#thinking about it i take it back hollow mind makes me implode everytime

[fallen-goldfishcracker]

A beautiful beautiful man with something wrong with him.

[a-confused-turtle]

The Will to Live

Fandom: Star Wars

Request by @blindperfectioniswasted : “ Can you do a fanfic of Poe and The Reader about the reader leaving for a mission and crashing, making everyone think she’s dead. She comes back two months less than a year only to find Poe basically dying from a broken heart. He’s deathly unhealthy and can’t even speak without wincing. So, the reader cares for him and nurses him. In the end he proposes to her! THANK YOU AND LOVE YA”

Pairing Characters: PoeDameronxReader,

Words: 2,000+

Warning: Curse words, mentions of death and disappearance

Author’s Note: Agh, the ending is something I’ve been playing with for a while... I altered the timeline just a bit (just felt like it should have been less time away). I also made the reader a solo and vaguely explained how she tried to get her brother back - it just felt right. Okay, I’m going to go hide now, I hope you like it but I’m not too confident about this one....

The moment you set foot on that planet you would have some explaining to do. Leaving… you’d loathed it, especially the way you left Poe. You hadn’t even been able to summon the courage to say goodbye and tell him, besides you’d known he never would have let you go through with your plan if you’d told him. And that was the trouble, you had to go through with it. If you hadn’t at least given it a shot, everyone would have died - Poe, your mother, everyone you had left would have been destroyed by the First Order.

So, you made everyone think you were dead - so they wouldn’t go looking for you - and found your brother, simple enough plan. Not many technicalities to it, except those awful things called feelings. Fuck those. Those were why you found yourself flying a junker ship to the base you hadn’t set foot in for eight months.

You could tell the communications officer nearly shit himself when you told him your business and your name. You merely cringed. Solo didn’t have the same ring to it as it used to, not since your dad, not since you almost died at the hands of your brother.

As you finally touched down, your hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Despite your best efforts, tremors continued assaulting your hands, especially as you neared the door. The door you knew the people you both loved most in the world and had hurt in the worst possible way. Finally you bit down the anxiety and strode down the ship’s ramp, hands up in case they still didn’t believe you were who you said.

Before you had a chance to process your surroundings fully, your mother rushed to hug you without a word. A number of weapons lowered as she wrapped you in her death grip. “I’m just glad you’re alive… How?” She murmured so lowly no one else could hear and, surprisingly, without a trace of anger.

“I owe you an explanation, but I owe Poe one too… Where is he?” Already misty eyed from simply hugging your mother, you dreaded her answer. You’d just assumed he’d lived through the last eight months of fighting, what if he…. hadn’t?

“You were the one that did the attack on their armada aren’t you?” Her grip kept you tight against her chest, even though you had to awkwardly lean down given the height difference.

“Mom…”

She pressed on, “Rey said your ship was destroyed, she thought you died. After what happened to your father… You were captured, weren’t you? On purpose?”

You tried to pull away, but she kept you in place a moment more.

“You did what you had to do. You tried to turn him, and he wouldn’t. You thought it’d be safer to disappear instead of leading him back to us?”

As you straightened up again, you swallowed thickly. “Something like that. I knew we would see him at the base, even before we left. I felt it and I thought I could save him, but I couldn’t drag all of you into that. You couldn’t come after me…”

Your mother nodded, eyes fixed on your entire face like she was seeing a ghost, and in many ways she surely was.

“Wh-Where is he?” You finally forced out, voice weak and the epitome of reluctance mixing with urgency.

When your mother once again failed to answer immediately, your stomach tightened and that horrible fear spread through your veins.

“Please tell me he-”

“He’s alive, but he’s not doing well. The doctors say he’s dying.”

~

Again you found yourself hesitating in front of a door, just staring at the smooth, though somehow still disconcerting surface. He wouldn’t want to see you… You’d done this to him, you’d abandoned him in a way that if he’d done the same to you, your whole life would have imploded. And his had…

Your mother’s words reverberated in your mind: He’s essentially dying of a broken heart… There’s nothing wrong with him, but his will…

He’d lost his will to live. Your Poe. Your strong, brave, courageous Poe…

Fighting off those stupid feelings of fear and doubt, your forced yourself through the door. You needed to see him whether it was for better or worse, and you needed to stop being a little shit, to reign in those regrets and feelings. You could never change the past.

You barely recognized the form on the white hospital bed sheets. He had no ounce of the light you remembered, the strength, or even those playful little ticks you remembered. No, that brightness had diminished and he didn’t move at all as the door closed, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling.

“Poe?” You whispered, tentatively. Had you actually gone to the wrong room? This couldn’t be him, please let it not be him.

Finally those beautiful chocolate eyes, once full and wholesome - now shattered and empty - lazily drifted over to your position. For a long moment they simply stared, blank as if out of sheer boredom, until something finally awoke in the damaged shell of your Poe. “Y/N?” He murmured, wincing almost as he spoke, in confusion and disbelief. “That’s not you. It can’t be…”

Unable to hold yourself back any longer, you rushed to his side, kneeling and taking his hand in yours. “It’s me,” you forced out, the guilt you felt in your bones palpable in your voice, “It-It’s me.”

His brow furrowed skeptically and his eyes studied you appraisingly, searching for any sign it was some awful trick, that you weren’t his Y/N.

“I’m alive and I’ll explain everything, but-”

With a surprising amount of speed, Poe leaned forward and stole a chaste kiss. Of course, you didn’t object, you even leaned in, deepening the kiss and enjoying what you’d longed so dearly for.

“I don’t care,” he asserted in that utterly certain and unwavering way.

“Poe, I really-”

“You’re here. I couldn’t ask for anything more… Without you, I…”

You brought your hand to his cheek tenderly. “You can’t die on me. I’ll never die on you, well I won’t ever again…” An hollow promise of a sweet nothing; since the two of you lived such perilous lives neither of you could guarantee such a thing, but you’d be damned if you didn’t try. For him.

Poe smiled warmly, placing his hand over yours and bringing it to his lips. “Die? You’re alive! If you want, I’ll go win the war right now, with my bare hands,” he replied in between pecks on your hand and eventually on your lips.

A wince and a groan from Poe finally interrupted that happy reunion. Immediately at the sound of his pain, you pulled yourself from him, ready to solve the problem, fix it whatever it was. And Poe, well he frowned at the loss of your touch though his strength from the excitement waned.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Let me get you one of the nurses-”

“Y/N.”

“You need to get better, I’ll just-”

“I,” he insisted, “am better with you here.”

You shook your head at him, biting your lip nervously. “Well, you’re about to get a whole lot better then.”

~

Just shy of a month after you’d returned, Poe was finally getting fully back to his old self. Mending those emotional and mental wounds had actually been easier than the physical ones. Who would have thought? Just your presence had pushed the two of you back to a honeymoon phase almost.

Through it all, you’d stayed at his bedside, only really leaving when he insisted you get some rest or take a shower - that one always earned him a glare. Even so, you seldom devoted your time to anything besides Poe getting better, either because of the love or the guilt…

True to his word, he hadn’t asked about what you did or why and you’d try to explain too. Everytime, he changed the topic of conversation easily, telling you with his eyes that it didn’t matter to him. While that seemed sweet and clearly indicated he forgave you, it still knifed your insides and your heart… He hadn’t deserved what happened, he was too damn good for you.

Finally, one day you couldn’t take a second more of it. You’d gone to take a shower and had run into your mother on the way to your room. She took your hand, offering a small smile and comforting words about Poe’s health. But, then she asked how you were feeling and you let it all out.

“Tell him for your own sake, sweetheart. He needs to hear it too whether he thinks so or not,” she said wisely.

“I’ve tried, mom, but he just…”

Your mother stopped in the middle of the hallway, turning to look at you. Her eyes reflected a different sort of light, one you hadn’t seen for many years, probably since your father left. “He’s just as stubborn as you. You’re perfect for each other.”

So, as you strode back to Poe’s room every step held purpose and determination. You didn’t even hesitate in front of the door. “Poe?”

The man appeared in the doorway to his bathroom a moment later, walking back to the bed. “Hey there, princess,” he chimed back happily, “I was just about to take a shower myself, care to join me?”

Glossing over the awful nickname, you had half a mind to take him up on that offer, because your heart leapt, beating stronger, at the sight of his normal antics. However, you quickly refocused and answered, “I’d love to, that is if you still want me to after I’ve explained.”

He frowned in that concerned fashion.

“I know you don’t want to know, but I have to tell you,” you pressed and moved to sit on the side of his bed.

Poe watched your eyes and movements carefully before sitting down next to you, taking your hand in his. “If that’s what it takes to get you to stop blaming yourself.”

“Of course I blame myself,” your shot back incredulously, those feelings getting the best of you, “I made you believe I was dead so I could try and bring my brother back! It didn’t even work, he’s gone! But I left you, and you almost died!”

Your outburst surprised him, but he quickly adapted to the new information. “You did what you had to do. I should have realized what you were planning and if I could do it all over again, I would’ve-”

“No, I should’ve told you. I just couldn’t bear the thought of him killing you because of me,” you full on sobbed, hunching over into your hands, while Poe placed his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. “He would’ve if you’d came after me!”

“If I could do it all over again, I would’ve let you go. That might’ve killed me, but you should know by now I’d do anything for you…”

Those words only made you cry harder, letting out all those pent up emotions you’d been willing away. You clung to Poe until the tears began to subside, leaving you sniffing pathetically. “Can’t imagine why,” you murmured.

Poe kissed the top of your head, but quickly resolved to more mischievous means of cheering you up. His fingers changed course before you knew it, straying from their protective hold to tickling. “Stop that,” he exclaimed, “You’re gorgeous and wonderful and every other brilliant adjective out there!”

You squirmed in his arms, trying anything to weasel your way out of the tickling trap. “I concede! Stop! Please!” You laugh-shouted.

“Only because you said, please.”

“You’re the worst.”

He snorted in response, pecking the top of your head once again.

“I really don’t deserve you…”

“That’s nonsense. You’re the best person I know, and I don’t want anyone else. I’ll never want anyone else,” Poe replied firmly, voice barely above a whisper as if for you and only you - something you knew you’d hold onto forever.

You forced yourself up, sitting and meeting those chocolate eyes. “I love you, Poe.”

“Now, how about that shower?” Poe quipped cheekily.

Tags:  @enniaram