“Just, for the Force’s fucking sake, stay still,” Poe said, all but spitting the words out as Ben tipped his head this way and that in a painfully childish attempt to avoid Poe’s touch. It was giving Poe a literal headache and more than half of him was certain that Ben wanted it that way and resisted Poe for just that reason. The fact that he was making himself feel even more like shit than he already did, too, only assuaged Poe’s annoyance so much. “If you’d settle down, we can get this over with and pretend you’re not an embarrassment to me, you, and your mother.”
“I’m fine,” Ben answered through gritted teeth. The muscles in his jaw clenched and tension seemed to tighten the skin around his eyes. He was, Poe knew, not actually fine.
“You’re bleeding out of your face.” Poe tore open the bacta patch with his teeth, retrieving first the cleansing wipe from inside the packet. The astringent taste of the bacta coated his tongue, thick and slippery, and that just pissed Poe even more. He hated the taste of bacta. He hated the smell of it. He hated how much better he felt with the damned stuff in his hands, wet to the touch even through the gloves he pretended he disliked wearing. “It’s not a good look.”
Grabbing Ben’s chin with the hand that held the bacta patch—who cared if a bit of it smeared across his skin, cool and unpleasant, it was the least he deserved—he tilted Ben’s head to catch the overhead lights from a better angle. Ben looked up at him and from this angle, he seemed so very small, almost fragile as Poe stood over him. Which was so fucking ridiculous as to be laughable. This was just Poe’s screwy wiring talking, an urge he hadn’t asked for and didn’t want making itself known in the most inappropriate way possible. “You came to me, remember?” he added, just to add insult to injury, just to give himself something else to think about.
Ben muttered something uncomplimentary and coarse. Fuck you, maybe. Poe bit back his instinctive response, which would’ve been: yeah, fine, let’s do that, it can’t be any worse than this.
The problem was how often Ben came to him with his stupid fucking grievances and how much Poe liked it deep down inside where he didn’t want to consider it too closely. Because Ben was, very technically speaking, the Resistance’s prisoner. And Poe had no business feeling anything other than disdain for the man who’d—well, they weren’t exactly friends, were they, after everything he’d done? Even if he maybe had helped them out in the end.
Poe wadded up the wipe, red with Ben’s blood—and that sent a disturbing throb of discomfort through Poe the same as it always did—and tossed it at the garbage bin tucked into the corner of his quarters. With quick, near-expert precision, he placed the bacta patch on Ben’s forehead and smoothed it down, his thumb tracing the line of Ben’s eyebrow and lingering just a moment in the break where the thin line of his scar bisected it. He tamped down hard on the feeling of satisfaction that settled over him.
His headache eased, which meant he’d get to be himself again until the next time Ben did something to get himself hurt. Which further meant he’d maybe have three days in which he could pretend he was blissfully ignorant of this whole thing that existed between them.
Poe looked forward to the respite.
Until Ben acted foolish again… “Stay the hell away from Rey’s quarterstaff, huh? I think she likes beating you up a little too much.”
This time, Ben was definitely telling him to fuck off. And he did so with as much dignity as he could muster, pushing himself to his feet, his eyes blazing. He swept from Poe’s quarters without another word, probably do go stew over his own bullshit or whatever it was he brooded about when he was alone. All Poe felt was relief at having him gone. Relief and just the tiniest hint of grief, a grain of it so small that Poe couldn’t even rightly call it that.
“You’re welcome,” he called, but Ben was long gone and well out of earshot.
That was okay. Poe didn’t want to be thanked anyway.