirio hates that he’s counting.

🩺

I’ll be sure to eat breakfast then.

No later than midnight, tho.

Okay!

Seven minutes this time. He wasn’t expecting a response.

🩺

You don’t need an injury to stop by, you know.

Mirio grins. A real one.

If you insist. Still might have a scratch or two, though. 😀

Two minutes. Mirio is oblivious to the fact that you are cringing hard at his emoji usage.

🩺

don’t be taking advantage of my quirk :(

You’re right… promise you will be compensated for your time. 👍

It’s immediate.

If it’s not edible, I don’t want it.

Mirio decides he might take it a little easy when he trains tomorrow.

#oyc

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agntofhydra · 4 years ago

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Sawbones // ELEVEN

(gif credit)

summary: Red String of Fate Soulmate AU

Soulmates have a red thread tied to each others pinkies that only one of them can see.

You’re the Resistance’s head medic. You can see the red thread of fate that leads you to your soulmate. Poe doesn’t believe in the soulmate / thread theory. You don’t agree with his tactics, nor does he approve of yours. Leia and Holdo just really want a win.

pairing: poe dameron x reader

rating: mature for later chapters

read me on ao3!

the masterlist

read on till the end for important notes!

SAWBONES

ELEVEN // TOO LATE.

You knew Poe.

It was what you told yourself.

You knew him in stubbornness, in anger. You knew him by the way his cheeks would cave when his cheeks bit them, the crease between his eyebrows and the ferocity of his brown eyes.

You knew Poe by body language - the way he would occasionally cock a hip, peer down at you over crossed arms or fists clenched at his sides. The way his presence would consume the air in your medbay, your office, the hangar. His demeanor would rival Leia’s, and challenge your own.

Everything about Poe was familiar, but when the X-Wing landed in a sparse village on Jakku, and Ancin ripped the blaster from your leggings and pointed it in the small of your back, you realized you didn’t recognize him - didn’t know what he looked like at all.

The venom dripping from Ancin’s hurried whispers in your ear seeped into your bloodstream, paralyzing your muscular system and constricting your shallow breaths. He’s calling you worthless, resistance scum. Berating you for being so trusting, so gullible, so blind.

You weren’t blind. Were you?

You and Poe had lived in the same vicinity for months, but you only knew him in the worst conditions. You only recognized Poe when he was mad, or frustrated, or in disbelief. You knew him best when he had a finger in your face, teeth sharp and orange jumpsuit straining at the seams.

You didn’t know Poe when he was, well, Poe. Your mind could fill the gaps with the brief interactions you’d seen from him and his pilots. In the dark behind your eyes, you could imagine Poe’s shoulders hunched forward, eyes disappearing as he laughed. You could visualize the way the thin, gold chain he always wore would rise and fall with his chest. He’d never laughed with you, not really. You’d never known happiness, or peace with Poe. Only conflict.

(You also knew heavy lidded, slow, sensual, and also high, Poe. You saved that one for after hours.)

So, that was what you thought about when Ancin unsurprisingly turned against you. The bite of the blaster evident through your layers, his finger rested shakily over the trigger. In this moment, you felt like you knew Ancin more. You knew he was just a spineless Coruscanti pilot that had fallen in with the wrong crowd. What did the First Order have over him - money, family, empty promises? You couldn’t fault him. You knew the cold, seeping fear of futility all too well.

You hung your head and Ancin pressed the emitter nozzle harder into your skin until it felt millimeters away from your L3 vertebra. If Ancin contained even an ounce more of adrenaline, there would be an annular hole severing your spinal cord. If the blast didn’t kill you, it would most definitely steal the ability for you to use, well, the entire lower half of your body which would make getting Poe back a real bitch.

“I was hoping you’d prove me wrong,” you tried to hide your nerves with disappointment, raising your head and turning your head imperceptibly to peer over your left shoulder. “So much potential. Wasted on you, Ancin.”

His free hand grasped tightly on your shoulder as he pressed the blaster impossibly harder into you. Your head snapped back to face the desolate, empty wasteland ahead. Not that it mattered, but the village was situated behind you. You were a few kilometers away from one of the biggest outposts on Jakku - Liima? You couldn’t remember. You’d only half listened to Ancin for the remainder of the trip after your interaction with Poe. And now here he was, pulling a plaster on you.

“Shut up,” he grit through his teeth. “You don’t know anything.”

Laughing would almost ensure him pulling the trigger, orders to capture you alive be damned, so you bit your tongue to quell a snort.

“The First Order treats all of us the same, Ancin. Did you think you’d be any different? Do you think there’s actually an outcome where the First Order congratulates you for a job well done and lets you go?”

It was stupid thought, but it was one you’d fallen prey to countless times. With each amputation, each cut and each stitch, you told yourself it was the last one. But the warm bodies never ceased, and to your horror, you got disgustingly good at what you did. You were amputating at the joints, healing the skin so flawlessly it was as though the body simply forgot to form the appendage in the first place. You made soldiers forget they were bipedal, or composed entirely of flesh and not machinery in the first place. You did dig your heels in at prosthetics - you had to have some sort of moral ground. Hux didn’t mind, though. He had plenty...exploratory engineers ready to step in as soon as bandages came off.

The pressure of the barrel lessened, and your heart broke at Ancin’s lapse in strength.

“Coruscant had uprisings against the First Order. We were one of the few successful planets,” he began, voice clipped. You could hear anguish in his tone, could feel the ragged edges of the pieces Ancin was left in. On D’Qar, walking through the halls with him for the first time, you knew he wasn’t quite right. He took your word about Poe being your soulmate too easily - too quickly. He steered the conversation toward Poe in no time, and his claims against him were rocky. As you thought back to the moment as Ancin collected his composure, you felt paralyzed once again.

It was never about Poe.

“I was especially good at taking down the TIE fighters. They noticed, took my brother as a bargaining chip.” The blaster resumed its burden.

“Lord Ren said I could get him back if I got someone he wanted - someone who got away from him. A high ranking officer in the Resistance. Used to go by the name Sawbones.” You didn’t think your body would never not explode into chills at the name. It set forth an ache in your joints, a pain behind your eyes and bile in your mouth. You wanted the word erased from every single dialect in the galaxy. If you so much as heard the click of Sawbones in Geonosian, you’d lose it. You also wanted to throw up at Ancin calling him Lord Ren.

“So I set forth my search. Discover where the Resistance was keeping their precious medic, infiltrate their ranks? Easy. But to get close to you? Well, that’s where I owe it all to Scoria.”

You blinked, and in your silence Ancin mistook it for confusion, forgetfulness as he removed the blaster from your spine to slam the base of it into the curve of your skull. You fell forward, barely catching yourself in time to prevent a mouthful of sand. Ancin roughly kicked your side, knocking you flat on your back in the sand. You winced up at him through the harsh light until your vision focused at the barrel moving closer to press firmly between your eyebrows.

“The one who said Poe was her soulmate? Are you serious?”

“It’s been a long day,” you argue. You hadn’t forgotten about Scoria - well, you had but the mention of her name put you more into shock than anything else. That conflict seemed so inconsequential in the grand scheme of it all. But hey, at least you know how the fuck she knew about you in the first place.

Ancin squats down over you as you lean on your elbows in the sand.

“What was your plan then? You couldn’t have predicted we would find the map after you arrived.”

“All that matters is that it worked, and I’m done.” He smiled weakly, and you were surprised how long he’d been keeping up the act. Ancin was a shell, the burden of his actions eating him alive for who knows how long.

“I set off a beacon before we landed, sent our coordinates.” The sun is scorching on Jakku - stepping out of the X-Wing for the first time, it made you reflect on how thankful you were for the moderate climate on D’Qar. But now? You were thanking this desolate desert and it’s ridiculous heat because it made Ancin pull the blaster away from your forehead so he could wipe the sweat from his hairline with the bone of his wrist. It gave you the perfect opportunity to swipe your right foot from under his crouched position and connect it to his jaw, kicking him backwards.

Maybe you should stop cursing the universe, because in this instance, it finally sided with you when he released his grip on the blaster to both catch his descent and cradle his injury. You lunged for it, swiping it out of the sand as you and your now victim switched positions.

“Smart bitch,” he spat blood into the sand.

“I know my way around a blaster,” you shrugged before pulling the trigger, shooting a clean hole through the top of his boot.

He screamed in pain, but it was a sound you were used to. You analyzed the wound quickly, noting how the heat from the blaster neatly cauterized the edges. Nothing fatal, and he wouldn’t follow. You shot another hole into his left hand for good measure.

“What the fuck was that?” he held his...well, stub to his chest. Your aim was a little off, you miscalculated the blast’s radius and his hand was now lying limp in the sand beside him. Was it overkill? Maybe. But you’d learned not to hesitate, not to expect the best out of people. Just because someone hadn’t done it to you initially didn’t mean they weren’t going to do it at all.

“Peace of mind,” you tucked the blaster back in your waistband.

You didn’t hear the scream of TIE fighters, nor the black specks of their presence in Jakku’s atmosphere, but you’d been stationary for too long. It was time to move. Hippocratic Oath, your ass. Do no harm unless the person initially tries to harm you first, you tried to reason with your moral compass. Your conscience was absolutely berating you as you left Ancin to struggle in the sand behind you, pleading not to leave, his voice in anguish about his brother. You drowned it out, focused on the weight of each step as you made your way towards what you hoped was the Liima Outpost. Hiima? Wiima? You furrowed your brows, thinking hard before it finally clicked.

The Niima Outpost.

Ancin had told you that was the destination, but based on the few scant tents in your peripheral, you hadn’t made it. Why would he bring you to one of the few populated places on his planet if he was planning on handing you over? Had you been flying with a hostage, you’d stop somewhere on the outskirts. Taking note of your lack of surroundings, outskirts you were located indeed.

You kept walking.

✗ ✗ ✗

The desert was cooling by the time you saw civilization. A few kilometers, your ass. The only thing you’d seen in the distance between where you left Ancin and your current location was the fiery streak of a falling aircraft. The galaxy was a brutal place, and your feet had stopped to watch the object burn up in the atmosphere until it made violent contact with the sand below. In the way it spun to the ground, it’s structure reminded you of a TIE fighter. But that was hours ago, and it left your mind just as quick as it fell.

You’d shed your brown vest and belt hours ago, now only your sweat stained tunic and leggings adorned your body. The sun was a sliver beyond the horizon, the sky above you falling into the deepest mixture of purple and black. What bothered you the most, quickened your pace despite your exhaustion was the sheer flatness of the universe above you. It was as though Jakku had every star in it’s sky snuffed out.

You tried not to dwell on the fact that this planet was so remote, so lonely that even the stars didn’t want to remain in it’s company. You shuffled through the tents and scavengers, avoiding their eyes as you scanned the structures, looking for some type of hub, a main area that could lead you to someone who could get you off this forsaken planet. Every second you stayed decreased the distance between you and Kylo. The thought alone was enough to keep propelling your legs forward, no matter the exertion plaguing your muscles.

The...sturdiest structure of the whole outpost stood in the middle of the dilapidated tents. Multiple forms were gathered around in a circle, drinking out of metal cans. The group erupted in a fit of laughter as you pulled back the fabric to enter.

You didn’t fool yourself into thinking any of them were friendly. They probably wouldn’t even spare you a glance, let alone help you across the galaxy. You approached them anyways - no way would you be left to rot on this planet. If they wouldn’t help you, the Resistance would send someone to extract you - right?

Poe was leaps and bounds more important to the Resistance than you, and they hadn’t even considered getting him. But then again, your circumstances were different. You were trapped in the middle of a desert, and Poe was in the heart of the First Order. You’d teach yourself how to fly if they didn’t, if only to kick Holdo, Organa and especially Ackbar’s asses.

Another round of laughter sounded as you shuffled closer, and you could barely keep one foot in front of the other.

The red thread tied to your pinky was a lot like your nose. Your nose is always in your view, but since it’s such a constant, your eyes begin to ignore it unless something draws attention to it. The thread was the same - a blur in your vision over the years. You hadn’t paid any mind to it as you trudged across the sand. But if you did, you would’ve noticed that the end of the thread wasn’t so distant, and that it was directly connected to someone sitting in the group you were approaching.

“Pretty girl,” a large man sneered, directly facing your approach. You rested against a not so sturdy pillar. “Traveling all by herself in these sands?”

You didn’t have the capacity to form words, your mouth was so dry. He knocked the guy next to him with his elbow to draw his attention towards you. The cacophony of their laughs was a distance echo as they all watched you silently with hungry eyes.

The man next to the one who noticed you first murmured something under his breath to the group, too low for you to hear, nevermind that it was in a dialect you didn’t recognize.

Your vision was quick to blur as you dropped to your knees - dehydration shutting down your body systems. You’d noticed the signs a few hours into your trek - your blood turning viscous, your heart working overtime to maintain blood pressure as your vessels shrunk. You’d had the worst migraine of your life, knowing that even precious fluid from your brain was being siphoned to be held by your kidneys. You were in dangerous territory, both physically and literally, but you couldn’t keep your vision clear as you collapsed on your side, rolling onto your back as your head pushed deep in the sand.

Poe had been watching the bottom of his can, ignoring the words for sometime until he heard the thump of your body hit the ground. The pain from the less than stellar landing he had made with Finn ransacked his body - that’s that he attributed the pain in his left arm to. He was new to the thread, hadn’t truly believed it until Kylo had sent his consciousness deep within itself and that thread was the only thing he could see, your body on the other side the only presence he could feel.

But now, you were here and unconscious on the ground and his cells were screaming for him to scramble to you. So he did, shooting up from his makeshift chair and cradling your limp body. He’d never seen you so pale, your lips so dry. He’d always seen you so soft, so supple and so full of life. Your pulse was a bare flutter beneath his fingertips, and he looked up to Naka lit, the blarina who had saved him from the wreckage and brought him to the Niima Outpost. The scavenger held Poe’s gaze as he took another swig from his cup.

“I saw her first,” Unkar Plutt sneered to Poe. He was the boss of Jakku, the sole reason people were alive on this arid planet. He wasn’t someone Poe wanted to cross, but for you, he’d spit in the face of a sith.

“She’s my thread,” Poe began, the words foreign on his tongue. “Water is all I ask.”

Plutt narrowed his eyes but remained seated, trying to figure out if a human had actually demanded he do something for them.

“She’s the Resistance’s head medic,” he tried again, the beat under your skin weakening by the minute. “Imagine the reward if you save her.”

This time, Plutt stood to grab a canteen from the trading counter behind him. As he approached, he held it high above Poe’s kneeling form.

“Rebel scum,” he sneered, but dropped the canteen into the sand.

Poe tried not to roll his eyes at the fate of the galaxy being considered politics, but he grabbed the canteen and tilted your head up, delicately pouring the liquid into your mouth.

Was this the right thing to do? Poe wondered. Were you too far past simply drinking water? Would that be enough?

Had the roles been reversed, he imagined you hastily stringing together an IV out of the scrap in this tent, miraculously finding what you needed and pulling him from the brink. But this was all he could do - pour water past your cracked, dry lips. Had your life depended upon the destruction of a TIE Fighter, or cannons on a ship, he could do that. He could do that in a second. Everything about flying, about piloting was quick and yielded even faster results. Nothing was out of his control when he was in the seat of his x-wing. There, he was power and speed and control. Here, he was none of those. He was stationary, floating in dead space until he felt your throat constrict as you struggled to swallow.

Relief flooded his system as he rested his forehead to yours.

✗ ✗ ✗

You woke yourself up by dry heaving over the side of your cot. Were you hungover? The light flooding in from the holes in the thin cloth of the tent was too bright, your head too heavy and your stomach sour. Nothing came up as you violently retched. The memories came flooding back, correcting your mind that no, you weren’t hungover. You were just super fucking dehydrated.

A canteen was placed in the sand next to you, and you sipped slowly to adjust your body to the influx of fluids after being deprived for so long. You kept your eyes screwed shut as you drank slowly, your right arm so stiff that you could barely hold the container to your lips.

The flap to the small tent opened, and instantly your right arm was flooded with endorphins, numbing it all to a dull ache.

You cracked one eye open slightly, quickly choking on the water as you gasped at Poe.

He immediately fell to his knees at the side of your cot, clapping you on the back as you expelled the water from your trachea. As you regained your breath, you turned your head slowly to look at him. Poe’s features were creased tightly, concern etched on every plane. You gingerly lifted your right hand to lay against his cheek, not trusting your brain quite yet to not conjure some kind of hallucination.

Your body shook with the realization that it was him, it was Poe and he was here with you. In this tent. On Jakku.

...on Jakku?

Poe must’ve read your thoughts, because he pushed the canteen into your other hand, urging you to continue sipping as he leaned against the palm against his cheek.

“We have more allies than we know,” Poe said simply. You couldn’t bring yourself to ask more questions, to delve further into how exactly the two of you were under the same sky, pulled down by the same gravity, breathing the same air. In all honesty, you didn’t care. He was here, in one piece. Kylo hadn’t broken him.

You would’ve teared up at the thought had your body contained any fluid to spare. Instead, you pressed your lips together tight and gripped his face tighter.

Thank the stars, thank the galaxy, you chanted in your mind. For siding with me. Again.

He expelled a heavy breath at your grip, his left hand resting against your right. He intertwined your fingers, bringing your hand from his face to rest on the cot. His left and your right, pinkies pressed firmly together. You eyed the thread closely, noting how this time, it had formed a figure-eight between both fingers. No longer was the thread tied to your respective fingers, but looped around. You couldn’t tell where the thread began or ended, no knot to eye or slack to pull.

“Is it there?” Poe asked softly, staring at your hands. He had to be sure, had to be 100%.

“Yes,” you breathed, your voice hoarse. He shut his eyes tightly, gripping your fingers tightly too as he begged whatever power was out there to let him see it.

When Poe opened them again, he did. It was as red as the paint on his helmet, the blood coursing through his veins. It was real and it was looped between your finger and his. He reached out his other hand to swipe his thumb against it, to feel the bump of the thread under his own skin. The string pulled with the movement of his thumb and then snapped back into place. When Poe finally blinked, it was gone. But it was enough.

He looked back up to you, the emotion in his eyes unrecognizable, unreadable to you. You searched regardless, feeling as though the weight of his gaze had its own gravitational pull and you were being pulled in, closer and closer and closer and clos-

“We need to get off Jakku,” Poe broke your trance, your faces so close you shared the same breath. He rested his forehead against yours like he had done earlier. “After,” he breathed, his body fighting his mind, his words. You nodded. Now wasn’t the right time. You were weak, the two of you in danger.

“How’d you get here?” Poe asked.

“Ancin.” You answered as you pulled away to take another gulp of water. He waited for you to finish, to elaborate.

“Traitor,” was your only answer. “What about you?”

Poe visibly deflated, remembering the wreckage, remembering Finn. He’d never found his body.

“A storm trooper broke me out, helped me steal a TIE fighter. He wanted to escape, to jump to the next system, but I told him I needed to get back here, needed to get BB-8.” Poe stopped himself before he could continue. He withdrew his hand from yours to press the heels of his hands into his eyes. He resituated himself so he was sitting in the hand, one leg propped up as he ran his hands over his face. “He risked his life to get me out, knew I was his only shot, and it killed him. I killed him.”

You frowned, your mind clicking together the puzzle pieces.

“Please don’t tell me you were that aircraft that crashed.”

Poe looked up from the ground, his eyes wide. “You saw it?”

“Yeah, when I was walking,” your fingers fidgeted with the cap on the canteen. “I didn’t think there’d be any survivors.”

“You saw it crash and didn’t check if there were survivors?” Poe’s question bit, hitting like his earlier statements did on D’Qar - questioning the validity of your expertise, your dedication to saving people. You cocked your head at him, eyes narrowing.

“What was I supposed to do, Dameron? I barely made it here without passing out. You think I could’ve made it all the way to the wreckage and dragged a few bodies across this wasteland?” Fuck the moment the two of you had shared moments ago - you were angry now. “It looked like a TIE fighter. Would you have gone to check it out?”

Poe sighed, resting his forehead against the cool metal bar of your cot. “No,” he answered. Of course he wouldn’t, and of course you wouldn’t, either. From Kylo’s few words on the matter, he knew that you had been forced into the First Order, forced to do their bidding. You wouldn’t save any of them, and he didn’t - wouldn’t - blame you for it. But Finn deserved to be saved, and he was only pushing his own guilt onto you.

“I asked him what his name was, and he said it was FN-2187,” Poe’s voice caught in his throat, his chest. “They’re numbers.”

You nodded. “I know,” you raked a hand through his hair as his head continued to rest against the metal, his hands squeezing and releasing the sand below him. You refused to think on just how many numbers you’d cut into.

“So I gave him a name. I told him I was gonna call him Finn,” Poe smiled, remembering Finn’s reaction. Though they had been back to back in the fighter, Poe could hear the excitement in his voice, the vigorous nod of his head as Finn told him, Yeah - great. I like that!

“You saved each other,” your fingers worked through the knots in his hair. “You got him out, Poe. I wish someone could’ve done that for me.”

He lifted his head at your words, your hands falling to your lap. You hid your smile at the bar’s slight imprint on your forehead.

“Ren knew you, called you a nickname. Said the Resistance was too soft for you,” Poe began speaking on the topic of Kylo slowly and cautiously, waiting to see your reaction. Your stomach flipped, the mention of it felt like all the air in the tent had been sucked away, but you nodded softly, telling Poe it was okay. You were grateful for his omission of your said nickname. You knew Kylo had used it.

“He sent people for the map, but I have no doubt he wants to come for you personally,” Poe’s veins were on fire at the thought of Kylo even laying his eyes on you. You and Poe would have to run - there was no way to stand against him head to head. Poe couldn’t compete with the force, but if he had to, he’d make sure any confrontation with Kylo Ren took place in the skies.

“We have to go. Now,” Poe stood, wiping the sand off his clothes. You finished the canteen and stood up after him, steading your wobbly legs by holding onto his bicep.

Fuck is that firm, you thought. Your fingers squeezed the muscle under his shirt on their own accord and Poe laughed lightly.

Poe’s gentle laugh was cut short by the scream of TIE fighters and blaster fire entering the atmosphere.

Too late.

Hi. Hello. I apologize for the long wait for this chapter. I’ve been so busy lately, which leads me to say that after this chapter, Sawbones will be on hiatus. Spring semester starts next week for me, and with classes, clubs and the exec position I hold in my sorority, I won’t have the time to dedicate to writing like I used to. You all deserve better than hastily written chapters, which is what I would provide if I did not make this very difficult decision. Thank you for all the love and support on this story - it is not ending. I just need time to assimilate to my new crazy schedule. If I find the time or motivation to write - trust me. I will. I love you all, and thank you for reading. I hope you all liked this chapter. 🤍

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